Part 32 (1/2)
”Your tidings?” demanded Xerxes, sharply.
”Be gracious, Fountain of Mercy,”-the captain evidently disliked his mission,-”I am sent from the van. We came to a place where the mountains thrust down upon the sea and leave but a narrow road by the ocean. Your slaves found certain h.e.l.lenes, rebels against your benignant government, holding a wall and barring all pa.s.sage to your army.”
”And did you not forthwith seize these impudent wretches and drag them hither to be judged by me?”
”Compa.s.sion, Omnipotence,”-the messenger trembled,-”they seemed st.u.r.dy, well-armed rogues, and the way was narrow and steep where a score can face a thousand. Therefore, your slave came straight with his tidings to the ever gracious king.”
”Dog! Coward!” Xerxes plucked the whip from the charioteer's hand and lashed it over the wretch's shoulders. ”By the _fravas.h.i.+_, the soul of Darius my father, no man shall bring so foul a word to me and live!”
”Compa.s.sion, Omnipotence, compa.s.sion!” groaned the man, writhing like a worm. Already the master-of-punishments was approaching to cover his face with a towel, preparatory to the bow-string, but the royal anger spent itself just enough to avert a tragedy.
”Your life is forfeit, but I am all too merciful! Take then three hundred stripes on the soles of your feet and live to be braver in the future.”
”A thousand blessings on your benignity,” cried the captain, as they led him away, ”I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet deigns to notice my existence even to recompense my shortcomings.”
”Off,” ordered the bristling monarch, ”or you die the death yet. And do you, Mardonius, take Prexaspes, who somewhat knows this country, spur forward, and discover who are the madmen thus earning their destruction.”
The command was obeyed. Glaucon galloped beside the Prince, overtaking the marching army, until as they cantered into the little mud-walled city of Heraclea a second messenger from the van met them with further details.
”The pa.s.s is held by seven thousand Grecian men-at-arms. There are no Athenians. There are three hundred come from Sparta.”
”And their chief?” asked Glaucon, leaning eagerly.
”Is Leonidas of Lacedaemon.”
”Then, O Mardonius,” spoke the Athenian, with a throb in his voice not there an hour ago. ”There will be battle.”
So, whether wise men or mad, the h.e.l.lenes were not to lay down their arms without one struggle, and Glaucon knew not whether to be sorry or to be proud.
CHAPTER XX
THERMOPYLae
A rugged mountain, an inaccessible mora.s.s, and beyond that mora.s.s the sea: the mountain thrusting so close upon the mora.s.s as barely to leave s.p.a.ce for a narrow wagon road. This was the western gate of Thermopylae. Behind the narrow defile the mountain and swamp-land drew asunder; in the still scanty opening hot springs gushed forth, sacred to Heracles, then again on the eastern side Mt. ta and the impenetrable swamp drew together, forming the second of the ”Hot Gates,”-the gates which Xerxes must unlock if he would continue his march to Athens.
The Great King's couriers reported that the stubborn h.e.l.lenes had cast a wall across the entrance, and that so far from showing terror at the advent of majesty, were carelessly diverting themselves by athletic games, and by combing and adorning their hair, a fact which the ”Lord Prexaspes”
at least comprehended to mean that Leonidas and his Spartans were preparing for desperate battle. Nevertheless, it was hard to persuade the king that at last he confronted men who would resist him to his face.
Glaucon said it. Demaratus, the outlawed Spartan, said it. Xerxes, however, remained angry and incredulous. Four long days he and his army sat before the pa.s.s, ”because,” announced his couriers, ”he wishes in his benignity to give these madmen a chance to flee away and shun destruction;” ”because,” spoke those nearest to Mardonius, the brain of the army, ”there is hot fighting ahead, and the general is resolved to bring up the picked troops in the rear before risking a battle.”
Then on the fifth day either Xerxes's patience was exhausted or Mardonius felt ready. Strong regiments of Median infantry were ordered to charge Leonidas's position, Xerxes not failing to command that they slay as few of the wretches as possible, but drag them prisoners before his outraged presence.
A n.o.ble charge. A terrible repulse. For the first time those Asiatics who had forgotten Marathon discovered the overwhelming superiority that the sheathing of heavy armour gave the Greek hoplites over the lighter armed Median spearmen. The short lances and wooden targets of the attackers were pitifully futile against the long spears and brazen s.h.i.+elds of the h.e.l.lenes. In the narrow pa.s.s the vast numbers of Barbarians went for nothing. They could not use their archers, they could not charge with their magnificent cavalry. The dead lay in heaps. The Medes attacked again and again. At last an end came to their courage. The captains laid the lash over their mutinous troops. The men bore the whips in sullen silence.
They would not charge again upon those devouring spears.
White with anger, Xerxes turned to Hydarnes and his ”Immortals,” the infantry of the Life Guard. The general needed no second bidding. The charge was driven home with magnificent spirit. But what the va.s.sal Medes could not accomplish, neither could the lordly Persians. The repulse was b.l.o.o.d.y. If once Leonidas's line broke and the Persians rushed on with howls of triumph, it was only to see the h.e.l.lenes' files close in a twinkling and return to the onset with their foes in confusion. Hydarnes led back his men at last. The king sat on the ivory throne just out of arrow shot, watching the ebb and flow of the battle. Hydarnes approached and prostrated himself.
”Omnipotence, I the least of your slaves put my life at your bidding.
Command that I forfeit my head, but my men can do no more. I have lost hundreds. The pa.s.s is not to be stormed.”