“Hermione!” Glaucon cried, not in his dream, but quite aloud. He awoke with a start. Outside the tent sentry was calling to sentry, changing the watch just before the dawning. It was perfectly plain to him what he must do. His dream had only given shape to the ferment in his brain, a ferment never ceasing while his body slept. He must go instantly to the Greek camp and warn Leonidas. If the Spartan did not trust him, no matter, he had done his duty. If Leonidas slew him on the spot, again no matter, life with an eternally gnawing conscience could be bought on too hard terms. He knew, as though Zeus’s messenger Iris had spoken it, that Hermione had never believed him guilty, that she had been in all things true to him. He could never betray her trust.
His head now was clear and calm. He arose, threw on his cloak, and buckled about his waist a short sword. The Nubian boy that Mardonius had given him for a body-servant [pg 232]awoke on his mat, and asked wonderingly “whither his Lordship was going?” Glaucon informed him he must be at the front before daybreak, and bade him remain behind and disturb no one. But the Athenian was not to execute his design unhindered. As he passed out of the tent and into the night, where the morning stars were burning, and where the first red was creeping upward from the sea, two figures glided forth from the next pavilion. He knew them and shrank from them. They were Artazostra and Roxana.
“You go forth early, dearest Prexaspes,” spoke the Egyptian, throwing back her veil, and even in the starlight he saw the anxious flash of her eyes, “does the battle join so soon that you take so little sleep?”
“It joins early, lady,” spoke Glaucon, his wits wandering. In the intensity of his purpose he had not thought of the partings with the people he must henceforth reckon foes. He was sorely beset, when Roxana drew near and laid her hand upon his shoulder.
“Your Greeks will resist terribly,” she spoke. “We women dread the battle more than you. Yours is the fierce gladness of the combat, ours only the waiting, the heavy tidings, the sorrow. Therefore Artazostra and I could not sleep, but have been watching together. You will of course be near Mardonius my brother. You will guard him from all danger. Leonidas will resist fearfully when at bay. Ah! what is this?”
In pressing closer she had discovered the Athenian wore no cuirass.
“You will not risk the battle without armour?” was her cry.
“I shall not need it, lady,” answered he, and only half conscious what he did, stretched forth as if to put her away. Roxana shrank back, grieved and wondering, but Artazostra seized his arm quickly.
“What is this, Prexaspes? All is not well. Your manner is strange!”
He shook her off, almost savagely.