A Victor of Salamis Part 38

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

Once at home Hermione held little Phnix long to her heart and wept over him. For the sake of her dead husband's child, if for naught else, how could she suffer them to give her to Democrates? That the orator had destroyed Glaucon in black malice had become a corner-stone in her belief.

She could at first give for it only a woman's reason-blind intuition. She could not discuss her conviction with her mother or with any save a strange confidant-Phormio.

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

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

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

The fishmonger let his voice fall lower.

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

"Of what?"

"Bias his slave came to see me again last night. Many of his master's doings have been strange to him. Many are riddles still, but one thing at last is plain. Hiram has been to see Democrates once more, despite the previous threats. Bias listened. He could not understand everything, but he heard Lycon's name pa.s.sed many times, then one thing he caught clearly.

'_The Babylonish carpet-seller was the Prince Mardonius._' 'The Babylonian fled on the _Solon_.' 'The Prince is safe in Sardis.' If Mardonius could escape the storm and wreck, why not Glaucon, a king among swimmers?"

Hermione clapped her hands to her head.

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

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

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

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

"And flogged him?"

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

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

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

"I dare not cherish it. If I were but a man!" repeated Hermione. But she thanked Phormio many times, would not let him refuse her money, and bade him come often again and bring her all the Agora gossip about the war.

"For we are friends," she concluded; "you and I are the only persons who hold Glaucon innocent in all the world. And is that not tie enough?"

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

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

After the departure of the fleet Athens seemed silent as the grave. On the streets one met only slaves and graybeards. In the Agora the hucksters'

booths were silent, but little groups of white-headed men sat in the shaded porticos and watched eagerly for the appearing of the archon before the government house to read the last despatch of the progress of Xerxes.

The Pnyx was deserted. The gymnasia were closed. The more superst.i.tious scanned the heavens for a lucky or unlucky flight of hawks. The priestesses sang litanies all day and all night on the Acropolis where the great altar to Athena smoked with victims continually. At last, after the days of uncertainty and wavering rumour, came surer tidings of battles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then, seeing her panic-stricken women flying hither and thither like witless birds, her patrician blood a.s.serted itself. She dashed the drops from her eyes and joined her mother in quieting the maids. Whatever there was to hope or fear, their fate would not be lightened by wild moaning.

Soon the direful wailing from the Agora ceased. A blue flag waved over the Council House, a sign that the "Five Hundred" had been called in hurried session. Simultaneously a dense column of smoke leaped up from the market-place. The archons had ordered the hucksters' booths to be burned, as a signal to all Attica that the worst had befallen.

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

CHAPTER XXIV

THE EVACUATION OF ATHENS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The well-loved villas and farmsteads were tenantless. They left the standing grain, the ripening orchards, the groves of the sacred olives.