[pg 388]CHAPTER XXXVITHE READING OF THE RIDDLEA hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they caught theBozra. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil, fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop, listening to the report of hisprōreus.“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.“Kyrie, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl,‘The navarch! show us the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’And one of them—as true as that I sucked my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble up the ladder, covered with[pg 389]blood, the red lines of the fetters marked into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch recoiled in horror at his fellow-citizen’s plight.“Infernal gods! You a prisoner here? Where is this cursed vessel from?”“From Trœzene,”gasped the refugee;“if you love Athens and Hellas—”He turned just in time to fling an arm about Hiram, who—carelessly guarded—was gliding down the hatchway.“Seize that viper, bind, torture; he knows all. Make him tell or Hellas is lost!”“Control yourself, friend,”adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen nipped him fast and disarmed.“Ah! you carrion meat,”shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the helpless creature’s nose.“Honest men have their day at last. There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.”“Peace,”commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end.“Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?”“If you will be so good, sir captain,”the third Hellene at last broke his silence,“you will hearken to me.”“Who are you?”“Theprōreusof theAlcyoneof Melos. More of myself hereafter. But if you love the weal of Hellas, demand of this Hiram where he concealed the treasonable despatches he received at Trœzene and now has aboard.”[pg 390]“Hiram? O Lord Apollo, I recognize the snake! The one that was always gliding around Lycon at the Isthmus. If despatches he has, I know the way to get them. Now, black-hearted Cyclops,”—Cimon’s tone was not gentle,—“where are your papers?”Hiram had turned gray as a corpse, but his white teeth came together.“Phormio is mistaken. Your slave has none.”“Bah!”threw out Cimon,“I can smell your lies like garlic. Silent still? Good, see how I am better than Asclepius. I make the dumb talk by a miracle. A cord and belaying-pin, Naon.”The seaman addressed passed a cord about the Phœnician’s forehead with a fearful dexterity, and put the iron pin at the back of the skull.“Twist!”commanded Cimon. Two mariners gripped the victim’s arms. Naon pressed the cord tighter, tighter. A beastlike groan came through the lips of the Phœnician. His beady eyes started from his head, but he did not speak.“Again,”thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal agony escaped the prisoner.“Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!”“Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.”“In the boat mast.”Hiram spit the words out one by one.“In the cabin. There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the papers. Woe! woe! cursed the day I was born. Cursed my mother for bearing me.”The miserable creature fell to the deck, pressing his hands to his temples and moaning in agony. No one heeded him now. Cimon himself ran below to the mast, and wrenched the peg from its socket. Papyrus sheets were there, rolled compactly, covered with writing and sealed. The navarch[pg 391]turned over the packet curiously, then to the amazement of the sailors seemed to stagger against the mast. He was as pale as Hiram. He thrust the packet into the hands of hisprōreus, who stood near.“What make you of this seal? As you fear Athena, tell the truth.”“You need not adjure me so, captain. The device is simple: Theseus slaying the Minotaur.”“And who, in Zeus’s name, do you know in Athens who uses a seal like that?”Silence for a moment, then theprōreushimself was pale.“Your Excellency does not mean—”“Democrates!”cried the trembling navarch.“And why not Democrates?”The words came from the released prisoner, who had been so silent, but who had glided down and stood at Cimon’s elbow. He spoke in a changed voice now; again the navarch was startled.“Is Themistocles on theNausicaä?”asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if he himself were growing mad.“Yes—but your voice, your face, your manner—my head is dizzy.”The stranger touched him gently on the hand.“Have I so changed, you quite forget me, Cimon?”The son of Miltiades was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram’s tortures with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw’s neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before him was his long-time comrade.“My friend! My boyhood’s friend!”and so for many times they kissed.[pg 392]TheNausicaähad followed the chase at easy distance, ready with aid in case theBozraresisted. Themistocles was in his cabin with Simonides, when Cimon and Glaucon came to him. The admiral heard his young navarch’s report, then took the unopened packet and requested Cimon and the poet to withdraw. As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway, Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely.“Tell your story.”Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the captives, the voyage and the pursuing. The son of Neocles never hastened the recital, though once or twice he widened it by an incisive question. At the end he demanded:—“And does Phormio confirm all this?”“All. Question him.”“Humph! He’s a truthful man in everything save the price of fish. Now let us open the packet.”Themistocles was exceeding deliberate. He drew his dagger and pried the wrapper open without breaking the seals or tearing the papyrus. He turned the strips of paper carefully one by one, opened a casket, and drew thence a written sheet which he compared painfully with those before him.“The same hand,”his remark in undertone.He was so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain was at its fateful work.At last he uttered one word,“Cipher.”[pg 393]A sheet lay before him covered with broken words and phrases—seemingly without meaning—but the admiral knew the secret of the Spartanscytalē, the“cipher wood.”Forth from his casket came a number of rounded sticks of varying lengths. On one after another he wound the sheet spirally until at the fifth trial the scattered words came together. He read with ease. Then Themistocles’s brows grew closer than before. He muttered softly in his beard. But still he said nothing aloud. He read the cipher sheet through once, twice; it seemed thrice. Other sheets he fingered delicately, as though he feared the touch of venom. All without haste, but at the end, when Themistocles arose from his seat, the outlaw trembled. Many things he had seen, but never a face so changed. The admiral was neither flushed nor pale. But ten years seemed added to those lines above his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed. Was it fancy that put the gray into his beard and hair? Slowly he rose; slowly he ordered the marine on guard outside the cabin to summon Simonides, Cimon, and all the officers of the flag-ship. They trooped hither and filled the narrow cabin—fifteen or more hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the Ægean rocked theNausicaäsoftly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were grumbling lest the penteconter’s people get all the booty of theBozra. Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on Themistocles’s awful face.The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet.[pg 394]The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner before a race.“Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost.”“Democrates is a traitor!”The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.“I did not call you down to wail and groan.”He never raised his voice; his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a flood.“When? How? Declare.”“Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades did not die in vain.”Yet despite him men wept on one another’s shoulders as became true Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed, rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words of doom.“This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is Democrates’s, the seals are his. Give ear.“Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on the coasts of Asia, greeting:—Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even now I depart from Trœzene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in Bœotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making Mardonius’s victory certain.[pg 395]“For your part, excellent Tigranes, you must avoid the Hellenic ships at Delos and come back to Mardonius with your fleet ready to second him at once after his victory, which will be speedy; then with your aid he can readily turn the wall at the Isthmus. I send also letters written, as it were, in the hand of Themistocles. See that they fall into the hands of the other Greek admirals. They will breed more hurt amongst the Hellenes than you can accomplish with all your ships. I send, likewise, lists of such Athenians and Spartans as are friendly to his Majesty, also memoranda of such secret plans of the Greeks as have come to my knowledge.“From Trœzene, given into the hands of Hiram on the second of Metageitnion, in the archonship of Xanthippus.Chaire!”Themistocles ceased. No man spoke a word. It was as if a god had flung a bolt from heaven. What use to cry against it? Then, in an ominously low voice, Simonides asked a question.“What are these letters which purport to come from your pen, Themistocles?”The admiral unrolled another papyrus, and as he looked thereon his fine face contracted with loathing.“Let another read. I am made to pour contempt and ridicule upon my fellow-captains. I am made to boast‘when the war ends, I will be tyrant of Athens.’A thousand follies and wickednesses are put in my mouth. Were this letter true, I were the vilest wretch escaping Orcus. Since forged—”his hands clinched—“by that man, that man whom I have trusted, loved, cherished, called‘younger brother,’‘oldest son’—”He spat in rising fury and was still.“‘Fain would I grip his liver in my teeth,’”cried the little poet, even in storm and stress not forgetting his Homer. And the howl from the man-of-war’s men was as the howl of beasts desiring their prey. But the admiral’s burst of anger ended. He stood again an image of calm power. The voice that[pg 396]had charmed the thousands rang forth in its strength and sweetness.“Men of Athens, this is no hour for windy rage. Else I should rage the most, for who is more wronged than I? One whom we loved is fallen—later let us weep for him. One whom we trusted is false—later punish him. But now the work is neither to weep nor to punish, but to save Hellas. A great battle impends in Bœotia. Except the Zeus of our sires and Athena of the Pure Eyes be with us, we are men without home, without fatherland. Pausanias and Aristeides must be warned. TheNausicaäis the‘Salaminia,’—the swiftest trireme in the fleet. Ours must be the deed, and ours the glory. Enough of this—the men must hear, and then to the oars.”Themistocles had changed from despair to a triumph note. There was uplift even to look upon him. He strode before all hislieutenantsup and out upon the poop. The long tiers of benches and the gangways filled with rowers peered up at him. They had seen their officers gather in the cabin, and Dame Rumour, subtlest of Zeus’s messengers, had breathed“ill-tidings.”Now the admiral stood forth, and in few words told all the heavy tale. Again a great shout, whilst the bronzed men groaned on the benches.“Democrates is a traitor!”A deity had fallen from their Olympus; the darling of the Athenians’s democracy was sunk to vilest of the vile. But the admiral knew how to play on their two hundred hearts better than Orpheus upon his lyre. Again the note changed from despair to incitement, and when at last he called,“And can we cross the Ægean as never trireme crossed and pluck back Hellas from her fate?”thalamite, zygite, and thranite rose, tossing their brawny arms into the air.“We can!”[pg 397]Then Themistocles folded his own arms and smiled. He felt the god was still with him.* * * * * * *Yet, eager as was the will, they could not race forth instantly. Orders must be written to Xanthippus, the Athenian vice-admiral far away, bidding him at all hazards to keep the Persian fleet near Samos. Cimon was long in privy council with Themistocles in the state cabin. At the same time a prisoner was passed aboard theNausicaä, not gently bound,—Hiram, a precious witness, before the dogs had their final meal on him. But the rest of theBozra’speople found a quicker release. The penteconter’s people decided their fate with a yell.“Sell such harpies for slaves? The money would stink through our pouches!”So two by two, tied neck to neck and heel to heel, the wretches were flung overboard,“because we lack place and wood to crucify you,”called theNausicaä’sgovernor, as he pushed the last pair off into the leaden sea,—for the day was distant when the destruction of such Barbarian rogues would weigh even on tender consciences.So the Carthaginians ceased from troubling, but before the penteconter and theBozrabore away to join the remaining fleet, another deed was done in sight of all three ships. For whilst Themistocles was with Cimon, Simonides and Sicinnus had taken Glaucon to theNausicaä’sforecastle. Now as the penteconter was casting off, again he came to view, and the shout that greeted him was not of fear this time, but wonder and delight. The Alcmæonid was clean-shaven, his hair clipped close, the black dye even in a manner washed away. He had flung off the rough seaman’s dress, and stood forth in all his godlike beauty.Before all men Cimon, coming from the cabin, ran and[pg 398]kissed him once more, whilst the rowers clapped their hands.“Apollo—it is Delian Apollo! Glaucon the Beautiful lives again.Io! Io! pæan!”“Yes,”spoke Themistocles, in a burst of gladness.“The gods take one friend, they restore another. Œdipus has read the sphinx’s riddle. Honour this man, for he is worthy of honour through Hellas!”The officers ran to the athlete, after them the sailors. They covered his face and hands with kisses. He seemed escaped the Carthaginian to perish in the embrace of his countrymen. Never was his blush more boyish, more divine. Then a bugle-blast sent every man to his station. Cimon leaped across to his smaller ship. The rowers of theNausicaäran out their oars, the hundred and seventy blades trailed in the water. Every man took a long breath and fixed his eyes on the admiral standing on the poop. He held a golden goblet set with turquoise, and filled with the blood-red Pramnian wine. Loudly Themistocles prayed.“Zeus of Olympus and Dodona, Zeus Orchios, rewarder of the oath-breaker, to whom the Hellenes do not vainly pray, and thou Athena of the Pure Eyes, give ear. Make our ship swift, our arms strong, our hearts bold. Hold back the battle that we come not too late. Grant that we confound the guilty, put to flight the Barbarian, recompense the traitor. So to you and all other holy gods whose love is for the righteous we will proffer prayer and sacrifice forever. Amen.”He poured out the crimson liquor; far into the sea he flung the golden cup.“Heaven speed you!”shouted from the penteconter. Themistocles nodded. Thekeleustessmote his gavel upon the sounding-board. The triple oar bank rose as one and plunged into the foam. A long“h-a!”went up from the benches. The race to save Hellas was begun.[pg 399]CHAPTER XXXVIITHE RACE TO SAVE HELLASThe chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before theBozrahad submitted to her fate, she had led theNausicaäand her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,13as the crow flies, sundered them from the Euripus, the nearest point whence they could despatch a runner to Pausanias and Aristeides; and what with the twistings around the scattered Cyclades the route was one-fourth longer. But men had ceased reckoning distance. Their hearts were in the flying oars, and at first theNausicaäran leaping across the waves as leaps the dolphin,—the long gleaming blades springing like shuttles in the hands of the ready crew. They had taken from the penteconter all her spare rowers, and to make the great ship bound over the steel-gray deep was children’s play.“We must save Hellas, and we can!”That was the thought of all from Themistocles to the meanest thranite.So at the beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed theBozraever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor;[pg 400]the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men thekeleustesceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:—“Fast and more fastO’er the foam-spray we’re passed.And our creaking sails swellTo the swift-breathing blast,For Poseidon’s wild steedsWith their manifold feet,Like a hundred white nymphsOn the blue sea-floor fleet.And we wake as we goGray old Phorcys below,Whilst on shell-clustered trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow!The loud Tritons blow!“All of Æolus’s trainSpringing o’er the blue mainTo our pæans replyWith their long, long refrain;And the sea-folk upleapFrom their dark weedy caves;With a clear, briny laughThey dance over the waves;Now their mistress below,—See bright Thetis go,As she leads the mad revels,While loud Tritons blow!While loud Tritons blow!“With the foam gliding white,Where the light flash is bright.We feel the live keelLeaping on with delight;And in melody wildMen and Nereids and wind[pg 401]Sing and laugh all their praise,To the bluff seagods kind;Whilst deep down below,Where no storm blasts may go,On their care-charming trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow,The loud Tritons blow.”Bravely thus for a while, but at last Themistocles, watching from the poop with eyes that nothing evaded, saw how here and there the dip of the blades was weakening, here and there a breast was heaving rapidly, a mouth was panting for air.“The relief,”he ordered. And the spare rowers ran gladly to the places of those who seemed the weariest. Only a partial respite. Fifty supernumeraries were a poor stop-gap for the one hundred and seventy. Only the weakest could be relieved, and even those wept and pled to continue at the benches a little longer. The thunderous threat of Ameinias, that he who refused a proffered relief must stand all day by the mast with an iron anchor on his shoulder, alone sufficed to make the malcontents give place. Yet after a little while the singing died. Breath was too precious to waste. It was mockery to troll of“Æolus’s winds”whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous“beat,”“beat”of thekeleustes’shammer, and the creaking of the oars in their leathered holes alone broke the stillness that reigned through the length of the trireme. The penteconter and her prize had long since faded below the horizon. With almost wistful eyes men watched the islets as they glided past one after another, Thera now, then Ios, and presently the greater Paros and Naxos lay before them. They relieved oars whenever possible. The supernumeraries needed no urging after their scanty rest to spring to the place of him who was fainting, but hardly any man spoke a word.[pg 402]The first time the relief went in Glaucon had stepped forward.“I am strong. I am able to pull an oar,”he had cried almost angrily when Themistocles laid his hand upon him, but the admiral would have none of it.“You shall not. Sooner will I go on to the bench myself. You have been through the gates of Tartarus these last days, and need all your strength. Are you not the Isthmionices,—the swiftest runner in Hellas?”Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,—that after theNausicaämade land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Bœotia to bear the tidings to Pausanias.They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. Thekeleustesslowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phœnicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite thekeleustes’sbeats, despite Themistocles’s command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around theNausicaä’sbow sang its monotonous music.But Themistocles ever turned his face eastward, until men thought he was awaiting some foe in chase, and presently—just as a rower among the zygites fell back with the blood gushing from mouth and nostrils—the admiral pointed his finger toward the sky-line of the morning.“Look! Athena is with us!”And for the first time in hours those panting, straining men let the hot oar butts slip from their hands, even trail[pg 403]in the darkling water, whilst they rose, looked, and blessed their gods.It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the glassy sea; they could hear the singing of the cordage; they could catch the sweet sniff of the brine. Admiral and rower lifted their hands together at this manifest favour of heaven.“Poseidon is with us! Athena is with us! Æolus is with us! We can save Hellas!”Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias’s lusty call to bend again the sails. The smaller canvas on the foremast and great spread on the mainmast were bellying to the piping gale. A fair wind, but no storm. The oars were but helpers now,—men laughed, hugged one another as boys, wept as girls, and let the benignant wind gods labour for them. Delos the Holy they passed, and Tenos, and soon the heights of Andros lifted, as the ship with its lading of fate flew over the island-strewn sea. At last, just as the day was leaving them, they saw Helios going down into the fire-tinged waves in a parting burst of glory. Darkness next, but the kindly wind failed not. Through the night no man on that trireme slumbered. Breeze or calm, he who had an obol’s weight of power spent it at the oars.Long after midnight Themistocles and Glaucon clambered the giddy cordage to the ship’s top above the swelling mainsail. On the narrow platform, with the stars above, the dim tracery of the wide sail, the still dimmer tracery of the long ship below, they seemed transported to another world. Far beneath by the glimmer of the lanterns they saw the rowers swaying at their toil. In the wake the phosphorous bubbles ran away, opalescent gleams springing upward, as if torches of Doris and her dancing Nereids. So much had[pg 404]admiral and outlaw lived through this day they had thought little of themselves. Now calmer thought returned. Glaucon could tell of many things he had heard and thought, of the conversation overheard the morning before Salamis, of what Phormio had related during the weary captivity in the hold of theBozra. Themistocles pondered long. Yet for Glaucon when standing even on that calm pinnacle the trireme must creep over the deep too slowly.“O give me wings, Father Zeus,”was his prayer;“yes, the wings of Icarus. Let me fly but once to confound the traitor and deliver thy Hellas,—after that, like Icarus let me fall. I am content to die.”But Themistocles pressed close against his side.“Ask for no wings,”—in the admiral’s voice was a tremor not there when he sped confidence through the crew,—“if it be destined we save Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die.‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are greatgods.They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save Hellas. Yet I have fear—”“Of what, then?”“Fear that Themistocles will be too merciful to be just. Ah! pity me.”“I understand—Democrates.”“I pray he may escape to the Persians, or that Ares may slay him in fair battle. If not—”“What will you do?”The admiral’s hold upon the younger Athenian’s arm tightened.“I will prove that Aristeides is not the only man in Hellas who deserves the name of‘Just.’When I was young, my[pg 405]tutor would predict great things of me.‘You will be nothing small, Themistocles, but great, whether for good or ill, I know not,—but great you will be.’And I have always struggled upward. I have always prospered. I am the first man in Hellas. I have set my will against all the power of Persia. Zeus willing, I shall conquer. But the Olympians demand their price. For saving Hellas I must pay—Democrates. I loved him.”The two men stood in silence long, whilst below the oars and the rushing water played their music. At last the admiral relaxed his hand on Glaucon.“Eu!They will call me‘Saviour of Hellas’if all goes well. I shall be greater than Solon, or Lycurgus, or Periander, and in return I must do justice to a friend. Fair recompense!”The laugh of the son of Neocles was harsher than a cry. The other answered nothing. Themistocles set his foot on the ladder.“I must return to the men. I would go to an oar, only they will not let me.”The admiral left Glaucon for a moment alone. All around him was the night,—the stars, the black æther, the blacker sea,—but he was not lonely. He felt as when in the foot-race he turned for the last burst toward the goal. One more struggle, one supreme summons of strength and will, and after that the triumph and the rest.—Hellas, Athens, Hermione, he was speeding back to all. Once again all the things past floated out of the dream-world and before him,—the wreck, the lotus-eating at Sardis, Thermopylæ, Salamis, the agony on theBozra. Now came the end, the end promised in the moment of vision whilst he pulled the boat at Salamis. What was it? He tried not to ask. Enough it was to be the end. He, like Themistocles, had supreme con[pg 406]fidence that the treason would be thwarted. The gods were cruel, but not so cruel that after so many deliverances they would crush him at the last.“The miracles of Zeus are never wrought in vain.”Had not Zeus wrought miracles for him once and twice? The proverb was great comfort.Suddenly whilst he built his palace of phantasy, a cry from the foreship dissolved it.“Attica, Attica, hail, all hail!”He saw upon the sky-line the dim tracery of the Athenian headlands“like a shield laid on the misty deep.”Again men were springing from the oars, laughing, weeping, embracing, whilst under the clear, unflagging wind theNausicaäsped up the narrowing strait betwixt Eubœa and the mainland. Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic shoreline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers.Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Eubœa to the starboard. They saw Marathon and its plain of fair memories stretching to port, and now the strait grew closer yet, and it needed all the governor’s skill at the steering-oars to keep theNausicaäfrom the threatening rocks. Marathon was behind at last. The trireme rounded the last promontory; the bay grew wider; the prow was set more to westward. Every man—the faintest—struggled back to his oar if he had left it—this was the last hundred stadia to Oropus, and after that theNausicaämight do no more. Once again thekeleustespiped, and his note was swift and feverish. The blades shot faster, faster, as the trireme raced down the sandy shore of the Attic“Diacria.”Once in the strait they saw a brown-sailed fisherboat, and the helm swerved enough to bring her within hail. The fishermen stared at the flying trireme and her straining, wide-eyed men.[pg 407]“Has there been a battle?”cried Ameinias.“Not yet. We are from Styra on Eubœa; we expect the news daily. The armies are almost together.”“And where are they?”“Near to Platæa.”That was all. The war-ship left the fishermen rocking in her wake, but again Themistocles drew his eyebrows close together, while Glaucon tightened the buckle on his belt. Platæa,—the name meant that the courier must traverse the breadth of Bœotia, and with the armies face to face how long would Zeus hold back the battle? How long indeed, with Democrates and Lycon intent on bringing battle to pass? The ship was more than ever silent as she rushed on the last stretch of her course. More men fell at the oars with blood upon their faces. The supernumeraries tossed them aside like logs of wood, and leaped upon their benches. Themistocles had vanished with Simonides in the cabin; all knew their work,—preparing letters to Aristeides and Pausanias to warn of the bitter truth. Then the haven at last: the white-stuccoed houses of Oropus clustering down upon the shore, the little mole, a few doltish peasants by the landing gaping at the great trireme. No others greeted them, for the terror of Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had driven all but the poorest to some safe shelter. The oars slipped from numb fingers; the anchor plunged into the green water; the mainsail rattled down the mast. Men sat on the benches motionless, gulping down the clear air. They had done their part. The rest lay in the hands of the gods, and in the speed of him who two days since they had called“Glaucon the Traitor.”The messenger came from the cabin, half stripped, on his head a felt skullcap, on his feet high hunter’s boots laced up to the knees. He had never shone in more noble beauty. The crew watched Themistocles place a papyrus[pg 408]roll in Glaucon’s belt, and press his mouth to the messenger’s ear in parting admonition. Glaucon gave his right hand to Themistocles, his left to Simonides. Fifty men were ready to man the pinnace to take him ashore. On the beach theNausicaä’speople saw him stand an instant, as he turned his face upward to the“dawn-facing”gods of Hellas, praying for strength and swiftness.“Apollo speed you!”called two hundred after him. He answered from the beach with a wave of his beautiful arms. A moment later he was hid behind a clump of olives. TheNausicaä’speople knew the ordeal before him, but many a man said Glaucon had the easier task. He could run till life failed him. They now could only fold their hands and wait.* * * * * * *It was long past noon when Glaucon left the desolate village of Oropus behind him. The day was hot, but after the manner of Greece not sultry, and the brisk breeze was stirring on the hill slopes. Over the distant mountains hung a tint of deep violet. It was early in Bœdromion.14The fields—where indeed the Barbarian cavalry men had not deliberately burned them—were seared brown by the long dry summer. Here and there great black crows were picking, and a red fox would whisk out of a thicket and go with long bounds across the unharvested fields to some safer refuge. Glaucon knew his route. Three hundred and sixty stadia lay before him, and those not over the well-beaten course in the gymnasium, but by rocky goat trails and by-paths that made his task no easier. He started off slowly. He was too good an athlete to waste his speed by one fierce burst at the outset. At first his road was no bad one, for he skirted the willow-hung Asopus, the boundary stream be[pg 409]twixt Attica and Bœotia. But he feared to keep too long upon this highway to Tanagra, and of the dangers of the road he soon met grim warnings.First, it was a farmstead in black ruin, with the carcass of a horse half burned lying before the gate. Next, it was the body of a woman, three days slain, and in the centre of the road,—no pleasant sight, for the crows had been at their banquet,—and hardened though the Alcmæonid was to war, he stopped long enough to cast the ceremonial handful of dust on the poor remains, as symbolic burial, and sped a wish to King Pluto to give peace to the wanderer’s spirit. Next, people met him: an old man, his wife, his young son,—wretched shepherd-folk dressed in sheepskins,—the boy helping his elders as they tottered along on their staves toward the mountain. At sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand, showing he was unarmed, and they halted also.“Whence and whither, good father?”Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near Œnophytæ, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life, and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road.“Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!”he was speaking in his heart,“noble and brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,—and though you once called me friend, Zeus and Dikē still rule, there is a price for this and you shall tell it out.”[pg 410]Yet he bethought himself of the old man’s warning, and left the beaten way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook, where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward. He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Bœotia was opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows picking at carrion,—more tokens that Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had done their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just as the spurs of Cithæron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to thrust their bald summits up before the runner’s ken, far ahead upon the way approached a cloud of dust. The Athenian paused in his run, dashed into the barren field, and flung himself flat between the furrows. He heard the hoof-beats of the wiry steppe horses, the clatter of targets and scabbards, the shrill shouts of the raiders. He lifted his head enough to see the red streamers on their lance tips flutter past. He let the noise die away before he dared to take the road once more.[pg 411]The time he lost was redeemed by a burst of speed. His head was growing very hot, but it was not time to think of that.Already the hills were spreading their shadows, and Platæa was many stadia away. Knowledge of how much remained made him reckless. He ran on without his former caution. The plain was again changing to undulating foothills. He had passed Erythræ now,—another village burned and deserted. He mounted a slope, was descending to mount another, when lo! over the hill before came eight riders at full speed. What must be done, must be done quickly. To plunge into the fallow field again were madness, the horsemen had surely seen him, and their sure-footed beasts could run over the furrows like rabbits. Glaucon stood stock still and stretched forth both hands, to show the horsemen he did not resist them.“O Athena Polias,”uprose the prayer from his heart,“if thou lovest not me, forget not thy love for Hellas, for Athens, for Hermione my wife.”The riders were on him instantly, their crooked swords flew out. They surrounded their captive, uttering outlandish cries and chatterings, ogling, muttering, pointing with their swords and lances as if debating among themselves whether to let the stranger go or hew him in pieces. Glaucon stood motionless, looking from one to another and asking for wisdom in his soul. Seven were Tartars, low-browed, yellow-skinned, flat of nose, with the grins of apes. He might expect the worst from these. But the eighth showed a long blond beard under his leather helm, and Glaucon rejoiced; the chief of the band was a Persian and more amenable.The Tartars continued gesturing and debating, flourishing their steel points right at the prisoner’s breast. He regarded[pg 412]them calmly, so calmly that the Persian gave vent to his admiration.“Down with your lance-head, Rūkhs. By Mithra, I think this Hellene is brave as he is beautiful! See how he stands. We must have him to the Prince.”“Excellency,”spoke Glaucon, in his best court Persian,“I am a courier to the Lord Mardonius. If you are faithful servants of his Eternity the king, where is your camp?”The chief started.“On the life of my father, you speak Persian as if you dwelled in Eran at the king’s own doors! What do you here alone upon this road in Hellas?”Glaucon put out his hand before answering, caught the tip of Rūkhs’s lance, and snapped it short like a reed. He knew the way to win the admiration of the Barbarians. They yelled with delight, all at least save Rūkhs.“Strong as he is brave and handsome,”cried the Persian.“Again—who are you?”The Alcmæonid drew himself to full height and gave his head its lordliest poise.“Understand, Persian, that I have indeed lived long at the king’s gates. Yes,—I have learned my Aryan at the Lord Mardonius’s own table, for I am the son of Attaginus of Thebes, who is not the least of the friends of his Eternity in Hellas.”The mention of one of the foremost Medizers of Greece made the subaltern bend in his saddle. His tone became even obsequious.“Ah, I understand. Your Excellency is a courier. You have despatches from the king?”“Despatches of moment just landed from Asia. Now tell me where the army is encamped.”“By the Asopus, much to northward. The Hellenes lie to[pg 413]south. Here, Rūkhs, take the noble courier behind you on the horse, and conduct him to the general.”“Heaven bless your generosity,”cried the runner, with almost precipitate haste,“but I know the country well, and the worthy Rūkhs will not thank me if I deprive him of his share in your booty.”“Ah, yes, we have heard of a farm across the hills at Eleutheræ that’s not yet been plundered,—handsome wenches, and we’ll make the father dig up his pot of money. Mazda speed you, sir, for we are off.”“Yeh! yeh!”yelled the seven Tartars, none more loudly than Rūkhs, who had no hankering for conducting a courier back into the camp. So the riders came and went, whilst Glaucon drew his girdle one notch tighter and ran onward through the gathering evening.The adventure had been a warning. Once Athena had saved him, not perchance twice,—again he took to the fields. He did not love the sight of the sun ever lower, on the long brown ridge of Helicon far to west. Until now he scarce thought enough of self to realize the terrible draughts he had made upon his treasure-house of strength. Could it be that he—the Isthmionices, who had crushed down the giant of Sparta before the cheering myriads—could faint like a weary girl, when the weal of Hellas was his to win or lose? Why did his tongue burn in his throat as a coal? Why did those feet—so swift, so ready when he sped from Oropus—lift so heavily?As a flash it came over him what he had endured,—the slow agony on theBozra, the bursting of the bands, the fight for life, the scene with Themistocles, the sleepless night on the trireme. Now he was running as the wild hare runs before the baying chase. Could it be that all this race was vain?[pg 414]“For Hellas! For Hermione!”Whilst he groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his teeth came together harder.“Themistocles trusts me. I carry the fate of Hellas. I can die, but I cannot fail.”It was quite dusk now. The brief southern twilight was ending in pale bars of gold above Helicon. Glaucon rose again; the cold sweat sprang out upon his forehead. Before his eyes rose darkness, but he did not faint. Some kind destiny set a stout pole upright in the field,—perhaps for vines to clamber,—he clutched it, and stood until his sight cleared and the pain a little abated. He tore the pole from the ground, and reached the roadway. He must take his chance of meeting more raiders. He had one vast comfort,—if there had been no battle fought that day, there would be none before dawn. But he had still weary stadia before him, and running was out of the question. Ever and anon he would stop his hobbling, take air, and stare at the vague tracery of the hills,—Cithæron to southward, Helicon to west, and northward the wide dark Theban plain. He gave up counting how many times he halted, how many times he spoke the magic words,“For Hellas! For Hermione!”and forced onward his way. The moon failed, even the stars were clouded. A kind of brute instinct guided him. At last—he guessed it was nearly midnight—he caught once more the flashings of a shallow river and the dim outlines of shrubbery beside the bank—again the Asopus. He must take care or he would wander straight into Mardonius’s camp. Therefore[pg 415]he stopped awhile, drank the cool water, and let the stream purl around his burning foot. Then he set his face to the south, for there lay Platæa. There he would find the Hellenes.He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and Cithæron beckoning him on, as with living fingers.“Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylæ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.”Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop.“For Hellas! For Hermione!”At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.* * * * * * *At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by Platæa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the[pg 416]contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting under arms,—awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The outpost—Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnæ—was creeping gingerly behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows. Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness, saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.“Halt, stranger, tell your business.”“For Aristeides.”The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.“That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.”“For Aristeides.”“Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?”“For Aristeides.”The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared.“Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?”“No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.”The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio.“Now, friend,”he spoke,“your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.”“For Aristeides.”[pg 417]“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!”cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers.“Themistocles’s seal,”he cried, and hastily turned the fallen man’s face upward to the light, when the lantern almost dropped from his own hand.“Glaucon the Alcmæonid! Glaucon the Traitor who was dead! He or his shade come back from Tartarus.”The four soldiers stood quaking like aspen, but their leader was of stouter stuff. Never had his native Attic shrewdness guided him to more purpose.“Ghost, traitor, what not, this man has run himself all but to death. Look on his face. And Themistocles does not send a courier for nothing. This packet is for Aristeides, and to Aristeides take it with speed.”Hippon seized the papyrus. He thought it would fade out of his hands like a spectre. It did not. The sentinel dropped his spear and ran breathless toward Platæa, where he knew was his general.
[pg 388]CHAPTER XXXVITHE READING OF THE RIDDLEA hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they caught theBozra. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil, fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop, listening to the report of hisprōreus.“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.“Kyrie, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl,‘The navarch! show us the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’And one of them—as true as that I sucked my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble up the ladder, covered with[pg 389]blood, the red lines of the fetters marked into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch recoiled in horror at his fellow-citizen’s plight.“Infernal gods! You a prisoner here? Where is this cursed vessel from?”“From Trœzene,”gasped the refugee;“if you love Athens and Hellas—”He turned just in time to fling an arm about Hiram, who—carelessly guarded—was gliding down the hatchway.“Seize that viper, bind, torture; he knows all. Make him tell or Hellas is lost!”“Control yourself, friend,”adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen nipped him fast and disarmed.“Ah! you carrion meat,”shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the helpless creature’s nose.“Honest men have their day at last. There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.”“Peace,”commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end.“Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?”“If you will be so good, sir captain,”the third Hellene at last broke his silence,“you will hearken to me.”“Who are you?”“Theprōreusof theAlcyoneof Melos. More of myself hereafter. But if you love the weal of Hellas, demand of this Hiram where he concealed the treasonable despatches he received at Trœzene and now has aboard.”[pg 390]“Hiram? O Lord Apollo, I recognize the snake! The one that was always gliding around Lycon at the Isthmus. If despatches he has, I know the way to get them. Now, black-hearted Cyclops,”—Cimon’s tone was not gentle,—“where are your papers?”Hiram had turned gray as a corpse, but his white teeth came together.“Phormio is mistaken. Your slave has none.”“Bah!”threw out Cimon,“I can smell your lies like garlic. Silent still? Good, see how I am better than Asclepius. I make the dumb talk by a miracle. A cord and belaying-pin, Naon.”The seaman addressed passed a cord about the Phœnician’s forehead with a fearful dexterity, and put the iron pin at the back of the skull.“Twist!”commanded Cimon. Two mariners gripped the victim’s arms. Naon pressed the cord tighter, tighter. A beastlike groan came through the lips of the Phœnician. His beady eyes started from his head, but he did not speak.“Again,”thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal agony escaped the prisoner.“Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!”“Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.”“In the boat mast.”Hiram spit the words out one by one.“In the cabin. There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the papers. Woe! woe! cursed the day I was born. Cursed my mother for bearing me.”The miserable creature fell to the deck, pressing his hands to his temples and moaning in agony. No one heeded him now. Cimon himself ran below to the mast, and wrenched the peg from its socket. Papyrus sheets were there, rolled compactly, covered with writing and sealed. The navarch[pg 391]turned over the packet curiously, then to the amazement of the sailors seemed to stagger against the mast. He was as pale as Hiram. He thrust the packet into the hands of hisprōreus, who stood near.“What make you of this seal? As you fear Athena, tell the truth.”“You need not adjure me so, captain. The device is simple: Theseus slaying the Minotaur.”“And who, in Zeus’s name, do you know in Athens who uses a seal like that?”Silence for a moment, then theprōreushimself was pale.“Your Excellency does not mean—”“Democrates!”cried the trembling navarch.“And why not Democrates?”The words came from the released prisoner, who had been so silent, but who had glided down and stood at Cimon’s elbow. He spoke in a changed voice now; again the navarch was startled.“Is Themistocles on theNausicaä?”asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if he himself were growing mad.“Yes—but your voice, your face, your manner—my head is dizzy.”The stranger touched him gently on the hand.“Have I so changed, you quite forget me, Cimon?”The son of Miltiades was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram’s tortures with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw’s neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before him was his long-time comrade.“My friend! My boyhood’s friend!”and so for many times they kissed.[pg 392]TheNausicaähad followed the chase at easy distance, ready with aid in case theBozraresisted. Themistocles was in his cabin with Simonides, when Cimon and Glaucon came to him. The admiral heard his young navarch’s report, then took the unopened packet and requested Cimon and the poet to withdraw. As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway, Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely.“Tell your story.”Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the captives, the voyage and the pursuing. The son of Neocles never hastened the recital, though once or twice he widened it by an incisive question. At the end he demanded:—“And does Phormio confirm all this?”“All. Question him.”“Humph! He’s a truthful man in everything save the price of fish. Now let us open the packet.”Themistocles was exceeding deliberate. He drew his dagger and pried the wrapper open without breaking the seals or tearing the papyrus. He turned the strips of paper carefully one by one, opened a casket, and drew thence a written sheet which he compared painfully with those before him.“The same hand,”his remark in undertone.He was so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain was at its fateful work.At last he uttered one word,“Cipher.”[pg 393]A sheet lay before him covered with broken words and phrases—seemingly without meaning—but the admiral knew the secret of the Spartanscytalē, the“cipher wood.”Forth from his casket came a number of rounded sticks of varying lengths. On one after another he wound the sheet spirally until at the fifth trial the scattered words came together. He read with ease. Then Themistocles’s brows grew closer than before. He muttered softly in his beard. But still he said nothing aloud. He read the cipher sheet through once, twice; it seemed thrice. Other sheets he fingered delicately, as though he feared the touch of venom. All without haste, but at the end, when Themistocles arose from his seat, the outlaw trembled. Many things he had seen, but never a face so changed. The admiral was neither flushed nor pale. But ten years seemed added to those lines above his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed. Was it fancy that put the gray into his beard and hair? Slowly he rose; slowly he ordered the marine on guard outside the cabin to summon Simonides, Cimon, and all the officers of the flag-ship. They trooped hither and filled the narrow cabin—fifteen or more hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the Ægean rocked theNausicaäsoftly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were grumbling lest the penteconter’s people get all the booty of theBozra. Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on Themistocles’s awful face.The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet.[pg 394]The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner before a race.“Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost.”“Democrates is a traitor!”The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.“I did not call you down to wail and groan.”He never raised his voice; his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a flood.“When? How? Declare.”“Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades did not die in vain.”Yet despite him men wept on one another’s shoulders as became true Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed, rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words of doom.“This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is Democrates’s, the seals are his. Give ear.“Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on the coasts of Asia, greeting:—Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even now I depart from Trœzene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in Bœotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making Mardonius’s victory certain.[pg 395]“For your part, excellent Tigranes, you must avoid the Hellenic ships at Delos and come back to Mardonius with your fleet ready to second him at once after his victory, which will be speedy; then with your aid he can readily turn the wall at the Isthmus. I send also letters written, as it were, in the hand of Themistocles. See that they fall into the hands of the other Greek admirals. They will breed more hurt amongst the Hellenes than you can accomplish with all your ships. I send, likewise, lists of such Athenians and Spartans as are friendly to his Majesty, also memoranda of such secret plans of the Greeks as have come to my knowledge.“From Trœzene, given into the hands of Hiram on the second of Metageitnion, in the archonship of Xanthippus.Chaire!”Themistocles ceased. No man spoke a word. It was as if a god had flung a bolt from heaven. What use to cry against it? Then, in an ominously low voice, Simonides asked a question.“What are these letters which purport to come from your pen, Themistocles?”The admiral unrolled another papyrus, and as he looked thereon his fine face contracted with loathing.“Let another read. I am made to pour contempt and ridicule upon my fellow-captains. I am made to boast‘when the war ends, I will be tyrant of Athens.’A thousand follies and wickednesses are put in my mouth. Were this letter true, I were the vilest wretch escaping Orcus. Since forged—”his hands clinched—“by that man, that man whom I have trusted, loved, cherished, called‘younger brother,’‘oldest son’—”He spat in rising fury and was still.“‘Fain would I grip his liver in my teeth,’”cried the little poet, even in storm and stress not forgetting his Homer. And the howl from the man-of-war’s men was as the howl of beasts desiring their prey. But the admiral’s burst of anger ended. He stood again an image of calm power. The voice that[pg 396]had charmed the thousands rang forth in its strength and sweetness.“Men of Athens, this is no hour for windy rage. Else I should rage the most, for who is more wronged than I? One whom we loved is fallen—later let us weep for him. One whom we trusted is false—later punish him. But now the work is neither to weep nor to punish, but to save Hellas. A great battle impends in Bœotia. Except the Zeus of our sires and Athena of the Pure Eyes be with us, we are men without home, without fatherland. Pausanias and Aristeides must be warned. TheNausicaäis the‘Salaminia,’—the swiftest trireme in the fleet. Ours must be the deed, and ours the glory. Enough of this—the men must hear, and then to the oars.”Themistocles had changed from despair to a triumph note. There was uplift even to look upon him. He strode before all hislieutenantsup and out upon the poop. The long tiers of benches and the gangways filled with rowers peered up at him. They had seen their officers gather in the cabin, and Dame Rumour, subtlest of Zeus’s messengers, had breathed“ill-tidings.”Now the admiral stood forth, and in few words told all the heavy tale. Again a great shout, whilst the bronzed men groaned on the benches.“Democrates is a traitor!”A deity had fallen from their Olympus; the darling of the Athenians’s democracy was sunk to vilest of the vile. But the admiral knew how to play on their two hundred hearts better than Orpheus upon his lyre. Again the note changed from despair to incitement, and when at last he called,“And can we cross the Ægean as never trireme crossed and pluck back Hellas from her fate?”thalamite, zygite, and thranite rose, tossing their brawny arms into the air.“We can!”[pg 397]Then Themistocles folded his own arms and smiled. He felt the god was still with him.* * * * * * *Yet, eager as was the will, they could not race forth instantly. Orders must be written to Xanthippus, the Athenian vice-admiral far away, bidding him at all hazards to keep the Persian fleet near Samos. Cimon was long in privy council with Themistocles in the state cabin. At the same time a prisoner was passed aboard theNausicaä, not gently bound,—Hiram, a precious witness, before the dogs had their final meal on him. But the rest of theBozra’speople found a quicker release. The penteconter’s people decided their fate with a yell.“Sell such harpies for slaves? The money would stink through our pouches!”So two by two, tied neck to neck and heel to heel, the wretches were flung overboard,“because we lack place and wood to crucify you,”called theNausicaä’sgovernor, as he pushed the last pair off into the leaden sea,—for the day was distant when the destruction of such Barbarian rogues would weigh even on tender consciences.So the Carthaginians ceased from troubling, but before the penteconter and theBozrabore away to join the remaining fleet, another deed was done in sight of all three ships. For whilst Themistocles was with Cimon, Simonides and Sicinnus had taken Glaucon to theNausicaä’sforecastle. Now as the penteconter was casting off, again he came to view, and the shout that greeted him was not of fear this time, but wonder and delight. The Alcmæonid was clean-shaven, his hair clipped close, the black dye even in a manner washed away. He had flung off the rough seaman’s dress, and stood forth in all his godlike beauty.Before all men Cimon, coming from the cabin, ran and[pg 398]kissed him once more, whilst the rowers clapped their hands.“Apollo—it is Delian Apollo! Glaucon the Beautiful lives again.Io! Io! pæan!”“Yes,”spoke Themistocles, in a burst of gladness.“The gods take one friend, they restore another. Œdipus has read the sphinx’s riddle. Honour this man, for he is worthy of honour through Hellas!”The officers ran to the athlete, after them the sailors. They covered his face and hands with kisses. He seemed escaped the Carthaginian to perish in the embrace of his countrymen. Never was his blush more boyish, more divine. Then a bugle-blast sent every man to his station. Cimon leaped across to his smaller ship. The rowers of theNausicaäran out their oars, the hundred and seventy blades trailed in the water. Every man took a long breath and fixed his eyes on the admiral standing on the poop. He held a golden goblet set with turquoise, and filled with the blood-red Pramnian wine. Loudly Themistocles prayed.“Zeus of Olympus and Dodona, Zeus Orchios, rewarder of the oath-breaker, to whom the Hellenes do not vainly pray, and thou Athena of the Pure Eyes, give ear. Make our ship swift, our arms strong, our hearts bold. Hold back the battle that we come not too late. Grant that we confound the guilty, put to flight the Barbarian, recompense the traitor. So to you and all other holy gods whose love is for the righteous we will proffer prayer and sacrifice forever. Amen.”He poured out the crimson liquor; far into the sea he flung the golden cup.“Heaven speed you!”shouted from the penteconter. Themistocles nodded. Thekeleustessmote his gavel upon the sounding-board. The triple oar bank rose as one and plunged into the foam. A long“h-a!”went up from the benches. The race to save Hellas was begun.[pg 399]CHAPTER XXXVIITHE RACE TO SAVE HELLASThe chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before theBozrahad submitted to her fate, she had led theNausicaäand her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,13as the crow flies, sundered them from the Euripus, the nearest point whence they could despatch a runner to Pausanias and Aristeides; and what with the twistings around the scattered Cyclades the route was one-fourth longer. But men had ceased reckoning distance. Their hearts were in the flying oars, and at first theNausicaäran leaping across the waves as leaps the dolphin,—the long gleaming blades springing like shuttles in the hands of the ready crew. They had taken from the penteconter all her spare rowers, and to make the great ship bound over the steel-gray deep was children’s play.“We must save Hellas, and we can!”That was the thought of all from Themistocles to the meanest thranite.So at the beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed theBozraever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor;[pg 400]the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men thekeleustesceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:—“Fast and more fastO’er the foam-spray we’re passed.And our creaking sails swellTo the swift-breathing blast,For Poseidon’s wild steedsWith their manifold feet,Like a hundred white nymphsOn the blue sea-floor fleet.And we wake as we goGray old Phorcys below,Whilst on shell-clustered trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow!The loud Tritons blow!“All of Æolus’s trainSpringing o’er the blue mainTo our pæans replyWith their long, long refrain;And the sea-folk upleapFrom their dark weedy caves;With a clear, briny laughThey dance over the waves;Now their mistress below,—See bright Thetis go,As she leads the mad revels,While loud Tritons blow!While loud Tritons blow!“With the foam gliding white,Where the light flash is bright.We feel the live keelLeaping on with delight;And in melody wildMen and Nereids and wind[pg 401]Sing and laugh all their praise,To the bluff seagods kind;Whilst deep down below,Where no storm blasts may go,On their care-charming trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow,The loud Tritons blow.”Bravely thus for a while, but at last Themistocles, watching from the poop with eyes that nothing evaded, saw how here and there the dip of the blades was weakening, here and there a breast was heaving rapidly, a mouth was panting for air.“The relief,”he ordered. And the spare rowers ran gladly to the places of those who seemed the weariest. Only a partial respite. Fifty supernumeraries were a poor stop-gap for the one hundred and seventy. Only the weakest could be relieved, and even those wept and pled to continue at the benches a little longer. The thunderous threat of Ameinias, that he who refused a proffered relief must stand all day by the mast with an iron anchor on his shoulder, alone sufficed to make the malcontents give place. Yet after a little while the singing died. Breath was too precious to waste. It was mockery to troll of“Æolus’s winds”whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous“beat,”“beat”of thekeleustes’shammer, and the creaking of the oars in their leathered holes alone broke the stillness that reigned through the length of the trireme. The penteconter and her prize had long since faded below the horizon. With almost wistful eyes men watched the islets as they glided past one after another, Thera now, then Ios, and presently the greater Paros and Naxos lay before them. They relieved oars whenever possible. The supernumeraries needed no urging after their scanty rest to spring to the place of him who was fainting, but hardly any man spoke a word.[pg 402]The first time the relief went in Glaucon had stepped forward.“I am strong. I am able to pull an oar,”he had cried almost angrily when Themistocles laid his hand upon him, but the admiral would have none of it.“You shall not. Sooner will I go on to the bench myself. You have been through the gates of Tartarus these last days, and need all your strength. Are you not the Isthmionices,—the swiftest runner in Hellas?”Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,—that after theNausicaämade land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Bœotia to bear the tidings to Pausanias.They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. Thekeleustesslowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phœnicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite thekeleustes’sbeats, despite Themistocles’s command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around theNausicaä’sbow sang its monotonous music.But Themistocles ever turned his face eastward, until men thought he was awaiting some foe in chase, and presently—just as a rower among the zygites fell back with the blood gushing from mouth and nostrils—the admiral pointed his finger toward the sky-line of the morning.“Look! Athena is with us!”And for the first time in hours those panting, straining men let the hot oar butts slip from their hands, even trail[pg 403]in the darkling water, whilst they rose, looked, and blessed their gods.It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the glassy sea; they could hear the singing of the cordage; they could catch the sweet sniff of the brine. Admiral and rower lifted their hands together at this manifest favour of heaven.“Poseidon is with us! Athena is with us! Æolus is with us! We can save Hellas!”Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias’s lusty call to bend again the sails. The smaller canvas on the foremast and great spread on the mainmast were bellying to the piping gale. A fair wind, but no storm. The oars were but helpers now,—men laughed, hugged one another as boys, wept as girls, and let the benignant wind gods labour for them. Delos the Holy they passed, and Tenos, and soon the heights of Andros lifted, as the ship with its lading of fate flew over the island-strewn sea. At last, just as the day was leaving them, they saw Helios going down into the fire-tinged waves in a parting burst of glory. Darkness next, but the kindly wind failed not. Through the night no man on that trireme slumbered. Breeze or calm, he who had an obol’s weight of power spent it at the oars.Long after midnight Themistocles and Glaucon clambered the giddy cordage to the ship’s top above the swelling mainsail. On the narrow platform, with the stars above, the dim tracery of the wide sail, the still dimmer tracery of the long ship below, they seemed transported to another world. Far beneath by the glimmer of the lanterns they saw the rowers swaying at their toil. In the wake the phosphorous bubbles ran away, opalescent gleams springing upward, as if torches of Doris and her dancing Nereids. So much had[pg 404]admiral and outlaw lived through this day they had thought little of themselves. Now calmer thought returned. Glaucon could tell of many things he had heard and thought, of the conversation overheard the morning before Salamis, of what Phormio had related during the weary captivity in the hold of theBozra. Themistocles pondered long. Yet for Glaucon when standing even on that calm pinnacle the trireme must creep over the deep too slowly.“O give me wings, Father Zeus,”was his prayer;“yes, the wings of Icarus. Let me fly but once to confound the traitor and deliver thy Hellas,—after that, like Icarus let me fall. I am content to die.”But Themistocles pressed close against his side.“Ask for no wings,”—in the admiral’s voice was a tremor not there when he sped confidence through the crew,—“if it be destined we save Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die.‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are greatgods.They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save Hellas. Yet I have fear—”“Of what, then?”“Fear that Themistocles will be too merciful to be just. Ah! pity me.”“I understand—Democrates.”“I pray he may escape to the Persians, or that Ares may slay him in fair battle. If not—”“What will you do?”The admiral’s hold upon the younger Athenian’s arm tightened.“I will prove that Aristeides is not the only man in Hellas who deserves the name of‘Just.’When I was young, my[pg 405]tutor would predict great things of me.‘You will be nothing small, Themistocles, but great, whether for good or ill, I know not,—but great you will be.’And I have always struggled upward. I have always prospered. I am the first man in Hellas. I have set my will against all the power of Persia. Zeus willing, I shall conquer. But the Olympians demand their price. For saving Hellas I must pay—Democrates. I loved him.”The two men stood in silence long, whilst below the oars and the rushing water played their music. At last the admiral relaxed his hand on Glaucon.“Eu!They will call me‘Saviour of Hellas’if all goes well. I shall be greater than Solon, or Lycurgus, or Periander, and in return I must do justice to a friend. Fair recompense!”The laugh of the son of Neocles was harsher than a cry. The other answered nothing. Themistocles set his foot on the ladder.“I must return to the men. I would go to an oar, only they will not let me.”The admiral left Glaucon for a moment alone. All around him was the night,—the stars, the black æther, the blacker sea,—but he was not lonely. He felt as when in the foot-race he turned for the last burst toward the goal. One more struggle, one supreme summons of strength and will, and after that the triumph and the rest.—Hellas, Athens, Hermione, he was speeding back to all. Once again all the things past floated out of the dream-world and before him,—the wreck, the lotus-eating at Sardis, Thermopylæ, Salamis, the agony on theBozra. Now came the end, the end promised in the moment of vision whilst he pulled the boat at Salamis. What was it? He tried not to ask. Enough it was to be the end. He, like Themistocles, had supreme con[pg 406]fidence that the treason would be thwarted. The gods were cruel, but not so cruel that after so many deliverances they would crush him at the last.“The miracles of Zeus are never wrought in vain.”Had not Zeus wrought miracles for him once and twice? The proverb was great comfort.Suddenly whilst he built his palace of phantasy, a cry from the foreship dissolved it.“Attica, Attica, hail, all hail!”He saw upon the sky-line the dim tracery of the Athenian headlands“like a shield laid on the misty deep.”Again men were springing from the oars, laughing, weeping, embracing, whilst under the clear, unflagging wind theNausicaäsped up the narrowing strait betwixt Eubœa and the mainland. Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic shoreline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers.Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Eubœa to the starboard. They saw Marathon and its plain of fair memories stretching to port, and now the strait grew closer yet, and it needed all the governor’s skill at the steering-oars to keep theNausicaäfrom the threatening rocks. Marathon was behind at last. The trireme rounded the last promontory; the bay grew wider; the prow was set more to westward. Every man—the faintest—struggled back to his oar if he had left it—this was the last hundred stadia to Oropus, and after that theNausicaämight do no more. Once again thekeleustespiped, and his note was swift and feverish. The blades shot faster, faster, as the trireme raced down the sandy shore of the Attic“Diacria.”Once in the strait they saw a brown-sailed fisherboat, and the helm swerved enough to bring her within hail. The fishermen stared at the flying trireme and her straining, wide-eyed men.[pg 407]“Has there been a battle?”cried Ameinias.“Not yet. We are from Styra on Eubœa; we expect the news daily. The armies are almost together.”“And where are they?”“Near to Platæa.”That was all. The war-ship left the fishermen rocking in her wake, but again Themistocles drew his eyebrows close together, while Glaucon tightened the buckle on his belt. Platæa,—the name meant that the courier must traverse the breadth of Bœotia, and with the armies face to face how long would Zeus hold back the battle? How long indeed, with Democrates and Lycon intent on bringing battle to pass? The ship was more than ever silent as she rushed on the last stretch of her course. More men fell at the oars with blood upon their faces. The supernumeraries tossed them aside like logs of wood, and leaped upon their benches. Themistocles had vanished with Simonides in the cabin; all knew their work,—preparing letters to Aristeides and Pausanias to warn of the bitter truth. Then the haven at last: the white-stuccoed houses of Oropus clustering down upon the shore, the little mole, a few doltish peasants by the landing gaping at the great trireme. No others greeted them, for the terror of Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had driven all but the poorest to some safe shelter. The oars slipped from numb fingers; the anchor plunged into the green water; the mainsail rattled down the mast. Men sat on the benches motionless, gulping down the clear air. They had done their part. The rest lay in the hands of the gods, and in the speed of him who two days since they had called“Glaucon the Traitor.”The messenger came from the cabin, half stripped, on his head a felt skullcap, on his feet high hunter’s boots laced up to the knees. He had never shone in more noble beauty. The crew watched Themistocles place a papyrus[pg 408]roll in Glaucon’s belt, and press his mouth to the messenger’s ear in parting admonition. Glaucon gave his right hand to Themistocles, his left to Simonides. Fifty men were ready to man the pinnace to take him ashore. On the beach theNausicaä’speople saw him stand an instant, as he turned his face upward to the“dawn-facing”gods of Hellas, praying for strength and swiftness.“Apollo speed you!”called two hundred after him. He answered from the beach with a wave of his beautiful arms. A moment later he was hid behind a clump of olives. TheNausicaä’speople knew the ordeal before him, but many a man said Glaucon had the easier task. He could run till life failed him. They now could only fold their hands and wait.* * * * * * *It was long past noon when Glaucon left the desolate village of Oropus behind him. The day was hot, but after the manner of Greece not sultry, and the brisk breeze was stirring on the hill slopes. Over the distant mountains hung a tint of deep violet. It was early in Bœdromion.14The fields—where indeed the Barbarian cavalry men had not deliberately burned them—were seared brown by the long dry summer. Here and there great black crows were picking, and a red fox would whisk out of a thicket and go with long bounds across the unharvested fields to some safer refuge. Glaucon knew his route. Three hundred and sixty stadia lay before him, and those not over the well-beaten course in the gymnasium, but by rocky goat trails and by-paths that made his task no easier. He started off slowly. He was too good an athlete to waste his speed by one fierce burst at the outset. At first his road was no bad one, for he skirted the willow-hung Asopus, the boundary stream be[pg 409]twixt Attica and Bœotia. But he feared to keep too long upon this highway to Tanagra, and of the dangers of the road he soon met grim warnings.First, it was a farmstead in black ruin, with the carcass of a horse half burned lying before the gate. Next, it was the body of a woman, three days slain, and in the centre of the road,—no pleasant sight, for the crows had been at their banquet,—and hardened though the Alcmæonid was to war, he stopped long enough to cast the ceremonial handful of dust on the poor remains, as symbolic burial, and sped a wish to King Pluto to give peace to the wanderer’s spirit. Next, people met him: an old man, his wife, his young son,—wretched shepherd-folk dressed in sheepskins,—the boy helping his elders as they tottered along on their staves toward the mountain. At sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand, showing he was unarmed, and they halted also.“Whence and whither, good father?”Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near Œnophytæ, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life, and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road.“Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!”he was speaking in his heart,“noble and brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,—and though you once called me friend, Zeus and Dikē still rule, there is a price for this and you shall tell it out.”[pg 410]Yet he bethought himself of the old man’s warning, and left the beaten way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook, where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward. He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Bœotia was opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows picking at carrion,—more tokens that Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had done their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just as the spurs of Cithæron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to thrust their bald summits up before the runner’s ken, far ahead upon the way approached a cloud of dust. The Athenian paused in his run, dashed into the barren field, and flung himself flat between the furrows. He heard the hoof-beats of the wiry steppe horses, the clatter of targets and scabbards, the shrill shouts of the raiders. He lifted his head enough to see the red streamers on their lance tips flutter past. He let the noise die away before he dared to take the road once more.[pg 411]The time he lost was redeemed by a burst of speed. His head was growing very hot, but it was not time to think of that.Already the hills were spreading their shadows, and Platæa was many stadia away. Knowledge of how much remained made him reckless. He ran on without his former caution. The plain was again changing to undulating foothills. He had passed Erythræ now,—another village burned and deserted. He mounted a slope, was descending to mount another, when lo! over the hill before came eight riders at full speed. What must be done, must be done quickly. To plunge into the fallow field again were madness, the horsemen had surely seen him, and their sure-footed beasts could run over the furrows like rabbits. Glaucon stood stock still and stretched forth both hands, to show the horsemen he did not resist them.“O Athena Polias,”uprose the prayer from his heart,“if thou lovest not me, forget not thy love for Hellas, for Athens, for Hermione my wife.”The riders were on him instantly, their crooked swords flew out. They surrounded their captive, uttering outlandish cries and chatterings, ogling, muttering, pointing with their swords and lances as if debating among themselves whether to let the stranger go or hew him in pieces. Glaucon stood motionless, looking from one to another and asking for wisdom in his soul. Seven were Tartars, low-browed, yellow-skinned, flat of nose, with the grins of apes. He might expect the worst from these. But the eighth showed a long blond beard under his leather helm, and Glaucon rejoiced; the chief of the band was a Persian and more amenable.The Tartars continued gesturing and debating, flourishing their steel points right at the prisoner’s breast. He regarded[pg 412]them calmly, so calmly that the Persian gave vent to his admiration.“Down with your lance-head, Rūkhs. By Mithra, I think this Hellene is brave as he is beautiful! See how he stands. We must have him to the Prince.”“Excellency,”spoke Glaucon, in his best court Persian,“I am a courier to the Lord Mardonius. If you are faithful servants of his Eternity the king, where is your camp?”The chief started.“On the life of my father, you speak Persian as if you dwelled in Eran at the king’s own doors! What do you here alone upon this road in Hellas?”Glaucon put out his hand before answering, caught the tip of Rūkhs’s lance, and snapped it short like a reed. He knew the way to win the admiration of the Barbarians. They yelled with delight, all at least save Rūkhs.“Strong as he is brave and handsome,”cried the Persian.“Again—who are you?”The Alcmæonid drew himself to full height and gave his head its lordliest poise.“Understand, Persian, that I have indeed lived long at the king’s gates. Yes,—I have learned my Aryan at the Lord Mardonius’s own table, for I am the son of Attaginus of Thebes, who is not the least of the friends of his Eternity in Hellas.”The mention of one of the foremost Medizers of Greece made the subaltern bend in his saddle. His tone became even obsequious.“Ah, I understand. Your Excellency is a courier. You have despatches from the king?”“Despatches of moment just landed from Asia. Now tell me where the army is encamped.”“By the Asopus, much to northward. The Hellenes lie to[pg 413]south. Here, Rūkhs, take the noble courier behind you on the horse, and conduct him to the general.”“Heaven bless your generosity,”cried the runner, with almost precipitate haste,“but I know the country well, and the worthy Rūkhs will not thank me if I deprive him of his share in your booty.”“Ah, yes, we have heard of a farm across the hills at Eleutheræ that’s not yet been plundered,—handsome wenches, and we’ll make the father dig up his pot of money. Mazda speed you, sir, for we are off.”“Yeh! yeh!”yelled the seven Tartars, none more loudly than Rūkhs, who had no hankering for conducting a courier back into the camp. So the riders came and went, whilst Glaucon drew his girdle one notch tighter and ran onward through the gathering evening.The adventure had been a warning. Once Athena had saved him, not perchance twice,—again he took to the fields. He did not love the sight of the sun ever lower, on the long brown ridge of Helicon far to west. Until now he scarce thought enough of self to realize the terrible draughts he had made upon his treasure-house of strength. Could it be that he—the Isthmionices, who had crushed down the giant of Sparta before the cheering myriads—could faint like a weary girl, when the weal of Hellas was his to win or lose? Why did his tongue burn in his throat as a coal? Why did those feet—so swift, so ready when he sped from Oropus—lift so heavily?As a flash it came over him what he had endured,—the slow agony on theBozra, the bursting of the bands, the fight for life, the scene with Themistocles, the sleepless night on the trireme. Now he was running as the wild hare runs before the baying chase. Could it be that all this race was vain?[pg 414]“For Hellas! For Hermione!”Whilst he groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his teeth came together harder.“Themistocles trusts me. I carry the fate of Hellas. I can die, but I cannot fail.”It was quite dusk now. The brief southern twilight was ending in pale bars of gold above Helicon. Glaucon rose again; the cold sweat sprang out upon his forehead. Before his eyes rose darkness, but he did not faint. Some kind destiny set a stout pole upright in the field,—perhaps for vines to clamber,—he clutched it, and stood until his sight cleared and the pain a little abated. He tore the pole from the ground, and reached the roadway. He must take his chance of meeting more raiders. He had one vast comfort,—if there had been no battle fought that day, there would be none before dawn. But he had still weary stadia before him, and running was out of the question. Ever and anon he would stop his hobbling, take air, and stare at the vague tracery of the hills,—Cithæron to southward, Helicon to west, and northward the wide dark Theban plain. He gave up counting how many times he halted, how many times he spoke the magic words,“For Hellas! For Hermione!”and forced onward his way. The moon failed, even the stars were clouded. A kind of brute instinct guided him. At last—he guessed it was nearly midnight—he caught once more the flashings of a shallow river and the dim outlines of shrubbery beside the bank—again the Asopus. He must take care or he would wander straight into Mardonius’s camp. Therefore[pg 415]he stopped awhile, drank the cool water, and let the stream purl around his burning foot. Then he set his face to the south, for there lay Platæa. There he would find the Hellenes.He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and Cithæron beckoning him on, as with living fingers.“Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylæ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.”Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop.“For Hellas! For Hermione!”At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.* * * * * * *At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by Platæa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the[pg 416]contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting under arms,—awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The outpost—Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnæ—was creeping gingerly behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows. Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness, saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.“Halt, stranger, tell your business.”“For Aristeides.”The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.“That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.”“For Aristeides.”“Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?”“For Aristeides.”The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared.“Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?”“No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.”The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio.“Now, friend,”he spoke,“your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.”“For Aristeides.”[pg 417]“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!”cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers.“Themistocles’s seal,”he cried, and hastily turned the fallen man’s face upward to the light, when the lantern almost dropped from his own hand.“Glaucon the Alcmæonid! Glaucon the Traitor who was dead! He or his shade come back from Tartarus.”The four soldiers stood quaking like aspen, but their leader was of stouter stuff. Never had his native Attic shrewdness guided him to more purpose.“Ghost, traitor, what not, this man has run himself all but to death. Look on his face. And Themistocles does not send a courier for nothing. This packet is for Aristeides, and to Aristeides take it with speed.”Hippon seized the papyrus. He thought it would fade out of his hands like a spectre. It did not. The sentinel dropped his spear and ran breathless toward Platæa, where he knew was his general.
[pg 388]CHAPTER XXXVITHE READING OF THE RIDDLEA hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they caught theBozra. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil, fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop, listening to the report of hisprōreus.“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.“Kyrie, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl,‘The navarch! show us the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’And one of them—as true as that I sucked my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble up the ladder, covered with[pg 389]blood, the red lines of the fetters marked into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch recoiled in horror at his fellow-citizen’s plight.“Infernal gods! You a prisoner here? Where is this cursed vessel from?”“From Trœzene,”gasped the refugee;“if you love Athens and Hellas—”He turned just in time to fling an arm about Hiram, who—carelessly guarded—was gliding down the hatchway.“Seize that viper, bind, torture; he knows all. Make him tell or Hellas is lost!”“Control yourself, friend,”adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen nipped him fast and disarmed.“Ah! you carrion meat,”shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the helpless creature’s nose.“Honest men have their day at last. There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.”“Peace,”commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end.“Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?”“If you will be so good, sir captain,”the third Hellene at last broke his silence,“you will hearken to me.”“Who are you?”“Theprōreusof theAlcyoneof Melos. More of myself hereafter. But if you love the weal of Hellas, demand of this Hiram where he concealed the treasonable despatches he received at Trœzene and now has aboard.”[pg 390]“Hiram? O Lord Apollo, I recognize the snake! The one that was always gliding around Lycon at the Isthmus. If despatches he has, I know the way to get them. Now, black-hearted Cyclops,”—Cimon’s tone was not gentle,—“where are your papers?”Hiram had turned gray as a corpse, but his white teeth came together.“Phormio is mistaken. Your slave has none.”“Bah!”threw out Cimon,“I can smell your lies like garlic. Silent still? Good, see how I am better than Asclepius. I make the dumb talk by a miracle. A cord and belaying-pin, Naon.”The seaman addressed passed a cord about the Phœnician’s forehead with a fearful dexterity, and put the iron pin at the back of the skull.“Twist!”commanded Cimon. Two mariners gripped the victim’s arms. Naon pressed the cord tighter, tighter. A beastlike groan came through the lips of the Phœnician. His beady eyes started from his head, but he did not speak.“Again,”thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal agony escaped the prisoner.“Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!”“Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.”“In the boat mast.”Hiram spit the words out one by one.“In the cabin. There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the papers. Woe! woe! cursed the day I was born. Cursed my mother for bearing me.”The miserable creature fell to the deck, pressing his hands to his temples and moaning in agony. No one heeded him now. Cimon himself ran below to the mast, and wrenched the peg from its socket. Papyrus sheets were there, rolled compactly, covered with writing and sealed. The navarch[pg 391]turned over the packet curiously, then to the amazement of the sailors seemed to stagger against the mast. He was as pale as Hiram. He thrust the packet into the hands of hisprōreus, who stood near.“What make you of this seal? As you fear Athena, tell the truth.”“You need not adjure me so, captain. The device is simple: Theseus slaying the Minotaur.”“And who, in Zeus’s name, do you know in Athens who uses a seal like that?”Silence for a moment, then theprōreushimself was pale.“Your Excellency does not mean—”“Democrates!”cried the trembling navarch.“And why not Democrates?”The words came from the released prisoner, who had been so silent, but who had glided down and stood at Cimon’s elbow. He spoke in a changed voice now; again the navarch was startled.“Is Themistocles on theNausicaä?”asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if he himself were growing mad.“Yes—but your voice, your face, your manner—my head is dizzy.”The stranger touched him gently on the hand.“Have I so changed, you quite forget me, Cimon?”The son of Miltiades was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram’s tortures with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw’s neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before him was his long-time comrade.“My friend! My boyhood’s friend!”and so for many times they kissed.[pg 392]TheNausicaähad followed the chase at easy distance, ready with aid in case theBozraresisted. Themistocles was in his cabin with Simonides, when Cimon and Glaucon came to him. The admiral heard his young navarch’s report, then took the unopened packet and requested Cimon and the poet to withdraw. As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway, Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely.“Tell your story.”Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the captives, the voyage and the pursuing. The son of Neocles never hastened the recital, though once or twice he widened it by an incisive question. At the end he demanded:—“And does Phormio confirm all this?”“All. Question him.”“Humph! He’s a truthful man in everything save the price of fish. Now let us open the packet.”Themistocles was exceeding deliberate. He drew his dagger and pried the wrapper open without breaking the seals or tearing the papyrus. He turned the strips of paper carefully one by one, opened a casket, and drew thence a written sheet which he compared painfully with those before him.“The same hand,”his remark in undertone.He was so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain was at its fateful work.At last he uttered one word,“Cipher.”[pg 393]A sheet lay before him covered with broken words and phrases—seemingly without meaning—but the admiral knew the secret of the Spartanscytalē, the“cipher wood.”Forth from his casket came a number of rounded sticks of varying lengths. On one after another he wound the sheet spirally until at the fifth trial the scattered words came together. He read with ease. Then Themistocles’s brows grew closer than before. He muttered softly in his beard. But still he said nothing aloud. He read the cipher sheet through once, twice; it seemed thrice. Other sheets he fingered delicately, as though he feared the touch of venom. All without haste, but at the end, when Themistocles arose from his seat, the outlaw trembled. Many things he had seen, but never a face so changed. The admiral was neither flushed nor pale. But ten years seemed added to those lines above his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed. Was it fancy that put the gray into his beard and hair? Slowly he rose; slowly he ordered the marine on guard outside the cabin to summon Simonides, Cimon, and all the officers of the flag-ship. They trooped hither and filled the narrow cabin—fifteen or more hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the Ægean rocked theNausicaäsoftly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were grumbling lest the penteconter’s people get all the booty of theBozra. Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on Themistocles’s awful face.The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet.[pg 394]The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner before a race.“Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost.”“Democrates is a traitor!”The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.“I did not call you down to wail and groan.”He never raised his voice; his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a flood.“When? How? Declare.”“Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades did not die in vain.”Yet despite him men wept on one another’s shoulders as became true Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed, rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words of doom.“This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is Democrates’s, the seals are his. Give ear.“Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on the coasts of Asia, greeting:—Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even now I depart from Trœzene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in Bœotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making Mardonius’s victory certain.[pg 395]“For your part, excellent Tigranes, you must avoid the Hellenic ships at Delos and come back to Mardonius with your fleet ready to second him at once after his victory, which will be speedy; then with your aid he can readily turn the wall at the Isthmus. I send also letters written, as it were, in the hand of Themistocles. See that they fall into the hands of the other Greek admirals. They will breed more hurt amongst the Hellenes than you can accomplish with all your ships. I send, likewise, lists of such Athenians and Spartans as are friendly to his Majesty, also memoranda of such secret plans of the Greeks as have come to my knowledge.“From Trœzene, given into the hands of Hiram on the second of Metageitnion, in the archonship of Xanthippus.Chaire!”Themistocles ceased. No man spoke a word. It was as if a god had flung a bolt from heaven. What use to cry against it? Then, in an ominously low voice, Simonides asked a question.“What are these letters which purport to come from your pen, Themistocles?”The admiral unrolled another papyrus, and as he looked thereon his fine face contracted with loathing.“Let another read. I am made to pour contempt and ridicule upon my fellow-captains. I am made to boast‘when the war ends, I will be tyrant of Athens.’A thousand follies and wickednesses are put in my mouth. Were this letter true, I were the vilest wretch escaping Orcus. Since forged—”his hands clinched—“by that man, that man whom I have trusted, loved, cherished, called‘younger brother,’‘oldest son’—”He spat in rising fury and was still.“‘Fain would I grip his liver in my teeth,’”cried the little poet, even in storm and stress not forgetting his Homer. And the howl from the man-of-war’s men was as the howl of beasts desiring their prey. But the admiral’s burst of anger ended. He stood again an image of calm power. The voice that[pg 396]had charmed the thousands rang forth in its strength and sweetness.“Men of Athens, this is no hour for windy rage. Else I should rage the most, for who is more wronged than I? One whom we loved is fallen—later let us weep for him. One whom we trusted is false—later punish him. But now the work is neither to weep nor to punish, but to save Hellas. A great battle impends in Bœotia. Except the Zeus of our sires and Athena of the Pure Eyes be with us, we are men without home, without fatherland. Pausanias and Aristeides must be warned. TheNausicaäis the‘Salaminia,’—the swiftest trireme in the fleet. Ours must be the deed, and ours the glory. Enough of this—the men must hear, and then to the oars.”Themistocles had changed from despair to a triumph note. There was uplift even to look upon him. He strode before all hislieutenantsup and out upon the poop. The long tiers of benches and the gangways filled with rowers peered up at him. They had seen their officers gather in the cabin, and Dame Rumour, subtlest of Zeus’s messengers, had breathed“ill-tidings.”Now the admiral stood forth, and in few words told all the heavy tale. Again a great shout, whilst the bronzed men groaned on the benches.“Democrates is a traitor!”A deity had fallen from their Olympus; the darling of the Athenians’s democracy was sunk to vilest of the vile. But the admiral knew how to play on their two hundred hearts better than Orpheus upon his lyre. Again the note changed from despair to incitement, and when at last he called,“And can we cross the Ægean as never trireme crossed and pluck back Hellas from her fate?”thalamite, zygite, and thranite rose, tossing their brawny arms into the air.“We can!”[pg 397]Then Themistocles folded his own arms and smiled. He felt the god was still with him.* * * * * * *Yet, eager as was the will, they could not race forth instantly. Orders must be written to Xanthippus, the Athenian vice-admiral far away, bidding him at all hazards to keep the Persian fleet near Samos. Cimon was long in privy council with Themistocles in the state cabin. At the same time a prisoner was passed aboard theNausicaä, not gently bound,—Hiram, a precious witness, before the dogs had their final meal on him. But the rest of theBozra’speople found a quicker release. The penteconter’s people decided their fate with a yell.“Sell such harpies for slaves? The money would stink through our pouches!”So two by two, tied neck to neck and heel to heel, the wretches were flung overboard,“because we lack place and wood to crucify you,”called theNausicaä’sgovernor, as he pushed the last pair off into the leaden sea,—for the day was distant when the destruction of such Barbarian rogues would weigh even on tender consciences.So the Carthaginians ceased from troubling, but before the penteconter and theBozrabore away to join the remaining fleet, another deed was done in sight of all three ships. For whilst Themistocles was with Cimon, Simonides and Sicinnus had taken Glaucon to theNausicaä’sforecastle. Now as the penteconter was casting off, again he came to view, and the shout that greeted him was not of fear this time, but wonder and delight. The Alcmæonid was clean-shaven, his hair clipped close, the black dye even in a manner washed away. He had flung off the rough seaman’s dress, and stood forth in all his godlike beauty.Before all men Cimon, coming from the cabin, ran and[pg 398]kissed him once more, whilst the rowers clapped their hands.“Apollo—it is Delian Apollo! Glaucon the Beautiful lives again.Io! Io! pæan!”“Yes,”spoke Themistocles, in a burst of gladness.“The gods take one friend, they restore another. Œdipus has read the sphinx’s riddle. Honour this man, for he is worthy of honour through Hellas!”The officers ran to the athlete, after them the sailors. They covered his face and hands with kisses. He seemed escaped the Carthaginian to perish in the embrace of his countrymen. Never was his blush more boyish, more divine. Then a bugle-blast sent every man to his station. Cimon leaped across to his smaller ship. The rowers of theNausicaäran out their oars, the hundred and seventy blades trailed in the water. Every man took a long breath and fixed his eyes on the admiral standing on the poop. He held a golden goblet set with turquoise, and filled with the blood-red Pramnian wine. Loudly Themistocles prayed.“Zeus of Olympus and Dodona, Zeus Orchios, rewarder of the oath-breaker, to whom the Hellenes do not vainly pray, and thou Athena of the Pure Eyes, give ear. Make our ship swift, our arms strong, our hearts bold. Hold back the battle that we come not too late. Grant that we confound the guilty, put to flight the Barbarian, recompense the traitor. So to you and all other holy gods whose love is for the righteous we will proffer prayer and sacrifice forever. Amen.”He poured out the crimson liquor; far into the sea he flung the golden cup.“Heaven speed you!”shouted from the penteconter. Themistocles nodded. Thekeleustessmote his gavel upon the sounding-board. The triple oar bank rose as one and plunged into the foam. A long“h-a!”went up from the benches. The race to save Hellas was begun.[pg 399]CHAPTER XXXVIITHE RACE TO SAVE HELLASThe chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before theBozrahad submitted to her fate, she had led theNausicaäand her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,13as the crow flies, sundered them from the Euripus, the nearest point whence they could despatch a runner to Pausanias and Aristeides; and what with the twistings around the scattered Cyclades the route was one-fourth longer. But men had ceased reckoning distance. Their hearts were in the flying oars, and at first theNausicaäran leaping across the waves as leaps the dolphin,—the long gleaming blades springing like shuttles in the hands of the ready crew. They had taken from the penteconter all her spare rowers, and to make the great ship bound over the steel-gray deep was children’s play.“We must save Hellas, and we can!”That was the thought of all from Themistocles to the meanest thranite.So at the beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed theBozraever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor;[pg 400]the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men thekeleustesceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:—“Fast and more fastO’er the foam-spray we’re passed.And our creaking sails swellTo the swift-breathing blast,For Poseidon’s wild steedsWith their manifold feet,Like a hundred white nymphsOn the blue sea-floor fleet.And we wake as we goGray old Phorcys below,Whilst on shell-clustered trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow!The loud Tritons blow!“All of Æolus’s trainSpringing o’er the blue mainTo our pæans replyWith their long, long refrain;And the sea-folk upleapFrom their dark weedy caves;With a clear, briny laughThey dance over the waves;Now their mistress below,—See bright Thetis go,As she leads the mad revels,While loud Tritons blow!While loud Tritons blow!“With the foam gliding white,Where the light flash is bright.We feel the live keelLeaping on with delight;And in melody wildMen and Nereids and wind[pg 401]Sing and laugh all their praise,To the bluff seagods kind;Whilst deep down below,Where no storm blasts may go,On their care-charming trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow,The loud Tritons blow.”Bravely thus for a while, but at last Themistocles, watching from the poop with eyes that nothing evaded, saw how here and there the dip of the blades was weakening, here and there a breast was heaving rapidly, a mouth was panting for air.“The relief,”he ordered. And the spare rowers ran gladly to the places of those who seemed the weariest. Only a partial respite. Fifty supernumeraries were a poor stop-gap for the one hundred and seventy. Only the weakest could be relieved, and even those wept and pled to continue at the benches a little longer. The thunderous threat of Ameinias, that he who refused a proffered relief must stand all day by the mast with an iron anchor on his shoulder, alone sufficed to make the malcontents give place. Yet after a little while the singing died. Breath was too precious to waste. It was mockery to troll of“Æolus’s winds”whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous“beat,”“beat”of thekeleustes’shammer, and the creaking of the oars in their leathered holes alone broke the stillness that reigned through the length of the trireme. The penteconter and her prize had long since faded below the horizon. With almost wistful eyes men watched the islets as they glided past one after another, Thera now, then Ios, and presently the greater Paros and Naxos lay before them. They relieved oars whenever possible. The supernumeraries needed no urging after their scanty rest to spring to the place of him who was fainting, but hardly any man spoke a word.[pg 402]The first time the relief went in Glaucon had stepped forward.“I am strong. I am able to pull an oar,”he had cried almost angrily when Themistocles laid his hand upon him, but the admiral would have none of it.“You shall not. Sooner will I go on to the bench myself. You have been through the gates of Tartarus these last days, and need all your strength. Are you not the Isthmionices,—the swiftest runner in Hellas?”Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,—that after theNausicaämade land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Bœotia to bear the tidings to Pausanias.They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. Thekeleustesslowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phœnicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite thekeleustes’sbeats, despite Themistocles’s command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around theNausicaä’sbow sang its monotonous music.But Themistocles ever turned his face eastward, until men thought he was awaiting some foe in chase, and presently—just as a rower among the zygites fell back with the blood gushing from mouth and nostrils—the admiral pointed his finger toward the sky-line of the morning.“Look! Athena is with us!”And for the first time in hours those panting, straining men let the hot oar butts slip from their hands, even trail[pg 403]in the darkling water, whilst they rose, looked, and blessed their gods.It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the glassy sea; they could hear the singing of the cordage; they could catch the sweet sniff of the brine. Admiral and rower lifted their hands together at this manifest favour of heaven.“Poseidon is with us! Athena is with us! Æolus is with us! We can save Hellas!”Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias’s lusty call to bend again the sails. The smaller canvas on the foremast and great spread on the mainmast were bellying to the piping gale. A fair wind, but no storm. The oars were but helpers now,—men laughed, hugged one another as boys, wept as girls, and let the benignant wind gods labour for them. Delos the Holy they passed, and Tenos, and soon the heights of Andros lifted, as the ship with its lading of fate flew over the island-strewn sea. At last, just as the day was leaving them, they saw Helios going down into the fire-tinged waves in a parting burst of glory. Darkness next, but the kindly wind failed not. Through the night no man on that trireme slumbered. Breeze or calm, he who had an obol’s weight of power spent it at the oars.Long after midnight Themistocles and Glaucon clambered the giddy cordage to the ship’s top above the swelling mainsail. On the narrow platform, with the stars above, the dim tracery of the wide sail, the still dimmer tracery of the long ship below, they seemed transported to another world. Far beneath by the glimmer of the lanterns they saw the rowers swaying at their toil. In the wake the phosphorous bubbles ran away, opalescent gleams springing upward, as if torches of Doris and her dancing Nereids. So much had[pg 404]admiral and outlaw lived through this day they had thought little of themselves. Now calmer thought returned. Glaucon could tell of many things he had heard and thought, of the conversation overheard the morning before Salamis, of what Phormio had related during the weary captivity in the hold of theBozra. Themistocles pondered long. Yet for Glaucon when standing even on that calm pinnacle the trireme must creep over the deep too slowly.“O give me wings, Father Zeus,”was his prayer;“yes, the wings of Icarus. Let me fly but once to confound the traitor and deliver thy Hellas,—after that, like Icarus let me fall. I am content to die.”But Themistocles pressed close against his side.“Ask for no wings,”—in the admiral’s voice was a tremor not there when he sped confidence through the crew,—“if it be destined we save Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die.‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are greatgods.They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save Hellas. Yet I have fear—”“Of what, then?”“Fear that Themistocles will be too merciful to be just. Ah! pity me.”“I understand—Democrates.”“I pray he may escape to the Persians, or that Ares may slay him in fair battle. If not—”“What will you do?”The admiral’s hold upon the younger Athenian’s arm tightened.“I will prove that Aristeides is not the only man in Hellas who deserves the name of‘Just.’When I was young, my[pg 405]tutor would predict great things of me.‘You will be nothing small, Themistocles, but great, whether for good or ill, I know not,—but great you will be.’And I have always struggled upward. I have always prospered. I am the first man in Hellas. I have set my will against all the power of Persia. Zeus willing, I shall conquer. But the Olympians demand their price. For saving Hellas I must pay—Democrates. I loved him.”The two men stood in silence long, whilst below the oars and the rushing water played their music. At last the admiral relaxed his hand on Glaucon.“Eu!They will call me‘Saviour of Hellas’if all goes well. I shall be greater than Solon, or Lycurgus, or Periander, and in return I must do justice to a friend. Fair recompense!”The laugh of the son of Neocles was harsher than a cry. The other answered nothing. Themistocles set his foot on the ladder.“I must return to the men. I would go to an oar, only they will not let me.”The admiral left Glaucon for a moment alone. All around him was the night,—the stars, the black æther, the blacker sea,—but he was not lonely. He felt as when in the foot-race he turned for the last burst toward the goal. One more struggle, one supreme summons of strength and will, and after that the triumph and the rest.—Hellas, Athens, Hermione, he was speeding back to all. Once again all the things past floated out of the dream-world and before him,—the wreck, the lotus-eating at Sardis, Thermopylæ, Salamis, the agony on theBozra. Now came the end, the end promised in the moment of vision whilst he pulled the boat at Salamis. What was it? He tried not to ask. Enough it was to be the end. He, like Themistocles, had supreme con[pg 406]fidence that the treason would be thwarted. The gods were cruel, but not so cruel that after so many deliverances they would crush him at the last.“The miracles of Zeus are never wrought in vain.”Had not Zeus wrought miracles for him once and twice? The proverb was great comfort.Suddenly whilst he built his palace of phantasy, a cry from the foreship dissolved it.“Attica, Attica, hail, all hail!”He saw upon the sky-line the dim tracery of the Athenian headlands“like a shield laid on the misty deep.”Again men were springing from the oars, laughing, weeping, embracing, whilst under the clear, unflagging wind theNausicaäsped up the narrowing strait betwixt Eubœa and the mainland. Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic shoreline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers.Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Eubœa to the starboard. They saw Marathon and its plain of fair memories stretching to port, and now the strait grew closer yet, and it needed all the governor’s skill at the steering-oars to keep theNausicaäfrom the threatening rocks. Marathon was behind at last. The trireme rounded the last promontory; the bay grew wider; the prow was set more to westward. Every man—the faintest—struggled back to his oar if he had left it—this was the last hundred stadia to Oropus, and after that theNausicaämight do no more. Once again thekeleustespiped, and his note was swift and feverish. The blades shot faster, faster, as the trireme raced down the sandy shore of the Attic“Diacria.”Once in the strait they saw a brown-sailed fisherboat, and the helm swerved enough to bring her within hail. The fishermen stared at the flying trireme and her straining, wide-eyed men.[pg 407]“Has there been a battle?”cried Ameinias.“Not yet. We are from Styra on Eubœa; we expect the news daily. The armies are almost together.”“And where are they?”“Near to Platæa.”That was all. The war-ship left the fishermen rocking in her wake, but again Themistocles drew his eyebrows close together, while Glaucon tightened the buckle on his belt. Platæa,—the name meant that the courier must traverse the breadth of Bœotia, and with the armies face to face how long would Zeus hold back the battle? How long indeed, with Democrates and Lycon intent on bringing battle to pass? The ship was more than ever silent as she rushed on the last stretch of her course. More men fell at the oars with blood upon their faces. The supernumeraries tossed them aside like logs of wood, and leaped upon their benches. Themistocles had vanished with Simonides in the cabin; all knew their work,—preparing letters to Aristeides and Pausanias to warn of the bitter truth. Then the haven at last: the white-stuccoed houses of Oropus clustering down upon the shore, the little mole, a few doltish peasants by the landing gaping at the great trireme. No others greeted them, for the terror of Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had driven all but the poorest to some safe shelter. The oars slipped from numb fingers; the anchor plunged into the green water; the mainsail rattled down the mast. Men sat on the benches motionless, gulping down the clear air. They had done their part. The rest lay in the hands of the gods, and in the speed of him who two days since they had called“Glaucon the Traitor.”The messenger came from the cabin, half stripped, on his head a felt skullcap, on his feet high hunter’s boots laced up to the knees. He had never shone in more noble beauty. The crew watched Themistocles place a papyrus[pg 408]roll in Glaucon’s belt, and press his mouth to the messenger’s ear in parting admonition. Glaucon gave his right hand to Themistocles, his left to Simonides. Fifty men were ready to man the pinnace to take him ashore. On the beach theNausicaä’speople saw him stand an instant, as he turned his face upward to the“dawn-facing”gods of Hellas, praying for strength and swiftness.“Apollo speed you!”called two hundred after him. He answered from the beach with a wave of his beautiful arms. A moment later he was hid behind a clump of olives. TheNausicaä’speople knew the ordeal before him, but many a man said Glaucon had the easier task. He could run till life failed him. They now could only fold their hands and wait.* * * * * * *It was long past noon when Glaucon left the desolate village of Oropus behind him. The day was hot, but after the manner of Greece not sultry, and the brisk breeze was stirring on the hill slopes. Over the distant mountains hung a tint of deep violet. It was early in Bœdromion.14The fields—where indeed the Barbarian cavalry men had not deliberately burned them—were seared brown by the long dry summer. Here and there great black crows were picking, and a red fox would whisk out of a thicket and go with long bounds across the unharvested fields to some safer refuge. Glaucon knew his route. Three hundred and sixty stadia lay before him, and those not over the well-beaten course in the gymnasium, but by rocky goat trails and by-paths that made his task no easier. He started off slowly. He was too good an athlete to waste his speed by one fierce burst at the outset. At first his road was no bad one, for he skirted the willow-hung Asopus, the boundary stream be[pg 409]twixt Attica and Bœotia. But he feared to keep too long upon this highway to Tanagra, and of the dangers of the road he soon met grim warnings.First, it was a farmstead in black ruin, with the carcass of a horse half burned lying before the gate. Next, it was the body of a woman, three days slain, and in the centre of the road,—no pleasant sight, for the crows had been at their banquet,—and hardened though the Alcmæonid was to war, he stopped long enough to cast the ceremonial handful of dust on the poor remains, as symbolic burial, and sped a wish to King Pluto to give peace to the wanderer’s spirit. Next, people met him: an old man, his wife, his young son,—wretched shepherd-folk dressed in sheepskins,—the boy helping his elders as they tottered along on their staves toward the mountain. At sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand, showing he was unarmed, and they halted also.“Whence and whither, good father?”Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near Œnophytæ, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life, and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road.“Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!”he was speaking in his heart,“noble and brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,—and though you once called me friend, Zeus and Dikē still rule, there is a price for this and you shall tell it out.”[pg 410]Yet he bethought himself of the old man’s warning, and left the beaten way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook, where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward. He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Bœotia was opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows picking at carrion,—more tokens that Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had done their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just as the spurs of Cithæron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to thrust their bald summits up before the runner’s ken, far ahead upon the way approached a cloud of dust. The Athenian paused in his run, dashed into the barren field, and flung himself flat between the furrows. He heard the hoof-beats of the wiry steppe horses, the clatter of targets and scabbards, the shrill shouts of the raiders. He lifted his head enough to see the red streamers on their lance tips flutter past. He let the noise die away before he dared to take the road once more.[pg 411]The time he lost was redeemed by a burst of speed. His head was growing very hot, but it was not time to think of that.Already the hills were spreading their shadows, and Platæa was many stadia away. Knowledge of how much remained made him reckless. He ran on without his former caution. The plain was again changing to undulating foothills. He had passed Erythræ now,—another village burned and deserted. He mounted a slope, was descending to mount another, when lo! over the hill before came eight riders at full speed. What must be done, must be done quickly. To plunge into the fallow field again were madness, the horsemen had surely seen him, and their sure-footed beasts could run over the furrows like rabbits. Glaucon stood stock still and stretched forth both hands, to show the horsemen he did not resist them.“O Athena Polias,”uprose the prayer from his heart,“if thou lovest not me, forget not thy love for Hellas, for Athens, for Hermione my wife.”The riders were on him instantly, their crooked swords flew out. They surrounded their captive, uttering outlandish cries and chatterings, ogling, muttering, pointing with their swords and lances as if debating among themselves whether to let the stranger go or hew him in pieces. Glaucon stood motionless, looking from one to another and asking for wisdom in his soul. Seven were Tartars, low-browed, yellow-skinned, flat of nose, with the grins of apes. He might expect the worst from these. But the eighth showed a long blond beard under his leather helm, and Glaucon rejoiced; the chief of the band was a Persian and more amenable.The Tartars continued gesturing and debating, flourishing their steel points right at the prisoner’s breast. He regarded[pg 412]them calmly, so calmly that the Persian gave vent to his admiration.“Down with your lance-head, Rūkhs. By Mithra, I think this Hellene is brave as he is beautiful! See how he stands. We must have him to the Prince.”“Excellency,”spoke Glaucon, in his best court Persian,“I am a courier to the Lord Mardonius. If you are faithful servants of his Eternity the king, where is your camp?”The chief started.“On the life of my father, you speak Persian as if you dwelled in Eran at the king’s own doors! What do you here alone upon this road in Hellas?”Glaucon put out his hand before answering, caught the tip of Rūkhs’s lance, and snapped it short like a reed. He knew the way to win the admiration of the Barbarians. They yelled with delight, all at least save Rūkhs.“Strong as he is brave and handsome,”cried the Persian.“Again—who are you?”The Alcmæonid drew himself to full height and gave his head its lordliest poise.“Understand, Persian, that I have indeed lived long at the king’s gates. Yes,—I have learned my Aryan at the Lord Mardonius’s own table, for I am the son of Attaginus of Thebes, who is not the least of the friends of his Eternity in Hellas.”The mention of one of the foremost Medizers of Greece made the subaltern bend in his saddle. His tone became even obsequious.“Ah, I understand. Your Excellency is a courier. You have despatches from the king?”“Despatches of moment just landed from Asia. Now tell me where the army is encamped.”“By the Asopus, much to northward. The Hellenes lie to[pg 413]south. Here, Rūkhs, take the noble courier behind you on the horse, and conduct him to the general.”“Heaven bless your generosity,”cried the runner, with almost precipitate haste,“but I know the country well, and the worthy Rūkhs will not thank me if I deprive him of his share in your booty.”“Ah, yes, we have heard of a farm across the hills at Eleutheræ that’s not yet been plundered,—handsome wenches, and we’ll make the father dig up his pot of money. Mazda speed you, sir, for we are off.”“Yeh! yeh!”yelled the seven Tartars, none more loudly than Rūkhs, who had no hankering for conducting a courier back into the camp. So the riders came and went, whilst Glaucon drew his girdle one notch tighter and ran onward through the gathering evening.The adventure had been a warning. Once Athena had saved him, not perchance twice,—again he took to the fields. He did not love the sight of the sun ever lower, on the long brown ridge of Helicon far to west. Until now he scarce thought enough of self to realize the terrible draughts he had made upon his treasure-house of strength. Could it be that he—the Isthmionices, who had crushed down the giant of Sparta before the cheering myriads—could faint like a weary girl, when the weal of Hellas was his to win or lose? Why did his tongue burn in his throat as a coal? Why did those feet—so swift, so ready when he sped from Oropus—lift so heavily?As a flash it came over him what he had endured,—the slow agony on theBozra, the bursting of the bands, the fight for life, the scene with Themistocles, the sleepless night on the trireme. Now he was running as the wild hare runs before the baying chase. Could it be that all this race was vain?[pg 414]“For Hellas! For Hermione!”Whilst he groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his teeth came together harder.“Themistocles trusts me. I carry the fate of Hellas. I can die, but I cannot fail.”It was quite dusk now. The brief southern twilight was ending in pale bars of gold above Helicon. Glaucon rose again; the cold sweat sprang out upon his forehead. Before his eyes rose darkness, but he did not faint. Some kind destiny set a stout pole upright in the field,—perhaps for vines to clamber,—he clutched it, and stood until his sight cleared and the pain a little abated. He tore the pole from the ground, and reached the roadway. He must take his chance of meeting more raiders. He had one vast comfort,—if there had been no battle fought that day, there would be none before dawn. But he had still weary stadia before him, and running was out of the question. Ever and anon he would stop his hobbling, take air, and stare at the vague tracery of the hills,—Cithæron to southward, Helicon to west, and northward the wide dark Theban plain. He gave up counting how many times he halted, how many times he spoke the magic words,“For Hellas! For Hermione!”and forced onward his way. The moon failed, even the stars were clouded. A kind of brute instinct guided him. At last—he guessed it was nearly midnight—he caught once more the flashings of a shallow river and the dim outlines of shrubbery beside the bank—again the Asopus. He must take care or he would wander straight into Mardonius’s camp. Therefore[pg 415]he stopped awhile, drank the cool water, and let the stream purl around his burning foot. Then he set his face to the south, for there lay Platæa. There he would find the Hellenes.He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and Cithæron beckoning him on, as with living fingers.“Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylæ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.”Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop.“For Hellas! For Hermione!”At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.* * * * * * *At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by Platæa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the[pg 416]contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting under arms,—awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The outpost—Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnæ—was creeping gingerly behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows. Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness, saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.“Halt, stranger, tell your business.”“For Aristeides.”The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.“That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.”“For Aristeides.”“Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?”“For Aristeides.”The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared.“Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?”“No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.”The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio.“Now, friend,”he spoke,“your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.”“For Aristeides.”[pg 417]“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!”cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers.“Themistocles’s seal,”he cried, and hastily turned the fallen man’s face upward to the light, when the lantern almost dropped from his own hand.“Glaucon the Alcmæonid! Glaucon the Traitor who was dead! He or his shade come back from Tartarus.”The four soldiers stood quaking like aspen, but their leader was of stouter stuff. Never had his native Attic shrewdness guided him to more purpose.“Ghost, traitor, what not, this man has run himself all but to death. Look on his face. And Themistocles does not send a courier for nothing. This packet is for Aristeides, and to Aristeides take it with speed.”Hippon seized the papyrus. He thought it would fade out of his hands like a spectre. It did not. The sentinel dropped his spear and ran breathless toward Platæa, where he knew was his general.
[pg 388]CHAPTER XXXVITHE READING OF THE RIDDLEA hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they caught theBozra. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil, fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop, listening to the report of hisprōreus.“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.“Kyrie, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl,‘The navarch! show us the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’And one of them—as true as that I sucked my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble up the ladder, covered with[pg 389]blood, the red lines of the fetters marked into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch recoiled in horror at his fellow-citizen’s plight.“Infernal gods! You a prisoner here? Where is this cursed vessel from?”“From Trœzene,”gasped the refugee;“if you love Athens and Hellas—”He turned just in time to fling an arm about Hiram, who—carelessly guarded—was gliding down the hatchway.“Seize that viper, bind, torture; he knows all. Make him tell or Hellas is lost!”“Control yourself, friend,”adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen nipped him fast and disarmed.“Ah! you carrion meat,”shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the helpless creature’s nose.“Honest men have their day at last. There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.”“Peace,”commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end.“Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?”“If you will be so good, sir captain,”the third Hellene at last broke his silence,“you will hearken to me.”“Who are you?”“Theprōreusof theAlcyoneof Melos. More of myself hereafter. But if you love the weal of Hellas, demand of this Hiram where he concealed the treasonable despatches he received at Trœzene and now has aboard.”[pg 390]“Hiram? O Lord Apollo, I recognize the snake! The one that was always gliding around Lycon at the Isthmus. If despatches he has, I know the way to get them. Now, black-hearted Cyclops,”—Cimon’s tone was not gentle,—“where are your papers?”Hiram had turned gray as a corpse, but his white teeth came together.“Phormio is mistaken. Your slave has none.”“Bah!”threw out Cimon,“I can smell your lies like garlic. Silent still? Good, see how I am better than Asclepius. I make the dumb talk by a miracle. A cord and belaying-pin, Naon.”The seaman addressed passed a cord about the Phœnician’s forehead with a fearful dexterity, and put the iron pin at the back of the skull.“Twist!”commanded Cimon. Two mariners gripped the victim’s arms. Naon pressed the cord tighter, tighter. A beastlike groan came through the lips of the Phœnician. His beady eyes started from his head, but he did not speak.“Again,”thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal agony escaped the prisoner.“Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!”“Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.”“In the boat mast.”Hiram spit the words out one by one.“In the cabin. There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the papers. Woe! woe! cursed the day I was born. Cursed my mother for bearing me.”The miserable creature fell to the deck, pressing his hands to his temples and moaning in agony. No one heeded him now. Cimon himself ran below to the mast, and wrenched the peg from its socket. Papyrus sheets were there, rolled compactly, covered with writing and sealed. The navarch[pg 391]turned over the packet curiously, then to the amazement of the sailors seemed to stagger against the mast. He was as pale as Hiram. He thrust the packet into the hands of hisprōreus, who stood near.“What make you of this seal? As you fear Athena, tell the truth.”“You need not adjure me so, captain. The device is simple: Theseus slaying the Minotaur.”“And who, in Zeus’s name, do you know in Athens who uses a seal like that?”Silence for a moment, then theprōreushimself was pale.“Your Excellency does not mean—”“Democrates!”cried the trembling navarch.“And why not Democrates?”The words came from the released prisoner, who had been so silent, but who had glided down and stood at Cimon’s elbow. He spoke in a changed voice now; again the navarch was startled.“Is Themistocles on theNausicaä?”asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if he himself were growing mad.“Yes—but your voice, your face, your manner—my head is dizzy.”The stranger touched him gently on the hand.“Have I so changed, you quite forget me, Cimon?”The son of Miltiades was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram’s tortures with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw’s neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before him was his long-time comrade.“My friend! My boyhood’s friend!”and so for many times they kissed.[pg 392]TheNausicaähad followed the chase at easy distance, ready with aid in case theBozraresisted. Themistocles was in his cabin with Simonides, when Cimon and Glaucon came to him. The admiral heard his young navarch’s report, then took the unopened packet and requested Cimon and the poet to withdraw. As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway, Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely.“Tell your story.”Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the captives, the voyage and the pursuing. The son of Neocles never hastened the recital, though once or twice he widened it by an incisive question. At the end he demanded:—“And does Phormio confirm all this?”“All. Question him.”“Humph! He’s a truthful man in everything save the price of fish. Now let us open the packet.”Themistocles was exceeding deliberate. He drew his dagger and pried the wrapper open without breaking the seals or tearing the papyrus. He turned the strips of paper carefully one by one, opened a casket, and drew thence a written sheet which he compared painfully with those before him.“The same hand,”his remark in undertone.He was so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain was at its fateful work.At last he uttered one word,“Cipher.”[pg 393]A sheet lay before him covered with broken words and phrases—seemingly without meaning—but the admiral knew the secret of the Spartanscytalē, the“cipher wood.”Forth from his casket came a number of rounded sticks of varying lengths. On one after another he wound the sheet spirally until at the fifth trial the scattered words came together. He read with ease. Then Themistocles’s brows grew closer than before. He muttered softly in his beard. But still he said nothing aloud. He read the cipher sheet through once, twice; it seemed thrice. Other sheets he fingered delicately, as though he feared the touch of venom. All without haste, but at the end, when Themistocles arose from his seat, the outlaw trembled. Many things he had seen, but never a face so changed. The admiral was neither flushed nor pale. But ten years seemed added to those lines above his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed. Was it fancy that put the gray into his beard and hair? Slowly he rose; slowly he ordered the marine on guard outside the cabin to summon Simonides, Cimon, and all the officers of the flag-ship. They trooped hither and filled the narrow cabin—fifteen or more hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the Ægean rocked theNausicaäsoftly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were grumbling lest the penteconter’s people get all the booty of theBozra. Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on Themistocles’s awful face.The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet.[pg 394]The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner before a race.“Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost.”“Democrates is a traitor!”The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.“I did not call you down to wail and groan.”He never raised his voice; his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a flood.“When? How? Declare.”“Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades did not die in vain.”Yet despite him men wept on one another’s shoulders as became true Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed, rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words of doom.“This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is Democrates’s, the seals are his. Give ear.“Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on the coasts of Asia, greeting:—Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even now I depart from Trœzene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in Bœotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making Mardonius’s victory certain.[pg 395]“For your part, excellent Tigranes, you must avoid the Hellenic ships at Delos and come back to Mardonius with your fleet ready to second him at once after his victory, which will be speedy; then with your aid he can readily turn the wall at the Isthmus. I send also letters written, as it were, in the hand of Themistocles. See that they fall into the hands of the other Greek admirals. They will breed more hurt amongst the Hellenes than you can accomplish with all your ships. I send, likewise, lists of such Athenians and Spartans as are friendly to his Majesty, also memoranda of such secret plans of the Greeks as have come to my knowledge.“From Trœzene, given into the hands of Hiram on the second of Metageitnion, in the archonship of Xanthippus.Chaire!”Themistocles ceased. No man spoke a word. It was as if a god had flung a bolt from heaven. What use to cry against it? Then, in an ominously low voice, Simonides asked a question.“What are these letters which purport to come from your pen, Themistocles?”The admiral unrolled another papyrus, and as he looked thereon his fine face contracted with loathing.“Let another read. I am made to pour contempt and ridicule upon my fellow-captains. I am made to boast‘when the war ends, I will be tyrant of Athens.’A thousand follies and wickednesses are put in my mouth. Were this letter true, I were the vilest wretch escaping Orcus. Since forged—”his hands clinched—“by that man, that man whom I have trusted, loved, cherished, called‘younger brother,’‘oldest son’—”He spat in rising fury and was still.“‘Fain would I grip his liver in my teeth,’”cried the little poet, even in storm and stress not forgetting his Homer. And the howl from the man-of-war’s men was as the howl of beasts desiring their prey. But the admiral’s burst of anger ended. He stood again an image of calm power. The voice that[pg 396]had charmed the thousands rang forth in its strength and sweetness.“Men of Athens, this is no hour for windy rage. Else I should rage the most, for who is more wronged than I? One whom we loved is fallen—later let us weep for him. One whom we trusted is false—later punish him. But now the work is neither to weep nor to punish, but to save Hellas. A great battle impends in Bœotia. Except the Zeus of our sires and Athena of the Pure Eyes be with us, we are men without home, without fatherland. Pausanias and Aristeides must be warned. TheNausicaäis the‘Salaminia,’—the swiftest trireme in the fleet. Ours must be the deed, and ours the glory. Enough of this—the men must hear, and then to the oars.”Themistocles had changed from despair to a triumph note. There was uplift even to look upon him. He strode before all hislieutenantsup and out upon the poop. The long tiers of benches and the gangways filled with rowers peered up at him. They had seen their officers gather in the cabin, and Dame Rumour, subtlest of Zeus’s messengers, had breathed“ill-tidings.”Now the admiral stood forth, and in few words told all the heavy tale. Again a great shout, whilst the bronzed men groaned on the benches.“Democrates is a traitor!”A deity had fallen from their Olympus; the darling of the Athenians’s democracy was sunk to vilest of the vile. But the admiral knew how to play on their two hundred hearts better than Orpheus upon his lyre. Again the note changed from despair to incitement, and when at last he called,“And can we cross the Ægean as never trireme crossed and pluck back Hellas from her fate?”thalamite, zygite, and thranite rose, tossing their brawny arms into the air.“We can!”[pg 397]Then Themistocles folded his own arms and smiled. He felt the god was still with him.* * * * * * *Yet, eager as was the will, they could not race forth instantly. Orders must be written to Xanthippus, the Athenian vice-admiral far away, bidding him at all hazards to keep the Persian fleet near Samos. Cimon was long in privy council with Themistocles in the state cabin. At the same time a prisoner was passed aboard theNausicaä, not gently bound,—Hiram, a precious witness, before the dogs had their final meal on him. But the rest of theBozra’speople found a quicker release. The penteconter’s people decided their fate with a yell.“Sell such harpies for slaves? The money would stink through our pouches!”So two by two, tied neck to neck and heel to heel, the wretches were flung overboard,“because we lack place and wood to crucify you,”called theNausicaä’sgovernor, as he pushed the last pair off into the leaden sea,—for the day was distant when the destruction of such Barbarian rogues would weigh even on tender consciences.So the Carthaginians ceased from troubling, but before the penteconter and theBozrabore away to join the remaining fleet, another deed was done in sight of all three ships. For whilst Themistocles was with Cimon, Simonides and Sicinnus had taken Glaucon to theNausicaä’sforecastle. Now as the penteconter was casting off, again he came to view, and the shout that greeted him was not of fear this time, but wonder and delight. The Alcmæonid was clean-shaven, his hair clipped close, the black dye even in a manner washed away. He had flung off the rough seaman’s dress, and stood forth in all his godlike beauty.Before all men Cimon, coming from the cabin, ran and[pg 398]kissed him once more, whilst the rowers clapped their hands.“Apollo—it is Delian Apollo! Glaucon the Beautiful lives again.Io! Io! pæan!”“Yes,”spoke Themistocles, in a burst of gladness.“The gods take one friend, they restore another. Œdipus has read the sphinx’s riddle. Honour this man, for he is worthy of honour through Hellas!”The officers ran to the athlete, after them the sailors. They covered his face and hands with kisses. He seemed escaped the Carthaginian to perish in the embrace of his countrymen. Never was his blush more boyish, more divine. Then a bugle-blast sent every man to his station. Cimon leaped across to his smaller ship. The rowers of theNausicaäran out their oars, the hundred and seventy blades trailed in the water. Every man took a long breath and fixed his eyes on the admiral standing on the poop. He held a golden goblet set with turquoise, and filled with the blood-red Pramnian wine. Loudly Themistocles prayed.“Zeus of Olympus and Dodona, Zeus Orchios, rewarder of the oath-breaker, to whom the Hellenes do not vainly pray, and thou Athena of the Pure Eyes, give ear. Make our ship swift, our arms strong, our hearts bold. Hold back the battle that we come not too late. Grant that we confound the guilty, put to flight the Barbarian, recompense the traitor. So to you and all other holy gods whose love is for the righteous we will proffer prayer and sacrifice forever. Amen.”He poured out the crimson liquor; far into the sea he flung the golden cup.“Heaven speed you!”shouted from the penteconter. Themistocles nodded. Thekeleustessmote his gavel upon the sounding-board. The triple oar bank rose as one and plunged into the foam. A long“h-a!”went up from the benches. The race to save Hellas was begun.
A hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they caught theBozra. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil, fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop, listening to the report of hisprōreus.
“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”
But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.
“Kyrie, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl,‘The navarch! show us the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’And one of them—as true as that I sucked my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”
“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”
“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”
For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble up the ladder, covered with[pg 389]blood, the red lines of the fetters marked into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch recoiled in horror at his fellow-citizen’s plight.
“Infernal gods! You a prisoner here? Where is this cursed vessel from?”
“From Trœzene,”gasped the refugee;“if you love Athens and Hellas—”
He turned just in time to fling an arm about Hiram, who—carelessly guarded—was gliding down the hatchway.
“Seize that viper, bind, torture; he knows all. Make him tell or Hellas is lost!”
“Control yourself, friend,”adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen nipped him fast and disarmed.
“Ah! you carrion meat,”shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the helpless creature’s nose.“Honest men have their day at last. There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.”
“Peace,”commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end.“Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?”
“If you will be so good, sir captain,”the third Hellene at last broke his silence,“you will hearken to me.”
“Who are you?”
“Theprōreusof theAlcyoneof Melos. More of myself hereafter. But if you love the weal of Hellas, demand of this Hiram where he concealed the treasonable despatches he received at Trœzene and now has aboard.”
“Hiram? O Lord Apollo, I recognize the snake! The one that was always gliding around Lycon at the Isthmus. If despatches he has, I know the way to get them. Now, black-hearted Cyclops,”—Cimon’s tone was not gentle,—“where are your papers?”
Hiram had turned gray as a corpse, but his white teeth came together.
“Phormio is mistaken. Your slave has none.”
“Bah!”threw out Cimon,“I can smell your lies like garlic. Silent still? Good, see how I am better than Asclepius. I make the dumb talk by a miracle. A cord and belaying-pin, Naon.”
The seaman addressed passed a cord about the Phœnician’s forehead with a fearful dexterity, and put the iron pin at the back of the skull.
“Twist!”commanded Cimon. Two mariners gripped the victim’s arms. Naon pressed the cord tighter, tighter. A beastlike groan came through the lips of the Phœnician. His beady eyes started from his head, but he did not speak.
“Again,”thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal agony escaped the prisoner.
“Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!”
“Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.”
“In the boat mast.”Hiram spit the words out one by one.“In the cabin. There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the papers. Woe! woe! cursed the day I was born. Cursed my mother for bearing me.”
The miserable creature fell to the deck, pressing his hands to his temples and moaning in agony. No one heeded him now. Cimon himself ran below to the mast, and wrenched the peg from its socket. Papyrus sheets were there, rolled compactly, covered with writing and sealed. The navarch[pg 391]turned over the packet curiously, then to the amazement of the sailors seemed to stagger against the mast. He was as pale as Hiram. He thrust the packet into the hands of hisprōreus, who stood near.
“What make you of this seal? As you fear Athena, tell the truth.”
“You need not adjure me so, captain. The device is simple: Theseus slaying the Minotaur.”
“And who, in Zeus’s name, do you know in Athens who uses a seal like that?”
Silence for a moment, then theprōreushimself was pale.
“Your Excellency does not mean—”
“Democrates!”cried the trembling navarch.
“And why not Democrates?”The words came from the released prisoner, who had been so silent, but who had glided down and stood at Cimon’s elbow. He spoke in a changed voice now; again the navarch was startled.
“Is Themistocles on theNausicaä?”asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if he himself were growing mad.
“Yes—but your voice, your face, your manner—my head is dizzy.”
The stranger touched him gently on the hand.
“Have I so changed, you quite forget me, Cimon?”
The son of Miltiades was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram’s tortures with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw’s neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before him was his long-time comrade.
“My friend! My boyhood’s friend!”and so for many times they kissed.
TheNausicaähad followed the chase at easy distance, ready with aid in case theBozraresisted. Themistocles was in his cabin with Simonides, when Cimon and Glaucon came to him. The admiral heard his young navarch’s report, then took the unopened packet and requested Cimon and the poet to withdraw. As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway, Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely.
“Tell your story.”
Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the captives, the voyage and the pursuing. The son of Neocles never hastened the recital, though once or twice he widened it by an incisive question. At the end he demanded:—
“And does Phormio confirm all this?”
“All. Question him.”
“Humph! He’s a truthful man in everything save the price of fish. Now let us open the packet.”
Themistocles was exceeding deliberate. He drew his dagger and pried the wrapper open without breaking the seals or tearing the papyrus. He turned the strips of paper carefully one by one, opened a casket, and drew thence a written sheet which he compared painfully with those before him.
“The same hand,”his remark in undertone.
He was so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain was at its fateful work.
At last he uttered one word,“Cipher.”
A sheet lay before him covered with broken words and phrases—seemingly without meaning—but the admiral knew the secret of the Spartanscytalē, the“cipher wood.”Forth from his casket came a number of rounded sticks of varying lengths. On one after another he wound the sheet spirally until at the fifth trial the scattered words came together. He read with ease. Then Themistocles’s brows grew closer than before. He muttered softly in his beard. But still he said nothing aloud. He read the cipher sheet through once, twice; it seemed thrice. Other sheets he fingered delicately, as though he feared the touch of venom. All without haste, but at the end, when Themistocles arose from his seat, the outlaw trembled. Many things he had seen, but never a face so changed. The admiral was neither flushed nor pale. But ten years seemed added to those lines above his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed. Was it fancy that put the gray into his beard and hair? Slowly he rose; slowly he ordered the marine on guard outside the cabin to summon Simonides, Cimon, and all the officers of the flag-ship. They trooped hither and filled the narrow cabin—fifteen or more hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the Ægean rocked theNausicaäsoftly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were grumbling lest the penteconter’s people get all the booty of theBozra. Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on Themistocles’s awful face.
The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet.[pg 394]The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner before a race.
“Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost.”
“Democrates is a traitor!”
The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.
“I did not call you down to wail and groan.”He never raised his voice; his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a flood.
“When? How? Declare.”
“Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades did not die in vain.”
Yet despite him men wept on one another’s shoulders as became true Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed, rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words of doom.
“This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is Democrates’s, the seals are his. Give ear.
“Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on the coasts of Asia, greeting:—Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even now I depart from Trœzene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in Bœotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making Mardonius’s victory certain.
“For your part, excellent Tigranes, you must avoid the Hellenic ships at Delos and come back to Mardonius with your fleet ready to second him at once after his victory, which will be speedy; then with your aid he can readily turn the wall at the Isthmus. I send also letters written, as it were, in the hand of Themistocles. See that they fall into the hands of the other Greek admirals. They will breed more hurt amongst the Hellenes than you can accomplish with all your ships. I send, likewise, lists of such Athenians and Spartans as are friendly to his Majesty, also memoranda of such secret plans of the Greeks as have come to my knowledge.
“From Trœzene, given into the hands of Hiram on the second of Metageitnion, in the archonship of Xanthippus.Chaire!”
Themistocles ceased. No man spoke a word. It was as if a god had flung a bolt from heaven. What use to cry against it? Then, in an ominously low voice, Simonides asked a question.
“What are these letters which purport to come from your pen, Themistocles?”
The admiral unrolled another papyrus, and as he looked thereon his fine face contracted with loathing.
“Let another read. I am made to pour contempt and ridicule upon my fellow-captains. I am made to boast‘when the war ends, I will be tyrant of Athens.’A thousand follies and wickednesses are put in my mouth. Were this letter true, I were the vilest wretch escaping Orcus. Since forged—”his hands clinched—“by that man, that man whom I have trusted, loved, cherished, called‘younger brother,’‘oldest son’—”He spat in rising fury and was still.
“‘Fain would I grip his liver in my teeth,’”cried the little poet, even in storm and stress not forgetting his Homer. And the howl from the man-of-war’s men was as the howl of beasts desiring their prey. But the admiral’s burst of anger ended. He stood again an image of calm power. The voice that[pg 396]had charmed the thousands rang forth in its strength and sweetness.
“Men of Athens, this is no hour for windy rage. Else I should rage the most, for who is more wronged than I? One whom we loved is fallen—later let us weep for him. One whom we trusted is false—later punish him. But now the work is neither to weep nor to punish, but to save Hellas. A great battle impends in Bœotia. Except the Zeus of our sires and Athena of the Pure Eyes be with us, we are men without home, without fatherland. Pausanias and Aristeides must be warned. TheNausicaäis the‘Salaminia,’—the swiftest trireme in the fleet. Ours must be the deed, and ours the glory. Enough of this—the men must hear, and then to the oars.”
Themistocles had changed from despair to a triumph note. There was uplift even to look upon him. He strode before all hislieutenantsup and out upon the poop. The long tiers of benches and the gangways filled with rowers peered up at him. They had seen their officers gather in the cabin, and Dame Rumour, subtlest of Zeus’s messengers, had breathed“ill-tidings.”Now the admiral stood forth, and in few words told all the heavy tale. Again a great shout, whilst the bronzed men groaned on the benches.
“Democrates is a traitor!”
A deity had fallen from their Olympus; the darling of the Athenians’s democracy was sunk to vilest of the vile. But the admiral knew how to play on their two hundred hearts better than Orpheus upon his lyre. Again the note changed from despair to incitement, and when at last he called,“And can we cross the Ægean as never trireme crossed and pluck back Hellas from her fate?”thalamite, zygite, and thranite rose, tossing their brawny arms into the air.
“We can!”
Then Themistocles folded his own arms and smiled. He felt the god was still with him.
* * * * * * *
Yet, eager as was the will, they could not race forth instantly. Orders must be written to Xanthippus, the Athenian vice-admiral far away, bidding him at all hazards to keep the Persian fleet near Samos. Cimon was long in privy council with Themistocles in the state cabin. At the same time a prisoner was passed aboard theNausicaä, not gently bound,—Hiram, a precious witness, before the dogs had their final meal on him. But the rest of theBozra’speople found a quicker release. The penteconter’s people decided their fate with a yell.
“Sell such harpies for slaves? The money would stink through our pouches!”
So two by two, tied neck to neck and heel to heel, the wretches were flung overboard,“because we lack place and wood to crucify you,”called theNausicaä’sgovernor, as he pushed the last pair off into the leaden sea,—for the day was distant when the destruction of such Barbarian rogues would weigh even on tender consciences.
So the Carthaginians ceased from troubling, but before the penteconter and theBozrabore away to join the remaining fleet, another deed was done in sight of all three ships. For whilst Themistocles was with Cimon, Simonides and Sicinnus had taken Glaucon to theNausicaä’sforecastle. Now as the penteconter was casting off, again he came to view, and the shout that greeted him was not of fear this time, but wonder and delight. The Alcmæonid was clean-shaven, his hair clipped close, the black dye even in a manner washed away. He had flung off the rough seaman’s dress, and stood forth in all his godlike beauty.
Before all men Cimon, coming from the cabin, ran and[pg 398]kissed him once more, whilst the rowers clapped their hands.
“Apollo—it is Delian Apollo! Glaucon the Beautiful lives again.Io! Io! pæan!”
“Yes,”spoke Themistocles, in a burst of gladness.“The gods take one friend, they restore another. Œdipus has read the sphinx’s riddle. Honour this man, for he is worthy of honour through Hellas!”
The officers ran to the athlete, after them the sailors. They covered his face and hands with kisses. He seemed escaped the Carthaginian to perish in the embrace of his countrymen. Never was his blush more boyish, more divine. Then a bugle-blast sent every man to his station. Cimon leaped across to his smaller ship. The rowers of theNausicaäran out their oars, the hundred and seventy blades trailed in the water. Every man took a long breath and fixed his eyes on the admiral standing on the poop. He held a golden goblet set with turquoise, and filled with the blood-red Pramnian wine. Loudly Themistocles prayed.
“Zeus of Olympus and Dodona, Zeus Orchios, rewarder of the oath-breaker, to whom the Hellenes do not vainly pray, and thou Athena of the Pure Eyes, give ear. Make our ship swift, our arms strong, our hearts bold. Hold back the battle that we come not too late. Grant that we confound the guilty, put to flight the Barbarian, recompense the traitor. So to you and all other holy gods whose love is for the righteous we will proffer prayer and sacrifice forever. Amen.”
He poured out the crimson liquor; far into the sea he flung the golden cup.
“Heaven speed you!”shouted from the penteconter. Themistocles nodded. Thekeleustessmote his gavel upon the sounding-board. The triple oar bank rose as one and plunged into the foam. A long“h-a!”went up from the benches. The race to save Hellas was begun.
[pg 399]CHAPTER XXXVIITHE RACE TO SAVE HELLASThe chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before theBozrahad submitted to her fate, she had led theNausicaäand her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,13as the crow flies, sundered them from the Euripus, the nearest point whence they could despatch a runner to Pausanias and Aristeides; and what with the twistings around the scattered Cyclades the route was one-fourth longer. But men had ceased reckoning distance. Their hearts were in the flying oars, and at first theNausicaäran leaping across the waves as leaps the dolphin,—the long gleaming blades springing like shuttles in the hands of the ready crew. They had taken from the penteconter all her spare rowers, and to make the great ship bound over the steel-gray deep was children’s play.“We must save Hellas, and we can!”That was the thought of all from Themistocles to the meanest thranite.So at the beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed theBozraever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor;[pg 400]the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men thekeleustesceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:—“Fast and more fastO’er the foam-spray we’re passed.And our creaking sails swellTo the swift-breathing blast,For Poseidon’s wild steedsWith their manifold feet,Like a hundred white nymphsOn the blue sea-floor fleet.And we wake as we goGray old Phorcys below,Whilst on shell-clustered trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow!The loud Tritons blow!“All of Æolus’s trainSpringing o’er the blue mainTo our pæans replyWith their long, long refrain;And the sea-folk upleapFrom their dark weedy caves;With a clear, briny laughThey dance over the waves;Now their mistress below,—See bright Thetis go,As she leads the mad revels,While loud Tritons blow!While loud Tritons blow!“With the foam gliding white,Where the light flash is bright.We feel the live keelLeaping on with delight;And in melody wildMen and Nereids and wind[pg 401]Sing and laugh all their praise,To the bluff seagods kind;Whilst deep down below,Where no storm blasts may go,On their care-charming trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow,The loud Tritons blow.”Bravely thus for a while, but at last Themistocles, watching from the poop with eyes that nothing evaded, saw how here and there the dip of the blades was weakening, here and there a breast was heaving rapidly, a mouth was panting for air.“The relief,”he ordered. And the spare rowers ran gladly to the places of those who seemed the weariest. Only a partial respite. Fifty supernumeraries were a poor stop-gap for the one hundred and seventy. Only the weakest could be relieved, and even those wept and pled to continue at the benches a little longer. The thunderous threat of Ameinias, that he who refused a proffered relief must stand all day by the mast with an iron anchor on his shoulder, alone sufficed to make the malcontents give place. Yet after a little while the singing died. Breath was too precious to waste. It was mockery to troll of“Æolus’s winds”whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous“beat,”“beat”of thekeleustes’shammer, and the creaking of the oars in their leathered holes alone broke the stillness that reigned through the length of the trireme. The penteconter and her prize had long since faded below the horizon. With almost wistful eyes men watched the islets as they glided past one after another, Thera now, then Ios, and presently the greater Paros and Naxos lay before them. They relieved oars whenever possible. The supernumeraries needed no urging after their scanty rest to spring to the place of him who was fainting, but hardly any man spoke a word.[pg 402]The first time the relief went in Glaucon had stepped forward.“I am strong. I am able to pull an oar,”he had cried almost angrily when Themistocles laid his hand upon him, but the admiral would have none of it.“You shall not. Sooner will I go on to the bench myself. You have been through the gates of Tartarus these last days, and need all your strength. Are you not the Isthmionices,—the swiftest runner in Hellas?”Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,—that after theNausicaämade land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Bœotia to bear the tidings to Pausanias.They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. Thekeleustesslowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phœnicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite thekeleustes’sbeats, despite Themistocles’s command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around theNausicaä’sbow sang its monotonous music.But Themistocles ever turned his face eastward, until men thought he was awaiting some foe in chase, and presently—just as a rower among the zygites fell back with the blood gushing from mouth and nostrils—the admiral pointed his finger toward the sky-line of the morning.“Look! Athena is with us!”And for the first time in hours those panting, straining men let the hot oar butts slip from their hands, even trail[pg 403]in the darkling water, whilst they rose, looked, and blessed their gods.It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the glassy sea; they could hear the singing of the cordage; they could catch the sweet sniff of the brine. Admiral and rower lifted their hands together at this manifest favour of heaven.“Poseidon is with us! Athena is with us! Æolus is with us! We can save Hellas!”Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias’s lusty call to bend again the sails. The smaller canvas on the foremast and great spread on the mainmast were bellying to the piping gale. A fair wind, but no storm. The oars were but helpers now,—men laughed, hugged one another as boys, wept as girls, and let the benignant wind gods labour for them. Delos the Holy they passed, and Tenos, and soon the heights of Andros lifted, as the ship with its lading of fate flew over the island-strewn sea. At last, just as the day was leaving them, they saw Helios going down into the fire-tinged waves in a parting burst of glory. Darkness next, but the kindly wind failed not. Through the night no man on that trireme slumbered. Breeze or calm, he who had an obol’s weight of power spent it at the oars.Long after midnight Themistocles and Glaucon clambered the giddy cordage to the ship’s top above the swelling mainsail. On the narrow platform, with the stars above, the dim tracery of the wide sail, the still dimmer tracery of the long ship below, they seemed transported to another world. Far beneath by the glimmer of the lanterns they saw the rowers swaying at their toil. In the wake the phosphorous bubbles ran away, opalescent gleams springing upward, as if torches of Doris and her dancing Nereids. So much had[pg 404]admiral and outlaw lived through this day they had thought little of themselves. Now calmer thought returned. Glaucon could tell of many things he had heard and thought, of the conversation overheard the morning before Salamis, of what Phormio had related during the weary captivity in the hold of theBozra. Themistocles pondered long. Yet for Glaucon when standing even on that calm pinnacle the trireme must creep over the deep too slowly.“O give me wings, Father Zeus,”was his prayer;“yes, the wings of Icarus. Let me fly but once to confound the traitor and deliver thy Hellas,—after that, like Icarus let me fall. I am content to die.”But Themistocles pressed close against his side.“Ask for no wings,”—in the admiral’s voice was a tremor not there when he sped confidence through the crew,—“if it be destined we save Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die.‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are greatgods.They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save Hellas. Yet I have fear—”“Of what, then?”“Fear that Themistocles will be too merciful to be just. Ah! pity me.”“I understand—Democrates.”“I pray he may escape to the Persians, or that Ares may slay him in fair battle. If not—”“What will you do?”The admiral’s hold upon the younger Athenian’s arm tightened.“I will prove that Aristeides is not the only man in Hellas who deserves the name of‘Just.’When I was young, my[pg 405]tutor would predict great things of me.‘You will be nothing small, Themistocles, but great, whether for good or ill, I know not,—but great you will be.’And I have always struggled upward. I have always prospered. I am the first man in Hellas. I have set my will against all the power of Persia. Zeus willing, I shall conquer. But the Olympians demand their price. For saving Hellas I must pay—Democrates. I loved him.”The two men stood in silence long, whilst below the oars and the rushing water played their music. At last the admiral relaxed his hand on Glaucon.“Eu!They will call me‘Saviour of Hellas’if all goes well. I shall be greater than Solon, or Lycurgus, or Periander, and in return I must do justice to a friend. Fair recompense!”The laugh of the son of Neocles was harsher than a cry. The other answered nothing. Themistocles set his foot on the ladder.“I must return to the men. I would go to an oar, only they will not let me.”The admiral left Glaucon for a moment alone. All around him was the night,—the stars, the black æther, the blacker sea,—but he was not lonely. He felt as when in the foot-race he turned for the last burst toward the goal. One more struggle, one supreme summons of strength and will, and after that the triumph and the rest.—Hellas, Athens, Hermione, he was speeding back to all. Once again all the things past floated out of the dream-world and before him,—the wreck, the lotus-eating at Sardis, Thermopylæ, Salamis, the agony on theBozra. Now came the end, the end promised in the moment of vision whilst he pulled the boat at Salamis. What was it? He tried not to ask. Enough it was to be the end. He, like Themistocles, had supreme con[pg 406]fidence that the treason would be thwarted. The gods were cruel, but not so cruel that after so many deliverances they would crush him at the last.“The miracles of Zeus are never wrought in vain.”Had not Zeus wrought miracles for him once and twice? The proverb was great comfort.Suddenly whilst he built his palace of phantasy, a cry from the foreship dissolved it.“Attica, Attica, hail, all hail!”He saw upon the sky-line the dim tracery of the Athenian headlands“like a shield laid on the misty deep.”Again men were springing from the oars, laughing, weeping, embracing, whilst under the clear, unflagging wind theNausicaäsped up the narrowing strait betwixt Eubœa and the mainland. Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic shoreline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers.Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Eubœa to the starboard. They saw Marathon and its plain of fair memories stretching to port, and now the strait grew closer yet, and it needed all the governor’s skill at the steering-oars to keep theNausicaäfrom the threatening rocks. Marathon was behind at last. The trireme rounded the last promontory; the bay grew wider; the prow was set more to westward. Every man—the faintest—struggled back to his oar if he had left it—this was the last hundred stadia to Oropus, and after that theNausicaämight do no more. Once again thekeleustespiped, and his note was swift and feverish. The blades shot faster, faster, as the trireme raced down the sandy shore of the Attic“Diacria.”Once in the strait they saw a brown-sailed fisherboat, and the helm swerved enough to bring her within hail. The fishermen stared at the flying trireme and her straining, wide-eyed men.[pg 407]“Has there been a battle?”cried Ameinias.“Not yet. We are from Styra on Eubœa; we expect the news daily. The armies are almost together.”“And where are they?”“Near to Platæa.”That was all. The war-ship left the fishermen rocking in her wake, but again Themistocles drew his eyebrows close together, while Glaucon tightened the buckle on his belt. Platæa,—the name meant that the courier must traverse the breadth of Bœotia, and with the armies face to face how long would Zeus hold back the battle? How long indeed, with Democrates and Lycon intent on bringing battle to pass? The ship was more than ever silent as she rushed on the last stretch of her course. More men fell at the oars with blood upon their faces. The supernumeraries tossed them aside like logs of wood, and leaped upon their benches. Themistocles had vanished with Simonides in the cabin; all knew their work,—preparing letters to Aristeides and Pausanias to warn of the bitter truth. Then the haven at last: the white-stuccoed houses of Oropus clustering down upon the shore, the little mole, a few doltish peasants by the landing gaping at the great trireme. No others greeted them, for the terror of Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had driven all but the poorest to some safe shelter. The oars slipped from numb fingers; the anchor plunged into the green water; the mainsail rattled down the mast. Men sat on the benches motionless, gulping down the clear air. They had done their part. The rest lay in the hands of the gods, and in the speed of him who two days since they had called“Glaucon the Traitor.”The messenger came from the cabin, half stripped, on his head a felt skullcap, on his feet high hunter’s boots laced up to the knees. He had never shone in more noble beauty. The crew watched Themistocles place a papyrus[pg 408]roll in Glaucon’s belt, and press his mouth to the messenger’s ear in parting admonition. Glaucon gave his right hand to Themistocles, his left to Simonides. Fifty men were ready to man the pinnace to take him ashore. On the beach theNausicaä’speople saw him stand an instant, as he turned his face upward to the“dawn-facing”gods of Hellas, praying for strength and swiftness.“Apollo speed you!”called two hundred after him. He answered from the beach with a wave of his beautiful arms. A moment later he was hid behind a clump of olives. TheNausicaä’speople knew the ordeal before him, but many a man said Glaucon had the easier task. He could run till life failed him. They now could only fold their hands and wait.* * * * * * *It was long past noon when Glaucon left the desolate village of Oropus behind him. The day was hot, but after the manner of Greece not sultry, and the brisk breeze was stirring on the hill slopes. Over the distant mountains hung a tint of deep violet. It was early in Bœdromion.14The fields—where indeed the Barbarian cavalry men had not deliberately burned them—were seared brown by the long dry summer. Here and there great black crows were picking, and a red fox would whisk out of a thicket and go with long bounds across the unharvested fields to some safer refuge. Glaucon knew his route. Three hundred and sixty stadia lay before him, and those not over the well-beaten course in the gymnasium, but by rocky goat trails and by-paths that made his task no easier. He started off slowly. He was too good an athlete to waste his speed by one fierce burst at the outset. At first his road was no bad one, for he skirted the willow-hung Asopus, the boundary stream be[pg 409]twixt Attica and Bœotia. But he feared to keep too long upon this highway to Tanagra, and of the dangers of the road he soon met grim warnings.First, it was a farmstead in black ruin, with the carcass of a horse half burned lying before the gate. Next, it was the body of a woman, three days slain, and in the centre of the road,—no pleasant sight, for the crows had been at their banquet,—and hardened though the Alcmæonid was to war, he stopped long enough to cast the ceremonial handful of dust on the poor remains, as symbolic burial, and sped a wish to King Pluto to give peace to the wanderer’s spirit. Next, people met him: an old man, his wife, his young son,—wretched shepherd-folk dressed in sheepskins,—the boy helping his elders as they tottered along on their staves toward the mountain. At sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand, showing he was unarmed, and they halted also.“Whence and whither, good father?”Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near Œnophytæ, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life, and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road.“Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!”he was speaking in his heart,“noble and brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,—and though you once called me friend, Zeus and Dikē still rule, there is a price for this and you shall tell it out.”[pg 410]Yet he bethought himself of the old man’s warning, and left the beaten way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook, where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward. He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Bœotia was opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows picking at carrion,—more tokens that Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had done their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just as the spurs of Cithæron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to thrust their bald summits up before the runner’s ken, far ahead upon the way approached a cloud of dust. The Athenian paused in his run, dashed into the barren field, and flung himself flat between the furrows. He heard the hoof-beats of the wiry steppe horses, the clatter of targets and scabbards, the shrill shouts of the raiders. He lifted his head enough to see the red streamers on their lance tips flutter past. He let the noise die away before he dared to take the road once more.[pg 411]The time he lost was redeemed by a burst of speed. His head was growing very hot, but it was not time to think of that.Already the hills were spreading their shadows, and Platæa was many stadia away. Knowledge of how much remained made him reckless. He ran on without his former caution. The plain was again changing to undulating foothills. He had passed Erythræ now,—another village burned and deserted. He mounted a slope, was descending to mount another, when lo! over the hill before came eight riders at full speed. What must be done, must be done quickly. To plunge into the fallow field again were madness, the horsemen had surely seen him, and their sure-footed beasts could run over the furrows like rabbits. Glaucon stood stock still and stretched forth both hands, to show the horsemen he did not resist them.“O Athena Polias,”uprose the prayer from his heart,“if thou lovest not me, forget not thy love for Hellas, for Athens, for Hermione my wife.”The riders were on him instantly, their crooked swords flew out. They surrounded their captive, uttering outlandish cries and chatterings, ogling, muttering, pointing with their swords and lances as if debating among themselves whether to let the stranger go or hew him in pieces. Glaucon stood motionless, looking from one to another and asking for wisdom in his soul. Seven were Tartars, low-browed, yellow-skinned, flat of nose, with the grins of apes. He might expect the worst from these. But the eighth showed a long blond beard under his leather helm, and Glaucon rejoiced; the chief of the band was a Persian and more amenable.The Tartars continued gesturing and debating, flourishing their steel points right at the prisoner’s breast. He regarded[pg 412]them calmly, so calmly that the Persian gave vent to his admiration.“Down with your lance-head, Rūkhs. By Mithra, I think this Hellene is brave as he is beautiful! See how he stands. We must have him to the Prince.”“Excellency,”spoke Glaucon, in his best court Persian,“I am a courier to the Lord Mardonius. If you are faithful servants of his Eternity the king, where is your camp?”The chief started.“On the life of my father, you speak Persian as if you dwelled in Eran at the king’s own doors! What do you here alone upon this road in Hellas?”Glaucon put out his hand before answering, caught the tip of Rūkhs’s lance, and snapped it short like a reed. He knew the way to win the admiration of the Barbarians. They yelled with delight, all at least save Rūkhs.“Strong as he is brave and handsome,”cried the Persian.“Again—who are you?”The Alcmæonid drew himself to full height and gave his head its lordliest poise.“Understand, Persian, that I have indeed lived long at the king’s gates. Yes,—I have learned my Aryan at the Lord Mardonius’s own table, for I am the son of Attaginus of Thebes, who is not the least of the friends of his Eternity in Hellas.”The mention of one of the foremost Medizers of Greece made the subaltern bend in his saddle. His tone became even obsequious.“Ah, I understand. Your Excellency is a courier. You have despatches from the king?”“Despatches of moment just landed from Asia. Now tell me where the army is encamped.”“By the Asopus, much to northward. The Hellenes lie to[pg 413]south. Here, Rūkhs, take the noble courier behind you on the horse, and conduct him to the general.”“Heaven bless your generosity,”cried the runner, with almost precipitate haste,“but I know the country well, and the worthy Rūkhs will not thank me if I deprive him of his share in your booty.”“Ah, yes, we have heard of a farm across the hills at Eleutheræ that’s not yet been plundered,—handsome wenches, and we’ll make the father dig up his pot of money. Mazda speed you, sir, for we are off.”“Yeh! yeh!”yelled the seven Tartars, none more loudly than Rūkhs, who had no hankering for conducting a courier back into the camp. So the riders came and went, whilst Glaucon drew his girdle one notch tighter and ran onward through the gathering evening.The adventure had been a warning. Once Athena had saved him, not perchance twice,—again he took to the fields. He did not love the sight of the sun ever lower, on the long brown ridge of Helicon far to west. Until now he scarce thought enough of self to realize the terrible draughts he had made upon his treasure-house of strength. Could it be that he—the Isthmionices, who had crushed down the giant of Sparta before the cheering myriads—could faint like a weary girl, when the weal of Hellas was his to win or lose? Why did his tongue burn in his throat as a coal? Why did those feet—so swift, so ready when he sped from Oropus—lift so heavily?As a flash it came over him what he had endured,—the slow agony on theBozra, the bursting of the bands, the fight for life, the scene with Themistocles, the sleepless night on the trireme. Now he was running as the wild hare runs before the baying chase. Could it be that all this race was vain?[pg 414]“For Hellas! For Hermione!”Whilst he groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his teeth came together harder.“Themistocles trusts me. I carry the fate of Hellas. I can die, but I cannot fail.”It was quite dusk now. The brief southern twilight was ending in pale bars of gold above Helicon. Glaucon rose again; the cold sweat sprang out upon his forehead. Before his eyes rose darkness, but he did not faint. Some kind destiny set a stout pole upright in the field,—perhaps for vines to clamber,—he clutched it, and stood until his sight cleared and the pain a little abated. He tore the pole from the ground, and reached the roadway. He must take his chance of meeting more raiders. He had one vast comfort,—if there had been no battle fought that day, there would be none before dawn. But he had still weary stadia before him, and running was out of the question. Ever and anon he would stop his hobbling, take air, and stare at the vague tracery of the hills,—Cithæron to southward, Helicon to west, and northward the wide dark Theban plain. He gave up counting how many times he halted, how many times he spoke the magic words,“For Hellas! For Hermione!”and forced onward his way. The moon failed, even the stars were clouded. A kind of brute instinct guided him. At last—he guessed it was nearly midnight—he caught once more the flashings of a shallow river and the dim outlines of shrubbery beside the bank—again the Asopus. He must take care or he would wander straight into Mardonius’s camp. Therefore[pg 415]he stopped awhile, drank the cool water, and let the stream purl around his burning foot. Then he set his face to the south, for there lay Platæa. There he would find the Hellenes.He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and Cithæron beckoning him on, as with living fingers.“Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylæ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.”Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop.“For Hellas! For Hermione!”At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.* * * * * * *At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by Platæa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the[pg 416]contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting under arms,—awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The outpost—Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnæ—was creeping gingerly behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows. Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness, saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.“Halt, stranger, tell your business.”“For Aristeides.”The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.“That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.”“For Aristeides.”“Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?”“For Aristeides.”The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared.“Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?”“No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.”The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio.“Now, friend,”he spoke,“your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.”“For Aristeides.”[pg 417]“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!”cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers.“Themistocles’s seal,”he cried, and hastily turned the fallen man’s face upward to the light, when the lantern almost dropped from his own hand.“Glaucon the Alcmæonid! Glaucon the Traitor who was dead! He or his shade come back from Tartarus.”The four soldiers stood quaking like aspen, but their leader was of stouter stuff. Never had his native Attic shrewdness guided him to more purpose.“Ghost, traitor, what not, this man has run himself all but to death. Look on his face. And Themistocles does not send a courier for nothing. This packet is for Aristeides, and to Aristeides take it with speed.”Hippon seized the papyrus. He thought it would fade out of his hands like a spectre. It did not. The sentinel dropped his spear and ran breathless toward Platæa, where he knew was his general.
The chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before theBozrahad submitted to her fate, she had led theNausicaäand her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,13as the crow flies, sundered them from the Euripus, the nearest point whence they could despatch a runner to Pausanias and Aristeides; and what with the twistings around the scattered Cyclades the route was one-fourth longer. But men had ceased reckoning distance. Their hearts were in the flying oars, and at first theNausicaäran leaping across the waves as leaps the dolphin,—the long gleaming blades springing like shuttles in the hands of the ready crew. They had taken from the penteconter all her spare rowers, and to make the great ship bound over the steel-gray deep was children’s play.“We must save Hellas, and we can!”That was the thought of all from Themistocles to the meanest thranite.
So at the beginning when the task seemed light and hands were strong. The breeze that had betrayed theBozraever sank lower. Presently it died altogether. The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor;[pg 400]the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men thekeleustesceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:—
“Fast and more fastO’er the foam-spray we’re passed.And our creaking sails swellTo the swift-breathing blast,For Poseidon’s wild steedsWith their manifold feet,Like a hundred white nymphsOn the blue sea-floor fleet.And we wake as we goGray old Phorcys below,Whilst on shell-clustered trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow!The loud Tritons blow!
“Fast and more fast
O’er the foam-spray we’re passed.
And our creaking sails swell
To the swift-breathing blast,
For Poseidon’s wild steeds
With their manifold feet,
Like a hundred white nymphs
On the blue sea-floor fleet.
And we wake as we go
Gray old Phorcys below,
Whilst on shell-clustered trumpets
The loud Tritons blow!
The loud Tritons blow!
“All of Æolus’s trainSpringing o’er the blue mainTo our pæans replyWith their long, long refrain;And the sea-folk upleapFrom their dark weedy caves;With a clear, briny laughThey dance over the waves;Now their mistress below,—See bright Thetis go,As she leads the mad revels,While loud Tritons blow!While loud Tritons blow!
“All of Æolus’s train
Springing o’er the blue main
To our pæans reply
With their long, long refrain;
And the sea-folk upleap
From their dark weedy caves;
With a clear, briny laugh
They dance over the waves;
Now their mistress below,—
See bright Thetis go,
As she leads the mad revels,
While loud Tritons blow!
While loud Tritons blow!
“With the foam gliding white,Where the light flash is bright.We feel the live keelLeaping on with delight;And in melody wildMen and Nereids and wind[pg 401]Sing and laugh all their praise,To the bluff seagods kind;Whilst deep down below,Where no storm blasts may go,On their care-charming trumpetsThe loud Tritons blow,The loud Tritons blow.”
“With the foam gliding white,
Where the light flash is bright.
We feel the live keel
Leaping on with delight;
And in melody wild
Men and Nereids and wind
[pg 401]Sing and laugh all their praise,
To the bluff seagods kind;
Whilst deep down below,
Where no storm blasts may go,
On their care-charming trumpets
The loud Tritons blow,
The loud Tritons blow.”
Bravely thus for a while, but at last Themistocles, watching from the poop with eyes that nothing evaded, saw how here and there the dip of the blades was weakening, here and there a breast was heaving rapidly, a mouth was panting for air.
“The relief,”he ordered. And the spare rowers ran gladly to the places of those who seemed the weariest. Only a partial respite. Fifty supernumeraries were a poor stop-gap for the one hundred and seventy. Only the weakest could be relieved, and even those wept and pled to continue at the benches a little longer. The thunderous threat of Ameinias, that he who refused a proffered relief must stand all day by the mast with an iron anchor on his shoulder, alone sufficed to make the malcontents give place. Yet after a little while the singing died. Breath was too precious to waste. It was mockery to troll of“Æolus’s winds”whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous“beat,”“beat”of thekeleustes’shammer, and the creaking of the oars in their leathered holes alone broke the stillness that reigned through the length of the trireme. The penteconter and her prize had long since faded below the horizon. With almost wistful eyes men watched the islets as they glided past one after another, Thera now, then Ios, and presently the greater Paros and Naxos lay before them. They relieved oars whenever possible. The supernumeraries needed no urging after their scanty rest to spring to the place of him who was fainting, but hardly any man spoke a word.
The first time the relief went in Glaucon had stepped forward.
“I am strong. I am able to pull an oar,”he had cried almost angrily when Themistocles laid his hand upon him, but the admiral would have none of it.
“You shall not. Sooner will I go on to the bench myself. You have been through the gates of Tartarus these last days, and need all your strength. Are you not the Isthmionices,—the swiftest runner in Hellas?”
Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,—that after theNausicaämade land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Bœotia to bear the tidings to Pausanias.
They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. Thekeleustesslowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phœnicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite thekeleustes’sbeats, despite Themistocles’s command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around theNausicaä’sbow sang its monotonous music.
But Themistocles ever turned his face eastward, until men thought he was awaiting some foe in chase, and presently—just as a rower among the zygites fell back with the blood gushing from mouth and nostrils—the admiral pointed his finger toward the sky-line of the morning.
“Look! Athena is with us!”
And for the first time in hours those panting, straining men let the hot oar butts slip from their hands, even trail[pg 403]in the darkling water, whilst they rose, looked, and blessed their gods.
It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the glassy sea; they could hear the singing of the cordage; they could catch the sweet sniff of the brine. Admiral and rower lifted their hands together at this manifest favour of heaven.
“Poseidon is with us! Athena is with us! Æolus is with us! We can save Hellas!”
Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias’s lusty call to bend again the sails. The smaller canvas on the foremast and great spread on the mainmast were bellying to the piping gale. A fair wind, but no storm. The oars were but helpers now,—men laughed, hugged one another as boys, wept as girls, and let the benignant wind gods labour for them. Delos the Holy they passed, and Tenos, and soon the heights of Andros lifted, as the ship with its lading of fate flew over the island-strewn sea. At last, just as the day was leaving them, they saw Helios going down into the fire-tinged waves in a parting burst of glory. Darkness next, but the kindly wind failed not. Through the night no man on that trireme slumbered. Breeze or calm, he who had an obol’s weight of power spent it at the oars.
Long after midnight Themistocles and Glaucon clambered the giddy cordage to the ship’s top above the swelling mainsail. On the narrow platform, with the stars above, the dim tracery of the wide sail, the still dimmer tracery of the long ship below, they seemed transported to another world. Far beneath by the glimmer of the lanterns they saw the rowers swaying at their toil. In the wake the phosphorous bubbles ran away, opalescent gleams springing upward, as if torches of Doris and her dancing Nereids. So much had[pg 404]admiral and outlaw lived through this day they had thought little of themselves. Now calmer thought returned. Glaucon could tell of many things he had heard and thought, of the conversation overheard the morning before Salamis, of what Phormio had related during the weary captivity in the hold of theBozra. Themistocles pondered long. Yet for Glaucon when standing even on that calm pinnacle the trireme must creep over the deep too slowly.
“O give me wings, Father Zeus,”was his prayer;“yes, the wings of Icarus. Let me fly but once to confound the traitor and deliver thy Hellas,—after that, like Icarus let me fall. I am content to die.”
But Themistocles pressed close against his side.“Ask for no wings,”—in the admiral’s voice was a tremor not there when he sped confidence through the crew,—“if it be destined we save Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die.‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are greatgods.They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save Hellas. Yet I have fear—”
“Of what, then?”
“Fear that Themistocles will be too merciful to be just. Ah! pity me.”
“I understand—Democrates.”
“I pray he may escape to the Persians, or that Ares may slay him in fair battle. If not—”
“What will you do?”
The admiral’s hold upon the younger Athenian’s arm tightened.
“I will prove that Aristeides is not the only man in Hellas who deserves the name of‘Just.’When I was young, my[pg 405]tutor would predict great things of me.‘You will be nothing small, Themistocles, but great, whether for good or ill, I know not,—but great you will be.’And I have always struggled upward. I have always prospered. I am the first man in Hellas. I have set my will against all the power of Persia. Zeus willing, I shall conquer. But the Olympians demand their price. For saving Hellas I must pay—Democrates. I loved him.”
The two men stood in silence long, whilst below the oars and the rushing water played their music. At last the admiral relaxed his hand on Glaucon.
“Eu!They will call me‘Saviour of Hellas’if all goes well. I shall be greater than Solon, or Lycurgus, or Periander, and in return I must do justice to a friend. Fair recompense!”
The laugh of the son of Neocles was harsher than a cry. The other answered nothing. Themistocles set his foot on the ladder.
“I must return to the men. I would go to an oar, only they will not let me.”
The admiral left Glaucon for a moment alone. All around him was the night,—the stars, the black æther, the blacker sea,—but he was not lonely. He felt as when in the foot-race he turned for the last burst toward the goal. One more struggle, one supreme summons of strength and will, and after that the triumph and the rest.—Hellas, Athens, Hermione, he was speeding back to all. Once again all the things past floated out of the dream-world and before him,—the wreck, the lotus-eating at Sardis, Thermopylæ, Salamis, the agony on theBozra. Now came the end, the end promised in the moment of vision whilst he pulled the boat at Salamis. What was it? He tried not to ask. Enough it was to be the end. He, like Themistocles, had supreme con[pg 406]fidence that the treason would be thwarted. The gods were cruel, but not so cruel that after so many deliverances they would crush him at the last.“The miracles of Zeus are never wrought in vain.”Had not Zeus wrought miracles for him once and twice? The proverb was great comfort.
Suddenly whilst he built his palace of phantasy, a cry from the foreship dissolved it.
“Attica, Attica, hail, all hail!”
He saw upon the sky-line the dim tracery of the Athenian headlands“like a shield laid on the misty deep.”Again men were springing from the oars, laughing, weeping, embracing, whilst under the clear, unflagging wind theNausicaäsped up the narrowing strait betwixt Eubœa and the mainland. Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic shoreline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers.
Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Eubœa to the starboard. They saw Marathon and its plain of fair memories stretching to port, and now the strait grew closer yet, and it needed all the governor’s skill at the steering-oars to keep theNausicaäfrom the threatening rocks. Marathon was behind at last. The trireme rounded the last promontory; the bay grew wider; the prow was set more to westward. Every man—the faintest—struggled back to his oar if he had left it—this was the last hundred stadia to Oropus, and after that theNausicaämight do no more. Once again thekeleustespiped, and his note was swift and feverish. The blades shot faster, faster, as the trireme raced down the sandy shore of the Attic“Diacria.”Once in the strait they saw a brown-sailed fisherboat, and the helm swerved enough to bring her within hail. The fishermen stared at the flying trireme and her straining, wide-eyed men.
“Has there been a battle?”cried Ameinias.
“Not yet. We are from Styra on Eubœa; we expect the news daily. The armies are almost together.”
“And where are they?”
“Near to Platæa.”
That was all. The war-ship left the fishermen rocking in her wake, but again Themistocles drew his eyebrows close together, while Glaucon tightened the buckle on his belt. Platæa,—the name meant that the courier must traverse the breadth of Bœotia, and with the armies face to face how long would Zeus hold back the battle? How long indeed, with Democrates and Lycon intent on bringing battle to pass? The ship was more than ever silent as she rushed on the last stretch of her course. More men fell at the oars with blood upon their faces. The supernumeraries tossed them aside like logs of wood, and leaped upon their benches. Themistocles had vanished with Simonides in the cabin; all knew their work,—preparing letters to Aristeides and Pausanias to warn of the bitter truth. Then the haven at last: the white-stuccoed houses of Oropus clustering down upon the shore, the little mole, a few doltish peasants by the landing gaping at the great trireme. No others greeted them, for the terror of Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had driven all but the poorest to some safe shelter. The oars slipped from numb fingers; the anchor plunged into the green water; the mainsail rattled down the mast. Men sat on the benches motionless, gulping down the clear air. They had done their part. The rest lay in the hands of the gods, and in the speed of him who two days since they had called“Glaucon the Traitor.”The messenger came from the cabin, half stripped, on his head a felt skullcap, on his feet high hunter’s boots laced up to the knees. He had never shone in more noble beauty. The crew watched Themistocles place a papyrus[pg 408]roll in Glaucon’s belt, and press his mouth to the messenger’s ear in parting admonition. Glaucon gave his right hand to Themistocles, his left to Simonides. Fifty men were ready to man the pinnace to take him ashore. On the beach theNausicaä’speople saw him stand an instant, as he turned his face upward to the“dawn-facing”gods of Hellas, praying for strength and swiftness.
“Apollo speed you!”called two hundred after him. He answered from the beach with a wave of his beautiful arms. A moment later he was hid behind a clump of olives. TheNausicaä’speople knew the ordeal before him, but many a man said Glaucon had the easier task. He could run till life failed him. They now could only fold their hands and wait.
* * * * * * *
It was long past noon when Glaucon left the desolate village of Oropus behind him. The day was hot, but after the manner of Greece not sultry, and the brisk breeze was stirring on the hill slopes. Over the distant mountains hung a tint of deep violet. It was early in Bœdromion.14The fields—where indeed the Barbarian cavalry men had not deliberately burned them—were seared brown by the long dry summer. Here and there great black crows were picking, and a red fox would whisk out of a thicket and go with long bounds across the unharvested fields to some safer refuge. Glaucon knew his route. Three hundred and sixty stadia lay before him, and those not over the well-beaten course in the gymnasium, but by rocky goat trails and by-paths that made his task no easier. He started off slowly. He was too good an athlete to waste his speed by one fierce burst at the outset. At first his road was no bad one, for he skirted the willow-hung Asopus, the boundary stream be[pg 409]twixt Attica and Bœotia. But he feared to keep too long upon this highway to Tanagra, and of the dangers of the road he soon met grim warnings.
First, it was a farmstead in black ruin, with the carcass of a horse half burned lying before the gate. Next, it was the body of a woman, three days slain, and in the centre of the road,—no pleasant sight, for the crows had been at their banquet,—and hardened though the Alcmæonid was to war, he stopped long enough to cast the ceremonial handful of dust on the poor remains, as symbolic burial, and sped a wish to King Pluto to give peace to the wanderer’s spirit. Next, people met him: an old man, his wife, his young son,—wretched shepherd-folk dressed in sheepskins,—the boy helping his elders as they tottered along on their staves toward the mountain. At sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand, showing he was unarmed, and they halted also.
“Whence and whither, good father?”
Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near Œnophytæ, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life, and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road.
“Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!”he was speaking in his heart,“noble and brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,—and though you once called me friend, Zeus and Dikē still rule, there is a price for this and you shall tell it out.”
Yet he bethought himself of the old man’s warning, and left the beaten way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook, where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward. He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Bœotia was opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows picking at carrion,—more tokens that Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had done their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just as the spurs of Cithæron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to thrust their bald summits up before the runner’s ken, far ahead upon the way approached a cloud of dust. The Athenian paused in his run, dashed into the barren field, and flung himself flat between the furrows. He heard the hoof-beats of the wiry steppe horses, the clatter of targets and scabbards, the shrill shouts of the raiders. He lifted his head enough to see the red streamers on their lance tips flutter past. He let the noise die away before he dared to take the road once more.[pg 411]The time he lost was redeemed by a burst of speed. His head was growing very hot, but it was not time to think of that.
Already the hills were spreading their shadows, and Platæa was many stadia away. Knowledge of how much remained made him reckless. He ran on without his former caution. The plain was again changing to undulating foothills. He had passed Erythræ now,—another village burned and deserted. He mounted a slope, was descending to mount another, when lo! over the hill before came eight riders at full speed. What must be done, must be done quickly. To plunge into the fallow field again were madness, the horsemen had surely seen him, and their sure-footed beasts could run over the furrows like rabbits. Glaucon stood stock still and stretched forth both hands, to show the horsemen he did not resist them.
“O Athena Polias,”uprose the prayer from his heart,“if thou lovest not me, forget not thy love for Hellas, for Athens, for Hermione my wife.”
The riders were on him instantly, their crooked swords flew out. They surrounded their captive, uttering outlandish cries and chatterings, ogling, muttering, pointing with their swords and lances as if debating among themselves whether to let the stranger go or hew him in pieces. Glaucon stood motionless, looking from one to another and asking for wisdom in his soul. Seven were Tartars, low-browed, yellow-skinned, flat of nose, with the grins of apes. He might expect the worst from these. But the eighth showed a long blond beard under his leather helm, and Glaucon rejoiced; the chief of the band was a Persian and more amenable.
The Tartars continued gesturing and debating, flourishing their steel points right at the prisoner’s breast. He regarded[pg 412]them calmly, so calmly that the Persian gave vent to his admiration.
“Down with your lance-head, Rūkhs. By Mithra, I think this Hellene is brave as he is beautiful! See how he stands. We must have him to the Prince.”
“Excellency,”spoke Glaucon, in his best court Persian,“I am a courier to the Lord Mardonius. If you are faithful servants of his Eternity the king, where is your camp?”
The chief started.
“On the life of my father, you speak Persian as if you dwelled in Eran at the king’s own doors! What do you here alone upon this road in Hellas?”
Glaucon put out his hand before answering, caught the tip of Rūkhs’s lance, and snapped it short like a reed. He knew the way to win the admiration of the Barbarians. They yelled with delight, all at least save Rūkhs.
“Strong as he is brave and handsome,”cried the Persian.“Again—who are you?”
The Alcmæonid drew himself to full height and gave his head its lordliest poise.
“Understand, Persian, that I have indeed lived long at the king’s gates. Yes,—I have learned my Aryan at the Lord Mardonius’s own table, for I am the son of Attaginus of Thebes, who is not the least of the friends of his Eternity in Hellas.”
The mention of one of the foremost Medizers of Greece made the subaltern bend in his saddle. His tone became even obsequious.
“Ah, I understand. Your Excellency is a courier. You have despatches from the king?”
“Despatches of moment just landed from Asia. Now tell me where the army is encamped.”
“By the Asopus, much to northward. The Hellenes lie to[pg 413]south. Here, Rūkhs, take the noble courier behind you on the horse, and conduct him to the general.”
“Heaven bless your generosity,”cried the runner, with almost precipitate haste,“but I know the country well, and the worthy Rūkhs will not thank me if I deprive him of his share in your booty.”
“Ah, yes, we have heard of a farm across the hills at Eleutheræ that’s not yet been plundered,—handsome wenches, and we’ll make the father dig up his pot of money. Mazda speed you, sir, for we are off.”
“Yeh! yeh!”yelled the seven Tartars, none more loudly than Rūkhs, who had no hankering for conducting a courier back into the camp. So the riders came and went, whilst Glaucon drew his girdle one notch tighter and ran onward through the gathering evening.
The adventure had been a warning. Once Athena had saved him, not perchance twice,—again he took to the fields. He did not love the sight of the sun ever lower, on the long brown ridge of Helicon far to west. Until now he scarce thought enough of self to realize the terrible draughts he had made upon his treasure-house of strength. Could it be that he—the Isthmionices, who had crushed down the giant of Sparta before the cheering myriads—could faint like a weary girl, when the weal of Hellas was his to win or lose? Why did his tongue burn in his throat as a coal? Why did those feet—so swift, so ready when he sped from Oropus—lift so heavily?
As a flash it came over him what he had endured,—the slow agony on theBozra, the bursting of the bands, the fight for life, the scene with Themistocles, the sleepless night on the trireme. Now he was running as the wild hare runs before the baying chase. Could it be that all this race was vain?
“For Hellas! For Hermione!”
Whilst he groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his teeth came together harder.
“Themistocles trusts me. I carry the fate of Hellas. I can die, but I cannot fail.”
It was quite dusk now. The brief southern twilight was ending in pale bars of gold above Helicon. Glaucon rose again; the cold sweat sprang out upon his forehead. Before his eyes rose darkness, but he did not faint. Some kind destiny set a stout pole upright in the field,—perhaps for vines to clamber,—he clutched it, and stood until his sight cleared and the pain a little abated. He tore the pole from the ground, and reached the roadway. He must take his chance of meeting more raiders. He had one vast comfort,—if there had been no battle fought that day, there would be none before dawn. But he had still weary stadia before him, and running was out of the question. Ever and anon he would stop his hobbling, take air, and stare at the vague tracery of the hills,—Cithæron to southward, Helicon to west, and northward the wide dark Theban plain. He gave up counting how many times he halted, how many times he spoke the magic words,“For Hellas! For Hermione!”and forced onward his way. The moon failed, even the stars were clouded. A kind of brute instinct guided him. At last—he guessed it was nearly midnight—he caught once more the flashings of a shallow river and the dim outlines of shrubbery beside the bank—again the Asopus. He must take care or he would wander straight into Mardonius’s camp. Therefore[pg 415]he stopped awhile, drank the cool water, and let the stream purl around his burning foot. Then he set his face to the south, for there lay Platæa. There he would find the Hellenes.
He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and Cithæron beckoning him on, as with living fingers.
“Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylæ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.”
Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop.
“For Hellas! For Hermione!”
At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.
* * * * * * *
At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by Platæa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the[pg 416]contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting under arms,—awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The outpost—Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnæ—was creeping gingerly behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows. Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness, saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.
“Halt, stranger, tell your business.”
“For Aristeides.”The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.
“That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.”
“For Aristeides.”
“Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?”
“For Aristeides.”
The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared.
“Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?”
“No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.”
The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio.
“Now, friend,”he spoke,“your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.”
“For Aristeides.”
“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!”cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers.
“Themistocles’s seal,”he cried, and hastily turned the fallen man’s face upward to the light, when the lantern almost dropped from his own hand.
“Glaucon the Alcmæonid! Glaucon the Traitor who was dead! He or his shade come back from Tartarus.”
The four soldiers stood quaking like aspen, but their leader was of stouter stuff. Never had his native Attic shrewdness guided him to more purpose.
“Ghost, traitor, what not, this man has run himself all but to death. Look on his face. And Themistocles does not send a courier for nothing. This packet is for Aristeides, and to Aristeides take it with speed.”
Hippon seized the papyrus. He thought it would fade out of his hands like a spectre. It did not. The sentinel dropped his spear and ran breathless toward Platæa, where he knew was his general.