The King tried, but the blade stuck half way, and what was visible of it seemed thickly coated with rust; but Agamemnon said it was gore, and his orderly must have forgotten to clean his accoutrements after the fall of Troy. He added that it was the effect of the sea air.
'Troy really has fallen then?' asked Ægisthus. 'I suppose you stayed to see the thing out?'
'I did, sir,' answered the monarch proudly; 'I sacked the most fashionable quarters myself. I expect my booty will be forwarded--shortly. Didn't you _know_ Troy was taken?' he asked suspiciously. 'Couldn't you see the beacon I lighted just before I started?'
The courtier murmured that it was wonderful to find so long and tedious a journey accomplished in such capital time.
'What do you mean by that? How do you know how long it took?' demanded Agamemnon.
'Don't you see?' said Clytemnestra. 'Why, you say you had the fire lighted at Ida when you started; then, of course, they would see it directly over at Lemnos, and light theirs; and then at Athos, and then----'
'You are not a time-table, my love,' interrupted the monarch, coldly. 'I won't trouble you for all these details. Come to the point.'
'The point is,' she explained sweetly, 'that we have only just seen the beacon flame arrive here at Arachnæus, after leaping from height to height across lake and plain; so that you, my dearest, must have made the distance with almost equal celerity!'
'I came _with_ the beacon,' said Agamemnon, coughing; 'perhaps that disposes of the difficulty?'
'Perhaps,' said the Queen; 'I mean _quite_. And now,' she continued, after a rapid exchange of glances with Ægisthus, 'you will come indoors, and have a nice cup of coffee and a warm bath before you do anything else, won't you?'
He almost thought he would, he said; fighting for ten long years without intermission was a dusty, tiring occupation, and he was accordingly about to enter, when his eye fell on the awnings and flags and the red stair carpet, which had been prepared for the betrothal festivities, and he frowned.
'Now, my dear, this sort of thing is all very well, no doubt; but I don't care about it. I'm a plain, honest ruler of men, and I hate flummery and flattery--particularly when it all comes out of _my_ pocket! Why, you've laid down the drugget from the Throne-Room over all this gravel. Take it up directly; I decline to walk over it. Do you hear? This wasteful extravagance is positively sinful. Take it up!'