Foes | Page 8

and bright, with a lofty, blue, and stainless sky. The

heart of Ibycus grew warm, and there seemed a brighter light within the
light cast by the sun. Flower and plant and tree and all living things
seemed to him to be glistening and singing, and to have for him, as he
for them, a loving friendship. And, looking up to the sky, he saw,
drawn out stringwise, a flight of cranes, addressed to Egypt. And
between his heart and them ran, like a rippling path that the sun sends
across the sea, a stream of good-will and understanding. They seemed a
part of himself, winged in the blue heaven, and aware of the part of him
that trod earth, that was entering the grave and shadowy wood that
neighbored Corinth.
"The cranes vanished from overhead, the sky arched without stain.
Ibycus, the sacred poet, with his staff and his lyre, went on into the
wood. Now the light faded and there was green gloom, like the depths
of Father Sea.
"Now robbers lay masked in the wood--"
Jamie and Alice sat very still, listening. Strickland kept his eyes on the
reading youth.
"Now robbers lay masked in the wood--violent men and treacherous,
watching for the unwary, to take from them goods and, if they resisted,
life. In a dark place they lay in wait, and from thence they sprang upon
Ibycus. 'What hast thou? Part it from thyself and leave it with us!'
"Ibycus, who could sing of the wars of the Greeks and the Trojans no
less well than of the joys of young love, made stand, held close to him
his lyre, but raised on high his staff of oak. Then from behind one
struck him with a keen knife, and he sank, and lay in his blood. The
place was the edge of a glade, where the trees thinned away and the sky
might be seen overhead. And now, across the blue heaven, came a
second line of the south-ward-going cranes. They flew low, they
flapped their wings, and the wood heard their crying. Then Ibycus the
poet raised his arms to his brothers the birds. 'Ye cranes, flying between
earth and heaven, avenge shed blood, as is right!'
"Hoarse screamed the cranes flying overhead. Ibycus the poet closed

his eyes, pressed his lips to Mother Earth, and died. The cranes
screamed again, circling the wood, then in a long line sailed southward
through the blue air until they might neither be heard nor seen. The
robbers stared after them. They laughed, but without mirth. Then,
stooping to the body of Ibycus, they would have rifled it when, hearing
a sudden sound of men's voices entering the wood, they took violent
fright and fled."
Strickland looked still at the reader. Alexander had straightened himself.
He was speaking rather than reading. His voice had intensities and
shadows. His brows had drawn together, his eyes glowed, and he stood
with nostrils somewhat distended. The emotion that he plainly showed
seemed to gather about the injury done and the appeal of Ibycus. The
earlier Ibycus had not seemed greatly to interest him. Strickland was
used to stormy youth, to its passional moments, sudden glows, burnings,
sympathies, defiances, lurid shows of effects with the causes largely
unapparent. It was his trade to know youth, and he had a psychologist's
interest. He said now to himself, "There is something in his character
that connects itself with, that responds to, the idea of vengeance." There
came into his memory the laird's talk, the evening of Mr. Touris's visit,
in June. Glenfernie, who would have wrestled with Grierson of Lagg at
the edge of the pit; Glenfernie's mother and father, who might have had
much the same feeling; their forebears beyond them with like
sensations toward the Griersons of their day.... The long line of
them--the long line of mankind--injured and injurers....
"Travelers through the wood, whose voices the robbers heard, found
Ibycus the poet lying upon the ground, ravished of life. It chanced that
he had been known of them, known and loved. Great mourning arose,
and vain search for them who had done this wrong. But those strong,
wicked ones were gone, fled from their haunts, fled from the wood afar
to Corinth, for the god Pan had thrown against them a pine cone. So the
travelers took the body of Ibycus and bore it with them to Corinth.
"A poet had been slain upon the threshold of the house of song. Sacred
blood had spattered the white robes of a queen dressed for jubilee. Evil
unreturned to its doers must darken the sunshine of the famous days.

Corinth uttered a cry of lamentation and wrath. 'Where are the ill-doers,
the spillers of blood, that we may spill their blood and avenge Ibycus,
showing