by putting them to the expense of a blockade.

This daring scheme might have led to something important, if the fleet
had been commanded by Brasidas. But Alcidas was a man of very
different temper, and having arrived too late to save Mytilene, he had
now but one thought,--to return to Peloponnesus as fast as he could,
and get out of the reach of the terrible Athenian triremes. So he set
his fleet in motion, and sailing along the coast in a southerly
direction put in at Ephesus. On the voyage he showed himself to be as
cruel as he was cowardly, by capturing and putting to death the crews
of the vessels which came in his way. These were not a few, for the
ships which crossed his path approached fearlessly, under the
impression that his fleet was from Athens; for no one dreamed that a
Peloponnesian squadron would dare to enter these waters. For this
senseless barbarity he was severely rebuked by a deputation of Samian
exiles, now living on the mainland, who met him at Ephesus. His was a
strange method, they remarked with bitter irony, of helping the
Ionians to recover their liberty--to butcher defenceless men, who had
done him no harm, but looked to him for rescue from their bondage to
Athens! If he continued to behave thus, he would make the name of
Sparta detested throughout Ionia. Dull as he was, Alcidas could not
but feel the justice of this reprimand, and he let the rest of his
prisoners go.

The presence of a Peloponnesian fleet had caused great alarm among
the inhabitants of Ionia, and urgent messages came in daily to Paches
at Mytilene, summoning him to their aid. For even though Alcidas
had declined to take up a permanent station on the coast, as the
exiles had suggested, it was apprehended that he would pillage the
sea-side towns, which were unfortified, on his homeward voyage. At