It was at this moment that the Immortals, led by the traitor, Ephialtes, reached the pass. The Spartans hastily withdrew behind the wall, which had been repaired by the order of their king. Here, on a hillock, ‘they defended themselves to the last, such as had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth; till the barbarians, who had in part pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round and now encircled them upon every side, overwhelmed and buried the remnant which was left, beneath showers of missile weapons.’ As you read the story of the brave defence of Thermopylae, you do not wonder that Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans have won for themselves immortal fame. On the hillock where the little band took their last stand, a stone lion was placed in honour of king Leonidas, while in the pass itself a pillar was erected on which were written these words:-- ‘Go, tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, That here obedient to their laws we lie.’ When the battle was over, Xerxes ordered his men to search for the body of Leonidas. When it was found he ordered the head to be cut off and the body to be hung upon a cross. It was the custom of the Persians to honour the bodies of those who had fallen fighting bravely against them. This unusual and cruel treatment was but a proof of the fear the brave Spartan had inspired in the heart of Xerxes. Nor could the king forget that he had been on the point of leaving the pass in the hands of its brave defenders. Demaratus could not look at the slaughter of his countrymen unmoved. He had seemed to be a friend of the great king, yet now he longed to warn the Spartans who had stayed at home that the Persians were ready to march against them. But how could he send a message unknown to the Persians. He soon thought of a strange and less cruel way than had Histiaeus, who, you remember, branded his secret on the head of his slave. The exiled king took a writing tablet and scraped away the wax on which letters were usually engraved. On the wood beneath he scratched the message he wished to send. He then poured melted wax on the top of what he had written, and the tablet looked as any other tablet looked. When it reached Sparta, the peopled studied it with amazement. There was a tablet, but where was the message? They turned it this way and that, they peered at it now on one side, now on another--nothing was to be seen. Then Gorgo, whom you heard of last as a little maiden of eight years old, gave the people advice as wise as she had given to her royal father long before. She was grown up since those days and had been married to brave king Leonidas. ‘Scrape off the wax,’ she said to the people, ‘and see if the message lies on the wood beneath.’ And when this was done, there stood the warning words of Demaratus, so that all might read. CHAPTER XLVIII THE BATTLE OF ARTEMISIUM