PHRADATES MAKES A WAGER
Phradates stood on the broad stone wharf in the Sidonian Harbor of Tyre, amid a group of young men whose costly garments and jewelled fingers showed them to belong to the rich families of the richest city in the world. Upon the edge of the wharf were gathered a score of older men, clad in sombre robes, over which spread their silvery beards. They wore close-fitting caps and heavy golden chains. Each carried a short rod of ebony and ivory as a token of authority. They were the elders, members of the council of King Azemilcus, who was absent with the fleet of Autophradates, the Persian admiral.
The basin of the harbor formed a deep bay, shut in on the seaward side by lofty walls, built of huge blocks of squared stone laid in gypsum. On the right, facing north, was a narrow opening in the barrier, forming a passage flanked by long breakwaters. The circumference of the harbor was ringed by a succession of stone wharves, where hundreds of merchant vessels were moored, their sails furled against their masts. They were discharging their cargoes or taking on lading for new voyages. Lines of men, half naked, ran backward and forward between the ships and the great warehouses, carrying bales upon their heads. The sailors, chanting monotonous songs, were emptying the holds of the ships or storing away the fresh cargoes.
"There's an old tub that looks as though she had seen service," cried one of the young men. "Let us see where she has been."
They strolled across to a vessel whose weather-beaten sides and patched sails told of rough usage.
"Whence came you?" demanded the youth, addressing the brown-faced master, who stood at the gangway, superintending the discharge of his cargo.
"From the Cassiterides," the man replied.
"Where are they?" the youth asked, gazing at the bright ingots of tin that the sailors were dragging to the deck.
"They are in the western seas," the master answered, "so far that Carthage seems but a stone's throw away. Three months we were beaten northward by storms, and the waves of the great ocean ran higher than the walls of the city. At last we came to the land of long days, where the men have yellow hair and blue eyes and the women are more beautiful than light. By the favor of Baal, we were enabled to obtain a store of amber that is created there by the sun, in exchange for beads of glass. This we dedicated to the God, and after we had got our tin on board, he brought us back under his protection."
The young men listened, open-mouthed. From their boyhood, they had been accustomed to drink in such tales of mystery and wonder along the wharves of the city, nursing the bold spirit of adventure that was born in every Phœnician. They plied the master with questions. What monsters of the sea had he seen? What were the customs of the men of the North? Was it true that they devoured strangers who fell into their hands? The mariner told them of enormous water snakes and dragons, but his marvellous tales were interrupted by a cry from the walls, where lookouts were always posted to scan the sea. The state trireme had been sighted. She was returning from Sidon, bringing Prince Hur and the ambassadors whom the council had despatched to Alexander. The council was now awaiting their return.
At the signal from the walls, work was suspended throughout the city and the population crowded to the harbor. Merchants with their tablets clasped in their hands, dyers with their arms stained to the elbow, metal workers, artisans, laborers, and soldiers of the garrison, thronged to the water front by thousands to learn the answer of the Macedonian. A vast murmur of expectation and speculation rose from the people.
Presently, through the entrance of the harbor, the trireme could be seen, making for the opening between the sea-walls, over which the waves were dashing in spurts of white spray. Urged by its three banks of oars, rising and falling in unison, the vessel ran swiftly into the harbor.
Headed by Prince Hur, the son of Azemilcus, the ambassadors were standing grave and silent upon the deck. At sight of their anxious faces a hush fell upon the crowd. The pilot gave a sharp command, the oars churned backward in the water, and the long trireme swung into her mooring. The ambassadors descended to the wharf and spoke in low tones to the elders of the council.
Was it peace or war? War! The news ran through the crowd and into the city as ripples spread across the face of a pool when a stone falls. Turmoil and confusion followed. What had Alexander said? Would the other Phœnician cities join with Tyre to repel him?
They had deserted her. Tyre must stand alone. Strato, son of Gerostratus, king of Adradus, had surrendered. Byblos had capitulated. Sidon had opened her gates to the Macedonians.
"We offered submission according to our instructions," said the chief of the ambassadors, to the council. "Alexander accepted it and bade us tell you it was his purpose to offer sacrifice in the temple of Melkarth, who, he says, is really Heracles, and his ancestor. We replied that Tyre could not admit strangers within her walls, but that Melkarth had an older temple on the mainland, where he might offer sacrifice. 'Tell your council,' he said, 'that I and my army will offer sacrifice to Melkarth upon his altar within the walls of New Tyre. Bid them make ready the temple. It is for them to say what the victims shall be.' That was all."
"You did well; let us consider," said Mochus, the eldest of the council.
They walked in slow and silent procession to the palace of the king in the southern quarter of the town and disappeared within its gates.
The city continued to seethe like a huge caldron. Its unwonted stir attracted the attention of Thais and Artemisia, on the housetop, where they had gone as usual to take the air after midday. The two young women stood side by side, close to the parapet of the roof, looking down into the narrow streets, where men came and went like ants whose nest has been disturbed. The strong sea-breeze blew out Thais' crimson robe into gleaming folds, and the sun glistened upon the burnished copper of her hair. Rich color glowed in her cheeks and in her scarlet lips. The immortal vitality of the salt breeze and of the crisply curling waves seemed in her. She laughed aloud.
"I wonder what is the matter?" she said. "These Phœnicians are afraid of their own shadows."
Artemisia smiled. Her chiton of fine white wool, edged with purple, outlining her figure, indicated that it had lost some of its roundness. Her face was pale; blue veins showed through the transparent skin of her temples.
"I hope it means something good for us," she said, slipping her arm around her sister's waist. "When shall we get away from this hateful city?"
"The time will come, child," Thais said soothingly. "You shall see him again; I know it."
It was a conversation that had been repeated many times. Artemisia drew a sigh that caught in her throat in a little sob.
"Oh, Thais, if I could feel his strong arms around me only once," she said, "I think I could die in thankfulness."
"Do not talk of dying," Thais replied reprovingly. "See, the world is beautiful!"
They stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the scene, which was indeed beautiful, as Thais had said. On three sides the sea flashed and sparkled with white-capped waves before the southwest wind. On the east a channel, half a mile in width, divided the mainland from the island upon which the new city was built. Beyond the strait lay the city of Old Tyre, with its wide circle of walls. There, as in the new town, thousands of pieces of cloth—linen, woollen, cotton, and silk—fresh from the vats of the dyers, were hung to dry in the sun. The juice of the shell-fish had lent them rich hues of blue, violet, crimson, scarlet, and the peculiar shade of purple known as "royal" that for ages had made the city famous. Hundreds of fishing and trading vessels were drawn up along the wharves or upon the beach.
Behind the old city, three miles from the beach, rose Mount Lebanon, clothed to its snow-clad summits with the foliage of pine, cedar, oak, and sumach. Its mighty barrier stretched north and south into the misty distance, leaving always between its base and the shore a narrow strip of level land that was given up to tillage.
From the elevation where they stood, the young women looked upon other roofs, filling the space inside the walls, which rose from the sea for one hundred and fifty feet, with towers at every curve and angle. They could see the Sidonian Harbor on their right and the Egyptian Harbor opposite to it on their left, both crowded with masts and connected by a canal spanned by movable bridges.
Before them rose the towers and cupolas of the Temple of Melkarth, and near it the wide Eurychorus, or market-place. Farther south was the huge dome of the Temple of Baal, and there, too, was the royal palace, with its many terraces crowned by a lofty citadel. Agenor's Temple was on the north, overlooking the Sidonian Harbor. Near the western wall was an oasis of verdure which marked the gardens attached to the voluptuous Temple of Astarte, where, through the foliage of palm and rhododendron, shone the marble columns of her habitation.
Phradates had caused a striped awning to be erected upon the roof. Beneath this was spread a gay Babylonian carpet, with couches and silken cushions. Shrubs and flowering plants stood in great vases of stone, screening the enclosure from the eyes of the curious. All the other housetops of the quarter were occupied in a similar manner, thus enabling the population to escape the heat of the lower levels, from which the breeze was excluded by the height of the walls. The space inside the city was so crowded that the houses rose many stories, and, excepting those belonging to wealthy persons, each sheltered scores of families.
"It is a proud city," Thais said musingly.
"Yes," Artemisia replied. "Proud, and cruel, and heartless!"
She shivered as she spoke. Thais beckoned to one of the women, who stood at a respectful distance, talking in low tones with a slender, dark-skinned man, whose cunning eyes gleamed like those of a rat. He was Mena the Egyptian.
"Fetch a wrap," Thais said to the slave girl who answered her summons.
The girl brought a shawl of cashmere and laid it around Artemisia's shoulders.
"Something tells me that our captivity will soon be over," Thais said. "Things cannot last much longer as they are."
There was a meaning in her words that Artemisia did not grasp. Since the flight from Halicarnassus, they had been confined in the house of Phradates, whose passion for Thais had increased until it burned like fever in his veins. The end must have come long ago had it not been for the frequent absences that had been forced upon the young man by the needs of the city and the commands of the Great King. As matters stood, even Thais' resources had been taxed to hold him in check. Hitherto she had fed him with hopes, playing upon his weaknesses and keeping him in a state of subjection from which she knew surrender would set him free. She made a gesture of impatience and began walking up and down between rows of young orange trees.
"I don't know what has come over me," she said. "I am as restless as one of the sea-gulls yonder."
She listened a moment to the cries and commotion in the streets.
"Mena!" she cried. "Come here!"
The Egyptian advanced slowly, with an indefinable insolence in his bearing.
"Find out what is causing all this excitement in the city and bring me word," Thais said.
"Why should my lady be interested?" Mena replied coolly, with a smile that showed his white teeth.
Thais wheeled as though she had been stung. She looked at the Egyptian with head erect, and there was something in her eyes that caused his to fall before them.
"Mena," she said softly, "do not think that, because you are set to watch me, you are my master. Go, or I swear by Astoreth that you shall be flayed alive from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet."
Mena gasped, and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
"Pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean—"
"I know well what you meant," Thais returned. "Go!"
He turned and went. Thais grasped a branch of the shrubbery and tore it away, crumpling the leaves in her hands and scattering them in a bruised shower at her feet.
"How long must I put up with the insolence of this slave and his master?" she exclaimed. The opalescent animal light gleamed in her eyes as she turned them northward, and she paced backward and forward with impatient strides like a captive lioness. "I hate them!" she cried. "How many times have I been tempted to end it!"
She thrust her hand into her bosom and drew out her tiny dagger, whose hilt was studded with rubies that sparkled like drops of blood.
"Hush, Thais, some one is coming!" Artemisia said.
Thais quickly hid the dagger and turned to greet Phradates. He came forward with a smile, and the smile with which she met him had no trace in it of the anger that had so shaken her but a moment before.
"Great news!" the young man cried. "Alexander is coming!"
Artemisia caught her breath, and for an instant her head swam.
"Tell us," Thais said. "We are dying to hear all about it. You know we have had no news since the battle of Issus, where the Great King, as you call him, was beaten by one who seems to be greater."
There was a spice of malice in her voice that evidently annoyed the Phœnician.
"Yes, through the treachery of the Greeks," he replied, frowning. "Darius will depend upon his own people next time, and you will see then what will happen."
"But what has Alexander been doing since the battle?" Thais asked.
"He might have advanced upon Babylon with nobody to oppose him," Phradates said. "Of course, he would not have been able to capture the city, but at least he will never have a better chance to try it. He was afraid to make the attempt. He has been marching down the coast instead, and there has been no more fighting, because all the northern cities have surrendered to him."
"Well?" Thais said, listening with parted lips.
"In the absence of King Azemilcus," the Phœnician continued, "the council deemed it best to offer terms for the present. They sent an embassy, accompanied by the prince, to tell Alexander that he had nothing to fear from Tyre so long as he did not interfere with us."
"What was his reply?" Thais demanded quickly.
"What do you suppose?" Phradates said. "He had the impudence to announce that Melkarth was the same as your Heracles, and that as Heracles was of his family, he proposed to offer sacrifice in the temple here. The embassy told him flatly that Tyre had never admitted the Persians, and that we should not admit him. Everybody knows that if we should let him in here, he would do what he did in Ephesus when he took possession of the city under pretence of offering sacrifice to Artemis."
"But where is Darius?" Thais asked.
"He is in Babylon," said Phradates. "He sent a letter to Alexander after the battle of Issus, asking freedom for his wife and family. He wrote as one king to another, proposing peace and alliance; but your Alexander, to his sorrow, refused the terms. He pretends that he has already conquered all Asia, and he had the boldness to tell the Great King that he would liberate Statira and her children if Darius would come as a suppliant to ask it."
"The Gods fight with him," Thais said, after a pause. "It would be better for Tyre to open her gates."
The young Phœnician laughed scornfully.
"The walls of Tyre will crumble and fall into the sea before he offers his sacrifice," he exclaimed. "I will wager anything I possess against your looking-glass that he will weary of his task before a stone has been loosened."
"You do not know Alexander," Thais replied.
"Thais," the young man said earnestly, "I will wager what is more precious to me than gold. Thou knowest that I love thee."
"You have told me so," she replied demurely.
"You have been for months in my power," he went on, "and I have not sought to force your inclination. Let us now abide by the result of the siege that Alexander is threatening. On the day that he gives over his attempt to enter Tyre, thou shalt be mine. Until that day comes I shall ask nothing of thee. Is it a bargain?"
"You will not keep your promise," Thais said doubtfully. Her reluctance made the young man more eager.
"Mena!" he called, "bring wine and two doves at once."
When the Egyptian returned, Phradates said to Thais, "See, I am ready to bind myself by oath if thou wilt do likewise."
"I am ready," Thais replied.
The sacrifice was made and the mutual bond was completed. As the blood of the doves trickled upon the stones, Phradates called Astarte to witness his covenant. Thais drew a breath of relief, for she knew that no Phœnician, even the most depraved, would dare to disregard such an oath.
The sun went down in crimson splendor, and lamps began to twinkle in the city. Still the council prolonged its deliberations, and still the anxious merchants waited outside the doors of the palace to learn its decision.