"You have done us a service, Islander. The Persian is at our back and
front, and there will be no escape for those who stay. Our allies are
going home, for they do not share our vows. We of Lacedaemon wait in
the pass. If you go with the men of Corinth you will find a place of
safety before noon. No doubt in the Euripus there is some boat to take
you to your own land."
He spoke courteously, not in the rude Athenian way; and somehow the
quietness of his voice and his glittering eyes roused wild longings in
Atta's heart. His island pride was face to face with a greater-greater
than 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 before
these men of Lacedaemon. More, the old faith of the islands, the pride
of the first masters, was at stake in his hands. He had boasted that
he and his kind were the last of the men; now these Hellenes of
Lacedaemon were preparing a great deed, and they deemed him unworthy to
share in it. They offered him safety. Could he brook the insult? He
had forgotten that the cause of the Persian was his; that the Hellenes
were the foes of his race. He saw only that the last test of manhood
was preparing and the manhood in him rose to greet the trial. An odd
wild ecstasy surged in his veins. It was not the lust of battle, for
he had no love of slaying, or hate for the Persian, for he was his
friend. It was the sheer joy of proving that the Lemnian stock had a
starker pride than these men of Lacedamon. They would die for their
fatherland, and their vows; but he, for a whim, a scruple, a delicacy
of 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 his
fatherland, for through him the island race would be ennobled in the
eyes of gods and men.
Troops were filing fast to the east--Thebans, Corinthians. "Time
flies, Islander," said the King's voice. "The hours of safety are
slipping past." Atta looked up carelessly. "I will stay," he said.
"God's curse on all Hellenes! Little I care for your quarrels. It is
nothing to me if your Hellas is under the heels of the East. But I
care 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 with
you, 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 last
fight by your side. I am of older stock than you, and a king in my own
country. I would strike my last blow among kings."
There was an hour of respite before battle was joined, and Atta spent
it by the edge of the sea. He had been given arms, and in girding
himself 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 to
the gods of his own people. So, calling upon Poseidon, he flung the
little gold cup far out to sea. It flashed in the sunlight, and then
sank in the soft green tides so noiselessly that it seemed as if the
hand 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 only
I make prayer, and to the little Hermes of Larisa. Be kind to my kin
when they travel the sea, and keep them islanders and seafarers for
ever. Hail and farewell, God of my own folk!"
Then, while the little waves lapped on the white sand, Atta made a
song. He was thinking of the homestead far up in the green downs,
looking over to the snows of Samothrace. At this hour in the morning
there would be a tinkle of sheep-bells as the flocks went down to the
low pastures. Cool wind would be blowing, and the noise of the surf
below the cliffs would come faint to the ear. In the hall the maids
mould be spinning, while their dark-haired mistress would be casting
swift glances to the doorway, lest it might be filled any moment by the
form of her returning lord. Outside in the chequered sunlight of the
orchard the child would be playing with his nurse, crooning in childish
syllables the chanty his father had taught him. And at the thought of
his 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 the
death he was awaiting was not other than a bridal. He was dying for
the 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 in
the House of Shadows.
So Atta made the Song of Atta, and sang it then, and later in the press
of battle. It was a simple song, like the lays of seafarers. It put
into rough verse the thought which cheers the heart of all
adventurers--nay, which makes adventure possible for those who have
much to leave. It spoke of the shining pathway of the sea which is the
Great Uniter. A man may lie dead in Pontus or beyond the Pillars of
Herakles, but if he dies on the shore there is nothing between him and
his fatherland. It spoke of a battle all the long dark night in a
strange place--a place of marshes and black cliffs and shadowy terrors.
"In the dawn the sweet light comes," said the song, "and the salt winds
and the tides will bear me home..."
When in the evening the Persians took toll of the dead, they found one
man who puzzled them. He lay among the tall Lacedaemonians on the very
lip of the sea, and around him were swathes of their countrymen. It
looked as if he had been fighting his way to the water, and had been
overtaken by death as his feet reached the edge. Nowhere in the pass
did the dead lie so thick, and yet he was no Hellene. He was torn like
a deer that the dogs have worried, but the little left of his garments
and his features spoke of Eastern race. The survivors could tell
nothing except that he had fought like a god and had been singing all
the while.
The matter came to the ear of the Great King who was sore enough at the
issue of the day. That one of his men had performed feats of valeur
beyond the Hellenes was a pleasant tale to tell. And so his captains
reported it. Accordingly when the fleet from Artemision arrived next
morning, 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 that
one man of the East had been found to match those terrible warriors
whose name was a nightmare. Further, the Great King gave orders that
the body of Atta should be embalmed and carried with the army, and that
his name and kin should be sought out and duly honoured. This latter
was a task too hard for the staff, and no more was heard of it till
months later, when the King, in full flight after Salamis, bethought
him of the one man who had not played him false. Finding that his
lieutenants had nothing to tell him, he eased five of them of their
heads.
As it happened, the deed was not quite forgotten. An islander, a
Lesbian and a cautious man, had fought at Thermopylae in the Persian
ranks, and had heard Atta's singing and seen how he fell. Long
afterwards some errand took this man to Lemnos, and in the evening,
speaking with the Elders, he told his tale and repeated something of
the 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 of
Samothrace. So Atta came to great honour among his own people, and his
memory and his words were handed down to the generations. The song
became a favourite island lay, and for centuries throughout the Aegean
seafaring men sang it when they turned their prows to wild seas. Nay,
it travelled farther, for you will find part of it stolen by Euripides
and put in a chorus of the Andromache. There are echoes of it in some
of 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 in
the hills, and only the other day I met a man in Scyros who had
collected a dozen variants, and was publishing them in a dull book on
island folklore.
In the centuries which followed the great fight, the sea fell away from
the roots of the cliffs and left a mile of marshland. About fifty
years ago a peasant, digging in a rice-field, found the cup which Atta
bad given to Poseidon. There was much talk about the discovery, and
scholars debated hotly about its origin. To-day it is in the Berlin
Museum, and according to the new fashion in archaeology it is labelled
"Minoan," and kept in the Cretan Section. But any one who looks
carefully 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.