These things which might have been,—and which he knew would have been, if he had been left alone to do them,—these things, and man’s ingratitude, he could now only muse upon in his high fortress on the Hellespont. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXVII ‘The grete kyng of Trace; Blak was his berd, and manly was his face. The cercles of his eyen in his heed They gloweden bytwixe yolw and reed, And lyk a griffoun loked he aboute, With kempe herés on his browés stoute, His limés grete, his braunes harde and stronge, His shuldres brode, his armés rounde and longe. * * * * His lange heer was kembd byhynde his bak As eny ravenes fether it schon for-blak. * * * * An hundred lordes hadde he in his route Armed ful wel, with hertes sterne and stoute.’ CHAUCER: _Knight’s Tale_. TO a man of active mind and determined courage it ever seems an unworthy thing to give way for long to sad musings and melancholy retrospections. Wherever Alkibiades was he must be doing something. If Athens would not let him do all he wished to do for her, he would still do what he could in spite of her. He had before made friends with many of the Thrakian chiefs, who were always fighting among themselves. He now organized and trained a band of hardy savage warriors, some of whom had served under him in his last campaign against the Spartans; and before the spring came, while the deep snow was still upon the mountains, he was entreated by the Selymbrians to come to help them against the Kaini, who were menacing their territory. He felt bound to the Selymbrians; they had given way to him when he was in their midst, and had acknowledged the supremacy of Athens. They had, indeed, no particular claim upon him, but they were Greeks. An enterprise of this sort had some charms for him in his present humour; it might bring booty and many things of which he and his wild followers stood in need. He crossed the Holy Mountain, where the cold was so intense that the few Greeks in his band suffered severely and envied the Thrakians with their long fur coats and caps of foxes’ skins covering their heads and ears; and he drove the Kaini back to their savage mountain villages and away from the sea-coast, and protected Selymbria and the other Greek towns along the western shores of the Chersonesos.