A Victor of Salamis

by William Stearns Davis

  CHAPTER XIV

  MARDONIUS THE PERSIAN

  Off Andros the northern gale smote them. The ship had driven helplessly.

  Off Tenos only the skill of Brasidas kept the _Solon_ clear of the rockyshores.

  As they raced past holy Delos the frightened passengers had vowed twelveoxen to Apollo if he saved them.

  Near Naxos, Brasidas, after vainly trying to make a friendly haven, badehis sailors undergird the ship with heavy cables, for the timbers seemedstarting. Finally he suffered his craft to drive,--hoping at least to findsome islet with a sandy shore where he could beach her with safety.

  The _Solon_, however, was near her doom. She was built on the Samianmodel, broad, flat, high in poop, low in prow,--excellent for cargo, butnone too seaworthy. The foresail blew in tatters. The closely brailedmainsail shook the weakened mast. The sailors had dropped their quaintoaths, and began to pray--sure proof of danger. The dozen passengers seemedalmost too panic-stricken to aid in flinging the cargo overboard. Severalwere raving.

  "Hearken, Poseidon of Calauria," howled a Peiraeus merchant against thescreeching blasts, "save from this peril and I vow thee and thy temple twomixing bowls of purest gold!"

  "A great vow," suggested a calmer comrade. "All your fortune can hardlypay it."

  "Hush," spoke the other, in undertone, "don't let the god overhear me; letme get safe to Mother Earth and Poseidon has not one obol. His power isonly over the sea."

  A creaking from the mainmast told that it might fall at any moment.Passengers and crew redoubled their shouts to Poseidon and to Zeus ofAEgina. A fat passenger staggered from his cabin, a huge money-bag bound tohis belt,--as if gold were the safest spar to cling to in that boilingdeep. Others, less frantic, gave commissions one to another, in case oneperished and another escaped.

  "You alone have no messages, pray no prayers, show no fear!" spoke agrave, elderly man to Glaucon, as both clutched the swaying bulwark.

  "And wherefore?" came the bitter answer; "what is left me to fear? Idesire no life hereafter. There can be no consciousness without sadmemory."

  "You are very young to speak thus."

  "But not too young to have suffered."

  A wave dashed one of the steering rudders out of the grip of the sailorguiding it. The rush of water swept him overboard. The _Solon_ lurched.The wind smote the straining mainsail, and the shivered mainmast tore fromits stays and socket. Above the bawling of wind and water sounded thecrash. The ship, with only a small sail upon the poop, blew about into thetrough of the sea. A mountain of green water thundered over the prow,bearing away men and wreckage. The "governor," Brasidas's mate, flung awaythe last steering tiller.

  "The _Solon_ is dying, men," he trumpeted through his hands. "To the boat!Save who can!"

  The pinnace set in the waist was cleared away by frantic hands and axes.Ominous rumblings from the hold told how the undergirding could not keepback the water. The pinnace was dragged to the ship's lee and launched inthe comparative calm of the _Solon's_ broadside. Pitifully small was theboat for five and twenty. The sailors, desperate and selfish, leaped infirst, and watched with jealous eyes the struggles of the passengers tofollow. The noisy merchant slipped in the leap, and they heard him screamonce as the wave swallowed him. Brasidas stood in the bow of the pinnace,clutching a sword to cut the last rope. The boat filled to the gunwales.The spray dashed into her. The sailors bailed with their caps. Anotherpassenger leaped across, whereat the men yelled and drew their dirks.

  "Three are left. Room for one more. The rest must swim!"

  Glaucon stood on the poop. Was life still such a precious thing to somethat they must clutch for it so desperately? He had even a painfulamusement in watching the others. Of himself he thought little save tohope that under the boiling sea was rest and no return of memory. ThenBrasidas called him.

  "Quick! The others are Barbarians and you a Hellene. Your chance--leap!"

  He did not stir. The "others"--two strangers in Oriental dress--werestriving to enter the pinnace. The seamen thrust their dirks out to forcethem back.

  "Full enough!" bawled the "governor." "That fellow on the poop is mad. Cutthe rope, or we are caught in the swirl."

  The elder Barbarian lifted his companion as if to fling him into the boat,but Brasidas's sword cut the one cable. The wave flung the _Solon_ and thepinnace asunder. With stolid resignation the Orientals retreated to thepoop. The people in the pinnace rowed desperately to keep her out of thedeadly trough of the billows, but Glaucon stood erect on the driftingwreck and his voice rang through the tumult of the sea.

  "Tell them in Athens, and tell Hermione my wife, that Glaucon theAlcmaeonid went down into the deep declaring his innocence and denouncingthe vengeance of Athena on whosoever foully destroyed him!--"

  Brasidas waved his sword in last farewell. Glaucon turned back to thewreck. The _Solon_ had settled lower. Every wave washed across the waist.Nothing seemed to meet his gaze save the leaden sky, the leaden greenwater, the foam of the bounding storm-crests. He told himself the godswere good. Drowning was more merciful death than hemlock. Pelagos, theuntainted sea, was a softer grave than the Barathrum. The memory of thefearful hour at Colonus, the vision of the face of Hermione, of all thingselse that he would fain forget--all these would pass. For what came afterhe cared nothing.

  So for some moments he stood, clinging upon the poop, awaiting the end.But the end came slowly. The _Solon_ was a stoutly timbered ship. Much ofher lading had been cast overboard, but more remained and gave buoyancy tothe wreckage. And as the Athenian awaited, almost impatiently, the finaldisaster, something called his eye away from the heaving sky-line. Humanlife was still about him. Wedged in a refuge, betwixt two capstans, theOrientals were sitting, awaiting doom like himself. But wonder ofwonders,--he had not relaxed his hold on life too much to marvel,--theyounger Barbarian was beyond all doubt a woman. She sat in her companion'slap, lifting her white face to his, and Glaucon knew she was of wondrousbeauty. They were talking together in some Eastern speech. Their arms wereclosely twined. It was plain they were passing the last love messagesbefore entering the great mystery together. Of Glaucon they took no heed.And he at first was almost angered that strangers should intrude upon thislast hour of life. But as he looked, as he saw the beauty of the woman,the sheen of her golden hair, the interchange of love by touch andword,--there came across his own spirit a most unlooked-for change.Suddenly the white-capped billows seemed pitiless and chill. The warm joyof life returned. Again memory surged back, but without its former pang.He saw again the vision of Athens, of Colonus, of Eleusis-by-the-Sea. Hesaw Hermione running through the throng to meet him the day he returnedfrom the Isthmia. He heard the sweet wind singing over the old olivesbeside the cool Cephissus. Must these all pass forever? forever? Werelife, friends, love, the light of the sun, eternally lost, and nothingleft save the endless sleep in the unsunned caves of Oceanus? With onesurge the desire to live, to bear hard things, to conquer them, returned.He dashed the water from his eyes. What he did next was more by instinctthan by reason. He staggered across the reeling deck, approached theBarbarians, and seized the man by the arm.

  "Would you live and not die? Up, then,--there is still a chance."

  The man gazed up blankly.

  "We are in Mazda's hands," he answered in foreign accent. "It ismanifestly his will that we should pass now the Chinvat bridge. We arehelpless. Where is the pinnace?"

  Glaucon dragged him roughly to his feet.

  "I do not know your gods. Do not speak of their will to destroy us tillthe destruction falls. Do you love this woman?"

  "Save her, let me twice perish."

  "Rouse yourself, then. One hope is left!"

  "What hope?"

  "A raft. We can cast a spar overboard. It will float us. You lookstrong,--aid me."

  The man rose and, thoroughly aroused, seconded the Athenian intelligentlyand promptly. The lurches of the merchantman told how close she w
as to herend. One of the seamen's axes lay on the poop. Glaucon seized it. Theforemast was gone and the mainmast, but the small boat-mast still stood,though its sail had blown to a thousand flapping streamers. Glaucon laidhis axe at the foot of the spar. Two fierce strokes weakened so that thenext lurch sent it crashing overboard. It swung in the maelstrom by itsstays and the halyards of the sail. Tossing to and fro like a bubble, itwas a fearful hope, but a louder rumbling from the hold warned how otherhope had fled. The Barbarian recoiled as he looked on it.

  "It can never float through this storm," Glaucon heard him crying betweenthe blasts, but the Athenian beckoned him onward.

  "Leap!" commanded Glaucon; "spring as the mast rises on the next wave."

  "I cannot forsake her," called back the man, pointing to the woman, wholay with flying hair between the capstans, helpless and piteous now thather lover was no longer near.

  "I will provide for her. Leap!"

  Glaucon lifted the woman in his arms. He took a manner of pride in showingthe Barbarian his skill. The man looked at him once, saw he could betrusted, and took the leap. He landed in the water, but caught thesail-cloth drifting from the mast, climbed beside it, and sat astride. TheAthenian sprang at the next favoring wave. His burden made the task hard,but his stadium training never stood in better stead. The cold waterclosed around him. The wave dragged down in its black abyss, but he struckboldly upward, was beside the friendly spar, and the Barbarian aided himto mount beside him, then cut the lashings to the _Solon_ with the daggerthat still dangled at his belt. The billows swept them away just as thewreck reared wildly, and bow foremost plunged into the deep. They boundthe woman--she was hardly conscious now--into the little shelter formed bythe junction of the broken sail-yard and the mast. The two men sat besideher, shielding her with their bodies from the beat of the spray. Speechwas all but impossible. They were fain to close their eyes and pray to bedelivered from the unceasing screaming of the wind, the howling of thewaters. And so for hours....

  Glaucon never knew how long they thus drifted. The _Solon_ had beensmitten very early in the morning. She had foundered perhaps at noon. Itmay have been shortly before sunset--though Helios never pierced the cloudsthat storm-racked day--when Glaucon knew that the Barbarian was speaking tohim.

  "Look!" The wind had lulled a little; the man could make himself heard."What is it?"

  Through the masses of gray spray and driving mist Glaucon gazed when thenext long wave tossed them. A glimpse,--but the joys of Olympus seemedgiven with that sight; wind-swept, wave-beaten, rock-bound, that half-seenridge of brown was land,--and land meant life, the life he had longed tofling away in the morning, the life he longed to keep that night. Heshouted the discovery to his companion, who bowed his head, manifestly inprayer.

  The wind bore them rapidly. Glaucon, who knew the isles of the AEgean asbecame a Hellene, was certain they drove on Astypalaea, an isle subject toPersia, though one of the outermost Cyclades. The woman was in no state torealize their crisis. Only a hand laid on her bosom told that her heartstill fluttered. She could not endure the surge and the suffocating spraymuch longer. The two men sat in silence, but their eyes went out hungrilytoward the stretch of brown as it lifted above the wave crests. The lastmoments of the desperate voyage crept by like the pangs of Tantalus.Slowly they saw unfolding the fog-clothed mountains, a forest, scatteredbits of white they knew were stuccoed houses; but while their eyes broughtjoy, their ears brought sadness. The booming of the surf upon an outlyingledge grew ever clearer. Almost ere they knew it the drifting mast wasstayed with a shock. They saw two rocks swathed in dripping weed thatcrusted with knife-like barnacles, thrust their black heads out of theboiling water. And beyond--fifty paces away--the breakers raced up the sandyshore where waited refuge.

  The spar wedged fast in the rocks. The waves beat over it pitilessly. Hewho stayed by it long had better have sunk with the _Solon_,--his wouldhave been an easier death. Glaucon laid his mouth to the man's ear.

  "Swim through the surf. I will bear the woman safely."

  "Save her, and be you blessed forever. I die happy. I cannot swim."

  The moment was too terrible for Glaucon to feel amazed at this confession.To a Hellene swimming was second nature. He thought and spoke quickly.

  "Climb on the higher rock. The wave does not cover it entirely. Dig yourtoes in the crevices. Cling to the seaweed. I will return for you."

  He never heard what the other cried back to him. He tore the woman clearof her lashings, threw his left arm about her, and fought his way throughthe surf. He could swim like a Delian, the best swimmers in Hellas; butthe task was mighty even for the athlete. Twice the deadly undertow almostdragged him downward. Then the soft sand was oozing round his feet. Heknew a knot of fisher folk were running to the beach, a dozen hands tookhis fainting burden from him. One instant he stood with the water rushingabout his ankles, gasped and drew long breaths, then turned his facetoward the sea.

  "Are you crazed?" he heard voices clamouring--they seemed a great wayoff,--"a miracle that you lived through the surf once! Leave the other tofate. Phorcys has doomed him already."

  But Glaucon was past acting by reason now. His head seemed a ball of fire.Only his hands and feet responded mechanically to the dim impulse of hisbewildered brain. Once more the battling through the surf, this timeagainst it and threefold harder. Only the man whose strength had borne thegiant Spartan down could have breasted the billows that came leaping todestroy him. He felt his powers were strained to the last notch. A littlemore and he knew he might roll helpless, but even so he struggled onward.Once again the two black rocks were springing out of the swollen water. Hesaw the Barbarian clinging desperately to the higher. Why was he riskinghis life for a man who was not a Hellene, who might be even a servant ofthe dreaded Xerxes? A strange moment for such questionings, and no time toanswer! He clung to the seaweed beside the Barbarian for an instant, thenthrough the gale cried to the other to place his hands upon his shoulders.The Oriental complied intelligently. For a third time Glaucon struggledacross the raging flood. The passage seemed endless, and every recedingbreaker dragging down to the graves of Oceanus. The Athenian knew hispower was failing, and doled it out as a miser, counting his strokes,taking deep gulps of air between each wave. Then, even while consciousnessand strength seemed passing together, again beneath his feet were theshifting sands, again the voices encouraging, the hands outstretched,strange forms running down into the surf, strange faces all around him.They were bearing him and the Barbarian high upon the beach. They laid himon the hard, wet sand--never a bed more welcome. He was naked. His feet andhands bled from the tearing of stones and barnacles. His head was in feverglow. Dimly he knew the Barbarian was approaching him.

  "Hellene, you have saved us. What is your name?"

  The other barely raised his head. "In Athens, Glaucon the Alcmaeonid, butnow I am without name, without country."

  The Oriental answered by kneeling on the sands and touching his head uponthem close to Glaucon's feet.

  "Henceforth, O Deliverer, you shall be neither nameless nor outcast. Foryou have saved me and her I love more than self. You have savedArtazostra, sister of Xerxes, and Mardonius, son of Gobryas, who is notthe least of the Princes of Persia and Eran."

  "Mardonius--arch foe of Hellas!" Glaucon spoke the words in horror. Thenreaction from all he had undergone robbed him of sense. They carried himto the fisher-village. That night he burned with fever and raved wildly.It was many days before he knew anything again.

  * * * * * * *

  Six days later a Byzantine corn-ship brought from Amorgos to Peiraeus twosurvivors of the _Solon_,--the only ones to escape the swamping of thepinnace. Their story cleared up the mystery of the fate of "Glaucon theTraitor." "The gods," said every Agora wiseacre, "had rewarded the villainwith their own hands." The Babylonish carpet-seller and Hiram hadvanished, despite all search, but everybody praised Democrates for savingthe state from a fearful peril. As for Hermione, her
father took her toEleusis that she might be free from the hoots of the people. Themistocleswent about his business very sorrowful. Cimon lost half his gayety.Democrates, too, appeared terribly worn. "How he loved his friend!" saidevery admirer. Beyond doubt for long Democrates was exceeding thoughtful.Perhaps a reason for this was that about a month after the going ofGlaucon he learned from Sicinnus that Prince Mardonius was at length inSardis,--and possibly Democrates knew on what vessel the carpet-seller hadtaken flight.

  BOOK II

  THE COMING OF THE PERSIAN