A Victor of Salamis
The stranger turned back again. For a moment Dion saw he was blinking, but
no doubt it was dust. Then he suddenly began to fumble in his girdle.
“What do you want, girl?” he demanded of Niobe, nigh fiercely.
“Two obols.”
“Take two drachmæ. I was once a friend to that Glaucon, and traitor though
he has been blazed, his child is yet dear to me. Let me take him.”
Without waiting her answer he thrust the coin into her hands, and caught
the child out of them. Phœnix looked up into the strange, bearded face,
and deliberated an instant whether to crow or to weep. Then some friendly
god decided him. He laughed as sweetly, as musically, as ever one can at
his most august age. With both chubby hands he plucked at the black beard
and held tight. The strange sailor answered laugh with laugh, and released
himself right gayly. Then whilst Niobe and Dion watched and wondered they
saw the sailor kiss the child full fifty times, all the time whispering
soft words in his ear, at which Phœnix crowed and laughed yet more.
“An old family servant,” threw out Dion, in a whisper.
“Sheep!” retorted the nurse, “do you call yourself wise? Do you think a
man with that face and those long hands ever felt the stocks or the whip?
He’s gentleman born, by Demeter!”
“War makes many changes,” rejoined Dion. “_Ai!_ is he beside himself or a
kidnapper? He is walking off with the babe.”
The stranger indeed had seemed to forget them all and was going with swift
strides up the Agora, but just before Niobe could begin her outcry he
wheeled, and brought his merry burden back to the nurse’s arms.
“You ought to be exceeding proud, my girl,” he remarked almost severely,
“to have such a precious babe in charge. I trust you are dutiful.”
“So I strive, _kyrie_, but he grows very strong. One cannot keep the
swaddling clothes on him now. They say he will be a mighty athlete like
his father.”
“Ah, yes—his father—” The sailor looked down.
“You knew Master Glaucon well?” pressed Dion, itching for a new bit of
gossip.
“Well,” answered the sailor, standing gazing on the child as though
something held him fascinated, then shot another question. “And does the
babe’s lady-mother prosper?”
“She is passing well in body, _kyrie_, but grievously ill in mind. Hera
give her a release from all her sorrow!”
“Sorrow?” The man’s eyes were opening wider, wider. “What mean you?”
“Why, all Trœzene knows it, I’m sure.”
“I’m not from Trœzene. My ship made port from Naxos this morning. Speak,
girl!”
He seized Niobe’s wrist in a grip which she thought would crush the bone.
“_Ai!_ Let go, sir, you hurt. Don’t stare so. I’m frightened. I’ll tell as
fast as I can. Master Democrates has come back from Corinth. Hermippus is
resolved to make the _kyria_ wed him, however bitterly she resists. It’s
taken a long time for her father to determine to break her will, but now
his mind’s made up. The betrothal is in three days, the wedding ten days
thereafter.”
The sailor had dropped her hand. She shrank at the pallor of his face. He
seemed struggling for words; when they came she made nothing of them.
“Themistocles, Themistocles—your promise!”
Then by some giant exercise of will he steadied. His speech grew more
coherent.
“Give me the child,” he commanded, and Niobe mutely obeyed. He kissed
Phœnix on both cheeks, mouth, forehead. They saw that tears were running
down his bronzed face. He handed back the babe and again held out money,—a
coin for both the slave girl and the soothsayer,—gold half-darics, that
they gaped at wonderingly.
“Say nothing!” ordered the sailor, “nothing of what I have said or done,
or as Helios shines this noon, I will kill you both.”
Not waiting reply, he went down the Agora at a run, and never looked back.
It took some moments for Dion and Niobe to recover their equanimity; they
would have believed it all a dream, but lo! in their hands gleamed the
money.
“There are times,” remarked the soothsayer, dubiously at last, “when I
begin to think the gods again walk the earth and work wonders. This is a
very high matter. Even I with my art dare not meddle with it. It is best
to heed the injunction to silence. Wagging tongues always have troubles as
their children. Now let us proceed with my sacred cock and his
divination.”
Niobe got her philtre,—though whether it reconquered Procles is not
contained in this history. Likewise, she heeded Dion’s injunction. There
was something uncanny about the strange sailor; she hid away the
half-daric, and related nothing of her adventure even to her confidant
Cleopis.
* * * * * * *
Three days later Democrates was not drinking wine at his betrothal feast,
but sending this cipher letter by a swift and trusty “distance-runner” to
Sparta.
“Democrates to Lycon, greeting:—At Corinth I cursed you. Rejoice
therefore; you are my only hope. I am with you whether your path leads to
Olympus or to Hades. Tartarus is opened at my feet. You must save me. My
words are confused, do you think? Then hear this, and ask if I have not
cause for turning mad.
“Yesterday, even as Hermippus hung garlands on his house, and summoned the
guests to witness the betrothal contract, Themistocles returned suddenly
from Eubœa. He called Hermippus and myself aside. ‘_Glaucon lives_,’ he
said, ‘and with the god’s help we’ll prove his innocence.’ Hermippus at
once broke off the betrothal. No one else knows aught thereof, not even
Hermione. Themistocles refuses all further details. ‘Glaucon lives,’—I can
think of nothing else. Where is he? What does he? How soon will the awful
truth go flying through Hellas? I trembled when I heard he was dead. But
name my terrors now I know he is alive! Send Hiram. He, if any snake
living, can find me my enemy before it is too late. And speed the victory
of Mardonius! _Chaire._”
“Glaucon lives.” Democrates had only written one least part of his
terrors. Two words—but enough to make the orator the most miserable man in
Hellas, the most supple of Xerxes’s hundred million slaves.
CHAPTER XXXIII
WHAT BEFELL ON THE HILLSIDE
Once more the Persians pressed into Attica, once more the Athenians,—or
such few of them as had ventured home in the winter,—fled with their
movables to Salamis or Peloponnesus, and an embassy, headed by Aristeides,
hastened to Sparta to demand for the last time that the tardy ephors make
good their promise in sending forth their infantry to hurl back the
invader. If not, Aristeides spoke plainly, his people must perforce close
alliance with Mardonius.
Almost to the amazement of the Athenian chiefs, so accustomed were they to
Dorian doltishness and immobility, after a ten days’ delay and excuses
that “they must celebrate their festival the Hyacinthia,” the ephors
called forth their whole levy. Ten thousand heavy infantrymen with a host
of lightly armed “helots”(11) were started northward under the able lead
of Pausanias, the regent for Leonidas’s young son. Likewise all the allies
of Lacedæmon—Corinthians, Sicyonians, Elians, Arcadians—began to hurry
toward the Isthmus. Therefore men who had loved Hellas and had almost
despaired for her took courage. “At last we will have a great land battle,
and an end to the Barbarian.”
All was excitement in the Athenian colony at Trœzene. The board of
strategi met and voted that now was the time for a crowning effort. Five
thousand men-at-arms should march under Aristeides to join against
Mardonius in Bœotia. By sea Themistocles should go with every available
ship to Delos, meet the allied squadrons there, and use his infallible art
in persuading the sluggish Spartan high admiral to conduct a raid across
the Ægean at Xerxes’s own doors. Of the ten strategi Democrates had called
loudest for instant action, so loudly indeed that Themistocles had
cautioned him against rashness. Hermippus was old, but experienced men
trusted him, therefore he was appointed to command the contingent of his
tribe. Democrates was to accompany Aristeides as general adjutant; his
diplomatic training would be invaluable in ending the frictions sure to
arise amongst the allies. Cimon would go with Themistocles, and so every
other man was sent to his place. In the general preparation private
problems seemed forgotten. Hermippus and Democrates both announced that
the betrothal of Hermione had been postponed, pending the public crisis.
The old Eleusinian had not told his daughter, or even his wife, why he had
seemed to relax his announced purpose of forcing Hermione to an unwelcome
marriage. The young widow knew she had respite—for how long nothing told
her, but for every day her agony was postponed she blessed kind Hera. Then
came the morning when her father must go forth with his men. She still
loved him, despite the grief he was giving her. She did him justice to
believe he acted in affection. The gay ribbons that laced his cuirass, the
red and blue embroidery that edged his “taxiarch’s” cloak, were from the
needle of his daughter. Hermione kissed him as she stood with her mother
in the aula. He coughed gruffly when he answered their “farewell.” The
house door closed behind him, and Hermione and Lysistra ran into one
another’s arms. They had given to Hellas their best, and now must look to
Athena.
Hermippus and Aristeides were gone, Democrates remained in Trœzene. His
business, he said, was more diplomatic than military, and he was expecting
advices from the islands which he must take to Pausanias in person. He had
a number of interviews with Themistocles, when it was observed that every
time he came away with clouded brow and gruff answers to all who accosted.
It began to be hinted that all was not as well as formerly between the
admiral and the orator, that Democrates had chosen to tie too closely to
Aristeides for the son of Neocles’s liking, and that as soon as the
campaign was decided, a bitter feud would break out betwixt them. But this
was merest gossip. Outwardly Democrates and Themistocles continued
friends, dined together, exchanged civilities. On the day when
Themistocles was to sail for Delos he walked arm in arm with Democrates to
the quay. The hundreds of onlookers saw him embrace the young strategus in
a manner belying any rumour of estrangement, whilst Democrates stood on
the sand waving his good wishes until the admiral climbed the ladder of
the _Nausicaä_.
It was another day and landscape which the stranger in Hellas would have
remembered long. The haven of Trœzene, noblest in Peloponnesus, girt by
its two mountain promontories, Methana and the holy hill Calauria, opened
its bright blue into the deeper blue of the Saronic bay. Under the eye of
the beholder Ægina and the coasts of Attica stood forth, a fit frame to
the far horizon. Sun, sea, hills, and shore wrought together to make one
glorious harmony, endless variety, yet ordered and fashioned into a divine
whole. “Euopis,” “The Fair-Faced,” the beauty-loving dwellers of the
country called it, and they named aright.
Something of the beauty touched even Hermione as she stood on the hill
slope, gazing across the sea. Only Cleopis was with her. The young widow
had less trembling when she looked on the _Nausicaä_ than when one year
before the stately trireme had sailed for Artemisium. If ill news must
come, it would be from the plains of Bœotia. Most of Themistocles’s fleet
was already at Delos. He led only a dozen sail. When his squadron glided
on into the blue deep, the haven seemed deserted save for the Carthaginian
trader that swung at her cables close upon the land. As Hermione looked
and saw the climbing sun change the tintings of the waters, here spreading
a line of green gold amidst the blue, here flashing the waves with dark