Sunrise. The Nausicaä was ready. Ameinias the navarch walked the deck above the stern-cabin with nervous strides. All that human forethought could do to prepare the ship had long been done. The slim hull one hundred and fifty feet long had been stripped of every superfluous rope and spar. The masts had been lowered. On the cat-heads hung the anchors weighted with stone to fend off an enemy, astern towed the pinnace ready to drag alongside and break the force of the hostile ram. The heavy-armed marines stood with their long boarding spears, to lead an attack or cast off grappling-irons. But the true weapon of the Nausicaä was herself. To send the three-toothed beak through a foeman’s side was the end of her being. To meet the shock of collision two heavy cables had been bound horizontally around the hull from stem to stern. The oarsmen,—the thranites of the upper tier, the zygites of the middle, the thalamites of the lower,—one hundred and seventy swart, nervous-eyed men, sat on their benches, and let their hands close tight upon those oars which trailed now in the drifting water, but which soon and eagerly should spring to life. At the belt of every oarsman dangled a sword, for boarders’ work was more than likely. Thirty spare rowers rested impatiently on the centre deck, ready to leap wherever needed. On the forecastle commanded the prōreus, Ameinias’s lieutenant, and with him the keleustes, the oar master who must give time on his sounding-board for the rowing, and never fail,—not though the ships around reeled down to watery grave. And finally on the poop by the captain stood the “governor,”—knotted, grizzled, and keen,—the man whose touch upon the heavy steering oars might give the Nausicaä life or destruction when the ships charged beak to beak.
“The trireme is ready, admiral,” reported Ameinias, as Themistocles came up leisurely from the stern-cabin.
The son of Neocles threw back his helmet, that all might see his calm, untroubled face. He wore a cuirass of silvered scale-armour over his purple chiton. At his side walked a young man, whom the ship’s people imagined the deserter of the preceding night, but he had drawn his helmet close.
“This is Critias,” said Themistocles, briefly, to the navarch; “he is a good caster. See that he has plenty of darts.”
“One of Themistocles’s secret agents,” muttered the captain to the governor, “we should have guessed it.” And they all had other things to think of than the whence and wherefore of this stranger.
It was a weary, nervous interval. Men had said everything, done everything, hoped and feared everything. They were in no mood even to invoke the gods. In desperation some jested riotously as they gripped the oars on the benches,—demonstrations which the prōreus quelled with a loud “Silence in the ship.” The morning mist was breaking. A brisk wind was coming with the sun. Clear and strong sang the Notus, the breeze of the kindly south. It covered the blue bay with crisping whitecaps, it sent the surf foaming up along the Attic shore across the strait. Themistocles watched it all with silent eyes, but eyes that spoke of gladness. He knew the waves would beat with full force on the Persian prows, and make their swift movement difficult while the Greeks, taking the galloping surf astern, would suffer little.
“Æolus fights for us. The first omen and a fair one.” The word ran in whispers down the benches, and every soul on the trireme rejoiced.
How long did they sit thus? An æon? Would Eurybiades never draw out his line of battle? Would Adeimantus prove craven at the end? Would treachery undo Hellas to-day, as once before at Lade when the Ionian Greeks had faced the Persian fleet in vain? Now as the vapour broke, men began to be able to look about them, and be delivered from their own thoughts. The shores of Salamis were alive,—old men, women, little children,—the fugitives from Attica were crowding to the marge in thousands to watch the deed that should decide their all. And many a bronze-cheeked oarsman arose from his bench to wave farewell to the wife or father or mother, and sank back again,—a clutching in his throat, a mist before his eyes, while his grip upon the oar grew like to steel.
As the Nausicaä rode at her place in the long line of ships spread up and down the shore of Salamis, it was easy to detect forms if not faces on the strand. And Glaucon, peering out from his helmet bars, saw Democrates himself standing on the sands and beckoning to Themistocles. Then other figures became clear to him out of the many, this one or that whom he had loved and clasped hands with in the sunlit days gone by. And last of all he saw those his gaze hungered for the most, Hermippus, Lysistra, and another standing at their side all in white, and in her arms she bore something he knew must be her child,—Hermione’s son, his son, born to the lot of a free man of Athens or a slave of Xerxes according as his elders played their part this day. Only a glimpse,—the throng of strangers opened to disclose them closed again; Glaucon leaned on a capstan. All the strength for the moment was gone out of him.
“You rowed and wrought too much last night, Critias,” spoke Themistocles, who had eyes for everything. “To the cabin, Sicinnus, bring a cup of Chian.”
“No wine, for Athena’s sake!” cried the outlaw, drawing himself together, “it is passed. I am strong again.”
A great shout from the shores and the waiting fleet made him forget even the sight of Hermione.
“They come! The Persians! The Persians!”
The fleet of the Barbarians was advancing from the havens of Athens.
The sun rose higher. He was far above Hymettus now, and shooting his bright javelins over mainland, islands, and waters. With his rising the southern breeze sang ever clearer, making the narrow channel betwixt Salamis and Attica white, and tossing each trireme merrily. Not a cloud hung upon Pentelicus, Hymettus, or the purple northern range of Parnes. Over the desolate Acropolis hovered a thin mist,—smoke from the smouldering temple, the sight of which made every Attic sailor blink hard and think of the vengeance.
Yonder on the shore of the mainland the host of the Persian was moving: horsemen in gilded panoply, Hydarnes’s spearmen in armour like suns. They stood by myriads in glittering masses about a little spur of Mt. Ægaleos, where a holy close of Heracles looked out upon the sea. To them were coming more horsemen, chariots, litters, and across the strait drifted the thunderous acclamation, “Victory to the king!” For here on the ivory throne, with his mighty men, his captains, his harem, about him, the “Lord of the World” would look down on the battle and see how his slaves could fight.
Now the Barbarians began to move forth by sea. From the havens of Peiræus and their anchorages along the shore swept their galleys,—Phœnician, Cilician, Egyptian, and, sorrow of sorrows, Ionian—Greek arrayed against Greek! Six hundred triremes and more they were, taller in poop and prow than the Hellenes, and braver to look upon.
Each vied with each in the splendour of the scarlet, purple, and gold upon stern and foreship. Their thousands of white oars moved like the onward march of an army as they trampled down the foam. From the masts of their many admirals flew innumerable gay signal-flags. The commands shouted through trumpets in a dozen strange tongues—the shrill pipings of the oar masters, the hoarse shouts of the rowers—went up to heaven in a clamorous babel. “Swallows’ chatter,” cried the deriding Hellenes, but hearts were beating quicker, breath was coming faster in many a breast by Salamis then,—and no shame. For now was the hour of trial, the wrestle of Olympian Zeus with Ahura-Mazda. Now would a mighty one speak from the heavens to Hellas, and say to her “Die!” or “Be!”
The Barbarians’ armadas were forming. Their black beaks, all pointing toward Salamis, stretched in two bristling lines from the islet of Psyttaleia—whence the shields of the landing force glittered—to that brighter glitter on the promontory by Ægaleos where sat the king. To charge their array seemed charging a moving hedge of spears, impenetrable in defence, invincible in attack. Slowly, rocked by the sea and rowing in steady order, the armament approached Salamis. And still the Greek ships lay spread out along the shore, each trireme swinging at the end of the cable which moored her to the land, each mariner listening to the beatings of his own heart and straining his eyes on one ship now—Eurybiades’s—which rode at the centre of their line and far ahead.
All could read the order of battle at last as squadron lay against squadron. On the west, under Xerxes’s own eye, the Athenians must charge the serried Phœnicians, at the centre the Æginetans must face the Cilicians, on the east Adeimantus and his fellows from Peloponnese must make good against the vassal Ionians. But would the signal to row and strike never come? Had some god numbed Eurybiades’s will? Was treachery doing its darkest work? With men so highly wrought moments were precious. The bow strung too long will lose power. And wherefore did Eurybiades tarry?
Every soul in the Nausicaä kept his curses soft, and waited—waited till that trailing monster, the Persian fleet, had crept halfway from Psyttaleia toward them, then up the shrouds of the Spartan admiral leaped a flag. Eager hands drew it, yet it seemed mounting as a snail, till at the masthead the clear wind blew it wide,—a plain red banner, but as it spread hundreds of axes were hewing the cables that bound the triremes to the shore, every Greek oar was biting the sea, the ships were leaping away from Salamis. From the strand a shout went up, a prayer more than a cheer, mothers, wives, little ones, calling it together:—
“Zeus prosper you!”
A roar from the fleet, the tearing of countless blades on the thole-pins answered them. Eurybiades had spoken. There was no treason. All now was in the hand of the god.
Across the strait they went, and the Barbarians seemed springing to meet them. From the mainland a tumult of voices was rising, the myriads around Xerxes encouraging their comrades by sea to play the man. No indecisive, half-hearted battle should this be, as at Artemisium. Persian and Hellene knew that. The keen Phœnicians, who had chafed at being kept from action so long, sent their line of ships sweeping over the waves with furious strokes. The grudges, the commercial rivalries between Greek and Sidonian, were old. No Persian was hotter for Xerxes’s cause than his Phœnician vassals that day.
And as they charged, the foemen’s lines seemed so dense, their ships so tall, their power so vast, that involuntarily hesitancy came over the Greeks. Their strokes slowed. The whole line lagged. Here an Æginetan galley dropped behind, yonder a Corinthian navarch suffered his men to back water. Even the keleustes of the Nausicaä slackened his beating on the sounding-board. Eurybiades’s ship had drifted behind to the line of her sisters, as in defiance a towering Sidonian sprang ahead of the Barbarian line of battle, twenty trumpets from her poop and foreship asking, “Dare you meet me?” The Greek line became almost stationary. Some ships were backing water. It was a moment which, suffered to slip unchecked, leads to irreparable disaster. Then like a god sprang Themistocles upon the capstan on his poop. He had torn off his helmet. The crews of scores of triremes saw him. His voice was like Stentor’s, the herald whose call was strong as fifty common men.
In a lull amidst the howls of the Barbarians his call rang up and down the flagging ships:—
“O Sons of Hellas! save your land,
Your children save, your altars and your wives!
Now dare and do, for ye have staked your all!”
“Now dare and do, for ye have staked your all!”
Navarch shouted it to navarch. The cry went up and down the line of the Hellenes, “loud as when billows lash the beetling crags.” The trailing oars beat again into the water, and even as the ships once more gained way, Themistocles nodded to Ameinias, and he to the keleustes. The master oarsman leaped from his seat and crashed his gavel down upon the sounding-board.
“Aru! Aru! Aru! Put it on, my men!”
The Nausicaä answered with a leap. Men wrought at the oar butts, tugging like mad, their backs toward the foe, conscious only that duty bade them send the trireme across the waves as a stone whirls from the sling. Thus the men, but Themistocles, on the poop, standing at the captain’s and governor’s side, never took his gaze from the great Barbarian that leaped defiantly to meet them.
“Can we risk the trick?” his swift question to Ameinias.
The captain nodded. “With this crew—yes.”
Two stadia, one stadium, half a stadium, a ship’s length, the triremes were charging prow to prow, rushing on a common death, when Ameinias clapped a whistle to his lips and blew shrilly. As one man every rower on the port-side leaped to his feet and dragged his oar inward through its row-hole. The deed was barely done ere the Sidonian was on them. They heard the roaring water round her prow, the cracking of the whips as the petty officers ran up and down the gangways urging on the panting cattle at the oars. Then almost at the shock the governor touched his steering oar. The Nausicaä swerved. The prow of the Sidonian rushed past them. A shower of darts pattered down on the deck of the Hellene, but a twinkling later from the Barbarians arose a frightful cry. Right across her triple oar bank, still in full speed, ploughed the Athenian. The Sidonian’s oars were snapping like faggots. The luckless rowers were flung from their benches in heaps. In less time than the telling every oar on the Barbarian’s port-side had been put out of play. The diekplous, favourite trick of the Grecian seamen, had never been done more fairly.
Now was Themistocles’s chance. He used it. There was no need for him to give orders to the oar master. Automatically every rower on the port-tiers of the Nausicaä had run out his blade again. The governor sent the head of the trireme around with a grim smile locked about his grizzled lips. It was no woman’s task which lay before them. Exposing her whole broadside lay the long Sidonian; she was helpless, striving vainly to crawl away with her remaining oar banks. Her people were running to and fro, howling to Baal, Astarte, Moloch, and all their other foul gods, and stretching their hands for help to consorts too far away.
“Aru! Aru! Aru!” was the shout of the oar master; again the Nausicaä answered with her leap. Straight across the narrow water she shot, the firm hand of the governor never veering now. The stroke grew faster, faster. Then with one instinct men dropped the oars, to trail in the rushing water, and seized stanchions, beams, anything to brace themselves for the shock. The crash which followed was heard on the mainland and on Salamis. The side of the Phœnician was beaten in like an egg-shell. From the Nausicaä’s poop they saw her open hull reel over, saw the hundreds of upturned, frantic faces, heard the howls of agony, saw the waves leap into the gaping void.—
“Back water,” thundered Ameinias, “clear the vortex, she is going down!”
The Nausicaä’s people staggered to the oars. So busy were they in righting their own ship few saw the crowning horror. A moment more and a few drifting spars, a few bobbing heads, were all that was left of the Phœnician. The Ægean had swallowed her.
A shout was pealing from the ships of the Hellenes. “Zeus is with us! Athena is with us!”
At the outset of the battle, when advantage tells the most, advantage had been won. Themistocles’s deed had fused all the Greeks with hopeful courage. Eurybiades was charging. Adeimantus was charging. Their ships and all the rest went racing to meet the foe.
But the Nausicaä had paid for her victory. In the shock of ramming the triple-toothed beak on her prow had been wrenched away. In the mêlée of ships which had just begun, she must play her part robbed of her keenest weapon. The sinking of the Barbarian had been met with cheers by the Hellenes, by howls of revengeful rage by the host against them. Not lightly were the Asiatics who fought beneath the eyes of the king to be daunted. They came crowding up the strait in such masses that sheer numbers hindered them, leaving no space for the play of the oars, much less for fine manœuvre. Yet for an instant it seemed as if mere weight would sweep the Hellenes back to Salamis. Then the lines of battle dissolved into confused fragments. Captains singled out an opponent and charged home desperately, unmindful how it fared elsewhere in the battle. Here an Egyptian ran down a Eubœan, there a Sicyonian grappled a Cilician and flung her boarders on to the foeman’s decks. To the onlookers the scene could have meant naught save confusion. A hundred duels, a hundred varying victories, but to which side the final glory would fall, who knew?—perchance not even Zeus.
In the roaring mêlée the Nausicaä had for some moments moved almost aimlessly, her men gathering breath and letting their unscathed comrades pass. Then gradually the battle drifted round them also. A Cyprian, noting they had lost their ram, strove to charge them bow to bow. The skill of the governor avoided that disaster. They ran under the stem of a Tyrian, and Glaucon proved he had not forgotten his skill when he sent his javelins among the officers upon the poop. A second Sidonian swept down on them, but grown wise by her consort’s destruction turned aside to lock with an Æginetan galley. How the fight at large was going, who was winning, who losing, Glaucon saw no more than any one else. An arrow grazed his arm. He first learned it when he found his armour bloody. A sling-stone smote the marine next to him on the forehead. The man dropped without a groan. Glaucon flung the body overboard, almost by instinct. Themistocles was everywhere, on the poop, on the foreship, among the rowers’ benches, shouting, laughing, cheering, ordering, standing up boldly where the arrows flew thickest, yet never hit. So for a while, till out of the confusion of ships and wrecks came darting a trireme, loftier than her peers. The railing on poop and prow was silver. The shields of the javelin-men that crowded her high fighting decks were gilded. Ten pennons whipped from her masts, and the cry of horns, tambours, and kettledrums blended with the shoutings of her crew. A partially disabled Hellene drifted across her path. She ran the luckless ship down in a twinkling. Then her bow swung. She headed toward the Nausicaä.
“Do you know this ship?” asked Themistocles, at Glaucon’s side on the poop.
“A Tyrian, the newest in their fleet, but her captain is the admiral Ariamenes, Xerxes’s brother.”
“She is attacking us, Excellency,” called Ameinias, in his chief’s ear. The din which covered the sea was beyond telling.
Themistocles measured the water with his eye.
“She will be alongside then in a moment,” was his answer, “and the beak is gone?”
“Gone, and ten of our best rowers are dead.”
Themistocles drew down the helmet, covering his face.
“Euge! Since the choice is to grapple or fly, we had better grapple.”
The governor shifted again the steering paddles. The head of the Nausicaä fell away toward her attacker, but no signal was given to quicken the oars. The Barbarian, noting what her opponent did, but justly fearing the handiness of the Greeks, slackened also. The two ships drifted slowly together. Long before they closed in unfriendly contact the arrows of the Phœnician pelted over the Nausicaä like hail. Rowers fell as they sat on the upper benches; on the poop the prōreus lay with half his men. Glaucon never counted how many missiles dinted his helmet and buckler. The next instant the two ships were drifting without steerage-way. The grappling-irons dashed down upon the Athenian, and simultaneously the brown Phœnician boarders were scrambling like cats upon her decks.
“Swords, men!” called Themistocles, never less daunted than at the pinch, “up and feed them with iron!”
Three times the Phœnicians poured as a flood over the Nausicaä. Three times they were flung back with loss, but only to rage, call on their gods, and return with tenfold fury. Glaucon had hurled one sheaf of javelins, and tore loose another, eye and arm aiming, casting mechanically. In the lulls he saw how wind and sea were sweeping the two ships landward, until almost in arrow-shot of the rocky point where sat Xerxes and his lords. He saw the king upon his ivory throne and all his mighty men around him. He saw the scribes standing near with parchment and papyrus, inscribing the names of this or that ship which did well or ill in behalf of the lord of the Aryans. He saw the gaudy dresses of the eunuchs, the litters, and from them peering forth the veiled women. Did Artazostra think now the Hellenes were mad fools to look her brother’s power in the face? From the shores of Attica and of Salamis, where the myriads rejoiced or wept as the scattered battle changed, the cries were rising, falling, like the throb of a tragic chorus,—a chorus of Titans, with the actors gods.
“Another charge!” shouted Ameinias, through the din, “meet them briskly, lads!”
Once more the hoarse Semitic war-shout, the dark-faced Asiatics dropping upon the decks, the whir of javelins, the scream of dying men, the clash of steel on steel. A frantic charge, but stoutly met. Themistocles was in the thickest mêlée. With his own spear he dashed two Tyrians overboard, as they sprang upon the poop. The band that had leaped down among the oar benches were hewn in pieces by the seamen. The remnant of the attackers recoiled in howls of despair. On the Phœnician’s decks the Greeks saw the officers laying the lash mercilessly across their men, but the disheartened creatures did not stir. Now could be seen Ariamenes, the high admiral himself, a giant warrior in his purple and gilded armour, going up and down the poop, cursing, praying, threatening,—all in vain. The Nausicaä’s people rose and cheered madly.
“Enough! They have enough! Glory to Athens!”
But here Ameinias gripped Themistocles’s arm. The chief turned, and all the Hellenes with him. The cheer died on their lips. A tall trireme was bearing down on them in full charge even while the Nausicaä drifted. They were as helpless as the Sidonian they had sent to death. One groan broke from the Athenians.
“Save, Athena! Save! It is Artemisia! The queen of Halicarnassus!”
The heavy trireme of the amazon princess was a magnificent sight as they looked on her. Her oars flew in a flashing rhythm. The foam leaped in a cataract over her ram. The sun made fire of the tossing weapons on her prow. A yell of triumph rose from the Phœnicians. On the Nausicaä men dropped sword and spear, moaned, raved, and gazed wildly on Themistocles as if he were a god possessing power to dash the death aside.
“To your places, men!” rang his shout, as he faced the foe unmoved, “and die as Athenians!”
Then even while men glanced up at the sun to greet Helios for the last time, there was a marvel. The threatening beak shot around. The trireme flew past them, her oars leaping madly, her people too intent on escape even to give a flight of javelins. And again the Athenians cheered.
“The Perseus! Cimon has saved us.”
Not three ships’ lengths behind the Halicarnassian raced the ship of the son of Miltiades. They knew now why Artemisia had veered. Well she might; had she struck the Nausicaä down, her own broadside would have swung defenceless to the fleet pursuer. The Perseus sped past her consort at full speed, Athenian cheering Athenian as she went.
“Need you help?” called Cimon, from his poop, as Themistocles waved his sword.
“None, press on, smite the Barbarian! Athena is with us!”
“Athena is with us! Zeus is with us!”
The Nausicaä’s crew were lifted from panic to mad enthusiasm. Still above them towered the tall Phœnician, but they could have scaled Mt. Caucasus at that instant.
“Onward! Up and after them,” rang Ameinias’s blast, “she is our own, we will take her under the king’s own eye.”
The javelins and arrows were pelting from the Barbarian. The Athenians mocked the shower as they leaped the void from bulwark to bulwark. Vainly the Phœnicians strove to clear the grapples. Too firm! Their foes came on to their decks with long leaps, or here and there ran deftly on projecting spars, for what athlete of Hellas could not run the tight rope? In an instant the long rowers’ deck of the Tyrian was won, and the attackers cheered and blessed Athena. But this was only storming the first outpost. Like castles forward and aft reared the prow and poop, whither the sullen defenders retreated. Turning at bay, the Phœnicians swarmed back into the waist, waiting no scourging from their officers. Now their proud admiral himself plunged into the mêlée, laying about with a mighty sword worthy of Ajax at Troy, showing he was a prince of the Aryans indeed. It took all the steadiness of Ameinias and his stoutest men to stop the rush, and save the Athenians in turn from being driven overboard. The rush was halted finally, though this was mere respite before a fiercer breaking of the storm. The two ships were drifting yet closer to the strand. Only the fear of striking their own men kept the Persians around the king from clouding the air with arrows. Glaucon saw the grandees near Xerxes’s throne brandishing their swords. In imagination he saw the monarch leaping from his throne in agony as at Thermopylæ.
“Back to the charge,” pealed Ariamenes’s summons to the Tyrians; “will you be cowards and dogs beneath the very eyes of the king?”
The defenders answered with a second rush. Others again hurled darts from the stern and foreship. Then out of the mælstrom of men and weapons came a truce. Athenian and Tyrian drew back, whilst Themistocles and Ariamenes were fighting blade to blade. Twice the giant Persian almost dashed the Hellene down. Twice Themistocles recovered poise, and paid back stroke for stroke. He had smitten the helmet from Ariamenes’s head and was swinging for a master-blow when his foot slipped on the bloody plank. He staggered. Before he could recover, the Persian had brought his own weapon up, and flung his might into the downward stroke.
“The admiral—lost!” Athenians shuddered together, but with the groan shot a javelin. Clear through the scales of the cuirass it tore, and into the Persian’s shoulder,—Glaucon’s cast, never at the Isthmus truer with hand or eye. The ponderous blade turned, grazed the Athenian’s corselet, clattered on the deck. The Persian sprang back disarmed and powerless. At sight thereof the Phœnicians flung down their swords. True Orientals, in the fate of their chief they saw decreeing Destiny,—what use to resist it?
“Yield, my Lord, yield,” called Glaucon, in Persian, “the battle is against you, and no fault of yours. Save the lives of your men.”
Ariamenes gave a toss of his princely head, and with his left hand plucked the javelin from his shoulder.
“A prince of the Aryans knows how to die, but not how to yield,” he cast back, and before the Athenians guessed his intent he sprang upon the bulwark. There in the sight of his king he stood and bowed his head and with his left arm made the sign of adoration.
“Seize him!” shouted Ameinias, divining his intent, but too late. The Persian leaped into the water. In his heavy mail he sank like lead. The wave closed over him, as he passed forever from the sight of man.
There was stillness on the Tyrian for a moment. A groan of helpless horror was rising from the Barbarians on the shore. Then the Phœnicians fell upon their knees, crying in their harsh tongue, “Quarter! Quarter!” and embracing and kissing the feet of the victors. Thanks to the moment of quietness given them, the Athenians’ blood had cooled a little; they gathered up the weapons cast upon the deck; there was no massacre.
Themistocles mounted the poop of the captured flag-ship, and Glaucon with him. The wind was wafting them again into the centre of the channel. For the first time for many moments they were able to look about them, to ask, “How goes the battle?” Not the petty duel they had fought, but the great battle of battles which was the life-struggle of Hellas. And behold, as they gazed they pressed their hands upon their eyes and looked and looked again, for the thing they saw seemed overgood for truth. Where the great Barbarian line had been pushing up the strait, were only bands of scattered ships, and most of these turning their beaks from Salamis. The waves were strewn with wrecks, and nigh every one a Persian. And right, left, and centre the triumphant Hellenes were pressing home, ramming, grappling, capturing. Even whilst the fight raged, pinnaces were thrusting out from Salamis—Aristeides’s deed, they later heard—crowded with martial graybeards who could not look idly on while their sons fought on the ships, and who speedily landed on Psyttaleia to massacre the luckless Persians there stationed. The cheers of the Barbarians were ended now; from the shores came only a beastlike howling which drowned the pæans of the victors. As the Nausicaä’s people looked, they could see the once haughty Phœnicians and Cilicians thrusting back against the land, and the thousands of footmen running down upon the shore to drag the shattered triremes up and away from the triumphant Hellenes.
The Nausicaä’s people in wondering gaze stood there for a long time as if transfixed, forgetful how their ship and its prize drifted, forgetful of weariness, forgetful of wounds. Then as one man they turned to the poop of the captured Tyrian, and to Themistocles. He had done it—their admiral. He had saved Hellas under the eyes of the vaunting demigod who thought to be her destroyer. They called to Themistocles, they worshipped as if he were the Olympian himself.
