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Updated: June 27, 2025
It was then that he made that memorable answer, "I will not steal a victory," which some thought to show an over-boastful spirit, which could jest in the presence of such fearful danger; while others thought that it showed a steady confidence and true knowledge of what would happen on the morrow, and meant that he did not intend to give Darius, when vanquished, the consolation of attributing his defeat to the confusion of a night attack; for Darius had already explained his defeat at Issus to have been owing to the confined nature of the ground, and to his forces having been penned up between the mountains and the sea.
Accordingly the army resumed their forward movement, following the trend of the coast round the Gulf of Issus, and then striking southeasterly again, until some time in the summer they reached and crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus. From that point they marched down the left bank of the river, through the hilly desert of Arabia, toward the great city of Babylon.
Even my eyes, for long years accustomed to the barbaric splendours of a Martian Jeddak's court, were amazed at the glory of the scene. Phaidor's eyes were wide in amazement. "The Temple of Issus," she whispered, half to herself. Xodar watched us with his grim smile, partly of amusement and partly malicious gloating. The gardens swarmed with brilliantly trapped black men and women.
Xodar listened in incredulous astonishment to my narration of the events which had transpired within the arena at the rites of Issus. He could scarce conceive, even though he had already professed his doubt as to the deity of Issus, that one could threaten her with sword in hand and not be blasted into a thousand fragments by the mere fury of her divine wrath.
Quickly I walked toward the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere I reached the further wall, and then from the other end of the chamber came another voice, shrill and piercing: "Fools! Fools!" it shrieked. "Thinkest thou to defeat the eternal laws of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, Goddess of Death, of her just dues?
"Come, men of the outer world!" he shouted. "Let us make our deaths worth while, and at the back of this unknown warrior turn this day's Tribute to Issus into an orgy of revenge that will echo through the ages and cause black skins to blanch at each repetition of the rites of Issus. Come! The racks without your cages are filled with blades."
Purple seems somewhat out of place in the enumeration; but the Syrians may have gathered the murex on their seaboard between Mt. Casius and the Gulf of Issus, and have sold what they collected in the Phoenician market. The precious stones which Ezekiel assigns to them are difficult of identification, but may have been furnished by Casius, Bargylus, or Amanus.
Did not her mighty messenger, the ancient Iss, bear you upon her leaden bosom at your own behest to the Valley Dor? "Thinkest thou, O fools, that Issus wilt give up her own? Thinkest thou to escape from whence in all the countless ages but a single soul has fled?
"As the entire Temple of the Sun revolves once with each revolution of Barsoom about the sun, but once each year does the entrance to each separate chamber come opposite the mouth of the corridor which forms its only link to the world without. "Here Issus puts those who displease her, but whom she does not care to execute forthwith.
"The Temple of Issus is, I take it, a heaven within a heaven," I said. "Let us hope that there it will be meted to the therns as they have meted it here unto others." "Who knows?" the girl murmured.
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