CHAPTER XXV
THE ACROPOLIS FLAMES
A few days only Xerxes and his host rested after the dear-bought triumphat Thermopylae. An expedition sent to plunder Delphi returneddiscomfited--thanks, said common report, to Apollo himself, who broke offtwo mountain crags to crush the impious invaders. But no such miraclehalted the march on Athens. Boeotia and her cities welcomed the king;Thespiae and Plataea, which had stood fast for Hellas, were burned. ThePeloponnesian army lingered at Corinth, busy with a wall across theIsthmus, instead of risking valorous battle.
"By the soul of my father," the king had sworn, "I believe that after thelesson at Thermopylae these madmen will not fight again!"
"By land they will not," said Mardonius, always at his lord's elbow, "bysea--it remains for your Eternity to discover."
"Will they really dare to fight by sea?" asked Xerxes, hardly pleased atthe suggestion.
"Omnipotence, you have slain Leonidas, but a second great enemy remains.While Themistocles lives, it is likely your slaves will have anotheropportunity to prove to you their devotion."
"Ah, yes! A stubborn rogue, I hear. Well--if we must fight by sea, it shallbe under my own eyes. My loyal Phoenician and Egyptian mariners did not dothemselves full justice at Artemisium; they lacked the valour which comesfrom being in the presence of their king."
"Which makes a dutiful subject fight as ten," quickly added Pharnaspes thefan-bearer.
"Of course," smiled the monarch, "and now I must ask again, Mardonius, howfares it with my handsome Prexaspes?"
"Only indifferently, your Majesty, since you graciously deign to inquire."
"Such a sad wound? That is heavy news. He takes long in recovering. Itrust he wants for nothing."
"Nothing, Omnipotence. He has the best surgeons in the camp."
"To-day I will send him Helbon wine from my own table. I miss his comelyface about me. I want him here to play at dice. Tell him to recoverbecause his king desires it. If he has become right Persian, that will bebetter than any physic."
"I have no doubt he will be deeply moved to learn of your Eternity'skindness," rejoined the bow-bearer, who was not sorry that furtherdiscussion of this delicate subject was averted by the arch-usherintroducing certain cavalry officers with their report on the mostpracticable line of march through Boeotia.
Glaucon, in fact, was long since out of danger, thanks to the sturdybronze of his Laconian helmet. He was able to walk, and, if need be, ride,but Mardonius would not suffer him to go outside his own tents. TheAthenian would be certain to be recognized, and at once Xerxes would sendfor him, and how Glaucon, in his new frame of mind, would deport himselfbefore majesty, whether he would not taunt the irascible monarch to hisface, the bow-bearer did not know. Therefore the Athenian endured a mannerof captivity in the tents with the eunuchs, pages, and women. Artazostrawas often with him, and less frequently Roxana. But the Egyptian had lostall power over him now. He treated her with a cold courtesy more painfulthan contempt. Once or twice Artazostra had tried to turn him back fromhis purpose, but her words always broke themselves over one barrier.
"I am born a Hellene, lady. My gods are not yours. I must live and dieafter the manner of my people. And that our gods are strong and will givevictory, after that morning with Leonidas I dare not doubt."
When the host advanced south and eastward from Thermopylae, Glaucon wentwith it, riding in a closed travelling carriage guarded by Mardonius'seunuchs. All who saw it said that here went one of the bow-bearer's haremwomen, and as for the king, every day he asked for his favourite, andevery day Mardonius told him, "He is even as before," an answer which thebow-bearer prayed to truth-loving Mithra might not be accounted a lie.
It was while the army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shakenGlaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthianhad been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. Thetidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the dayof testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead.The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon avow his identity were dead. Inthe hurried conference of captains preceding the retreat, Leonidas hadtold his informant's precise name only to Euboulus. And now Euboulus wasslain, doubtless before any word from him of Glaucon's deed could spreadabroad. To Athenians Glaucon was still the "Traitor," doubly execrated inthis hour of trial. If he returned to his people, would he not be torn inpieces by the mob? But the young Alcmaeonid was resolved. Since he had notdied at Thermopylae, no life in the camp of the Barbarian was tolerable. Hewould trust sovran Athena who had plucked him out of one death to deliverfrom a second. Therefore he nursed his strength--a caged lion waiting forfreedom,--and almost wished the Persian host would advance more swiftlythat he might haste onward to his own.
* * * * * * *
Glaucon had cherished a hope to see the whole power of the Peloponnesus inarray in Boeotia, but that hope proved quickly vain. The oracle was trulyto be fulfilled,--the whole of "the land of Cecrops" was to be possessed bythe Barbarian. The mountain passes were open. No arrows greeted thePersian vanguard as it cantered down the defiles, and once more the king'scourtiers told their smiling master that not another hand would be raisedagainst him.
The fourth month after quitting the Hellespont Xerxes entered Athens. Thegates stood ajar. The invaders walked in silent streets as of a city ofthe dead. A few runaway slaves alone greeted them. Only in the Acropolis ahandful of superstitious old men and temple warders had barricadedthemselves, trusting that Athena would still defend her holy mountain. Fora few days they defended the steep, rolling down huge boulders, but theend was inevitable. The Persians discovered a secret path upward. Thedefenders were surprised and dashed themselves from the crags or weremassacred. A Median spear-man flung a fire-brand. The house of theguardian goddess went up in flame. The red column leaping to heaven was abeacon for leagues around that Xerxes held the length and breadth ofAttica.
Glaucon watched the burning temple with grinding teeth. Mardonius's tentswere pitched in the eastern city by the fountain of Callirhoe,--a spot offond memories for the Alcmaeonid. Here first he had met Hermione, come withher maids to draw water, and had gone away dreaming of Aphrodite arisingfrom the sea. Often here he had sat with Democrates by the little pool,whilst the cypresses above talked their sweet, monotonous music. Beforehim rose the Rock of Athena,--the same, yet not the same. The temple of hisfathers was vanishing in smoke and ashes. What wonder that he turned toArtazostra at his side with a bitter smile.
"Lady, your people have their will. But do not think Athena Nikephorus,the Lady of Triumphs, will forget this day when we stand against you inbattle."
She did not answer him. He knew that many noblemen had advised Xerxesagainst driving the Greeks to desperation by this sacrilege, but this facthardly made him the happier.
At dusk the next evening Mardonius suffered him to go with two faithfuleunuchs and rove through the deserted city. The Persians were mostlyencamped without the walls, and plundering was forbidden. Only Hydarneswith the Immortals pitched on Areopagus, and the king had taken his abodeby the Agora. It was like walking through the country of the dead.Everything familiar, everything changed. The eunuchs carried torches. Theywandered down one street after another, where the house doors stood open,where the aulas were strewn with the debris of household stuff which thefleeing citizens had abandoned. A deserter had already told Glaucon of hisfather's death; he was not amazed therefore to find the house of his birthempty and desolate. But everywhere else, also, it was to call backmemories of glad days never to return. Here was the school where crustyPollicharmes had driven the "reading, writing, and music" into Democratesand himself between the blows. Here was the corner Hermes, before which hehad sacrificed the day he won his first wreath in the public games. Herewas the house of Cimon, in whose dining room he had enjoyed many a brightsymposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the portico
s where he hadlounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestlingground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-heartedfriends about "the war" and "the king," in the days when the Persianseemed very far away. Last of all an instinct--he could not call itdesire--drove him to seek the house of Hermippus.
They had to force the door open with a stone. The first red torch-lightthat glimmered around the aula told that the Eumolpid had awaited theenemy in Athens, not in Eleusis. The court was littered with all manner ofstuff,--crockery, blankets, tables, stools,--which the late inhabitants hadbeen forced to forsake. A tame quail hopped from the tripod by the nowcold hearth. Glaucon held out his hand, the bird came quickly, expectingthe bit of grain. Had not Hermione possessed such a quail? The outlaw'sblood ran quicker. He felt the heat glowing in his forehead.
A chest of clothes stood open by the entrance. He dragged forth thecontents--women's dresses and uppermost a white airy gauze of Amorgos thatclung to his hands as if he were lifting clouds. Out of its folds fell apair of white shoes with clasps of gold. Then he recognized this dressHermione had worn in the Panathenaea and on the night of his ruin. He threwit down, next stood staring over it like a man possessed. The friendlyeunuchs watched his strange movements. He could not endure to have themfollow him.
"Give me a torch. I return in a moment."
He went up the stair alone to the upper story, to the chambers of thewomen. Confusion here also,--the more valuable possessions gone, but muchremaining. In one corner stood the loom and stretched upon it thehalf-made web of a shawl. He could trace the pattern clearly wrought inbright wools,--Ariadne sitting desolate awaiting the returning of Theseus.Would the wife or the betrothed of Democrates busy herself with _that_,whatever the griefs in her heart? Glaucon's temples now were throbbing asif to burst.
A second room, and more littered confusion, but in one corner stood abronze statue,--Apollo bending his bow against the Achaeans,--which Glauconhad given to Hermione. At the foot of the statue hung a wreath of purpleasters, dead and dry, but he plucked it asunder and set many blossoms inhis breast.
A third room, and almost empty. He was moving back in disappointment, whenthe torch-light shook over something that swung betwixt two beams,--awicker cradle. The woollen swaddling bands were still in it. One could seethe spot on the little pillow with the impress of the tiny head. Glauconalmost dropped the torch. He pressed his hand to his brow.
"Zeus pity me!" he groaned, "preserve my reason. How can I serve Hellasand those I love if thou strikest me mad?"
With feverish anxiety he sent his eyes around that chamber. His search wasnot in vain. He almost trampled upon the thing that lay at his feet,--awooden rattle, the toy older than the Egyptian pyramids. He seized it,shook it as a warrior his sword. He scanned it eagerly. Upon the handlewere letters carved, but there was a mist before his eyes which took longto pass away. Then he read the rude inscription: "{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~} : {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~} :{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}." "Phoenix the son of Glaucon." _His_ child. He was the fatherof a fair son. His wife, he was sure thereof, had not yet been given toDemocrates.
Overcome by a thousand emotions, he flung himself upon a chest and pressedthe homely toy many times to his lips.
* * * * * * *
After a long interval he recovered himself enough to go down to theeunuchs, who were misdoubting his long absence.
"Persian," he said to Mardonius, when he was again at the bow-bearer'stents, "either suffer me to go back to my people right soon or put me todeath. My wife has borne me a son. My place is where I can defend him."
Mardonius frowned, but nodded his head.
"You know I desire it otherwise. But my word is given. And the word of aprince of the Aryans is not to be recalled. You know what to expect amongyour people--perhaps a foul death for a deed of another."
"I know it. I also know that Hellas needs me."
"To fight against us?" asked the bow-bearer, with a sigh. "Yet you shallgo. Eran is not so weak that adding one more to her enemies will halt hertriumph. To-morrow night a boat shall be ready on the strand. Take it. Andafter that may your gods guard you, for I can do no more."
All the next day Glaucon sat in the tents and watched the smoke cloudabove the Acropolis and the soldiers in the plain hewing down the sacredolives, Athena's trees, which no Athenian might injure and thereafterlive. But Glaucon was past cursing now,--endure a little longer and afterthat, what vengeance!
The gossiping eunuchs told readily what the king had determined. Xerxeswas at Phaleron reviewing his fleet. The Hellenes' ships confronted him atSalamis. The Persians had met in council, deliberating one night overtheir wine, reconsidering the next morning when sober. Their wisdom eachtime had been to force a battle. Let the king destroy the enemy atSalamis, and he could land troops at ease at the very doors of Sparta,defying the vain wall across the Isthmus. Was not victory certain? Had henot two ships to the Hellenes' one? So the Phoenician vassal kings and allhis admirals assured him. Only Artemisia, the martial queen ofHalicarnassus, spoke otherwise, but none would hear her.
"To-morrow the war is ended," a cup-bearer had told a butler in Glaucon'shearing, and never noticed how the Athenian took a horseshoe in his slimfingers and straightened it, whilst looking on the scorched columns of theAcropolis.
At length the sun spread his last gold of the evening. The eunuchs calledGlaucon to the pavilion of Artazostra, who came forth with Roxana fortheir farewell. They were in royal purple. The amethysts in their hairwere worth a month's revenues of Corinth. Roxana had never been lovelier.Glaucon was again in the simple Greek dress, but he knelt and kissed therobes of both the women. Then rising he spoke to them.
"To you, O princess, my benefactress, I wish all manner of blessing. Mayyou be crowned with happy age, may your fame surpass Semiramis, theconqueror queen of the fables, let the gods refuse only one prayer--theconquest of Hellas. The rest of the world is yours, leave then to us ourown."
"And you, sister of Mardonius," he turned to Roxana now, "do not think Idespise your love or your beauty. That I have given you pain, is doublepain to me. But I loved you only in a dream. My life is not for the rosevalleys of Bactria, but for the stony hills by Athens. May Aphrodite giveyou another love, a brighter fortune than might ever come by linking yourfate to mine."
They held out their hands. He kissed them. He saw tears on the long lashesof Roxana.
"Farewell," spoke the women, simply.
"Farewell," he answered. He turned from them. He knew they werere-entering the tent. He never saw the women again.
Mardonius accompanied him all the long way from the fount of Callirhoe tothe sea-shore. Glaucon protested, but the bow-bearer would not hearken.
"You have saved my life, Athenian," was his answer, "when you leave menow, it is forever."
The moon was lifting above the gloomy mass of Hymettus and scattering allthe Attic plain with her pale gold. The Acropolis Rock loomed high abovethem. Glaucon, looking upward, saw the moonlight flash on the spear pointand shield of a soldier,--a Barbarian standing sentry on the ruined shrineof the Virgin Goddess. Once more the Alcmaeonid was leaving Athens, butwith very different thoughts than on that other night when he had fled atPhormio's side. They quitted the desolate city and the sleeping camp. Thelast bars of day had long since dimmed in the west when before them loomedthe hill of Munychia clustered also with tents, and beyond it theviolet-black vista of the sea. A forest of masts crowded the havens, thefleet of the "Lord of the World" that w
as to complete his mastery with thereturning sun. Mardonius did not lead Glaucon to the ports, but southward,where beyond the little point of Colias spread an open sandy beach. Thenight waves lapped softly. The wind had sunk to warm puffs from thesouthward. They heard the rattle of anchor-chains and tackle-blocks, butfrom far away. Beyond the vague promontory of Peiraeus rose dark mountainsand headlands, at their foot lay a sprinkling of lights.
"Salamis!" cried Glaucon, pointing. "Yonder are the ships of Hellas."
Mardonius walked with him upon the shelving shore. A skiff, small butstanch, was ready with oars.
"What else will you?" asked the bow-bearer. "Gold?"
"Nothing. Yet take this." Glaucon unclasped from his waist the golden beltXerxes had bestowed at Sardis. "A Hellene I went forth, a Hellene Ireturn."
He made to kiss the Persian's dress, but Mardonius would not suffer it.
"Did I not desire you for my brother?" he said, and they embraced. Astheir arms parted, the bow-bearer spoke three words in earnest whisper:--
"Beware of Democrates."
"What do you mean?"
"I can say no more. Yet be wise. Beware of Democrates."
The attendants, faithful body-servants of Mardonius, and mute witnesses ofall that passed, were thrusting the skiff into the water. There were nolong farewells. Both knew that the parting was absolute, that Glauconmight be dead on the morrow. A last clasping of the hands and quickly theboat was drifting out upon the heaving waters. Glaucon stood one momentwatching the figures on the beach and pondering on Mardonius's strangewarning. Then he set himself to the oars, rowing westward, skirting theBarbarian fleet as it rode at anchor, observing its numbers and array andhow it was aligned for battle. After that, with more rapid stroke, he sentthe skiff across the dark ribbon toward Salamis.