Buch lesen: «The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great», Seite 27

CHAPTER LXIX
CHARES FINDS REST

Again Alexander and Darius stood face to face, this time upon the plain of Nineveh at Gaugamela, the Camel's House, beyond the swift Tigris. Chares and Leonidas felt the chill of autumn in the air as they strolled out upon the earthen ramparts that sheltered the Macedonian camp. The wide plain below them, where they knew the Persian host was assembled, was shrouded in mist.

Both were silent, and both were thinking of Clearchus, whom they had left behind in Egypt, in the new city that Alexander had founded at the mouth of the Nile, giving it his own name. There he was building the house that was to shelter him and Artemisia amid its gardens, within sight and sound of the sea; for when he learned of the wreck of his fortune, he had no desire to return to Athens.

"We shall soon know who is master," the Spartan said, gazing toward the mist-wrapped plain.

Chares followed his look indifferently, yawned, and stretched his arms.

"I believe I would rather go back to sleep than fight," he said. "I don't know what has come over me."

Leonidas shot him a quick glance, and it seemed to him that the Theban's face had aged and grown grave over night.

"I wonder what Clearchus and Artemisia and little Chares are doing," Chares went on. "I would like to see them again. May the Gods give them happiness!"

"Yes, and I shall be happy too when you have built your palace beside them," Leonidas replied. "It will have to be a palace, for Thais will be satisfied with nothing less."

Chares smiled a little sadly and shook his head.

"That is not for me," he said. "I shall never have a home and children of my own."

"Nonsense!" the Spartan replied decisively. "What is to become of Thais, then?"

"I know not," Chares said reflectively. "Watch over her, Leonidas, if I am not there to do it. She loves me."

"You talk like a sick man," Leonidas exclaimed, "yet you were never better. What is the matter with you?"

"Who can speak of to-morrow?" Chares replied. "You know, Leonidas, that I am not afraid, and yet somehow I care not. You and Clearchus I must leave sometime, and whenever that time comes, it will be a regret to me; and Thais, of course, will grieve; but she will recover. She is not like Artemisia. I think something is lacking in me. I have taken pleasure in life, but I am tired of everything. My city exists no more. Perhaps I am being punished for taking service under the man who destroyed it. I do not know – or care. Let be what will be."

"When you hear the trumpet, you will forget all this folly," Leonidas said impatiently. "You are young and you have everything to live for. That palace will be built yet; and when our heads are gray, we shall be sitting there, telling each other of this battle. See, they are waiting for us. They have been there all night."

The mist was lifting in undulating billows and twisted scarfs of vapor, floating away into the upper air. Before them was mustered the might of the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Away to the left and right spread the army of the Great King, a wilderness of bright plumes and glittering helmets. The spear-points, emerging from the mist, caught the rays of the sun like diamonds. Rank on rank they stood, so deep that the young men could not distinguish where the files ceased. Far on their right was the Bactrian cavalry and the Persian horse under the cruel viceroy Bessus, who had unwittingly saved Chares and Clearchus from the Babylonian mob. They could make out the banners of the Susians, the Albanians, the Hyrcanians, the fierce Parthians, the Syrians, the Arachotians, the Cadusians, the Babylonian levies, the haughty Medes, the dusky squadrons from beyond the Indus, the warriors from the shores of the Red Sea, the Mesopotamians, the Armenians, the Cappadocians, and the mongrel tribes of mixed blood. From the flaunting banners they could read the muster-roll of the nations that bowed to the will of Darius.

In advance of the first rank stood a line of huge, swaying brown bulks. They were the royal elephants, stationed there to drive a pathway through the Macedonian army for the Great King. Leonidas wondered at their number and size. On both sides of them stretched rows of chariots, with axles and neaps that terminated in long, curved scythe-blades. Behind the elephants was the royal squadron of ten thousand picked riders, and in its rear Darius had stationed himself, surrounded by his kinsmen, and protected on either side by bodies of Greek mercenaries. All the plain in front of the vast array had been made as level as a floor, so that the chariots might find no obstacle in their advance.

"This will be the last battle," Chares said indifferently. "If we win here, the empire is ours."

"We shall win!" Leonidas exclaimed.

"I'm not so sure of that," Chares said, measuring the host of the enemy with his eye. "There are more of them than there were at Issus, and here they have room to move."

A trumpet sent its bold notes from the Macedonian camp. The call was taken up by others, rose, and died away. Presently the first squadron of the phalanx wheeled out upon the plain, and began marching slowly and in silence down the gentle slope toward the Persian van.

"We must get into our armor," Chares said, and the two friends hastened down from the rampart.

The camp was swarming like a great beehive. Rough shouts of greeting, jests, and salutations were heard on every side as the soldiers hurried to join their commands. The army was in high spirits at the prospect of a decisive grapple, but the heaviness that oppressed Chares' mind refused to yield to the general enthusiasm. He made his way through the crowds to the purple pavilion set apart for Sisygambis, the mother of Darius, and his children. The beautiful Statira was no longer there. She had died in her captivity.

"I wish to speak with Thais," Chares said to the eunuch who guarded the door.

He was admitted to an anteroom of the tent while a slave carried his message. Thais answered the summons quickly. A proud smile parted her lips when she saw the powerful form of the Theban, clad in resplendent armor; but it vanished when she looked into his face.

He took her hands and bent down to kiss her, while the plumes of his helmet fell about their heads.

"I have but a moment," he said. "Farewell, Thais; you have loved me better than I deserved."

"Chares!" she exclaimed, with a sinking of the heart that caused her voice to flutter. "Why do you speak to me like this? I have loved you and I do love you with all my heart – with all my heart! Never have I loved another, and I never shall. Without you I should die!"

She stood on tiptoe and threw her arms around his neck. "You are all I have!" she cried, with a sob.

"Thais," he said, holding her close, "if I come not back to you, promise me that you will accept what the Gods send. They are wiser than we."

To Thais it seemed as though the world was slipping away from her. He had gone to battle before, and she well knew its chances; but he was so brave and strong that she had never really feared for him and for herself. What would become of her without him? She remembered what she had been before she knew him. The future would be worse than a void. The thought of it stabbed her heart like a knife.

"If you come not back!" she cried, clinging to him with all her strength. "But you will come back, Chares – tell me that you will! Tell me that you will come back for my sake. I cannot let you go!"

"I will come back if the Gods permit it," he said, kissing her once more, "but promise me, my love, for the time is short."

A trumpet sounded, and Thais understood that he must leave her.

"I promise," she said hastily, "but, O my heart, guard thyself in the battle; for it is thy life and mine thou bearest!"

She felt his arms press her closely and tenderly, and then he was gone. She turned slowly back to the inner rooms of the pavilion, where the queen mother sat with her little grandson in her lap. Sisygambis had taken a fancy to her, especially since the death of her daughter-in-law, whom Thais had tended in her illness. She turned her face toward her, stamped with traces of sorrow.

"What is happening?" she asked.

"They are marching out to battle," Thais replied.

"My son is there!" the queen said. "May Astoreth have him in her care. But whichever way the battle goes, either I or thou must weep. Our hearts are their playthings!"

As the Companions emerged from the camp, they passed through the ranks of the Thracian infantry, left behind to protect it, and saw the phalanx forming on the plain. They swung into the battle line on its right, behind the archers and the javelin men. The Persians overlapped them on both flanks by half a mile.

Never had Chares seen Alexander so confidently at ease as when he rode along the line in his bright armor, his white plumes nodding as he looked to see that all was in readiness. His eye was clear and his brow was untroubled in the face of those tremendous odds, although he knew that his fate depended upon the issue of that day. He took his place beside Clitus on the extreme right wing of the army, with the squadrons of Glaucias behind him.

There was a stir in the Persian host, and the terrible scythed chariots, drawn by horses that were lashed to madness, bounded forward across the interval that separated the two armies. At the same time the elephants began to move, and the Persian centre advanced to the attack.

Chares had hardly time to note this movement before the Bactrian and Scythian cavalry under Bessus swept down upon the Companions. Alexander ordered Mœnidas and the Greek mercenary cavalry to meet the charge. The Greeks galloped bravely to oppose the onset, but the rush of the Bactrians scattered them like chaff. The Pœonian cavalry under Aristo was then sent forward with better success. The wild troops of Bessus were curbed and forced back for a space, and Chares could see the bull-necked viceroy raging among them in a frantic endeavor to make them stand. Finding all his efforts in vain, he ordered the main body of the Bactrian cavalry, fourteen thousand in all, to charge. They left their place in the left of the Persian line and thundered down upon the Pœonians like an avalanche.

Not until then did Alexander turn his face to the impatient Companions. He raised his hand as a signal to make ready. Each man gathered his bridle reins more firmly, and tightened his grasp on his spear. A page scurried back to Aretes, who had been posted in the rear of the main line as a protection to the flank, telling him to charge with his splendid lancers. Then the Companions rushed forward, with Alexander at their head, and with their plumes fluttering like foam on the crest of a wave.

Squadron by squadron, they tore into the enemy's lines, while Scyth and Bactrian went down before them. Swift and deadly as a falcon, Aretes swooped upon Bessus' flank, throwing it into confusion. But the viceroy refused to yield, and the stubborn righting continued.

Meantime the dreaded scythe-bearing chariots had neared the phalanx, which it was their task to break. The soldiers clashed their spear butts against their shields with a clangor that frightened many of the horses beyond control. The light-footed skirmishers in advance of the line shot their arrows into the sides of the animals, or risked their lives to sever the traces of their harness. Some of the horses wheeled and galloped back into the Persian horde. Others were killed upon the sarissas that pierced their necks. A few of the chariots reached the line, that opened hastily to let them through, and both horses and charioteers were slain at leisure in the rear.

The elephants, from which the Great King had hoped so much, proved as useless as the chariots. Bewildered in the clamor raised by the phalanx, and maddened by the wounds inflicted upon them by the archers, they rushed about the field, trumpeting wildly, and trampling the Persians in their search for escape. Darius saw them, and his brow clouded.

With the first stride of his horse when the Companions charged, Chares felt his heart leap and the glow of joy in battle warm his veins. Misgiving and foreboding fell from him. He struck with mighty blows, spurring his horse forward into the Bactrian ranks until he could go no further. When his squadron fell back to give place to another, he refused to follow it, but remained there, fighting until the fresh troop in its charge surrounded him and bore him forward. Even when the Bactrians began to give way, and Alexander, leaving them to Aretes, directed the trumpeters to draw off the Companions, the Theban would not go. The young king, who happened to be near, spoke to him sharply.

"Obey orders!" he said. "You shall have your fill of fighting."

Chares reluctantly complied. His eyes were bloodshot and his face flushed like that of a drunken man. To ease the throbbing of his temples, he loosed his helmet and threw it upon the ground.

Alexander's eye, keen as a hawk's, glanced along the front of the Persian line, and his heart leaped as he saw a wide break in the ranks just at the left of the centre, where Darius stood in his chariot. The Susians had shifted slightly toward Bessus, in order to give him their support, and a gap had opened between them and the Greek mercenaries who guarded the Great King on that side. The Macedonians had been ordered to fight in silence, so that the trumpets might be heard, and now their varied notes rang across the field. At the first signal, the hypaspists under Nicanor detached themselves from the line and came forward at a run. Another call, another, and another, brought the veterans of the phalanx swinging in behind them. Rank on rank, the tough fighting men of Cœnas, Perdiccas, Meleager, and Polyspherchon fell in with the rapid precision of cool discipline, forming a solid column that fronted toward the gap.

Alexander gave the word to the Companions to place themselves at the head of this enormous wedge, and then, with a shout that rolled far across the plain, it hurled itself against the Persian line. Into the gap rode the Companions, and after them pressed the heavy infantry. The matchless horsemen struck at the heart of the Persian host; the resistless charge of the men who followed them tore wide the wound.

Close to the snowy plumes that floated from Alexander's helmet in the front rank of the Companions streamed the yellow hair of Chares. The Theban fought with the strength of fury. His sword rose and fell, and every blow carried a death wound. A strange sense of unreality possessed him. He seemed to be fighting in a dream. Suddenly, through the dust and confusion of the trampled field, he caught sight of the figure of Darius, and every sense became acute. The Great King, wearing the royal robe of purple over his armor, stood erect in his chariot, shooting arrows into the Macedonian column. Between him and the Companions stood ten thousand Greek mercenaries.

Chares was seized by an overmastering and unreasoning rage against the tall, handsome man who had brought the vast horde together to oppose them.

"Darius! Darius!" he shouted, and spurred his horse so fiercely that the animal leaped forward, carrying his rider far into the mercenary cohorts. Alexander and the foremost of the Companions, among them Leonidas, pressed in after him. The Spartan shouted to him to be cautious, but he might as well have warned the wind. To right and left swung the terrible sword, and every bound of the frantic horse carried him farther forward. The ranks of the mercenaries were cleft apart. From every side blows were aimed at him, but the hireling troops were prevented by those who came after from closing around him.

Chares saw nothing but the pale face of the Great King. A sword gashed his thigh, but he did not feel the wound. An arrow pierced his shoulder. He snapped off the shaft so that it might not interfere with the sweep of his arm.

Darius looked toward the left, and his eyes met those of the Theban. He saw the strokes that were rained upon his armor; he saw the darts that were aimed at him. At every breath it seemed that he must go down, and yet onward he came, and his gaze never left the royal chariot. The Great King noticed that his lips were stained with bloody froth and that his hair was roped and matted with sweat. A chill settled about the monarch's heart. It seemed to him that the yellow-headed giant, whom nothing could stay, would surely reach him; and yet he was incapable of movement. Like a man bound hand and foot by a nightmare, he stood awaiting his end. The man was now so near that he fancied he could hear the panting of his breath. The warning cries of his kinsmen sounded in his ears, and he knew that they were trying to throw themselves before him. Of all the Macedonian army he feared only this one enemy. Would he succeed in reaching the chariot? No! His horse had swerved aside. Darius saw him grasp a javelin that was being thrust at his breast, and wrest it from the hands of the man who held it. He was about to cast. The Great King could see the glitter of the point of steel. Something grazed his arm, and the haft of the weapon quivered across his heart, its blade buried in the side of his charioteer.

Darius drew a shuddering breath of relief, and opened his eyes. He saw the great roan steed that bore his foe rear high above the heads of his guard. Its fore legs struck aimlessly at the air, and the face of its rider was hidden in its tossing mane. Then, with a scream of agony, the horse fell backward, and a hundred mercenaries swarmed upon him, thrusting and thrusting with their short swords.

The Great King was saved; but he knew that the battle, upon which he had staked all, was lost. He saw the eager faces of the Companions, and beyond them the solid wall of the phalanx, sweeping nearer, like a resistless tide. He stepped across the body of his charioteer and mounted a horse. Before his feet were in the stirrups he heard the ominous cry, "The king flees!" that had run before the rout at Issus, and by the time he reached the spot where the rear guard of his army should have been, the dust-cloud raised by hurrying hoofs and flying feet obscured the sun.

Slowly, from among the dead, Chares raised himself, and gazed with dimming eyes toward the place where the Great King had stood. Only the broken chariot and the dead were there, but far away he saw the ebbing tide of the battle. A smile flickered upon his lips, his head sank upon the side of his brave horse, and his blue eyes closed. "Sleep and rest!" he thought, and the darkness swept over him.

CHAPTER L
PROMISES FULFILLED

In the great Hall of Xerxes, in Persepolis, the city whose streets had never been trodden by the feet of an enemy since the first Cyrus overthrew the Medes and founded the Achæmenian line, Alexander feasted with his friends. Two months had passed since the empire that Cyrus won had been wrested from Darius at Gaugamela. Susa had fallen, and the might of Persia was shattered forever.

Terrace above terrace, from the limpid waters of the Araxes, fed eternally by mountain snows, rose the wonderful palaces upon which the revenues of generations had been lavished. There the grandeur and majesty of the masters of more than half the world had bloomed into visible form. There Cyrus and his successors had been accustomed to seek refuge from the summer heat, and to lay aside the cares of empire for luxurious days amid the myriad blossoms of their gardens and the fairer flowers of their effeminate courts.

The huge monoliths of the Hall of the Hundred Columns reared themselves from their hewn platform of stone. Around them were grouped the palaces of Cyrus and of Xerxes, of Artaxerxes and Darius, built of rare woods and polished marble, brought from distant quarries with infinite labor, that the eyes of the Great Kings might take delight therein. Each monarch had striven to outdo his predecessor in beauty and magnificence.

Broad staircases, guarded by colossal figures of soldiers, connected terraces, upheld by retaining walls upon which were sculptured enormous lions and bulls.

The palaces themselves were large enough to give an army lodgement. Their walls and ceilings were adorned with paintings commemorating the triumphs of the kings in war and in the chase. Upon the sides of the Hall of Xerxes, where the Macedonian captains were gathered at tables laden with vessels of solid gold, the petulant monarch, who had chastised the Hellespont with rods and who had given the temples of Athens to the flames, was represented in his hunting chariot, receiving the charge of a wounded lion. In the light of countless torches, the great paintings, the hangings, and the carpets spread upon the floor formed a background of rich color for the snowy garments of the banqueters.

Statues of ebony, lapis-lazuli, marble, and jade, brought from many a captured city, gleamed against the lofty wainscoting of golden plates, wrought into strange reliefs.

Alexander reclined upon a raised couch, covered with priceless Babylonian embroidery. In front of him the tables were arranged in the form of an oblong, stretching the length of the hall, and beside them lolled the veterans, crowned with wreaths of flowers whose perfume mingled with the heavy scent of unguents and incense. There were many women at the feast, each sitting beside her chosen lord. Some of them had been taken as captives. Others, released from the bondage of the harem, had formed willing alliances with the conquerors. They were admitted to the banquet on terms of equality with the men, according to the Macedonian fashion, and their light laughter, the brilliancy of their eyes, and the flashing of the jewels with which they were plentifully adorned lent a finishing touch of brightness to the scene.

But the beauty of the fairest representatives of a race famed for its beauty paled before that of Thais, whose gilded chair was set next to the couch of Ptolemy on Alexander's left. It was not so much the perfect grace of her form or the proud poise or her head, with its masses of tawny hair, that gave her distinction, as the spirit that shone in her eyes. Beautiful as she was, she had changed since the death of Chares. There was a suggestion of imperious hardness in her glance; she was less womanly, but more fascinating. The hearts of men turned to wax as they gazed upon her, even though something indefinable warned them that their longing would find no response in her heart. Yet warm vitality seemed to radiate from her, and the quick blood came and went under her clear skin with each changing emotion.

Habituated to the stiff formalities of the Persian court, the deft slaves who attended the Macedonians were astonished at the freedom of their manners. All the skill of the royal cooks was expended to prepare the feast. Scores of delicate dishes were brought in and set before the Greeks, but the master of the kitchens was in despair at their lack of appreciation. They devoured what was offered to them, it was true, but without a sign of the gastronomical discussion in which the Persian nobles were wont to indulge. The wine, however, was not spared, and the keeper of the royal cellars groaned over the havoc wrought among his precious amphoræ. The provision for a twelvemonth was exhausted, and still the thirst of the strangers seemed unabated. In the last and most ancient of the Persian capitals they were celebrating their triumph in their own way, and it was the way of men whose vices were as strong as their virtues.

The conversation, animated from the first, became livelier as the banquet progressed. The soldiers called to each other from table to table, pledging each other in goblets of amber and ruby wine as costly as amber and rubies. Faces were flushed and eyes grew bright. The stately hall echoed with laughter, in which the musical voices of the women joined. Old stories were told again, and time-worn jokes took on the attraction of novelty. The women provoked their guerdon of homage, and it was paid to them on hand and lip with frank generosity. The brains of even the stoutest members of the company were whirling, and some of the more susceptible to the influence of the wine began to slip unsteadily away, amid the jeers of their comrades, in the hope that the cool outer air would drive off their giddiness and enable them to see the end. Those who remained were all talking at once, boasting of their deeds, with none to listen.

Alexander, weary of the din, called suddenly upon Callisthenes to speak in praise of the Greeks. The orator rose slowly from his place and strode out into the open space between the tables.

"To whom shall I speak?" he demanded, gazing about him with an expression of disgust upon the babbling captains. "They are all mad with vanity and wine."

"Speak then to Xerxes," Alexander replied, pointing to the wall, from which the royal portrait seemed to look down upon them with a sneer.

Callisthenes obeyed. At first his voice was unheeded; but as his apostrophe gathered force, the chatter of talk died away around him, and all eyes were turned upon him.

Calling upon the dead king by name, he magnified his power and told how he had gathered the nations to the invasion of Hellas. The failure of his attempt he attributed to the jealousy of the Gods, who would not permit destruction to fall upon the country that was to produce Alexander. He described the heroic stand of the Spartans at Thermopylæ, and the victory of Salamis; and as he dwelt upon the bravery of the Greeks in the face of those overwhelming odds, the hall rang with the cheers of men who themselves knew what it was to fight and to conquer.

"By thy command, O Xerxes!" the orator cried, extending his open palm toward the portrait, "Hellas was made to blush in the flames that devoured the temples of her Gods upon the Athenian Acropolis; but the life of man is brief, while the Gods die not nor do they forget. Look down from thy chariot! Alexander, the defender and avenger of Hellas, holds thy dominions, and the nations that owned thy sway are bowed at his feet. Turn not thy face away; for the fire with which thou didst insult and offend the Gods of Hellas hath flamed across all Persia, until it hath reached thee at last!"

The rage that had been gathering in the breasts of the Macedonians at the recital of the wrongs that Greece had suffered could be repressed no longer. Clitus leaped to his feet and hurled his golden beaker at the painted face of Xerxes. In an instant the hall was in an uproar. The company rose with one accord and turned to Alexander, shouting for revenge. To their inflamed minds it seemed as though the injuries inflicted by Xerxes were of yesterday. The contagion caught the young king, who sprang from his couch and stood gazing around him, seeking some means of satisfying the desire for vengeance that swelled his heart.

Thais had been watching his face with lips slightly parted and a strangely intent look in her eyes, as though waiting for the moment to carry into execution some project that she had formed in her mind. While Alexander stood hesitating, she seized a blazing torch from its socket in one of the columns.

"He burned our temples – let fire be his punishment!" she whispered, thrusting the torch into Alexander's grasp.

"The Gods shall be avenged!" he cried, accepting her plan without hesitation; for the wine he had drunk and the maddening clamor of his followers had gone to his head.

He thrust the lighted torch against the draperies that hung behind him. A cry of horror burst from the slaves and attendants as the flame caught the heavy folds and ran upward in leaping spirals; but the cry was lost in the fierce triumphant shout of the captains. Every man grasped a torch and ran to spread the conflagration. The great Hall of Xerxes was enveloped in flame and smoke so quickly that the incendiaries themselves had barely time to escape.

Rushing from the doorways with the torches in their hands, the Macedonians hastened from palace to palace, scattering destruction. Clouds of smoke, glowing red above the leaping flames, rose over the marvellous structures that had been reared with so much toil. Tower and terrace, porch and portico, were transformed into roaring furnaces in whose heat the great columns cracked and fell with a noise like the rumbling of thunder. The lofty ceilings crashed down upon wonders of art and precious fabrics. The plates of beaten gold that lined the walls melted and ran into crevices which opened in the marble floor. Of the slaves, some perished in the flames; others fled with booty snatched from the ruin; still others ran wildly into the darkness, crying that the Macedonians were preparing to put to the sword all who dwelt in the pleasant valley.

The banqueters, driven back by the heat, watched the conflagration with shouts of joy while it slowly burned itself out, leaving only the gaunt and blackened skeletons of the group of palaces that had been the delight of the Great Kings.

Thais stood beside Ptolemy, beneath the wide branches of an oak where the glare of the flames she had kindled threw her figure into strong relief against the blackness. She held herself proudly erect, and a slight smile curved her lips as she saw the banners of flame leap upward toward the stars.

"Why did you do it?" the Macedonian asked, with an accent of respect that seemed out of place in a camp where women were held so cheap.

"I did it because of a promise that I gave to Orontobates when I was a captive in Halicarnassus," Thais replied. "I like to keep my word."

Something in her tone prevented the soldier, bold as he was, from asking her what the promise had been. She had already taught him when to remain silent, and he had learned that he must either submit or abandon hope of winning her. As he stood, drinking in her beauty, revealed in a new aspect by the firelight, he was puzzled to see her head droop, while two tears slowly gathered upon her lashes.