me. He rose, and fixed his eyes on mine, and we examined each other in
silence. The Helots are rarely of tall stature, but this was a giant.
His dress, that of his tribe, of rude sheep-skins, and his cap
made from the hide of a dog increased the savage rudeness of his
appearance. I rejoiced that he saw me, and that, as we were alone, I
might fight him fairly. It would have been terrible to slay the wretch
if I had caught him in his sleep."

"Proceed," said Gongylus, with interest, for so little was known of
Sparta by the rest of the Greeks, especially outside the Peloponnesus,
that these details gratified his natural spirit of gossiping
inquisitiveness.

"'Stand!' said I, and he moved not. I approached him slowly. 'Thou art
a Spartan,' said he, in a deep and harsh voice, 'and thou comest for
my blood. Go, boy, go, thou art not mellowed to thy prime, and thy
comrades are far away. The shears of the Fatal deities hover over the
thread not of my life but of thine.' I was struck, Gongylus, by
this address, for it was neither desperate nor dastardly, as I had
anticipated; nevertheless, it beseemed not a Spartan to fly from a
Helot, and I drew the sword which my mother had girded on. The Helot
watched my movements, and seized a rude and knotted club that lay on
the ground beside him.

"'Wretch,' said I, 'darest thou attack face to face a descendant of
the Heraclidae? In me behold Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus.'

"'Be it so; in the city one is the god-born, the other the
man-enslaved. On the mountains we are equals.'