ish
syllables the chanty his father had taught him. And at the thought of
his home a great passion welled up in Atta's heart. It was not regret,
but joy and pride and aching love. In his antique island creed the
death he was awaiting was not other than a bridal. He was dying for
the things he loved, and by his death they would be blessed eternally.
He would not have long to wait before bright eyes came to greet him in
the House of Shadows.

So Atta made the Song of Atta, and sang it then, and later in the press
of battle. It was a simple song, like the lays of seafarers. It put
into rough verse the thought which cheers the heart of all
adventurers--nay, which makes adventure possible for those who have
much to leave. It spoke of the shining pathway of the sea which is the
Great Uniter. A man may lie dead in Pontus or beyond the Pillars of
Herakles, but if he dies on the shore there is nothing between him and
his fatherland. It spoke of a battle all the long dark night in a
strange place--a place of marshes and black cliffs and shadowy terrors.

"In the dawn the sweet light comes," said the song, "and the salt winds
and the tides will bear me home..."

When in the evening the Persians took toll of the dead, they found one
man who puzzled them. He lay among the tall Lacedaemonians on the very
lip of the sea, and around him were swathes of their countrymen. It
looked as if he had been fighting his way to the water, and had been
overtaken by death as his feet reached the edge. Nowhere in the pass
did the dead lie so thick, and yet he was no Hellene. He was torn like
a deer that the dogs have worried, but the little left of his garments
and his features spoke of Eastern race. The survivors could tell
nothing except that he had fought like a god and had been singing all
the while.

The matter came to the ear of the Great King who was sore enough at the
issue of the day. That one of his men had performed feats of valeur
beyond the Hellenes was a pleasant tale to tell. And so his captains
reported it. Accordingly when the fleet from Artemision arrived next
morning, and all but a few score Persians were shovelled into holes,
that the Hellenes might seem to have been conquered by a lesser force,
Atta's body was laid out with pomp in the midst of the Lacedaemonians.
And the seamen rubbed their eyes and thanked their strange gods that
one man of the East had been found to match those terrible warriors
whose na