“Leave me, then.”
Themistocles’s frown deepened. The others went out.
The state cabin was elegant, considering its place. Themistocles had furnished it according to his luxurious taste,[pg 281]—stanchions cased in bronze hammered work, heavy rugs from Carthage, lamps swinging from chains of precious Corinthian brass. Behind a tripod stood an image of Aphrodite of Fair Counsel, the admiral’s favourite deity. By force of habit now he crossed the cabin, took the golden box, and shook a few grains of frankincense upon the tripod.
“Attend, O queen,” he said mechanically, “and be thou propitious to all my prayers.”
He knew the words meant nothing. The puff of night air from the port-hole carried the fragrance from the room. The image wore its unchanging, meaningless smile, and Themistocles smiled too, albeit bitterly.
“So this is the end. A losing fight, cowardice, slavery—no, I shall not live to see that last.”
He looked from the port-hole. He could see the lights of the Barbarian fleet clearly. He took long breaths of the clear brine.
“So the tragedy ends—worse than Phrynicus’s poorest, when they pelted his chorus from the orchestra with date-stones. And yet—and yet—”
He never formulated what came next even in his own mind.
“Eu!” he cried, springing back with part of his old lightness, “I have borne a brave front before it all. I have looked the Cyclops in the face, even when he glowered the fiercest. But it all will pass. I presume Thersytes the caitiff and Agamemnon the king have the same sleep and the same dreams in Orchus. And a few years more or a few less in a man’s life make little matter. But it would be sweeter to go out thinking ‘I have triumphed’ than ‘I have failed, and all the things I loved fail with me.’ And Athens—”