CHAPTER XXXV
PHRADATES MAKES A WAGER
Phradates stood on the broad stone wharf in the Sidonian Harbor ofTyre, amid a group of young men whose costly garments and jewelledfingers showed them to belong to the rich families of the richest cityin the world. Upon the edge of the wharf were gathered a score ofolder men, clad in sombre robes, over which spread their silverybeards. They wore close-fitting caps and heavy golden chains. Eachcarried a short rod of ebony and ivory as a token of authority. Theywere the elders, members of the council of King Azemilcus, who wasabsent with the fleet of Autophradates, the Persian admiral.
The basin of the harbor formed a deep bay, shut in on the seaward sideby lofty walls, built of huge blocks of squared stone laid in gypsum.On the right, facing north, was a narrow opening in the barrier,forming a passage flanked by long breakwaters. The circumference ofthe harbor was ringed by a succession of stone wharves, where hundredsof merchant vessels were moored, their sails furled against theirmasts. They were discharging their cargoes or taking on lading for newvoyages. Lines of men, half naked, ran backward and forward betweenthe ships and the great warehouses, carrying bales upon their heads.The sailors, chanting monotonous songs, were emptying the holds of theships or storing away the fresh cargoes.
"There's an old tub that looks as though she had seen service," criedone of the young men. "Let us see where she has been."
They strolled across to a vessel whose weather-beaten sides and patchedsails told of rough usage.
"Whence came you?" demanded the youth, addressing the brown-facedmaster, who stood at the gangway, superintending the discharge of hiscargo.
"From the Cassiterides," the man replied.
"Where are they?" the youth asked, gazing at the bright ingots of tinthat the sailors were dragging to the deck.
"They are in the western seas," the master answered, "so far thatCarthage seems but a stone's throw away. Three months we were beatennorthward by storms, and the waves of the great ocean ran higher thanthe walls of the city. At last we came to the land of long days, wherethe men have yellow hair and blue eyes and the women are more beautifulthan light. By the favor of Baal, we were enabled to obtain a store ofamber that is created there by the sun, in exchange for beads of glass.This we dedicated to the God, and after we had got our tin on board, hebrought us back under his protection."
The young men listened, open-mouthed. From their boyhood, they hadbeen accustomed to drink in such tales of mystery and wonder along thewharves of the city, nursing the bold spirit of adventure that was bornin every Ph[oe]nician. They plied the master with questions. Whatmonsters of the sea had he seen? What were the customs of the men ofthe North? Was it true that they devoured strangers who fell intotheir hands? The mariner told them of enormous water snakes anddragons, but his marvellous tales were interrupted by a cry from thewalls, where lookouts were always posted to scan the sea. The statetrireme had been sighted. She was returning from Sidon, bringingPrince Hur and the ambassadors whom the council had despatched toAlexander. The council was now awaiting their return.
At the signal from the walls, work was suspended throughout the cityand the population crowded to the harbor. Merchants with their tabletsclasped in their hands, dyers with their arms stained to the elbow,metal workers, artisans, laborers, and soldiers of the garrison,thronged to the water front by thousands to learn the answer of theMacedonian. A vast murmur of expectation and speculation rose from thepeople.
Presently, through the entrance of the harbor, the trireme could beseen, making for the opening between the sea-walls, over which thewaves were dashing in spurts of white spray. Urged by its three banksof oars, rising and falling in unison, the vessel ran swiftly into theharbor.
Headed by Prince Hur, the son of Azemilcus, the ambassadors werestanding grave and silent upon the deck. At sight of their anxiousfaces a hush fell upon the crowd. The pilot gave a sharp command, theoars churned backward in the water, and the long trireme swung into hermooring. The ambassadors descended to the wharf and spoke in low tonesto the elders of the council.
Was it peace or war? War! The news ran through the crowd and into thecity as ripples spread across the face of a pool when a stone falls.Turmoil and confusion followed. What had Alexander said? Would theother Ph[oe]nician cities join with Tyre to repel him?
They had deserted her. Tyre must stand alone. Strato, son ofGerostratus, king of Adradus, had surrendered. Byblos had capitulated.Sidon had opened her gates to the Macedonians.
"We offered submission according to our instructions," said the chiefof the ambassadors, to the council. "Alexander accepted it and bade ustell you it was his purpose to offer sacrifice in the temple ofMelkarth, who, he says, is really Heracles, and his ancestor. Wereplied that Tyre could not admit strangers within her walls, but thatMelkarth had an older temple on the mainland, where he might offersacrifice. 'Tell your council,' he said, 'that I and my army willoffer sacrifice to Melkarth upon his altar within the walls of NewTyre. Bid them make ready the temple. It is for them to say what thevictims shall be.' That was all."
"You did well; let us consider," said Mochus, the eldest of the council.
They walked in slow and silent procession to the palace of the king inthe southern quarter of the town and disappeared within its gates.
The city continued to seethe like a huge caldron. Its unwonted stirattracted the attention of Thais and Artemisia, on the housetop, wherethey had gone as usual to take the air after midday. The two youngwomen stood side by side, close to the parapet of the roof, lookingdown into the narrow streets, where men came and went like ants whosenest has been disturbed. The strong sea-breeze blew out Thais' crimsonrobe into gleaming folds, and the sun glistened upon the burnishedcopper of her hair. Rich color glowed in her cheeks and in her scarletlips. The immortal vitality of the salt breeze and of the crisplycurling waves seemed in her. She laughed aloud.
"I wonder what is the matter?" she said. "These Ph[oe]nicians areafraid of their own shadows."
Artemisia smiled. Her chiton of fine white wool, edged with purple,outlining her figure, indicated that it had lost some of its roundness.Her face was pale; blue veins showed through the transparent skin ofher temples.
"I hope it means something good for us," she said, slipping her armaround her sister's waist. "When shall we get away from this hatefulcity?"
"The time will come, child," Thais said soothingly. "You shall see himagain; I know it."
It was a conversation that had been repeated many times. Artemisiadrew a sigh that caught in her throat in a little sob.
"Oh, Thais, if I could feel his strong arms around me only once," shesaid, "I think I could die in thankfulness."
"Do not talk of dying," Thais replied reprovingly. "See, the world isbeautiful!"
They stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the scene, which wasindeed beautiful, as Thais had said. On three sides the sea flashedand sparkled with white-capped waves before the southwest wind. On theeast a channel, half a mile in width, divided the mainland from theisland upon which the new city was built. Beyond the strait lay thecity of Old Tyre, with its wide circle of walls. There, as in the newtown, thousands of pieces of cloth--linen, woollen, cotton, andsilk--fresh from the vats of the dyers, were hung to dry in the sun.The juice of the shell-fish had lent them rich hues of blue, violet,crimson, scarlet, and the peculiar shade of purple known as "royal"that for ages had made the city famous. Hundreds of fishing andtrading vessels were drawn up along the wharves or upon the beach.
Behind the old city, three miles from the beach, rose Mount Lebanon,clothed to its snow-clad summits with the foliage of pine, cedar, oak,and sumach. Its mighty barrier stretched north and south into themisty distance, leaving always between its base and the shore a narrowstrip of level land that was given up to tillage.
From the elevation where they stood, the young women looked upon otherroofs, filling the space inside the walls, which rose from the sea
forone hundred and fifty feet, with towers at every curve and angle. Theycould see the Sidonian Harbor on their right and the Egyptian Harboropposite to it on their left, both crowded with masts and connected bya canal spanned by movable bridges.
Before them rose the towers and cupolas of the Temple of Melkarth, andnear it the wide Eurychorus, or market-place. Farther south was thehuge dome of the Temple of Baal, and there, too, was the royal palace,with its many terraces crowned by a lofty citadel. Agenor's Temple wason the north, overlooking the Sidonian Harbor. Near the western wallwas an oasis of verdure which marked the gardens attached to thevoluptuous Temple of Astarte, where, through the foliage of palm andrhododendron, shone the marble columns of her habitation.
Phradates had caused a striped awning to be erected upon the roof.Beneath this was spread a gay Babylonian carpet, with couches andsilken cushions. Shrubs and flowering plants stood in great vases ofstone, screening the enclosure from the eyes of the curious. All theother housetops of the quarter were occupied in a similar manner, thusenabling the population to escape the heat of the lower levels, fromwhich the breeze was excluded by the height of the walls. The spaceinside the city was so crowded that the houses rose many stories, and,excepting those belonging to wealthy persons, each sheltered scores offamilies.
"It is a proud city," Thais said musingly.
"Yes," Artemisia replied. "Proud, and cruel, and heartless!"
She shivered as she spoke. Thais beckoned to one of the women, whostood at a respectful distance, talking in low tones with a slender,dark-skinned man, whose cunning eyes gleamed like those of a rat. Hewas Mena the Egyptian.
"Fetch a wrap," Thais said to the slave girl who answered her summons.
The girl brought a shawl of cashmere and laid it around Artemisia'sshoulders.
"Something tells me that our captivity will soon be over," Thais said."Things cannot last much longer as they are."
There was a meaning in her words that Artemisia did not grasp. Sincethe flight from Halicarnassus, they had been confined in the house ofPhradates, whose passion for Thais had increased until it burned likefever in his veins. The end must have come long ago had it not beenfor the frequent absences that had been forced upon the young man bythe needs of the city and the commands of the Great King. As mattersstood, even Thais' resources had been taxed to hold him in check.Hitherto she had fed him with hopes, playing upon his weaknesses andkeeping him in a state of subjection from which she knew surrenderwould set him free. She made a gesture of impatience and began walkingup and down between rows of young orange trees.
"I don't know what has come over me," she said. "I am as restless asone of the sea-gulls yonder."
She listened a moment to the cries and commotion in the streets.
"Mena!" she cried. "Come here!"
The Egyptian advanced slowly, with an indefinable insolence in hisbearing.
"Find out what is causing all this excitement in the city and bring meword," Thais said.
"Why should my lady be interested?" Mena replied coolly, with a smilethat showed his white teeth.
Thais wheeled as though she had been stung. She looked at the Egyptianwith head erect, and there was something in her eyes that caused his tofall before them.
"Mena," she said softly, "do not think that, because you are set towatch me, you are my master. Go, or I swear by Astoreth that you shallbe flayed alive from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet."
Mena gasped, and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
"Pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean--"
"I know well what you meant," Thais returned. "Go!"
He turned and went. Thais grasped a branch of the shrubbery and toreit away, crumpling the leaves in her hands and scattering them in abruised shower at her feet.
"How long must I put up with the insolence of this slave and hismaster?" she exclaimed. The opalescent animal light gleamed in hereyes as she turned them northward, and she paced backward and forwardwith impatient strides like a captive lioness. "I hate them!" shecried. "How many times have I been tempted to end it!"
She thrust her hand into her bosom and drew out her tiny dagger, whosehilt was studded with rubies that sparkled like drops of blood.
"Hush, Thais, some one is coming!" Artemisia said.
Thais quickly hid the dagger and turned to greet Phradates. He cameforward with a smile, and the smile with which she met him had no tracein it of the anger that had so shaken her but a moment before.
"Great news!" the young man cried. "Alexander is coming!"
Artemisia caught her breath, and for an instant her head swam.
"Tell us," Thais said. "We are dying to hear all about it. You knowwe have had no news since the battle of Issus, where the Great King, asyou call him, was beaten by one who seems to be greater."
There was a spice of malice in her voice that evidently annoyed thePh[oe]nician.
"Yes, through the treachery of the Greeks," he replied, frowning."Darius will depend upon his own people next time, and you will seethen what will happen."
"But what has Alexander been doing since the battle?" Thais asked.
"He might have advanced upon Babylon with nobody to oppose him,"Phradates said. "Of course, he would not have been able to capture thecity, but at least he will never have a better chance to try it. Hewas afraid to make the attempt. He has been marching down the coastinstead, and there has been no more fighting, because all the northerncities have surrendered to him."
"Well?" Thais said, listening with parted lips.
"In the absence of King Azemilcus," the Ph[oe]nician continued, "thecouncil deemed it best to offer terms for the present. They sent anembassy, accompanied by the prince, to tell Alexander that he hadnothing to fear from Tyre so long as he did not interfere with us."
"What was his reply?" Thais demanded quickly.
"What do you suppose?" Phradates said. "He had the impudence toannounce that Melkarth was the same as your Heracles, and that asHeracles was of his family, he proposed to offer sacrifice in thetemple here. The embassy told him flatly that Tyre had never admittedthe Persians, and that we should not admit him. Everybody knows thatif we should let him in here, he would do what he did in Ephesus whenhe took possession of the city under pretence of offering sacrifice toArtemis."
"But where is Darius?" Thais asked.
"He is in Babylon," said Phradates. "He sent a letter to Alexanderafter the battle of Issus, asking freedom for his wife and family. Hewrote as one king to another, proposing peace and alliance; but yourAlexander, to his sorrow, refused the terms. He pretends that he hasalready conquered all Asia, and he had the boldness to tell the GreatKing that he would liberate Statira and her children if Darius wouldcome as a suppliant to ask it."
"The Gods fight with him," Thais said, after a pause. "It would bebetter for Tyre to open her gates."
The young Ph[oe]nician laughed scornfully.
"The walls of Tyre will crumble and fall into the sea before he offershis sacrifice," he exclaimed. "I will wager anything I possess againstyour looking-glass that he will weary of his task before a stone hasbeen loosened."
"You do not know Alexander," Thais replied.
"Thais," the young man said earnestly, "I will wager what is moreprecious to me than gold. Thou knowest that I love thee."
"You have told me so," she replied demurely.
"You have been for months in my power," he went on, "and I have notsought to force your inclination. Let us now abide by the result ofthe siege that Alexander is threatening. On the day that he gives overhis attempt to enter Tyre, thou shalt be mine. Until that day comes Ishall ask nothing of thee. Is it a bargain?"
"You will not keep your promise," Thais said doubtfully. Herreluctance made the young man more eager.
"Mena!" he called, "bring wine and two doves at once."
When the Egyptian returned, Phradates said to Thais, "See, I am readyto bind myself by oath if thou wilt do
likewise."
"I am ready," Thais replied.
The sacrifice was made and the mutual bond was completed. As the bloodof the doves trickled upon the stones, Phradates called Astarte towitness his covenant. Thais drew a breath of relief, for she knew thatno Ph[oe]nician, even the most depraved, would dare to disregard suchan oath.
The sun went down in crimson splendor, and lamps began to twinkle inthe city. Still the council prolonged its deliberations, and still theanxious merchants waited outside the doors of the palace to learn itsdecision.