He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains springing out of their gloom,—Helicon and Cithæron beckoning him on, as with living fingers.
“Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylæ, nor Salamis. You can save Hellas.”
Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not stop.
“For Hellas! For Hermione!”
At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he reached the end,—the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.
* * * * * * *
At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by Platæa, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night march the [pg 416]contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting under arms,—awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The outpost—Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnæ—was creeping gingerly behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows. Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness, saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.
“Halt, stranger, tell your business.”
“For Aristeides.” The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.
“That’s not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you.”