to greet him at Eleusis, yet sad as was his last sight of her the moment
he fled from Colonus. Seized with infinite longing, he sprang to her. But
lo! she drifted back as into the air. It was even as when Odysseus
followed the shade of his mother in the shadowy Land of the Dead.

"Yearned he sorely then to clasp her,
Thrice his arms were opened wide:
From his hands so strong, so loving,
Like a dream she seemed to glide,
And away, away she flitted,
Whilst he grasped the empty space,
And a pain shot through him, maddening,
As he strove for her embrace."

He pursued, she drifted farther, farther. Her face was inexpressibly
sorrowful. And Glaucon knew that she spoke to him.

"I have believed you innocent, though all Athens calls you 'traitor.' I
have been true to you, though all men rise up against me. In what manner
have you kept your innocence? Have you had love for another, caresses for
another, kisses for another? How will you prove your loyalty to Athens and
return?"

"Hermione!" Glaucon cried, not in his dream, but quite aloud. He awoke
with a start. Outside the tent sentry was calling to sentry, changing the
watch just before the dawning. It was perfectly plain to him what he must
do. His dream had only given shape to the ferment in his brain, a ferment
never ceasing while his body slept. He must go instantly to the Greek camp
and warn Leonidas. If the Spartan did not trust him, no matter, he had
done his duty. If Leonidas slew him on the spot, again no matter, life
with an eternally gnawing conscience could be bought on too hard terms. He
knew, as though Zeus's messenger Iris had spoken it, that Hermione had
never believed him guilty, that she had been in all things true to him. He
could never betray her trust.

His head now was clear and calm. He arose, threw on his cloak, and buckled
about his waist a short sword. The Nubian boy that Mardonius had given him
for a body-servant awoke on his mat, and asked wonderingly "whither his
Lordship was going?" Glaucon informed him he must be at the front before
daybreak, and bade him remain behind and disturb no one. But the Athenian
was not to execute his design unhindered. As he passed out of the tent and
into the night, where the morning stars were burning, and where the first
red was creeping upward from the sea, two figures glided forth from the
next pavilion. He knew them and shrank from them. They were Artazostra and
Roxana.

"You go