A shout brought the subaltern commanding the Greek outposts. He was a Spartan of less sluggish wits than many of his breed, and presently believed Glaucon when he declared he had reason in asking for Leonidas.
“But your accent is Athenian?” asked the decarch, with wonderment.
“Ay, Athenian,” assented Glaucon.
“Curses on you! I thought no Athenian ever Medized. What business had you in the Persian camp? Who of your countrymen are there save the sons of Hippias?”
“Not many,” rejoined the fugitive, not anxious to have the questions pushed home.
“Well, to Leonidas you shall go, sir Athenian, and state your business. But you are like to get a bearish welcome. Since your pretty Glaucon’s treason, our king has not wasted much love even on repentant traitors.”
With a soldier on either side, the deserter was marched within the barrier wall. Another encampment, vastly smaller and less luxurious than the Persian, but of martial orderliness, spread out along the pass. The Hellenes were just waking. Some were breakfasting from helmets full of cold boiled peas, others buckled on the well-dinted bronze cuirasses and greaves. Men stared at Glaucon as he was led by them.
“A deserter they take to the chief,” ran the whisper, and a little knot of idle Spartans trailed behind, when at last Glaucon’s guides halted him before a brown tent barely larger than the others.
A man sat on a camp chest by the entrance, and was busy with an iron spoon eating “black broth”[9] from a huge kettle. In the dim light Glaucon could just see that he wore a purple cloak flung over his black armour, and that the helmet resting beside him was girt by a wreath of gold foil.
The two guards dropped their spears in salute. The man looked upward.