CHAPTER IX
THE DOOM OF THEBES

The plain where once the sons of Niobe lay weltering had borne its last harvest of slaughter. On every side Leonidas and Clearchus noted the ghastly evidences of battle. Darkness fell before Ptolemy's troop reached the shattered gates of Thebes. Men with torches in their hands wandered through the streets strewn with corpses, seeking plunder among the dead or searching for the bodies of friends. Neither sex nor age had been spared when Perdiccas hewed his way into the city. The very altars of the Gods were crimsoned with the vengeance taken by the Phocians, the Platæans, and the Bœotians for the centuries of cruel oppression that they had suffered from the rapacious brood of the Dragon.

Mothers lay dabbled in blood, with their infants beside them, struck down in flight. The market-place was heaped with bodies, showing how desperate had been the final stand of the Theban soldiers. The streets were littered with household gear that had been dragged in wantonness from despoiled homes.

The plundering was not yet finished. Bands of soldiers were still searching for booty in the remoter quarters of the city, where their progress could be traced by the sound of their drunken laughter, mingled with the screams of their victims.

Macedonian guards paced the walls and cut off all hope of escape. The wretched inhabitants, driven into the highways, sought concealment in dark angles and narrow lanes, cowering in silence.

Here and there a woman, rendered desperate by her anguish, walked with dishevelled hair, heedless of insult, seeking her children among the slain in the hope that she might find them still alive.

Clearchus felt his heart grow faint at the thought that Artemisia might be exposed to the frightful chances of such a sack. Phœbus himself, he thought, might be unable to protect her, since here the temples of the Gods had been profaned. An old man in priestly robes stood out before them with trembling hands upraised.

"Vengeance, O Zeus!" he cried aloud. "Vengeance upon those who have violated the sanctuary of Dionysus, thy son! May they – " "Silence, Graybeard!" growled a soldier, striking him across the mouth with his fist.

The old man reeled from the blow and shrank away into the shadow.

"You'll choke if you ever try to drink wine again, Glaucis!" a comrade cried, laughing.

"Dionysus will forgive me soon enough for a sacrifice," Glaucis returned. "Never fear!"

Ptolemy learned that Alexander had gone to the Cadmea and thither he led Clearchus and Leonidas after he had dismissed his men, eager to take their share in the pillage. They found the young king in a large, bare room in the lower part of the citadel. He had not yet laid aside his armor, which was dented and scratched by use.

When they entered, he was giving orders to his captains, who stood grouped about him. Clearchus looked at him with eager interest. He saw a well-proportioned, athletic figure, no taller than his own. The handsome beardless face glowed with the warm blood of youth and a smile parted the full red lips. There was no trace of fatigue in the young king's attitude, despite the labors of the day, and his movements were alert and decisive. He looked even more youthful than his twenty-one years as he stood among his leaders, some of whom were veterans of Philip's campaigns, grizzled with service. But in spite of his youth, there was a confidence in his bearing that left no doubt of who was master.

Clearchus felt himself strangely drawn to the young man whom all Hellas, with the exception of Sparta, acknowledged as its champion, and who was about to assail that great power beyond the Hellespont, whose limits were unknown and before whom Greece had stood in dread since the days of Great Cyrus. The Athenian found the "boy king" very different from the arrogant, mean-spirited upstart that the orators of his city had painted him.

"Stop the plundering," Alexander said to his captains. "Even the Bœotians must be satisfied by this time. Let the men go back to the camp, and see that order is maintained. The Ætolians and the Elæans are on the march and reënforcements are coming from Athens. There may be more work to do to-morrow."

As the officers left him to execute his commands, Alexander turned to Ptolemy with hands outstretched.

"I am glad to see you safe!" he said. "You charged bravely before the gate, and I feared that something might have happened that would deprive me of your aid when we march into Persia."

Ptolemy's bronzed face reddened with pleasure as he heard the praise of the young king.

"I went in pursuit of the enemy's cavalry," he said.

"Is it likely that any of those who escaped will be able to rally?" Alexander asked.

"They are scattered in every direction and think only of flight," Ptolemy replied.

"That is well," Alexander said. "We shall be the better able to deal with the others when they come. Who are these that you have brought to me?"

He turned toward the two young men, who had been standing at a little distance, and looked them frankly in the eyes.

"This is Clearchus, an Athenian, and this, Leonidas of Sparta," Ptolemy replied, presenting them in turn.

Alexander's face clouded at the names of the two most powerful of the states that opposed him in Greece, and Ptolemy hastened to add: "They saved my life when my horse stumbled in the pursuit, and they have a request to make of you."

"You have done me a great service," Alexander said kindly. "What is it that you desire?"

"We ask clemency for the family of Jason, on behalf of Chares, his son, whom we left behind in Athens," Clearchus replied.

"And why is he not in Thebes?" Alexander asked quickly.

"Because he did not know that you were coming," Clearchus said. "Had he been aware of the danger, he would not have been absent. We heard of your arrival while we were in Delphi, and we made all haste to remind you that Jason was a guest-friend of your father, Philip."

"Orders have been given that the guest-friends of Macedon shall be spared, both in their lives and their property," Alexander replied. "What did you in Delphi?"

Clearchus told him briefly how Artemisia had been stolen and of the response of the oracle.

"Love must be a strong passion," the young king said thoughtfully.

"I would give all that I possess to recover Artemisia," Clearchus replied. "Nor would I be willing to exchange my hope of finding her for the wisdom of Aristotle or even for the hopes of Alexander."

"So you know Aristotle," Alexander said. "He is a wonderful man. Were I not Alexander, I would envy him." He looked curiously at Clearchus as he spoke, as though he were considering something that he did not understand. "So that is what they call love," he continued, "and I and my army are the Whirlwind of which the God spoke." He beckoned to an attendant. "Call Aristander!" he said.

He made Clearchus repeat his story to the famous soothsayer. Aristander listened attentively, stroking his chin with the tips of his fingers as his custom was.

"What do you think of it?" Alexander asked, when Clearchus had finished. Everybody knew the confidence that he placed in the words of the prophet and that he never took an important step against his advice.

"Full credit must be given to the oracle," Aristander said, turning his blue eyes upon the young king, "and I think that the priests of the temple were right in their interpretation, since the message brought and the title given could have had no other meaning. As the maid was carried away by sea, she was probably taken to some island or to one of the cities on the coast of Asia. The Whirlwind's track must needs lead thither, and since the maid is to be set free, it is clear that the Whirlwind shall prevail."

"Then the oracle is propitious!" Alexander exclaimed. "What is your plan?" he added to Clearchus.

"I shall obey the oracle and follow in thy track," the Athenian replied. "If thou wilt permit me, I myself will become a part of the Whirlwind."

Alexander looked at him with the unquenchable fire of enthusiasm in his eyes.

"Thou art welcome!" he said. "And you, my friend of stubborn Sparta?" he continued to Leonidas.

"I go with Clearchus," the Spartan responded briefly.

"You shall be of my Companions," Alexander cried, placing his hand upon a shoulder of each. "The world grows old and we have been wasting our strength in foolish quarrels with each other while the tiger has been lying there across the water, waiting to devour us. We shall show him that the spirit of Hellas still lives, although Troy has fallen, and we will do deeds that shall be sung by some new Homer as worthy too of a place beside those of Achilles and Ajax and Agamemnon. Yes, and we will bring back a fleece more precious than that which the Argonauts sought. I promise you that the Whirlwind's track shall be long enough and broad enough to lead you to your heart's desire, whatever it may be. Ptolemy, I count these men among my friends and I give them into your charge."

Clearchus and Leonidas felt their hearts swell at the young king's words and his lofty generosity, but before they could thank him, they were interrupted by a commotion at the door.

"Out of the way! I will see him! I care not how late it is," an angry voice exclaimed.

"It is Chares, son of Jason," Clearchus said. "How comes he here?"

Alexander quietly signed to the guard, and the Theban strode into the room, clad in armor that clashed noisily as he walked. He looked neither to the right nor left, but went straight to Alexander.

"I am come to remind the King of Macedon of the ties of hospitality," he said boldly, in a voice more fitted to a demand than a petition.

Alexander measured his great stature with admiration in his glance, noting that the armor, gold-inlaid, was crusted with mud and grime like his own.

"Thy name might be Hector," he said.

The Theban, ignorant of the young king's train of thought and of what had gone before, imagined that he saw mockery in this remark. His face flushed darkly.

"My name is Chares!" he said haughtily. "Jason, my father, was the friend of Epaminondas, who furnished thy father with the weapons that thou hast used against us this day. I come not to thee on my own behalf, but on that of my mother and sisters, who were shut in here when the attack came."

"You are too late!" the young king said composedly.

Chares staggered and his face blanched. "Too late!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Does Alexander, then, make war upon women?"

"I say you came too late," Alexander replied, "and doubly so; for your friends, here, were more prompt than you, and yet even they were tardy."

"My friends!" Chares cried in bewilderment, seeing Leonidas and Clearchus for the first time.

"Alexander speaks the truth," Clearchus said quickly. "We are all too late, because he had already given orders for the safety of your family."

"I ask your forgiveness; I spoke without understanding," Chares said, turning to the king.

"Thou hast courage," Alexander said with a smile, "but I would not choose thee as my envoy on a delicate mission. Thou wert not here to defend thy home?"

"Because I knew not that there was need," Chares admitted. "I am sorry."

"And I am glad," the young king rejoined, "for hadst thou been inside the walls, I fear I might have lost men whom I cannot spare. Didst thou come from Athens?"

"I left Athens with the army," Chares answered, "but it halted on the frontier when news arrived that Thebes had fallen."

"Then there will be no more fighting!" Alexander exclaimed, turning to Ptolemy. "I am glad of it. Greet thy mother for me, Chares, and tell her to fear nothing. Ptolemy will conduct you."

Escorted by the Macedonian captain, the three friends descended from the citadel. Order had been restored in the city as though by magic. Only the military patrols and the bodies of the dead remained in the streets. The living had been driven into their houses, taking the wounded with them. The plunderers had retired to the camp outside the walls.

Chares strode eagerly in advance, asking many questions regarding the experiences of his friends in Delphi. The house of Jason, a mansion built near the northern end of the city, had been saved by its location from the desperate fighting that had taken place about the southern gate and in the market-place. They found a guard stationed at the door.

"You see that the king is as good as his word," Ptolemy said. "You will find nothing disturbed here."

"How could he have remembered his friends in the heat of the attack?" Chares asked.

"He forgets nothing," the captain replied, "neither friend nor enemy."

Chares urged the Macedonian to enter, but Ptolemy declined on the ground of fatigue and left them. The slave at the gate went wild with joy when he caught sight of his young master. He had been waiting in momentary expectation of being summoned forth to the death that he was convinced awaited everybody in the city.

Chares hastened to the women's court, where he found his mother and sisters robed in white and surrounded by their maids, who were trying to spin, although their fingers trembled so that they could hardly hold the distaff. The widow of Jason, a woman with silvery hair and a face that was still beautiful, sat calmly in the midst of the group, awaiting with quiet courage what might befall. She rose with composure to greet her son and his companions.

"You are safe, mother!" Chares exclaimed, clasping her in his arms. "Alexander has given his word that you shall be unharmed!"

"You have seen him?" she returned. "That is well. You may go to your rest. Nothing shall harm you," she added, dismissing her maidens.