A Victor of Salamis Part 52

"War makes many changes," rejoined Dion. "_Ai!_ is he beside himself or a kidnapper? He is walking off with the babe."

The stranger indeed had seemed to forget them all and was going with swift strides up the Agora, but just before Niobe could begin her outcry he wheeled, and brought his merry burden back to the nurse's arms.

"You ought to be exceeding proud, my girl," he remarked almost severely, "to have such a precious babe in charge. I trust you are dutiful."

"So I strive, _kyrie_, but he grows very strong. One cannot keep the swaddling clothes on him now. They say he will be a mighty athlete like his father."

"Ah, yes-his father-" The sailor looked down.

"You knew Master Glaucon well?" pressed Dion, itching for a new bit of gossip.

"Well," answered the sailor, standing gazing on the child as though something held him fascinated, then shot another question. "And does the babe's lady-mother prosper?"

"She is pa.s.sing well in body, _kyrie_, but grievously ill in mind. Hera give her a release from all her sorrow!"

"Sorrow?" The man's eyes were opening wider, wider. "What mean you?"

"Why, all Trzene knows it, I'm sure."

"I'm not from Trzene. My ship made port from Naxos this morning. Speak, girl!"

He seized Niobe's wrist in a grip which she thought would crush the bone.

"_Ai!_ Let go, sir, you hurt. Don't stare so. I'm frightened. I'll tell as fast as I can. Master Democrates has come back from Corinth. Hermippus is resolved to make the _kyria_ wed him, however bitterly she resists. It's taken a long time for her father to determine to break her will, but now his mind's made up. The betrothal is in three days, the wedding ten days thereafter."

The sailor had dropped her hand. She shrank at the pallor of his face. He seemed struggling for words; when they came she made nothing of them.

"Themistocles, Themistocles-your promise!"

Then by some giant exercise of will he steadied. His speech grew more coherent.

"Give me the child," he commanded, and Niobe mutely obeyed. He kissed Phnix on both cheeks, mouth, forehead. They saw that tears were running down his bronzed face. He handed back the babe and again held out money,-a coin for both the slave girl and the soothsayer,-gold half-darics, that they gaped at wonderingly.

"Say nothing!" ordered the sailor, "nothing of what I have said or done, or as Helios shines this noon, I will kill you both."

Not waiting reply, he went down the Agora at a run, and never looked back.

It took some moments for Dion and Niobe to recover their equanimity; they would have believed it all a dream, but lo! in their hands gleamed the money.

"There are times," remarked the soothsayer, dubiously at last, "when I begin to think the G.o.ds again walk the earth and work wonders. This is a very high matter. Even I with my art dare not meddle with it. It is best to heed the injunction to silence. Wagging tongues always have troubles as their children. Now let us proceed with my sacred c.o.c.k and his divination."

Niobe got her philtre,-though whether it reconquered Procles is not contained in this history. Likewise, she heeded Dion's injunction. There was something uncanny about the strange sailor; she hid away the half-daric, and related nothing of her adventure even to her confidant Cleopis.

Three days later Democrates was not drinking wine at his betrothal feast, but sending this cipher letter by a swift and trusty "distance-runner" to Sparta.

"Democrates to Lycon, greeting:-At Corinth I cursed you. Rejoice therefore; you are my only hope. I am with you whether your path leads to Olympus or to Hades. Tartarus is opened at my feet. You must save me. My words are confused, do you think? Then hear this, and ask if I have not cause for turning mad.

"Yesterday, even as Hermippus hung garlands on his house, and summoned the guests to witness the betrothal contract, Themistocles returned suddenly from Euba. He called Hermippus and myself aside. '_Glaucon lives_,' he said, 'and with the G.o.d's help we'll prove his innocence.' Hermippus at once broke off the betrothal. No one else knows aught thereof, not even Hermione. Themistocles refuses all further details. 'Glaucon lives,'-I can think of nothing else. Where is he? What does he? How soon will the awful truth go flying through h.e.l.las? I trembled when I heard he was dead. But name my terrors now I know he is alive! Send Hiram. He, if any snake living, can find me my enemy before it is too late. And speed the victory of Mardonius! _Chaire._"

"Glaucon lives." Democrates had only written one least part of his terrors. Two words-but enough to make the orator the most miserable man in h.e.l.las, the most supple of Xerxes's hundred million slaves.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

WHAT BEFELL ON THE HILLSIDE

Once more the Persians pressed into Attica, once more the Athenians,-or such few of them as had ventured home in the winter,-fled with their movables to Salamis or Peloponnesus, and an emba.s.sy, headed by Aristeides, hastened to Sparta to demand for the last time that the tardy ephors make good their promise in sending forth their infantry to hurl back the invader. If not, Aristeides spoke plainly, his people must perforce close alliance with Mardonius.

Almost to the amazement of the Athenian chiefs, so accustomed were they to Dorian doltishness and immobility, after a ten days' delay and excuses that "they must celebrate their festival the Hyacinthia," the ephors called forth their whole levy. Ten thousand heavy infantrymen with a host of lightly armed "helots"(11) were started northward under the able lead of Pausanias, the regent for Leonidas's young son. Likewise all the allies of Lacedaemon-Corinthians, Sicyonians, Elians, Arcadians-began to hurry toward the Isthmus. Therefore men who had loved h.e.l.las and had almost despaired for her took courage. "At last we will have a great land battle, and an end to the Barbarian."

All was excitement in the Athenian colony at Trzene. The board of strategi met and voted that now was the time for a crowning effort. Five thousand men-at-arms should march under Aristeides to join against Mardonius in Botia. By sea Themistocles should go with every available ship to Delos, meet the allied squadrons there, and use his infallible art in persuading the sluggish Spartan high admiral to conduct a raid across the aegean at Xerxes's own doors. Of the ten strategi Democrates had called loudest for instant action, so loudly indeed that Themistocles had cautioned him against rashness. Hermippus was old, but experienced men trusted him, therefore he was appointed to command the contingent of his tribe. Democrates was to accompany Aristeides as general adjutant; his diplomatic training would be invaluable in ending the frictions sure to arise amongst the allies. Cimon would go with Themistocles, and so every other man was sent to his place. In the general preparation private problems seemed forgotten. Hermippus and Democrates both announced that the betrothal of Hermione had been postponed, pending the public crisis.

The old Eleusinian had not told his daughter, or even his wife, why he had seemed to relax his announced purpose of forcing Hermione to an unwelcome marriage. The young widow knew she had respite-for how long nothing told her, but for every day her agony was postponed she blessed kind Hera. Then came the morning when her father must go forth with his men. She still loved him, despite the grief he was giving her. She did him justice to believe he acted in affection. The gay ribbons that laced his cuira.s.s, the red and blue embroidery that edged his "taxiarch's" cloak, were from the needle of his daughter. Hermione kissed him as she stood with her mother in the aula. He coughed gruffly when he answered their "farewell." The house door closed behind him, and Hermione and Lysistra ran into one another's arms. They had given to h.e.l.las their best, and now must look to Athena.

Hermippus and Aristeides were gone, Democrates remained in Trzene. His business, he said, was more diplomatic than military, and he was expecting advices from the islands which he must take to Pausanias in person. He had a number of interviews with Themistocles, when it was observed that every time he came away with clouded brow and gruff answers to all who accosted.

It began to be hinted that all was not as well as formerly between the admiral and the orator, that Democrates had chosen to tie too closely to Aristeides for the son of Neocles's liking, and that as soon as the campaign was decided, a bitter feud would break out betwixt them. But this was merest gossip. Outwardly Democrates and Themistocles continued friends, dined together, exchanged civilities. On the day when Themistocles was to sail for Delos he walked arm in arm with Democrates to the quay. The hundreds of onlookers saw him embrace the young strategus in a manner belying any rumour of estrangement, whilst Democrates stood on the sand waving his good wishes until the admiral climbed the ladder of the _Nausicaa_.

It was another day and landscape which the stranger in h.e.l.las would have remembered long. The haven of Trzene, n.o.blest in Peloponnesus, girt by its two mountain promontories, Methana and the holy hill Calauria, opened its bright blue into the deeper blue of the Saronic bay. Under the eye of the beholder aegina and the coasts of Attica stood forth, a fit frame to the far horizon. Sun, sea, hills, and sh.o.r.e wrought together to make one glorious harmony, endless variety, yet ordered and fashioned into a divine whole. "Euopis," "The Fair-Faced," the beauty-loving dwellers of the country called it, and they named aright.

Something of the beauty touched even Hermione as she stood on the hill slope, gazing across the sea. Only Cleopis was with her. The young widow had less trembling when she looked on the _Nausicaa_ than when one year before the stately trireme had sailed for Artemisium. If ill news must come, it would be from the plains of Botia. Most of Themistocles's fleet was already at Delos. He led only a dozen sail. When his squadron glided on into the blue deep, the haven seemed deserted save for the Carthaginian trader that swung at her cables close upon the land. As Hermione looked and saw the climbing sun change the tintings of the waters, here spreading a line of green gold amidst the blue, here flashing the waves with dark violet, something of the peace and majesty of the scene entered into her own breast. The waves at the foot of the slope beat in monotonous music.

She did not wonder that Thetis, Galatea, and all the hundred Nereids loved their home. Somewhere, far off on that shimmering plain, Glaucon the Beautiful had fallen asleep; whether he waked in the land of Rhadamanthus, whether he had been stolen away by Leucothea and the other nymphs to be their playfellow, she did not know. She was not sad, even to think of him crowned with green seaweed, and sitting under the sea-floor with fish-tailed Tritons at their tables of pearl, while the finny shoals like birds flitted above their heads. Thales the Sage made all life proceed out of the sea. Perchance all life should return to it. Then she would find her husband again, not beyond, but within the realms of great Ocea.n.u.s.

With such beauty spreading out before her eyes the phantasy was almost welcome.

The people had wandered homeward. Cleopis set the parasol on the dry gra.s.s where it would shade her mistress and betook herself to the shelter of a rock. If Hermione was pleased to meditate so long, she would not deny her slave a siesta. So the Athenian sat and mused, now sadly, now with a gleam of brightness, for she was too young to have her sun clouded always.

A speaker near by her called her out of her reverie.

"You sit long, _kyria_, and gaze forth as if you were Zeus in Olympus and could look on all the world."

Hermione had not exchanged a word with Democrates since that day she cast scorn on him on that other hill slope at Munychia, but this did not make his intrusion more welcome. With mortification she realized that she had forgotten herself. That she lay on the sunny bank with her feet outstretched and her hair shaken loose on her shoulders. Her feet she instantly covered with her long himation. Her hands flew instantly to her hair. Then she uprose, flushing haughtily.

"It has pleased my father, sir," she spoke with frigid dignity, "to tell me that you are some day perchance to be my husband. The fulfilment lies with the G.o.ds. But to-day the strategus Democrates knows our customs too well to thrust himself upon an Attic gentlewoman who finds herself alone save for one servant."

"Ah, _kyria_; pardon the word, it's overcold; _makaira_, I'd say more gladly," Democrates was marvellously at his ease despite her frowns, "your n.o.ble father will take nothing amiss if I ask you to sit again that we may talk together."

"I do not think so." Hermione drew herself up at full height. But Democrates deliberately placed himself in the path up the hillside. To have run toward the water seemed folly. She could expect no help from Cleopis, who would hardly oppose a man soon probably to be her master. As the less of evils, Hermione did not indeed sit as desired, but stood facing her unloved lover and hearkening.

"How long I've desired this instant!" Democrates looked as if he might seize her hands to kiss them, but she thrust them behind her. "I know you hate me bitterly because, touching your late husband, I did my duty."

"Your duty?" Nestor's eloquence was in her incredulous echo.

"If I have pained you beyond telling, do you think my act was a pleasant one for me? A bosom friend to ruin, the most sacred bonds to sever, last and not least, to give infinite sorrow to her I love?"

"I hardly understand."