The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great

CHAPTER I
THREE FRIENDS MEET

Athens was rousing herself from sleep. The beams of the morning sun bathed the rugged sides of Mount Hymettus and lightened the dark foliage that clothed the nearer wooded slopes of Lycabettus. The low, flat-roofed houses of the city were still nothing more than blurred masses of gray in the shadow; but presently a ray touched the point of Athene's spear, and the flood of orange light flowed over the Acropolis. Its temples and statues were enveloped in a radiance which fused the rich, harmonious colors of column and cornice and melted the massive outlines into a resplendent whole, rising immortal from the gloom at its base.

Thin curls of smoke mounted here and there above the housetops, straight up toward the limitless turquoise vault of the sky. The vivifying freshness of the new-born day was in the air.

There was a clatter of hoofs in the Street of Pericles, and two young men, followed by three mounted servants, swung into view.

"By Zeus, Leonidas!" cried the foremost of the riders, drawing rein and pointing to the Acropolis, "that is worth riding all night to see!"

"You mean the sunrise?" the other asked, also coming to a halt. "Pshaw! You may see that any day without sitting up for it."

"Not I!" said his companion, laughing. "I love the lamps too well."

Leonidas shrugged his square shoulders. "It's not the lamps you love, Chares," he returned dryly. "But why are we idling here? Unless we make haste, Clearchus will be out of bed before we can surprise him."

"Come on, then!" Chares cried, urging his tired horse. "By Heracles! what's that?"

The three servants had ridden forward in advance of their masters. From the direction they had taken, the young men heard a confusion of angry voices, mingled with oaths. In another moment they saw that the street was blocked by a gorgeous litter borne on the shoulders of four sturdy slaves and surrounded by a dozen more, some of whom carried torches which burned pale in the morning light. The litter-bearers had refused to draw aside, and the guard was attempting to turn the horsemen back. Evidently some youth had been overtaken at his revelry by the dawn and was now being carried home by slaves who had followed his example at the wine-cup.

A bustling little man, with close-cropped hair and the sharp-nosed face of a fox, was shaking his sword in the faces of the riders.

"Back with you! Back!" he shouted. "Do you seek to halt the noble Phradates? Back, while you may!"

The curtains of the litter parted, and a young man's face, crimson with wrath and wine, appeared at the opening. He wore upon his head a wreath of wilted roses, which had slipped sidewise over one ear.

"What is the matter, Mena?" he called thickly. "Cut the rascals down!"

The three servants hesitated, looking back to their masters for instructions.

"Here is sport!" Chares cried, his eyes sparkling. "Let us ride through them! They need a lesson."

Leonidas made no answer, but shook his bridle rein free and plunged his spurs into the flanks of his horse.

"Way! Way!" Chares cried in a mighty voice, as they thundered down upon the obstinate group. "Follow us, my lads!" he shouted to the servants as he swept past.

The officious man with the sharp nose dropped his sword and scrambled up the steps of a house, but before the rest could follow his example the five horsemen were among them, and they were rolling under foot with their torches. Chares swerved his horse skilfully against the litter in such a manner that it was overturned. Its occupant pitched head foremost into the street, and the litter fell on top of him, burying him beneath a mass of curtains and silken cushions, among which he struggled like some gigantic insect caught in a web.

"You shall pay for this!" he gasped from the wreckage, shaking his fist after the little cavalcade. "I am Phradates!"

Chares laughed until the street echoed, and even Leonidas could not forbear a smile when he glanced back upon the havoc their passage had caused.

"We must ask Clearchus who this fellow is," Chares said. "Here is the house."

He sprang down in front of a dwelling of white marble and ran to the gate.

"Hola!" he shouted. "Let us in! Do you intend to keep your master's guests all day at his door? Open, then!"

After a slight delay there was a sound of falling bars, and the grating swung back, revealing a drowsy slave in the entrance.

"Is it you, my master? Enter; you are welcome," the man said, bowing before Chares.

"Is Clearchus awake?" Chares demanded eagerly.

"I think not, sir," the slave replied.

"Then we will rouse him!" Chares cried, running across the outer court and into the house. Leonidas followed more deliberately, leaving the attendants to care for the horses.

Chares did not stop to return the greeting of the slave who opened the house door for him, but dashed through the corridor that led to the inner court, shouting at the top of his voice: "Clearchus! Wake up, sluggard, and feed the hungry, or the Gods will turn their faces from you! Dreamer, where art thou?"

Just as he emerged from the corridor to the spacious inner court, the young man came suddenly upon a fresh-faced slave girl, who was busied with some early duties about the broad cistern filled with lotus flowers.

"Aphrodite, as I live!" Chares cried, throwing his arms about her and kissing her on the lips with a smack. The girl fled, laughing and blushing, to the women's quarters, and at the same moment the master of the house, awakened by the uproar, appeared on the threshold of his chamber.

"Chares!" he cried, coming forward with outstretched hands. "Who else could it be, indeed!"

"Oh, Clearchus," Chares said, "what hardships and perils we have passed to reach thee!"

"And here is Leonidas," said the Athenian, freeing himself from the embrace of Chares as the second of his guests entered the court. "Both my brothers here! For this I owe a sacrifice of thanksgiving which I shall not fail to pay. But what fortunate chance brings you to Athens?"

"We were sitting quietly enough in Thebes, talking of you," Leonidas replied, "when this madcap declared that he would not live another day without seeing you and that he intended to make you give him breakfast. Piso, who was with us, fell into dispute with him, offering to wager twenty minæ that we could not ride here before midday. Chares maintained that he would wake you this morning or forfeit the stake, and here we are."

"And so you have ridden all night?" Clearchus asked.

"All night, amid dangers and darkness, only to see you!" Chares replied gayly, throwing his arm around his friend's shoulder. "And now, have you anything to eat in the house? I am like a famished wolf."

"Come with me," Clearchus said, leading the way into a large room opening from the left of the court. The sunlight streamed in from the garden outside, over rich Persian carpets which covered the floor. The walls were frescoed with scenes from the Iliad of Homer, drawn with marvellous skill. Painted statuettes stood in niches of stone. Chairs and tables of ebony, cypress, and cedar were scattered through the room, and soft couches invited rest. Clearchus struck a bell, and a grave man of middle age appeared in the doorway.

"Send us food, Cleon," Clearchus said.

The steward withdrew, and two younger slaves entered. They quickly divested Chares and Leonidas of their riding cloaks and swords and washed their hands in bowls of scented water, drying them upon linen towels. They were followed by other slaves bearing trays of cold fowl, bread, and wine.

"This seems like getting home," Chares exclaimed, throwing himself upon one of the couches and leaning back luxuriously upon the cushions of down which the slaves hastened to arrange behind him while he helped himself to food from the table. "By the Gods, Clearchus, unless you stop growing handsome, Phœbus will be jealous of you!"

The Athenian flushed like a girl. He was a clean-cut, clear-eyed young man, hardly more than twenty-one years old, with a face and figure that might have served as a model for Phidias himself. Although slender, his form was graceful, with the ease that comes only from well-trained muscles. Brown curls covered his head, and the glance of his dark eyes was steady and straightforward, with a singular earnestness. His expression was thoughtful and his mouth betrayed a sensitive delicacy.

His parents had died when he was still a lad. His father, Cleanor, bequeathed to him an immense fortune, amassed in the mines, which had been managed by his uncle, Ariston, until he became of age. His wealth made him envied by the fashionable young men of Athens, but he had few friends among them. He cared nothing for their drinking-bouts, cock-fights, and gaming, and he had no ambition in politics except to do his duty as a citizen of Athens. Deep in his heart he worshipped the city and her glorious achievements, especially those of the intellect, with fanatical devotion.

Chares, too, belonged to a family of wealth and influence, for his father, Jason, had been one of the foremost men in Thebes. In height he stood more than six feet, and the knotted muscles of his arms indicated enormous strength. He was buoyant, light-hearted, irresponsible, and pleasure-loving. His affection for the Athenian, whom he had known from boyhood, was the strongest impulse in him.

They had first met Leonidas at the Olympic Games, where he won the laurel crown in the chariot race, and they had there admitted him to their friendship. Different as they were from each other, there seemed little in common between either of them and the swarthy Lacedæmonian who lay eating silently while they chattered gossip of mutual acquaintances. Leonidas was rather below the middle stature, all bone and sinew, practised in arms, and inured to hardships from his childhood by the unbending discipline of Sparta. His dark hair grew low down on his forehead and his black eyes were set deep under overhanging brows. He neither shared nor wished to understand the delight which Clearchus felt in a perfect statue or a masterpiece of painting. He scorned the philosophers and poets. Upon the questionable pleasures to which Chares gave his days and nights, he looked with good-natured contempt. The narrow prejudices of his country were ingrained too deeply in his character to be disturbed by any change of surroundings. He valued more highly the consciousness that in his veins ran a few drops of the blood of the Lion of Thermopylæ than all the riches of the world.

In each of the three young men who met in the house of Clearchus were typified many of the characteristics of the states to which they belonged. Athens, Thebes, and Sparta in turn had held the supremacy in the little peninsula to which the civilized world was confined. Contrasted as they were, there was still a bond between them that had been welded by centuries of association.

"Tell me," Clearchus said, after their hunger had been somewhat appeased, "what is the news of Thebes? Are the Macedonians still perched in the Cadmea?"

"They are," Chares replied lazily. "We are still in the grasp of the barbarian; but our plotters are at work and they tell me that soon we shall break it."

"Do you mean they are planning revolt?" Clearchus asked eagerly.

"Don't get excited," the Theban responded. "It will give you indigestion. They have revolted already, thanks to the gold your city sent them, and the barbarians are eating their corn in the citadel just at present, waiting for something to turn up."

"But that means war, Chares," Clearchus exclaimed.

"Well," Chares replied, "that will give Leonidas a chance to clear the rust from his sword. You know he is in the market."

"That is true," the Spartan said in response to Clearchus' glance of inquiry. "No man can live on air. I follow my profession where there is work to be done."

There was nothing disgraceful in this avowal. If his own country was at peace, a Greek soldier might sell his sword to the highest bidder, as did Xenophon, without reproach.

"And I suppose you, too, will be fighting, Chares?" said Clearchus.

"As to that, I don't know," the Theban answered, stretching himself with a yawn. "Perhaps the best thing that could happen to us would be to have the Macedonian conquer and rule. It would put an end to our own wars. If matters go on as they have been going, all three of us may be trying to cut each other's throats before the month is out."

"No," Clearchus exclaimed, "that cannot be, because you must promise me to stay here and drink at my wedding feast at the next new moon."

"What, Clearchus! you are going to be married?" Chares cried, springing from his couch. "Who is she?"

"Artemisia, daughter of Theorus," Clearchus answered. "She is the most beautiful – "

"Ho, Cleon, Cleon! Where are you?" Chares shouted at the top of his voice. "Cleon, I say!"

The steward ran into the room in alarm.

"Bring wine of Cyprus, quickly!" Chares cried, waving his arms.

Cleon vanished with a smile, and Chares hastened to embrace his friend with a fervor that threatened to crack his ribs. Leonidas grasped him warmly by the hand, and both showered congratulations upon him.

"We pledge thee!" Chares cried, taking the wine that Cleon brought in a great beaker of carved silver and raising it to his lips, after spilling a portion of its contents in libation.

"May the Gods give thee happiness!" Leonidas said, drinking deep in his turn.

"Neither war, famine, nor pestilence shall take us from thee until thou art married," Chares cried, half in jest. "We swear it, Leonidas, by the head of Zeus!"

"We swear it!" the Spartan echoed, and each of them again pressed the young man's hand.

"I expected no less of you," Clearchus said, smiling into the faces of his companions. "It makes my heart glad to know that you will be with me. But after your long ride you must both be used up. I will leave you to get an hour or two of sleep before the Assembly which has been called for this afternoon to hear what Demosthenes has to say upon our policy toward Macedon. You will want to hear him, of course."

"Go, Clearchus," Chares said, laughing. "That is a long speech to tell us that you would like to be rid of us while you go to your Artemisia. Come back in time for the bath, that's all."

CHAPTER II
WARNING FROM THE GODS

A few miles west of Athens, in the suburb of Academe, dwelt Melissa, aunt and guardian of Artemisia. She was an invalid, bedridden for the greater part of the year, and she had chosen to live in the country that she might not be disturbed by the city noises. She had never married, and no departure from the routine of her well-ordered house was permitted. She loved her niece; but she was not sorry to have her marry, because, as she said, her own hold upon life was so uncertain, and besides, the match was a brilliant one.

Her household consisted of Philox, her steward, who had managed her affairs for a score of years, Tolmon, her gardener, and a dozen women slaves who, like their mistress, had passed the prime of life.

In Melissa's old-fashioned garden Artemisia, with two little slave girls to help her, was at work over a hedge of roses. She had not yet reached her nineteenth year. Her soft, light brown hair was gathered in a knot at the back of her head, showing the graceful curve of the nape of her neck and half revealing the little pink lobes of her ears. Her forehead was low and smooth and broad, with delicately arched brows, a shade darker than her hair. Her eyes were blue and the color in her cheeks was heightened by her exertions in bringing the straying rose stems into place. The folds of her pure white chiton left her warm arms bare to the shoulder and defined the youthful lines of her supple figure. As she stooped among the flowers, handling them with gentle touches, she seemed preoccupied, and her glance continually wandered from her task.

Agile as monkeys, the slave girls darted about her, pelting each other with blossoms and uttering peals of shrill laughter. Their short white tunics made their swarthy skins darker by contrast.

The garden was set in a tiny meadow beside the river Cephissus. It was shut in on both sides by groves of olive and fig trees, against whose dark foliage gleamed the marble front of the house to which it belonged. The sunlight swept the smooth emerald of the turf, touched the brilliant hues of the flowers, and flashed back from the rippling river beyond.

"Oh, mistress, there's a beautiful butterfly! Oh, please, may I catch him?" cried one of the little girls.

"Hush, chatterbox," said Artemisia; "come and help me here."

"Ouch, that awful thorn! Look, mistress, how my finger bleeds," the other girl said, holding up her small brown hand.

"Will you never end your nonsense?" the young woman asked in affected despair. "See, Proxena, we have not half finished."

"Don't be angry with us, mistress; see who's coming!" Proxena cried, taking her wounded finger from her mouth and pointing with it toward the house.

Clearchus must have ridden fast to arrive so soon after leaving his friends. Artemisia, hastily plucking a half-blown rose, went forward to meet him, while the little slave girls remained behind, peeping slyly with sidelong glances and whispering to each other while they pretended to busy themselves with their work.

"Greeting, Artemisia, my Life!" Clearchus said, taking her hands in his.

"Greeting, Clearchus; I am glad to see thee," she replied.

"How beautiful thou art and how fortunate am I, my darling," the young man said radiantly. "Dost thou love me, Artemisia?"

"Thou knowest well that I do, Clearchus," she answered reproachfully. "Why dost thou ask?"

"For the joy of hearing thee say it once more," he said, laughing. "There is nothing the Gods can give that could be sweeter or more precious to me, and to add the last touch to my happiness, Chares and Leonidas came this morning and have promised to stay until our wedding."

They had been strolling toward the grove at the edge of the meadow, where a bench of carved stone, overhung with trailing vines, was set in the shade in such a position as to permit its occupants to look out over the garden and the river. They sat down side by side and Clearchus slipped his arm about Artemisia's waist. Evidently, with the subtle sense of a lover, he detected a lack of responsiveness, for he bent forward and gazed anxiously into her face. He saw that it was troubled.

"What is the matter, my dearest?" he asked in sudden alarm.

She hesitated for a moment. "Oh, Clearchus, I fear that we are too happy," she said at last in reply.

"Why do you say that?" he asked, drawing her closer to him. "Why should any of the Gods wish us harm? We have not failed in paying them honor, and we have transgressed in nothing."

Artemisia hid her face in her hands and her head drooped against his shoulder. He held her still closer and kissed the soft coils of her hair, awaiting an explanation.

"What is it, Artemisia?" he asked quietly. "You are tired and nervous and overwrought, and some foolish fancy has crept into your heart to trouble you. Tell me, my dearest; thou canst have no sorrow that is not mine as well as thine."

"Clearchus, my husband," she said, without moving from her position or lifting her face, "thou art strong and I am but a weak girl. Whatever may come, I shall always be thankful that thou didst love me. I am thine – heart and mind, body and spirit, here and in the hereafter – forever."

"Why dost thou speak so, my Soul?" Clearchus asked in alarm. "What has happened? Surely we shall be married at the new moon."

"I do not know, Clearchus – all that I know is that I love thee and shall love thee always. A warning from the Gods has been sent to me."

She lifted her face and clasped her hands in her lap. Her eyes were wet and her lips were tremulous as those of a helpless child who awaits a blow.

"What was it, my Life?" Clearchus asked gently.

"I was in a strange house," she replied, looking straight before her as though she could see the things that she described. "It was a house of many rooms, some filled with lights and some so dark I could not tell what was in them. I heard the sound of voices, of laughter, and of weeping, but I could see nobody. Thou wert there, I knew, and I was seeking thee with my heart full of terror; for something told me I would not find thee. It was dreadful – dreadful, Clearchus!"

She paused and clung to him for a moment as though in fear of being torn from his side.

"I do not know how long I wandered through passages and chambers," she resumed, "but at last I reached a corridor that had rows of pillars on either side. At the end was a crimson curtain, beyond which men and women were talking. As I stood hesitating in the empty corridor, suddenly I heard thy voice among the rest. I could not mistake it, Clearchus. Joy filled my heart. Thou didst not know I was there nor what peril I was in. I felt that I had but to lift the curtain – thou wouldst see me and I would be saved. I ran forward, crying out to thee; but before I reached the curtain, rough men came from between the pillars and thrust me back, drowning my voice with shouting and laughter. I threw myself on my knees before them and prayed them not to stop me. They answered in words that I could not understand. My heart was breaking, Clearchus! The light beyond the crimson curtain grew dim, and outside I could hear a roaring like a great storm. The pillars were shaken and the walls crumbled, and I woke crying thy name."

The young man's face had grown unusually grave and thoughtful as he listened to the recital of the dream. No man or woman of his time who believed in anything ever thought of doubting that the visions of sleep were divine communications to mortals. Statesmen directed the course of nations and generals planned their campaigns in accordance with the interpretation of these revelations.

"What does it mean, Clearchus? You are wiser than I," Artemisia said anxiously. "If I am separated from thee, I shall die."

"The men who halted you seemed to be barbarians?" Clearchus asked thoughtfully.

"Thus they seemed," she replied. "I could not understand their speech, and their clothes were not our fashion."

"I know not what it means, Artemisia," Clearchus said at last. "We are in the hands of the Gods. I shall ask the protection of Artemis and offer her a sacrifice. To-morrow we must be married. I do not dare to wait for the new moon, for I must be near you to protect you. Then, whatever may come, we will meet it together."

"Perhaps the dream was meant for me alone," Artemisia said tenderly. "I cannot bear to bring you into danger."

"Hush, Artemisia!" Clearchus said reprovingly. "I would rather a thousand times die with thee than live without thee."

With a sigh, she let her head rest on his shoulder.

"I care not what may happen so that thou art with me," she said; "then I can feel no fear."

"Artemisia," Clearchus said suddenly, "go not out again to-day. I shall tell Philox to guard thee well until to-morrow. Hast thou told Melissa of the dream?"

"No, for I wished to tell thee first and she is so easily frightened," Artemisia said.

"Then say nothing to her about it," the young man replied.

One of the little slave girls ran up to them at this moment and stood before them, twisting her fingers together and waiting to be spoken to.

"What is it, Proxena?" Artemisia asked.

"The morning meal is waiting, mistress," said the child, and sped away again.