nd other whispers, far softer,
followed. None heard the quick words passed back and forth betwixt the two
riders.

"You may be riding to death, Artazostra. What place is a battle for
women?"

"What place is the camp for the daughter of Darius, when her husband rides
to war? We triumph together; we perish together. It shall be as Mazda
decrees."

Mardonius answered nothing. Long since he had learned the folly of setting
his will against that of the masterful princess at his side. And was not
victory certain? Was not Artazostra doing even as Semiramis of Nineveh had
done of old?

"The army is ready, Excellency," declared an adjutant, bowing in his
saddle.

"Forward, then, but slowly, to await the reconnoitring parties sent toward
the Greeks."

In the gray morning the host wound out of the stockaded camp. The women
and grooms called fair wishes after them. The far slopes of Cithaeron were
reddening. A breeze whistled down the hills. It would disperse the mist.
Soon the leader of the scouts came galloping, leaped down and salaamed to
the general. "Let my Lord's liver find peace. All is even as our friends
declared. The enemy have in part fled far away. The Athenians halt on a
foot-hill of the mountain. The Laconians sit in companies on the ground,
waiting their division that will not retreat. Let my Lord charge, and
glory waits for Eran!"

Mardonius's cimeter swung high.

"Forward, all! Mazda fights for us. Bid our allies the Thebans(16) attack
the Athenians. Ours is the nobler prey--even the men of Sparta."

"Victory to the king!" thundered the thousands. Confident of triumph,
Mardonius suffered the ranks to be broken, as his myriads rushed onward.
Over the Asopus and its shallow fords they swept, and raced across the
plain-land. Horse mingled with foot; Persians with Tartars. The howlings
in a score of tongues, the bray of cymbals and kettledrums, the clamour of
spear-butts beaten on armour--who may tell it? Having unleashed his wild
beasts, Mardonius dashed before to guide their ragings as he might. The
white Nisaean and its companion led the way across the hard plain. Behind,
as when in the springtime flood the watery wall goes crashing down the
valley, so spread the thousands. A god looking from heaven would not have
forgotten that sight of whirling plumes, plunging steeds, flying steel, in
all the aeons.

Five stadia, six, seven, eight,--so Mardonius led. Already before him he
could see the glistering cr