They had a mid-day slumber on the goatherd’s skins, under the late September sun, and were aroused by the arrival of two horsemen, whom they recognised as servants of Eumanthes. They brought a scroll on which was written: ‘Kryptos and his band are searching; keep quiet and on guard.’ They also brought two panniers filled with such succulent viands as only a Eumanthes could imagine. At the evening meal this pampering food seemed out of place in their surroundings, and yet,—and yet, they eat it. Next morning Diôtes came. Kryptos was still looking for them, but on the wrong side. So all that day, and for many others after it, the band of fugitives enjoyed the sunshine and the mountain air, and the good things the gods provided. And then news came that Kryptos, giving up his search at last, had set sail for Athens. The fugitives started on their journey back. They bade farewell to Hermas and his quiet valley; and oftentimes in after-years, amidst the splendours of the East, and all his luxuries, his troubles and his triumphs, the wandering Alkibiades looked back to that sweet spot, and wondered which was happier, he or Hermas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV ‘Fortuna opes auferre, non animum, potest.’—SENECA. ‘Fortune may carry off our wealth, it cannot rob us of our daring.’ ON his return to Thurii Alkibiades found Kryptos had indeed gone and taken the _Eros_ with him. So he waited there for news from Athens. It was not long in coming. He heard how, as soon as it was known that he had escaped at Thurii, the dikasterion, in his absence, had sentenced him to death and confiscated all his property. ‘But I will show them I am still alive,’ he said. No one ever kept a promise better. As he was dead to his country by his country’s act, his country became dead to him. Great as had been his devotion to that country in the past, great as it would ever have been, had she been worthy of it, great as it was yet to be proved to be in the distant future, at this time the one thought which engrossed his mind became how to make his revenge as overwhelming in its destructive consequence as her injustice had been great to him. It was so complete and terrible that the vengeance of no man has been like to it in the history of the ages. He despatched Agrestides to Messana with information to the chiefs of the Syrakusan party of the agreement he had made with their opponents to open the city gates to the Athenian army. With the rest of his companions he sailed for Elis and landed at Kylléné.