nted bridegroom to the king, showering on him all manner of
congratulations. Xerxes's act was a plain proof that he was adopting the
beautiful Hellene as one of his personal favourites,--a post of influence
and honour not to be despised by a vizier. What "Prexaspes" said when he
thanked the king was drowned in the tumult of laughing and cheering. The
monarch, delighted to play the gracious god, roared his injunctions to the
Athenian so loud that above the din they heard him.

"You will bridle her well, Prexaspes. I know them--those Egyptian fillies!
They need a hard curb and the lash at times. Beware the tyranny of your
own harem. I would not have the satrapies know how certain bright eyes in
the seraglio can make the son of Darius play the fool. There is nothing
more dangerous than women. It will take all your courage to master them. A
hard task lies before you. I have given you one wife, but you know our
good Persian custom--five, ten, or twenty. Take the score, I order you.
Then in twelve years you'll be receiving the prize a Persian king bestows
every summer on the father of the most children!"

And following this broad hint, the king held his sides with laughter
again, a mirth which it is needless to say was echoed and reechoed till it
seemed it could not cease. Only a few ventured to mutter under breath:
"The Hellene will have a subsatrapy in the East before the season is over
and a treasure of five thousand talents! Mithra wither the upstart!"

* * * * * * *

The summer was waning when the host moved southward from Larissa, for mere
numbers had made progress slow, and despite Mardonius's providence the
question of commissariat sometimes became difficult. Now at last, leaving
behind Thrace and Macedonia, the army began to enter Greece itself. As it
fared across the teeming plains of Thessaly, it met only welcome from the
inhabitants and submissions from fresh embassies. Report came from the
fleet--keeping pace with the land army along the coasts--that nowhere had
the weak squadrons of the Greeks adventured a stand. Daily the smile of
the Lord of the World grew more complacent, as his "table-companions" told
him: "The rumour of your Eternity's advent stupefies the miserable
Hellenes. Like Atar, the Angel of Fire, your splendour glitters afar. You
will enter Athens and Sparta, and no sword leave its sheath, no bow its
wrapper."

Every day Mardonius asked of Glaucon, "Will your Hellen