Voyage To the Lower World (11)

Well, Clotho, I hope you will not refuse my last request.

Which is?

I should like to know how things will be, now that I am gone.

Certainly; you shall have that mortification. Your wife will pass into the hands of Midas, your slave; he has been her gallant for some time past.

Acurse on him! 'Twas at her request that I gave him his freedom.

Your daughter will take her place in the harem of the present monarch. ‘Then all the old statues and portraits which the city set up in your honour will be overturned,—to the entertainment, no doubt, of the spectators.

And will no friend resent these doings?

Who was your friend? Who had any reason to be? Need I explain that the cringing courtiers who lauded your every word and deed were actuated either by hope or by fear —time-servers every man of them, with a keen eye to the main chance?

And these are they whose feasts rang with my name! who, as they poured their libations, invoked every blessing on my head! Not one but would have died before me, could he have had his will; nay, they swore by no other name.

Yes; and you dined with one of them yesterday, and it cost you your life. It was that last cup you drank that brought you here.

Ah, I noticed a bitter taste—But what was his object?

Oh, you want to know too much. It is high time you came on board.