We postponed the Acropolis until after luncheon. There would have been further riot and bloodshed on this consecrated ground had our conductor proposed to attempt it then. Our Argonauts are a fairly well-behaved lot and fond of antiquities, even though they giggle at the guide now and then, but they are human, too, and have the best appetites I ever saw. They would leave the Acropolis for luncheon, even though they knew an earthquake would destroy it before they could get back.
We did stop briefly at the Pnyx hill--the gathering-place of the Athenians--and stood on the rostrum cut from the living rock--the "Bema" from which Demosthenes harangued the populace.
[Illustration: TOOK TURNS ADDRESSING THE MULTITUDE]
As usual Laura, age fourteen, and I got behind the party. We stood on the Bema and took turns addressing the multitude, until we came near being left altogether by the Diplomat and the Blue Elephant, who finally whirled us away in a wild gallop to the hotel, which, thanks to Jupiter and all the Olympian synod, we reached in time.
We made a new guide arrangement in the afternoon. It was discovered that the guide for the German party could handle English, too, so we doubled up and he talked to us first in one language, then in the other, and those of us who knew a little of both caught it going and coming. Perhaps his English was not the best, but I confess I adored it. He lisped a little, and his voice--droning, plaintive, and pathetic--was full of the sorrow that goes with a waning glory and a vanished day. We named him Lykabettos because somehow he looked like that, and then, too, he towered above us as he talked.
So long as I draw breath that afternoon on the Acropolis will live before me as a sunlit dream. I shall see it always in the tranquil light of an afternoon in spring when the distant hills are turning green and forming pictures everywhere between mellowed columns and down ruined aisles. Always I shall wander there with Laura, and resting on the steps of the Parthenon I shall hear the sad and gentle voice of Lykabettos recounting the tale of its glory and decline. I shall hear him say:
"Zen Pericles he gazzer all ze moany zat was collect for ze army and he bring it here. But Pericles he use it to make all zese beautiful temple, and by and by when ze war come zere was no moany for ze army, so zay could not win."