TALES OF THE GREEKS
royally with his companions. After a time he lost his fiery spirit, and cared naught for the pleasures of the chase. He drank deep from the wine-cup, and gambled with his money and worked harm to his health, and died at the age of fifty-four, in the year 283 b.c.
His body having been burned after the manner of the Greeks, the ashes that remained were put into an urn of gold. The urn was set on a raised part of the deck of a galley, and armed men sat in the ship. Slowly the vessel was rowed across the sea, while a skilful flute-player sounded a sweet and solemn air. The oars kept time to the notes of the flute. The son of Demetrius came to meet the funeral-galley with a fleet of many ships; and thus the urn of gold was taken to the port of Corinth, and thence it was carried to a tomb.
UP THE SCALING-LADDERS
"CHILD! where did you come from?" asked a woman of a seven-year-old boy whom she found in her house.
"Lady, take pity on me. If I am seen in the street, the soldiers of the tyrant may slay me. They have killed my father. I fled from the horrid noise and the sight of blood, and I wandered here and there till I saw your open door, and I entered."
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