A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

A Discouraging Situation 253
snow to march with something black before them; for the
feet, the only remedy was to keep in motion without
stopping for an instant, and to loose the sandal at night.
If they went to sleep with the sandals on, the thong
worked into the feet and the sandals were frozen fast
them. This was partly due to the fact that, since their
old sandals had failed, they wore untanned brogues made
of newly flayed ox-hides.
to
It was owing to some such dire
necessity that a party of men fell out and were left behind,
and seeing a black-looking patch of ground where the
snow had evidently disappeared, they conjectured it
must have been melted; and this was actually so, owing
to a spring of some sort which was to be seen steaming up
in a dell close by. To this they had turned aside and sat Some give
down and were loth to go a step further. But Xenophon spair.
with his
rearguard perceived them, and begged and implored
them by all manner of means not to remain behind,
telling them that the enemy were after them in large
packs pursuing; and he ended by growing angry. They
merely bade him put a knife to their throats; not one step
further would they stir. Then it seemed best to frighten
the pursuing enemy if possible, and to prevent their falling
upon the invalids.
It was already dusk, and the pursuers
were advancing with much noise and hubbub, wrangling
and disputing over their spoils. Then all of a sudden the
rearguard, in the plenitude of health and strength, sprang
up out of their lair and ran upon the enemy, whilst those
weary wights bawled out as loud as their sick throats could
sound, and dashed their spears against their shields ; and the
enemy in terror hurled themselves through the snow into
the dell, and not one of them ever uttered a sound again.
Xenophon and his party, telling the sick folk that next
day people would come for them, set oflf and before they