"Away, Gongylus. You know the rest."

Pausanias followed with thoughtful eyes the receding forms of Gongylus
and the Barbarians.

"I have passed for ever," he muttered, "the pillars of Hercules. I
must go on or perish. If I fall, I die execrated and abhorred; if I
succeed, the sound of the choral flutes will drown the hootings. Be it
as it may, I do not and will not repent. If the wolf gnaw my entrails,
none shall hear me groan." He turned and met the eyes of Alcman, fixed
on him so intently, so exultingly, that, wondering at their strange
expression, he drew back and said haughtily, "You imitate Medusa, but
I am stone already."

"Nay," said the Mothon, in a voice of great humility, "if you are of
stone, it is like the divine one which, when borne before armies,
secures their victory. Blame me not that I gazed on you with triumph
and hope. For, while you conferred with the Persian, methought the
murmurs that reached my ear sounded thus: 'When Pausanias shall rise,
Sparta shall bend low, and the Helot shall break his chains.'"

"They do not hate me, these Helots?"

"You are the only Spartan they love."

"Were my life in danger from the Ephors--"

"The Helots would rise to a man."