A Victor of Salamis Part 33

"Question this man further as to what he will do for us. We have understood him but lamely."

Glaucon proceeded to comply. The man, who was exceeding awkward and ill at ease in such august company, spoke an outrageous shepherd's jargon which even the Athenian understood with effort. But his business came out speedily. He was Ephialtes, the son of one Eurydemus, a Malian, a dull-witted grazier of the country, brought to Mardonius by hope of reward. The general, partly understanding his purpose, had brought him to the king. In brief, he was prepared, for due compensation, to lead the Persians by an almost unknown mountain path over the ridge of ta and to the rear of Leonidas's position at Thermopylae, where the h.e.l.lenes, a.s.sailed front and rear, would inevitably be destroyed.

As Glaucon interpreted, the shout of relieved gladness from the Persian grandees made the tent-cloths shake. Xerxes's eyes kindled. He clapped his hands.

"Reward? He shall have ten talents! But where? How?"

The man a.s.serted that the path was easy and practicable for a large body of troops. He had often been over it with his sheep and goats. If the Persians would start a force at once-it was already quite dark-they could fall upon Leonidas at dawn. The Spartan would be completely trapped, or forced to open the defile without another spear thrust.

"A care, fellow," warned Mardonius, regarding the man sharply; "you speak glibly, but if this is a trick to lead a band of the king's servants to destruction, understand you play with deadly dice. If the troops march, you shall have your hands knotted together and a soldier walking behind to cut your throat at the first sign of treachery."

Glaucon interpreted the threat. The man did not wince.

"There is no trap. I will guide you."

That was all they could get him to say.

"And do not the h.e.l.lenes know of this mountain path and guard it?"

persisted the bow-bearer.

Ephialtes thought not; at least if they had, they had not told off any efficient detachment to guard it. Hydarnes cut the matter short by rising from his stool and casting himself before the king.

"A boon, your Eternity, a boon!"

"What is it?" asked the monarch.

"The Immortals have been disgraced. Twice they have been repulsed with ignominy. The shame burns hot in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Suffer them to redeem their honour. Suffer me to take this man and all the infantry of the Life Guard, and at dawn the Lord of the World shall see his desire over his miserable enemies."

"The words of Hydarnes are good," added Mardonius, incisively, and Xerxes beamed and nodded a.s.sent.

"Go, scale the mountain with the Immortals and tell this Ephialtes there await him ten talents and a girdle of honour if the thing goes well; if ill, let him be flayed alive and his skin be made the head of a kettledrum."

The stolid peasant did not blench even at this. Glaucon remained in the tent, translating and hearing all the details: how Hydarnes was to press the attack from the rear at early dawn, how Mardonius was to conduct another onset from the front. At last the general of the guard knelt before the king for the last time.

"Thus I go forth, Omnipotence, and to-morrow, behold your will upon your enemies, or behold me never more."

"I have faithful slaves," said Xerxes, rising and smiling benignantly upon the general and the bow-bearer. "Let us disperse, but first let command be given the Magians to cry all night to Mithra and Tishtrya, and to sacrifice to them a white horse."

"Your Majesty always enlists the blessings of heaven for your servants,"

bowed Mardonius, as the company broke up and the king went away to his inner tent and his concubines. Glaucon lingered until most of the grandees had gone forth, then the bow-bearer went to him.

"Go back to my tents," ordered Mardonius; "tell Artazostra and Roxana that all is well, that Ahura has delivered me from a great strait and restored me to the king's favour, and that to-morrow the gate of h.e.l.las will be opened."

"You are still b.l.o.o.d.y and dusty. You have watched all last night and been in the thick all day," expostulated the Athenian; "come to the tents with me and rest."

The bow-bearer shook his head.

"No rest until to-morrow, and then the rest of victory or a longer one.

Now go; the women are consuming with their care."

Glaucon wandered back through the long avenues of pavilions. The lights of innumerable camp-fires, the hum of thousands of voices, the snorting of horses, the grumbling of camels, the groans of men wounded-all these and all other sights and sounds from the countless host were lost to him. He walked on by a kind of animal instinct that took him to Mardonius's encampment through the mazes of the canvas city. It was dawning on him with a terrible clearness that he was become a traitor to h.e.l.las in very deed. It was one thing to be a pa.s.sive onlooker of a battle, another to be a partic.i.p.ant in a plot for the ruin of Leonidas. Unless warned betimes the Spartan king and all who followed him infallibly would be captured or slaughtered to a man. And he had heard all-the traitor, the discussion, the design-had even, if without his choice, been partner and helper in the same. The blood of Leonidas and his men would be on his head. Every curse the Athenians had heaped on him once unjustly, he would deserve. Now truly he would be, even in his own mind's eyes, "Glaucon the Traitor, partner to the betrayal of Thermopylae." The doltish peasant, lured by the great reward, he might forgive,-himself, the high-born Alcmaeonid, never.

From this revery he was shaken by finding himself at the entrance to the tents of Mardonius. Artazostra and Roxana came to meet him. When he told of the deliverance of the bow-bearer, he had joy by the light in their eyes. Roxana had never shone in greater beauty. He spoke of the heat of the sun, of his throbbing head. The women bathed his forehead with lavender-water, touching him with their own soft hands. Roxana sang again to him, a low, crooning song of the fragrant Nile, the lotus bells, the nodding palms, the perfumed breeze from the desert. Whilst he watched her through half-closed eyes, the visions of that day of battles left him. He sat wrapped in a dream world, far from stern realities of men and arms. So for a while, as he lounged on the divans, following the play of the torch-light on the face of Roxana as her long fingers plied the strings.

What was it to him if Leonidas fought a losing battle? Was not his happiness secure-be it in h.e.l.las, or Egypt, or Bactria? He tried to persuade himself thus. At the end, when he and Roxana stood face to face for the parting, he violated all Oriental custom, yet he knew her brother would not be angry. He took her in his arms and gave her kiss for kiss.

Then he went to his own tent to seek rest. But Hypnos did not come for a long time with his poppies. Once out of the Egyptian's presence the haunting terror had returned, "Glaucon the Traitor!" Those three words were always uppermost. At last, indeed, sleep came and as he slept he dreamed.

CHAPTER XXI

THE THREE HUNDRED-AND ONE

As Glaucon slept he found himself again in Athens. He was on the familiar way from the cool wrestling ground of the Academy and walking toward the city through the suburb of Ceramicus. Just as he came to the three tall pine trees before the gate, after he had pa.s.sed the tomb of Solon, behold!

a fair woman stood in the path and looked on him. She was beyond mortal height and of divine beauty, yet a beauty grave and stern. Her gray eyes cut to his heart like swords. On her right hand hovered a winged Victory, on her shoulder rested an owl, at her feet twined a wise serpent, in her left hand she bore the aegis, the s.h.a.ggy goat-skin engirt with snakes-emblem of Zeus's lightnings. Glaucon knew that she was Athena Polias, the Warder of Athens, and lifted his hands to adore her. But she only looked on him in silent anger. Fire seemed leaping from her eyes. The more Glaucon besought, the more she turned away. Fear possessed him. "Woe is me," he trembled, "I have enraged a terrible immortal." Then suddenly the woman's countenance was changed. The aegis, the serpent, the Victory, all vanished; he saw Hermione before him, beautiful as on the day she ran to greet him at Eleusis, yet sad as was his last sight of her the moment he fled from Colonus. Seized with infinite longing, he sprang to her. But lo! she drifted back as into the air. It was even as when Odysseus followed the shade of his mother in the shadowy Land of the Dead.

"Yearned he sorely then to clasp her, Thrice his arms were opened wide: From his hands so strong, so loving, Like a dream she seemed to glide, And away, away she flitted, Whilst he grasped the empty s.p.a.ce, And a pain shot through him, maddening, As he strove for her embrace."

He pursued, she drifted farther, farther. Her face was inexpressibly sorrowful. And Glaucon knew that she spoke to him.

"I have believed you innocent, though all Athens calls you 'traitor.' I have been true to you, though all men rise up against me. In what manner have you kept your innocence? Have you had love for another, caresses for another, kisses for another? How will you prove your loyalty to Athens and return?"

"Hermione!" Glaucon cried, not in his dream, but quite aloud. He awoke with a start. Outside the tent sentry was calling to sentry, changing the watch just before the dawning. It was perfectly plain to him what he must do. His dream had only given shape to the ferment in his brain, a ferment never ceasing while his body slept. He must go instantly to the Greek camp and warn Leonidas. If the Spartan did not trust him, no matter, he had done his duty. If Leonidas slew him on the spot, again no matter, life with an eternally gnawing conscience could be bought on too hard terms. He knew, as though Zeus's messenger Iris had spoken it, that Hermione had never believed him guilty, that she had been in all things true to him. He could never betray her trust.

His head now was clear and calm. He arose, threw on his cloak, and buckled about his waist a short sword. The Nubian boy that Mardonius had given him for a body-servant awoke on his mat, and asked wonderingly "whither his Lords.h.i.+p was going?" Glaucon informed him he must be at the front before daybreak, and bade him remain behind and disturb no one. But the Athenian was not to execute his design unhindered. As he pa.s.sed out of the tent and into the night, where the morning stars were burning, and where the first red was creeping upward from the sea, two figures glided forth from the next pavilion. He knew them and shrank from them. They were Artazostra and Roxana.

"You go forth early, dearest Prexaspes," spoke the Egyptian, throwing back her veil, and even in the starlight he saw the anxious flash of her eyes, "does the battle join so soon that you take so little sleep?"

"It joins early, lady," spoke Glaucon, his wits wandering. In the intensity of his purpose he had not thought of the partings with the people he must henceforth reckon foes. He was sorely beset, when Roxana drew near and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"Your Greeks will resist terribly," she spoke. "We women dread the battle more than you. Yours is the fierce gladness of the combat, ours only the waiting, the heavy tidings, the sorrow. Therefore Artazostra and I could not sleep, but have been watching together. You will of course be near Mardonius my brother. You will guard him from all danger. Leonidas will resist fearfully when at bay. Ah! what is this?"

In pressing closer she had discovered the Athenian wore no cuira.s.s.

"You will not risk the battle without armour?" was her cry.

"I shall not need it, lady," answered he, and only half conscious what he did, stretched forth as if to put her away. Roxana shrank back, grieved and wondering, but Artazostra seized his arm quickly.

"What is this, Prexaspes? All is not well. Your manner is strange!"

He shook her off, almost savagely.

"Call me not Prexaspes," he cried, not in Persian, but in Greek. "I am Glaucon of Athens; as Glaucon I must live, as Glaucon die. No man-not though he desire it-can disown the land that bore him. And if I dreamed I was a Persian, I wake to find myself a Greek. Therefore forget me forever.

I go to my own!"