As they rode the lieutenant explained the presence of Clearchus and Leonidas. The captain frankly gave them thanks when he learned that they had protected him while he lay helpless.
"I am Ptolemy," he said, "and since you desire to see Alexander, I will take you to him. I owe you much and the day may come when I shall be able to repay you."
CHAPTER IX
THE DOOM OF THEBES
The plain where once the sons of Niobe lay weltering had borne its last harvest of slaughter. On every side Leonidas and Clearchus noted the ghastly evidences of battle. Darkness fell before Ptolemy's troop reached the shattered gates of Thebes. Men with torches in their hands wandered through the streets strewn with corpses, seeking plunder among the dead or searching for the bodies of friends. Neither sex nor age had been spared when Perdiccas hewed his way into the city. The very altars of the Gods were crimsoned with the vengeance taken by the Phocians, the Platæans, and the Bœotians for the centuries of cruel oppression that they had suffered from the rapacious brood of the Dragon.
Mothers lay dabbled in blood, with their infants beside them, struck down in flight. The market-place was heaped with bodies, showing how desperate had been the final stand of the Theban soldiers. The streets were littered with household gear that had been dragged in wantonness from despoiled homes.
The plundering was not yet finished. Bands of soldiers were still searching for booty in the remoter quarters of the city, where their progress could be traced by the sound of their drunken laughter, mingled with the screams of their victims.
Macedonian guards paced the walls and cut off all hope of escape. The wretched inhabitants, driven into the highways, sought concealment in dark angles and narrow lanes, cowering in silence.
Here and there a woman, rendered desperate by her anguish, walked with dishevelled hair, heedless of insult, seeking her children among the slain in the hope that she might find them still alive.