“And the Persian answered?”
“That I and my master would not fail of reward for this service to the king. That the Egyptian ships would be swung at once across the strait to cut off all flight by the Hellenes.”
The outlaw made no answer, but pulled at the oars. The reaction from the day and evening of strain and peril was upon him. He was unutterably weary, though more in mind than in body. The clumsy skiff seemed only to crawl. Trusting the orders of Sicinnus to steer him aright, he closed his eyes. One picture after another of his old life came up before him now he was in the stadium at Corinth and facing the giant Spartan, now he stood by Hermione on the sacred Rock at Athens, now he was at Xerxes’s side with the fleets and the myriads passing before them at the Hellespont, he saw his wife, he saw Roxana, and all other things fair and lovely that had crossed his life. Had he made the best choice? Were the desperate fates of Hellas better than the flower-banked streams of Bactria, whose delights he had forever thrust by? Would his Fortune, guider of every human destiny, bring him at last to a calm haven, or would his life go out amid the crashing ships to-morrow? The oars bumped on the thole-pins. He pulled mechanically, the revery ever deepening, then a sharp hail awoke him.
“O-op! What do you here?”
The call was in Phœnician. Glaucon scarce knew the harsh Semitic speech, but the lembos, a many-oared patrol cutter, was nearly on them. A moment more, and seizure [pg 296]would be followed by identification. Life, death, Hellas, Hermione, all flashed before his eyes as he sat numbed, but Sicinnus saved them both.
“The password to-night? You know it,” he demanded in quick whisper.
“ ‘Hystaspes,’ ” muttered Glaucon, still wool-gathering.
“Who are you? Why here?” An officer in the cutter was rising and upholding an unmasked lantern. “We’ve been ordered to cruise in the channel and snap up deserters, and by Baal, here are twain! The crows will pick at your eyes to-morrow.”
Sicinnus stood upright in the skiff.
“Fool,” he answered in good Sidonian, “dare you halt the king’s privy messenger? It is not our heads that the crows will find the soonest.”