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it over the wretch's shoulders. "By the _fravashi_, the soul of Darius my father, no man shall bring so foul a word to me and live!" "Compassion, Omnipotence, compassion!" groaned the man, writhing like a worm. Already the master-of-punishments was approaching to cover his face with a towel, preparatory to the bow-string, but the royal anger spent itself just enough to avert a tragedy. "Your life is forfeit, but I am all too merciful! Take then three hundred stripes on the soles of your feet and live to be braver in the future." "A thousand blessings on your benignity," cried the captain, as they led him away, "I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet deigns to notice my existence even to recompense my shortcomings." "Off," ordered the bristling monarch, "or you die the death yet. And do you, Mardonius, take Prexaspes, who somewhat knows this country, spur forward, and discover who are the madmen thus earning their destruction." The command was obeyed. Glaucon galloped beside the Prince, overtaking the marching army, until as they cantered into the little mud-walled city of Heraclea a second messenger from the van met them with further details. "The pass is held by seven thousand Grecian men-at-arms. There are no Athenians. There are three hundred come from Sparta." "And their chief?" asked Glaucon, leaning eagerly. "Is Leonidas of Lacedaemon." "Then, O Mardonius," spoke the Athenian, with a throb in his voice not there an hour ago. "There will be battle." So, whether wise men or mad, the Hellenes were not to lay down their arms without one struggle, and Glaucon knew not whether to be sorry or to be proud. CHAPTER XX THERMOPYLAE A rugged mountain, an inaccessible morass, and beyond that morass the sea: the mountain thrusting so close upon the morass as barely to leave space for a narrow wagon road. This was the western gate of Thermopylae. Behind the narrow defile the mountain and swamp-land drew asunder; in the still scanty opening hot springs gushed forth, sacred to Heracles, then again on the eastern side Mt. OEta and the impenetrable swamp drew together, forming the second of the "Hot Gates,"--the gates which Xerxes must unlock if he would continue his march to Athens. The Great King's couriers reported that the stubborn Hellenes had cast a wall across the entrance, and that so far from showing
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