set his face to the south,
for there lay Plataea. There he would find the Hellenes.

He was almost unconscious of everything save the fierce pain and the need
to go forward even to the end. At moments he thought he saw the mountains
springing out of their gloom,--Helicon and Cithaeron beckoning him on, as
with living fingers.

"Not too late. Marathon was not vain, nor Thermopylae, nor Salamis. You can
save Hellas."

Who spoke that? He stared into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then
phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of
his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending
feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana
singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana
became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and
watching the sun sink behind Daphni making the Acropolis glow with red
fire and gold. Yet all the time he knew he was going onward. He must not
stop.

"For Hellas! For Hermione!"

At last even the vision of the Violet-Crowned City faded to mist. Had he
reached the end,--the rest by the fields of Rhadamanthus, away from human
strife? The night was ever darkening. He saw nothing, felt nothing,
thought nothing save that he was still going onward, onward.

* * * * * * *

At some time betwixt midnight and dawning an Athenian outpost was pacing
his beat outside the lines of Aristeides. The allied Hellenes were
retiring from their position by the Asopus to a more convenient spot by
Plataea, less exposed to the dreaded Persian cavalry, but on the night
march the contingents had become disordered. The Athenians were halting
under arms,--awaiting orders from Pausanias the commander-in-chief. The
outpost--Hippon, a worthy charcoal-burner of Archarnae--was creeping gingerly
behind the willow hedges, having a well-grounded fear of Tartar arrows.
Presently his fox-keen ears caught footfalls from the road. His shield
went up. He couched his spear. His eyes, sharpened by the long darkness,
saw a man hardly running, nor walking, yet dragging one foot and leaning
on a staff. Here was no Tartar, and Hippon sprang out boldly.

"Halt, stranger, tell your business."

"For Aristeides." The apparition seemed holding out something in his hand.

"That's not the watchword. Give it, or I must arrest you."

"For Aristeides."

"Zeus smite you, fellow, can't you speak Greek? W