PROMISES FULFILLED
In the great Hall of Xerxes, in Persepolis, the city whose streets had never been trodden by the feet of an enemy since the first Cyrus overthrew the Medes and founded the Achæmenian line, Alexander feasted with his friends. Two months had passed since the empire that Cyrus won had been wrested from Darius at Gaugamela. Susa had fallen, and the might of Persia was shattered forever.
Terrace above terrace, from the limpid waters of the Araxes, fed eternally by mountain snows, rose the wonderful palaces upon which the revenues of generations had been lavished. There the grandeur and majesty of the masters of more than half the world had bloomed into visible form. There Cyrus and his successors had been accustomed to seek refuge from the summer heat, and to lay aside the cares of empire for luxurious days amid the myriad blossoms of their gardens and the fairer flowers of their effeminate courts.
The huge monoliths of the Hall of the Hundred Columns reared themselves from their hewn platform of stone. Around them were grouped the palaces of Cyrus and of Xerxes, of Artaxerxes and Darius, built of rare woods and polished marble, brought from distant quarries with infinite labor, that the eyes of the Great Kings might take delight therein. Each monarch had striven to outdo his predecessor in beauty and magnificence.
Broad staircases, guarded by colossal figures of soldiers, connected terraces, upheld by retaining walls upon which were sculptured enormous lions and bulls.
The palaces themselves were large enough to give an army lodgement. Their walls and ceilings were adorned with paintings commemorating the triumphs of the kings in war and in the chase. Upon the sides of the Hall of Xerxes, where the Macedonian captains were gathered at tables laden with vessels of solid gold, the petulant monarch, who had chastised the Hellespont with rods and who had given the temples of Athens to the flames, was represented in his hunting chariot, receiving the charge of a wounded lion. In the light of countless torches, the great paintings, the hangings, and the carpets spread upon the floor formed a background of rich color for the snowy garments of the banqueters.
Statues of ebony, lapis-lazuli, marble, and jade, brought from many a captured city, gleamed against the lofty wainscoting of golden plates, wrought into strange reliefs.
Alexander reclined upon a raised couch, covered with priceless Babylonian embroidery. In front of him the tables were arranged in the form of an oblong, stretching the length of the hall, and beside them lolled the veterans, crowned with wreaths of flowers whose perfume mingled with the heavy scent of unguents and incense. There were many women at the feast, each sitting beside her chosen lord. Some of them had been taken as captives. Others, released from the bondage of the harem, had formed willing alliances with the conquerors. They were admitted to the banquet on terms of equality with the men, according to the Macedonian fashion, and their light laughter, the brilliancy of their eyes, and the flashing of the jewels with which they were plentifully adorned lent a finishing touch of brightness to the scene.
But the beauty of the fairest representatives of a race famed for its beauty paled before that of Thais, whose gilded chair was set next to the couch of Ptolemy on Alexander's left. It was not so much the perfect grace of her form or the proud poise or her head, with its masses of tawny hair, that gave her distinction, as the spirit that shone in her eyes. Beautiful as she was, she had changed since the death of Chares. There was a suggestion of imperious hardness in her glance; she was less womanly, but more fascinating. The hearts of men turned to wax as they gazed upon her, even though something indefinable warned them that their longing would find no response in her heart. Yet warm vitality seemed to radiate from her, and the quick blood came and went under her clear skin with each changing emotion.
Habituated to the stiff formalities of the Persian court, the deft slaves who attended the Macedonians were astonished at the freedom of their manners. All the skill of the royal cooks was expended to prepare the feast. Scores of delicate dishes were brought in and set before the Greeks, but the master of the kitchens was in despair at their lack of appreciation. They devoured what was offered to them, it was true, but without a sign of the gastronomical discussion in which the Persian nobles were wont to indulge. The wine, however, was not spared, and the keeper of the royal cellars groaned over the havoc wrought among his precious amphoræ. The provision for a twelvemonth was exhausted, and still the thirst of the strangers seemed unabated. In the last and most ancient of the Persian capitals they were celebrating their triumph in their own way, and it was the way of men whose vices were as strong as their virtues.
The conversation, animated from the first, became livelier as the banquet progressed. The soldiers called to each other from table to table, pledging each other in goblets of amber and ruby wine as costly as amber and rubies. Faces were flushed and eyes grew bright. The stately hall echoed with laughter, in which the musical voices of the women joined. Old stories were told again, and time-worn jokes took on the attraction of novelty. The women provoked their guerdon of homage, and it was paid to them on hand and lip with frank generosity. The brains of even the stoutest members of the company were whirling, and some of the more susceptible to the influence of the wine began to slip unsteadily away, amid the jeers of their comrades, in the hope that the cool outer air would drive off their giddiness and enable them to see the end. Those who remained were all talking at once, boasting of their deeds, with none to listen.
Alexander, weary of the din, called suddenly upon Callisthenes to speak in praise of the Greeks. The orator rose slowly from his place and strode out into the open space between the tables.
"To whom shall I speak?" he demanded, gazing about him with an expression of disgust upon the babbling captains. "They are all mad with vanity and wine."
"Speak then to Xerxes," Alexander replied, pointing to the wall, from which the royal portrait seemed to look down upon them with a sneer.
Callisthenes obeyed. At first his voice was unheeded; but as his apostrophe gathered force, the chatter of talk died away around him, and all eyes were turned upon him.
Calling upon the dead king by name, he magnified his power and told how he had gathered the nations to the invasion of Hellas. The failure of his attempt he attributed to the jealousy of the Gods, who would not permit destruction to fall upon the country that was to produce Alexander. He described the heroic stand of the Spartans at Thermopylæ, and the victory of Salamis; and as he dwelt upon the bravery of the Greeks in the face of those overwhelming odds, the hall rang with the cheers of men who themselves knew what it was to fight and to conquer.
"By thy command, O Xerxes!" the orator cried, extending his open palm toward the portrait, "Hellas was made to blush in the flames that devoured the temples of her Gods upon the Athenian Acropolis; but the life of man is brief, while the Gods die not nor do they forget. Look down from thy chariot! Alexander, the defender and avenger of Hellas, holds thy dominions, and the nations that owned thy sway are bowed at his feet. Turn not thy face away; for the fire with which thou didst insult and offend the Gods of Hellas hath flamed across all Persia, until it hath reached thee at last!"
The rage that had been gathering in the breasts of the Macedonians at the recital of the wrongs that Greece had suffered could be repressed no longer. Clitus leaped to his feet and hurled his golden beaker at the painted face of Xerxes. In an instant the hall was in an uproar. The company rose with one accord and turned to Alexander, shouting for revenge. To their inflamed minds it seemed as though the injuries inflicted by Xerxes were of yesterday. The contagion caught the young king, who sprang from his couch and stood gazing around him, seeking some means of satisfying the desire for vengeance that swelled his heart.
Thais had been watching his face with lips slightly parted and a strangely intent look in her eyes, as though waiting for the moment to carry into execution some project that she had formed in her mind. While Alexander stood hesitating, she seized a blazing torch from its socket in one of the columns.
"He burned our temples—let fire be his punishment!" she whispered, thrusting the torch into Alexander's grasp.
"The Gods shall be avenged!" he cried, accepting her plan without hesitation; for the wine he had drunk and the maddening clamor of his followers had gone to his head.
He thrust the lighted torch against the draperies that hung behind him. A cry of horror burst from the slaves and attendants as the flame caught the heavy folds and ran upward in leaping spirals; but the cry was lost in the fierce triumphant shout of the captains. Every man grasped a torch and ran to spread the conflagration. The great Hall of Xerxes was enveloped in flame and smoke so quickly that the incendiaries themselves had barely time to escape.
Rushing from the doorways with the torches in their hands, the Macedonians hastened from palace to palace, scattering destruction. Clouds of smoke, glowing red above the leaping flames, rose over the marvellous structures that had been reared with so much toil. Tower and terrace, porch and portico, were transformed into roaring furnaces in whose heat the great columns cracked and fell with a noise like the rumbling of thunder. The lofty ceilings crashed down upon wonders of art and precious fabrics. The plates of beaten gold that lined the walls melted and ran into crevices which opened in the marble floor. Of the slaves, some perished in the flames; others fled with booty snatched from the ruin; still others ran wildly into the darkness, crying that the Macedonians were preparing to put to the sword all who dwelt in the pleasant valley.
The banqueters, driven back by the heat, watched the conflagration with shouts of joy while it slowly burned itself out, leaving only the gaunt and blackened skeletons of the group of palaces that had been the delight of the Great Kings.
Thais stood beside Ptolemy, beneath the wide branches of an oak where the glare of the flames she had kindled threw her figure into strong relief against the blackness. She held herself proudly erect, and a slight smile curved her lips as she saw the banners of flame leap upward toward the stars.
"Why did you do it?" the Macedonian asked, with an accent of respect that seemed out of place in a camp where women were held so cheap.
"I did it because of a promise that I gave to Orontobates when I was a captive in Halicarnassus," Thais replied. "I like to keep my word."
Something in her tone prevented the soldier, bold as he was, from asking her what the promise had been. She had already taught him when to remain silent, and he had learned that he must either submit or abandon hope of winning her. As he stood, drinking in her beauty, revealed in a new aspect by the firelight, he was puzzled to see her head droop, while two tears slowly gathered upon her lashes.
"Farewell, Chares, my lover!" she was saying to herself. "Upon thy funeral pyre my heart, too, is turning to ashes!"
"Thais," Ptolemy whispered, moved by her emotion without knowing its cause, "do not forget that I love thee!"
"I do not forget," she replied, "nor have I forgotten another promise that I made; for I think the Gods have sent thee to me. To-morrow I will be thy wife; and when this war has reached its end, thou shalt reign in Alexandria over Egypt with me at thy side."
"Thais!" Ptolemy exclaimed, clasping her at last in his arms.
So Thais, the Athenian dancing girl, kept her pledge; but through the length and breadth of the land ran the news that the home of the Great Kings had been laid in ashes, and men knew that, though Darius still lived, his power indeed was gone forever.