A Victor of Salamis
but his own outcry more than replaced it. In a twinkling the virago’s hard
teeth closed over his fingers. Two ran from the oars to him. But the
woman, conscious that she fought for life or death, held fast. Curses,
blows, even a dagger pried betwixt her lips—all bootless. She seemed as a
thing possessed. And all the time the Etruscan howled in mortal agony.
The thin dagger, bent too hard, snapped betwixt her teeth. Lars’s clamour
could surely be heard on the penteconter. Again the breeze was falling.
They seized the fury’s throat, and pressed it till she turned black, but
the grip of her jaw only tightened.
“_Attatai! attatai!_” groaned the victim, “forbear. Don’t throttle her.
Her teeth are iron. They are biting through the bone. If you strangle her,
they will never relax. _Attatai! attatai!_”
“Nip him tight, little wife,” called Phormio, for once regarding his
spouse with supreme satisfaction. “It’s a dainty morsel you have in your
mouth. Chew it well!”
Lampaxo’s attackers paused an instant, uncertain how to release the
Etruscan. To their threats of torture the woman was deaf as the mainmast,
and still the Etruscan screamed.
Glaucon had stood perfectly passive during all this grim by-play. Once
Phormio saw his fellow-captive’s face twist into a smile, but in the
excitement of the moment the fishmonger as well as the Carthaginians
almost forgot the Isthmionices, and Hib relaxed his grip and guard. Lars’s
finger was streaming red, when Hasdrubal threw away the steering-paddle in
a rage.
“Silence her forever! The axe, Hib. Split her skull open!”
The axe lay at the Libyan’s feet. One instant, only one, betook his hands
from the athlete’s wrists to seize the weapon, but in that instant the
yell from all the crew drowned even the howls of Lars. Had any watched,
they might have seen all the muscles in the Alcmæonid’s glorious body
contract, might have seen the fire spring from his eyes as he put forth a
godlike might. Heracles and Athena Polias had been with him when he threw
his strength upon the bands that held his arms. The crushing of Lycon down
had been no feat like this. In a twinkling the cords about his wrists were
snapped. He swung his free hands in the air.
“Athens!” he shouted, whilst the crew stood spellbound. “Hermione! Glaucon
is still Glaucon!”
Hib had grasped the axe, but he never knew what smote him once behind the
ear and sent him rolling lifeless against the bulwark. In an instant his
bright weapon was swinging high above the athlete’s head. Glaucon stood
terrible as Achilles before the cowering Trojans.
“Woe! woe! he is Melkarth. We are lost men!” groaned the crew.
“At him, fools!” bawled Hasdrubal, first to recover wits, “his feet are
still shackled.”
But whilst the master called to them, the axe dashed down upon the
fetters, and one great stroke smote the coupling-link in twain. The
Athenian stood a moment looking right and left, the axe dancing as a toy
in his grasp, and a smile on his face inviting, “Prove me.”
A javelin singing from the hand of Adherbal flew at him. An imperceptible
bending of the body, a red streak on Glaucon’s naked side, and it dug into
the deck. Yet whilst it quivered, was out again and hurled through the
Carthaginian’s breast and shoulders. He fell in a heap beside the Libyan.
Another howl from the sailors.
“Not Melkarth, but Baal the Dragon-Slayer. We are lost. Who can contend
with him?”
“Cowards!” thundered Hasdrubal, whipping the sword from his thigh, “do you
not know these three sniff our true business? If they live when the
penteconter comes, it’s not prison but Sheol that’s waiting. Their lives
or ours. One rush and we have this madman down!”
But their terrible adversary gave the master no time to gather his
myrmidons. One stroke of the axe had already released Phormio, who
clutched the arms of his wife.
“The cabin!” the ready-witted fishmonger commanded, and Lampaxo, scarce
knowing what she did, released her ungentle hold on Lars and suffered her
husband to drag her down the ladder. Glaucon went last; no man loving
death enough to come within reach of the axe. Hasdrubal saw his victims
escaping under his eyes and groaned.
“There is only one hatchway. We must force it. Darts, belaying-pins,
ballast stones—fling anything down. It’s for life or death!”
“The penteconter is four furlongs away!” shrieked a sailor, growing gray
under his dark skin.
“And Democrates’s despatches are hid in the cabin,” added Hiram,
chattering. “If they do not go overboard, our deaths will be terrible.”
“Hear, King Moloch!” called Hasdrubal, lifting his swarthy arms to heaven,
then striking them with his sword till the blood gushed down, “suffer us
to escape this calamity and I vow thee even my daughter Tibaït,—a child in
her tenth year,—she shall die in thy holy furnace a sacrifice.”
“Hear, Baal! Hear, Moloch!” chorussed the crew; and gathering courage from
necessity seized boat-hooks, oars, dirks, and all other handy weapons for
their attack.
But below the released prisoners had not been idle. Never—Glaucon knew
it—had his brain been clearer, his invention more fertile than now, and
Phormio was not too old to cease to be a valiant helper. The cabin was
small. A few spears and swords stood in the rack about the mast. The
athlete bolted the sliding hatch-cover, and tore down the weapons.
“Release your wife,” he ordered Phormio; “yonder sea chest is strong. Drag
it over to bar the hatch-ladder. Work as Titans if you hope for another
sun.”
“_Ai, ai, ai!_” screeched Lampaxo, who had released Lars’s fingers only to
resume her din, “we all perish. They are hewing the hatch-cover with their
axes. Hera preserve us! The wood splinters. We die.”
“We have no time to die,” called the athlete, “but only to save Hellas.”
A dozen blows beat the frail hatch-cover to splinters. A dark face with
grinning teeth showed itself. A heavy ballast stone grazed the athlete’s
shoulder, but the intruder fell back with a gurgling in his throat, his
hands clutching the empty air. Glaucon had sent a heavy spear clean
through him.
More ballast stones, but the Titanic Alcmæonid had torn a mattress from a
bunk, and held it as effective shield. By main force the others dragged
the chest across to the hatchway, making the entrance doubly narrow.
Vainly Hasdrubal stormed at his men to rush down boldly. They barely dared
to fling stones and darts, so fast their adversary sped them back, and to
the mark.
“A god! a god! We fight against Heaven!” bleated the seamen.
Their groans were answered by the screechings of Lampaxo through the
port-hole and the taunts of Phormio.
“Sing, sing, pretty Pisinoë, sweetest of the sirens,” tossed the
fishmonger, playing his part at Glaucon’s side; “lure that dear
penteconter a little nearer. And you, brave, gentle sirs, don’t try ‘to
flay a skinned dog’ by thrusting down here. Your hands are just itching
for the nails, I warrant!”
Hasdrubal redoubled his vows to Moloch. In place of his daughter he
substituted his son, though the lad was fourteen years old and the darling
of his parents. But the god was not tempted even now. The attack on the
cabin had called the sailors from the oars. The penteconter consequently
had gained fast upon them. The trireme behind was manning her other banks
and drawing down apace. Hiram cast a hopeless glance toward her.
“I know those ‘eyes’—those red hawse-holes—the _Nausicaä_. Come what may,
Themistocles must not read the packet in the cabin. There is one chance.”
He approached the splintered hatchway and outstretched his
hands—weaponless.
“Ah, good and gracious Master Glaucon, and your honest friends, your gods
of Hellas are very great and have delivered us, your poor slaves, into
your hands. Your friends approach. We will resist no longer. Come on deck;
and when the ship is taken, entreat the navarch to be merciful and
generous.”
“Bah!” spat Phormio, “you write your promises in water, or better in oil,
black-scaled viper. We know what time of day it is with us, and what for
you.”
Hiram saw Glaucon’s hand rise with a javelin, and shrank shivering.
“They won’t hearken. All’s lost,” he whimpered, his smile becoming
ghastly.
“Another rush, men!” pleaded Hasdrubal.
“Lead the charge yourself, master!” retorted the seamen, sullenly.
The captain, swinging a cutlass, leaped down the bloodstained hatch. One
moment the desperate fury of his attack carried Glaucon backward. The two
fought—sword against axe—in doubtful combat.
“Follow! follow!” called Hasdrubal, dashing Phormio aside with the flat of
his blade. “I have him at last!” But just as Hiram was leading down a
dozen more, the athlete’s axe swept past the sword, and fell like a
millstone on the master’s skull. He never screamed as he crashed upon the
planks.
This was enough. The seamen were at the end of their valour. If they must
die, they must die. What use resisting destiny?
Slowly, slowly the moments crept for the three in the cabin. Even Lampaxo
grew still. They heard Hiram pleading frantically, vainly, for another
attempt, and raving strange things about Democrates, Lycon, and the
Persian. Then behind the _Bozra_ sounded the rushing of foam around a ram,
the bumping of fifty oars plying on the thole-pins. Into their sight shot
the penteconter, the brass glistening on her prow, the white blades
leaping in rhythm. Marines in armour stood on the forecastle. A few arrows
pattered on the plankings of the _Bozra_. Her abject crew obeyed the
demand to surrender. Their helmsman pushed over the steering-paddle, and
flung himself upon the deck. The sea-mouse went up into the wind. The
grappling-irons rattled over the bulwark. Glaucon heard the Phœnicians
whining, “Mercy! mercy!” as they embraced the boarders’ feet, then the
_prōreus_, in hearty Attic, calling, “Secure the prisoners and rummage the
prize!”
Glaucon had suffered many things of late. He had faced intolerable
captivity, immediate death. Now around his eyes swam hot mist. He fell
upon a sea chest, and for a little cared not for anything around, whilst
down his cheeks would flow the tears.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE READING OF THE RIDDLE
A hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they
caught the _Bozra_. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted
prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil,
fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop,
listening to the report of his _prōreus_.
“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of
their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”
But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.
“_Kyrie_, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The
planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem
mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl, ‘The navarch! show us
the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’ And one of them—as true as that I sucked
my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”
“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a
Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”
“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The
prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”
For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an
instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble
up the ladder, covered with blood, the red lines of the fetters marked
into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was
screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid
under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had
he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch