"This," said the chief, "my good friend Clarilaus, eparch of Larissa, was kind enough to supply me with."
Cleanor opened his eyes. Farmers and shepherds might find it worth while to buy the brigand's forbearance by a toll from their flocks, but was such a dignitary as an eparch content to pay blackmail? The chief smiled.
"Perhaps I might explain," he said, "that we came across the eparch's wagon as it was on its way to Larissa from the coast. As there was clearly more wine than he could use--it is the one fault of Lesbian wine that it does not keep very well--I took it for granted that some must have been meant for me. He is famous for his taste in wine, and I think you will own that this does him credit."
It was soon evident that the Lesbian wine had strength as well as flavour, for the two brigands became very communicative as the flask grew lighter.
"Tell us your story, Laches," said the chief. "It always puts me in better conceit with myself to hear it. This life of ours here is not exactly the ideal. My old master at the Academy, Philippus, would scarcely have approved of it. Yes, my young friend, I too have been in Arcadia, or rather, I should say, in Athens, though I may not look like it; but I always console myself by thinking that there are worse thieves than I am. Go on, Laches."
"I was a shepherd by occupation. My father was a shepherd; so had his father before him been, and his father too, for many generations. Yes, for many hundred years, but not always. There was a tradition in the family that we had been princes once, owning all the land over which the flocks we cared for grazed, and a great deal more. We believed that we were descended from the great Thessalus[25] himself. Well, we were fairly content. Our master was a gay young fellow, a little thoughtless, and too ready with his hands if things did not go quite as he wished, but kind and generous. Poor fellow! he was killed by a wild-boar. To tell the truth, he had taken a cup too much. It was his habit, and a bad habit too--a very bad habit."
Laches was quite sincere, though his own utterance had grown a little thick.
"We had found a boar in the morning, and lost him. After the mid-day meal--he would finish the flask of heady Chian--we found the brute again. My master threw one of his two hunting-spears, and wounded him in the shoulder. He was a little flurried, and he threw it too soon, and with a bad aim. The boar charged, and my master knelt on one knee to receive it. Flurried again, and the spear not quite straight. I was running as hard as I could, but it was too late. When I came up, he was lying on the ground, with as bad a wound in the thigh as ever I saw. He was dead before you could count twenty.