More couriers. Hydarnes's van was in sight of Alpeni now. The retreat of the Corinthians, Tegeans, and other Hellenes became a run; only once Euboulus and his fellow-captains turned to the silent warrior that stood leaning on his spear.

"Are you resolved on madness, Leonidas?"

"Chaire! Farewell!" was the only answer he gave them. Euboulus sought no more, but faced another figure, hitherto almost forgotten in the confusion of the retreat.

"Haste, Master Deserter, the Barbarians will give you an overwarm welcome, and you are no Spartan; save yourself!"

Glaucon did not stir.

"Do you not see that it is impossible?" he answered, then strode across to Leonidas. "I must stay."

"Are you also mad? You are young—" The good-hearted Corinthian strove to drag him into the retreating mob.

Glaucon sprang away from him and addressed the silent general.

"Shall not Athens remain by Sparta, if Sparta will accept?"

He could see Leonidas's cold eyes gleam out through the slits in his helmet. The general reached forth his hand.

"Sparta accepts," called he; "they have lied concerning your Medizing! And you, Euboulus, do not filch from him his glory."

"Zeus pity you!" cried Euboulus, running at last. One of the Spartans brought to Glaucon the heavy hoplite's armour and the ponderous spear and shield. He took his place in the line with the others. Leonidas stalked to the right wing of his scant array, the post of honour and of danger. The Thespians closed up behind. Shield was set to shield. Helmets were drawn low. The lance points projected in a bristling hedge in front. All was ready.

The general made no speech to fire his men. There was no wailing, no crying to the gods, no curses upon the tardy ephors at Lacedaemon who had deferred sending their whole strong levy instead of the pitiful three hundred. Sparta had sent this band to hold the pass. They had gone, knowing she might require the supreme sacrifice. Leonidas had spoken for all his men. "Sparta demanded it." What more was to be said?

As for Glaucon he could think of nothing save—in the language of his people—"this was a beautiful manner and place in which to die." "Count no man happy until he meets a happy end," so had said Solon, and of all ends what could be more fortunate than this? Euboulus would tell in Athens, in all Hellas, how he had remained with Leonidas and maintained Athenian honour when Corinthian and Tegean turned away. From "Glaucon the Traitor" he would be raised to "Glaucon the Hero." Hermione, Democrates, and all others he loved would flush with pride and no more with shame when men spoke of him. Could a life of a hundred years add to his glory more than he could win this day?

"Blow!" commanded Leonidas again, and again pealed the trumpet. The line moved beyond the wall toward Xerxes's camp in the open beside the Asopus. Why wait for Hydarnes's coming? They would meet the king of the Aryans face to face and show him the terrible manner in which the men of Lacedaemon knew how to die.

As they passed from the shadow of the mountain, the sun sprang over the hills of Euboea, making fire of the bay and bathing earth and heavens with glory. In their rear was already shouting. Hydarnes had reached his goal at Alpeni. All retreat was ended. The thin line swept onward. Before them spread the whole host of the Barbarian as far as the eye could reach,—a tossing sea of golden shields, scarlet surcoats, silver lance-heads,—awaiting with its human billows to engulf them. The Laconians halted just beyond bow shot. The line locked tighter. Instinctively every man pressed closer to his comrade. Then before the eyes of Xerxes's host, which kept silence, marvelling, the handful broke forth with their paean. They threw their well-loved charging song of Tyrtaeus in the very face of the king.

"Press the charge, O sons of Sparta! Ye are sons of men born free: Press the charge; 'tis where the shields lock, That your sires would have you be! Honour's cheaply sold for life, Press the charge, and join the strife: Let the coward cling to breath, Let the base shrink back from death, Press the charge, let cravens flee!"

Leonidas's spear pointed to the ivory throne, around which and him that sat thereon in blue and scarlet glittered the Persian grandees.

"Onward!"

Immortal ichor seemed in the veins of every Greek. They burst into one shout.

"The king! The king!"

A roar from countless drums, horns, and atabals answered from the Barbarians, as across the narrow plain-land charged the three hundred—and one.



CHAPTER XXII

MARDONIUS GIVES A PROMISE

"Ugh—the dogs died hard, but they are dead," grunted Xerxes, still shivering on the ivory throne. The battle had raged disagreeably close to him.

"They are dead; even so perish all of your Eternity's enemies," rejoined Mardonius, close by. The bow-bearer himself was covered with blood and dust. A Spartan sword had grazed his forehead. He had exposed himself recklessly, as well he might, for it had taken all the efforts of the Persian captains, as well as the ruthless laying of whips over the backs of their men, to make the king's battalions face the frenzied Hellenes, until the closing in of Hydarnes from the rear gave the battle its inevitable ending.

Xerxes was victorious. The gate of Hellas was unlocked. The mountain wall of OEta would hinder him no more. But the triumph had been bought with a price which made Mardonius and every other general in the king's host shake his head.

"Lord," reported Hystaspes, commander of the Scythians, "one man in every seven of my band is slain, and those the bravest."

"Lord," spoke Artabazus, who led the Parthians, "my men swear the Hellenes were possessed by daevas. They dare not approach even their dead bodies."

"Lord," asked Hydarnes, "will it please your Eternity to appoint five other officers in the Life Guard, for of my ten lieutenants over the Immortals five are slain?"

But the heaviest news no man save Mardonius dared to bring to the king.

"May it please your Omnipotence," spoke the bow-bearer, "to order the funeral pyres of cedar and precious oils to be prepared for your brothers Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, and command the Magians to offer prayers for the repose of their fravashis in Garonmana the Blessed, for it pleased Mazda the Great they should fall before the Hellenes."

Xerxes waved his hand in assent. It was hard to be the "Lord of the World," and be troubled by such little things as the deaths of a few thousand servants, or even of two of his numerous half-brethren, hard at least on a day like this when he had seen his desire over his enemies.

"They shall be well avenged," he announced with kingly dignity, then smiled with satisfaction when they brought him the shield and helmet of Leonidas, the madman, who had dared to contemn his power. But all the generals who stood by were grim and sad. One more such victory would bring the army close to destruction.

Xerxes's happiness, however, was not to be clouded. From childish fears he had passed to childish exultation.

"Have you found the body also of this crazed Spartan?" he inquired of the cavalry officer who had brought the trophies.

"As you say, Omnipotence," rejoined the captain, bowing in the saddle.

"Good, then. Let the head be struck off and the trunk fastened on a cross that all may see it. And you, Mardonius," addressing the bow-bearer, "ride back to the hillock where these madmen made their last stand. If you discover among the corpses any who yet breathe, bring them hither to me, that they may learn the futility of resisting my might."

The bow-bearer shrugged his shoulders. He loved a fair battle and fair treatment of valiant foes. The dishonouring of the corpse of Leonidas was displeasing to more than one high-minded Aryan nobleman. But the king had spoken, and was to be obeyed. Mardonius rode back to the hillock at the mouth of the pass, where the Hellenes had retired—after their spears were broken and they could resist only with swords, stones, or naked hands—for the final death grip.

The slain Barbarians lay in heaps. The Greeks had been crushed at the end, not in close strife, but by showers of arrows. Mardonius dismounted and went with a few followers among the dead. Plunderers were already at their harpy work of stripping the slain. The bow-bearer chased them angrily away. He oversaw the task which his attendants performed as quickly as possible. Their toil was not quite fruitless. Three or four Thespians were still breathing, a few more of the helots who had attended Leonidas's Spartans, but not one of the three hundred but seemed dead, and that too with many wounds.

Snofru, Mardonius's Egyptian body-servant, rose from the ghastly work and grinned with his ivories at his master.

"All the rest are slain, Excellency."

"You have not searched that pile yonder."

Snofru and his helpers resumed their toil. Presently the Egyptian dragged from a bloody heap a body, and raised a yell. "Another one—he breathes!"

"There's life in him. He shall not be left to the crows. Take him forth and lay him with the others that are living."

It was not easy to roll the three corpses from their feebly stirring comrade. When this was done, the stricken man was still encased in his cuirass and helmet. They saw only that his hands were slim and white.

"With care," ordered the humane bow-bearer, "he is a young man. I heard Leonidas took only older men on his desperate venture. Here, rascals, do you not see he is smothered in that helmet? Lift him up, unbuckle the cuirass. By Mithra, he has a strong and noble form! Now the helmet—uncover the face."

But as the Egyptian did so, his master uttered a shout of mingled wonderment and terror.

"Glaucon—Prexaspes, and in Spartan armour!"

What had befallen Glaucon was in no wise miraculous. He had borne his part in the battle until the Hellenes fell back to the fatal hillock. Then in one of the fierce onsets which the Barbarians attempted before they had recourse to the simpler and less glorious method of crushing their foes by arrow fire, a Babylonian's war club had dashed upon his helmet. The stout bronze had saved him from wound, but under the stroke strength and consciousness had left him in a flash. The moment after he fell, the soldier beside him had perished by a javelin, and falling above the Athenian made his body a ghastly shield against the surge and trampling of the battle. Glaucon lay scathless but senseless through the final catastrophe. Now consciousness was returning, but he would have died of suffocation save for Snofru's timely aid.

It was well for the Athenian that Mardonius was a man of ready devices. He had not seen Glaucon at his familiar post beside the king, but had presumed the Hellene had remained at the tents with the women, unwilling to watch the destruction of his people. In the rush and roar of the battle the messenger Artazostra had sent her husband telling of "Prexaspes's" flight had never reached him. But Mardonius could divine what had happened. The swallow must fly south in the autumn. The Athenian had returned to his own. The bow-bearer's wrath at his protege's desertion was overmastered by the consuming fear that tidings of Prexaspes's disloyalty would get to the king. Xerxes's wrath would be boundless. Had he not proffered his new subject all the good things of his empire? And to be rewarded thus! Glaucon's recompense would be to be sawn asunder or flung into a serpent's cage.

Fortunately Mardonius had only his own personal followers around him. He could count on their discreet loyalty. Vouchsafing no explanations, but bidding them say not a word of their discovery on their heads, he ordered Snofru and his companions to make a litter of cloaks and lances, to throw away Glaucon's tell-tale Spartan armour, and bear him speedily to Artazostra's tents. The stricken man was groaning feebly, moving his limbs, muttering incoherently. The sight of Xerxes driving in person to inspect the battle-field made Mardonius hasten the litter away, while he remained to parley with the king.

"So only a few are alive?" asked Xerxes, leaning over the silver rail of the chariot, and peering on the upturned faces of the dead which were nearly trampled by his horses. "Are any sound enough to set before me?"

"None, your Eternity; even the handful that live are desperately wounded. We have laid them yonder."

"Let them wait, then; all around here seem dead. Ugly hounds!" muttered the monarch, still peering down; "even in death they seem to grit their teeth and defy me. Faugh! The stench is already terrible. It is just as well they are dead. Angra-Mainyu surely possessed them to fight so! It cannot be there are many more who can fight like this left in Hellas, though Demaratus, the Spartan outlaw, says there are. Drive away, Pitiramphes—and you, Mardonius, ride beside me. I cannot abide those corpses. Where is my handkerchief? The one with the Sabaean nard on it. I will hold it to my nose. Most refreshing! And I had a question to ask—I have forgotten what."

"Whether news has come from the fleets before Artemisium?" spoke Mardonius, galloping close to the wheel.

"Not that. Ah! I remember. Where was Prexaspes? I did not see him near me. Did he stay in the tents while these mad men were destroyed? It was not loyal, yet I forgive him. After all, he was once a Hellene."

"May it please your Eternity,"—Mardonius chose his words carefully,—a Persian always loved the truth, and lies to the king were doubly impious,—"Prexaspes was not in the tents but in the thick of the battle."

"Ah!" Xerxes smiled pleasantly, "it was right loyal of him to show his devotion to me thus. And he acquitted himself valiantly?"

"Most valiantly, Omnipotence."

"Doubly good. Yet he ought to have stayed near me. If he had been a true Persian, he would not have withdrawn from the person of the king, even to display his prowess in combat. Still he did well. Where is he?"

"I regret to tell your Eternity he was desperately wounded, though your servant hopes not unto death. He is even now being taken to my tents."

"Where that pretty dancer, your sister, will play the surgeon—ha!" cried the king. "Well, tell him his Lord is grateful. He shall not be forgotten. If his wounds do not mend, call in my body-physicians. And I will send him something in gratitude—a golden cimeter, perhaps, or it may be another cream Nisaean charger."

A general rode up to the chariot with his report, and Mardonius was suffered to gallop to his own tents, blessing Mazda; he had saved the Athenian, yet had not told a lie.

* * * * * * *

The ever ready eunuchs of Artazostra ran to tell Mardonius of the Hellene's strange desertion, even before their lord dismounted. Mardonius was not astonished now, however much the tidings pained him. The Greek had escaped more than trifling wounds; ten days would see him sound and hale, but the stunning blow had left his wits still wandering. He had believed himself dead at first, and demanded why Charon took so long with his ferry-boat. He had not recognized Roxana, but spoke one name many times—"Hermione!" And the Egyptian, understanding too well, went to her own tent weeping bitterly.

"He has forsaken us," spoke Artazostra, harshly, to her husband. "He has paid kindness with disloyalty. He has chosen the lot of his desperate race rather than princely state amongst the Aryans. Your sister is in agony."

"And I with her," returned the bow-bearer, gravely, "but let us not forget one thing—this man has saved our lives. And all else weighs small in the balance."

When Mardonius went to him, Glaucon was again himself. He lay on bright pillows, his forehead swathed in linen. His eyes were unnaturally bright.

"You know what has befallen?" asked Mardonius.

"They have told me. I almost alone of all the Hellenes have not been called to the heroes' Elysium, to the glory of Theseus and Achilles, the glory that shall not die. Yet I am content. For plainly the Olympians have destined that I should see and do great things in Hellas, otherwise they would not have kept me back from Leonidas's glory."

The Athenian's voice rang confidently. None of the halting weakness remained that had made it falter once when Mardonius asked him, "Will your Hellenes fight?" He spoke as might one returned crowned with the victor's laurel.

"And wherefore are you grown so bold?" The bow-bearer was troubled as he looked on him. "Nobly you and your handful fought. We Persians honour the brave, and full honour we give to you. But was it not graven upon the stars what should befall? Were not Leonidas, his men, and you all mad—"

"Ah, yes! divinely mad." Brighter still grew the Athenian's eyes. "For that moment of exultation when we charged to meet the king I would again pay a lifetime."

"Yet the gateway of Hellas is unlocked. Your bravest are fallen. Your land is defenceless. What else can be written hereafter save, 'The Hellenes strove with fierce courage to fling back Xerxes. Their valour was foolishness. The god turned against them. The king prevailed.' "

But Glaucon met the Persian's glance with one more bold.

"No, Mardonius, good friend, for do not think that we must be foes one to another because our people are at war,—I can answer you with ease. Leonidas you have slain, and his handful, and you have pierced the mountain wall of OEta, and no doubt your king's host will march even to Athens. But do not dream Hellas is conquered by striding over her land. Before you shall possess the land you must first possess the men. And I say to you, Athens is still left, and Sparta left, free and strong, with men whose hearts and hands can never fail. I doubted once. But now I doubt no more. And our gods will fight for us. Your Ahura-Mazda has still to prevail over Zeus the Thunderer and Athena of the Pure Heart."

"And you?" asked the Persian.

"And as for me, I know I have cast away by my own act all the good things you and your king would fain bestow upon me. Perhaps I deserve death at your hands. I will never plead for respite, but this I know, whether I live or die, it shall be as Glaucon of Athens who owns no king but Zeus, no loyalty save to the land that bore him."

There was stillness in the tent. The wounded man sank back on the pillows, breathing deep, closing his eyes, expectant almost of a burst of wrath from the Persian. But Mardonius answered without trace of anger.

"Friend, your words cut keenly, and your boasts are high. Only the Most High knoweth whether you boast aright. Yet this I say, that much as I desire your friendship, would see you my brother, even,—you know that,—I dare not tell you you do wholly wrong. A man is given one country and one manner of faith in God. He does not choose them. I was born to serve the lord of the Aryans, and to spread the triumphs of Mithra the Glorious, and you were born in Athens. I would it were otherwise. Artazostra and I would fain have made you Persian like ourselves. My sister loves you. Yet we cannot strive against fate. Will you go back to your own people and share their lot, however direful?"

"Since life is given me, I will."

Mardonius stepped to the bedside and gave the Athenian his right hand.

"At the island you saved my life and that of my best beloved. Let it never be said that Mardonius, son of Gobryas, is ungrateful. To-day, in some measure, I have repaid the debt I owe. If you will have it so, as speedily as your strength returns and opportunity offers I will return you to your people. And amongst them may your own gods show you favour, for you will have none from ours!"

Glaucon took the proffered hand in silent gratitude. He was still very weak and rested on the pillows, breathing hard. The bow-bearer went out to his wife and his sister and told his promise. There was little to be said. The Athenian must go his path, and they go theirs, unless he were to be handed over to Xerxes to die a death of torments. And not even Roxana, keenly as pierced her sorrow, would think of that.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE DARKEST HOUR

A city of two hundred thousand awaiting a common sentence of death,—such seemed the doom of Athens.

Every morning the golden majesty of the sun rose above the wall of Hymettus, but few could lift their hands to Lord Helios and give praise for another day of light. "Each sunrise brings Xerxes nearer." The bravest forgot not that.

Yet Athens was never more truly the "Violet-Crowned City" than on these last days before the fearful advent. The sun at morn on Hymettus, the sun at night on Daphni, the nightingales and cicadas in the olives by Cephissus, the hum of bees on the sweet thyme of the mountain, the purple of the hills, the blue and the fire of the bay, the merry tinkle of the goat bells upon the rocks, the laugh of little children in the streets—all these made Athens fair, but could not take the cloud from the hearts of the people.

Trade was at standstill in the Agora. The most careless frequented the temples. Old foes composed their cases before the arbitrator. The courts were closed, but there was meeting after meeting in the Pnyx, with incessant speeches on one theme—how Athens must resist to the bitter end.

And why should not the end be bitter? Argos and Crete had Medized. Corcyra promised and did nothing. Thebes was weakening. Thessaly had sent earth and water. Corinth, AEgina, and a few lesser states were moderately loyal, but great Sparta only procrastinated and despatched no help to her Athenian ally. So every day the Persian thunder-cloud was darkening.

But one man never faltered, nor suffered others about him to falter,—Themistocles. The people heard him gladly—he would never talk of defeat. He had a thousand reasons why the invader should be baffled, from a convenient hexameter in old Bacis's oracle book, up to the fact that the Greeks used the longest spears. If he found it weary work looking the crowding peril in the face and smiling still, he never confessed it. His friends would marvel at his serenity. Only when they saw him sit silent, saw his brows knit, his hand comb at his beard, they knew his inexhaustible brain was weaving the web which should ensnare the lord of the Aryans.

Thus day after day—while men thought dark things in their hearts.

* * * * * * *

Hermippus had come down to his city house from Eleusis, and with him his wife and daughter. The Eleusinian was very busy. He was a member of the Areopagus, the old council of ex-archons, an experienced body that found much to do. Hermippus had strained his own resources to provide shields for the hoplites. He was constantly with Themistocles, which implied being much with Democrates. The more he saw of the young orator, the better the Eleusinian liked him. True, not every story ran to Democrates's credit, but Hermippus knew the world, and could forgive a young man if he had occasionally spent a jolly night. Democrates seemed to have forsworn Ionian harp-girls now. His patriotism was self-evident. The Eleusinian saw in him a most desirable protector in the perils of war for Hermione and her child. Hermione's dislike for her husband's destroyer was natural,—nay, in bounds, laudable,—but one must not give way too much to women's phantasies. The lady was making a Cyclops of Democrates by sheer imagination; an interview would dispel her prejudices. Therefore Hermippus planned, and his plan was not hard to execute.

On the day the fleet sailed to Artemisium, Hermione went with her mother to the havens, as all the city went, to wish godspeed to the "wooden wall" of Hellas.

One hundred and twenty-seven triremes were to go forth, and three and fifty to follow, bearing the best and bravest of Athens with them. Themistocles was in absolute command, and perhaps in his heart of hearts Democrates was not mournful if it lay out of his power to do a second ill-turn to his country.

It was again summer, and again such a day as when Glaucon with glad friends had rowed toward Salamis. The Saronian bay flashed fairest azure. The scattered isles and the headlands of Argolis rose in clear beauty. The city had emptied itself. Mothers hung on the necks of sons as the latter strode toward Peiraeus; friends clasped hands for the last time as he who remained promised him who went that the wife and little ones should never be forgotten. Only Hermione, as she stood on the hill of Munychia above the triple havens, shed no tear. The ship bearing her all was gone long since. Themistocles would never lead it back. Hermippus was at the quay in Peiraeus, taking leave of the admiral. Old Cleopis held the babe as Hermione stood by her mother. The younger woman had suffered her gaze to wander to far AEgina, where a featherlike cloud hung above the topmost summit of the isle, when her mother's voice called her back.

"They go."

A line of streamers blew from the foremast of the Nausicaae as the piper on the flag-ship gave the time to the oars. The triple line of blades, pumiced white, splashed with a steady rhythm. The long black hull glided away. The trailing line of consorts swiftly followed. From the hill and the quays a shout uprose from the thousands, to be answered by the fleet,—a cheer or a prayer to sea-ruling Poseidon those who gave it hardly knew. The people stood silent till the last dark hull crept around the southern headland; then, still in silence, the multitudes dissolved. The young and the strong had gone from them. For Athens this was the beginning of the war.

Hermione and Lysistra awaited Hermippus before setting homeward, but the Eleusinian was delayed. The fleet had vanished. The havens were empty. In Cleopis's arms little Phoenix wept. His mother was anxious to be gone, when she was surprised to see a figure climbing the almost deserted slope. A moment more and she was face to face with Democrates, who advanced outstretching his hand and smiling.

The orator wore the dress of his new office of strategus. The purple-edged cloak, the light helmet wreathed with myrtle, the short sword at his side, all became him well. If there were deeper lines about his face than on the day Hermione last saw him, even an enemy would confess a leader of the Athenians had cause to be thoughtful. He was cordially greeted by Lysistra and seemed not at all abashed that Hermione gave only a sullen nod. From the ladies he turned with laughter to Cleopis and her burden.

"A new Athenian!" spoke he, lightly, "and I fear Xerxes will have been chased away before he has a chance to prove his valour. But fear not, there will be more brave days in store."

Hermione shook her head, ill-pleased.

"Blessed be Hera, my babe is too young to know aught of wars. And if we survive this one, will not just Zeus spare us from further bloodshed?"

Democrates, without answering, approached the nurse, and Phoenix—for reasons best known to himself—ceased lamenting and smiled up in the orator's face.

"His mother's features and eyes," cried Democrates. "I swear it—ay, by all Athena's owls—that young Hermes when he lay in Maia's cave on Mt. Cylene was not finer or lustier than he. His mother's face and eyes, I say."

"His father's," corrected Hermione. "Is not his name Phoenix? In him will not Glaucon the Beautiful live again? Will he not grow to man's estate to avenge his murdered father?" The lady spoke without passion, but with a cold bitterness that made Democrates cease from smiling. He turned away from the babe.

"Forgive me, dear lady," he answered her, "I am wiser at ruling the Athenians than at ruling children, but I see nothing of Glaucon about the babe, though much of his beautiful mother."

"You had once a better memory, Democrates," said Hermione, reproachfully.

"I do not understand your Ladyship."

"I mean that Glaucon has been dead one brief year. Can you forget his face in so short a while?"

But here Lysistra interposed with all good intent.

"You are fond and foolish, Hermione, and like all young mothers are enraged if all the world does not see his father's image in their first-born."

"Democrates knows what I would say," said the younger woman, soberly.

"Since your Ladyship is pleased to speak in riddles and I am no seer nor oracle-monger, I must confess I cannot follow. But we will contend no more concerning little Phoenix. Enough that he will grow up fair as the Delian Apollo and an unspeakable joy to his mother."

"Her only joy," was Hermione's icy answer. "Wrap up the child, Cleopis. My father is coming. It is a long walk home to the city."

With a rustle of white Hermione went down the slope in advance of her mother. Hermippus and Lysistra were not pleased. Plainly their daughter kept all her prejudice against Democrates. Her cold contempt was more disappointing even than open fury.

Once at home Hermione held little Phoenix long to her heart and wept over him. For the sake of her dead husband's child, if for naught else, how could she suffer them to give her to Democrates? That the orator had destroyed Glaucon in black malice had become a corner-stone in her belief. She could at first give for it only a woman's reason—blind intuition. She could not discuss her conviction with her mother or with any save a strange confidant—Phormio.

She had met the fishmonger in the Agora once when she went with the slaves to buy a mackerel. The auctioneer had astonished everybody by knocking down to her a noble fish an obol under price, then under pretext of showing her a rare Boeotian eel got her aside into his booth and whispered a few words that made the red and white come and go from her cheeks, after which the lady's hand went quickly to her purse, and she spoke quick words about "the evening" and "the garden gate."

Phormio refused the drachma brusquely, but kept the tryst. Cleopis had the key to the garden, and would contrive anything for her mistress—especially as all Athens knew Phormio was harmless save with his tongue. That evening for the first time Hermione heard the true story of Glaucon's escape by the Solon, but when the fishmonger paused she hung down her head closer.

"You saved him, then? I bless you. But was the sea more merciful than the executioner?"

The fishmonger let his voice fall lower.

"Democrates is unhappy. Something weighs on his mind. He is afraid."

"Of what?"

"Bias his slave came to see me again last night. Many of his master's doings have been strange to him. Many are riddles still, but one thing at last is plain. Hiram has been to see Democrates once more, despite the previous threats. Bias listened. He could not understand everything, but he heard Lycon's name passed many times, then one thing he caught clearly. 'The Babylonish carpet-seller was the Prince Mardonius.' 'The Babylonian fled on the Solon.' 'The Prince is safe in Sardis.' If Mardonius could escape the storm and wreck, why not Glaucon, a king among swimmers?"

Hermione clapped her hands to her head.

"Don't torture me. I've long since trodden out hope. Why has he sent me no word in all these months of pain?"

"It is not the easiest thing to get a letter across the AEgean in these days of roaring war."

"I dare not believe it. What else did Bias hear?"

"Very little. Hiram was urging something. Democrates always said, 'Impossible.' Hiram went away with a very sour grin. However, Democrates caught Bias lurking."

"And flogged him?"

"No, Bias ran into the street and cried out he would flee to the Temple of Theseus, the slave's sanctuary, and demand that the archon sell him to a kinder master. Then suddenly Democrates forgave him and gave him five drachmae to say no more about it."

"And so Bias at once told you?" Hermione could not forbear a smile, but her gesture was of desperation. "O Father Zeus—only the testimony of a slave to lean on, I a weak woman and Democrates one of the chief men in Athens! O for strength to wring out all the bitter truth!"

"Peace, kyria," said Phormio, not ungently, "Aletheia, Mistress Truth, is a patient dame, but she says her word at last. And you see that hope is not quite dead."

"I dare not cherish it. If I were but a man!" repeated Hermione. But she thanked Phormio many times, would not let him refuse her money, and bade him come often again and bring her all the Agora gossip about the war. "For we are friends," she concluded; "you and I are the only persons who hold Glaucon innocent in all the world. And is that not tie enough?"

So Phormio came frequently, glad perhaps to escape the discipline of his spouse. Now he brought a rumour of Xerxes's progress, now a bit of Bias's tattling about his master. The talebearing counted for little, but went to make Hermione's conviction like adamant. Every night she would speak over Phoenix as she held him whilst he slept.

"Grow fast, makaire, grow strong, for there is work for you to do! Your father cries, 'Avenge me well,' even from Hades."

* * * * * * *

After the departure of the fleet Athens seemed silent as the grave. On the streets one met only slaves and graybeards. In the Agora the hucksters' booths were silent, but little groups of white-headed men sat in the shaded porticos and watched eagerly for the appearing of the archon before the government house to read the last despatch of the progress of Xerxes. The Pnyx was deserted. The gymnasia were closed. The more superstitious scanned the heavens for a lucky or unlucky flight of hawks. The priestesses sang litanies all day and all night on the Acropolis where the great altar to Athena smoked with victims continually. At last, after the days of uncertainty and wavering rumour, came surer tidings of battles.

"Leonidas is fighting at Thermopylae. The fleets are fighting at Artemisium, off Euboea. The first onsets of the Barbarians have failed, but nothing is decided."

This was the substance, and tantalizingly meagre. And the strong army of Sparta and her allies still tarried at the Isthmus instead of hasting to aid the pitiful handful at Thermopylae. Therefore the old men wagged their heads, the altars were loaded with victims, and the women wept over their children.

So ended the first day after news came of the fighting. The second was like it—only more tense. Hermione never knew that snail called time to creep more slowly. Never had she chafed more against the iron custom which commanded Athenian gentlewomen to keep, tortoise-like, at home in days of distress and tumult. On the evening of the second day came once more the dusty courier. Leonidas was holding the gate of Hellas. The Barbarians had perished by thousands. At Artemisium, Themistocles and the allied Greek admirals were making head against the Persian armadas. But still nothing was decided. Still the Spartan host lingered at the Isthmus, and Leonidas must fight his battle alone. The sun sank that night with tens of thousands wishing his car might stand fast. At gray dawn Athens was awake and watching. Men forgot to eat, forgot to drink. One food would have contented—news!

* * * * * * *

It was about noon—"the end of market time," had there been any market then at Athens—when Hermione knew by instinct that news had come from the battle and that it was evil. She and her mother had sat since dawn by the upper window, craning forth their heads up the street toward the Agora, where they knew all couriers must hasten. Along the street in all the houses other women were peering forth also. When little Phoenix cried in his cradle, his mother for the first time in his life almost angrily bade him be silent. Cleopis, the only one of the fluttering servants who went placidly about the wonted tasks, vainly coaxed her young mistress with figs and a little wine. Hermippus was at the council. The street, save for the leaning heads of the women, was deserted. Then suddenly came a change.

First a man ran toward the Agora, panting,—his himation blew from his shoulders, he never stopped to recover it. Next shouts, scattered in the beginning, then louder, and coming not as a roar but as a wailing, rising, falling like the billows of the howling sea,—as if the thousands in the market-place groaned in sore agony. Shrill and hideous they rose, and a hand of ice fell on the hearts of the listening women. Then more runners, until the street seemed alive by magic, slaves and old men all crowding to the Agora. And still the shout and ever more dreadful. The women leaned from the windows and cried vainly to the trampling crowd below.

"Tell us! In the name of Athena, tell us!" No answer for long, till at last a runner came not toward the Agora but from it. They had hardly need to hear what he was calling.

"Leonidas is slain. Thermopylae is turned! Xerxes is advancing!"

Hermione staggered back from the lattice. In the cradle Phoenix awoke; seeing his mother bending over him, he crowed cheerily and flung his chubby fists in her face. She caught him up and again could not fight the tears away.

"Glaucon! Glaucon!" she prayed,—for her husband was all but a deity in her sight,—"hear us wherever you are, even if in the blessed land of Rhadamanthus. Take us thither, your child and me, for there is no peace or shelter left on earth!"

Then, seeing her panic-stricken women flying hither and thither like witless birds, her patrician blood asserted itself. She dashed the drops from her eyes and joined her mother in quieting the maids. Whatever there was to hope or fear, their fate would not be lightened by wild moaning. Soon the direful wailing from the Agora ceased. A blue flag waved over the Council House, a sign that the "Five Hundred" had been called in hurried session. Simultaneously a dense column of smoke leaped up from the market-place. The archons had ordered the hucksters' booths to be burned, as a signal to all Attica that the worst had befallen.

After inexpressibly long waiting Phormio came, then Hermippus, to tell all they knew. Leonidas had perished gloriously. His name was with the immortals, but the mountain wall of Hellas had been unlocked. No Spartan army was in Boeotia. The bravest of Athens were in the fleet. The easy Attic passes of Phyle and Decelea could never be defended. Nothing could save Athens from Xerxes. The calamity had been foreseen, but to foresee is not to realize. That night in Athens no man slept.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE EVACUATION OF ATHENS

It had come at last,—the hour wise men had dreaded, fools had scoffed at, cowards had dared not face. The Barbarian was within five days' march of Attica. The Athenians must bow the knee to the world monarch or go forth exiles from their country.

In the morning after the night of terror came another courier, not this time from Thermopylae. He bore a letter from Themistocles, who was returning from Euboea with the whole allied Grecian fleet. The reading of the letter in the Agora was the first rift in the cloud above the city.

"Be strong, prove yourselves sons of Athens. Do what a year ago you so boldly voted. Prepare to evacuate Attica. All is not lost. In three days I will be with you."

There was no time for an assembly at the Pnyx, but the Five Hundred and the Areopagus council acted for the people. It was ordered to remove the entire population of Attica, with all their movable goods, across the bay to Salamis or to the friendly Peloponnesus, and that same noon the heralds went over the land to bear the direful summons.

To Hermione, who in the calm after-years looked back on all this year of agony and stress as on an unreal thing, one time always was stamped on memory as no dream, but vivid, unforgetable,—these days of the great evacuation. Up and down the pleasant plain country of the Mesogia to southward, to the rolling highlands beyond Pentelicus and Parnes, to the slumbering villages by Marathon, to the fertile farm-land by Eleusis, went the proclaimers of ill-tidings.

"Quit your homes, hasten to Athens, take with you what you can, but hasten, or stay as Xerxes's slaves."

For the next two days a piteous multitude was passing through the city. A country of four hundred thousand inhabitants was to be swept clean and left naked and profitless to the invader. Under Hermione's window, as she gazed up and down the street, jostled the army of fugitives, women old and young, shrinking from the bustle and uproar, grandsires on their staves, boys driving the bleating goats or the patient donkeys piled high with pots and panniers, little girls tearfully hugging a pet puppy or hen. But few strong men were seen, for the fleet had not yet rounded Sunium to bear the people away.

The well-loved villas and farmsteads were tenantless. They left the standing grain, the ripening orchards, the groves of the sacred olives. Men rushed for the last time to the shrines where their fathers had prayed,—the temples of Theseus, Olympian Zeus, Dionysus, Aphrodite. The tombs of the worthies of old, stretching out along the Sacred Way to Eleusis, where Solon, Clisthenes, Miltiades, and many another bulwark of Athens slept, had the last votive wreath hung lovingly upon them. And especially men sought the great temple of the "Rock," to lift their hands to Athena Polias, and vow awful vows of how harm to the Virgin Goddess should be wiped away in blood.

So the throng passed through the city and toward the shore, awaiting the fleet.

It came after eager watching. The whole fighting force of Athens and her Corinthian, AEginetan, and other allies. Before the rest raced a stately ship, the Nausicaae, her triple-oar bank flying faster than the spray. The people crowded to the water's edge when the great trireme cast off her pinnace and a well-known figure stepped therein.

"Themistocles is with us!"

He landed at Phaleron, the thousands greeted him as if he were a god. He seemed their only hope—the Atlas upbearing all the fates of Athens. With the glance of his eye, with a few quick words, he chased the terrors from the strategi and archons that crowded up around him.

"Why distressed? Have we not held the Barbarians back nobly at Artemisium? Will we not soon sweep his power from the seas in fair battle?"

With almost a conqueror's train he swept up to the city. A last assembly filled the Pnyx. Themistocles had never been more hopeful, more eloquent. With one voice men voted never to bend the knee to the king. If the gods forbade them to win back their own dear country, they would go together to Italy, to found a new and better Athens far from the Persian's power. And at Themistocles's motion they voted to recall all the political exiles, especially Themistocles's own great enemy Aristeides the Just, banished by the son of Neocles only a few years before. The assembly dispersed—not weeping but with cheers. Already it was time to be quitting the city. Couriers told how the Tartar horsemen were burning the villages beyond Parnes. The magistrates and admirals went to the house of Athena. The last incense smoked before the image. The bucklers hanging on the temple wall were taken down by Cimon and the other young patricians. The statue was reverently lifted, wound in fine linen, and borne swiftly to the fleet.

"Come, makaira!" called Hermippus, entering his house to summon his daughter. Hermione sent a last glance around the disordered aula; her mother called to the bevy of pallid, whimpering maids. Cleopis was bearing Phoenix, but Hermione took him from her. Only his own mother should bear him now. They went through the thinning Agora and took one hard look at each familiar building and temple. When they should return to them, the inscrutable god kept hid. So to Peiraeus,—and to the rapid pinnaces which bore them across the narrow sea to Salamis, where for the moment at least was peace.

All that day the boats were bearing the people, and late into the night, until the task was accomplished, the like whereof is not found in history. No Athenian who willed was left to the power of Xerxes. One brain and voice planned and directed all. Leonidas, Ajax of the Hellenes, had been taken. Themistocles, their Odysseus, valiant as Ajax and gifted with the craft of the immortals, remained. Could that craft and that valour turn back the might of even the god-king of the Aryans?



CHAPTER XXV

THE ACROPOLIS FLAMES

A few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumph at Thermopylae. An expedition sent to plunder Delphi returned discomfited—thanks, said common report, to Apollo himself, who broke off two mountain crags to crush the impious invaders. But no such miracle halted the march on Athens. Boeotia and her cities welcomed the king; Thespiae and Plataea, which had stood fast for Hellas, were burned. The Peloponnesian army lingered at Corinth, busy with a wall across the Isthmus, instead of risking valorous battle.

"By the soul of my father," the king had sworn, "I believe that after the lesson at Thermopylae these madmen will not fight again!"

"By land they will not," said Mardonius, always at his lord's elbow, "by sea—it remains for your Eternity to discover."

"Will they really dare to fight by sea?" asked Xerxes, hardly pleased at the suggestion.

"Omnipotence, you have slain Leonidas, but a second great enemy remains. While Themistocles lives, it is likely your slaves will have another opportunity to prove to you their devotion."

"Ah, yes! A stubborn rogue, I hear. Well—if we must fight by sea, it shall be under my own eyes. My loyal Phoenician and Egyptian mariners did not do themselves full justice at Artemisium; they lacked the valour which comes from being in the presence of their king."

"Which makes a dutiful subject fight as ten," quickly added Pharnaspes the fan-bearer.

"Of course," smiled the monarch, "and now I must ask again, Mardonius, how fares it with my handsome Prexaspes?"

"Only indifferently, your Majesty, since you graciously deign to inquire."

"Such a sad wound? That is heavy news. He takes long in recovering. I trust he wants for nothing."

"Nothing, Omnipotence. He has the best surgeons in the camp."

"To-day I will send him Helbon wine from my own table. I miss his comely face about me. I want him here to play at dice. Tell him to recover because his king desires it. If he has become right Persian, that will be better than any physic."

"I have no doubt he will be deeply moved to learn of your Eternity's kindness," rejoined the bow-bearer, who was not sorry that further discussion of this delicate subject was averted by the arch-usher introducing certain cavalry officers with their report on the most practicable line of march through Boeotia.

Glaucon, in fact, was long since out of danger, thanks to the sturdy bronze of his Laconian helmet. He was able to walk, and, if need be, ride, but Mardonius would not suffer him to go outside his own tents. The Athenian would be certain to be recognized, and at once Xerxes would send for him, and how Glaucon, in his new frame of mind, would deport himself before majesty, whether he would not taunt the irascible monarch to his face, the bow-bearer did not know. Therefore the Athenian endured a manner of captivity in the tents with the eunuchs, pages, and women. Artazostra was often with him, and less frequently Roxana. But the Egyptian had lost all power over him now. He treated her with a cold courtesy more painful than contempt. Once or twice Artazostra had tried to turn him back from his purpose, but her words always broke themselves over one barrier.

"I am born a Hellene, lady. My gods are not yours. I must live and die after the manner of my people. And that our gods are strong and will give victory, after that morning with Leonidas I dare not doubt."

When the host advanced south and eastward from Thermopylae, Glaucon went with it, riding in a closed travelling carriage guarded by Mardonius's eunuchs. All who saw it said that here went one of the bow-bearer's harem women, and as for the king, every day he asked for his favourite, and every day Mardonius told him, "He is even as before," an answer which the bow-bearer prayed to truth-loving Mithra might not be accounted a lie.

It was while the army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon avow his identity were dead. In the hurried conference of captains preceding the retreat, Leonidas had told his informant's precise name only to Euboulus. And now Euboulus was slain, doubtless before any word from him of Glaucon's deed could spread abroad. To Athenians Glaucon was still the "Traitor," doubly execrated in this hour of trial. If he returned to his people, would he not be torn in pieces by the mob? But the young Alcmaeonid was resolved. Since he had not died at Thermopylae, no life in the camp of the Barbarian was tolerable. He would trust sovran Athena who had plucked him out of one death to deliver from a second. Therefore he nursed his strength—a caged lion waiting for freedom,—and almost wished the Persian host would advance more swiftly that he might haste onward to his own.

* * * * * * *

Glaucon had cherished a hope to see the whole power of the Peloponnesus in array in Boeotia, but that hope proved quickly vain. The oracle was truly to be fulfilled,—the whole of "the land of Cecrops" was to be possessed by the Barbarian. The mountain passes were open. No arrows greeted the Persian vanguard as it cantered down the defiles, and once more the king's courtiers told their smiling master that not another hand would be raised against him.

The fourth month after quitting the Hellespont Xerxes entered Athens. The gates stood ajar. The invaders walked in silent streets as of a city of the dead. A few runaway slaves alone greeted them. Only in the Acropolis a handful of superstitious old men and temple warders had barricaded themselves, trusting that Athena would still defend her holy mountain. For a few days they defended the steep, rolling down huge boulders, but the end was inevitable. The Persians discovered a secret path upward. The defenders were surprised and dashed themselves from the crags or were massacred. A Median spear-man flung a fire-brand. The house of the guardian goddess went up in flame. The red column leaping to heaven was a beacon for leagues around that Xerxes held the length and breadth of Attica.

Glaucon watched the burning temple with grinding teeth. Mardonius's tents were pitched in the eastern city by the fountain of Callirhoe,—a spot of fond memories for the Alcmaeonid. Here first he had met Hermione, come with her maids to draw water, and had gone away dreaming of Aphrodite arising from the sea. Often here he had sat with Democrates by the little pool, whilst the cypresses above talked their sweet, monotonous music. Before him rose the Rock of Athena,—the same, yet not the same. The temple of his fathers was vanishing in smoke and ashes. What wonder that he turned to Artazostra at his side with a bitter smile.

"Lady, your people have their will. But do not think Athena Nikephorus, the Lady of Triumphs, will forget this day when we stand against you in battle."

She did not answer him. He knew that many noblemen had advised Xerxes against driving the Greeks to desperation by this sacrilege, but this fact hardly made him the happier.

At dusk the next evening Mardonius suffered him to go with two faithful eunuchs and rove through the deserted city. The Persians were mostly encamped without the walls, and plundering was forbidden. Only Hydarnes with the Immortals pitched on Areopagus, and the king had taken his abode by the Agora. It was like walking through the country of the dead. Everything familiar, everything changed. The eunuchs carried torches. They wandered down one street after another, where the house doors stood open, where the aulas were strewn with the debris of household stuff which the fleeing citizens had abandoned. A deserter had already told Glaucon of his father's death; he was not amazed therefore to find the house of his birth empty and desolate. But everywhere else, also, it was to call back memories of glad days never to return. Here was the school where crusty Pollicharmes had driven the "reading, writing, and music" into Democrates and himself between the blows. Here was the corner Hermes, before which he had sacrificed the day he won his first wreath in the public games. Here was the house of Cimon, in whose dining room he had enjoyed many a bright symposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the porticos where he had lounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestling ground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-hearted friends about "the war" and "the king," in the days when the Persian seemed very far away. Last of all an instinct—he could not call it desire—drove him to seek the house of Hermippus.

They had to force the door open with a stone. The first red torch-light that glimmered around the aula told that the Eumolpid had awaited the enemy in Athens, not in Eleusis. The court was littered with all manner of stuff,—crockery, blankets, tables, stools,—which the late inhabitants had been forced to forsake. A tame quail hopped from the tripod by the now cold hearth. Glaucon held out his hand, the bird came quickly, expecting the bit of grain. Had not Hermione possessed such a quail? The outlaw's blood ran quicker. He felt the heat glowing in his forehead.

A chest of clothes stood open by the entrance. He dragged forth the contents—women's dresses and uppermost a white airy gauze of Amorgos that clung to his hands as if he were lifting clouds. Out of its folds fell a pair of white shoes with clasps of gold. Then he recognized this dress Hermione had worn in the Panathenaea and on the night of his ruin. He threw it down, next stood staring over it like a man possessed. The friendly eunuchs watched his strange movements. He could not endure to have them follow him.

"Give me a torch. I return in a moment."

He went up the stair alone to the upper story, to the chambers of the women. Confusion here also,—the more valuable possessions gone, but much remaining. In one corner stood the loom and stretched upon it the half-made web of a shawl. He could trace the pattern clearly wrought in bright wools,—Ariadne sitting desolate awaiting the returning of Theseus. Would the wife or the betrothed of Democrates busy herself with that, whatever the griefs in her heart? Glaucon's temples now were throbbing as if to burst.

A second room, and more littered confusion, but in one corner stood a bronze statue,—Apollo bending his bow against the Achaeans,—which Glaucon had given to Hermione. At the foot of the statue hung a wreath of purple asters, dead and dry, but he plucked it asunder and set many blossoms in his breast.

A third room, and almost empty. He was moving back in disappointment, when the torch-light shook over something that swung betwixt two beams,—a wicker cradle. The woollen swaddling bands were still in it. One could see the spot on the little pillow with the impress of the tiny head. Glaucon almost dropped the torch. He pressed his hand to his brow.

"Zeus pity me!" he groaned, "preserve my reason. How can I serve Hellas and those I love if thou strikest me mad?"

With feverish anxiety he sent his eyes around that chamber. His search was not in vain. He almost trampled upon the thing that lay at his feet,—a wooden rattle, the toy older than the Egyptian pyramids. He seized it, shook it as a warrior his sword. He scanned it eagerly. Upon the handle were letters carved, but there was a mist before his eyes which took long to pass away. Then he read the rude inscription: "ΦΟΙΝΙΞ : ΥΙΟΣ : ΓΛΑΥΚΟΝΤΟΣ." "Phoenix the son of Glaucon." His child. He was the father of a fair son. His wife, he was sure thereof, had not yet been given to Democrates.

Overcome by a thousand emotions, he flung himself upon a chest and pressed the homely toy many times to his lips.

* * * * * * *

After a long interval he recovered himself enough to go down to the eunuchs, who were misdoubting his long absence.

"Persian," he said to Mardonius, when he was again at the bow-bearer's tents, "either suffer me to go back to my people right soon or put me to death. My wife has borne me a son. My place is where I can defend him."

Mardonius frowned, but nodded his head.

"You know I desire it otherwise. But my word is given. And the word of a prince of the Aryans is not to be recalled. You know what to expect among your people—perhaps a foul death for a deed of another."

"I know it. I also know that Hellas needs me."

"To fight against us?" asked the bow-bearer, with a sigh. "Yet you shall go. Eran is not so weak that adding one more to her enemies will halt her triumph. To-morrow night a boat shall be ready on the strand. Take it. And after that may your gods guard you, for I can do no more."

All the next day Glaucon sat in the tents and watched the smoke cloud above the Acropolis and the soldiers in the plain hewing down the sacred olives, Athena's trees, which no Athenian might injure and thereafter live. But Glaucon was past cursing now,—endure a little longer and after that, what vengeance!

The gossiping eunuchs told readily what the king had determined. Xerxes was at Phaleron reviewing his fleet. The Hellenes' ships confronted him at Salamis. The Persians had met in council, deliberating one night over their wine, reconsidering the next morning when sober. Their wisdom each time had been to force a battle. Let the king destroy the enemy at Salamis, and he could land troops at ease at the very doors of Sparta, defying the vain wall across the Isthmus. Was not victory certain? Had he not two ships to the Hellenes' one? So the Phoenician vassal kings and all his admirals assured him. Only Artemisia, the martial queen of Halicarnassus, spoke otherwise, but none would hear her.

"To-morrow the war is ended," a cup-bearer had told a butler in Glaucon's hearing, and never noticed how the Athenian took a horseshoe in his slim fingers and straightened it, whilst looking on the scorched columns of the Acropolis.

At length the sun spread his last gold of the evening. The eunuchs called Glaucon to the pavilion of Artazostra, who came forth with Roxana for their farewell. They were in royal purple. The amethysts in their hair were worth a month's revenues of Corinth. Roxana had never been lovelier. Glaucon was again in the simple Greek dress, but he knelt and kissed the robes of both the women. Then rising he spoke to them.

"To you, O princess, my benefactress, I wish all manner of blessing. May you be crowned with happy age, may your fame surpass Semiramis, the conqueror queen of the fables, let the gods refuse only one prayer—the conquest of Hellas. The rest of the world is yours, leave then to us our own."

"And you, sister of Mardonius," he turned to Roxana now, "do not think I despise your love or your beauty. That I have given you pain, is double pain to me. But I loved you only in a dream. My life is not for the rose valleys of Bactria, but for the stony hills by Athens. May Aphrodite give you another love, a brighter fortune than might ever come by linking your fate to mine."

They held out their hands. He kissed them. He saw tears on the long lashes of Roxana.

"Farewell," spoke the women, simply.

"Farewell," he answered. He turned from them. He knew they were re-entering the tent. He never saw the women again.

Mardonius accompanied him all the long way from the fount of Callirhoe to the sea-shore. Glaucon protested, but the bow-bearer would not hearken.

"You have saved my life, Athenian," was his answer, "when you leave me now, it is forever."

The moon was lifting above the gloomy mass of Hymettus and scattering all the Attic plain with her pale gold. The Acropolis Rock loomed high above them. Glaucon, looking upward, saw the moonlight flash on the spear point and shield of a soldier,—a Barbarian standing sentry on the ruined shrine of the Virgin Goddess. Once more the Alcmaeonid was leaving Athens, but with very different thoughts than on that other night when he had fled at Phormio's side. They quitted the desolate city and the sleeping camp. The last bars of day had long since dimmed in the west when before them loomed the hill of Munychia clustered also with tents, and beyond it the violet-black vista of the sea. A forest of masts crowded the havens, the fleet of the "Lord of the World" that was to complete his mastery with the returning sun. Mardonius did not lead Glaucon to the ports, but southward, where beyond the little point of Colias spread an open sandy beach. The night waves lapped softly. The wind had sunk to warm puffs from the southward. They heard the rattle of anchor-chains and tackle-blocks, but from far away. Beyond the vague promontory of Peiraeus rose dark mountains and headlands, at their foot lay a sprinkling of lights.

"Salamis!" cried Glaucon, pointing. "Yonder are the ships of Hellas."

Mardonius walked with him upon the shelving shore. A skiff, small but stanch, was ready with oars.

"What else will you?" asked the bow-bearer. "Gold?"

"Nothing. Yet take this." Glaucon unclasped from his waist the golden belt Xerxes had bestowed at Sardis. "A Hellene I went forth, a Hellene I return."

He made to kiss the Persian's dress, but Mardonius would not suffer it.

"Did I not desire you for my brother?" he said, and they embraced. As their arms parted, the bow-bearer spoke three words in earnest whisper:—

"Beware of Democrates."

"What do you mean?"

"I can say no more. Yet be wise. Beware of Democrates."

The attendants, faithful body-servants of Mardonius, and mute witnesses of all that passed, were thrusting the skiff into the water. There were no long farewells. Both knew that the parting was absolute, that Glaucon might be dead on the morrow. A last clasping of the hands and quickly the boat was drifting out upon the heaving waters. Glaucon stood one moment watching the figures on the beach and pondering on Mardonius's strange warning. Then he set himself to the oars, rowing westward, skirting the Barbarian fleet as it rode at anchor, observing its numbers and array and how it was aligned for battle. After that, with more rapid stroke, he sent the skiff across the dark ribbon toward Salamis.



CHAPTER XXVI

THEMISTOCLES IS THINKING

Leonidas was taken. Themistocles was left,—left to bear as crushing a load as ever weighed on man,—to fight two battles, one with the Persian, one with his own unheroic allies, and the last was the harder. Three hundred and seventy Greek triremes rode off Salamis, half from Athens, but the commander-in-chief was Eurybiades of Sparta, the sluggard state that sent only sixteen ships, yet the only state the bickering Peloponnesians would obey. Hence Themistocles's sore problems.

Different from the man of unruffled brow who ruled from the bema was he who paced the state cabin of the Nausicaae a few nights after the evacuation. For he at least knew the morn would bring Hellas her doom. There had been a gloomy council that afternoon. They had seen the Acropolis flame two days before. The great fleet of Xerxes rode off the Attic havens. At the gathering of the Greek chiefs in Eurybiades's cabin Themistocles had spoken one word many times,—"Fight!"

To which Adeimantus, the craven admiral of Corinth, and many another had answered:—

"Delay! Back to the Isthmus! Risk nothing!"

Then at last the son of Neocles silenced them, not with arguments but threats. "Either here in the narrow straits we can fight the king or not at all. In the open seas his numbers can crush us. Either vote to fight here or we Athenians sail for Italy and leave you to stem Xerxes as you can."

There had been sullen silence after that, the admirals misliking the furrow drawn above Themistocles's eyes. Then Eurybiades had haltingly given orders for battle.

That had been the command, but as the Athenian left the Spartan flag-ship in his pinnace he heard Globryas, the admiral of Sicyon, muttering, "Headstrong fool—he shall not destroy us!" and saw Adeimantus turn back for a word in Eurybiades's ear. The Spartan had shaken his head, but Themistocles did not deceive himself. In the battle at morn half of the Hellenes would go to battle asking more "how escape?" than "how conquer?" and that was no question to ask before a victory.

The cabin was empty now save for the admiral. On the deck above the hearty shouts of Ameinias the trierarch, and chanting of the seamen told that on the Nausicaae at least there would be no slackness in the fight. The ship was being stripped for action, needless spars and sails sent ashore, extra oars made ready, and grappling-irons placed. "Battle" was what every Athenian prayed for, but amongst the allies Themistocles knew it was otherwise. The crucial hour of his life found him nervous, moody, silent. He repelled the zealous subalterns who came for orders.

"My directions have been given. Execute them. Has Aristeides come yet?" The last question was to Simonides, who had been half-companion, half-counsellor, in all these days of storm.

"He is not yet come from AEgina."

"Leave me, then."

Themistocles's frown deepened. The others went out.

The state cabin was elegant, considering its place. Themistocles had furnished it according to his luxurious taste,—stanchions cased in bronze hammered work, heavy rugs from Carthage, lamps swinging from chains of precious Corinthian brass. Behind a tripod stood an image of Aphrodite of Fair Counsel, the admiral's favourite deity. By force of habit now he crossed the cabin, took the golden box, and shook a few grains of frankincense upon the tripod.

"Attend, O queen," he said mechanically, "and be thou propitious to all my prayers."

He knew the words meant nothing. The puff of night air from the port-hole carried the fragrance from the room. The image wore its unchanging, meaningless smile, and Themistocles smiled too, albeit bitterly.

"So this is the end. A losing fight, cowardice, slavery—no, I shall not live to see that last."

He looked from the port-hole. He could see the lights of the Barbarian fleet clearly. He took long breaths of the clear brine.

"So the tragedy ends—worse than Phrynicus's poorest, when they pelted his chorus from the orchestra with date-stones. And yet—and yet—"

He never formulated what came next even in his own mind.

"Eu!" he cried, springing back with part of his old lightness, "I have borne a brave front before it all. I have looked the Cyclops in the face, even when he glowered the fiercest. But it all will pass. I presume Thersytes the caitiff and Agamemnon the king have the same sleep and the same dreams in Orchus. And a few years more or a few less in a man's life make little matter. But it would be sweeter to go out thinking 'I have triumphed' than 'I have failed, and all the things I loved fail with me.' And Athens—"

Again he stopped. When he resumed his monologue, it was in a different key.

"There are many things I cannot understand. They cannot unlock the riddles at Delphi, no seer can read them in the omens of birds. Why was Glaucon blasted? Was he a traitor? What was the truth concerning his treason? Since his going I have lost half my faith in mortal men."

Once more his thoughts wandered.

"How they trust me, my followers of Athens! Is it not better to be a leader of one city of freemen than a Xerxes, master of a hundred million slaves? How they greeted me, as if I were Apollo the Saviour, when I returned to Peiraeus! And must it be written by the chroniclers thereafter, 'About this time Themistocles, son of Neocles, aroused the Athenians to hopeless resistance and drew on them utter destruction'? O Father Zeus, must men say that? Am I a fool or crazed for wishing to save my land from the fate of Media, Lydia, Babylonia, Egypt, Ionia? Has dark Atropos decreed that the Persians should conquer forever? Then, O Zeus, or whatever be thy name, O Power of Powers, look to thine empire! Xerxes is not a king, but a god; he will besiege Olympus, even thy throne."

He crossed the cabin with hard strides.

"How can I?" he cried half-aloud, beating his forehead. "How can I make these Hellenes fight?"

His hand tightened over his sword-hilt.

"This is the only place where we can fight to advantage. Here in the strait betwixt Salamis and Attica we have space to deploy all our ships, while the Barbarians will be crowded by numbers. And if we once retreat?—Let Adeimantus and the rest prate about—'The wall, the wall across the Isthmus! The king can never storm it.' Nor will he try to, unless his councillors are turned stark mad. Will he not have command of the sea? can he not land his army behind the wall, wherever he wills? Have I not dinned that argument in those doltish Peloponnesians' ears until I have grown hoarse? Earth and gods! suffer me rather to convince a stone statue than a Dorian. The task is less hard. Yet they call themselves reasoning beings."

A knock upon the cabin door. Simonides reentered.

"You do not come on deck, Themistocles? The men ask for you. Ameinias's cook has prepared a noble supper—anchovies and tunny—will you not join the other officers and drink a cup to Tyche, Lady Fortune, that she prosper us in the morning?"

"I am at odds with Tyche, Simonides. I cannot come with you."

"The case is bad, then?"

"Ay, bad. But keep a brave face before the men. There's no call to pawn our last chance."

"Has it come to that?" quoth the little poet, in curiosity and concern.

"Leave me!" ordered Themistocles, with a sweep of the hand, and Simonides was wise enough to obey.

Themistocles took a pen from the table, but instead of writing on the outspread sheet of papyrus, thrust the reed between his teeth and bit it fiercely.

"How can I? How can I make these Hellenes fight? Tell that, King Zeus, tell that!"

Then quickly his eager brain ran from expedient to expedient.

"Another oracle, some lucky prediction that we shall conquer? But I have shaken the oracle books till there is only chaff in them. Or a bribe to Adeimantus and his fellows? But gold can buy only souls, not courage. Or another brave speech and convincing argument? Had I the tongue of Nestor and the wisdom of Thales, would those doltish Dorians listen?"

Again the knock, still again Simonides. The dapper poet's face was a cubit long.

"Oh, grief to report it! Cimon sends a boat from his ship the Perseus. He says the Dike, the Sicyonian ship beside him, is not stripping for battle, but rigging sail on her spars as if to flee away."

"Is that all?" asked Themistocles, calmly.

"And there is also a message that Adeimantus and many other admirals who are minded like him have gone again to Eurybiades to urge him not to fight."

"I expected it."

"Will the Spartan yield?" The little poet was whitening.

"Very likely. Eurybiades would be a coward if he were not too much of a fool."

"And you are not going to him instantly, to confound the faint hearts and urge them to quit themselves like Hellenes?"

"Not yet."

"By the dog of Egypt, man," cried Simonides, seizing his friend's arm, "don't you know that if nothing's done, we'll all walk the asphodel to-morrow?"

"Of course. I am doing all I can."

"All? You stand with folded hands!"

"All—for I am thinking."

"Thinking—oh, make actions of your thoughts!"

"I will."

"When?"

"When the god opens the way. Just now the way is fast closed."

"Ai! woe—and it is already far into the evening, and Hellas is lost."

Themistocles laughed almost lightly.

"No, my friend. Hellas will not be lost until to-morrow morning, and much can happen in a night. Now go, and let me think yet more."

Simonides lingered. He was not sure Themistocles was master of himself. But the admiral beckoned peremptorily, the poet's hand was on the cabin door, when a loud knock sounded on the other side. The proreus, commander of the fore-deck and Ameinas's chief lieutenant, entered and saluted swiftly.

"Your business?" questioned the admiral, sharply.

"May it please your Excellency, a deserter."

"A deserter, and how and why here?"

"He came to the Nausicaae in a skiff. He swears he has just come from the Barbarians at Phaleron. He demands to see the admiral."

"He is a Barbarian?"

"No, a Greek. He affects to speak a kind of Doric dialect."

Themistocles laughed again, and even more lightly.

"A deserter, you say. Then why, by Athena's owls, has he left 'the Land of Roast Hare' among the Persians, whither so many are betaking themselves? We've not so many deserters to our cause that to-night we can ignore one. Fetch him in."

"But the council with Eurybiades?" implored Simonides, almost on his knees.

"To the harpies with it! I asked Zeus for an omen. It comes—a fair one. There is time to hear this deserter, to confound Adeimantus, and to save Hellas too!"

Themistocles tossed his head. The wavering, the doubting frown was gone. He was himself again. What he hoped for, what device lay in that inexhaustible brain of his, Simonides did not know. But the sight itself of this strong, smiling man gave courage. The officer reentered, with him a young man, his face in part concealed by a thick beard and a peaked cap drawn low upon his forehead. The stranger came boldly across to Themistocles, spoke a few words, whereat the admiral instantly bade the officer to quit the cabin.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE CRAFT OF ODYSSEUS

The stranger drew back the shaggy cap. Simonides and Themistocles saw a young, well-formed man. With his thick beard and the flickering cabin lamps it was impossible to discover more. The newcomer stood silent as if awaiting remark from the others, and they in turn looked on him.

"Well," spoke the admiral, at length, "who are you? Why are you here?"

"You do not know me?"

"Not in the least, and my memory is good. But your speech now is Attic, not Doric as they told me."

"It may well be Attic, I am Athenian born."

"Athenian? And still to me a stranger? Ah! an instant. Your voice is familiar. Where have I heard it before?"

"The last time," rejoined the stranger, his tones rising, "it was a certain night at Colonus. Democrates and Hermippus were with you—likewise—"

Themistocles leaped back three steps.

"The sea gives up its dead. You are Glaucon son of—"

"Conon," completed the fugitive, folding his arms calmly, but the admiral was not so calm.

"Miserable youth! What harpy, what evil god has brought you hither? What prevents that I give you over to the crew to crucify at the foremast?"

"Nothing hinders! nothing"—Glaucon's voice mounted to shrillness—"save that Athens and Hellas need all their sons this night."

"A loyal son you have been!" darted Themistocles, his lips curling. "Where did you escape the sea?"

"I was washed on Astypalaea."

"Where have you been since?"

"In Sardis."

"Who protected you there?"

"Mardonius."

"Did the Persians treat you so shabbily that you were glad to desert them?"

"They loaded me with riches and honour. Xerxes showered me with benefits."

"And you accompanied their army to Hellas? You went with the other Greek renegades—the sons of Hippias and the rest?"

Glaucon's brow grew very red, but he met Themistocles's arrowlike gaze.

"I did—and yet—"

"Ah, yes—the 'yet,' " observed Themistocles, sarcastically. "I had expected it. Well, I can imagine many motives for coming,—to betray our hopes to the Persians, or even because Athena has put some contrite manhood in your heart. You know, of course, that the resolution we passed recalling the exiles did not extend pardon to traitors."

"I know it."

Themistocles flung himself into a chair. The admiral was in a rare condition for him,—truly at a loss to divine the best word and question.

"Sit also, Simonides," his order, "and you, once Alcmaeonid and now outlaw, tell why, after these confessions, I should believe any other part of your story?"

"I do not ask you to believe,"—Glaucon stood like a statue,—"I shall not blame you if you do the worst,—yet you shall hear—"

The admiral made an impatient gesture, commanding "Begin," and the fugitive poured out his tale. All the voyage from Phaleron he had been nerving himself for this ordeal; his composure did not desert now. He related lucidly, briefly, how the fates had dealt with him since he fled Colonus. Only when he told of his abiding with Leonidas Themistocles's gaze grew sharper.

"Tell that again. Be careful. I am very good at detecting lies."

Glaucon repeated unfalteringly.

"What proof that you were with Leonidas?"

"None but my word. Euboulus of Corinth and the Spartans alone knew my name. They are dead."

"Humph! And you expect me to accept the boast of a traitor with a price upon his head?"

"You said you were good at detecting lies."

Themistocles's head went down between his hands; at last he lifted it and gazed the deserter in the face.

"Now, son of Conon, do you still persist that you are innocent? Do you repeat those oaths you swore at Colonus?"

"All. I did not write that letter."

"Who did, then?"

"A malignant god, I said. I will say it again."

Themistocles shook his head.

"Gods take human agencies to ruin a man in these days, even Hermes the Trickster. Again I say, who wrote that letter?"

"Athena knows."

"And unfortunately her Ladyship the Goddess will not tell," cried the admiral, blasphemously. "Let us fall back on easier questions. Did I write it?"

"Absurd."

"Did Democrates?"

"Absurd again, still—"

"Do you not see, dearest outlaw," said Themistocles, mildly, "until you can lay that letter on some other man's shoulders, I cannot answer, 'I believe you'?"

"I did not ask that. I have a simpler request. Will you let me serve Hellas?"

"How do I know you are not a spy sent from Mardonius?"

"Because too many deserters and talebearers are flying to Xerxes now to require that I thrust my head in the Hydra's jaws. You know surely that."

Themistocles raised his eyebrows.

"There's truth said there, Simonides. What do you think?" The last question was to the poet.

"That this Glaucon, whatever his guilt a year ago, comes to-night in good faith."

"Euge! that's easily said. But what if he betrays us again?"

"If I understand aright," spoke Simonides, shrewdly, "our case is such there's little left worth betraying."

"Not badly put,"—again Themistocles pressed his forehead, while Glaucon stood as passive as hard marble. Then the admiral suddenly began to rain questions like an arrow volley.

"You come from the king's camp?"

"Yes."

"And have heard the plans of battle?"

"I was not at the council, but nothing is concealed. The Persians are too confident."

"Of course. How do their ships lie?"

"Crowded around the havens of Athens. The vassal Ionians have their ships on the left. The Phoenicians, Xerxes's chief hope, lie on the right, but on the extreme right anchor the Egyptians."

"How do you know this?"

"From the camp-followers' talk. Then, too, I rowed by the whole armada while on my way to Salamis. I have eyes. The moon was shining. I was not mistaken."

"Do you know where rides the trireme of Ariabignes, Xerxes's admiral-in-chief?"

"Off the entrance to Peiraeus. It is easy to find her. She is covered with lights."

"Ah! and the Egyptian squadron is on the extreme right and closest to Salamis?"

"Very close."

"If they went up the coast as far as the promontory on Mt. AEgaleos, the strait toward Eleusis would be closed?"

"Certainly."

"And on the south the way is already blocked by the Ionians."

"I had trouble in passing even in my skiff."

More questions, Glaucon not knowing whither they all were drifting. Without warning Themistocles uprose and smote his thigh.

"So you are anxious to serve Hellas?"

"Have I not said it?"

"Dare you die for her?"

"I made the choice once with Leonidas."

"Dare you do a thing which, if it slip, may give you into the hands of the Barbarians to be torn by wild horses or of the Greeks to be crucified?"

"But it shall not slip!"

"Euge! that is a noble answer. Now let us come."

"Whither?"

"To Eurybiades's flag-ship. Then I can know whether you must risk the deed."

Themistocles touched a bronze gong; a marine adjutant entered.

"My pinnace," ordered the admiral. As the man went out, Themistocles took a long himation from the locker and wrapped it around the newcomer.

"Since even Simonides and I did not recognize you in your long beard, I doubt if you are in danger of detection to-night. But remember your name is Critias. You can dye your hair if you come safe back from this adventure. Have you eaten?"

"Who has hunger now?"

Themistocles laughed.

"So say all of us. But if the gifts of Demeter cannot strengthen, it is not so with those of Dionysus. Drink."

He took from a hook a leathern bottle and poured out a hornful of hot Chian. Glaucon did not refuse. After he had finished the admiral did likewise. Then Glaucon in turn asked questions.

"Where is my wife?"

"In the town of Salamis, with her father; do you know she has borne—"

"A son. Are both well?"

"Well. The child is fair as the son of Leto."

They could see the light flash out of the eyes of the outlaw. He turned toward the statue and stretched out his hand.

"O Aphrodite, I bless thee!" Then again to the admiral, "And Hermione is not yet given to Democrates in marriage?" The words came swiftly.

"Not yet. Hermippus desires it. Hermione resists. She calls Democrates your destroyer."

Glaucon turned away his face that they might not behold it.

"The god has not yet forgotten mercy," Simonides thought he heard him say.

"The pinnace is waiting, kyrie," announced the orderly from the companionway.

"Let the deserter's skiff be towed behind," ordered Themistocles, once on deck, "and let Sicinnus also go with me."

The keen-eyed Asiatic took his place with Themistocles and Glaucon in the stern. The sturdy boatmen sent the pinnace dancing. All through the brief voyage the admiral was at whispers with Sicinnus. As they reached the Spartan flag-ship, half a score of pinnaces trailing behind told how the Peloponnesian admirals were already aboard clamouring at Eurybiades for orders to fly. From the ports of the stern-cabin the glare of many lamps spread wavering bars of light across the water. Voices came, upraised in jarring debate. The marine guard saluted with his spear as Themistocles went up the ladder. Leaving his companions on deck, the admiral hastened below. An instant later he was back and beckoned the Asiatic and the outlaw to the ship's rail.

"Take Sicinnus to the Persian high admiral," was his ominous whisper, "and fail not,—fail not, for I say to you except the god prosper you now, not all Olympus can save our Hellas to-morrow."

Not another word as he turned again to the cabin. The pinnace crew had brought the skiff alongside, Sicinnus entered it, Glaucon took the oars, pulled out a little, as if back to the Nausicaae, then sent the head of the skiff around, pointing across the strait, toward the havens of Athens. Sicinnus sat in silence, but Glaucon guessed the errand. The wind was rising and bringing clouds. This would hide the moon and lessen the danger. But above all things speed was needful. The athlete put his strength upon the oars till the heavy skiff shot across the black void of the water.

* * * * * * *

It was little short of midnight when Glaucon swung the skiff away from the tall trireme of Ariabignes, the Barbarian's admiral. The deed was done. He had sat in the bobbing boat while Sicinnus had been above with the Persian chiefs. Officers who had exchanged the wine-cup with Glaucon in the days when he stood at Xerxes's side passed through the glare of the battle lanterns swaying above the rail. The Athenian had gripped at the dagger in his belt as he watched them. Better in the instant of discovery to slay one's self than die a few hours afterward by slow tortures! But discovery had not come. Sicinnus had come down the ladder, smiling, jesting, a dozen subalterns salaaming as he went, and offering all manner of service, for had he not been a bearer of great good tidings to the king?

"Till to-morrow," an olive-skinned Cilician navarch had spoken.

"Till to-morrow," waved the messenger, lightly. He did all things coolly, as if he had been bearing an invitation to a feast, took his post in the stern of the skiff deliberately, then turned to the silent man with him.

"Pull."

"Whither?" Glaucon was already tugging the oars.

"To Eurybiades's ship. Themistocles is waiting. And again all speed."

The line of twinkling water betwixt the skiff and the Persian widened. For a few moments Glaucon bent himself silently to his task, then for the first time questioned.

"What have you done?"

Even in the darkness he knew Sicinnus grinned and showed his teeth.

"In the name of Themistocles I have told the Barbarian chiefs that the Hellenes are at strife one with another, that they are meditating a hasty flight, that if the king's captains will but move their ships so as to enclose them, it is likely there will be no battle in the morning, but the Hellenes will fall into the hands of Xerxes unresisting."

"And the Persian answered?"

"That I and my master would not fail of reward for this service to the king. That the Egyptian ships would be swung at once across the strait to cut off all flight by the Hellenes."

The outlaw made no answer, but pulled at the oars. The reaction from the day and evening of strain and peril was upon him. He was unutterably weary, though more in mind than in body. The clumsy skiff seemed only to crawl. Trusting the orders of Sicinnus to steer him aright, he closed his eyes. One picture after another of his old life came up before him now he was in the stadium at Corinth and facing the giant Spartan, now he stood by Hermione on the sacred Rock at Athens, now he was at Xerxes's side with the fleets and the myriads passing before them at the Hellespont, he saw his wife, he saw Roxana, and all other things fair and lovely that had crossed his life. Had he made the best choice? Were the desperate fates of Hellas better than the flower-banked streams of Bactria, whose delights he had forever thrust by? Would his Fortune, guider of every human destiny, bring him at last to a calm haven, or would his life go out amid the crashing ships to-morrow? The oars bumped on the thole-pins. He pulled mechanically, the revery ever deepening, then a sharp hail awoke him.

"O-op! What do you here?"

The call was in Phoenician. Glaucon scarce knew the harsh Semitic speech, but the lembos, a many-oared patrol cutter, was nearly on them. A moment more, and seizure would be followed by identification. Life, death, Hellas, Hermione, all flashed before his eyes as he sat numbed, but Sicinnus saved them both.

"The password to-night? You know it," he demanded in quick whisper.

" 'Hystaspes,' " muttered Glaucon, still wool-gathering.

"Who are you? Why here?" An officer in the cutter was rising and upholding an unmasked lantern. "We've been ordered to cruise in the channel and snap up deserters, and by Baal, here are twain! The crows will pick at your eyes to-morrow."

Sicinnus stood upright in the skiff.

"Fool," he answered in good Sidonian, "dare you halt the king's privy messenger? It is not our heads that the crows will find the soonest."

The cutter was close beside them, but the officer dropped his lantern.

"Good, then. Give the password."

" 'Hystaspes.' "

They could see the Phoenician's hand rise to his head in salute.

"Forgive my rudeness, worthy sir. It's truly needless to seek deserters to-night with the Hellenes' affairs so desperate, yet we must obey his Eternity's orders."

"I pardon you," quoth the emissary, loftily, "I will commend your vigilance to the admiral."

"May Moloch give your Lordship ten thousand children," called back the mollified Semite.

The crew of the cutter dropped their blades into the water. The boats glided apart. Not till there was a safe stretch betwixt them did Glaucon begin to grow hot, then cold, then hot again. Chill Thanatos had passed and missed by a hair's breadth. Again the bumping of the oars and the slow, slow creeping over the water. The night was darkening. The clouds had hid the moon and all her stars. Sicinnus, shrewd and weatherwise, remarked, "There will be a stiff wind in the morning," and lapsed into silence. Glaucon toiled on resolutely. A fixed conviction was taking possession of his mind,—one that had come on the day he had been preserved at Thermopylae, now deepened by the event just passed,—that he was being reserved by the god for some crowning service to Hellas, after which should come peace, whether the peace of a warrior who dies in the arms of victory, whether the peace of a life spent after a deed well done, he scarcely knew, and in the meantime, if the storms must beat and the waves rise up against him, he would bear them still. Like the hero of his race, he could say, "Already have I suffered much and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war, let this be added to the tale of those."

Bump—bump, the oars played their monotonous music on the thole-pins. Sicinnus stirred on his seat. He was peering northward anxiously, and Glaucon knew what he was seeking. Through the void of the night their straining eyes saw masses gliding across the face of the water. Ariabignes was making his promise good. Yonder the Egyptian fleet were swinging forth to close the last retreat of the Hellenes. Thus on the north, and southward, too, other triremes were thrusting out, bearing—both watchers wisely guessed—a force to disembark on Psyttaleia, the islet betwixt Salamis and the main, a vantage-point in the coming battle.

The coming battle? It was so silent, ghostlike, far away, imagination scarce could picture it. Was this black slumberous water to be the scene at dawn of a combat beside which that of Hector and Achilles under Troy would be only as a tale that is told? And was he, Glaucon, son of Conon the Alcmaeonid, sitting there in the skiff alone with Sicinnus, to have a part therein, in a battle the fame whereof should ring through the ages? Bump, bump—still the monologue of the oars. A fish near by leaped from the water, splashing loudly. Then for an instant the clouds broke. Selene uncovered her face. The silvery flash quickly come, more quickly flying, showed him the headlands of that Attica now in Xerxes's hands. He saw Pentelicus and Hymettus, Parnes and Cithaeron, the hills he had wandered over in glad boyhood, the hills where rested his ancestors' dust. It was no dream. He felt his warm blood quicken. He felt the round-bowed skiff spring over the waves, as with unwearied hands he tugged at the oar. There are moments when the dullest mind grows prophetic, and the mind of the Athenian was not dull. The moonlight had vanished. In its place through the magic darkness seemed gathering all the heroes of his people beckoning him and his compeers onward. Perseus was there, and Theseus and Erechtheus, Heracles the Mighty, and Odysseus the Patient, whose intellect Themistocles possessed, Solon the Wise, Periander the Crafty, Diomedes the Undaunted, men of reality, men of fable, sages, warriors, demigods, crowding together, speaking one message: "Be strong, for the heritage of what you do this coming day shall be passed beyond children's children, shall be passed down to peoples to whom the tongue, the gods, yea, the name of Hellas, are but as a dream."