“He will be too late, if indeed he wished to see me alive. But it matters not: Darius, alive or dead, is nothing now. But give him my thanks, and say that I commend my mother to him and all of my kindred that may fall into his hands. He is a generous foe, and worthier than I of the sceptre of Cyrus. But let him beware. He is too great; and the gods are envious.”
Here his voice failed him. A shudder passed over his limbs; he drew a few deep breaths, and the last of the Persian kings was gone.
About half an hour afterwards Alexander arrived, having obtained a horse from one of his troopers. For some minutes he stood looking at the dead man in silence. Then calling some of his men, who by this time had collected in considerable numbers, he bade them pay the last duties to the dead. The corpse was conveyed to the nearest town, and there roughly embalmed. In due time it received honourable burial in the royal tomb at Pasargadæ.
CHAPTER XXVI
INVALIDED
The extraordinary fatigues which Charidemus had undergone, together with continual exposure to the burning summer heat, resulted in a long and dangerous illness. He had strength enough to make his way along with a number of other invalided men to Ecbatana; but immediately after his arrival in that city the fever which had been lurking in his system declared itself in an acute form. For many days he hovered between life and death, and his recovery was long and tedious, and interrupted by more than one dangerous relapse. All this time the outer world was nothing to him. First came days of delirium in which he raved of battles and sieges, with now and then a softer note in his voice contrasting strangely with the ringing tone of the words of command. These were followed by weeks of indifference, during which the patient took no care for anything but the routine of the sick-room. When his thoughts once more returned to the business and interests of life it was already autumn.
Almost the first news from the world without that penetrated the retirement of his sick-room was the story of a terrible tragedy that had happened almost within sight and hearing.
Parmenio, the oldest, the most trusted of the lieutenants of Alexander, was dead, treacherously slain by his master’s orders; and Philotas his son, the most brilliant cavalry leader in the army, had been put to death on a charge of treason. Whether that charge was true or false no one knew for certain, as no one has been able to discover since. But there were many who believed that both men had been shamefully murdered. The accusation was certainly improbable—for what had Parmenio and his son, both as high in command as they could hope to be, to gain? And it rested on the weakest evidence, the testimony of a worthless boy and a still more worthless woman.