“They are dead; even so perish all of your Eternity’s enemies,” rejoined Mardonius, close by. The bow-bearer himself was covered with blood and dust. A Spartan sword had grazed his forehead. He had exposed himself recklessly, as well he might, for it had taken all the efforts of the Persian captains, as well as the ruthless laying of whips over the backs of their men, to make the king’s battalions face the frenzied Hellenes, until the closing in of Hydarnes from the rear gave the battle its inevitable ending.
Xerxes was victorious. The gate of Hellas was unlocked. The mountain wall of Œta would hinder him no more. But the triumph had been bought with a price which made Mardonius and every other general in the king’s host shake his head.
“Lord,” reported Hystaspes, commander of the Scythians, “one man in every seven of my band is slain, and those the bravest.”
“Lord,” spoke Artabazus, who led the Parthians, “my men swear the Hellenes were possessed by dævas. They dare not approach even their dead bodies.”
“Lord,” asked Hydarnes, “will it please your Eternity to [pg 244]appoint five other officers in the Life Guard, for of my ten lieutenants over the Immortals five are slain?”
But the heaviest news no man save Mardonius dared to bring to the king.
“May it please your Omnipotence,” spoke the bow-bearer, “to order the funeral pyres of cedar and precious oils to be prepared for your brothers Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, and command the Magians to offer prayers for the repose of their fravashis in Garonmana the Blessed, for it pleased Mazda the Great they should fall before the Hellenes.”
Xerxes waved his hand in assent. It was hard to be the “Lord of the World,” and be troubled by such little things as the deaths of a few thousand servants, or even of two of his numerous half-brethren, hard at least on a day like this when he had seen his desire over his enemies.
“They shall be well avenged,” he announced with kingly dignity, then smiled with satisfaction when they brought him the shield and helmet of Leonidas, the madman, who had dared to contemn his power. But all the generals who stood by were grim and sad. One more such victory would bring the army close to destruction.
Xerxes’s happiness, however, was not to be clouded. From childish fears he had passed to childish exultation.