第24章

Atta was prudent, but he was also stubborn.He spent the day in a creek on the northern shore of the gulf, listening to the weird hum which came over the waters out of the haze.He cursed the delay.Up on Kallidromos would be clear dry air and the path to Delphi among the oak woods.The Hellenes could not be fighting everywhere at once.He might find some spot on the shore, far in their rear, where he could land and gain the hills.There was danger indeed, but once on the ridge he would be safe; and by the time he came back the Great King would have swept the defenders into the sea, and be well on the road for Athens.He asked himself if it were fitting that a Lemnian should be stayed in his holy task by the struggles of Hellene and Barbarian.His thoughts flew to his steading at Larisa, and the dark-eyed wife who was awaiting his homecoming.He could not return without Apollo's favour: his manhood and the memory of his lady's eyes forbade it.So late in the afternoon he pushed off again and steered his galley for the south.

About sunset the mist cleared from the sea; but the dark falls swiftly in the shadow of the high hills, and Atta had no fear.

With the night the hum sank to a whisper; it seemed that the invaders were drawing off to camp, for the sound receded to the west.At the last light the Lemnian touched a rock-point well to the rear of the defence.He noticed that the spume at the tide's edge was reddish and stuck to his hands like gum.Of a surety much blood was flowing on that coast.

He bade his slaves return to the north shore and lie hidden to await him.When he came back he would light a signal fire on the topmost bluff of Kallidromos.Let them watch for it and come to take him off.Then he seized his bow and quiver, and his short hunting-spear, buckled his cloak about him, saw that the gift to Apollo was safe in the folds of it, and marched sturdily up the hillside.

The moon was in her first quarter, a slim horn which at her rise showed only the faint outline of the hill.Atta plodded steadfastly on, but he found the way hard.This was not like the crisp sea-turf of Lemnos, where among the barrows of the ancient dead, sheep and kine could find sweet fodder.Kallidromos ran up as steep as the roof of a barn.Cytisus and thyme and juniper grew rank, but above all the place was strewn with rocks, leg-twisting boulders, and great cliffs where eagles dwelt.

Being a seaman, Atta had his bearings.The path to Delphi left the shore road near the Hot Springs, and went south by a rift of the mountain.If he went up the slope in a beeline he must strike it in time and find better going.Still it was an eerie place to be tramping after dark.The Hellenes had strange gods of the thicket and hillside, and he had no wish to intrude upon their sanctuaries.He told himself that next to the Hellenes he hated this country of theirs, where a man sweltered in hot jungles or tripped among hidden crags.He sighed for the cool beaches below Larisa, where the surf was white as the snows of Samothrace, and the fisherboys sang round their smoking broth-pots.

Presently he found a path.It was not the mule road, worn by many feet, that he had looked for, but a little track which twined among the boulders.Still it eased his feet, so he cleared the thorns from his sandals, strapped his belt tighter, and stepped out more confidently.Up and up he went, making odd detours among the crags.Once he came to a promontory, and, looking down, saw lights twinkling from the Hot Springs.He had thought the course lay more southerly, but consoled himself by remembering that a mountain path must have many windings.The great matter was that he was ascending, for he knew that he must cross the ridge of Oeta before he struck the Locrian glens that led to the Far-Darter's shrine.

At what seemed the summit of the first ridge he halted for breath, and, prone on the thyme, looked back to sea.The Hot Springs were hidden, but across the gulf a single light shone from the far shore.He guessed that by this time his galley had been beached and his slaves were cooking supper.The thought made him homesick.He had beaten and cursed these slaves of his times without number, but now in this strange land he felt them kinsfolk, men of his own household.Then he told himself he was no better than a woman.Had he not gone sailing to Chalcedon and distant Pontus, many months' journey from home while this was but a trip of days? In a week he would be welcomed by a smiling wife, with a friendly god behind him.

The track still bore west, though Delphi lay in the south.

Moreover, he had come to a broader road running through a little tableland.The highest peaks of Oeta were dark against the sky, and around him was a flat glade where oaks whispered in the night breezes.By this time he judged from the stars that midnight had passed, and he began to consider whether, now that he was beyond the fighting, he should not sleep and wait for dawn.He made up his mind to find a shelter, and, in the aimless way of the night traveller, pushed on and on in the quest of it.The truth is his mind was on Lemnos, and a dark-eyed, white-armed dame spinning in the evening by the threshold.His eyes roamed among the oaktrees, but vacantly and idly, and many a mossy corner was passed unheeded.He forgot his ill temper, and hummed cheerfully the song his reapers sang in the barley-fields below his orchard.

It was a song of seamen turned husbandmen, for the gods it called on were the gods of the sea....

Suddenly he found himself crouching among the young oaks, peering and listening.There was something coming from the west.It was like the first mutterings of a storm in a narrow harbour, a steady rustling and whispering.It was not wind; he knew winds too well to be deceived.It was the tramp of light-shod feet among the twigs--many feet, for the sound remained steady, while the noise of a few men will rise and fall.They were coming fast and coming silently.The war had reached far up Kallidromos.