We could make nothing of these Delphic ravings, but the captain, sharp as a nail, said, “What? What’s this man done? Was it murder then? You, there—get off my ship before you’re put overside. Do you think I want the war fleet out after me? Look alive—off!”
The man ran forward, gabbling. With one hand he grasped the hem of the captain’s tunic, with the other the breast of his own, where I suppose he had his money. Invoking every god from Zeus to Serapis, he vowed he had done nothing, nothing, contrary to any law of gods or men. A babe unweaned was not more guiltless. I could not believe, with all this grabbing and swallowing, he could be any sort of actor; and yet something said theater in my mind.
Next moment Hermippos caught my arm. “Niko! I know him now. He was in the chorus; the first line of the antistrophes. That fellow who used to come in half a beat early. Don’t you remember?”
He was right; it had happened as late as the dress rehearsal. “But,” I said, “how in the name of Hekate did he get out here?”
“Let us ask him,” said Anaxis. We all moved forward. The chorus man clutched his brows and shook his head about, like Orestes beset by Furies. But there is a time and place for everything. So I stepped up sharply, and suddenly letting out my Angry Achilles voice, said, “Enough! Tell us the truth.”
Wringing his hands till I thought they would come off, he gasped out, “Oh, Nikeratos! I appeal to you, sir, I ask you, how could I have foreseen it? On my life, by all that’s holy, I meant no harm to anyone. Somebody had to bring Dionysios the news, and get the good-tidings gift; why some hired courier, why not me? I rode up to Corinth, and got a ship through the gulf from there, and saved two days. Who could have thought of its harming artists like yourselves, who were sure of all the honors? Who could have known? Am I a soothsayer? A god?”
“No,” I said. “Not by the look of you. So you shipped ahead of us with the news. What then?”
He showed the whites of his eyes, like a beaten dog. I would have shaken it out of him, but the merchant said, “I can tell you quicker. When the Archon got the news, he paid Wingfoot Hermes here the price of it, and a good price too. Then he began the victory feast. It went on two days and I daresay they would still be at it, but that he took a turn in the gardens to get cool. He wasn’t young; he’d had the marsh fever more than once, and it clings then to one’s bones. He went sick within two hours.”
The chorus man gazed from one to the other of us, his silence giving assent. Hermippos caught Anaxis’ eye, and jerked his head at the water. They rolled back their gowns from their arms.
It was hard to blame them. I had half a mind to it, too. But the wretched man had only done what anyone else might who thought of it; and the sponsor’s courier, no doubt, would still have got here before us with the same effect. Even when I had talked them out of it, they were all for putting him back on shore, saying he carried bad luck enough to sink a squadron. The only man more superstitious than an actor is a sailor, and I saw the captain listening. The chorus man—whose name I can’t recall, though I thought it graven on my mind forever—fell down and clasped my knees. I have seen it done better. Weeping, he cried that his sole hope of life was to get away before the Syracusans started to blame him for the death; otherwise he would be crucified on the walls, and his ghost would haunt us.
It was a good long speech, so I had time to think. I had been pretty late about it. Still, what need of time? A man who gets omens at the hour of fate should not turn back at the door and call it chance.
“Stop grizzling,” I said. “No one can hear himself speak.” He choked it down, and I went on, “Very well, you meant no harm. But you did it. You’ve still come off with your profit, which I’m sure was a good one; while these artists here have lost the chance of their lives. As I see it, the least you can do is to stand them their fares to Athens. In that case, we will ask the captain to let you sail.”
He could not offer fast enough. Anaxis said, “Of course that includes Nikeratos, though he was too much the gentleman to mention it. As protagonist, he has borne the greatest loss.”
“Thank you, my dear,” I said. “But there’s no need, I shan’t be sailing. I’ve a fancy to see Sicily.”
This line, as I had feared it might, stopped the show. Then the big scene started. Even the captain joined in. Had I lost my wits, they asked. What would be doing in the theater? Civil war was the likeliest thing, and then maybe the Carthaginians moving in while the walls were weakly manned. Even for a man tired of life, said the captain, there are ways and ways of losing it. To all this I replied that I could look out for myself, and had always wanted to see Syracuse. After a while Hermippos and the captain gave me up; but Anaxis drew me aside.
“Niko, my dear friend.” He grabbed my shoulders, a thing I had never known him do. I saw, surprised, that he really liked me. “Don’t, I beseech you, rush off like a boy into a battle, looking for the one he loves without helm or shield. I said nothing before the others, out of respect for your feelings; but it needed no oracle at Delphi to tell me how things were with you. Think! You have no head for affairs; you know it; you’ll find nothing but trouble; and the man whose fortunes you want to follow, excellent as no doubt he is, won’t be at leisure now to remember that such a man as Nikeratos walks upon the earth. You have no notion what can happen in a city when a tyranny changes hands. Once faction fights begin, and throats are cut in the streets, men don’t wait to ask if you are a stranger in those parts. Come, sail home with us now, and come back later when everything is settled.”
“Don’t fret so, dear boy,” I said. “I toured with Lamprias at nineteen, on the second-class circuit, and came out of that alive. I daresay I can shift in Sicily.”
“How will you even eat?”
“I’ve some prize-money still in hand. Look, the boatman’s shoving off; I must catch him now.” If I had to wait for another, I should have all this two or three times over.
When I had packed my things, I brought Anaxis the mask-box of Apollo. “Keep this for me, my dear. Set it up somewhere, and give it a pinch of incense now and then—the god is used to it—and ask him to keep me in mind till I come home.”
He promised, shaking his head over me as if it had been the boat of Charon I was boarding to cross the Styx. He and Hermippos both embraced me. They watched me all the way to shore. Further along the rail stood the man from the chorus, staring after me as if at a man bereft of his senses running into a house on fire. It stuck in my mind, as I set foot on the wharf of Syracuse.
7
I DECIDED TO DO THE NATURAL THING AND MAKE for the theater. It would be a starting point; something would come to me there. I found my own way, seeing nobody I felt like asking.
Syracuse is a splendid city, taking after Corinth, which founded it. But it was warmer, greener, dustier, stank more, and already smelled of spring. There seemed more of everything—more gilding, more marble, more shops, more people. They had traits of every nation under heaven: fair Hellenes and dark Hellenes, brown hawk-faced Numidians, black thick-faced Libyans; reddish little black-haired Sikels, and every kind of cross-breed these could produce. All they had in common was their Greek dress, and fear. The place was like a kicked anthill, before they start putting it to rights. Only they did not look to me like doing it, but as if they were waiting to see what would be done to them. There was a kind of meanness with it too, as if each watched his neighbor lest he might find a foothold quicker in this slippery time, and manage to make something out of it.