slaves who worked on the farm. The Stranger was to them a visitor from
another world--the great outside world which lay beyond the shining blue
waters of the bay. They had seen that distant world sometimes from a
hill-top on a clear day, but they had never been farther from home
than the little seaport of Ambelaca two miles away.

"How is it," the Stranger was saying to Melas, "that you, a Spartan, live
here, so far from your native soil, and so near to Athens? The Spartans
have but little love for the Athenians as a rule, nor for farming either,
I am told."

"We love the Athenians quite as well as they love us," answered Melas;
"and as for my being here, I have my father to thank for that. He was a
soldier of the Persian Wars and settled here after the Battle of Salamis.
I grew up on the island, and thought myself fortunate when I had a chance
to become overseer on this farm."

"Who is the owner of the farm?" asked the Stranger.

"Pericles, Chief Archon of Athens," answered Melas.

"You are indeed fortunate to be in his service," said the Stranger. "He
is the greatest man in Athens, and consequently the greatest man in the
world, as any Athenian would tell you!"

"Do you know him?" asked Dion, quite forgetting in his interest that
children should be seen and not heard.

Lydia shook her head at Dion, but the Stranger answered just as politely
as if Dion were forty years old instead of ten.