“Yes,” spoke Themistocles, in a burst of gladness. “The gods take one friend, they restore another. Œdipus has read the sphinx’s riddle. Honour this man, for he is worthy of honour through Hellas!”
The officers ran to the athlete, after them the sailors. They covered his face and hands with kisses. He seemed escaped the Carthaginian to perish in the embrace of his countrymen. Never was his blush more boyish, more divine. Then a bugle-blast sent every man to his station. Cimon leaped across to his smaller ship. The rowers of the Nausicaä ran out their oars, the hundred and seventy blades trailed in the water. Every man took a long breath and fixed his eyes on the admiral standing on the poop. He held a golden goblet set with turquoise, and filled with the blood-red Pramnian wine. Loudly Themistocles prayed.
“Zeus of Olympus and Dodona, Zeus Orchios, rewarder of the oath-breaker, to whom the Hellenes do not vainly pray, and thou Athena of the Pure Eyes, give ear. Make our ship swift, our arms strong, our hearts bold. Hold back the battle that we come not too late. Grant that we confound the guilty, put to flight the Barbarian, recompense the traitor. So to you and all other holy gods whose love is for the righteous we will proffer prayer and sacrifice forever. Amen.”
He poured out the crimson liquor; far into the sea he flung the golden cup.
“Heaven speed you!” shouted from the penteconter. Themistocles nodded. The keleustes smote his gavel upon the sounding-board. The triple oar bank rose as one and plunged into the foam. A long “h-a!” went up from the benches. The race to save Hellas was begun.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE RACE TO SAVE HELLAS
The chase had cost the Athenians dear. Before the Bozra had submitted to her fate, she had led the Nausicaä and her consort well down into the southern Ægean. A little more and they would have lifted the shaggy headlands of Crete. The route before the great trireme was a long one. Two thousand stadia,[13] as the crow flies, sundered them from the Euripus, the nearest point whence they could despatch a runner to Pausanias and Aristeides; and what with the twistings around the scattered Cyclades the route was one-fourth longer. But men had ceased reckoning distance. Their hearts were in the flying oars, and at first the Nausicaä ran leaping across the waves as leaps the dolphin,—the long gleaming blades springing like shuttles in the hands of the ready crew. They had taken from the penteconter all her spare rowers, and to make the great ship bound over the steel-gray deep was children’s play. “We must save Hellas, and we can!” That was the thought of all from Themistocles to the meanest thranite.