Glaucon bowed his head. Themistocles had given everything the outlaw could ask, and the latter went out of the cabin.


[pg 331]

BOOK III

THE PASSING OF THE PERSIAN


[pg 333]

CHAPTER XXXI

DEMOCRATES SURRENDERS

Hellas was saved. But whether forever or only for a year the gods kept hid. Panic-stricken, the “Lord of the World” had fled to Asia after the great disaster. The eunuchs, the harem women, the soft-handed pages, had escaped with their master to luxurious Sardis, the remnant of the fleet fled back across the Ægean. But the brain and right arm of the Persians, Mardonius the Valiant, remained in Hellas. With him were still the Median infantry, the Tartar horse-archers, the matchless Persian lancers,—the backbone of the undefeated army. Hellas was not yet safe.