A Victor of Salamis
one’s self than die a few hours afterward by slow tortures! But discovery
had not come. Sicinnus had come down the ladder, smiling, jesting, a dozen
subalterns salaaming as he went, and offering all manner of service, for
had he not been a bearer of great good tidings to the king?
“Till to-morrow,” an olive-skinned Cilician navarch had spoken.
“Till to-morrow,” waved the messenger, lightly. He did all things coolly,
as if he had been bearing an invitation to a feast, took his post in the
stern of the skiff deliberately, then turned to the silent man with him.
“Pull.”
“Whither?” Glaucon was already tugging the oars.
“To Eurybiades’s ship. Themistocles is waiting. And again all speed.”
The line of twinkling water betwixt the skiff and the Persian widened. For
a few moments Glaucon bent himself silently to his task, then for the
first time questioned.
“What have you done?”
Even in the darkness he knew Sicinnus grinned and showed his teeth.
“In the name of Themistocles I have told the Barbarian chiefs that the
Hellenes are at strife one with another, that they are meditating a hasty
flight, that if the king’s captains will but move their ships so as to
enclose them, it is likely there will be no battle in the morning, but the
Hellenes will fall into the hands of Xerxes unresisting.”
“And the Persian answered?”
“That I and my master would not fail of reward for this service to the
king. That the Egyptian ships would be swung at once across the strait to
cut off all flight by the Hellenes.”
The outlaw made no answer, but pulled at the oars. The reaction from the
day and evening of strain and peril was upon him. He was unutterably
weary, though more in mind than in body. The clumsy skiff seemed only to
crawl. Trusting the orders of Sicinnus to steer him aright, he closed his
eyes. One picture after another of his old life came up before him now he
was in the stadium at Corinth and facing the giant Spartan, now he stood
by Hermione on the sacred Rock at Athens, now he was at Xerxes’s side with
the fleets and the myriads passing before them at the Hellespont, he saw
his wife, he saw Roxana, and all other things fair and lovely that had
crossed his life. Had he made the best choice? Were the desperate fates of
Hellas better than the flower-banked streams of Bactria, whose delights he
had forever thrust by? Would his Fortune, guider of every human destiny,
bring him at last to a calm haven, or would his life go out amid the
crashing ships to-morrow? The oars bumped on the thole-pins. He pulled
mechanically, the revery ever deepening, then a sharp hail awoke him.
“O-op! What do you here?”
The call was in Phœnician. Glaucon scarce knew the harsh Semitic speech,
but the _lembos_, a many-oared patrol cutter, was nearly on them. A moment
more, and seizure would be followed by identification. Life, death,
Hellas, Hermione, all flashed before his eyes as he sat numbed, but
Sicinnus saved them both.
“The password to-night? You know it,” he demanded in quick whisper.
“ ‘Hystaspes,’ ” muttered Glaucon, still wool-gathering.
“Who are you? Why here?” An officer in the cutter was rising and upholding
an unmasked lantern. “We’ve been ordered to cruise in the channel and snap
up deserters, and by Baal, here are twain! The crows will pick at your
eyes to-morrow.”
Sicinnus stood upright in the skiff.
“Fool,” he answered in good Sidonian, “dare you halt the king’s privy
messenger? It is not _our_ heads that the crows will find the soonest.”
The cutter was close beside them, but the officer dropped his lantern.
“Good, then. Give the password.”
“ ‘Hystaspes.’ ”
They could see the Phœnician’s hand rise to his head in salute.
“Forgive my rudeness, worthy sir. It’s truly needless to seek deserters
to-night with the Hellenes’ affairs so desperate, yet we must obey his
Eternity’s orders.”
“I pardon you,” quoth the emissary, loftily, “I will commend your
vigilance to the admiral.”
“May Moloch give your Lordship ten thousand children,” called back the
mollified Semite.
The crew of the cutter dropped their blades into the water. The boats
glided apart. Not till there was a safe stretch betwixt them did Glaucon
begin to grow hot, then cold, then hot again. Chill Thanatos had passed
and missed by a hair’s breadth. Again the bumping of the oars and the
slow, slow creeping over the water. The night was darkening. The clouds
had hid the moon and all her stars. Sicinnus, shrewd and weatherwise,
remarked, “There will be a stiff wind in the morning,” and lapsed into
silence. Glaucon toiled on resolutely. A fixed conviction was taking
possession of his mind,—one that had come on the day he had been preserved
at Thermopylæ, now deepened by the event just passed,—that he was being
reserved by the god for some crowning service to Hellas, after which
should come peace, whether the peace of a warrior who dies in the arms of
victory, whether the peace of a life spent after a deed well done, he
scarcely knew, and in the meantime, if the storms must beat and the waves
rise up against him, he would bear them still. Like the hero of his race,
he could say, “Already have I suffered much and much have I toiled in
perils of waves and war, let this be added to the tale of those.”
Bump—bump, the oars played their monotonous music on the thole-pins.
Sicinnus stirred on his seat. He was peering northward anxiously, and
Glaucon knew what he was seeking. Through the void of the night their
straining eyes saw masses gliding across the face of the water. Ariabignes
was making his promise good. Yonder the Egyptian fleet were swinging forth
to close the last retreat of the Hellenes. Thus on the north, and
southward, too, other triremes were thrusting out, bearing—both watchers
wisely guessed—a force to disembark on Psyttaleia, the islet betwixt
Salamis and the main, a vantage-point in the coming battle.
The coming battle? It was so silent, ghostlike, far away, imagination
scarce could picture it. Was this black slumberous water to be the scene
at dawn of a combat beside which that of Hector and Achilles under Troy
would be only as a tale that is told? And was he, Glaucon, son of Conon
the Alcmæonid, sitting there in the skiff alone with Sicinnus, to have a
part therein, in a battle the fame whereof should ring through the ages?
Bump, bump—still the monologue of the oars. A fish near by leaped from the
water, splashing loudly. Then for an instant the clouds broke. Selene
uncovered her face. The silvery flash quickly come, more quickly flying,
showed him the headlands of that Attica now in Xerxes’s hands. He saw
Pentelicus and Hymettus, Parnes and Cithæron, the hills he had wandered
over in glad boyhood, the hills where rested his ancestors’ dust. It was
no dream. He felt his warm blood quicken. He felt the round-bowed skiff
spring over the waves, as with unwearied hands he tugged at the oar. There
are moments when the dullest mind grows prophetic, and the mind of the
Athenian was not dull. The moonlight had vanished. In its place through
the magic darkness seemed gathering all the heroes of his people beckoning
him and his compeers onward. Perseus was there, and Theseus and
Erechtheus, Heracles the Mighty, and Odysseus the Patient, whose intellect
Themistocles possessed, Solon the Wise, Periander the Crafty, Diomedes the
Undaunted, men of reality, men of fable, sages, warriors, demigods,
crowding together, speaking one message: “Be strong, for the heritage of
what you do this coming day shall be passed beyond children’s children,
shall be passed down to peoples to whom the tongue, the gods, yea, the
name of Hellas, are but as a dream.”
Glaucon felt the weariness fly from him. He was refreshed as never by
wine. Then through the void in place of the band of heroes slowly
outspread the tracery of a vessel at anchor,—the outermost guardship of
the fleet of the Hellenes. They were again amongst friends. The watcher on
the trireme was keeping himself awake after the manner of sentries by
singing. In the night-stillness the catch from Archilochus rang lustily.
“By my spear I have won my bread,
By spear won my clear, red wine,
On my spear I will lean and drink,—
Show me a merrier life than is mine!”
The trolling called Glaucon back to reality. Guided by Sicinnus, who knew
the stations of the Greek fleet better than he, a second time they came
beside the Spartan admiral. The lamps were still burning in the
stern-cabin. Even before they were alongside, they caught the clamours of
fierce debate.
“Still arguing?” quoth Sicinnus to the yawning marine officer who advanced
to greet them as they reached the top of the ladder.
“Still arguing,” grunted the Spartan. “I think your master has dragged
forth all his old arguments and invented a thousand new ones. He talks
continuously, as if battling for time, though only Castor knows wherefore.
There’s surely a majority against him.”
The emissary descended the companionway, Themistocles leaped up from his
seat in the crowded council. A few whispers, the Asiatic returned to
Glaucon on the deck. The two gazed down the companionway, observing
everything. They had not long to wait.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BEFORE THE DEATH GRAPPLE
For the fourth time the subaltern who stood at Eurybiades’s elbow turned
the water-glass that marked the passing of the hours. The lamps in the
low-ceiled cabin were flickering dimly. Men glared on one another across
the narrow table with drawn and heated faces. Adeimantus of Corinth was
rising to reply to the last appeal of the Athenian.
“We have had enough, Eurybiades, of Themistocles’s wordy folly. Because
the Athenian admiral is resolved to lead all Hellas to destruction, is no
reason that we should follow. As for his threat that he will desert us
with his ships if we refuse to fight, I fling it in his face that he dare
not make it good. Why go all over the well-threshed straw again? Is not
the fleet of the king overwhelming? Were we not saved by a miracle from
overthrow at Artemisium? Do not the scouts tell us the Persians are
advancing beyond Eleusis toward Megara and the Isthmus? Is not our best
fighting blood here in the fleet? Then if the Isthmus is threatened, our
business is to defend it and save the Peloponnesus, the last remnant of
Hellas unconquered. Now then, headstrong son of Neocles, answer that!”
The Corinthian, a tall domineering man, threw back his shoulders like a
boxer awaiting battle. Themistocles did not answer, but only smiled up at
him from his seat opposite.
“I have silenced you, grinning babbler, at last,” thundered Adeimantus,
“and I demand of you, O Eurybiades, that we end this tedious debate. If we
are to retreat, let us retreat. A vote, I say, a vote!”
Eurybiades rose at the head of the table. He was a heavy, florid
individual with more than the average Spartan’s slowness of tongue and
intellect. Physically he was no coward, but he dreaded responsibility.
“Much has been said,” he announced ponderously, “many opinions offered. It
would seem the majority of the council favour the decision to retire
forthwith. Has Themistocles anything more to say why the vote should not
be taken?”
“Nothing,” rejoined the Athenian, with an equanimity that made Adeimantus
snap his teeth.
“We will therefore take the vote city by city,” went on Eurybiades. “Do
you, Phlegon of Seriphos, give your vote.”
Seriphos—wretched islet—sent only one ship, but thanks to the Greek mania
for “equality” Phlegon’s vote had equal weight with that of Themistocles.
“Salamis is not defensible,” announced the Seriphian, shortly. “Retreat.”
“And you, Charmides of Melos?”
“Retreat.”
“And you, Phoibodas of Trœzene?”
“Retreat, by all the gods.”