A Victor of Salamis Part 34

"Prexaspes, my lover,"-Roxana, strong in fear and pa.s.sion, clung about his girdle, while again Artazostra seized him,-"last night I was in your arms.

Last night you kissed me. Are we not to be happy together? What is this you say?"

He stood one instant silent, then shook himself and put them both aside with a marvellous ease.

"Forget my name," he commanded. "If I have given you sorrow, I repent it.

I go to my own. Go you to yours. My place is with Leonidas-to save him, or more like to die with him! Farewell!"

He sprang away from them. He saw Roxana sink upon the ground. He heard Artazostra calling to the horse-boys and the eunuchs,-perhaps she bade them to pursue. Once he looked back, but never twice. He knew the watchwords, and all the sentries let him pa.s.s by freely. With a feverish stride he traced the avenues of sleeping tents. Soon he was at the outposts, where strong divisions of Cissian and Babylonian infantrymen were slumbering under arms, ready for the attack the instant the uproar from the rear of the pa.s.s told how Hydarnes had completed his circuit.

Eos-"Rosy-Fingered Dawn"-was just shimmering above the mist-hung peak of Mt. Telethrius in Euba across the bay when Glaucon came to the last Persian outpost. The pickets saluted with their lances, as he went by them, taking him for a high officer on a reconnoissance before the onset.

Next he was on the scene of the former battles. He stumbled over riven shields, shattered spear b.u.t.ts, and many times over ghastlier objects-objects yielding and still warm-dead men, awaiting the crows of the morrow. He walked straight on, while the dawn strengthened and the narrow pa.s.s sprang into view, betwixt mountain and mora.s.s. Then at last a challenge, not in Persian, but in round clear Doric.

"Halt! Who pa.s.ses?"

Glaucon held up his right hand, and advanced cautiously. Two men in heavy armour approached, and threatened his breast with their lance points.

"Who are you?"

"A friend, a h.e.l.lene-my speech tells that. Take me to Leonidas. I've a story worth telling."

"_Euge!_ Master 'Friend,' our general can't be waked for every deserter.

We'll call our decarch."

A shout brought the subaltern commanding the Greek outposts. He was a Spartan of less sluggish wits than many of his breed, and presently believed Glaucon when he declared he had reason in asking for Leonidas.

"But your accent is Athenian?" asked the decarch, with wonderment.

"Ay, Athenian," a.s.sented Glaucon.

"Curses on you! I thought no Athenian ever Medized. What business had _you_ in the Persian camp? Who of your countrymen are there save the sons of Hippias?"

"Not many," rejoined the fugitive, not anxious to have the questions pushed home.

"Well, to Leonidas you shall go, sir Athenian, and state your business.

But you are like to get a bearish welcome. Since your pretty Glaucon's treason, our king has not wasted much love even on repentant traitors."

With a soldier on either side, the deserter was marched within the barrier wall. Another encampment, vastly smaller and less luxurious than the Persian, but of martial orderliness, spread out along the pa.s.s. The h.e.l.lenes were just waking. Some were breakfasting from helmets full of cold boiled peas, others buckled on the well-dinted bronze cuira.s.ses and greaves. Men stared at Glaucon as he was led by them.

"A deserter they take to the chief," ran the whisper, and a little knot of idle Spartans trailed behind, when at last Glaucon's guides halted him before a brown tent barely larger than the others.

A man sat on a camp chest by the entrance, and was busy with an iron spoon eating "black broth"(9) from a huge kettle. In the dim light Glaucon could just see that he wore a purple cloak flung over his black armour, and that the helmet resting beside him was girt by a wreath of gold foil.

The two guards dropped their spears in salute. The man looked upward.

"A deserter," reported one of Glaucon's mentors; "he says he has important news."

"Wait!" ordered the general, making the iron spoon clack steadily.

"The weal of h.e.l.las rests thereon. Listen!" pleaded the nervous Athenian.

"Wait!" was the unruffled answer, and still the iron spoon went on plying.

The Spartan lifted a huge morsel from the pot, chewed it deliberately, then put the vessel by. Next he inspected the newcomer from head to toe, then at last gave his permission.

"Well?"

Glaucon's words were like a bursting torrent.

"Fly, your Excellency! I'm from Xerxes's camp. I was at the Persian council. The mountain path is betrayed. Hydarnes and the guard are almost over it. They will fall upon your rear. Fly, or you and all your men are trapped!"

"Well," observed the Spartan, slowly, motioning for the deserter to cease, but Glaucon's fears made that impossible.

"I say I was in Xerxes's own tent. I was interpreter betwixt the king and the traitor. I know all whereof I say. If you do not flee instantly, the blood of these men is on your head."

Leonidas again scanned the deserter with piercing scrutiny, then flung a question.

"Who are you?"

The blood leaped into the Athenian's cheeks. The tongue that had wagged so nimbly clove in his mouth. He grew silent.

"Who are you?"

As the question was repeated, the scrutiny grew yet closer. The soldiers were pressing around, one comrade leaning over another's shoulder. Twenty saw the fugitive's form straighten as he stood in the morning twilight.

"I am Glaucon of Athens, Isthmionices!"

"Ah!" Leonidas's jaw dropped for an instant. He showed no other astonishment, but the listening Spartans raised a yell.

"Death! Stone the traitor!"

Leonidas, without a word, smote the man nearest to him with a spear b.u.t.t.

The soldiers were silent instantly. Then the chief turned back to the deserter.

"Why here?"

Glaucon had never prayed for the gifts of Peitho, "Our Lady Persuasion,"

more than at that crucial moment. Arguments, supplications, protestations of innocence, curses upon his unknown enemies, rushed to his lips together. He hardly realized what he himself said. Only he knew that at the end the soldiers did not tug at their hilts as before and scowl so threateningly, and Leonidas at last lifted his hand as if to bid him cease.

"_Euge!_" grunted the chief. "So you wish me to believe you a victim of fate, and trust your story? The pa.s.s is turned, you say? Masistes the seer said the libation sputtered on the flame with ill-omen when he sacrificed this morning. Then you come. The thing shall be looked into. Call the captains."

The locharchs and taxiarchs of the Greeks a.s.sembled. It was a brief and gloomy council of war. While Euboulus, commanding the Corinthian contingent, was still questioning whether the deserter was worthy of credence, a scout came running down Mt. ta confirming the worst. The cowardly Phocians watching the mountain trail had fled at the first arrows of Hydarnes. It was merely a question of time before the Immortals would be at Alpeni, the village in Leonidas's rear. There was only one thing to say, and the Spartan chief said it.

"You must retreat."

The taxiarchs of the allied h.e.l.lenes under him were already rushing forth to their men to bid them fly for dear life. Only one or two stayed by the tent, marvelling much to observe that Leonidas gave no orders to his Lacedaemonians to join in the flight. On the contrary, Glaucon, as he stood near, saw the general lift the discarded pot of broth and explore it again with the iron spoon.

"O Father Zeus," cried the incredulous Corinthian leader. "Are you turned mad, Leonidas?"

"Time enough for all things," returned the unmoved Spartan, continuing his breakfast.