Robert Fuller - The Golden Hope - A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great

Ariston blanched at this outburst, but immediately recovered himself. "Alas! What can you do alone?" he asked mournfully.

"He will not be alone, for Chares and I will be with him," Leonidas said quietly. "We have sworn it."

"I will not advise against it," Ariston said with a sigh. "But it may be that the galleys you have sent out will bring the robbers back. You must not forget that you have duties to the State. The times are troubled and your fortune is great."

"My own affairs must come first at present," Clearchus said bluntly. "As for my fortune, of what use is it to me without Artemisia? I must ask you to take charge of it once more for me. I shall give you full power, and if I come not back I desire that it shall be devoted to the public good as you may see fit."

"I am an old man," Ariston said, with mock hesitation, "but I cannot refuse the trust under the circumstances if you require it of me. Yet, why dost thou leave Athens?"

"How can I remain here?" Clearchus exclaimed. "My suffering is too great. But I knew you would not refuse me," he added in a calmer voice, clasping his uncle by the hand.

"Doubtless they have carried her to some one of the Eastern cities," Ariston said reflectively. "That is where this Syphax would most naturally go, as it seems his hope is to get money. I will write to such friends as I have there to be on the watch."

Clearchus groaned. "It will be too late, I fear, before thy letters can reach them," he said. "I know not what to do nor where to turn."

"Here is Aristotle; let us consult him," Chares said as the philosopher entered.

Aristotle listened attentively while Clearchus and his friends related all the circumstances of Artemisia's abduction. He asked many questions regarding the particulars of the dream of warning that had preceded the attack.

"Some things we know and others we can guess," he said at last. "Only the Gods know all. The world is wide. I pity thee, Clearchus, my friend, with all my heart, and I wish that I might aid thee. It is clear that the warning came from Artemis. I advise thee to seek counsel from Phœbus, her brother. Thou art not an unworthy disciple of his, for thy heart is pure and thy hands are clean. Thou lovest the poets and music. Go to him with faith and perhaps he will aid thee."

Hope appeared upon the face of the young Athenian. "I will go," he said. "The great God himself loved Daphne and lost her. He may take compassion on me. Chares shall remain here and set all things in order so that we may act quickly if a sign should be given. Will you come with me, Leonidas, to Delphi?"

"I will," said the Spartan, "and let us go at once; for I can see that thy heart is sick."

Clearchus and Leonidas rode out of Attica across the olive-bearing plains, and up the rugged spurs and ridges which flank the mountain of Cithæron, upon whose rocky slopes Antiope wailed as an infant, and the rash Pentheus was torn to pieces by women to the end that the power of Dionysius might be established. They halted for a brief space at the fortress of Phyle, the key that had opened to Thrasybulus his native land and enabled him to give it freedom. Leonidas admired the great walls built of square blocks of stone laid one upon another without mortar and fitted so exactly that the joints would scarcely be seen.

Teleon, captain of the guard which was stationed at this gateway, was a friend of Clearchus. He gave them bread and wine, while the young Athenian told him of his misfortune. After expressing his sympathy, Teleon inquired eagerly for the news of Athens.

"Will the Assembly send troops to the aid of Phœnix and Prothytes, who have raised the revolt in Thebes?" he asked. "You know they now hold the city, and my spies tell me that they are preparing for any attack that may be made upon them."

Clearchus gave him an account of the indecisive meeting of the Assembly on the preceding day.

"All Athens believes the boy king is dead," he said, referring to Alexander. "What is your opinion, Teleon?"

"That, too, is the belief in Thebes," the captain replied. "I know not; but if it proves to be so, Thebes is free."

"And if not?" Clearchus asked.

"If not, there will be fighting," Teleon predicted, "and may Zeus inspire the Macedonian to attack us here!"

From the slope beyond Phyle the young man saw the Bœotian plain spread out before them, and beyond, in the purple distance, the rocky ramparts of Phocis. There, glowing rose-colored in the evening light, shone the snow-clad crest of Parnassus. Clearchus' heart swelled as he looked upon the goal in which his hope was centred.

"We must be there to-morrow," he said eagerly.

"The God will not run away!" Leonidas replied.

They plunged down the mountain slope into the shadows, which deepened under the plane trees as they advanced, until the winding track was almost hidden before them. The moon rose as they emerged upon the plain that had so often drunk the life-blood of Hellas. At Thespiæ their horses could go no further, and they halted for the night.

Although the road from Thebes was better, they had purposely avoided the city, fearing that the disturbances there might delay them. They found Thespiæ full of rumors of the Theban uprising. Some said that the Macedonians in the Cadmea had been put to the sword; others that the peace party had gained the upper hand and was awaiting the arrival of Alexander. Leonidas, who listened eagerly to all that was said, was surprised to find that the report of the young king's death was discredited in the town. There were even men who insisted that he was on his way through Thessaly at the head of his army, ready to strike.

The Spartan sighed and looked wistfully over his shoulder in the direction of Thebes as they took horse at sunrise. At evening, begrimed with dust, they toiled up the last ascent that led to Delphi, the terraced city among the sacred cliffs – the Navel of the World.

As Clearchus gazed upward at the twin columns of the Phædriades rising side by side a thousand feet above the temple in the cool gray twilight, the fever of anxiety in his blood left him and his pulses beat more slowly. The strong masonry of the outer wall, which enclosed and seemed to hold from slipping down the mountain side the buildings clustered about the lofty terrace, on which the temple stood close under the towering cliffs, shut in the shrine that for centuries all Hellas had looked upon as hallowed. Awe came upon him in the presence of the great Mystery. There were scoffers in Athens who laughed at all religion. There were philosophers in the world who taught that the existence of the Gods was a foolish dream. Why had Phœbus permitted the Phocians to seize his treasure and to profane his altar, they asked, if he really existed?

Clearchus put the same question to himself as he looked down upon the Cirrhæan fields that had been consecrated to the God and condemned to lie waste forever in his honor. The Phocians had desecrated them by cultivation. When condemned by the Amphictyons at the instance of their enemies, the Thebans, they had seized the shrine and the treasure-houses. Though they had prospered for a time, in the end Philomelus and Onomarchus had been slain and the Phocians broken and scattered. The sacrilege had been punished, but Philip had been brought into Hellas as the champion of the God and the chief instrument of his wrath. Thebes had been placed beneath his feet.

What was to be the end? Was the fate of the city that had driven the Phocians to their crime to be worse than that of their victims? Clearchus, as he thought of these things, was chilled with an indefinable dread of the Invisible Presence whose home was among the silent and Titanic crags that made the utmost triumphs of human art and skill laid at their feet seem as transitory as the work of children fashioned in sand. He felt that here the mighty purpose of the Unseen was being worked out, deliberate and irresistible, before which the races of men were as nothing.