CHAPTER XXIII

[pg 253]CHAPTER XXIIITHE DARKEST HOURA 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, Ægina, and a few lesser states were moderately loyal, but great Sparta only procrastinated and despatched no help[pg 254]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[pg 255]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 Peiræus; 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 Peiræus, 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 Ægina, 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 theNausicaäas the piper on the flag-ship gave the time to the oars. The triple line of blades, pumiced white, splashed with a[pg 256]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 Phœnix 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[pg 257]wars. And if we survive this one, will not just Zeus spare us from further bloodshed?”Democrates, without answering, approached the nurse, and Phœnix—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 Phœnix? 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 forgethisface 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[pg 258]Phœnix. 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 Phœnix 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 Bœotian 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 theSolon, but when the fishmonger paused she hung down her head closer.[pg 259]“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 theSolon.’‘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 Ægean 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 drachmæ to say no more about it.”“And so Bias at once told you?”Hermione could not for[pg 260]bear 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 Phœnix 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 priest[pg 261]esses 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 Thermopylæ. The fleets are fighting at Artemisium, off Eubœa. 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 Thermopylæ. 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[pg 262]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 Phœnix 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. Thermopylæ is turned! Xerxes is advancing!”Hermione staggered back from the lattice. In the cradle Phœnix 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.[pg 263]“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 Bœotia. 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.[pg 264]CHAPTER XXIVTHE EVACUATION OF ATHENSIt 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 Thermopylæ. He bore a letter from Themistocles, who was returning from Eubœa 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[pg 265]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, Æginetan, and other allies. Before the rest raced a stately ship, theNausicaä, her triple-[pg 266]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[pg 267]of pallid, whimpering maids. Cleopis was bearing Phœnix, 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 Peiræus,—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?[pg 268]CHAPTER XXVTHE ACROPOLIS FLAMESA few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumph at Thermopylæ. 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. Bœotia and her cities welcomed the king; Thespiæ and Platæa, 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 Thermopylæ 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[pg 269]Phœnician 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 Bœotia.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.[pg 270]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 Thermopylæ, 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 Platæa 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 Thermopylæ. 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[pg 271]torn in pieces by the mob? But the young Alcmæonid was resolved. Since he had not died at Thermopylæ, 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 Bœotia, 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[pg 272]fountain of Callirhoë,—a spot of fond memories for the Alcmæonid. 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 débris 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[pg 273]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 Panathenæa 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[pg 274]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 withthat, 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 Achæans,—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.”“Phœnix the son of Glaucon.”Hischild. He was the father of a fair son. His wife, he was sure thereof, had not yet been given to Democrates.[pg 275]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[pg 276]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 Phœnician 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.[pg 277]“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 Callirhoë 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 Alcmæonid 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 Peiræus rose dark mountains and headlands, at their foot lay a sprinkling of lights.“Salamis!”cried Glaucon, pointing.“Yonder are the ships of Hellas.”[pg 278]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.

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, Ægina, and a few lesser states were moderately loyal, but great Sparta only procrastinated and despatched no help[pg 254]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[pg 255]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 Peiræus; 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 Peiræus, 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 Ægina, 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 theNausicaäas the piper on the flag-ship gave the time to the oars. The triple line of blades, pumiced white, splashed with a[pg 256]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 Phœnix 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[pg 257]wars. And if we survive this one, will not just Zeus spare us from further bloodshed?”

Democrates, without answering, approached the nurse, and Phœnix—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 Phœnix? 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 forgethisface 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[pg 258]Phœnix. 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 Phœnix 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 Bœotian 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 theSolon, 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 theSolon.’‘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 Ægean 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 drachmæ to say no more about it.”

“And so Bias at once told you?”Hermione could not for[pg 260]bear 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 Phœnix 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 priest[pg 261]esses 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 Thermopylæ. The fleets are fighting at Artemisium, off Eubœa. 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 Thermopylæ. 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[pg 262]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 Phœnix 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. Thermopylæ is turned! Xerxes is advancing!”

Hermione staggered back from the lattice. In the cradle Phœnix 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 Bœotia. 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.

[pg 264]CHAPTER XXIVTHE EVACUATION OF ATHENSIt 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 Thermopylæ. He bore a letter from Themistocles, who was returning from Eubœa 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[pg 265]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, Æginetan, and other allies. Before the rest raced a stately ship, theNausicaä, her triple-[pg 266]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[pg 267]of pallid, whimpering maids. Cleopis was bearing Phœnix, 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 Peiræus,—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?

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 Thermopylæ. He bore a letter from Themistocles, who was returning from Eubœa 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[pg 265]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, Æginetan, and other allies. Before the rest raced a stately ship, theNausicaä, her triple-[pg 266]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[pg 267]of pallid, whimpering maids. Cleopis was bearing Phœnix, 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 Peiræus,—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?

[pg 268]CHAPTER XXVTHE ACROPOLIS FLAMESA few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumph at Thermopylæ. 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. Bœotia and her cities welcomed the king; Thespiæ and Platæa, 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 Thermopylæ 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[pg 269]Phœnician 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 Bœotia.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.[pg 270]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 Thermopylæ, 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 Platæa 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 Thermopylæ. 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[pg 271]torn in pieces by the mob? But the young Alcmæonid was resolved. Since he had not died at Thermopylæ, 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 Bœotia, 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[pg 272]fountain of Callirhoë,—a spot of fond memories for the Alcmæonid. 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 débris 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[pg 273]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 Panathenæa 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[pg 274]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 withthat, 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 Achæans,—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.”“Phœnix the son of Glaucon.”Hischild. He was the father of a fair son. His wife, he was sure thereof, had not yet been given to Democrates.[pg 275]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[pg 276]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 Phœnician 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.[pg 277]“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 Callirhoë 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 Alcmæonid 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 Peiræus rose dark mountains and headlands, at their foot lay a sprinkling of lights.“Salamis!”cried Glaucon, pointing.“Yonder are the ships of Hellas.”[pg 278]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.

A few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumph at Thermopylæ. 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. Bœotia and her cities welcomed the king; Thespiæ and Platæa, 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 Thermopylæ 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[pg 269]Phœnician 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 Bœotia.

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.[pg 270]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 Thermopylæ, 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 Platæa 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 Thermopylæ. 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[pg 271]torn in pieces by the mob? But the young Alcmæonid was resolved. Since he had not died at Thermopylæ, 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 Bœotia, 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[pg 272]fountain of Callirhoë,—a spot of fond memories for the Alcmæonid. 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 débris 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[pg 273]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 Panathenæa 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[pg 274]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 withthat, 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 Achæans,—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.”“Phœnix the son of Glaucon.”Hischild. 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[pg 276]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 Phœnician 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 Callirhoë 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 Alcmæonid 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 Peiræus 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.

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