A Victor of Salamis Part 25

THE LOTUS-EATING AT SARDIS

When Glaucon awoke to consciousness, it was with a sense of absolute weakness, at the same moment with a sense of absolute rest. He knew that he was lying on pillows "softer than sleep," that the air he breathed was laden with perfume, that the golden light which came through his half-closed eyelids was deliciously tempered, that his ears caught a musical murmur, as of a plas.h.i.+ng fountain. So he lay for long, too impotent, too contented to ask where he lay, or whence he had departed.

Athens, Hermione, all the thousand and one things of his old life, flitted through his brain, but only as vague, far shapes. He was too weak even to long for them. Still the fountain plashed on, and mingling with the tinkling he thought he heard low flutes breathing. Perhaps it was only a phantasy of his flagging brain. Then his eyes opened wider. He lifted his hand. It was a task even to do that little thing,-he was so weak. He looked at the hand! Surely his own, yet how white it was, how thin; the bones were there, the blue veins, but all the strength gone out of them.

Was this the hand that had flung great Lycon down? It would be mere sport for a child to master him now. He touched his face. It was covered with a thick beard, as of a long month's growth. The discovery startled him. He strove to rise on one elbow. Too weak! He sank back upon the cus.h.i.+ons and let his eyes rove inquiringly. Never had he seen tapestries the like of those that canopied his bed. Scarlet and purple and embroidered in gold thread with elaborate hunting scenes,-the dogs, the chariots, the slaying of the deer, the bearing home of the game. He knew the choicest looms of Sidon must have wrought them. And the linen, so cool, so grateful, underneath his head-was it not the almost priceless fabric of Borsippa? He stirred a little, his eyes rested on the floor. It was covered with a rug worth an Athenian patrician's ransom,-a l.u.s.trous, variegated sheen, showing a new tint at each change of the light. So much he saw from the bed, and curiosity was wakened. Again he put forth his hand, and touched the hanging curtains. The movement set a score of little silver bells that dangled over the canopy to jingling. As at a signal the flutes grew louder, mingling with them was the clearer note of lyres. Now the strains swelled sweetly, now faded away into dreamy sighing, as if bidding the listener to sink again into the arms of sleep. Another vain effort to rise on his elbow. Again he was helpless. Giving way to the charm of the music, he closed his eyes.

"Either I am awaking in Elysium, or the G.o.ds send to me pleasant dreams before I die."

He was feebly wondering which was the alternative when a new sound roused him, the sweep and rustle of the dresses of two women as they approached the bed. He gazed forth listlessly, when lo! above his couch stood two strangers,-strangers, but either as fair as Aphrodite arising from the sea. Both were tall, and full of queenly grace, both were dressed in gauzy white, but the hair of the one was of such gold that Glaucon hardly saw the circlet which pressed over it. Her eyes were blue, the l.u.s.tre of her face was like a white rose. The other's hair shone like the wing of a raven. A wreath of red poppies covered it, but over the softly tinted forehead there peered forth a golden snake with emerald eyes-the Egyptian uraeus, the crown of a princess from the Nile. Her eyes were as black as the other's were blue, her lips as red as the dye of Tyre, her hands-But before Glaucon looked and wondered more, the first, she of the golden head, laid her hand upon his face,-a warm, comforting hand that seemed to speed back strength and gladness with the touch. Then she spoke. Her Greek was very broken, yet he understood her.

"Are you quite awakened, dear Glaucon?"

He looked up marvelling, not knowing how to answer; but the golden G.o.ddess seemed to expect none from him.

"It is now a month since we brought you from Astypalaea. You have wandered close to the Portals of the Dead. We feared you were beloved by Mazda too well, that you would never wake that we might bless you. Night and day have my husband and I prayed to Mithra the Merciful and Hauratat the Health-Giver in your behalf; each sunrise, at our command, the Magians have poured out for you the Haoma, the sacred juice dear to the Beautiful Immortals, and Amenhat, wisest of the physicians of Memphis, has stood by your bedside without rest. Now at last our prayers and his skill have conquered; you awake to life and gladness."

Glaucon lay wondering, not knowing how to reply, and only understanding in half, when the dark-haired G.o.ddess spoke, in purer Greek than her companion.

"And I, O Glaucon of Athens, would have you suffer me to kiss your feet.

For you have given my brother and my sister back to life." Then drawing near she took his hand in hers, while the two smiling looked down on him.

Then at last he found tongue to speak. "O gracious Queens, for such you are, forgive my roving wits. You speak of great service done. But wise Zeus knoweth we are strangers-"

The golden G.o.ddess tossed her s.h.i.+ning head and smiled,-still stroking with her hand.

"Dear Glaucon, do you remember the Eastern lad you saved from the Spartans at the Isthmus? Behold him! Recall the bracelet of turquoise,-my first grat.i.tude. Then again you saved me with my husband. For I am the woman you bore through the surf at the island. I am Artazostra, wife of Mardonius, and this is Roxana, his half-sister, whose mother was a princess in Egypt."

Glaucon pa.s.sed his fingers before his face, beckoning back the past.

"It is all far away and strange: the flight, the storm, the wreck, the tossing spar, the battling through the surges. My head is weak. I cannot picture it all."

"Do not try. Lie still. Grow strong and glad, and suffer us to teach you,"

commanded Artazostra.

"Where do I lie? We are not upon the rocky islet still?"

The ladies laughed, not mockingly but so sweetly he wished that they would never cease.

"This is Sardis," spoke Roxana, bending over him; "you lie in the palace of the satrap."

"And Athens-" he said, wandering.

"Is far away," said Artazostra, "with all its griefs and false friends and foul remembrances. The friends about you here will never fail. Therefore lie still and have peace."

"You know my story," cried he, now truly in amaze.

"Mardonius knows all that pa.s.ses in Athens, in Sparta, in every city of h.e.l.las. Do not try to tell more. We weary you already. See-Amenhat comes to bid us begone."

The curtains parted again. A dark man in a pure white robe, his face and head smooth-shaven, approached the bed. He held out a broad gold cup, the rim whereof glinted with agate and sardonyx. He had no Greek, but Roxana took the cup from him and held it to Glaucon's lips.

"Drink," she commanded, and he was fain to obey. The Athenian felt the heavily spiced liquor laying hold of him. His eyes closed, despite his wish to gaze longer on the two beautiful women. He felt their hands caressing his cheeks. The music grew ever softer. He thought he was sinking into a kind of euthanasy, that his life was drifting out amid delightful dreams. But not cold Thanatos, but health-bearing Hypnos was the G.o.d who visited him now. When next he woke, it was with a clearer vision, a sounder mind.

Sardis the Golden, once capital of the Lydian kings and now of the Persian satraps, had recovered from the devastation by the Ionians in their ill-starred revolt seventeen years preceding. The city spread in the fertile Sardiene, one of the garden plains of Asia Minor. To the south the cloud-crowned heights of Tmolus ever were visible. To the north flowed the n.o.ble stream of Hebrus, whilst high above the wealthy town, the busy agora, the giant temple of Lydian Cybele, rose the citadel of Meles, the palace fortress of the kings and the satraps. A frowning castle it was without, within not the golden-tiled palaces of Ecbatana and Susa boasted greater magnificence and luxury than this one-time dwelling of Crsus. The ceilings of the wide banqueting halls rose on pillars of emerald Egyptian malachite. The walls were cased with onyx. Winged bulls that might have graced Nineveh guarded the portals. The lions upbearing the throne in the hall of audience were of gold. The mirrors in the "House of the Women"

were not steel but silver. The gorgeous carpets were sprinkled with rose water. An army of dark Syrian eunuchs and yellow-faced Tartar girls ran at the beck of the palace guests. Only the stealthy entrance of Sickness and Death told the dwellers here they were not yet G.o.ds.

Artaphernes, satrap of Lydia, had his divan, his viziers, and his audiences,-a court worthy of a king,-but the real lord of Western Asia was the prince who was nominally his guest. Mardonius had his own retinue and wing of the palace. On him fell the enormous task of organizing the ma.s.ses of troops already pouring into Sardis, and he discharged his duty unwearyingly. The completion of the bridges of boats across the h.e.l.lespont, the a.s.sembling of the fleet, the collecting of provisions, fell to his province. Daily a courier p.r.i.c.ked into Sardis with despatches from the Great King to his trusted general. Mardonius left the great levees and public spectacles to Artaphernes, but his hand was everywhere.

His decisions were prompt. He was in constant communication with the Medizing party in h.e.l.las. He had no time for the long dicing and drinking bouts the Persians loved, but he never failed to find each day an hour to spend with Artazostra his wife, with Roxana his half-sister, and with Glaucon his preserver.

Slowly through the winter health had returned to the Athenian. For days he had lain dreaming away the hours to the tune of the flutes and the fountains. When the warm spring came, the eunuchs carried him in a sedan-chair through the palace garden, whence he could look forth on the plain, the city, the snow-clad hills, and think he was on Zeus's Olympian throne, surveying all the earth. Then it was he learned the Persian speech, and easily, for were not his teachers Artazostra and Roxana? He found it no difficult tongue, simple and much akin to Greek, and unlike most of the uncouth tongues the Oriental traders chattered in Sardis. The two women were constantly with him. Few men were admitted to a Persian harem, but Mardonius never grudged the Greek the company of these twain.

"n.o.ble Athenian," said the Prince, the first time he visited Glaucon's bed, "you are my brother. My house is yours. My friends are yours. Command us all."

Every day Glaucon was stronger. He tested himself with dumb-bells. Always he could lift a heavier weight. When the summer was at hand, he could ride out with Mardonius to the "Paradise," the satrap's hunting park, and be in at the death of the deer. Yet he was no more the "Fortunate Youth" of Athens. Only imperfectly he himself knew how complete was the severance from his old life. The terrible hour at Colonus had made a mark on his spirit which not all Zeus's power could take away. No doubt all the one-time friends believed him dead. Had Hermione's confidence in him remained true? Would she not say "guilty" at last with all the rest?

Mardonius might have answered, he had constant letters from Greece, but the Prince was dumb when Glaucon strove to ask of things beyond the aegean.

Day by day the subtle influence of the Orient-the lotus-eating,-"tasting the honey-sweet fruit which makes men choose to abide forever, forgetful of the homeward way"-spread its unseen power over the Alcmaeonid. Athens, the old pain, even the face of Hermione, would rise before him only dimly.

He fought against this enchantment. But it was easier to renew his vow to return to Athens, after wiping out his shame, than to break these bands daily tightening.

He heard little Greek, now that he was learning Persian. Even he himself was changed. His hair and beard grew long, after the Persian manner. He wore the loose Median cloak, the tall felt cap of a Persian n.o.ble. The elaborate genuflexions of the Asiatics no longer astonished him. He learned to admire the valiant, magnanimous lords of the Persians. And Xerxes, the distant king, the wielder of all this power, was he not truly a G.o.d on earth, vicegerent of Lord Zeus himself?

"Forget you are a h.e.l.lene. We will talk of the Nile, not of the Cephissus," Artazostra said, whenever he spoke of home. Then she would tell of Babylon and Persepolis, and Mardonius of forays beside the wide Caspian, and Roxana of her girlhood, while Gobryas was satrap of Egypt, spent beside the magic river, of the Pharaohs, the great pyramid, of Isis and Osiris and the world beyond the dead. Before the Athenian was opened the golden East, its glitter, its wonderment, its fascination. He even was silent when his hosts talked boldly of the coming war, how soon the Persian power would rule from the Pillars of Heracles to Ind.

Yet once he stood at bay, showing that he was a h.e.l.lene still. They were in the garden. Mardonius had come to them where under the pomegranate tree the women spread their green tapestry which their nimble needles covered with a battle scene in scarlet. The Prince told of the capture and crucifixion of the chiefs of a futile revolt in Armenia. Then Artazostra clapped her hands to cry.

"Fools! Fools whom Angra-Mainyu the Evil smites blind that he may destroy them!"

Glaucon, sitting at her feet, looked up quickly. "Valiant fools, lady; every man must strike for his own country."

Artazostra shook her s.h.i.+ning head.

"Mazda gives victory to the king of Eran alone. Resisting Xerxes is not rebellion against man, it is rebellion against Heaven."

"Are you sure?" asked the Athenian, his eye lighting ominously. "Are yours the greatest G.o.ds?"

But Roxana in turn cast down the tapestry and opened her arms with a charming gesture.

"Be not angry, Glaucon, for will you not become one with us? I dare to prophesy like a seer from old Chaldea. a.s.sur of Nineveh, Marduk of Babylon, Baal of Tyre, Ammon of Memphis-all have bent the knee to Mazda the Glorious, to Mithra the Fiend-Smiting, and shall the weak _daevas_, the puny G.o.ds of Greece, save their land, when greater than they bow down in sore defeat?"

Yet Glaucon still looked on her boldly.

"You have your mighty G.o.ds, but we have ours. Pray to your Mazda and Mithra, but we will still trust Zeus of the Thunders and Athena of the Gray Eyes, the bulwarks of our fathers. And Fate must answer which can help the best."

The Persians shook their heads. It was time to return to the palace. All that Glaucon had seen of the Barbarian's might, since awakening in Sardis, told him Xerxes was indeed destined to go forth conquering and to conquer.

Then the vision of the Acropolis, the temples, the Guardian G.o.ddess, returned. He banished all disloyal thoughts for the instant. The Prince walked with his wife, Glaucon with Roxana. He had always thought her beautiful; she had never seemed so beautiful as now. Did he imagine whither Mardonius perhaps was leading him?