Part 25 (1/2)

”You have bled him, of course.”

The physician's answers to enquiries were generally as short as the rules of politeness permitted; occasionally, some of his questioners were disposed to think, even shorter; but there were remarks that always made him fluent of speech, though the fluency was not always agreeable to his audience.

”Bleed him, sir,” he cried, ”why don't you say at once stab him, poison him? No, sir, I have not bled him, and do not intend to.”

”I thought that it was usual in such cases,” said the merchant timidly.

”Very likely you did,” answered Demoleon, ”and there are persons, I do not doubt, who would have done it, persons, too, who ought to know better.” This was levelled at a rival pract.i.tioner in the town for whom he entertained a most thorough contempt. ”Do you know, sir,” he went on, ”where men learnt the practice of bleeding?”

”No, I do not,” said Demochares.

”It was from the hippopotamus. That animal has been observed to bleed himself. Doubtless the operation does him good. But it does not follow that what is good for an animal as big as a cottage is good also for a man. Doubtless there _are_ men for whom it is good. When I have to deal with a mountain of a man, one of your city dignitaries bloated by rich feeding, by chines of beef and pork and flagons of rich wine, I don't hesitate to bleed him. His thick skin, his rolls of fat flesh, seem to require it. In fact he is a human hippopotamus. But to bleed a spare young fellow, who has been going through months of labor and hard living would be to kill him. I wonder that you can suggest such a thing.”

”I am sure I am very sorry,” said the merchant humbly.

”Happily no harm is done,” replied the physician, cooling down a little.

”And, after all, this is not your business, and you may be excused for your ignorance, but there are others,” he went off muttering in a low voice, ”who ought to know better, and ought to be punished for such folly. It is sheer murder.”

I do not intend to describe the course of the long illness of which this was the beginning. There were times when even the hopefulness of the physician--and his hopefulness was one of his strongest and most helpful qualities--failed him. Relapse after relapse, coming with disheartening frequency, just when he had seemed to have gathered a little strength, brought him close to the gates of death.

”I have done all that I can,” said Demoleon one evening to Epicharis the nurse. ”If any one is to save him, it must be you. If you want me, send for me, of course. Otherwise I shall not come. It breaks my heart to see this fine young fellow dying, when there are hundreds of worthless brutes whom the earth would be better without.”

Epicharis never lost heart; for a nurse to lose heart is more fatal than the physician's despair. For nearly a week she scarcely slept. Not a single opportunity of administering some strengthening food did she lose--for now the fever had pa.s.sed, and the danger lay in the excessive exhaustion. At last her patience was rewarded. The sick man turned the corner, and Demoleon, summoned at last, to alleviate, he feared, the last agony, found, to his inexpressible delight, that the cure was really begun.

”You are the physician,” he cried, as he seized the nurse's hand and kissed it; ”I am only a fool.”

Winter had pa.s.sed into spring, and spring into summer, before Callias could be p.r.o.nounced out of danger. Even then his recovery was slow. Some months were spent in a mountain village where the bracing air worked wonders in giving him back his strength. As the cold weather came on he returned to his comfortable home in Trapezus. Though scarcely an invalid, he was still a little short of perfect recovery. Besides it was not the time for travelling. Anyhow it was the spring of the following year, and now more than twelve months from the time of his first illness, when he was p.r.o.nounced fit to travel. Even then it was only something like flat rebellion on the part of his patient that induced Demoleon to give way. The young man was wearying for home and friends.

He had heard nothing of them for several months, for communication was always stopped during the winter between Athens and the ports of the Euxine, while the eastward bound s.h.i.+ps that always started after the dangerous season of the equinox had pa.s.sed, had not yet arrived.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Artaxerxes Longima.n.u.s, so called from the circ.u.mstance of his right hand being longer than his left. He reigned from 465 to 425.

[79] About 5,200, ($25,000), if gold is to be reckoned at thirteen times the value of silver. This is Herodotus' calculation, and it probably held good in Greece for a century or more from his time, until, in fact, the enormous influx of gold from the Asiatic conquests of Alexander altered the proportion.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BACK TO ATHENS.

Callias started about the middle of April, according to our reckoning.

His journey to the Bosphorus was much r.e.t.a.r.ded by contrary winds. For some days no progress could be made, and it was well into May before he reached Byzantium. There he was fortunate enough to get a pa.s.sage in a Spartan despatch boat, which took him as far as the port of Corinth, thus carrying him, of course, beyond his destination, but to a point from which it was easy for him to find his way to Athens. It was about the beginning of June when he landed at the Piraeus. He did not doubt for a moment about the place where his first visit was due. The fact was that he had no near relations. The kinsman who was his legal guardian had always given up the business of looking after his ward's property to Hippocles; and now that Callias was his own master, there was little more than a friendly acquaintance between the two cousins. The alien's house was, he felt, his real home, nor had he given up the hope that in spite of Hermione's strongly expressed determination, he might some day become a member of his family.

Hippocles happened to have just returned from his business at the s.h.i.+pyard, when the young Athenian presented himself at the gate. Nothing could be warmer than the welcome he gave his visitor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ACROPOLIS AT THE PRESENT DAY.]

”Now Zeus and Athene be thanked for this,” he cried as he wrung the young man's hand. ”That you had come back safely from the country of the Great King I heard. Your friend Xenophon told me so much in a letter that I had from him about a year ago. Then I heard from him that you were dangerously ill. After that all was a blank, and I feared the worst. But why not a word all this time?”

”Pardon me, my dear friend, I think I may say that it was not my fault.

For months I was simply too ill to write. When I came back to Trapezus, the winter had begun, and there were no more s.h.i.+ps sailing westward. I should have written when communications were opened again, but I was always in hopes of being allowed by the physician to start, and I had a fancy for bringing my own news. And how are you?”