A Victor of Salamis Part 60

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE RACE TO SAVE h.e.l.lAS

The chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before the _Bozra_ had submitted to her fate, she had led the _Nausicaa_ and her consort well down into the southern aegean. A little more and they would have lifted the s.h.a.ggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,(13) as 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 the _Nausicaa_ ran 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 h.e.l.las, 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 the _Bozra_ ever 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 gla.s.sy, leaden-coloured floor; the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men the _keleustes_ ceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:-

"Fast and more fast O'er the foam-spray we're pa.s.sed.

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 sh.e.l.l-cl.u.s.tered trumpets The loud Tritons blow!

The loud Tritons blow!

"All of aeolus's train Springing o'er the blue main To our paeans 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 keel Leaping on with delight; And in melody wild Men and Nereids and wind Sing and laugh all their praise, To the bluff seaG.o.ds 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 p.o.o.p 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 "aeolus's winds" whilst the sea was one motionless mirror of gray. The monotonous "beat," "beat" of the _keleustes's_ hammer, 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 h.e.l.las?"

Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,-that after the _Nausicaa_ made land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Botia to bear the tidings to Pausanias.

They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were pa.s.sed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out gla.s.sy, motionless, and the pennon hung limp on the mainmast. The _keleustes_ slowed his beatings, but the men did not obey him. No whipped cattle were they, such as rowed the triremes of Phnicia, but freemen born, sons of Athens, who called it joy to die for her in time of need. Therefore despite the _keleustes's_ beats, despite Themistocles's command, the rowing might not slacken. And the black wave around the _Nausicaa's_ bow 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 b.u.t.ts slip from their hands, even trail in the darkling water, whilst they rose, looked, and blessed their G.o.ds.

It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the gla.s.sy 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! aeolus is with us! We can save h.e.l.las!"

Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias's l.u.s.ty 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 G.o.ds labour for them. Delos the Holy they pa.s.sed, 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 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 the _Bozra_. 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 h.e.l.las,-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 h.e.l.las, it is destined; if we are to die, we die. 'No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate a.s.signed.' Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save h.e.l.las. Zeus and Athena are great G.o.ds. They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save h.e.l.las.

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 h.e.l.las who deserves the name of 'Just.' When I was young, my 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 h.e.l.las. I have set my will against all the power of Persia. Zeus willing, I shall conquer. But the Olympians demand their price. For saving h.e.l.las 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 h.e.l.las' 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 aether, 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.-h.e.l.las, 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, Thermopylae, Salamis, the agony on the _Bozra_. 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 confidence that the treason would be thwarted.

The G.o.ds 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 the _Nausicaa_ sped up the narrowing strait betwixt Euba and the mainland.

Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic sh.o.r.eline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers.

Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Euba 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 the _Nausicaa_ from 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 the _Nausicaa_ might do no more. Once again the _keleustes_ piped, and his note was swift and feverish. The blades shot faster, faster, as the trireme raced down the sandy sh.o.r.e 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.