neighbouring fortresses. Haste to your duties, for when you have passed the walls, we will claim Andania, Gorgus shall fight by my side, and Manticles shall both fight and counsel. Let not another midnight pass and proclaim in heaven that Messenia is enslaved. The stars fight for us; the gods watch our councils and our actions. Be yourselves again, and Messenia will be free."

In a moment, all was activity. The walls which had long borne the weight of the Messenians' armour, were stripped of their ornaments, and the columns unloosed the spears that were fastened around them. The ringing sound of the breast-plate, and the heavy noise of the falling shield, blended with the clattering of helmets, the twang of the bow, and the heavy tread of men. In a short time every man was armed and ready for the field, and Gorgus stood by the side of Aristomenes, half cherishing, and half ashamed, to receive the parting kiss of his sister, while Manticles wished that he could be permitted the same enthusiastic embrace in place of the more distant, but not less affectionate, farewell.

Corinna, the daughter of Lyciscus, finding herself, for the first time, without a protector, separated from

those in whose society she had been for years, without even an occasional intermission, closed the cottage door, and retired to the innermost, and most secluded apartment of the subterranean dwelling. The few female domestic slaves, still attached to the household, gathered round her, and offered their attentions, but her thoughts were entirely engaged by those with whom she had parted. She took her lyre, and struck a chord or two, but it had no harmony for her ear, and the sweet voice of the player refused to accompany it. In fact, although Corinna had so willingly resigned Gorgus to the disposal of Aristomenes, and had tied the breast-plate, and clasped the helmet of Manticles, she felt very wretched without their company, and almost regretted that Aristomenes had ever entered Andania. But she was not long left in suspense. Manticles was the first to return, and inform her that Andania was in possession of her countrymen, and that she might now leave her hiding place, and breathe the air of her native country, without the constant and corroding fear that her life or honour were threatened by every Spartan she met.

In other parts of the state, the Messenian arms were not less successful. Gonippus did not require any

argument to induce him to make an attack upon the newly built Messene, and the brave chieftains who had sought a refuge in the caverns, and almost inaccessible places of the Taygetus, urged by the enthusiastic and superstitious Theocles, exceeded the wishes of Aristomenes, by employing the sword to revenge their wrongs as well as to recover their rights. The sacrifice of life, however, was very small compared with the suddenness of the revolution, for before the following day closed, every fortified city in Messenia had reverted to the original possessors; and the enslaved, degraded, and despised people, were again in possession of the means of retarding, and even of preventing the designs of the enemy.

CHAPTER II.

"In the still watches of the night,

When slumber deep hung on the eyes of men,

The chief arose, and like a giant hurl'd

His spear aloft, calling on gods and men to hear
His high resolve-conquest or death."

THE CHALLENGE.

THE Messenians having obtained possession of their country, Aristomenes resolved to take the most prompt measures to secure, if possible, the ultimate success of the cause so propitiously commenced. Having dispatched messengers to Argos and Arcadia, requesting the assistance already promised, he prepared himself for an expedition, in which he intended to give a pledge

of his unmitigated determination to support the honour and liberty of his country. His design was one which could not have been entertained, much less imagined, by a man who had formed only a partial resolution to risk his honour and life in the expected contest.

Aristomenes was much interested in the bold, intrepid, and fearless youth who had, by his enthusiastic attachment to a spot, dear to the memory of every Messenian, been the unconscious cause of renewing the war; and resolved at once to give him a share in the intended enterprise.

Proceeding directly from Andania to Ino, and without giving any intimation of his purpose, the noble chieftain, attended by Gorgus, prepared to cross the Messenian gulf, having resolved to sail up the Eurotas, and to visit the city of Sparta. As he approached Ino, he could not shake off the reflections suggested by familiar objects and associations, though he would willingly have given another direction to his thoughts. At every step scenes presented themselves with all the distinctness and colouring of a present reality, in which Polychares, Panormus and Helen, were prominent figures. As he looked around him, and sighed over the desolation and dreary