by his side?"

"The Gods punish people who do not believe in them," said the other
voice, "and we are the priests of the Gods. Should we not do all we can
to bring such wicked men to justice?"

"Yes, but," said Lampon, "the people adore Pericles. They would not
believe evil of him. We must act carefully, lest we ourselves receive the
blow that we aim at him."

"I have found out that he went to the boat-race at the Piraeus this
afternoon," answered the voice of the other priest, "and after that he
goes to a banquet at the house of the rich Hipponicus, and will return
late to his home. If we could waylay him and make him angry, he might say
something blasphemous to us, not knowing we were priests. He might even
offer us violence! Disrespect to a priest is disrespect to the Gods, and
no man in Athens, not even Pericles, can insult the representatives of
the Gods and live."

"A good idea, truly, and worthy of the priest of Erechtheus," said the
voice of Lampon.

"We will doff our priestly robes and appear as men of the people.
Pericles must not suspect who we are, or of course he will be too clever
to allow himself to speak the insults we know only too well he would like
to offer us as priests. We can each be witness for the other; and he
cannot deny our report."

If Daphne had not sneezed just at this moment, everything that happened
after that would almost surely have been quite different. But she did