narrow cabin--fifteen or more
hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they
to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other
adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the AEgean rocked
the _Nausicaae_ softly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on
the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant
about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were
grumbling lest the penteconter's people get all the booty of the _Bozra_.
Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on
Themistocles's awful face.

The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood
before them, his hands closed over the packet. The first time he started
to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the
admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner
before a race.

"Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost."

"Democrates is a traitor!"

The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased
their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.

"I did not call you down to wail and groan." He never raised his voice;
his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a
flood.

"When? How? Declare."

"Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now
yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades
did not die in vain."

Yet despite him men wept on one another's shoulders as became true
Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed,
rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words
of doom.

"This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is
Democrates's, the seals are his. Give ear.

"Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on
the coasts of Asia, greeting:--Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I
as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared
to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even
now I depart from Troezene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in
Boeotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive
to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force
them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our
personal commands to reti