thou hast meditated this night."

"And what hast thou seen?" said Pausanias, with a slight change of
countenance.

"I was praying the Gods for thee and Sparta, when a star shot suddenly
from the heavens. Pausanias, this is the eighth year, the year in
which on moonless nights the Ephors watch the heavens."

"And if a star fall they judge their kings," interrupted Pausanias
(with a curl of his haughty lip) "to have offended the Gods, and
suspend them from their office till acquitted by an oracle at Delphi,
or a priest at Olympia. A wise superstition. But, Lysander, the night
is not moonless, and the omen is therefore nought."

Lysander shook his head mournfully, and followed his chieftain to the
boat, in gloomy silence.


Note:

[24] After the action at Thermopylae, Demaratus advised Xerxes to send
three hundred vessels to the Laconian coast, and seize the island of
Cythera, which commanded Sparta. "The profound experience of Demaratus
in the selfish and exclusive policy of his countrymen made him argue
that if this were done the fear of Sparta for herself would prevent
her joining the forces of the rest of Greece, and leave the latter a
more easy prey to the invader."--_Athens, its Rise and Fall_. This
advice was overruled by Achaemenes. So again, had the advice of
Artemisia, the Carian princess, been taken--to delay the naval