Chapter Twenty
Bulnes, followed by Flin, plunged into the mob and caught the politician's military mantle as Kleon trotted down the steps of the Propylaia with the rest of the rout.
"What now?" said Kleon, turning a fat face gray with terror.
"It is a trick!" said Bulnes.
"How? That was no mortal voice — not even Stentor ..."
"It is still a trick. Perikles has a machine for enlarging the voice, hidden in that statue. I can prove it, and I can destroy the machine. Rally your men before they all melt away."
"Rally!" bawled Kleon. "It is a trick! I can prove it! No goddess, but a bit of Thessalian witchcraft! It is a trick! To me, me men!" He turned to Bulnes. "You had better be right. If this be a trick on your part, it will be your last. Hagnon! Diopithes! This way! Catch those runagates. It is a trick of the same sort Peisistratos played with the woman Phye."
He rushed about, catching a man here and a man there, shaking them, pushing them, and by sheer strength of personality rounding up nearly half his original force.
"And now?" said Kleon.
"Make sure you have the Propylaia blocked," said Bulnes, "so the Perikleans cannot come down. Then fetch me a lot of straw — say a few dozen beds — and a couple of jars of oil."
"What are you going to do?" whispered Flin.
"A good hot fire will melt the gravito-magnetic connections in the statue."
"What say you?" said Kleon.
"Never mind — get me that straw and oil, and a torch."
Kleon gave the orders that sent a score of men running down the hill into the city.
-Bulnes said, "Make a speech or something to keep your men occupied until they get back."
"O Kleon!" called a man with a pi on his shield. "Perikles wishes to know when you will obey the commands of the goddess."
"Tell him to give us time. This is too serious a matter to be decided without discussion." Kleon addressed his own men: "Men of Athens, you know that Athene, most virtuous of deities, would not employ a notorious murderer and traitor as her messenger to mortals. What you have heard is certainly very impressive, but let us not be fooled as were our great-grandparents by Peisistratos of infamous memory a century ago. I have reason to believe that the voice you heard was a trick ..."
He went on and on until the men he had sent out began to trickle back up the hill with their arms full of pallets.
"Kindly give me a few men to help, good Kleon," said Bulnes.
Under Bulnes's direction, they dragged their burdens to the Caves of Apollo and Pan. He led them into the Cave of Pan, into the passage to the priest-hole, at the sight of which some whistled. They went on into the tunnel leading back from that recess to the main subterranean tunnel system. Bulnes turned right at the intersection, climbed the slope, and presently stood under the interior bracing of the big statue.
He said to Flin, puffing beside him, "Wish I could knock off the lady's head to improve the draft. Do you see those things up inside the statue that look like women's hair ornaments? That is where your 'divine voice' came from. Pour some oil on the pallets and stuff them up inside the statue as far as you can."
When the oil-soaked pallets were all pushed into place, Bulnes himself thrust the torch as the nearest. The straw caught fire with a/loom. They trotted out of the tunnel with thick smoke billowing behind them.
Back at the Propylaia, Bulnes said to Kleon, "You may go backup above again. Soon, Perikles' divine voice will be stilled for good."
"Out of my way," said Kleon, and stamped up the marble steps.
At the porch he halted. The Periklean forces had come forward a little way with the retreat of the Kleonians, but most were still massed around the chariot on which Perikles stood. Beyond the chariot, little curls of black smoke issued from the Promachos.
"O Perikles!" roared Kleon. "Look behind you! So much for your pretended goddess! If it was not a trick, let Athene speak again!"
Perikles looked around, uttered an exclamation, dropped off the chariot, and hurried over to the statue. He fumbled among her brazen skirts and opened the same little door Bulnes had come out of on the previous occasion. Then he leaped back as a mass of bright yellow flame roared out, preventing him from closing the door again. The improved draft stimulated the fire; its roar became plainly audible and the volume of smoke increased.
Perikles strode purposefully toward Kleon and Bulnes. "So that is what you have been up to! Well, if the play is to end, at least you shall not live to succeed me, you self-seeking rabble-rouser!"
He whipped a pistol out from under his cloak, took careful aim at Kleon (who stared uncomprehendingly) and fired.
The crack of the firearm mingled with the explosion of the bullet. Bulnes felt warm wetness spatter him and looked around in time to see Kleon, his head gone, fall backward.
"The Tartessian!" said Perikles in English. "Another spy for Lenz, eh?"
Perikles swung his pistol up; the Emperor's finger tightened on the trigger.
From behind Bulnes came a flat unmusical snap, followed by the thump of an arrow striking a human target. Perikles staggered back and fired one wild shot. Then came the twang of a second bowshot. With two arrows in his chest, Perikles-Vasil, too, fell back upon the flagstones.
"Didn't get here none too soon, did I?" said Roi Diksen. "Hey, look at Flin — the guy's fainted!"
At that instant the same strange agitation began to creep over the crowd of armed men that Bulnes had seen on the drillfield and again at the house of Perikles. Men dropped their spears and shields and turned in wonderment and alarm to ask each other in modern Greek who and where they were.
Bulnes stepped forward to where lay Vasil Hohnsol-Romano, Emperor of the Earth, and picked up the pistol. The Emperor looked up and said faintly, "Fools! I'd have made you a heaven on earth. The mob never knows what's — good for ..." His head lolled.
Diksen said, "Hey, Mr. Bulnes, the gimmick must be off!"
Bulnes gestured toward the statue of Athene Promachos. The fire was beginning to burn itself out, though the statue still glowed redly in spots. He said, "That's our doing."
"Yeah? Then we're the only folks here knows what the score is. You better get up and tell 'em."
"I suppose so." Bulnes wearily hoisted himself onto the bronze chariot and spoke in stumbling modern Greek: "Gentlemen! If you will kindly listen, I shall tell you what's happened ..."
An hour later he had finished his explanation, answered questions, and organized the nearest Greeks into an impromptu government of Athens: some to go down into the city and repeat his explanation to the bewildered people there, others to police the town until it could reorganize itself, others to accompany Bulnes into the tunnels. Diksen he made police chief, despite the latter's wail, "But I don't want no job here! I wanna get back to good old Yonkers! If I ever leave Kaplen's Hardware Store again, you can fry my guts in olive oil ..."
Flin, revived, said, "I'm going to find Thalia!"
"Wait, my dear comrade," said Bulnes. "I have a task ..."
"Oh, find somebody else! I haven't got a minute to spare!"
Bulnes watched him go, his anger subsiding into contempt. Then Flin's departure suggested something to Bulnes.
He led his men back to the Cave of Apollo, into the tunnel from the priest-hole. At the door opening into the main tunnels this time he pushed the bell button.
After a while, the door opened, disclosing a surprised-looking man in khaki trousers and shirt. Bulnes said, "Out of the way, my dear sir. The Emp's dead, and the broadcasting machine is wrecked. The show's over."
The man went for a pistol. Bulnes whipped up the Emperor's gun and fired, crack! When Bulnes could see again after the flash of the explosion, the man was dead on the floor.