Then, having done everything he could, he dashed back to tell them at Athens that Sparta was not coming. We see the utter abandonment of the messenger:
"Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!
Yet 'O Gods of my land!' I cried, as each hillock and plain,
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again."
Then comes the moment of his life. In the midst of the hurry and race he suddenly comes face to face with his god—the great god Pan. In all his hurry and haste and keenness he hushes himself in a moment, to listen to what the god has to say. Very touchingly described that is. Then, when he has received the message for himself, for his nation, once again he is off.
"I ran no longer, but flew."
And he stands before his people, and he gives them the full message which the god had given him, with all its warning and all its comfort and hope and good news. When that is done he fights on the Marathon day. And then, when the victory is won, he thinks of what the god has promised him, and he thinks to
"Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,"
and live with her for the rest of his life.
"Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:
So, when Persia was dust, all cried: 'To Acropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more!'"
Take the news to Athens! He takes it, and his great heart bursts with the joy of the news.
"Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed."