SALAMIS
Sunrise. The _Nausicaä_ was ready. Ameinias the navarch walked the deck
above the stern-cabin with nervous strides. All that human forethought
could do to prepare the ship had long been done. The slim hull one hundred
and fifty feet long had been stripped of every superfluous rope and spar.
The masts had been lowered. On the cat-heads hung the anchors weighted
with stone to fend off an enemy, astern towed the pinnace ready to drag
alongside and break the force of the hostile ram. The heavy-armed marines
stood with their long boarding spears, to lead an attack or cast off
grappling-irons. But the true weapon of the _Nausicaä_ was herself. To
send the three-toothed beak through a foeman’s side was the end of her
being. To meet the shock of collision two heavy cables had been bound
horizontally around the hull from stem to stern. The oarsmen,—the
_thranites_ of the upper tier, the _zygites_ of the middle, the
_thalamites_ of the lower,—one hundred and seventy swart, nervous-eyed
men, sat on their benches, and let their hands close tight upon those oars
which trailed now in the drifting water, but which soon and eagerly should
spring to life. At the belt of every oarsman dangled a sword, for
boarders’ work was more than likely. Thirty spare rowers rested
impatiently on the centre deck, ready to leap wherever needed. On the
forecastle commanded the _prōreus_, Ameinias’s lieutenant, and with him
the _keleustes_, the oar master who must give time on his sounding-board
for the rowing, and never fail,—not though the ships around reeled down to
watery grave. And finally on the poop by the captain stood the
“governor,”—knotted, grizzled, and keen,—the man whose touch upon the
heavy steering oars might give the _Nausicaä_ life or destruction when the
ships charged beak to beak.
“The trireme is ready, admiral,” reported Ameinias, as Themistocles came
up leisurely from the stern-cabin.
The son of Neocles threw back his helmet, that all might see his calm,
untroubled face. He wore a cuirass of silvered scale-armour over his
purple chiton. At his side walked a young man, whom the ship’s people
imagined the deserter of the preceding night, but he had drawn his helmet
close.
“This is Critias,” said Themistocles, briefly, to the navarch; “he is a
good caster. See that he has plenty of darts.”
“One of Themistocles’s secret agents,” muttered the captain to the
governor, “we should have guessed it.” And they all had other things to
think of than the whence and wherefore of this stranger.
It was a weary, nervous interval. Men had said everything, done
everything, hoped and feared everything. They were in no mood even to
invoke the gods. In desperation some jested riotously as they gripped the
oars on the benches,—demonstrations which the _prōreus_ quelled with a
loud “Silence in the ship.” The morning mist was breaking. A brisk wind
was coming with the sun. Clear and strong sang the Notus, the breeze of
the kindly south. It covered the blue bay with crisping whitecaps, it sent
the surf foaming up along the Attic shore across the strait. Themistocles
watched it all with silent eyes, but eyes that spoke of gladness. He knew
the waves would beat with full force on the Persian prows, and make their
swift movement difficult while the Greeks, taking the galloping surf
astern, would suffer little.
“Æolus fights for us. The first omen and a fair one.” The word ran in
whispers down the benches, and every soul on the trireme rejoiced.
How long did they sit thus? An æon? Would Eurybiades never draw out his
line of battle? Would Adeimantus prove craven at the end? Would treachery
undo Hellas to-day, as once before at Lade when the Ionian Greeks had
faced the Persian fleet in vain? Now as the vapour broke, men began to be
able to look about them, and be delivered from their own thoughts. The
shores of Salamis were alive,—old men, women, little children,—the
fugitives from Attica were crowding to the marge in thousands to watch the
deed that should decide their all. And many a bronze-cheeked oarsman arose
from his bench to wave farewell to the wife or father or mother, and sank
back again,—a clutching in his throat, a mist before his eyes, while his
grip upon the oar grew like to steel.
As the _Nausicaä_ rode at her place in the long line of ships spread up
and down the shore of Salamis, it was easy to detect forms if not faces on
the strand. And Glaucon, peering out from his helmet bars, saw Democrates
himself standing on the sands and beckoning to Themistocles. Then other
figures became clear to him out of the many, this one or that whom he had
loved and clasped hands with in the sunlit days gone by. And last of all
he saw those his gaze hungered for the most, Hermippus, Lysistra, and
another standing at their side all in white, and in her arms she bore
something he knew must be her child,—Hermione’s son, his son, born to the
lot of a free man of Athens or a slave of Xerxes according as his elders
played their part this day. Only a glimpse,—the throng of strangers opened
to disclose them closed again; Glaucon leaned on a capstan. All the
strength for the moment was gone out of him.
“You rowed and wrought too much last night, Critias,” spoke Themistocles,
who had eyes for everything. “To the cabin, Sicinnus, bring a cup of
Chian.”
“No wine, for Athena’s sake!” cried the outlaw, drawing himself together,
“it is passed. I am strong again.”
A great shout from the shores and the waiting fleet made him forget even
the sight of Hermione.
“They come! The Persians! The Persians!”
The fleet of the Barbarians was advancing from the havens of Athens.
* * * * * * *
The sun rose higher. He was far above Hymettus now, and shooting his
bright javelins over mainland, islands, and waters. With his rising the
southern breeze sang ever clearer, making the narrow channel betwixt
Salamis and Attica white, and tossing each trireme merrily. Not a cloud
hung upon Pentelicus, Hymettus, or the purple northern range of Parnes.
Over the desolate Acropolis hovered a thin mist,—smoke from the
smouldering temple, the sight of which made every Attic sailor blink hard
and think of the vengeance.
Yonder on the shore of the mainland the host of the Persian was moving:
horsemen in gilded panoply, Hydarnes’s spearmen in armour like suns. They
stood by myriads in glittering masses about a little spur of Mt. Ægaleos,
where a holy close of Heracles looked out upon the sea. To them were
coming more horsemen, chariots, litters, and across the strait drifted the
thunderous acclamation, “Victory to the king!” For here on the ivory
throne, with his mighty men, his captains, his harem, about him, the “Lord
of the World” would look down on the battle and see how his slaves could
fight.
Now the Barbarians began to move forth by sea. From the havens of Peiræus
and their anchorages along the shore swept their galleys,—Phœnician,
Cilician, Egyptian, and, sorrow of sorrows, Ionian—Greek arrayed against
Greek! Six hundred triremes and more they were, taller in poop and prow
than the Hellenes, and braver to look upon.
Each vied with each in the splendour of the scarlet, purple, and gold upon
stern and foreship. Their thousands of white oars moved like the onward
march of an army as they trampled down the foam. From the masts of their
many admirals flew innumerable gay signal-flags. The commands shouted
through trumpets in a dozen strange tongues—the shrill pipings of the oar
masters, the hoarse shouts of the rowers—went up to heaven in a clamorous
babel. “Swallows’ chatter,” cried the deriding Hellenes, but hearts were
beating quicker, breath was coming faster in many a breast by Salamis
then,—and no shame. For now was the hour of trial, the wrestle of Olympian
Zeus with Ahura-Mazda. Now would a mighty one speak from the heavens to
Hellas, and say to her “Die!” or “Be!”
The Barbarians’ armadas were forming. Their black beaks, all pointing
toward Salamis, stretched in two bristling lines from the islet of
Psyttaleia—whence the shields of the landing force glittered—to that
brighter glitter on the promontory by Ægaleos where sat the king. To
charge their array seemed charging a moving hedge of spears, impenetrable
in defence, invincible in attack. Slowly, rocked by the sea and rowing in
steady order, the armament approached Salamis. And still the Greek ships
lay spread out along the shore, each trireme swinging at the end of the
cable which moored her to the land, each mariner listening to the beatings
of his own heart and straining his eyes on one ship now—Eurybiades’s—which
rode at the centre of their line and far ahead.
All could read the order of battle at last as squadron lay against
squadron. On the west, under Xerxes’s own eye, the Athenians must charge
the serried Phœnicians, at the centre the Æginetans must face the
Cilicians, on the east Adeimantus and his fellows from Peloponnese must
make good against the vassal Ionians. But would the signal to row and
strike never come? Had some god numbed Eurybiades’s will? Was treachery
doing its darkest work? With men so highly wrought moments were precious.
The bow strung too long will lose power. And wherefore did Eurybiades
tarry?
Every soul in the _Nausicaä_ kept his curses soft, and waited—waited till
that trailing monster, the Persian fleet, had crept halfway from
Psyttaleia toward them, then up the shrouds of the Spartan admiral leaped
a flag. Eager hands drew it, yet it seemed mounting as a snail, till at
the masthead the clear wind blew it wide,—a plain red banner, but as it
spread hundreds of axes were hewing the cables that bound the triremes to
the shore, every Greek oar was biting the sea, the ships were leaping away
from Salamis. From the strand a shout went up, a prayer more than a cheer,
mothers, wives, little ones, calling it together:—
“Zeus prosper you!”
A roar from the fleet, the tearing of countless blades on the thole-pins
answered them. Eurybiades had spoken. There was no treason. All now was in
the hand of the god.
* * * * * * *
Across the strait they went, and the Barbarians seemed springing to meet
them. From the mainland a tumult of voices was rising, the myriads around
Xerxes encouraging their comrades by sea to play the man. No indecisive,
half-hearted battle should this be, as at Artemisium. Persian and Hellene
knew that. The keen Phœnicians, who had chafed at being kept from action
so long, sent their line of ships sweeping over the waves with furious
strokes. The grudges, the commercial rivalries between Greek and Sidonian,
were old. No Persian was hotter for Xerxes’s cause than his Phœnician
vassals that day.
And as they charged, the foemen’s lines seemed so dense, their ships so
tall, their power so vast, that involuntarily hesitancy came over the
Greeks. Their strokes slowed. The whole line lagged. Here an Æginetan
galley dropped behind, yonder a Corinthian navarch suffered his men to
back water. Even the _keleustes_ of the _Nausicaä_ slackened his beating
on the sounding-board. Eurybiades’s ship had drifted behind to the line of
her sisters, as in defiance a towering Sidonian sprang ahead of the
Barbarian line of battle, twenty trumpets from her poop and foreship
asking, “Dare you meet me?” The Greek line became almost stationary. Some
ships were backing water. It was a moment which, suffered to slip
unchecked, leads to irreparable disaster. Then like a god sprang
Themistocles upon the capstan on his poop. He had torn off his helmet. The
crews of scores of triremes saw him. His voice was like Stentor’s, the
herald whose call was strong as fifty common men.
In a lull amidst the howls of the Barbarians his call rang up and down the
flagging ships:—
“_O Sons of Hellas! save your land,_
_Your children save, your altars and your wives!_
_Now dare and do, for ye have staked your all!_”
“Now dare and do, for ye have staked your all!”
Navarch shouted it to navarch. The cry went up and down the line of the
Hellenes, “loud as when billows lash the beetling crags.” The trailing
oars beat again into the water, and even as the ships once more gained
way, Themistocles nodded to Ameinias, and he to the _keleustes_. The
master oarsman leaped from his seat and crashed his gavel down upon the
sounding-board.
“_Aru! Aru! Aru!_ Put it on, my men!”
The _Nausicaä_ answered with a leap. Men wrought at the oar butts, tugging
like mad, their backs toward the foe, conscious only that duty bade them
send the trireme across the waves as a stone whirls from the sling. Thus
the men, but Themistocles, on the poop, standing at the captain’s and
governor’s side, never took his gaze from the great Barbarian that leaped
defiantly to meet them.
“Can we risk the trick?” his swift question to Ameinias.
The captain nodded. “With this crew—yes.”
Two stadia, one stadium, half a stadium, a ship’s length, the triremes
were charging prow to prow, rushing on a common death, when Ameinias
clapped a whistle to his lips and blew shrilly. As one man every rower on
the port-side leaped to his feet and dragged his oar inward through its
row-hole. The deed was barely done ere the Sidonian was on them. They
heard the roaring water round her prow, the cracking of the whips as the
petty officers ran up and down the gangways urging on the panting cattle
at the oars. Then almost at the shock the governor touched his steering
oar. The _Nausicaä_ swerved. The prow of the Sidonian rushed past them. A
shower of darts pattered down on the deck of the Hellene, but a twinkling
later from the Barbarians arose a frightful cry. Right across her triple
oar bank, still in full speed, ploughed the Athenian. The Sidonian’s oars
were snapping like faggots. The luckless rowers were flung from their
benches in heaps. In less time than the telling every oar on the
Barbarian’s port-side had been put out of play. The _diekplous_, favourite
trick of the Grecian seamen, had never been done more fairly.
Now was Themistocles’s chance. He used it. There was no need for him to
give orders to the oar master. Automatically every rower on the port-tiers
of the _Nausicaä_ had run out his blade again. The governor sent the head
of the trireme around with a grim smile locked about his grizzled lips. It
was no woman’s task which lay before them. Exposing her whole broadside
lay the long Sidonian; she was helpless, striving vainly to crawl away
with her remaining oar banks. Her people were running to and fro, howling
to Baal, Astarte, Moloch, and all their other foul gods, and stretching
their hands for help to consorts too far away.
“_Aru! Aru! Aru!_” was the shout of the oar master; again the _Nausicaä_
answered with her leap. Straight across the narrow water she shot, the
firm hand of the governor never veering now. The stroke grew faster,
faster. Then with one instinct men dropped the oars, to trail in the
rushing water, and seized stanchions, beams, anything to brace themselves
for the shock. The crash which followed was heard on the mainland and on
Salamis. The side of the Phœnician was beaten in like an egg-shell. From
the _Nausicaä’s_ poop they saw her open hull reel over, saw the hundreds
of upturned, frantic faces, heard the howls of agony, saw the waves leap
into the gaping void.—
“Back water,” thundered Ameinias, “clear the vortex, she is going down!”
The _Nausicaä’s_ people staggered to the oars. So busy were they in
righting their own ship few saw the crowning horror. A moment more and a
few drifting spars, a few bobbing heads, were all that was left of the
Phœnician. The Ægean had swallowed her.
A shout was pealing from the ships of the Hellenes. “Zeus is with us!
Athena is with us!”
At the outset of the battle, when advantage tells the most, advantage had
been won. Themistocles’s deed had fused all the Greeks with hopeful
courage. Eurybiades was charging. Adeimantus was charging. Their ships and
all the rest went racing to meet the foe.
* * * * * * *
But the _Nausicaä_ had paid for her victory. In the shock of ramming the
triple-toothed beak on her prow had been wrenched away. In the _mêlée_ of
ships which had just begun, she must play her part robbed of her keenest
weapon. The sinking of the Barbarian had been met with cheers by the
Hellenes, by howls of revengeful rage by the host against them. Not
lightly were the Asiatics who fought beneath the eyes of the king to be
daunted. They came crowding up the strait in such masses that sheer
numbers hindered them, leaving no space for the play of the oars, much
less for fine manœuvre. Yet for an instant it seemed as if mere weight
would sweep the Hellenes back to Salamis. Then the lines of battle
dissolved into confused fragments. Captains singled out an opponent and
charged home desperately, unmindful how it fared elsewhere in the battle.
Here an Egyptian ran down a Eubœan, there a Sicyonian grappled a Cilician
and flung her boarders on to the foeman’s decks. To the onlookers the
scene could have meant naught save confusion. A hundred duels, a hundred
varying victories, but to which side the final glory would fall, who
knew?—perchance not even Zeus.
In the roaring _mêlée_ the _Nausicaä_ had for some moments moved almost
aimlessly, her men gathering breath and letting their unscathed comrades
pass. Then gradually the battle drifted round them also. A Cyprian, noting
they had lost their ram, strove to charge them bow to bow. The skill of
the governor avoided that disaster. They ran under the stem of a Tyrian,
and Glaucon proved he had not forgotten his skill when he sent his
javelins among the officers upon the poop. A second Sidonian swept down on
them, but grown wise by her consort’s destruction turned aside to lock
with an Æginetan galley. How the fight at large was going, who was
winning, who losing, Glaucon saw no more than any one else. An arrow
grazed his arm. He first learned it when he found his armour bloody. A
sling-stone smote the marine next to him on the forehead. The man dropped
without a groan. Glaucon flung the body overboard, almost by instinct.
Themistocles was everywhere, on the poop, on the foreship, among the
rowers’ benches, shouting, laughing, cheering, ordering, standing up
boldly where the arrows flew thickest, yet never hit. So for a while, till
out of the confusion of ships and wrecks came darting a trireme, loftier
than her peers. The railing on poop and prow was silver. The shields of
the javelin-men that crowded her high fighting decks were gilded. Ten
pennons whipped from her masts, and the cry of horns, tambours, and
kettledrums blended with the shoutings of her crew. A partially disabled
Hellene drifted across her path. She ran the luckless ship down in a
twinkling. Then her bow swung. She headed toward the _Nausicaä_.
“Do you know this ship?” asked Themistocles, at Glaucon’s side on the
poop.
“A Tyrian, the newest in their fleet, but her captain is the admiral
Ariamenes, Xerxes’s brother.”
“She is attacking us, Excellency,” called Ameinias, in his chief’s ear.
The din which covered the sea was beyond telling.
Themistocles measured the water with his eye.
“She will be alongside then in a moment,” was his answer, “and the beak is
gone?”
“Gone, and ten of our best rowers are dead.”
Themistocles drew down the helmet, covering his face.
“_Euge!_ Since the choice is to grapple or fly, we had better grapple.”
The governor shifted again the steering paddles. The head of the
_Nausicaä_ fell away toward her attacker, but no signal was given to
quicken the oars. The Barbarian, noting what her opponent did, but justly
fearing the handiness of the Greeks, slackened also. The two ships drifted
slowly together. Long before they closed in unfriendly contact the arrows
of the Phœnician pelted over the _Nausicaä_ like hail. Rowers fell as they
sat on the upper benches; on the poop the _prōreus_ lay with half his men.
Glaucon never counted how many missiles dinted his helmet and buckler. The
next instant the two ships were drifting without steerage-way. The
grappling-irons dashed down upon the Athenian, and simultaneously the
brown Phœnician boarders were scrambling like cats upon her decks.
“Swords, men!” called Themistocles, never less daunted than at the pinch,
“up and feed them with iron!”
Three times the Phœnicians poured as a flood over the _Nausicaä_. Three
times they were flung back with loss, but only to rage, call on their
gods, and return with tenfold fury. Glaucon had hurled one sheaf of
javelins, and tore loose another, eye and arm aiming, casting
mechanically. In the lulls he saw how wind and sea were sweeping the two
ships landward, until almost in arrow-shot of the rocky point where sat
Xerxes and his lords. He saw the king upon his ivory throne and all his
mighty men around him. He saw the scribes standing near with parchment and
papyrus, inscribing the names of this or that ship which did well or ill
in behalf of the lord of the Aryans. He saw the gaudy dresses of the
eunuchs, the litters, and from them peering forth the veiled women. Did
Artazostra think _now_ the Hellenes were mad fools to look her brother’s
power in the face? From the shores of Attica and of Salamis, where the
myriads rejoiced or wept as the scattered battle changed, the cries were
rising, falling, like the throb of a tragic chorus,—a chorus of Titans,
with the actors gods.
“Another charge!” shouted Ameinias, through the din, “meet them briskly,
lads!”
Once more the hoarse Semitic war-shout, the dark-faced Asiatics dropping
upon the decks, the whir of javelins, the scream of dying men, the clash
of steel on steel. A frantic charge, but stoutly met. Themistocles was in
the thickest _mêlée_. With his own spear he dashed two Tyrians overboard,
as they sprang upon the poop. The band that had leaped down among the oar
benches were hewn in pieces by the seamen. The remnant of the attackers
recoiled in howls of despair. On the Phœnician’s decks the Greeks saw the
officers laying the lash mercilessly across their men, but the
disheartened creatures did not stir. Now could be seen Ariamenes, the high
admiral himself, a giant warrior in his purple and gilded armour, going up
and down the poop, cursing, praying, threatening,—all in vain. The
_Nausicaä’s_ people rose and cheered madly.
“Enough! They have enough! Glory to Athens!”
But here Ameinias gripped Themistocles’s arm. The chief turned, and all
the Hellenes with him. The cheer died on their lips. A tall trireme was
bearing down on them in full charge even while the _Nausicaä_ drifted.
They were as helpless as the Sidonian they had sent to death. One groan
broke from the Athenians.
“Save, Athena! Save! It is Artemisia! The queen of Halicarnassus!”
The heavy trireme of the amazon princess was a magnificent sight as they
looked on her. Her oars flew in a flashing rhythm. The foam leaped in a
cataract over her ram. The sun made fire of the tossing weapons on her
prow. A yell of triumph rose from the Phœnicians. On the _Nausicaä_ men
dropped sword and spear, moaned, raved, and gazed wildly on Themistocles
as if he were a god possessing power to dash the death aside.
“To your places, men!” rang his shout, as he faced the foe unmoved, “and
die as Athenians!”
Then even while men glanced up at the sun to greet Helios for the last
time, there was a marvel. The threatening beak shot around. The trireme
flew past them, her oars leaping madly, her people too intent on escape
even to give a flight of javelins. And again the Athenians cheered.
“The _Perseus_! Cimon has saved us.”
Not three ships’ lengths behind the Halicarnassian raced the ship of the
son of Miltiades. They knew now why Artemisia had veered. Well she might;
had she struck the _Nausicaä_ down, her own broadside would have swung
defenceless to the fleet pursuer. The _Perseus_ sped past her consort at
full speed, Athenian cheering Athenian as she went.
“Need you help?” called Cimon, from his poop, as Themistocles waved his
sword.
“None, press on, smite the Barbarian! Athena is with us!”
“Athena is with us! Zeus is with us!”
The _Nausicaä’s_ crew were lifted from panic to mad enthusiasm. Still
above them towered the tall Phœnician, but they could have scaled Mt.
Caucasus at that instant.
“Onward! Up and after them,” rang Ameinias’s blast, “she is our own, we
will take her under the king’s own eye.”
The javelins and arrows were pelting from the Barbarian. The Athenians
mocked the shower as they leaped the void from bulwark to bulwark. Vainly
the Phœnicians strove to clear the grapples. Too firm! Their foes came on
to their decks with long leaps, or here and there ran deftly on projecting
spars, for what athlete of Hellas could not run the tight rope? In an
instant the long rowers’ deck of the Tyrian was won, and the attackers
cheered and blessed Athena. But this was only storming the first outpost.
Like castles forward and aft reared the prow and poop, whither the sullen
defenders retreated. Turning at bay, the Phœnicians swarmed back into the
waist, waiting no scourging from their officers. Now their proud admiral
himself plunged into the _mêlée_, laying about with a mighty sword worthy
of Ajax at Troy, showing he was a prince of the Aryans indeed. It took all
the steadiness of Ameinias and his stoutest men to stop the rush, and save
the Athenians in turn from being driven overboard. The rush was halted
finally, though this was mere respite before a fiercer breaking of the
storm. The two ships were drifting yet closer to the strand. Only the fear
of striking their own men kept the Persians around the king from clouding
the air with arrows. Glaucon saw the grandees near Xerxes’s throne
brandishing their swords. In imagination he saw the monarch leaping from
his throne in agony as at Thermopylæ.
“Back to the charge,” pealed Ariamenes’s summons to the Tyrians; “will you
be cowards and dogs beneath the very eyes of the king?”
The defenders answered with a second rush. Others again hurled darts from
the stern and foreship. Then out of the mælstrom of men and weapons came a
truce. Athenian and Tyrian drew back, whilst Themistocles and Ariamenes
were fighting blade to blade. Twice the giant Persian almost dashed the
Hellene down. Twice Themistocles recovered poise, and paid back stroke for
stroke. He had smitten the helmet from Ariamenes’s head and was swinging
for a master-blow when his foot slipped on the bloody plank. He staggered.
Before he could recover, the Persian had brought his own weapon up, and
flung his might into the downward stroke.
“The admiral—lost!” Athenians shuddered together, but with the groan shot
a javelin. Clear through the scales of the cuirass it tore, and into the
Persian’s shoulder,—Glaucon’s cast, never at the Isthmus truer with hand
or eye. The ponderous blade turned, grazed the Athenian’s corselet,
clattered on the deck. The Persian sprang back disarmed and powerless. At
sight thereof the Phœnicians flung down their swords. True Orientals, in
the fate of their chief they saw decreeing Destiny,—what use to resist it?
“Yield, my Lord, yield,” called Glaucon, in Persian, “the battle is
against you, and no fault of yours. Save the lives of your men.”
Ariamenes gave a toss of his princely head, and with his left hand plucked
the javelin from his shoulder.
“A prince of the Aryans knows how to die, but not how to yield,” he cast
back, and before the Athenians guessed his intent he sprang upon the
bulwark. There in the sight of his king he stood and bowed his head and
with his left arm made the sign of adoration.
“Seize him!” shouted Ameinias, divining his intent, but too late. The
Persian leaped into the water. In his heavy mail he sank like lead. The
wave closed over him, as he passed forever from the sight of man.
There was stillness on the Tyrian for a moment. A groan of helpless horror
was rising from the Barbarians on the shore. Then the Phœnicians fell upon
their knees, crying in their harsh tongue, “Quarter! Quarter!” and
embracing and kissing the feet of the victors. Thanks to the moment of
quietness given them, the Athenians’ blood had cooled a little; they
gathered up the weapons cast upon the deck; there was no massacre.
Themistocles mounted the poop of the captured flag-ship, and Glaucon with
him. The wind was wafting them again into the centre of the channel. For
the first time for many moments they were able to look about them, to ask,
“How goes the battle?” Not the petty duel they had fought, but the great
battle of battles which was the life-struggle of Hellas. And behold, as
they gazed they pressed their hands upon their eyes and looked and looked
again, for the thing they saw seemed overgood for truth. Where the great
Barbarian line had been pushing up the strait, were only bands of
scattered ships, and most of these turning their beaks from Salamis. The
waves were strewn with wrecks, and nigh every one a Persian. And right,
left, and centre the triumphant Hellenes were pressing home, ramming,
grappling, capturing. Even whilst the fight raged, pinnaces were thrusting
out from Salamis—Aristeides’s deed, they later heard—crowded with martial
graybeards who could not look idly on while their sons fought on the
ships, and who speedily landed on Psyttaleia to massacre the luckless
Persians there stationed. The cheers of the Barbarians were ended now;
from the shores came only a beastlike howling which drowned the pæans of
the victors. As the _Nausicaä’s_ people looked, they could see the once
haughty Phœnicians and Cilicians thrusting back against the land, and the
thousands of footmen running down upon the shore to drag the shattered
triremes up and away from the triumphant Hellenes.
The _Nausicaä’s_ people in wondering gaze stood there for a long time as
if transfixed, forgetful how their ship and its prize drifted, forgetful
of weariness, forgetful of wounds. Then as one man they turned to the poop
of the captured Tyrian, and to Themistocles. _He_ had done it—their
admiral. He had saved Hellas under the eyes of the vaunting demigod who
thought to be her destroyer. They called to Themistocles, they worshipped
as if he were the Olympian himself.