Pausanias, the Spartan

“For that reason he will aid us well. Though but a Mede, and not admitted to the privileges of the Pasargadae, his rela­tionship to the most powerful and learned of our Magi, and his own services in war, have won him such influence with both priests and soldiers, that I would fain have him as my compan­ion. I will answer for his fidelity to our joint object.”

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

“Enough; ye are both free. Gongylus, you will now conduct our friends to the place where the steeds await them. You will then privately return to the citadel, and give to their pretended escape the probable appearances we devised. Be quick, while it is yet night. One word more. Persian, our success depends upon thy speed. It is while the Greeks are yet at Byzantium, while I yet am in command, that we should strike the blow. If the king consent, through Gongylus thou wilt have means to advise me. A Persian army must march at once to the Phrygian confines, instructed to yield command to me when the hour comes to assume it. Delay not that aid by such vast and profit­less recruits as swelled the pomp, but embarrassed the arms, of Xerxes. Armies too large rot by their own unwieldiness into decay. A band of 50,000, composed solely of the Medes and Persians, will more than suffice. With such an army, if my com­mand be undisputed, I will win a second Plataea, but against the Greek.”

“I have passed for ever,” he muttered, “the pillars of Hercu­les. I must go on or perish. If I fall, I die execrated and abhorred; if I succeed, the sound of the choral flutes will drown the hoot­ings. Be it as it may, I do not and will not repent. If the wolf gnaw my entrails, none shall hear me groan.” He turned and met the eyes of Alcman, fixed on him so intently, so exultingly,

“They do not hate me, these Helots?”

“You are the only Spartan they love.”

“Were my life in danger from the Ephors — “

“The Helots would rise to a man.”

“Did I plant my standard on Taygetus, though all Sparta encamped against it — “

“Pardon me, Pausanias. but is it prudent any longer to trust Lysander? He is the pattern of the Spartan youth, and Sparta is his mistress. He loves her too well not to blab to her every secret.”

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

At the sound of the Mothon’s tread upon the pebbles, Ly­sander, who had hitherto remained motionless, reclining by the boat, rose and advanced towards Pausanias. There was in his countenance, as the moon shining on it cast over his stat­ue-like features a pale and marble hue, so much of anxiety, of affection, of fear, so much of the evident, unmistakable solici­tude of friendship, that Pausanias, who, like most men, en­vied and unloved, was susceptible even of the semblance of attachment, muttered to himself, “No, thou wilt not desert me, nor I thee.”

“And what hast thou seen?” said Pausanias, with a slight change of countenance.

At noon the next day, not only the vessels in the harbour presented the same appearance of inactivity and desertion which had characterised the preceding evening, but the camp itself seemed forsaken. Pausanias had quitted his ship for the citadel, in which he took up his lodgment when on shore: and most of the officers and sailors of the squadron were dis­persed among the taverns and wine-shops, for which, even at that day, Byzantium was celebrated.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

degraded sons of the Homeric Achaean, and probably in its origin going beyond the date of the Tale of Troy; a song of gross and rustic buffoonery, but ever and anon charged with some image or thought worthy of that language of the uni­versal Muses. His companions listened with a rude delight to the rough voice and homely sounds, and now and then inter­rupted the wassailers at the other tables by cries for silence, which none regarded. Here and there, with intense and fierce anxiety on their faces, small groups were playing at dice; for gambling is the passion of slaves. And many of these men, to whom wealth could bring no comfort, had secretly amassed large hoards at the plunder of Plataea, from which they had sold to the traders of Aegina gold at the price of brass. The appearance of the rioters was startling and melancholy. They were mostly stunted and undersized, as are generally the progeny of the sons of woe; lean and gaunt with early hardship, the spine of the back curved and bowed by habitual degradation; but with the hard-knit sinews and prominent muscles which are produced by labour and the mountain air; and under shaggy and lowering brows sparkled many a fierce, perfidious, and malignant eye; while as mirth, or gaming, or song, aroused smiles in the various groups, the rude features spoke of passions easily released from the sullen bondage of servitude, and revealed the nature of the animals which thral­dom had failed to tame. Here and there however were to be seen forms, unlike the rest, of stately stature, of fair propor­tions, wearing the divine lineaments of Grecian beauty. From some of these a higher nature spoke out, not in mirth, that last mockery of supreme woe, but in an expression of stern,

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

The party rose, as by a general impulse, and crowded round the new comer.

“Never, if ye despair,” said the Mothon loftily. “What,” he added after a pause, looking round at the crowd, “what, do ye