Again he stopped. When he resumed his monologue, it was in a different key.
“There are many things I cannot understand. They can[pg 282]not unlock the riddles at Delphi, no seer can read them in the omens of birds. Why was Glaucon blasted? Was he a traitor? What was the truth concerning his treason? Since his going I have lost half my faith in mortal men.”
Once more his thoughts wandered.
“How they trust me, my followers of Athens! Is it not better to be a leader of one city of freemen than a Xerxes, master of a hundred million slaves? How they greeted me, as if I were Apollo the Saviour, when I returned to Peiræus! And must it be written by the chroniclers thereafter, ‘About this time Themistocles, son of Neocles, aroused the Athenians to hopeless resistance and drew on them utter destruction’? O Father Zeus, must men say that? Am I a fool or crazed for wishing to save my land from the fate of Media, Lydia, Babylonia, Egypt, Ionia? Has dark Atropos decreed that the Persians should conquer forever? Then, O Zeus, or whatever be thy name, O Power of Powers, look to thine empire! Xerxes is not a king, but a god; he will besiege Olympus, even thy throne.”
He crossed the cabin with hard strides.
“How can I?” he cried half-aloud, beating his forehead. “How can I make these Hellenes fight?”
His hand tightened over his sword-hilt.
“This is the only place where we can fight to advantage. Here in the strait betwixt Salamis and Attica we have space to deploy all our ships, while the Barbarians will be crowded by numbers. And if we once retreat?—Let Adeimantus and the rest prate about—‘The wall, the wall across the Isthmus! The king can never storm it.’ Nor will he try to, unless his councillors are turned stark mad. Will he not have command of the sea? can he not land his army behind the wall, wherever he wills? Have I not dinned that argument in those doltish Peloponnesians’ ears [pg 283]until I have grown hoarse? Earth and gods! suffer me rather to convince a stone statue than a Dorian. The task is less hard. Yet they call themselves reasoning beings.”
A knock upon the cabin door. Simonides reëntered.
“You do not come on deck, Themistocles? The men ask for you. Ameinias’s cook has prepared a noble supper—anchovies and tunny—will you not join the other officers and drink a cup to Tychē, Lady Fortune, that she prosper us in the morning?”