Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/200

 than had Histiaeus, who, you remember, branded his secret on the head of his slave.

The exiled king took a writing tablet and scraped away the wax on which letters were usually engraved. On the wood beneath he scratched the message he wished to send. He then poured melted wax on the top of what he had written, and the tablet looked as any other tablet looked.

When it reached Sparta, the peopled studied it with amazement. There was a tablet, but where was the message? They turned it this way and that, they peered at it now on one side, now on another—nothing was to be seen.

Then Gorgo, whom you heard of last as a little maiden of eight years old, gave the people advice as wise as she had given to her royal father long before. She was grown up since those days and had been married to brave king Leonidas.

'Scrape off the wax,' she said to the people, 'and see if the message lies on the wood beneath.'

And when this was done, there stood the warning words of Demaratus, so that all might read.