"Nonsense!" the Spartan replied decisively. "What is to become of Thais, then?"
"I know not," Chares said reflectively. "Watch over her, Leonidas, if I am not there to do it. She loves me."
"You talk like a sick man," Leonidas exclaimed, "yet you were never better. What is the matter with you?"
"Who can speak of to-morrow?" Chares replied. "You know, Leonidas, that I am not afraid, and yet somehow I care not. You and Clearchus I must leave sometime, and whenever that time comes, it will be a regret to me; and Thais, of course, will grieve; but she will recover. She is not like Artemisia. I think something is lacking in me. I have taken pleasure in life, but I am tired of everything. My city exists no more. Perhaps I am being punished for taking service under the man who destroyed it. I do not know—or care. Let be what will be."
"When you hear the trumpet, you will forget all this folly," Leonidas said impatiently. "You are young and you have everything to live for. That palace will be built yet; and when our heads are gray, we shall be sitting there, telling each other of this battle. See, they are waiting for us. They have been there all night."
The mist was lifting in undulating billows and twisted scarfs of vapor, floating away into the upper air. Before them was mustered the might of the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Away to the left and right spread the army of the Great King, a wilderness of bright plumes and glittering helmets. The spear-points, emerging from the mist, caught the rays of the sun like diamonds. Rank on rank they stood, so deep that the young men could not distinguish where the files ceased. Far on their right was the Bactrian cavalry and the Persian horse under the cruel viceroy Bessus, who had unwittingly saved Chares and Clearchus from the Babylonian mob. They could make out the banners of the Susians, the Albanians, the Hyrcanians, the fierce Parthians, the Syrians, the Arachotians, the Cadusians, the Babylonian levies, the haughty Medes, the dusky squadrons from beyond the Indus, the warriors from the shores of the Red Sea, the Mesopotamians, the Armenians, the Cappadocians, and the mongrel tribes of mixed blood. From the flaunting banners they could read the muster-roll of the nations that bowed to the will of Darius.
In advance of the first rank stood a line of huge, swaying brown bulks. They were the royal elephants, stationed there to drive a pathway through the Macedonian army for the Great King. Leonidas wondered at their number and size. On both sides of them stretched rows of chariots, with axles and neaps that terminated in long, curved scythe-blades. Behind the elephants was the royal squadron of ten thousand picked riders, and in its rear Darius had stationed himself, surrounded by his kinsmen, and protected on either side by bodies of Greek mercenaries. All the plain in front of the vast array had been made as level as a floor, so that the chariots might find no obstacle in their advance.
"This will be the last battle," Chares said indifferently. "If we win here, the empire is ours."
"We shall win!" Leonidas exclaimed.
"I'm not so sure of that," Chares said, measuring the host of the enemy with his eye. "There are more of them than there were at Issus, and here they have room to move."