was all but a deity in her
sight,--"hear us wherever you are, even if in the blessed land of
Rhadamanthus. Take us thither, your child and me, for there is no peace or
shelter left on earth!"

Then, seeing her panic-stricken women flying hither and thither like
witless birds, her patrician blood asserted itself. She dashed the drops
from her eyes and joined her mother in quieting the maids. Whatever there
was to hope or fear, their fate would not be lightened by wild moaning.
Soon the direful wailing from the Agora ceased. A blue flag waved over the
Council House, a sign that the "Five Hundred" had been called in hurried
session. Simultaneously a dense column of smoke leaped up from the
market-place. The archons had ordered the hucksters' booths to be burned,
as a signal to all Attica that the worst had befallen.

After inexpressibly long waiting Phormio came, then Hermippus, to tell all
they knew. Leonidas had perished gloriously. His name was with the
immortals, but the mountain wall of Hellas had been unlocked. No Spartan
army was in Boeotia. The bravest of Athens were in the fleet. The easy
Attic passes of Phyle and Decelea could never be defended. Nothing could
save Athens from Xerxes. The calamity had been foreseen, but to foresee is
not to realize. That night in Athens no man slept.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE EVACUATION OF ATHENS

It had come at last,--the hour wise men had dreaded, fools had scoffed at,
cowards had dared not face. The Barbarian was within five days' march of
Attica. The Athenians must bow the knee to the world monarch or go forth
exiles from their country.

In the morning after the night of terror came another courier, not this
time from Thermopylae. He bore a letter from Themistocles, who was
returning from Euboea with the whole allied Grecian fleet. The reading of
the letter in the Agora was the first rift in the cloud above the city.

"Be strong, prove yourselves sons of Athens. Do what a year ago you so
boldly voted. Prepare to evacuate Attica. All is not lost. In three days I
will be with you."

There was no time for an assembly at the Pnyx, but the Five Hundred and
the Areopagus council acted for the people. It was ordered to remove the
entire population of Attica, with all their movable goods, across the bay
to Salamis or to the friendly Peloponnesus, and that same noon the heralds
went over the land to bear the direful su