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.