The Golden Hope. Robert H. Fuller
room in which Ariston sat was evidently used as an office, for rows of metal-bound boxes of various shapes and sizes were piled along its walls. A statuette of Hermes stood in one corner upon its pedestal, and its sightless eyes seemed bent upon the thin, gray face of the old man as he leaned with his elbows upon the top of the table, polished by long use. Lines of care and anxiety showed themselves at the corners of his mouth and about his restless eyes. The light of the swinging lamp that illuminated the small room, even in the daytime, made shadowy hollows at his temples and beneath his cheek-bones.
Little was known of the personal concerns of the old man in Athens. Although he mingled with the other citizens without apparent reserve, he never discussed his own affairs. The general impression was that he was a good Athenian who had been faithful to the trust reposed in him, and who had won a modest competence of his own for the support of his age. This idea was encouraged by the parsimonious habits of his life and by the trifling but cautious ventures that he sometimes made in the commercial activity of the city. His most conspicuous characteristic, in the minds of his acquaintances, was his mania for gathering information concerning not only Athens and Greece, but distant lands and strange peoples as well. This was looked upon as a harmless and even useful occupation, and it accounted for his evident fondness at times for the company of strangers, who, no doubt, contributed to the satisfaction of his curiosity.
Great would have been the astonishment if some orator had announced to the Athenian Assembly that the humble old man was really one of the richest citizens of Athens, as well as the best informed concerning the plans and hopes of the rulers of the world and of the probable current of coming events. Laughter would have greeted the assertion that much of the merchandise which found its way to the Piræus belonged to him and that the profits realized from the sale of silks and spices, corn and ivory, went into his coffers. Yet these statements would have been true a year before. In Athens the rich were required to contribute to the public charges in proportion to their wealth, and the saving that Ariston was able to effect by making his investments abroad and concealing them through various stratagems from the knowledge of his neighbors was sufficient, in his opinion, to compensate him for the trouble and the risks that such a course involved. He would rather have suffered his fingers to be hacked off one by one than part with the heavy, shining bars of gold that his prudence and foresight had amassed.
If the history of each separate coin and bar could have been told, it would have revealed secrets which their master had forced himself to forget. Some of them were the price of flesh and blood; some had been gained by violence upon the seas or among the trackless wastes of the desert; some had been won at the expense of honor and truth; for in his earlier years Ariston had been both bold and unscrupulous in his cunning, and his craving for riches had always been insatiable. As his years and his wealth increased he became more circumspect and conservative. He even sought to expiate some of his earlier faults by furtive sacrifices to the Gods, and especially to Hermes, whose image he cherished.
But the Gods had turned their faces from him, and his repentance, if repentance it could be called, had been unavailing. Misfortune had come upon him, and calamity seemed always to be lying in wait for him. If his vessels put to sea, they were sunk in storms or captured by pirates. His factories and warehouses were burned; his caravans were lost; his debtors defaulted; and if he purchased a cargo of corn, its price at the Piræus was certain to be less than the price he had paid for it in the Hellespont. One after another the precious bars which had cost him so much to obtain were sent to save doubtful ventures and losing investments, until at last all were gone. Sitting in his dingy room, on the day of the arrival of Chares and Leonidas at the house of Clearchus, he was at last in a worldly sense what his neighbors thought him to be; and the marble face of Hermes, with its painted eyes, smiled malignly at him from its corner.
But there was still hope left to him. Although the widespread web of his enterprises had been rent and torn by misfortune, there yet remained enough to build upon securely if he had but a few more of the yellow bars to tide over his present distress. Without them he might keep afloat for a few months longer; but the end would be utter ruin. At least he still owned the great dyeing establishment in Tyre, which had never failed to yield him a handsome revenue. He recalled how he had taken it from Cepheus for one-fourth its real value. It was no concern of his that Cepheus had stolen it from young Phradates. What did the details of the transaction matter now, since they were known only to himself and to Cepheus, who would not be likely to reveal them, and to Mena the Egyptian, the young man's steward? Mena had stolen so much himself from the spendthrift that he would never dare to tell what he knew. And yet the fellow had it in his power to rob Ariston of the last remnant of his fortune.
A discreet knock interrupted Ariston's reflections. He brushed his parchments and papyri hastily into an open box that stood beside his chair and closed the lid. "Enter!" he commanded.
An aged slave opened the door. "Mena, of Tyre," he said.
Cold sweat broke out on Ariston's forehead, but he gave no outward sign of his consternation. "Bring him hither," he directed.
The Egyptian, who had been watching the sluggish goldfish floating in the weed-grown cistern of the court, entered the room with an air of importance. He turned his alert face, with its sharp, inquiring features, upon Ariston.
"Greeting!" he said, extending his hand. "It is long since we have seen thee in Tyre."
"Yes," Ariston replied, leading him to a seat opposite his own, "I am getting too old for travel."
"You have indeed grown older since I saw you last," Mena said, looking at him attentively. "I hope it is not because Fortune has been unkind."
Ariston winced, and the change in his expression was not lost upon the shrewd Egyptian.
"What brings you here?" he asked, shifting the subject.
"We are travelling, my beloved master and I," Mena answered.
"Phradates is with you, then?" the old man asked with an alarm that he was unable to conceal.
The steward paused before he answered, gazing at Ariston with eyes half closed and a faint smile upon his lips.
"Phradates is here," he said at last. "I know of what you are thinking. We have been friends too long to have secrets from each other. You need have no fear. Cepheus is dead and I have too many causes to despise Phradates to take his part."
He paused again and suddenly his face became convulsed with a spasm of hatred.
"I could strangle him!" he cried, clenching his hands as though he felt his master's throat beneath his fingers.
Ariston breathed more freely. At any rate, his property in Tyre was safe.
"Why don't you do it, then?" he asked coolly.
"Because the time has not yet come!" Mena replied fiercely. "For every insult that he has given me and for every blow that he has made me feel, he shall suffer tenfold! His fortune is dwindling, and in the end it will be mine. Then let him ask Mena for aid!"
"I did not know that you had so much courage," Ariston remarked.
"I have not watched you in vain," Mena replied, "and it is to you that I now come for assistance."
"To me!" Ariston exclaimed.
"To you," Mena repeated. "Be not alarmed, for what I have to propose will be for our mutual benefit. Phradates has been throwing money right and left since we set out from Tyre. Great sums he spent in Crete and still greater in Corinth. Since his arrival here he has been fleeced without mercy. You will understand that I have tried to protect him, but merely to save him from injury. He might have lost his life only this morning had I not been there to guard him from an attack by two desperate characters with a crowd of slaves, who set upon us while we were returning from the dice. Luckily, I succeeded in beating them off, but the noble Phradates was thrown from his chair and his noble nose was battered. Soon he will be in want of more money. Of the property that remains to him, he has quarries on Lebanon, which employ a thousand slaves, silk mills in Old Tyre, where as many more are kept busy, and a score of ships in the trade with Carthage. He believes the value of the quarries and the mills