A Victor of Salamis Part 5

" 'A prince of Cyprus'-did you not hear me?"

"Cerberus eat me if that man has seen Cyprus. No Cyprian is so blond. The man is Xerxes's brother."

"We shall see, friend; we shall see: 'Day by day we grow old, and day by day we grow wiser.' So your own Solon puts it, I think."

Democrates drew himself up angrily. "I know my duty; I'll denounce you to Leonidas."

"You gave a pledge and oath."

"It were a greater crime to keep than to break it."

Lycon shrugged his huge shoulders. "_Eu!_ I hardly trusted to that. But I do trust to Hiram's pretty story about your bets, and still more to a tale that's told about where and how you've borrowed money."

Democrates's voice shook either with rage or with fear when he made s.h.i.+ft to answer.

"I see I've come to be incriminated and insulted. So be it. If I keep my pledge, at least suffer me to wish you and your 'Cyprian' a very good night."

Lycon good-humouredly lighted him to the door. "Why so hot? I'll do you a service to-morrow. If Glaucon wrestles with me, I shall kill him."

"Shall I thank the murderer of my friend?"

"Even when that friend has wronged you?"

"Silence! What do you mean?"

Even in the flickering lamplight Democrates could see the Spartan's evil smile.

"Of course-Hermione."

"Silence, by the infernal G.o.ds! Who are you, Cyclops, for _her_ name to cross your teeth?"

"I'm not angry. Yet you will thank me to-morrow. The pentathlon will be merely a pleasant flute-playing before the great war-drama. You will see more of the 'Cyprian' at Athens-"

Democrates heard no more. Forth from that wine-house he ran into the sheltering night, till safe under the shadow of the black cypresses. His head glowed. His heart throbbed. He had been partner in foulest treason.

Duty to friend, duty to country,-oath or no oath,-should have sent him to Leonidas. What evil G.o.d had tricked him into that interview? Yet he did not denounce the traitor. Not his oath held him back, but benumbing fear,-and what sting lay back of Lycon's hints and threats the orator knew best. And how if Lycon made good his boast and killed Glaucon on the morrow?

CHAPTER IV

THE PENTATHLON

In a tent at the lower end of the long stadium stood Glaucon awaiting the final summons to his ordeal. His friends had just cried farewell for the last time: Cimon had kissed him; Themistocles had gripped his hand; Democrates had called "Zeus prosper you!" Simonides had vowed that he was already hunting for the metres of a triumphal ode. The roar from without told how the stadium was filled with its chattering thousands. The athlete's trainers were bestowing their last officious advice.

"The Spartan will surely win the quoit-throw. Do not be troubled. In everything else you can crush him."

"Beware of Mrocles of Mantinea. He's a knavish fellow; his backers are recalling their bets. But he hopes to win on a trick; beware, lest he trip you in the foot-race."

"Aim low when you hurl the javelin. Your dart always rises."

Glaucon received this and much more admonition with his customary smile.

There was no flush on the forehead, no flutter of the heart. A few hours later he would be crowned with all the glory which victory in the great games could throw about a h.e.l.lene, or be buried in the disgrace to which his ungenerous people consigned the vanquished. But, in the words of his day, "he knew himself" and his own powers. From the day he quitted boyhood he had never met the giant he could not master; the Hermes he could not outrun. He antic.i.p.ated victory as a matter of course, even victory wrested from Lycon, and his thoughts seemed wandering far from the tawny track where he must face his foes.

"Athens,-my father,-my wife! I will win glory for them all!" was the drift of his revery.

The younger rubber grunted under breath at his athlete's vacant eye, but Pytheas, the older of the pair, whispered confidently that "when he had known Master Glaucon longer, he would know that victories came his way, just by reaching out his hands."

"Athena grant it," muttered the other. "I've got my half mina staked on him, too." Then from the tents at either side began the ominous call of the heralds:-

"Amyntas of Thebes, come you forth."

"Ctesias of Epidaurus, come you forth."

"Lycon of Sparta, come you forth."

Glaucon held out his hands. Each trainer seized one.

"Wish me joy and honour, good friends!" cried the athlete.

"Poseidon and Athena aid you!" And Pytheas's honest voice was husky. This was the greatest ordeal of his favourite pupil, and the trainer's soul would go with him into the combat.

"Glaucon of Athens, come you forth."

The curtains of the tent swept aside. An intense sunlight sprang to meet the Athenian. He pa.s.sed into the arena clad only in his coat of glistering oil. Scolus of Thasos and Mrocles of Mantinea joined the other four athletes; then, escorted each by a herald swinging his myrtle wand, the six went down the stadium to the stand of the judges.

Before the fierce light of a morning in h.e.l.las beating down on him, Glaucon the Alcmaeonid was for an instant blinded, and walked on pa.s.sively, following his guide. Then, as from a dissolving mist, the huge stadium began to reveal itself: line above line, thousand above thousand of bright-robed spectators, a sea of faces, tossing arms, waving garments. A thunderous shout rose as the athletes came to view,-jangling, incoherent; each city cheered its champion and tried to cry down all the rest: applause, advice, derision. Glaucon heard the derisive hootings, "pretty girl," "pretty pullet," from the serried host of the Laconians along the left side of the stadium; but an answering salvo, "Dog of Cerberus!"

bawled by the Athenian crowds opposite, and winged at Lycon, returned the taunts with usury. As the champions approached the judges' stand a procession of full twenty pipers, attended by as many fair boys in flowing white, marched from the farther end of the stadium to meet them. The boys bore cymbals and tambours; the pipers struck up a brisk marching note in the rugged Dorian mode. The boys' lithe bodies swayed in enchanting rhythm. The roaring mult.i.tude quieted, admiring their grace. The champions and the pipers thus came to the pulpit in the midst of the long arena. The president of the judges, a handsome Corinthian in purple and a golden fillet, swept his ivory wand from right to left. The marching note ceased.

The whole company leaped as one man to its feet. The pipes, the cymbals were drowned, whilst twenty thousand voices-Doric, Botian, Attic-chorused together the hymn which all Greece knew: the hymn to Poseidon of the Isthmus, august guardian of the games.

Louder it grew; the mult.i.tude found one voice, as if it would cry, "We are h.e.l.lenes all; though of many a city, the same fatherland, the same G.o.ds, the same hope against the Barbarian."

"Praise we Poseidon the mighty, the monarch, Shaker of earth and the harvestless sea; King of wide aegae and Helicon gladsome Twain are the honours high Zeus sheds on thee!

Thine to be lord of the mettlesome chargers, Thine to be lord of swift s.h.i.+ps as they wing!

Guard thou and guide us, dread prince of the billows, Safe to their homeland, thy suppliants bring; Faring by land or by clamorous waters Be thou their way-G.o.d to s.h.i.+eld, to defend, Then shall the smoke of a thousand glad altars, To thee in reverent gladness ascend!"

Thus in part. And in the hush thereafter the president poured a libation from a golden cup, praying, as the wine fell on the brazier beside him, to the "Earth Shaker," seeking his blessing upon the contestants, the mult.i.tude, and upon broad h.e.l.las. Next the master-herald announced that now, on the third day of the games, came the final and most honoured contest: the pentathlon, the fivefold struggle, with the crown to him who conquered thrice. He proclaimed the names of the six rivals, their cities, their ancestry, and how they had complied with the required training. The president took up his tale, and turning to the champions, urged them to strive their best, for the eyes of all h.e.l.las were on them. But he warned any man with blood-guiltiness upon his soul not to anger the G.o.ds by continuing in the games.

"But since," the brief speech concluded, "these men have chosen to contend, and have made oath that they are purified or innocent, let them join, and Poseidon shed fair glory upon the best!"

More shouting; the pipers paraded the arena, blowing shriller than ever.

Some of the athletes s.h.i.+fted uneasily. Scolus the Thasian-youngest of the six-was pale, and cast nervous glances at the towering bulk of Lycon. The Spartan gave him no heed, but threw a loud whisper at Glaucon, who stood silently beside him:-

"By Castor, son of Conon, you are extremely handsome. If fine looks won the battle, I might grow afraid."

The Athenian, whose roving eye had just caught Cimon and Democrates in the audience, seemed never to hear him.