  The chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before the Bozra had submitted to her fate, she had led the NausicaÄ and her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy 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 NausicaÄ 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 Hellas, 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 glassy, leaden-coloured floor; [pg 400] “Fast and more fast O’er the foam-spray we’re passed. 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 shell-clustered trumpets The loud Tritons blow! The loud Tritons blow! “All of Æolus’s train Springing o’er the blue main To our pÆans 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 [pg 401] To the bluff seagods 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 poop 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 “Æolus’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. [pg 402]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 Hellas?” Then Glaucon had stepped back and said no more. He knew now for what Themistocles reserved him,—that after the NausicaÄ made land he must run, as never man ran before across wide Boeotia to bear the tidings to Pausanias. They were betwixt Paros and Naxos at last. Wine and barley cakes soaked in oil were passed among the men at the oars. They ate without leaving the benches. And still the sea spread out glassy, 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 Phoenicia, 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 NausicaÄ’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 butts slip from their hands, even trail [pg 403] It was coming, the strong kind Eurus out of the south and east. They could see the black ripple springing over the glassy 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! Æolus is with us! We can save Hellas!” Soon the sun burst forth above the mist. All the wide ocean floor was adance with sparkling wavelets. No need of Ameinias’s lusty 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 gods labour for them. Delos the Holy they passed, 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 [pg 404] “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 Hellas,—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 Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die. ‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’ Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are great “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 Hellas who deserves the name of ‘Just.’ When I was young, my [pg 405] 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 Hellas’ 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 Æther, 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.—Hellas, 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, ThermopylÆ, 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 con[pg 406] 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 NausicaÄ sped up the narrowing strait betwixt Euboea and the mainland. Dawn glowed at last, unveiling the brown Attic shoreline with Pentelicus the marble-fretted and all his darker peers. Hour by hour they ran onward. They skirted the long low coast of Euboea 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 NausicaÄ 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 NausicaÄ 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 shore 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. [pg 407]“Has there been a battle?” cried Ameinias. “Not yet. We are from Styra on Euboea; we expect the news daily. The armies are almost together.” “And where are they?” “Near to PlatÆa.” That was all. The war-ship left the fishermen rocking in her wake, but again Themistocles drew his eyebrows close together, while Glaucon tightened the buckle on his belt. PlatÆa,—the name meant that the courier must traverse the breadth of Boeotia, and with the armies face to face how long would Zeus hold back the battle? How long indeed, with Democrates and Lycon intent on bringing battle to pass? The ship was more than ever silent as she rushed on the last stretch of her course. More men fell at the oars with blood upon their faces. The supernumeraries tossed them aside like logs of wood, and leaped upon their benches. Themistocles had vanished with Simonides in the cabin; all knew their work,—preparing letters to Aristeides and Pausanias to warn of the bitter truth. Then the haven at last: the white-stuccoed houses of Oropus clustering down upon the shore, the little mole, a few doltish peasants by the landing gaping at the great trireme. No others greeted them, for the terror of Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had driven all but the poorest to some safe shelter. The oars slipped from numb fingers; the anchor plunged into the green water; the mainsail rattled down the mast. Men sat on the benches motionless, gulping down the clear air. They had done their part. The rest lay in the hands of the gods, and in the speed of him who two days since they had called “Glaucon the Traitor.” The messenger came from the cabin, half stripped, on his head a felt skullcap, on his feet high hunter’s boots laced up to the knees. He had never shone in more noble beauty. The crew watched Themistocles place a papyrus [pg 408] “Apollo speed you!” called two hundred after him. He answered from the beach with a wave of his beautiful arms. A moment later he was hid behind a clump of olives. The NausicaÄ’s people knew the ordeal before him, but many a man said Glaucon had the easier task. He could run till life failed him. They now could only fold their hands and wait. * * * * * * * It was long past noon when Glaucon left the desolate village of Oropus behind him. The day was hot, but after the manner of Greece not sultry, and the brisk breeze was stirring on the hill slopes. Over the distant mountains hung a tint of deep violet. It was early in Boedromion.14 The fields—where indeed the Barbarian cavalry men had not deliberately burned them—were seared brown by the long dry summer. Here and there great black crows were picking, and a red fox would whisk out of a thicket and go with long bounds across the unharvested fields to some safer refuge. Glaucon knew his route. Three hundred and sixty stadia lay before him, and those not over the well-beaten course in the gymnasium, but by rocky goat trails and by-paths that made his task no easier. He started off slowly. He was too good an athlete to waste his speed by one fierce burst at the outset. At first his road was no bad one, for he skirted the willow-hung Asopus, the boundary stream be[pg 409] First, it was a farmstead in black ruin, with the carcass of a horse half burned lying before the gate. Next, it was the body of a woman, three days slain, and in the centre of the road,—no pleasant sight, for the crows had been at their banquet,—and hardened though the AlcmÆonid was to war, he stopped long enough to cast the ceremonial handful of dust on the poor remains, as symbolic burial, and sped a wish to King Pluto to give peace to the wanderer’s spirit. Next, people met him: an old man, his wife, his young son,—wretched shepherd-folk dressed in sheepskins,—the boy helping his elders as they tottered along on their staves toward the mountain. At sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand, showing he was unarmed, and they halted also. “Whence and whither, good father?” Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near ŒnophytÆ, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life, and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road. “Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!” he was speaking in his heart, “noble and brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,—and though you once called me friend, Zeus and Dike still rule, there is a price for this and you shall tell it out.” [pg 410] Yet he bethought himself of the old man’s warning, and left the beaten way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook, where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward. He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Boeotia was opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows picking at carrion,—more tokens that Mardonius’s Tartar raiders had done their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just as the spurs of CithÆron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to thrust their bald summits up before the runner’s ken, far ahead upon the way approached a cloud of dust. The Athenian paused in his run, dashed into the barren field, and flung himself flat between the furrows. He heard the hoof-beats of the wiry steppe horses, the clatter of targets and scabbards, the shrill shouts of the raiders. He lifted his head enough to see the red streamers on their lance tips flutter past. He let the noise die away before he dared to take the road once more. [pg 411] Already the hills were spreading their shadows, and PlatÆa was many stadia away. Knowledge of how much remained made him reckless. He ran on without his former caution. The plain was again changing to undulating foothills. He had passed ErythrÆ now,—another village burned and deserted. He mounted a slope, was descending to mount another, when lo! over the hill before came eight riders at full speed. What must be done, must be done quickly. To plunge into the fallow field again were madness, the horsemen had surely seen him, and their sure-footed beasts could run over the furrows like rabbits. Glaucon stood stock still and stretched forth both hands, to show the horsemen he did not resist them. “O Athena Polias,” uprose the prayer from his heart, “if thou lovest not me, forget not thy love for Hellas, for Athens, for Hermione my wife.” The riders were on him instantly, their crooked swords flew out. They surrounded their captive, uttering outlandish cries and chatterings, ogling, muttering, pointing with their swords and lances as if debating among themselves whether to let the stranger go or hew him in pieces. Glaucon stood motionless, looking from one to another and asking for wisdom in his soul. Seven were Tartars, low-browed, yellow-skinned, flat of nose, with the grins of apes. He might expect the worst from these. But the eighth showed a long blond beard under his leather helm, and Glaucon rejoiced; the chief of the band was a Persian and more amenable. The Tartars continued gesturing and debating, flourishing their steel points right at the prisoner’s breast. He regarded [pg 412] “Down with your lance-head, Rukhs. By Mithra, I think this Hellene is brave as he is beautiful! See how he stands. We must have him to the Prince.” “Excellency,” spoke Glaucon, in his best court Persian, “I am a courier to the Lord Mardonius. If you are faithful servants of his Eternity the king, where is your camp?” The chief started. “On the life of my father, you speak Persian as if you dwelled in Eran at the king’s own doors! What do you here alone upon this road in Hellas?” Glaucon put out his hand before answering, caught the tip of Rukhs’s lance, and snapped it short like a reed. He knew the way to win the admiration of the Barbarians. They yelled with delight, all at least save Rukhs. “Strong as he is brave and handsome,” cried the Persian. “Again—who are you?” The AlcmÆonid drew himself to full height and gave his head its lordliest poise. “Understand, Persian, that I have indeed lived long at the king’s gates. Yes,—I have learned my Aryan at the Lord Mardonius’s own table, for I am the son of Attaginus of Thebes, who is not the least of the friends of his Eternity in Hellas.” The mention of one of the foremost Medizers of Greece made the subaltern bend in his saddle. His tone became even obsequious. “Ah, I understand. Your Excellency is a courier. You have despatches from the king?” “Despatches of moment just landed from Asia. Now tell me where the army is encamped.” “By the Asopus, much to northward. The Hellenes lie to [pg 413] “Heaven bless your generosity,” cried the runner, with almost precipitate haste, “but I know the country well, and the worthy Rukhs will not thank me if I deprive him of his share in your booty.” “Ah, yes, we have heard of a farm across the hills at EleutherÆ that’s not yet been plundered,—handsome wenches, and we’ll make the father dig up his pot of money. Mazda speed you, sir, for we are off.” “Yeh! yeh!” yelled the seven Tartars, none more loudly than Rukhs, who had no hankering for conducting a courier back into the camp. So the riders came and went, whilst Glaucon drew his girdle one notch tighter and ran onward through the gathering evening. The adventure had been a warning. Once Athena had saved him, not perchance twice,—again he took to the fields. He did not love the sight of the sun ever lower, on the long brown ridge of Helicon far to west. Until now he scarce thought enough of self to realize the terrible draughts he had made upon his treasure-house of strength. Could it be that he—the Isthmionices, who had crushed down the giant of Sparta before the cheering myriads—could faint like a weary girl, when the weal of Hellas was his to win or lose? Why did his tongue burn in his throat as a coal? Why did those feet—so swift, so ready when he sped from Oropus—lift so heavily? As a flash it came over him what he had endured,—the slow agony on the Bozra, the bursting of the bands, the fight for life, the scene with Themistocles, the sleepless night on the trireme. Now he was running as the wild hare runs before the baying chase. Could it be that all this race was vain? [pg 414]“For Hellas! For Hermione!” Whilst he groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his teeth came together harder. “Themistocles trusts me. I carry the fate of Hellas. I can die, but I cannot fail.” It was quite dusk now. The brief southern twilight was ending in pale bars of gold above Helicon. Glaucon rose again; the cold sweat sprang out upon his forehead. Before his eyes rose darkness, but he did not faint. Some kind destiny set a stout pole upright in the field,—perhaps for vines to clamber,—he clutched it, and stood until his sight cleared and the pain a little abated. He tore the pole from the ground, and reached the roadway. He must take his chance of meeting more raiders. He had one vast comfort,—if there had been no battle fought that day, there would be none before dawn. But he had still weary stadia before him, and running was out of the question. Ever and anon he would stop his hobbling, take air, and stare at the vague tracery of the hills,—CithÆron to southward, Helicon to west, and northward the wide dark Theban plain. He gave up counting how many times he halted, how many times he spoke the magic words, “For Hellas! For Hermione!” and forced onward his way. The moon failed, even the stars were clouded. A kind of brute instinct guided him. At last—he guessed it was nearly midnight—he caught once more the flashings of a shallow river and the dim outlines of shrubbery beside the bank—again the Asopus. He must take care or he would wander straight into Mardonius’s camp. Therefore [pg 415] He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and CithÆron beckoning him on, as with living fingers. “Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor ThermopylÆ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.” Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop. “For Hellas! For Hermione!” At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward. * * * * * * * At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by PlatÆa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the [pg 416] “Halt, stranger, tell your business.” “For Aristeides.” The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand. “That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.” “For Aristeides.” “Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?” “For Aristeides.” The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared. “Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?” “No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.” The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio. “Now, friend,” he spoke, “your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.” “For Aristeides.” [pg 417]“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!” cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers. “Themistocles’s seal,” he cried, and hastily turned the fallen man’s face upward to the light, when the lantern almost dropped from his own hand. “Glaucon the AlcmÆonid! Glaucon the Traitor who was dead! He or his shade come back from Tartarus.” The four soldiers stood quaking like aspen, but their leader was of stouter stuff. Never had his native Attic shrewdness guided him to more purpose. “Ghost, traitor, what not, this man has run himself all but to death. Look on his face. And Themistocles does not send a courier for nothing. This packet is for Aristeides, and to Aristeides take it with speed.” Hippon seized the papyrus. He thought it would fade out of his hands like a spectre. It did not. The sentinel dropped his spear and ran breathless toward PlatÆa, where he knew was his general. |
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