It was late before they returned. There had been much to hear, and what they heard had startled them. Before they had come back, Alkibiades had made up his mind that any attempt to excite the army or the fleet to rebel against the orders of the Senate was too hazardous, and might lead he knew not where. Other schemes, indistinct as yet, and scarcely entertained, began to shape themselves vaguely in his mind. Rejected, they came again, born of indignant rage, of righteous anger. Might he not have a revenge such as no other man had thought of? He clenched his teeth, his hands, determined to resist the suggestions whispered to his maddened mind. Then he mused again on all his wrongs—the venal, treacherous Senate, the ungrateful, stupid people. He clenched his teeth again, this time in anger. Then the unformed schemes took more decided shape. He let them stay longer in his mind. He had no further communication that night with his officers when they returned. He retired when he saw them coming, after giving orders to his ship’s master to be ready to set sail the first thing in the morning, and to give him notice when he saw the _Salaminia_ weigh anchor. All night visions of his past, and visions of his future, crowded on him as he lay awake, and became his dreams when at last he slept. The brilliant dawn of a bright September morning was breaking over the sea and the fairest island in the world when his ship’s master gave him warning that the _Salaminia_ had weighed her anchor, and was apparently about to sail. He ordered his captain to prepare to leave the harbour in the _Salaminia’s_ wake. Before he appeared on deck the _Eros_ was outside the harbour, the _Salaminia_ some five hundred yards ahead. It was a splendid morning, and the soft, fresh, exhilarating air of Sicily breathed upon them as the two fine ships, with oars bending and sails swelling, swept the Sicilian Sea. Alkibiades joined a group of his friends on deck. He had assumed again his usual careless spirits. ‘And what news from Athens? Has Pythonikos, or Andokides, or my dear brother Kallias—have they accused us before the dikastai, condemned us to death already, and confiscated all our property?’ ‘No, Alkibiades,’ answered Kolyphôn; ‘not yet; but if our news be true, they and other enemies you suspect not are likely to do so soon.’ For all his assumed carelessness, a black cloud was seen by all of them upon his face as he called sharply to that other to explain his meaning.