by John Buchan
III
THE LEMNIAN
He pushed the matted locks from his brow as he peered into the mist.His hair was thick with salt, and his eyes smarted from the greenwoodfire on the poop. The four slaves who crouched beside thethwarts-Carians with thin birdlike faces-were in a pitiable case, theirhands blue with oar-weals and the lash marks on their shouldersbeginning to gape from sun and sea. The Lemnian himself bore marks ofill usage. His cloak was still sopping, his eyes heavy with watching,and his lips black and cracked with thirst. Two days before the stormhad caught him and swept his little craft into mid-Aegean. He was asailor, come of sailor stock, and he had fought the gale manfully andwell. But the sea had burst his waterjars, and the torments of droughthad been added to his toil. He had been driven south almost to Scyros,but had found no harbour. Then a weary day with the oars had broughthim close to the Euboean shore, when a freshet of storm drove himseaward again. Now at last in this northerly creek of Sciathos he hadfound shelter and a spring. But it was a perilous place, for therewere robbers in the bushy hills--mainland men who loved above all thingsto rob an islander: and out at sea, as he looked towards Pelion, thereseemed something adoing which boded little good. There was deep waterbeneath a ledge of cliff, half covered by a tangle of wildwood. SoAtta lay in the bows, looking through the trails of vine at the racingtides now reddening in the dawn.
The storm had hit others besides him it seemed. The channel was fullof ships, aimless ships that tossed between tide and wind. Lookingcloser, he saw that they were all wreckage. There had been tremendousdoings in the north, and a navy of some sort had come to grief. Attawas a prudent man, and knew that a broken fleet might be dangerous.There might be men lurking in the maimed galleys who would make shortwork of the owner of a battered but navigable craft. At first hethought that the ships were those of the Hellenes. The troublesomefellows were everywhere in the islands, stirring up strife and robbingthe old lords. But the tides running strongly from the east werebringing some of the wreckage in an eddy into the bay. He lay closerand watched the spars and splintered poops as they neared him. Thesewere no galleys of the Hellenes. Then came a drowned man, swollen andhorrible: then another-swarthy, hooknosed fellows, all yellow with thesea. Atta was puzzled. They must be the men from the East about whomhe had been hearing. Long ere he left Lemnos there had been news aboutthe Persians. They were coming like locusts out of the dawn, swarmingover Ionia and Thrace, men and ships numerous beyond telling. Theymeant no ill to honest islanders: a little earth and water were enoughto win their friendship. But they meant death to the hubris of theHellenes. Atta was on the side of the invaders; he wished them well intheir war with his ancient foes. They would eat them up, Athenians,Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Aeginetans, men of Argos and Elis, andnone would be left to trouble him. But in the meantime something hadgone wrong. Clearly there had been no battle. As the bodies buttedagainst the side of the galley he hooked up one or two and found notrace of a wound. Poseidon had grown cranky, and had claimed victims.The god would be appeased by this time, and all would go well.
Danger being past, he bade the men get ashore and fill the water-skins."God's curse on all Hellenes," he said, as he soaked up the cold waterfrom the spring in the thicket.
About noon he set sail again. The wind sat in the north-east, but thewall of Pelion turned it into a light stern breeze which carried himswiftly westward. The four slaves, still leg-weary and arm-weary, laylike logs beside the thwarts. Two slept; one munched some salty figs;the fourth, the headman, stared wearily forward, with ever and again aglance back at his master. But the Lemnian never looked his way. Hishead was on his breast, as he steered, and he brooded on the sins ofthe Hellenes. He was of the old Pelasgian stock, the first lords ofthe land, who had come out of the soil at the call of God. Thepillaging northmen had crushed his folk out of the mainlands and mostof the islands, but in Lemnos they had met their match. It was afamily story how every grown male had been slain, and how the womenlong after had slaughtered their conquerors in the night. "Lemniandeeds," said the Hellenes, when they wished to speak of some shamefulthing: but to Atta the shame was a glory to be cherished for ever. Heand his kind were the ancient people, and the gods loved old things, asthose new folk would find. Very especially he hated the men of Athens.Had not one of their captains, Militades, beaten the Lemnians andbrought the island under Athenian sway? True, it was a rule only inname, for any Athenian who came alone to Lemnos would soon be cleavingthe air from the highest cliff-top. But the thought irked his pride,and he gloated over the Persians' coming. The Great King from beyondthe deserts would smite those outrageous upstarts. Atta wouldwillingly give earth and water. It was the whim of a fantasticbarbarian, and would be well repaid if the bastard Hellenes weredestroyed. They spoke his own tongue, and worshipped his own gods, andyet did evil. Let the nemesis of Zeus devour them!
The wreckage pursued him everywhere. Dead men shouldered the sides ofthe galley, and the straits were stuck full of things like monstrousbuoys, where tall ships had foundered. At Artemision he thought he sawsigns of an anchored fleet with the low poops of the Hellenes, andsheered off to the northern shores. There, looking towards Oeta andthe Malian Gulf, he found an anchorage at sunset. The waters were uglyand the times ill, and he had come on an enterprise bigger than he haddreamed. The Lemnian was a stout fellow, but he had no love forneedless danger. He laughed mirthlessly as he thought of his errand,for he was going to Hellas, to the shrine of the Hellenes.
It was a woman's doing, like most crazy enterprises. Three years agohis wife had laboured hard in childbirth, and had had the whims oflabouring women. Up in the keep of Larisa, on the windy hillside,there had been heart-searching and talk about the gods. The littleolive-wood Hermes, the very private and particular god of Atta's folk,was good enough in simple things like a lambing or a harvest, but hewas scarcely fit for heavy tasks. Atta's wife declared that her lordlacked piety. There were mainland gods who repaid worship, but hisscorn of all Hellenes made him blind to the merits of those potentdivinities. At first Atta resisted. There was Attic blood in hiswife, and he strove to argue with her unorthodox craving. But thewoman persisted, and a Lemnian wife, as she is beyond other wives invirtue and comeliness, excels them in stubbornness of temper. A secondtime she was with child, and nothing would content her but that Attashould make his prayers to the stronger gods. Dodona was far away, andlong ere he reached it his throat would be cut in the hills. ButDelphi was but two days' journey from the Malian coast, and the god ofDelphi, the Far-Darter had surprising gifts, if one were to credittravellers' tales. Atta yielded with an ill grace, and out of hiswealth devised an offering to Apollo. So on this July day he foundhimself looking across the gulf to Kallidromos bound for a Hellenicshrine, but hating all Hellenes in his soul. A verse of Homer consoledhim--the words which Phocion spoke to Achilles. "Verily even the godsmay be turned, they whose excellence and honour and strength aregreater than thine; yet even these do men, when they pray, turn fromtheir purpose with offerings of incense and pleasant vows." TheFar-Darter must hate the hubris of those Hellenes, and be the moreready to avenge it since they dared to claim his countenance. "No racehas ownership in the gods," a Lemnian song-maker had said when Atta hadbeen questioning the ways of Poseidon.
The following dawn found him coasting past the north end of Euboea inthe thin fog of a windless summer morn. He steered by the peak ofOthrys and a spur of Oeta, as he had learnt from a slave who hadtravelled the road. Presently he was in the muddy Malian waters, andthe sun was scattering the mist on the landward side. And then hebecame aware of a greater commotion than Poseidon's play with the shipsoff Pelion. A murmur like a winter's storm came seawards. He loweredthe sail, which he had set to catch a chance breeze, and bade the menrest on their oars. An earthquake seemed to be tearing at the roots ofthe hills.
The mist rolled up, and his hawk eyes saw a strange sight. The waterwas green and still around him, but s
horeward it changed its colour.It was a dirty red, and things bobbed about in it like the Persians inthe creek of Sciathos. On the strip of shore, below the sheer wall ofKallidromos, men were fighting-myriads of men, for away towards Locristhey stretched in ranks and banners and tents till the eye lost them inthe haze. There was no sail on the queer, muddy-red-edged sea; therewas no man on the hills: but on that one flat ribbon of sand all thenations of the earth were warring. He remembered about the place:Thermopylae they called it, the Gate of the Hot Springs. The Helleneswere fighting the Persians in the pass for their Fatherland.
Atta was prudent and loved not other men's quarrels. He gave the wordto the rowers to row seaward. In twenty strokes they were in the mistagain...
Atta was prudent, but he was also stubborn. He spent the day in acreek on the northern shore of the gulf, listening to the weird humwhich came over the waters out of the haze. He cursed the delay. Upon Kallidromos would be clear dry air and the path to Delphi among theoak woods. The Hellenes could not be fighting everywhere at once. Hemight find some spot on the shore, far in their rear, where he couldland and gain the hills. There was danger indeed, but once on theridge he would be safe; and by the time he came back the Great Kingwould have swept the defenders into the sea, and be well on the roadfor Athens. He asked himself if it were fitting that a Lemnian shouldbe stayed in his holy task by the struggles of Hellene and Barbarian.His thoughts flew to his steading at Larisa, and the dark-eyed wife whowas awaiting his homecoming. He could not return without Apollo'sfavour: his manhood and the memory of his lady's eyes forbade it. Solate in the afternoon he pushed off again and steered his galley forthe south.
About sunset the mist cleared from the sea; but the dark falls swiftlyin the shadow of the high hills, and Atta had no fear. With the nightthe hum sank to a whisper; it seemed that the invaders were drawing offto camp, for the sound receded to the west. At the last light theLemnian touched a rock-point well to the rear of the defence. Henoticed that the spume at the tide's edge was reddish and stuck to hishands like gum. Of a surety much blood was flowing on that coast.
He bade his slaves return to the north shore and lie hidden to awaithim. When he came back he would light a signal fire on the topmostbluff of Kallidromos. Let them watch for it and come to take him off.Then he seized his bow and quiver, and his short hunting-spear, buckledhis cloak about him, saw that the gift to Apollo was safe in the foldsof it, and marched sturdily up the hillside.
The moon was in her first quarter, a slim horn which at her rise showedonly the faint outline of the hill. Atta plodded steadfastly on, buthe found the way hard. This was not like the crisp sea-turf of Lemnos,where among the barrows of the ancient dead, sheep and kine could findsweet fodder. Kallidromos ran up as steep as the roof of a barn.Cytisus and thyme and juniper grew rank, but above all the place wasstrewn with rocks, leg-twisting boulders, and great cliffs where eaglesdwelt. Being a seaman, Atta had his bearings. The path to Delphi leftthe shore road near the Hot Springs, and went south by a rift of themountain. If he went up the slope in a beeline he must strike it intime and find better going. Still it was an eerie place to be trampingafter dark. The Hellenes had strange gods of the thicket and hillside,and he had no wish to intrude upon their sanctuaries. He told himselfthat next to the Hellenes he hated this country of theirs, where a mansweltered in hot jungles or tripped among hidden crags. He sighed forthe cool beaches below Larisa, where the surf was white as the snows ofSamothrace, and the fisherboys sang round their smoking broth-pots.
Presently he found a path. It was not the mule road, worn by manyfeet, that he had looked for, but a little track which twined among theboulders. Still it eased his feet, so he cleared the thorns from hissandals, strapped his belt tighter, and stepped out more confidently.Up and up he went, making odd detours among the crags. Once he came toa promontory, and, looking down, saw lights twinkling from the HotSprings. He had thought the course lay more southerly, but consoledhimself by remembering that a mountain path must have many windings.The great matter was that he was ascending, for he knew that he mustcross the ridge of Oeta before he struck the Locrian glens that led tothe Far-Darter's shrine.
At what seemed the summit of the first ridge he halted for breath, and,prone on the thyme, looked back to sea. The Hot Springs were hidden,but across the gulf a single light shone from the far shore. Heguessed that by this time his galley had been beached and his slaveswere cooking supper. The thought made him homesick. He had beaten andcursed these slaves of his times without number, but now in thisstrange land he felt them kinsfolk, men of his own household. Then hetold himself he was no better than a woman. Had he not gone sailing toChalcedon and distant Pontus, many months' journey from home while thiswas but a trip of days? In a week he would be welcomed by a smilingwife, with a friendly god behind him.
The track still bore west, though Delphi lay in the south. Moreover,he had come to a broader road running through a little tableland. Thehighest peaks of Oeta were dark against the sky, and around him was aflat glade where oaks whispered in the night breezes. By this time hejudged from the stars that midnight had passed, and he began toconsider whether, now that he was beyond the fighting, he should notsleep and wait for dawn. He made up his mind to find a shelter, and,in the aimless way of the night traveller, pushed on and on in thequest of it. The truth is his mind was on Lemnos, and a dark-eyed,white-armed dame spinning in the evening by the threshold. His eyesroamed among the oaktrees, but vacantly and idly, and many a mossycorner was passed unheeded. He forgot his ill temper, and hummedcheerfully the song his reapers sang in the barley-fields below hisorchard. It was a song of seamen turned husbandmen, for the gods itcalled on were the gods of the sea....
Suddenly he found himself crouching among the young oaks, peering andlistening. There was something coming from the west. It was like thefirst mutterings of a storm in a narrow harbour, a steady rustling andwhispering. It was not wind; he knew winds too well to be deceived.It was the tramp of light-shod feet among the twigs--many feet, for thesound remained steady, while the noise of a few men will rise and fall.They were coming fast and coming silently. The war had reached far upKallidromos.
Atta had played this game often in the little island wars. Veryswiftly he ran back and away from the path up the slope which he knewto be the first ridge of Kallidromos. The army, whatever it might be,was on the Delphian road. Were the Hellenes about to turn the flank ofthe Great King?
A moment later he laughed at his folly. For the men began to appear,and they were crossing to meet him, coming from the west. Lying closein the brushwood he could see them clearly. It was well he had leftthe road, for they stuck to it, following every winding-crouching, too,like hunters after deer. The first man he saw was a Hellene, but theranks behind were no Hellenes. There was no glint of bronze or gleamof fair skin. They were dark, long-haired fellows, with spears likehis own, and round Eastern caps, and egg-shaped bucklers. Then Attarejoiced. It was the Great King who was turning the flank of theHellenes. They guarded the gate, the fools, while the enemy slippedthrough the roof.
He did not rejoice long. The van of the army was narrow and kept tothe path, but the men behind were straggling all over the hillside.Another minute and he would be discovered. The thought was cheerless.It was true that he was an islander and friendly to the Persian, but upon the heights who would listen to his tale? He would be taken for aspy, and one of those thirsty spears would drink his blood. It must befarewell to Delphi for the moment, he thought, or farewell to Lemnosfor ever. Crouching low, he ran back and away from the path to thecrest of the sea-ridge of Kallidromos.
The men came no nearer him. They were keeping roughly to the line ofthe path, and drifted through the oak wood before him, an army withoutend. He had scarcely thought there were so many fighting men in theworld. He resolved to lie there on the crest, in the hope that ere thefirst light they would be gone. Then he would push on to Delphi,leaving them to settl
e their quarrels behind him. These were the hardtimes for a pious pilgrim.
But another noise caught his ear from the right. The army had flankingsquadrons, and men were coming along the ridge. Very bitter anger rosein Atta's heart. He had cursed the Hellenes, and now he cursed theBarbarians no less. Nay, he cursed all war, that spoiled the errandsof peaceful folk. And then, seeking safety, he dropped over the creston to the steep shoreward face of the mountain.
In an instant his breath had gone from him. He slid down a long slopeof screes, and then with a gasp found himself falling sheer into space.Another second and he was caught in a tangle of bush, and then droppedonce more upon screes, where he clutched desperately for handhold.Breathless and bleeding he came to anchor on a shelf of greensward andfound himself blinking up at the crest which seemed to tower a thousandfeet above. There were men on the crest now. He heard them speak andfelt that they were looking down.
The shock kept him still till the men had passed. Then the terror ofthe place gripped him, and he tried feverishly to retrace his steps. Adweller all his days among gentle downs, he grew dizzy with the senseof being hung in space. But the only fruit of his efforts was to sethim slipping again. This time he pulled up at the root of gnarled oak,which overhung the sheerest cliff on Kallidromos. The danger broughthis wits back. He sullenly reviewed his case, and found it desperate.
He could not go back, and, even if he did, he would meet the Persians.If he went on he would break his neck, or at the best fall into theHellenes' hands. Oddly enough he feared his old enemies less than hisfriends. He did not think that the Hellenes would butcher him. Again,he might sit perched in his eyrie till they settled their quarrel, orhe fell off. He rejected this last way. Fall off he should forcertain, unless he kept moving. Already he was retching with thevertigo of the heights. It was growing lighter. Suddenly he waslooking not into a black world, but to a pearl-grey floor far beneathhim. It was the sea, the thing he knew and loved. The sight screwedup his courage. He remembered that he was Lemnian and a seafarer. Hewould be conquered neither by rock, nor by Hellene, nor by the GreatKing. Least of all by the last, who was a barbarian. Slowly, withclenched teeth and narrowed eyes, he began to clamber down a ridgewhich flanked the great cliffs of Kallidromos. His plan was to reachthe shore and take the road to the east before the Persians completedtheir circuit. Some instinct told him that a great army would not takethe track he had mounted by. There must be some longer and easier waydebouching farther down the coast. He might yet have the good luck toslip between them and the sea.
The two hours which followed tried his courage hard. Thrice he fell,and only a juniper-root stood between him and death. His hands grewragged, and his nails were worn to the quick. He had long ago lost hisweapons; his cloak was in shreds, all save the breast-fold which heldthe gift to Apollo. The heavens brightened, but he dared not lookaround. He knew he was traversing awesome places, where a goat couldscarcely tread. Many times he gave up hope of life. His head wasswimming, and he was so deadly sick that often he had to lie gasping onsome shoulder of rock less steep than the rest. But his anger kept himto his purpose. He was filled with fury at the Hellenes. It was theyand their folly that had brought him these mischances. Some day ....
He found himself sitting blinking on the shore of the sea. A furlongoff the water was lapping on the reefs. A man, larger than human inthe morning mist, was standing above him.
"Greeting, stranger," said the voice. "By Hermes, you choose thedifficult roads to travel."
Atta felt for broken bones, and, reassured, struggled to his feet.
"God's curse upon all mountains," he said. He staggered to the edge ofthe tide and laved his brow. The savour of salt revived him. Heturned to find the tall man at his elbow, and noted how worn and raggedhe was, and yet how upright. "When a pigeon is flushed from the rocks,there is a hawk near," said the voice.
Atta was angry. "A hawk!" he cried. "Nay, an army of eagles. Therewill be some rare flushing of Hellenes before evening."
"What frightened you, Islander?" the stranger asked. "Did a wolf barkup on the hillside?"
"Ay, a wolf. The wolf from the East with a multitude of wolflings.There will be fine eating soon in the pass."
The man's face grew dark. He put his hand to his mouth and called.Half a dozen sentries ran to join him. He spoke to them in the harshLacedaemonian speech which made Atta sick to hear. They talked withthe back of the throat and there was not an "s" in their words.
"There is mischief in the hills," the first man said. "This islanderhas been frightened down over the rocks. The Persian is stealing amarch on us."
The sentries laughed. One quoted a proverb about island courage.Atta's wrath flared and he forgot himself. He had no wish to warn theHellenes, but it irked his pride to be thought a liar. He began totell his story hastily, angrily, confusedly; and the men still laughed.
Then he turned eastward and saw the proof before him. The light hadgrown and the sun was coming up over Pelion. The first beam fell onthe eastern ridge of Kallidromos, and there, clear on the sky-line, wasthe proof. The Persian was making a wide circuit, but movingshoreward. In a little he would be at the coast, and by noon at theHellenes' rear.
His hearers doubted no more. Atta was hurried forward through thelines of the Greeks to the narrow throat of the pass, where behind arough rampart of stones lay the Lacedaemonian headquarters. He wasstill giddy from the heights, and it was in a giddy dream that hetraversed the misty shingles of the beach amid ranks of sleepingwarriors. It was a grim place, for there were dead and dying in it,and blood on every stone. But in the lee of the wall little fires wereburning and slaves were cooking breakfast. The smell of roasting fleshcame pleasantly to his nostrils, and he remembered that he had had nomeal since he crossed the gulf.
Then he found himself the centre of a group who had the air of kings.They looked as if they had been years in war. Never had he seen facesso worn and so terribly scarred. The hollows in their cheeks gave themthe air of smiling, and yet they were grave. Their scarlet vests weretorn and muddled, and the armour which lay near was dinted like thescrap-iron before a smithy door. But what caught his attention werethe eyes of the men. They glittered as no eyes he had ever seen beforeglittered. The sight cleared his bewilderment and took the pride outof his heart. He could not pretend to despise a folk who looked likeAres fresh from the wars of the Immortals.
They spoke among themselves in quiet voices. Scouts came and went, andonce or twice one of the men, taller than the rest, asked Atta aquestion. The Lemnian sat in the heart of the group, sniffing thesmell of cooking, and looking at the rents in his cloak and the longscratches on his legs. Something was pressing on his breast, and hefound that it was Apollo's gift. He had forgotten all about it.Delphi seemed beyond the moon, and his errand a child's dream.
Then the King, for so he thought of the tall man, spoke--
"You have done us a service, Islander. The Persian is at our back andfront, and there will be no escape for those who stay. Our allies aregoing home, for they do not share our vows. We of Lacedaemon wait inthe pass. If you go with the men of Corinth you will find a place ofsafety before noon. No doubt in the Euripus there is some boat to takeyou to your own land."
He spoke courteously, not in the rude Athenian way; and somehow thequietness of his voice and his glittering eyes roused wild longings inAtta's heart. His island pride was face to face with a greater-greaterthan he had ever dreamed of.
"Bid yon cooks give me some broth," he said gruffly. "I am faint.After I have eaten I will speak with you."
He was given food, and as he ate he thought. He was on trial beforethese men of Lacedaemon. More, the old faith of the islands, the prideof the first masters, was at stake in his hands. He had boasted thathe and his kind were the last of the men; now these Hellenes ofLacedaemon were preparing a great deed, and they deemed him unworthy toshare in it. They offered him safety. Could he br
ook the insult? Hehad forgotten that the cause of the Persian was his; that the Helleneswere the foes of his race. He saw only that the last test of manhoodwas preparing and the manhood in him rose to greet the trial. An oddwild ecstasy surged in his veins. It was not the lust of battle, forhe had no love of slaying, or hate for the Persian, for he was hisfriend. It was the sheer joy of proving that the Lemnian stock had astarker pride than these men of Lacedamon. They would die for theirfatherland, and their vows; but he, for a whim, a scruple, a delicacyof honour. His mind was so clear that no other course occurred to him.There was only one way for a man. He, too, would be dying for hisfatherland, for through him the island race would be ennobled in theeyes of gods and men.
Troops were filing fast to the east--Thebans, Corinthians. "Timeflies, Islander," said the King's voice. "The hours of safety areslipping past." Atta looked up carelessly. "I will stay," he said."God's curse on all Hellenes! Little I care for your quarrels. It isnothing to me if your Hellas is under the heels of the East. But Icare much for brave men. It shall never be said that a man of Lemnos,a son of the old race, fell back when Death threatened. I stay withyou, men of Lacedaemon."
The King's eyes glittered; they seemed to peer into his heart.
"It appears they breed men in the islands," he said. "But you err.Death does not threaten. Death awaits us.
"It is all one," said Atta. "But I crave a boon. Let me fight my lastfight by your side. I am of older stock than you, and a king in my owncountry. I would strike my last blow among kings."
There was an hour of respite before battle was joined, and Atta spentit by the edge of the sea. He had been given arms, and in girdinghimself for the fight he had found Apollo's offering in his breastfold.He was done with the gods of the Hellenes. His offering should go tothe gods of his own people. So, calling upon Poseidon, he flung thelittle gold cup far out to sea. It flashed in the sunlight, and thensank in the soft green tides so noiselessly that it seemed as if thehand of the Sea-god had been stretched to take it. "Hail, Poseidon!"the Lemnian cried. "I am bound this day for the Ferryman. To you onlyI make prayer, and to the little Hermes of Larisa. Be kind to my kinwhen they travel the sea, and keep them islanders and seafarers forever. Hail and farewell, God of my own folk!"
Then, while the little waves lapped on the white sand, Atta made asong. He was thinking of the homestead far up in the green downs,looking over to the snows of Samothrace. At this hour in the morningthere would be a tinkle of sheep-bells as the flocks went down to thelow pastures. Cool wind would be blowing, and the noise of the surfbelow the cliffs would come faint to the ear. In the hall the maidsmould be spinning, while their dark-haired mistress would be castingswift glances to the doorway, lest it might be filled any moment by theform of her returning lord. Outside in the chequered sunlight of theorchard the child would be playing with his nurse, crooning in childishsyllables the chanty his father had taught him. And at the thought ofhis home a great passion welled up in Atta's heart. It was not regret,but joy and pride and aching love. In his antique island creed thedeath he was awaiting was not other than a bridal. He was dying forthe things he loved, and by his death they would be blessed eternally.He would not have long to wait before bright eyes came to greet him inthe House of Shadows.
So Atta made the Song of Atta, and sang it then, and later in the pressof battle. It was a simple song, like the lays of seafarers. It putinto rough verse the thought which cheers the heart of alladventurers--nay, which makes adventure possible for those who havemuch to leave. It spoke of the shining pathway of the sea which is theGreat Uniter. A man may lie dead in Pontus or beyond the Pillars ofHerakles, but if he dies on the shore there is nothing between him andhis fatherland. It spoke of a battle all the long dark night in astrange place--a place of marshes and black cliffs and shadowy terrors.
"In the dawn the sweet light comes," said the song, "and the salt windsand the tides will bear me home..."
When in the evening the Persians took toll of the dead, they found oneman who puzzled them. He lay among the tall Lacedaemonians on the verylip of the sea, and around him were swathes of their countrymen. Itlooked as if he had been fighting his way to the water, and had beenovertaken by death as his feet reached the edge. Nowhere in the passdid the dead lie so thick, and yet he was no Hellene. He was torn likea deer that the dogs have worried, but the little left of his garmentsand his features spoke of Eastern race. The survivors could tellnothing except that he had fought like a god and had been singing allthe while.
The matter came to the ear of the Great King who was sore enough at theissue of the day. That one of his men had performed feats of valeurbeyond the Hellenes was a pleasant tale to tell. And so his captainsreported it. Accordingly when the fleet from Artemision arrived nextmorning, and all but a few score Persians were shovelled into holes,that the Hellenes might seem to have been conquered by a lesser force,Atta's body was laid out with pomp in the midst of the Lacedaemonians.And the seamen rubbed their eyes and thanked their strange gods thatone man of the East had been found to match those terrible warriorswhose name was a nightmare. Further, the Great King gave orders thatthe body of Atta should be embalmed and carried with the army, and thathis name and kin should be sought out and duly honoured. This latterwas a task too hard for the staff, and no more was heard of it tillmonths later, when the King, in full flight after Salamis, bethoughthim of the one man who had not played him false. Finding that hislieutenants had nothing to tell him, he eased five of them of theirheads.
As it happened, the deed was not quite forgotten. An islander, aLesbian and a cautious man, had fought at Thermopylae in the Persianranks, and had heard Atta's singing and seen how he fell. Longafterwards some errand took this man to Lemnos, and in the evening,speaking with the Elders, he told his tale and repeated something ofthe song. There was that in the words which gave the Lemnians a clue,the mention, I think, of the olive-wood Hermes and the snows ofSamothrace. So Atta came to great honour among his own people, and hismemory and his words were handed down to the generations. The songbecame a favourite island lay, and for centuries throughout the Aegeanseafaring men sang it when they turned their prows to wild seas. Nay,it travelled farther, for you will find part of it stolen by Euripidesand put in a chorus of the Andromache. There are echoes of it in someof the epigrams of the Anthology; and, though the old days have gone,the simple fisher-folk still sing snatches in their barbarous dialect.The Klephts used to make a catch of it at night round their fires inthe hills, and only the other day I met a man in Scyros who hadcollected a dozen variants, and was publishing them in a dull book onisland folklore.
In the centuries which followed the great fight, the sea fell away fromthe roots of the cliffs and left a mile of marshland. About fiftyyears ago a peasant, digging in a rice-field, found the cup which Attabad given to Poseidon. There was much talk about the discovery, andscholars debated hotly about its origin. To-day it is in the BerlinMuseum, and according to the new fashion in archaeology it is labelled"Minoan," and kept in the Cretan Section. But any one who lookscarefully will see behind the rim a neat little carving of a dolphin;and I happen to know that that was the private badge of Atta's house.