THE CRAFT OF ODYSSEUS
The stranger drew back the shaggy cap. Simonides and Themistocles saw a
young, well-formed man. With his thick beard and the flickering cabin
lamps it was impossible to discover more. The newcomer stood silent as if
awaiting remark from the others, and they in turn looked on him.
“Well,” spoke the admiral, at length, “who are you? Why are you here?”
“You do not know me?”
“Not in the least, and my memory is good. But your speech now is Attic,
not Doric as they told me.”
“It may well be Attic, I am Athenian born.”
“Athenian? And still to me a stranger? Ah! an instant. Your voice is
familiar. Where have I heard it before?”
“The last time,” rejoined the stranger, his tones rising, “it was a
certain night at Colonus. Democrates and Hermippus were with
you—likewise—”
Themistocles leaped back three steps.
“The sea gives up its dead. You are Glaucon son of—”
“Conon,” completed the fugitive, folding his arms calmly, but the admiral
was not so calm.
“Miserable youth! What harpy, what evil god has brought you hither? What
prevents that I give you over to the crew to crucify at the foremast?”
“Nothing hinders! nothing”—Glaucon’s voice mounted to shrillness—“save
that Athens and Hellas need all their sons this night.”
“A loyal son you have been!” darted Themistocles, his lips curling. “Where
did you escape the sea?”
“I was washed on Astypalæa.”
“Where have you been since?”
“In Sardis.”
“Who protected you there?”
“Mardonius.”
“Did the Persians treat you so shabbily that you were glad to desert
them?”
“They loaded me with riches and honour. Xerxes showered me with benefits.”
“And you accompanied their army to Hellas? You went with the other Greek
renegades—the sons of Hippias and the rest?”
Glaucon’s brow grew very red, but he met Themistocles’s arrowlike gaze.
“I did—and yet—”
“Ah, yes—the ‘yet,’ ” observed Themistocles, sarcastically. “I had
expected it. Well, I can imagine many motives for coming,—to betray our
hopes to the Persians, or even because Athena has put some contrite
manhood in your heart. You know, of course, that the resolution we passed
recalling the exiles did not extend pardon to traitors.”
“I know it.”
Themistocles flung himself into a chair. The admiral was in a rare
condition for him,—truly at a loss to divine the best word and question.
“Sit also, Simonides,” his order, “and you, once Alcmæonid and now outlaw,
tell why, after these confessions, I should believe any other part of your
story?”
“I do not ask you to believe,”—Glaucon stood like a statue,—“I shall not
blame you if you do the worst,—yet you shall hear—”
The admiral made an impatient gesture, commanding “Begin,” and the
fugitive poured out his tale. All the voyage from Phaleron he had been
nerving himself for this ordeal; his composure did not desert now. He
related lucidly, briefly, how the fates had dealt with him since he fled
Colonus. Only when he told of his abiding with Leonidas Themistocles’s
gaze grew sharper.
“Tell that again. Be careful. I am very good at detecting lies.”
Glaucon repeated unfalteringly.
“What proof that you were with Leonidas?”
“None but my word. Euboulus of Corinth and the Spartans alone knew my
name. They are dead.”
“Humph! And you expect me to accept the boast of a traitor with a price
upon his head?”
“You said you were good at detecting lies.”
Themistocles’s head went down between his hands; at last he lifted it and
gazed the deserter in the face.
“Now, son of Conon, do you still persist that you are innocent? Do you
repeat those oaths you swore at Colonus?”
“All. I did not write that letter.”
“Who did, then?”
“A malignant god, I said. I will say it again.”
Themistocles shook his head.
“Gods take human agencies to ruin a man in these days, even Hermes the
Trickster. Again I say, who wrote that letter?”
“Athena knows.”
“And unfortunately her Ladyship the Goddess will not tell,” cried the
admiral, blasphemously. “Let us fall back on easier questions. Did I write
it?”
“Absurd.”
“Did Democrates?”
“Absurd again, still—”
“Do you not see, dearest outlaw,” said Themistocles, mildly, “until you
can lay that letter on some other man’s shoulders, I cannot answer, ‘I
believe you’?”
“I did not ask that. I have a simpler request. Will you let me serve
Hellas?”
“How do I know you are not a spy sent from Mardonius?”
“Because too many deserters and talebearers are flying to Xerxes now to
require that I thrust my head in the Hydra’s jaws. You know surely that.”
Themistocles raised his eyebrows.
“There’s truth said there, Simonides. What do you think?” The last
question was to the poet.
“That this Glaucon, whatever his guilt a year ago, comes to-night in good
faith.”
“_Euge!_ that’s easily said. But what if he betrays us again?”
“If I understand aright,” spoke Simonides, shrewdly, “our case is such
there’s little left worth betraying.”
“Not badly put,”—again Themistocles pressed his forehead, while Glaucon
stood as passive as hard marble. Then the admiral suddenly began to rain
questions like an arrow volley.
“You come from the king’s camp?”
“Yes.”
“And have heard the plans of battle?”
“I was not at the council, but nothing is concealed. The Persians are too
confident.”
“Of course. How do their ships lie?”
“Crowded around the havens of Athens. The vassal Ionians have their ships
on the left. The Phœnicians, Xerxes’s chief hope, lie on the right, but on
the extreme right anchor the Egyptians.”
“How do you know this?”
“From the camp-followers’ talk. Then, too, I rowed by the whole armada
while on my way to Salamis. I have eyes. The moon was shining. I was not
mistaken.”
“Do you know where rides the trireme of Ariabignes, Xerxes’s
admiral-in-chief?”
“Off the entrance to Peiræus. It is easy to find her. She is covered with
lights.”
“Ah! and the Egyptian squadron is on the extreme right and closest to
Salamis?”
“Very close.”
“If they went up the coast as far as the promontory on Mt. Ægaleos, the
strait toward Eleusis would be closed?”
“Certainly.”
“And on the south the way is already blocked by the Ionians.”
“I had trouble in passing even in my skiff.”
More questions, Glaucon not knowing whither they all were drifting.
Without warning Themistocles uprose and smote his thigh.
“So you are anxious to serve Hellas?”
“Have I not said it?”
“Dare you die for her?”
“I made the choice once with Leonidas.”
“Dare you do a thing which, if it slip, may give you into the hands of the
Barbarians to be torn by wild horses or of the Greeks to be crucified?”
“But it shall not slip!”
“_Euge!_ that is a noble answer. Now let us come.”
“Whither?”
“To Eurybiades’s flag-ship. Then I can know whether you must risk the
deed.”
Themistocles touched a bronze gong; a marine adjutant entered.
“My pinnace,” ordered the admiral. As the man went out, Themistocles took
a long himation from the locker and wrapped it around the newcomer.
“Since even Simonides and I did not recognize you in your long beard, I
doubt if you are in danger of detection to-night. But remember your name
is Critias. You can dye your hair if you come safe back from this
adventure. Have you eaten?”
“Who has hunger now?”
Themistocles laughed.
“So say all of us. But if the gifts of Demeter cannot strengthen, it is
not so with those of Dionysus. Drink.”
He took from a hook a leathern bottle and poured out a hornful of hot
Chian. Glaucon did not refuse. After he had finished the admiral did
likewise. Then Glaucon in turn asked questions.
“Where is my wife?”
“In the town of Salamis, with her father; do you know she has borne—”
“A son. Are both well?”
“Well. The child is fair as the son of Leto.”
They could see the light flash out of the eyes of the outlaw. He turned
toward the statue and stretched out his hand.
“O Aphrodite, I bless thee!” Then again to the admiral, “And Hermione is
not yet given to Democrates in marriage?” The words came swiftly.
“Not yet. Hermippus desires it. Hermione resists. She calls Democrates
your destroyer.”
Glaucon turned away his face that they might not behold it.
“The god has not yet forgotten mercy,” Simonides thought he heard him say.
“The pinnace is waiting, _kyrie_,” announced the orderly from the
companionway.
“Let the deserter’s skiff be towed behind,” ordered Themistocles, once on
deck, “and let Sicinnus also go with me.”
The keen-eyed Asiatic took his place with Themistocles and Glaucon in the
stern. The sturdy boatmen sent the pinnace dancing. All through the brief
voyage the admiral was at whispers with Sicinnus. As they reached the
Spartan flag-ship, half a score of pinnaces trailing behind told how the
Peloponnesian admirals were already aboard clamouring at Eurybiades for
orders to fly. From the ports of the stern-cabin the glare of many lamps
spread wavering bars of light across the water. Voices came, upraised in
jarring debate. The marine guard saluted with his spear as Themistocles
went up the ladder. Leaving his companions on deck, the admiral hastened
below. An instant later he was back and beckoned the Asiatic and the
outlaw to the ship’s rail.
“Take Sicinnus to the Persian high admiral,” was his ominous whisper, “and
fail not,—fail not, for I say to you except the god prosper you now, not
all Olympus can save our Hellas to-morrow.”
Not another word as he turned again to the cabin. The pinnace crew had
brought the skiff alongside, Sicinnus entered it, Glaucon took the oars,
pulled out a little, as if back to the _Nausicaä_, then sent the head of
the skiff around, pointing across the strait, toward the havens of Athens.
Sicinnus sat in silence, but Glaucon guessed the errand. The wind was
rising and bringing clouds. This would hide the moon and lessen the
danger. But above all things speed was needful. The athlete put his
strength upon the oars till the heavy skiff shot across the black void of
the water.
* * * * * * *
It was little short of midnight when Glaucon swung the skiff away from the
tall trireme of Ariabignes, the Barbarian’s admiral. The deed was done. He
had sat in the bobbing boat while Sicinnus had been above with the Persian
chiefs. Officers who had exchanged the wine-cup with Glaucon in the days
when he stood at Xerxes’s side passed through the glare of the battle
lanterns swaying above the rail. The Athenian had gripped at the dagger in
his belt as he watched them. Better in the instant of discovery to slay
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.