“Thanks for your compliment,” said Cleonice [243] with a smile, “but mind what I say is in confidence; you must tell no one, least of all my father and mother. And I look to you for help.”
“Whatever you may tell me will be an absolute secret,” said the captain.
“Listen then,” replied the girl with a prettily imperious air which sat very well upon her. “I have a scheme for getting Eubulus back, and back in time to run the race, and that neither by force nor by purchase.”
“Go on, madam, I am all attention.”
“My foster-mother lives in the village close to the robber’s headquarters: I mean her to do the thing for me, her or her husband.”
“But,” said the captain, “how will you communicate with her?”
“I shall go myself.”
The girl had been thinking hard all the time, and had come to the conclusion that this was the only thing to be done. Even if she could find a messenger, he could not do such an errand. Only a practical appeal could avail. It would try this woman’s love to the utmost, for it was a dangerous service; only a personal appeal, backed up by all the influence that she could bring to bear upon the heart of her foster-mother could possibly succeed. The Corsican was fairly [244] taken aback. He was, a man of audacious expedients, but this staggered him.
“You, dear lady, you?” he stammered out.
“Yes,” answered the girl, “II myself, and I look to you to help me. Mind, I have your promise. You will keep the secret, and you will do what you can to back me up.”
“I am not one to go back from my word,” said the man, “but I must confess that I don’t like it. The risk is too awful.”
“Never mind about the riskthat is my look-out. I shall, of course, disguise myself as a boy. But that I have done for a joke before, and now the cause is serious enough in all conscience. I have thought out the whole plan. I have a little horse of my own that is kept in my father’s stables; I shall ride that. There will be no difficulty about getting it. By good luck the man who looks after the horses does anything I tell him without asking a question. Will you come with me? I don’t mean the whole way; the last bit, when I get near the end of my journey, I must be alone. But will you go with me as far as I think fit? If so, I will find a horse for you too. I must own that I should like to have your company as far as it is possible.”
“Of course, my dear lady, I will come.”
The captain had begun to recover from his [245] surprise, and saw that the best thing he could do was to help this determined young woman as much as he could. After all, though it looked like a wild scheme, it was not wholly without promise. Then a thought flashed across his mind. Why not get Rufus to come also? A grim smile passed over his face as the idea occurred.
“Yes, I will come,” he repeated, “and if you agree, I will bring some one else with me who may be very useful. To tell you the truth, my friend was a robber himself not very long ago. But he is as true as steel. I was able to help him when he wanted help very much, and he is never likely to forget it. He is a stout man of his hands, if there ever was one, and, besides that, his old experiences may come in useful.”
THE RELEASE
[246] IT is needless to describe minutely the preparation of Cleonice and her allies for their expedition to the hills. The Corsican and Rufus were provided with horses from the Archon’s stables, and furnished themselves with arms such as could be carried without any display. Cleonice, it is hardly necessary to say, made a very good-looking boy. She had to shorten her hair, but not to crop it, for it was the fashion for the young to wear it long, even beyond the limits of boyhood. (Footnote: It was worn long up to the time when the boy became an ephebus, and this time was fixed at the completion of the eighteenth year. So Phaedo, who tells the tale of the last day of Socrates, as having been himself present, relates that the philosopher made a pleasant jest about his long hair.) It was not wholly without a pang that she made this sacrifice, but it was not a time for hesitating at trifles. A skilful application of dye gave a sunburnt look to her face and hands. Altogether [247] the disguise was as successful as could be desired. Everything was complete while the sun was still high in the heavens, and the start was made in such good time that the travellers might expect to reach their journey’s end about sunset.
The plan of operations had of course to be left to Cleonice, for she, and she alone of the three, knew anything about the region to be traversed. Her object was to reach her foster-mother’s cottage without observation, and the way in which she hoped to accomplish this end was as follows. The road was bordered on one side by a wood, and she proposed that she and her companions should diverge into this while still two miles or so short of the place where the outposts of the robbers might be expected to be found. She had a thorough knowledge of the locality. When she was some ten years old she had paid a long visit to her foster-mother. Her health had seemed in some danger of failing, and the family physician had recommended a complete change of life. Archias had proposed to take a house somewhere out of Corinth, but the physician had declared that this would not be enough.
“She wants,” he said, “something more than a change of air. You say that Sicyon is a bracing place, that it looks north, and so on. Very [248] true; I often recommend it for that reason. But that wouldn’t help this child much. You take a house at Sicyon; well, but she would be living there in exactly the same way as she is living here. ‘No lessons,’ you say. Very good; but still the same atmosphere. The same abundance, the same luxurieseverything, in fact, the same. Now I want to change all that. She must live a different life; she must be turned from an aristocrat into a peasant. There’s her foster-mother. Why not send the child to her for a year? Hardships! Yes; that is exactly what she wants. I would not put her into a family of the very poorest. That would be overdoing it. But a plain-living household, where they have the genuine peasant fare, that is the thing.”
And so it was settled. Cleonice went for a year to her foster-mother’s cottage, and the change was as thorough as could be desired, and it had all the bracing and restoring effect upon her health that the physician had expected. It was then that she began to learn all the ins and outs, all the highways and byeways of the great wood at the edge of which the cottage stood. This knowledge she had increased by frequent visits in after years. When the summer was at its hottest in Corinth, Archias had taken the most commodious cottage [249] in the village, and it had been the girl’s delight to explore the forest recesses. The knowledge thus acquired she was now about to put to a use which she had certainly never anticipated.
She and her companions struck into a green road which would take them, she knew, by almost a straight line to the cottage. The distance was traversed without incident. When the party was about three hundred yards from its destination, she called a halt. There was a shed used by wood-cutters for sleep and meals when they were busy with their spring or autumn work. It was now unoccupied, and here the Corsican and Rufus were to wait, and she would join them when her errand had been accomplished.
Manto, the foster-mother, was busy preparing her husband’s evening meal, when she was startled to see a quite unknown figure standing in the doorway of her cottage. For it was not only unknown, but of an appearance wholly unfamiliar. It was a handsome lad attired in an elegant riding costume whom she saw, and for a minute or so her powers of recognition absolutely failed her. Then her visitor bade her good-evening, and the voiceit is curious how we recognize voices, for the recognition is an absolutely unaided effort of memoryseemed to bring back some recollection. The recollection became more vivid when she [250] heard a pet name which had been frequently on the lips of her foster-child in former days, and it became absolute recognition when the stranger threw his arms round her and kissed her on either cheek.