Phradates knew that he had the young woman in his power, but he could not bring himself to make use of this advantage. He would not force a triumph; he must have a complete surrender. Day by day he hoped to obtain it. He found a half promise in her words, a suggestion of tenderness in her manner, and at times an implied appeal to his generosity that made his hope almost a certainty. When he grew impatient, the fear of losing her entirely restrained him. Thus he fell more and more completely under her domination, like a man who sips a narcotic, yielding by little and little to its power, until his will to resist is gone, and he gives himself wholly to its subtle intoxication, unwittingly a captive.

After one of her interviews with him, Thais often threw herself down, disgusted with the part that she was forced to play. She grew angry at Artemisia's failure to understand the necessity of what she was doing.

When the smile faded from her lips as the door closed upon the Phnician, she found Artemisia's eyes fixed upon her in sorrowful reproach.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she exclaimed petulantly. "Speak out, if you must!"

Artemisia bent her head and remained silent.

"Do you think I love him?" Thais demanded scornfully, coming close to her. "Do you believe that I am false to Chares? Tell me, if you do."

"I do not," Artemisia replied hesitatingly. "Only it seems to me--"

"It seems to you that I do it too well," Thais exclaimed, completing her thought. "What would you do if you were shut up with an untamed tiger? You may give thanks to your Artemis in your innocence that I have been able so far to hold this one in check."

"Forgive me," Artemisia cried, embracing her. "I know you must, and yet--I am sorry for it, my sister."

Artemisia often made use of this title, never dreaming how true it was, and it always awakened a pang of tenderness in Thais' heart. She returned the embrace and forgave her, although she felt that Artemisia could not really understand, try as she might.

"I wish the siege would end!" Thais said wearily. "If you knew how much I loathe all this, you would have more pity."

Her wish was granted at last. Even the most hopeful inhabitant of the city understood that neither flesh nor stone could hold out much longer against the dogged Macedonian assault. Memnon knew that unless the battering rams and catapults could be destroyed the city must fall.

There were breaches in the massive walls and the great towers were tottering. If he could gain a little more time, reinforcements might arrive and compel Alexander to raise the siege. Mustering his best remaining troops, he poured them out of the Triple Gate and through the gaps in the wall upon the works of the enemy. The attack was repulsed without accomplishing its object; and when the garrison sought to regain the defences, scores were slain at the wall and hundreds more in the moat, where they were precipitated by the breaking of the bridge leading to the gate.

It was plain that the end was at hand. The Rhodian felt that the city was at the mercy of the young king, and he hastened to take advantage of the respite that Alexander's forbearance allowed him. At midnight after this last defeat the evacuation began. The troops were withdrawn to the Royal Citadel and to the Salmacis, where they could still remain in touch with their ships. The greater part of the population fled to the harbor and sought escape in the merchant vessels which were putting to sea. Azemilcus, king of Tyre, who had been acting with the fleet, made ready a trireme in which to send home the wounded among the Tyrians. He placed it under the command of Phradates.

Thais learned from the slave women that the young Phnician was making ready to depart in haste.

"If we are to escape, we must do it now," she said hurriedly to Artemisia. "He will try to take us with him."

"Can we not refuse to go?" Artemisia replied.

"No," Thais responded. "To refuse him would be to open his eyes, and he would certainly take us by force. Flight is our only hope."

She gathered her jewels into a packet and placed it in her bosom. She then ordered the women to muffle them in long cloaks that concealed their faces.

"Go down and find out who is there," she said.

One of the women brought word that Phradates had gone to the harbor to see that all was in readiness, and that Mena was also absent. Thais led the way boldly down the stairs and out of the house, followed by Artemisia and the two women. The slaves who were at work below stared at them, but in the absence of their master none ventured to stop them.

They gained the street in safety, and were immediately swept away in the clamoring, terror-stricken streams of fugitives who were pouring toward the harbor. A lofty tower that had been built beside the Triple Gate was on fire. The flames roared up the sides of the structure, bursting from its windows and loopholes, and converting it into a gigantic torch. They spread quickly to the houses nearest the walls, sending volumes of reddened smoke rolling over the harbor. The howling of dogs mingled with the shouts of men and the wailing of women who clasped their children to their breasts.

Iphicrates left the walls with his comrades in arms and plunged into the crowded streets. He had intended to seek his own house in the hope of finding some remains of his hoard untouched; but the panic seized him, and he changed his direction. He determined to gain the Royal Citadel, which he knew was to be defended against the Macedonians.

Thinking only of his own safety, he forced his way through the press, pushing women and children aside in his haste. Blinded by the terror that possessed him, he took no heed of a small, dark-skinned man with sharp features who reeled back from the thrust of his elbow. Even if he had noticed that the figure fell in behind him, following his footsteps like a shadow, he would have taken him only for one of the fugitives.

Steeped in the contagion of fear, the money-lender hardly noticed where he went. He soon became exhausted by his struggle with the crowd, and he heaved a sigh of relief when he found himself at last in a street that was comparatively deserted. He overlooked the fact that the few persons whom he met were hurrying the other way, and it was not until he was brought to a halt by a blank wall that he recognized his surroundings. He had entered a road from which there was no outlet.

He halted in dismay. The shadow behind him glided into a doorway and crouched out of sight. The street was hemmed in by tall buildings that had been emptied of their tenants, and the light of the burning tower flickered redly upon the upper walls, increasing the gloom below. A sense of loneliness and desertion smote him. He felt himself suddenly cut off from human companionship. His heart beat thickly and heavily.

He seemed to be strangling under the oppression of a nameless and deadly horror.

He turned and rushed back in the direction whence he had come. As he passed the doorway within which the shadow had disappeared, a light form bounded out upon him. There was a flash of steel; a lean arm was thrust forward and seemed to touch him lightly on the back beneath his shoulder. He fell upon his face with a choking cry; the shadow leaped over him, fled, and vanished, leaving him motionless where he lay.

Thais and Artemisia were borne forward in the crowd without power to choose the direction of their flight. In the frantic masses of humanity, all fighting toward the harbor, they saw women and children trampled underfoot; and they clung to each other in desperation, knowing that if they fell, they would never be able to rise. The maddened crowd swept them on to the wharves, where the agitated waters of the harbor spread before them like a lake of blood in the glare of the conflagration.

Utterly bewildered and unable to extricate themselves, the young women were drawn hither and thither by the eddies of the mob as it rushed feverishly from one vessel to another, seeking means of escape.

Suddenly they found themselves wedged in before a double line of soldiers drawn up before the gangway of a trireme, the sides of which loomed dark above their heads. Torches shed a smoky light upon the agonized faces of the throng, held at bay by the spears of the guard.

Warning shouts rose from the darkness, followed by a swaying motion of the crowd which divided before the rush of a compact body of men making toward the vessel. Thais and Artemisia felt themselves crushed forward against the living barrier until they could hardly breathe. They heard the shouting and cursing of the soldiers advancing from the rear into the circle of torchlight. The pressure became unbearable. They had given themselves up for lost, when, before they knew what was taking place, they were seized and borne upward. Thais recovered her senses to find herself seated upon the deck of the trireme, with Artemisia's head in her lap.

"Why did you run away?" asked a familiar voice reproachfully.

She looked up and saw Phradates standing before her. "It is fate!"

flashed through her mind.

"We thought you had deserted us, and we were frightened," she replied.

"I searched everywhere for you," he said. "Astarte must have guided you here."

He turned and commanded the sailors to cast off. The great vessel swung slowly from the wharf, leaving behind the mass of unhappy fugitives, some of whom cursed her, while others stretched out their arms toward her, praying to the last to be taken on board. Artemisia was revived by the cooler air of the harbor.

"Where are we?" she asked faintly, opening her blue eyes.

"We are on the Phnician trireme, bound, I suppose, for Tyre," Thais answered bitterly. "No, it was not my doing," she continued, replying to her sister's glance of surprise and question. "I had no more part in it than you this time. It is the will of the Gods."

The trireme pointed her brazen beak toward the entrance of the harbor.

The banks of oars which fringed her sides in three rows, one above the other, like the legs of some gigantic water insect, caught the waves, and the panic-stricken city began to glide away from her stern. A fishing boat, laden with fugitives, drifted across her path. The sharp prow struck the side of the hapless little craft and cut through it like a knife. For a brief moment the screams of women and children rose out of the darkness, and then the voices were stifled.

Artemisia hid her face on Thais' shoulder and wept; but Thais, gazing back on the fiery city, saw the great tower reel and fall, clothed in flame from base to summit. The roar of turmoil and terror sounded in her ears, and she smiled. The red light danced in her eyes, making them gleam like opals as she turned them upon Phradates.

"They say thy city hath strong walls, Phnician," she said. "Thou wilt have to build them still stronger, I think."

"They are strong," Phradates answered proudly; "but we shall not need them, for between us and Alexander stand a million men, ready to lay down their lives for their king."

Thais raised her white arm and extended it toward the stricken city.

"What shall withstand the Whirlwind?" she said.

In the stern of the trireme sat Mena, gazing thoughtfully back at the city and wiping the stains from the blade of his dagger.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE GORDIAN KNOT

Alexander kept the anniversary of his departure from Macedon in the city of Gordium, surrounded by his army, on the wind-swept uplands of Phrygia. He reached the place through the drifted snows that blocked the passes of the Taurus and the rugged hills of Pisidia, subduing on his way the tribes that had held them for ages, to whom the Great King himself had deemed it wise to render tribute in exchange for peace.

Looking backward, the young leader of men saw the aegean coast and all the territory west of the mountains subject to his rule. To the rich and prosperous Grecian cities by the sea he had restored their ancient rights, and the hostages of the barbarians thronged his camp. He had made a beginning, and his heart had confidence in the end.

Parmenio came from Sardis, bringing the troops that had wintered there, with the siege train and abundance of supplies. Alexander resolved to rest until the roads should be settled so that he might strike another blow. In games and feasting and martial exercises his army passed the breathing space permitted before the onslaught. The camp was filled with jests devised by the detachments that under Alexander had conquered stubborn Salagassus, at the expense of the men who had been idling in Sardis and who were accused of having grown white-faced and soft in their luxury. Parmenio's men, in turn, took their revenge in quips levelled at the young married men, who had been allowed to go to their homes across the Hellespont and who now returned, bringing the latest news and gossip of Pella and squadrons of eager recruits.