our
eyes to-morrow."

Sicinnus stood upright in the skiff.

"Fool," he answered in good Sidonian, "dare you halt the king's privy
messenger? It is not _our_ heads that the crows will find the soonest."

The cutter was close beside them, but the officer dropped his lantern.

"Good, then. Give the password."

" 'Hystaspes.' "

They could see the Phoenician's hand rise to his head in salute.

"Forgive my rudeness, worthy sir. It's truly needless to seek deserters
to-night with the Hellenes' affairs so desperate, yet we must obey his
Eternity's orders."

"I pardon you," quoth the emissary, loftily, "I will commend your
vigilance to the admiral."

"May Moloch give your Lordship ten thousand children," called back the
mollified Semite.

The crew of the cutter dropped their blades into the water. The boats
glided apart. Not till there was a safe stretch betwixt them did Glaucon
begin to grow hot, then cold, then hot again. Chill Thanatos had passed
and missed by a hair's breadth. Again the bumping of the oars and the
slow, slow creeping over the water. The night was darkening. The clouds
had hid the moon and all her stars. Sicinnus, shrewd and weatherwise,
remarked, "There will be a stiff wind in the morning," and lapsed into
silence. Glaucon toiled on resolutely. A fixed conviction was taking
possession of his mind,--one that had come on the day he had been preserved
at Thermopylae, now deepened by the event just passed,--that he was being
reserved by the god for some crowning service to Hellas, after which
should come peace, whether the peace of a warrior who dies in the arms of
victory, whether the peace of a life spent after a deed well done, he
scarcely knew, and in the meantime, if the storms must beat and the waves
rise up against him, he would bear them still. Like the hero of his race,
he could say, "Already have I suffered much and much have I toiled in
perils of waves and war, let this be added to the tale of those."

Bump--bump, the oars played their monotonous music on the thole-pins.
Sicinnus stirred on his seat. He was peering northward anxiously, and
Glaucon knew what he was seeking. Through the void of the night their
straining eyes saw masses gliding across the face of the water. Ariabignes
was making his promise good. Yonder the Egyptian fleet were swinging forth
to close the last retreat of the Hellenes. Thus on the north, and
southward, too, other triremes were thrusting out, bearing--both wat