Ibycus was travelling one day on the road between Athens and Sparta, when he was set upon by some brigands, who robbed and murdered him. He cried for help—none was at hand; but just at the last he raised his dying eyes toward the sky and saw a flock of cranes flying high in the air above his head, and with his last breath he called upon them to avenge him. The assassins laughed at such a prayer; but it was strangely answered. The men hurried off to Athens to enjoy their booty, and a few days afterward went to the theatre, which in those days was in the open air. As the performance was going on, some birds were noticed flying low above the assembled crowd. "Ha! ha! those are the cranes of Ibycus!" one of the robbers unthinkingly said to his neighbor. Sorely he repented it the next moment, for others had caught the words. "Ibycus? Ibycus? What had become of him?" He was a well-known man, and had been missed. The men were seized, and believing that the gods had revealed their crime, they confessed all, and were executed. This story is beautifully told in one of the poems of Schiller, the great German poet.

[Begun in Harper's Young People No. 66, February 1.]