Part 36 (1/2)

Xerxes was victorious. The gate of h.e.l.las was unlocked. The mountain wall of ta would hinder him no more. But the triumph had been bought with a price which made Mardonius and every other general in the king's host shake his head.

”Lord,” reported Hystaspes, commander of the Scythians, ”one man in every seven of my band is slain, and those the bravest.”

”Lord,” spoke Artabazus, who led the Parthians, ”my men swear the h.e.l.lenes were possessed by _daevas_. They dare not approach even their dead bodies.”

”Lord,” asked Hydarnes, ”will it please your Eternity to appoint five other officers in the Life Guard, for of my ten lieutenants over the Immortals five are slain?”

But the heaviest news no man save Mardonius dared to bring to the king.

”May it please your Omnipotence,” spoke the bow-bearer, ”to order the funeral pyres of cedar and precious oils to be prepared for your brothers Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, and command the Magians to offer prayers for the repose of their _fravas.h.i.+s_ in Garonmana the Blessed, for it pleased Mazda the Great they should fall before the h.e.l.lenes.”

Xerxes waved his hand in a.s.sent. It was hard to be the ”Lord of the World,” and be troubled by such little things as the deaths of a few thousand servants, or even of two of his numerous half-brethren, hard at least on a day like this when he had seen his desire over his enemies.

”They shall be well avenged,” he announced with kingly dignity, then smiled with satisfaction when they brought him the s.h.i.+eld and helmet of Leonidas, the madman, who had dared to contemn his power. But all the generals who stood by were grim and sad. One more such victory would bring the army close to destruction.

Xerxes's happiness, however, was not to be clouded. From childish fears he had pa.s.sed to childish exultation.

”Have you found the body also of this crazed Spartan?” he inquired of the cavalry officer who had brought the trophies.

”As you say, Omnipotence,” rejoined the captain, bowing in the saddle.

”Good, then. Let the head be struck off and the trunk fastened on a cross that all may see it. And you, Mardonius,” addressing the bow-bearer, ”ride back to the hillock where these madmen made their last stand. If you discover among the corpses any who yet breathe, bring them hither to me, that they may learn the futility of resisting my might.”

The bow-bearer shrugged his shoulders. He loved a fair battle and fair treatment of valiant foes. The dishonouring of the corpse of Leonidas was displeasing to more than one high-minded Aryan n.o.bleman. But the king had spoken, and was to be obeyed. Mardonius rode back to the hillock at the mouth of the pa.s.s, where the h.e.l.lenes had retired-after their spears were broken and they could resist only with swords, stones, or naked hands-for the final death grip.

The slain Barbarians lay in heaps. The Greeks had been crushed at the end, not in close strife, but by showers of arrows. Mardonius dismounted and went with a few followers among the dead. Plunderers were already at their harpy work of stripping the slain. The bow-bearer chased them angrily away. He oversaw the task which his attendants performed as quickly as possible. Their toil was not quite fruitless. Three or four Thespians were still breathing, a few more of the helots who had attended Leonidas's Spartans, but not one of the three hundred but seemed dead, and that too with many wounds.

Snofru, Mardonius's Egyptian body-servant, rose from the ghastly work and grinned with his ivories at his master.

”All the rest are slain, Excellency.”

”You have not searched that pile yonder.”

Snofru and his helpers resumed their toil. Presently the Egyptian dragged from a b.l.o.o.d.y heap a body, and raised a yell. ”Another one-he breathes!”

”There's life in him. He shall not be left to the crows. Take him forth and lay him with the others that are living.”

It was not easy to roll the three corpses from their feebly stirring comrade. When this was done, the stricken man was still encased in his cuira.s.s and helmet. They saw only that his hands were slim and white.

”With care,” ordered the humane bow-bearer, ”he is a young man. I heard Leonidas took only older men on his desperate venture. Here, rascals, do you not see he is smothered in that helmet? Lift him up, unbuckle the cuira.s.s. By Mithra, he has a strong and n.o.ble form! Now the helmet-uncover the face.”

But as the Egyptian did so, his master uttered a shout of mingled wonderment and terror.

”Glaucon-Prexaspes, and in Spartan armour!”

What had befallen Glaucon was in no wise miraculous. He had borne his part in the battle until the h.e.l.lenes fell back to the fatal hillock. Then in one of the fierce onsets which the Barbarians attempted before they had recourse to the simpler and less glorious method of crus.h.i.+ng their foes by arrow fire, a Babylonian's war club had dashed upon his helmet. The stout bronze had saved him from wound, but under the stroke strength and consciousness had left him in a flash. The moment after he fell, the soldier beside him had perished by a javelin, and falling above the Athenian made his body a ghastly s.h.i.+eld against the surge and trampling of the battle. Glaucon lay scathless but senseless through the final catastrophe. Now consciousness was returning, but he would have died of suffocation save for Snofru's timely aid.

It was well for the Athenian that Mardonius was a man of ready devices. He had not seen Glaucon at his familiar post beside the king, but had presumed the h.e.l.lene had remained at the tents with the women, unwilling to watch the destruction of his people. In the rush and roar of the battle the messenger Artazostra had sent her husband telling of ”Prexaspes's”

flight had never reached him. But Mardonius could divine what had happened. The swallow must fly south in the autumn. The Athenian had returned to his own. The bow-bearer's wrath at his protege's desertion was overmastered by the consuming fear that tidings of Prexaspes's disloyalty would get to the king. Xerxes's wrath would be boundless. Had he not proffered his new subject all the good things of his empire? And to be rewarded thus! Glaucon's recompense would be to be sawn asunder or flung into a serpent's cage.