plain, Selinous, white, Doric city, with her groups of many-columned temples and her well-built walls, sent forth the usual droning murmur of life. White-robed men and women were wont to move in unhurried dignity in their citadels in those days when Æneas was not yet a myth, before Syracuse knew Gelon, when the first Aahmes ruled in Egypt, when Crœsus of Lydia and Astyages of Media were paying bitter tribute to the great Elamite just retired from Babylonian plains to his far Rhagæ in the Eastern hills; and here, on the Sicilian coast, the Greek city lay in placid beauty upon her two hills, divided by the philosophically drained valley, bounded upon the right hand by her shining river, while far to the left, in the direction of Acragas, a line of rugged hills rose into the blue. The four bright temples of the acropolis were mirrored in the sea below. On the east hill, at some distance from where the gigantic new sanctuary to Apollo was building, and directly in front of the old temple of Hera, on the very edge of the cliff, drowsing in the sunlight, lay Charmides, a shepherd, surrounded by his flock.

The life of a shepherd in the flood-time of a Sicilian spring was not an arduous one. If it had been, Theron's son would not, in all probability, have followed that calling through the few years that he was required to spend at ordinary labor. For, as his family realized and his appearance too markedly proclaimed, this child of the Spartans did not partake of the spirit of his race. Rarely, singularly beautiful he was, and fair as an Athenian. Apollo himself might have turned envious at sight of this disciple of his as he slept on a drift of wild daisies, his short, white tunic stained with green, the thong that served him for a girdle loosely tied, much-worn sandals bound upon his feet, and a wreath of gray olive-leaves woven into the rumpled hair that fell upon his neck in rings of living gold. Charmides' eyes had the color of the sea. His brows were fine and straight; his mouth not altogether lacking in strength, yet perfect as a woman's. As he slept, one of the youth's sunburned hands grasped a tuft of herbs that grew upon the edge of the slope, while the other, even in his unconsciousness, drew a fleeting harmony from the lyre that lay beside him.

This dalliance with the honored instrument, taken with his unathletic physique, was evidence enough of the chosen profession of the temporary shepherd. Four years ago, at the age of eighteen, Charmides had elected to enter the ranks of that band of rhapsodists known to us now only as the predecessors of fire-winged Pindar and his glorious brethren. Never was the shepherd seen following his flock over the fields without lyre or flute in his hands; and no holiday or festival was quite complete without some lyric chanted in his clear tenor to the accompaniment of those sweet, primitive chords that so fittingly clothed the syllables of the most melodious of all tongues. Charmides' poems, however, were always of one type. Natural beauty, the evening wind, the perfume of a flower, the red of dawn, the silver of moonlight, he would reproduce so perfectly in words that he was left unrivalled in his peculiar field. But greater themes, battle-hymns of Mars and Nike, or idyls of Cythera and the dove-drawn chariot, had not apparently occurred to him as desirable subjects for his art. Either Charmides was what his athlete brother declared him—a woman dressed in too short a tunic—or his true nature was sleeping far beyond its natural period.

The sun hung just above the clouds as the youth sat up and looked about him. His flock, a drove of white, long-haired sheep, whose wool was woven into many a tunic of their herdsman, had wandered out of sight behind the temple of Hera. Charmides unbound his flageolet from the side of his left leg, and, without stirring from his place, lifted the instrument to his lips, playing upon it a quaint, primitive strain full of minor cadences, mournful, but peculiarly pleasing. For two or three minutes this tune was the only sound to be heard. Then, of a sudden, came a distant "Ba-a!" from the direction of the temple, and round its eastern columns appeared a white head, another, and another, till the whole flock was visible. For a moment or two they halted, regarding their keeper with silly, affectionate eyes. Charmides smiled as he watched them, and presently gave a little nod. At sight of it the leader of the company started forward again, and the entire number followed, at a gentle trot. When he was entirely surrounded by his animals, Charmides put his pipe back in its place, caressed with rough tenderness the nearest lamb, and finally, having had enough of afternoon with the sea, sprang to his feet thinking to proceed farther afield. As his eyes met the western horizon, from which his face had for the last few moments been turned, he broke his yawn short off in the middle, and his intent was forgotten. The cloud, which now covered the sun, was no longer gray, but a deep purple, palpitating with inward fire; while far to the west a galley, a little, black patch upon the waters, rose upon the horizon, coming from Mazzara. Charmides saw possibilities of hexameters in the race, and, though its outcome did not affect him in the least, he had a desire to know whether he must have Zeus with his bolts bring vengeance on some disobedient mortal, or whether Father Neptune and his dolphins were to lead the men of the galley safely into the little Selinuntian harbor.

It was not many minutes before the little vessel had become a Phœnician bireme with a huge, brown mainsail hanging loosely on the mast, and barely visible oars churning the water on each side with hasty vigor. By this time the last radiance had been swept from the sky. The distant waters darkened, and their restless, uneasy masses began to show flecks of foam. Presently, for a bare second, through a single rift in the cloud, a thin gleam of sunlight shot out and down to the misty sea, lighting the dark surface to opalescent brightness, and then disappearing in a single breath. As the sky darkened again the air grew cold. Three or four petrels, birds of the storm, rising from the distant sands, veered joyously out over the flattening waters. A faint murmur of angry winds came from the west, and with its first sound Charmides was recalled from the scene in which he was blithely living to his flock, who were upon the verge of a stampede. They had ceased to eat and were standing quiveringly still, heads up, nostrils distended, fore-legs stiffening for the leap and race which would follow the first thunder-clap. Their shepherd was just in time. Putting all thought of the storm behind him, he lifted his lyre and started forward, singing as he went. The sheep followed him, with implicit faith, across the broad pasture and down the long, gentle slope in the direction of their fold and his father's house, till the sea and the galley and the storm were left to the petrels and those on the acropolis to watch.

There, indeed, in front of the basilica, quite a band of citizens had assembled, watching with interest and anxiety the progress of the storm-beset vessel. The little ship had apparently a daring captain. No precautions whatever had been made for the first gust of wind; neither did the ship's course suggest that there would be an effort to gain the inner harbor of the city as speedily as possible. Instead, those that watched realized that she would be a hundred feet off the base of the acropolis cliff when the storm broke. At present the wind had so nearly died away that the main-sail flapped at the mast. The double banks of oars were working rapidly and unevenly, and the main deck of the vessel was, to all appearances, entirely deserted. Evidently an unusual state of affairs prevailed on board of the Phœnician galley.

The pause that preceded