A Victor of Salamis Part 39

Men rushed for the last time to the shrines where their fathers had prayed,-the temples of Theseus, Olympian Zeus, Dionysus, Aphrodite. The tombs of the worthies of old, stretching out along the Sacred Way to Eleusis, where Solon, Clisthenes, Miltiades, and many another bulwark of Athens slept, had the last votive wreath hung lovingly upon them. And especially men sought the great temple of the "Rock," to lift their hands to Athena Polias, and vow awful vows of how harm to the Virgin G.o.ddess should be wiped away in blood.

So the throng pa.s.sed through the city and toward the sh.o.r.e, awaiting the fleet.

It came after eager watching. The whole fighting force of Athens and her Corinthian, aeginetan, and other allies. Before the rest raced a stately ship, the _Nausicaa_, her triple-oar bank flying faster than the spray.

The people crowded to the water's edge when the great trireme cast off her pinnace and a well-known figure stepped therein.

"Themistocles is with us!"

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

"Why distressed? Have we not held the Barbarians back n.o.bly at Artemisium?

Will we not soon sweep his power from the seas in fair battle?"

With almost a conqueror's train he swept up to the city. A last a.s.sembly filled the Pnyx. Themistocles had never been more hopeful, more eloquent.

With one voice men voted never to bend the knee to the king. If the G.o.ds forbade them to win back their own dear country, they would go together to Italy, to found a new and better Athens far from the Persian's power. And at Themistocles's motion they voted to recall all the political exiles, especially Themistocles's own great enemy Aristeides the Just, banished by the son of Neocles only a few years before. The a.s.sembly dispersed-not weeping but with cheers. Already it was time to be quitting the city.

Couriers told how the Tartar hors.e.m.e.n were burning the villages beyond Parnes. The magistrates and admirals went to the house of Athena. The last incense smoked before the image. The bucklers hanging on the temple wall were taken down by Cimon and the other young patricians. The statue was reverently lifted, wound in fine linen, and borne swiftly to the fleet.

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

All that day the boats were bearing the people, and late into the night, until the task was accomplished, the like whereof is not found in history.

No Athenian who willed was left to the power of Xerxes. One brain and voice planned and directed all. Leonidas, Ajax of the h.e.l.lenes, had been taken. Themistocles, their Odysseus, valiant as Ajax and gifted with the craft of the immortals, remained. Could that craft and that valour turn back the might of even the G.o.d-king of the Aryans?

CHAPTER XXV

THE ACROPOLIS FLAMES

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

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

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

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

"Omnipotence, you have slain Leonidas, but a second great enemy remains.

While Themistocles lives, it is likely your slaves will have another opportunity to prove to you their devotion."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am born a h.e.l.lene, lady. My G.o.ds are not yours. I must live and die after the manner of my people. And that our G.o.ds are strong and will give victory, after that morning with Leonidas I dare not doubt."

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

It was while the army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with h.e.l.las. Leonidas was dead.

The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon avow his ident.i.ty were dead. In the hurried conference of captains preceding the retreat, Leonidas had told his informant's precise name only to Euboulus. And now Euboulus was slain, doubtless before any word from him of Glaucon's deed could spread abroad. To Athenians Glaucon was still the "Traitor," doubly execrated in this hour of trial. If he returned to his people, would he not be torn in pieces by the mob? But the young Alcmaeonid was resolved. Since he had not died at Thermopylae, no life in the camp of the Barbarian was tolerable. He would trust sovran Athena who had plucked him out of one death to deliver from a second. Therefore he nursed his strength-a caged lion waiting for freedom,-and almost wished the Persian host would advance more swiftly that he might haste onward to his own.

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

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

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

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

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

At dusk the next evening Mardonius suffered him to go with two faithful eunuchs and rove through the deserted city. The Persians were mostly encamped without the walls, and plundering was forbidden. Only Hydarnes with the Immortals pitched on Areopagus, and the king had taken his abode by the Agora. It was like walking through the country of the dead.

Everything familiar, everything changed. The eunuchs carried torches. They wandered down one street after another, where the house doors stood open, where the aulas were strewn with the debris of household stuff which the fleeing citizens had abandoned. A deserter had already told Glaucon of his father's death; he was not amazed therefore to find the house of his birth empty and desolate. But everywhere else, also, it was to call back memories of glad days never to return. Here was the school where crusty Pollicharmes had driven the "reading, writing, and music" into Democrates and himself between the blows. Here was the corner Hermes, before which he had sacrificed the day he won his first wreath in the public games. Here was the house of Cimon, in whose dining room he had enjoyed many a bright symposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the porticos where he had lounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestling ground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-hearted friends about "the war" and "the king," in the days when the Persian seemed very far away. Last of all an instinct-he could not call it desire-drove him to seek the house of Hermippus.

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

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

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

He went up the stair alone to the upper story, to the chambers of the women. Confusion here also,-the more valuable possessions gone, but much remaining. In one corner stood the loom and stretched upon it the half-made web of a shawl. He could trace the pattern clearly wrought in bright wools,-Ariadne sitting desolate awaiting the returning of Theseus.

Would the wife or the betrothed of Democrates busy herself with _that_, whatever the griefs in her heart? Glaucon's temples now were throbbing as if to burst.

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

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

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

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