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

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.

"Farewell, Chares, my lover!" she was saying to herself. "Upon thy funeral pyre my heart, too, is turning to ashes!"

"Thais," Ptolemy whispered, moved by her emotion without knowing its cause, "do not forget that I love thee!"

"I do not forget," she replied, "nor have I forgotten another promise that I made; for I think the Gods have sent thee to me. To-morrow I will be thy wife; and when this war has reached its end, thou shalt reign in Alexandria over Egypt with me at thy side."

"Thais!" Ptolemy exclaimed, clasping her at last in his arms.

So Thais, the Athenian dancing girl, kept her pledge; but through the length and breadth of the land ran the news that the home of the Great Kings had been laid in ashes, and men knew that, though Darius still lived, his power indeed was gone forever.

CHAPTER LI

AMID FRAGMENTS OF EMPIRE

Clearchus and Artemisia were walking in the garden of their home in Alexandria. Between the trunks of the trees, at a distance, they could see the roofs and towers of the populous city, and across the blue water, which began where the slopes of verdure ended, they could watch the white sails of ships bringing trade from all parts of the world. Ten years had passed since the palaces of Persepolis had crumbled into ashes. Alexander had been dead three years, and his body lay in the royal tomb at the mouth of the Nile, whither Ptolemy had brought it from Babylon, when the empire was divided among the Macedonian generals and he came to rule over Egypt in place of the rapacious Cleomenes.

Artemisia's figure had lost some of its girlish grace, but her blue eyes retained their clearness and her cheeks the delicate flush of her youth. Clearchus, too, was heavier than he had been when he fought among the Companions under Alexander, whom men were beginning to call "the Great."

At a turn in the path Artemisia placed her hand upon his arm and checked him. The silvery voices of children came from a sunlit glade among the shrubbery. They saw a boy of eleven years, clad in a short white tunic that left his arms and legs free, shooting with blunt arrows at a target that hung against a tree. Two little girls stood watching him, and after each shot they ran with eager laughter to find the arrow and fetch it back to him. Their fair hair gleamed in the sun. Artemisia's eyes sought those of her husband, and a smile of mother love transfigured her face.

"I am almost afraid to be so happy," she murmured.

Clearchus laughed. "You need not fear, my heart," he replied. "Do not the Gods owe us something? They are generous."

They heard a step on the gravel behind them, and Leonidas advanced with a smile and hands outstretched. He had changed little, excepting that a few gray hairs appeared at his temples and the lines of his face had deepened.

"Welcome, comrade!" Clearchus cried, running forward to meet him. "Whence come you? What news?"

"I come from the council in Syria," Leonidas answered, "and as for news, there has been another division of the world."

"And Ptolemy?" Clearchus asked anxiously.

"He retains Egypt," the Spartan said. "Antipater is regent, with Macedonia and all Greece; Seleucus gets the satrapy of Babylon; and Antigonus, Susiana, besides what he had."

"I hope we shall have peace at last," Artemisia said, glancing toward the children.

"We shall have peace here, at all events," Leonidas said grimly. "None of the generals is desirous of sharing the fate of Perdiccas."

They sat down beneath a vine-grown trellis while Leonidas told them of the events that had led to the new distribution of the empire, describing the jealousies of the leaders and the ferment of revolt that was working in Greece.

"When will they stop killing each other?" Artemisia said sadly. "Has not each of them more than enough without trying to rob the others? Leave them to their quarrels, Leonidas; there is room enough for another house here beside us, and we will find you a mistress for it."

Leonidas shook his head and sipped the wine that a slave had brought for his refreshment. He knew that she referred to the site that they had reserved for Chares and Thais.

"It is too late," he replied, half regretfully. "As we have lived, so we must die."

Artemisia slipped her hand within that of Clearchus, while the Spartan followed with his eyes the glancing sails of a vessel whose prow was turned toward the north and the rugged hillsides of his native land. Their reflections were interrupted by the children, who had tired of their play and were seeking new diversion.

"Ho! Uncle Leonidas," shouted the boy, swooping down upon the Spartan. "Where did you come from? Tell me about the death of King Darius!"

He sat down beside Leonidas and composed himself to listen. The little girls took Artemisia prisoner and led her away to see a nest they had found, in which, they assured her, were funny little birds with no feathers on their wings. Leonidas, his eyes still on the receding ship, began the story that he had often told before. He related how the army came to Ecbatana, the gem of cities, with its seven walls each of a different color from the others, and each rising higher than the one outside it, and how they found that the Great King had fled up into the snow-capped mountains that overlook the Caspian Sea. He had with him Bessus, the treacherous; Oxathres, his own brother; Artabazus, the first nobleman of Persia, who commanded the Greek mercenaries; and a score more of the generals and viceroys who still remained constant to his fortune. He told how Darius wished to stand and fight among the rugged passes, but the others would not allow it; how Artabazus, suspecting their perfidy, besought him to trust himself to his Greeks, to which the Great King consented for the morrow; and how that night Bessus fettered him with golden chains and made him a prisoner in his litter.

The boy listened with sparkling eyes intent upon the Spartan's face, while Leonidas described how Alexander, finding the Persians ever fleeing before him, had left the foot-soldiers behind and struck out with the Companions across the desert to intercept them. The lad held his breath as he followed the desperate ride over the burning sands, where one by one the horses stumbled and fell, gasping, until only seventy riders remained. His cheeks flushed when he heard how a soldier had brought water to Alexander in his helmet, and how the young king, thirsty as he was, refused to moisten his lips because there was not enough for all.

Then came the charge of the seventy weary Macedonians in the gray of the morning upon the camp of the sleeping Persians and the panic-stricken flight of the cowardly army before them, too frightened even to look back. And there they found the Great King lying in his litter, stabbed through and through by the order of Bessus, who had hoped thus to win the favor of Alexander.

"And that was the end of Darius," the Spartan concluded. "Alexander was sorry for his death, and he spread his own cloak over him as he lay there; but I think it was better for him to die then than to live subject to another, remembering his former power. He was unfortunate in this, that he was not killed in battle, as all brave men should wish to be. He had an opportunity for that at Gaugamela, but he threw it away."

A picture rose before the Spartan's memory of Chares, lying with his broad shoulders against the side of his horse amid the dead, with a smile upon his lips, and he sighed.

"You have never yet told me what became of Bessus," the boy said coaxingly. "Is he still alive?"

"No," Leonidas replied, his face darkening. "He was betrayed in his turn, and Alexander ordered him to be killed in the manner of the Scyths when they punish traitors."

"What is that?" the boy asked.

"I shall not tell you," Leonidas said grimly, "but it was too good for him!"

"There is Thais," Clearchus exclaimed. "Run and fetch your mother," he added to his son.

They rose and went to meet Thais, who was advancing slowly down an avenue of trees. Two enormous black eunuchs held a broad parasol above her head, and other slaves followed her, both men and maids, forming a train of escort. When she saw Clearchus and Leonidas, she spoke a word to her attendants, who halted, and she came forward alone. The sunlight, sifting through the branches that formed a green arch over her head, touched the burnished coils of her hair, flashing from hidden jewels and glancing upon the shimmering silk of her robes.

"She is more beautiful than ever," Leonidas said, gazing at her with admiration.

"Yes, and she rules Ptolemy in everything," Clearchus replied.

"My friends!" Thais exclaimed, giving them her hands. "It makes my heart glad to see you; but where is Artemisia?"

"I have sent for her," Clearchus replied.

"Before she comes," Thais said, seating herself beneath the trellis and lowering her voice, "I must tell you something. The proofs for which I sent to Athens have arrived, and there can no longer be any doubt that we are sisters."

"She will be overjoyed," Clearchus said.

"I shall not tell her," Thais replied.

"Why not?" Leonidas asked bluntly. "You are a queen now, or will be one soon, and nobody thinks of – of the past."

"It is precisely because I intend to be a queen that I shall not tell her," Thais continued. "She could not love me more if she knew, and I will not be the means of bringing danger upon her or her children. We know the fate that awaits the kinsmen of princes. Did not Olympias cause Cleopatra to be slain with her babe in her arms? Has not Roxana murdered Statira, and is not Roxana herself, with the young Alexander, held in captivity? Nevertheless, I will tell her if you desire, and it shall be proclaimed throughout Egypt."