The Arrows of Hercules

Two – VELIA

The strong north wind of the previous day had fled away, but a brisk breeze lingered. The Muttumalein lay in the shelter of a small stone jetty, which curved from Cumae's harborless beach out into the turquoise Tyrrhenian Sea. A precarious plank extended from the sand of the jetty to the high gunwale of the ship. She was a tubby, flush-decked craft with a black hull, about sixty feet long by twenty feet wide. She had a single mast with a yellow square sail and, near the stern, a cabin not much bigger than a doghouse. Oars were piled at the base of the mast; a pair of boarding ladders, one long and one short, were stowed at the stern.

Workmen, shouting in Oscan, were passing casks of wine and olive oil, bolts of linen, and bags of salt down into the hold. Eight swarthy Punic sailors, stripped to loincloths, hauled on ropes and stowed ship's gear. The passengers waited on the jetty for the loading to be completed.

Captain Ethbaal stood on his deck where the plank reached the gunwale, scratching marks on a waxed wooden tablet as each item was brought aboard. Instead of the embroidered robe he had worn to the Sibyl's cave the previous day, he was now clad in ordinary Phoenician seaman's garb: a short-sleeved shirt and a pleated kilt, over I hem a short cape against the morning chill, and a round cap on his head. About his neck still hung the necklace of little glass and copper images of the Pataecian gods. He was a man of average height, slightly stooped, and lean to gauntness, with a nose like a vulture's beak.

Two local merchants stood, also marking tablets, on the deck near Ethbaal. Now and again the loading was held up while Ethbaal and one or the other of the merchants engaged in a last-minute haggle.

The captain's mate, a commonplace-looking little man, stood at the batch, directing the stowage of cargo into the hold. When the last bag of salt had been stowed, Ethbaal beckoned Korinna's attendants, Sophron the bodyguard and the one remaining slave. (The other slave had run away.) At the signal, these two picked up the ends of the poles that formed the litter for the shrouded body of Nestor, carried the body aboard, and lowered it gingerly into the hold.

Now Ethbaal turned to the other passengers on the jetty. "Come aboard!" he called in heavily accented Greek. "But do not enter the cabin!"

They filed up the plank: a middle-aged couple with a twelve-year-old boy; an old Etruscan with a shaven upper lip, who wore a wide-brimmed hat and walked with a crutch; a younger man who was his servant; Segovax the Celt; a traveling singer with his lyre in a linen case; and finally Korinna of Messana. The Muttumalein had no amenities for the passengers, who crowded up forward to be out of the sailors' way. They camped on the bare boards along the bulwarks, making themselves as comfortable as they could with their cloaks and bedding rolls.

Zopyros bid farewell to the Archon and to his friend Archytas, while the two slaves who belonged to the city of Taras, and who had been sent along to serve the three pilgrims, held the mules near the base of the jetty. Zopyros said to Archytas:

"Don't talk the city into electing you president before I get back! You're too young for the office."

"And don't you get so absorbed in counting the waves that you fall overboard," retorted Archytas. "You might ask in Messana if there is a Pythagorean Society there. It would be nice if our little club had another with whom we could correspond now and then, besides that gang of oligarchs in Rhegion."

"I'll do that. Farewell, Archon; Hermes attend you both on the homecoming!"

A shout of "Hurry up, you!" came from the ship. Zopyros slung the bag containing his shield and spare clothing over his back and, using his spear as a stick, strode up the plank. As he hopped down to the deck, Captain Ethbaal said: "Zopyros the Tarentine, eh?"

"That's my name." Zopyros laid down his burdens to get out his fare.

"Handsome young fellow, eh?" said Ethbaal.

"I'm glad somebody thinks so."

"Well, keep away from my cabin!"

Zopyros did not like the man's tone, nor yet the gleam in his eye. Somehow Ethbaal gave the impression, even when standing perfectly still, of being as tense as a bow drawn to the release point. Hoping to get on a friendlier basis with the captain, Zopyros said in Punic:

"Why, Captain, what holds the cabin that were too deadly to approach? A gorgon's head, that would turn us to stone?"

"The cabin holds my wife, that is all," snapped Ethbaal in the same language. "The most beautiful woman of Egypt, and I will have no lecherous Hellene sniffing on her trail!"

Zopyros managed a smile. "Fear nought, gallant Captain. Pythagoreans keep their hands off other men's wives." He turned away to claim a section of deck near where Korinna and her two attendants had spread their gear.

"Asto!" yelled Ethbaal. "Cast off the plank; hoist the anchors. Put four on the oars and tell the others to stand by to hoist sail!"

The mate jumped to the task, shooting nervous glances at his captain. The captain himself grasped the tiller bars, forward of the cabin, which controlled the two side rudders. A murmur arose as I he passengers and their friends ashore prayed to their various gods. A lapping of waves mingled with a groaning of oars in their locks and ropes in their blocks, as the Muttumalein swung slowly away from the jetty. The yellow sail rose by jerks, fluttering and filling. The ship heeled and headed out from shore at an angle, blue and white water boiling away from her blunt black stem. The sailors shipped and stacked their oars. Gulls wheeled and squealed overhead; while, farther out in the sapphire sea, a school of slate-gray porpoises lolled and leaped.

Once clear of the coast, the Muttumalein fell into a steady pitch as the south-marching swells thrown up by Boreas overtook her. Wave after green wave raced up astern, slapped at the ship's rounded counter, boosted the hull upward, and rolled by underneath, foaming away on both sides. The sailors donned their shirts and kilts.

Segovax gripped the rail, staring towards the porpoises. His ruddy coloring had turned a greenish gray. He said:

"Master Zopyros, was there not one of you Greek fellows who invented a pair of wings that a man could fly with? A gigantic idea! Only the poor loon flew too near the sun, and the heat melted the glue, and the man fell into the sea and drowned, and him so clever and all. I do remember hearing somebody tell of it when I was soldiering for the General Hermokrates."

"That's Ikaros," said Zopyros. "At least, Ikaros was killed using the wings, while his father Daidalos is said to have made them."

"Whatever the man's name, it would be a more comfortable way to cross the sea than these ships, I'm thinking."

"It's just a legend," said Zopyros. "Remember to use the lee rail if your stomach gets out of hand."

"But this is good weather!" said Asto, the timid-looking mate. "With the wind like this, we shall make Messana in less than a ten-day. Walk about the deck a bit and you will feel better. You should see how we suffer when the wind blows foul for a month at a time, or we are caught by a sudden storm at sea! Or when sea monsters rise out of the deep to seize us ..."

"You'd better not say too much about monsters if you want to build up a good passenger trade," said Zopyros. "How is trade along this coast?"

"The Sibyl helps," said the Phoenician. "People come from near and far to consult her, thus rendering profitable some voyages that would otherwise not pay. The Campanians love imported luxuries, but their own products are mostly bulk staples for which there's not much market in Great Hellas. So, without the pilgrims, we should often have to return in ballast—"

"Asto!" came the yell of Captain Ethbaal. "Take the helm, Milkarth smite you! I go below to inspect."

"Coming!" shouted Asto, then to Zopyros: "Ethbaal is counted the most daring skipper of the Inner Sea, putting out the first in spring and laying up the last in autumn. Not even ill omens stop him. But he's also the most vigilant; nothing is ever shipshape enough to suit him. Coming!"

The little mate bowed low to Zopyros and ran off, his bare feet slapping the damp deck planks. The old Etruscan was sitting on the deck with his lame leg stretched out in the sun before him, shading his eyes with his hands as he watched the wheeling flight of the gulls. He said in bad Greek:

"What was all this talk in Punic?"

Zopyros answered: "He was telling me our captain is a veritable Odysseus for craft and courage, who lets nothing—not even a bad omen—delay him."

"The more fool he and more unlucky we," said the Etruscan. "Everything that happens is presaged by omens. That is why I watch I he birds. I am zilath of Tarquinii, wise man and important official. I know what I talk about."

"What do the birds tell you about this voyage?"

"Nothing good. Somebody will have disaster."

"Who?"

"Do not yet know. Tell you later." The Etruscan resumed his bird watching.

Segovax held his head and moaned. Korinna leaned against the rail and gazed shoreward. Zopyros came to stand beside her. As the ship passed through the channel between Cape Misenum and the island of Prochyta, the vast Bay of Neapolis opened out eastward. It formed an irregular semicircle from the island of Aenaria on the left, behind them, to that of Capreae on the right, before them. Towns and villages lined the shore of the bay like white beads on a green string. Amidst them, the pendant on the necklace, rose the walls and temples of great Neapolis itself, while to the right loomed I he dark, towering cone of Vesuvius.

"It looks like mighty Aetna, in my own land," said Korinna. "But Aetna smokes and sputters, while this mountain seems still."

"There's a tradition that Vesuvius, too, was once a fiery mountain," said Zopyros. "But its fire seems to have gone out for good."

She glanced at the wretched Segovax and made a grimace. "Somehow I don't feel well, either. My head aches. I think I'll lie down."

The singer also looked unhappy. The middle-aged couple, sitting side by side on the deck beneath a little tentlike awning they had rigged, stared off across the waters with expressions of such blank stolidity that one could not tell whether they were suffering or not. That left the twelve-year-old boy, the servants, and the sailors.

However, Zopyros' shyness kept him from striking up a conversation with any of them. Unlike his friend Archytas, he tended to become tongue-tied in the presence of strangers. He had little small talk. Faced by a stranger, he was inclined either to monopolize the conversation by a lecture on his professional experiences and beliefs, or to subside into glum silence and leave the whole burden of the talk to the other.

Now, having nobody with whom he could easily converse, Zopyros contented himself with trying to count the waves, trying to estimate the speed of the ship from the time it took bubbles and flotsam to slide the length of the hull, and trying to calculate the volume of the little cabin aft. Thinking of the cabin brought his mind around to the strange behavior of Captain Ethbaal.

From time to time he had stolen glances at the structure, expecting to see some gorgeous woman in the glittering raiment of timeless Egypt come forth. But nothing happened; the cabin gave no sign of life. When Zopyros saw that his curious glances brought a suspicious scowl from Captain Ethbaal, he resolutely turned his gaze in other directions.

As the day wore on, they sailed through the channel in the southeast horn of the Bay of Neapolis, between the Promontory of Athena and the isle of Capreae. The passengers unwrapped the simple lunches they had brought aboard—mostly bread, cheese, grapes, and olives—and fell to eating. Zopyros, about to toss aside an olive pit, looked up to sec Ethbaal glowering down at his passengers.

"Throw your garbage overboard, please!" growled the captain. "My ship is not a pigsty."

As they passed a cluster of rocky islets south of the promontory, Korinna came to the rail. She said to Zopyros, also leaning on the rail and staring at the water:

"On the ship from Messana, they told me those were the Siren Isles, past which Odysseus sailed with plugs in his ears."

"Perhaps. Others locate the Sirens on the Brettian coast, near your own city."

"Oh." She sounded a little put out.

"Don't be vexed, Mistress Korinna. I don't doubt that Odysseus did indeed explore these waters. But half the towns of the Inner Sea have decided that it would fetch travelers and trade if they could point out a place as the site of one of his adventures. So they've gone over the epic poets like a boy picking fleas from his clog, looking for some place that could, by a stretch of the imagination, be identified with their own city." He turned to Asto, who had just come up. "Where shall we stop the night?"

"With this good wind, the skipper is headed for Poseidonia. Usually we stop the first day at Salernum, or at best the Sanctuary of the Argive Hera. But this time the gods have been good to us."

Korinna went back to her place on deck and talked of feminine matters with the mother of the twelve-year-old boy. Zopyros asked Asto: "Why didn't we stop at Neapolis? It's a much bigger port than Cumae."

"We did, on the way north, and loaded cargo. To have stopped again would have cost us a day to small profit. Usually Neapolis is the end of our run. But Ethbaal," Asto chuckled, "can smell a cargo as a hound scents a beefsteak half a league upwind. He heard that some goods had piled up at Cumae, awaiting the first voyages of the season; and zzip!" Asto made a darting motion with his hand. "Off we went for Cumae, like a flying fish with a tuna on its tail!"

Poseidonia lay on a stretch of pine-forested plain beneath a purple sky. Beyond the forest, black in the fading light, rose the snow-flecked ridges of the Alburnus. As the Muttumalein anchored in the reedy mouth of the little Salsos River, the sunset reddened the snowy stucco of the temples, whose tops were visible over the trees. The sailors thrust the long boarding ladder over the side and into the mud as far from the ship as they could reach with it. Passengers and crew climbed down the ladder and splashed ashore. Zopyros said to the captain:

"Aren't you coming ashore, Master Ethbaal?"

"And leave my ship and my wife unguarded, in a land infested with lecherous, light-fingered Greeks? Do you think me mad?"

Zopyros turned away from this crosspatch with a shrug, to climb down the ladder. Korinna followed him, and he carried her ashore. The contact made his heart race.

There were a few Poseidonians at the landing place: some fishermen, and a couple of boys with an ass to rent. Zopyros hired the ass for Korinna. It was a good twelve furlongs to the city.

Poseidonia, Zopyros learned, had but one small inn. This was even dirtier than most and, furthermore, had no private room in which he could lodge Korinna. For her to sleep in the common dormitory with the men would be unthinkable. Fortunately, the city had a] Messanian proxenos. The consul found lodging in a decent home for both Korinna and the mother of the twelve-year-old.

In the inn that evening, Zopyros listened to tavern talk. The natives were restless, it was said. The Lucanian tribes were stirring. They had long looked enviously at the gleaming Greek city in their midst, and now ...

"We should arm to the teeth," said one, "and drill daily, as the Spartans did in their great days."

"Then how should we earn our livings?" said another. "The Lucanians can always put ten men in the battle line to one of ours. If our so-called government were really clever, they'd stir up dissension among the barbarians, so they'd fight each other instead of us."

Another: "They've been doing that; but the foreigners seem to have caught on. Now our best hope is to be quiet and polite, avoid provocation, and hope they won't notice us."

"They've already noticed us," said another. "It's too late for that. Besides, that's cowardly advice. We ought to hire some good stout mercenaries, like our Gaulish friend there. Oh, Celt! Would you fight for us for pay?"

"I might that," said Segovax, to whom wine had given back his ruddy color, "if the wage was right. But not this year; I'm after seeing the wise woman at Cumae, and she told me to carry a spear for Dionysios. Next year, maybe."

"You see!" said another speaker. "It's hopeless. The omens are against us. We should hire some ships and quietly sail away, as the Phokaians did when menaced by Cyrus' armies."

"But whither? All the other shores of the Inner Sea swarm with bloodthirsty, envious barbarians. No! By the God, this is our land, won by the spear, and we should defend it with our good right arms. Union gives strength. What we need is a firm alliance with the Neapolitans, the Velians, and the other Hellenes of the coast—"

"Death take those dirty foreigners! Those haughty, cowardly, treacherous, temple-robbing braggarts would want supreme command. 'they'd put our men in the most exposed position and, if they saw things going badly, run away and leave us to be slaughtered. What we really need ..."

And so it went, until Zopyros sought the bug-ridden dormitory for a night of troubled slumber. In his dreams, Korinna and the Sibyl and Etruscan omens and Herakles' mighty bow were all jumbled up.

Next morning, Zopyros paused on his way back to the ship to examine an old temple. "Not," he told Korinna, "that the religious aspects concern me overmuch. But look at those obsolete methods of construction! Mud brick instead of marble or even the rough limestone they use in the West; wooden columns instead of stone ... It's a wonder to me the old thing hasn't fallen down long since. And see all those little terra cottas around the entablature! That's Etruscan influence ..."

Sophron stood silently nearby, scratching a fleabite and leaning on his spear with an air of patient resignation. The bodyguard seemed devoted to his task of guarding Korinna but had about as blank a mind as Zopyros had met. When they boarded the ship, they found themselves the last arrivals and the captain in a fouler mood than usual.

"By Tanith's teats!" roared Ethbaal. "We've waited an Egyptian hour for you! Next time we'll sail off and leave you in the lurch!"

Velia lay another clay's sail down the coast, around the Poseidion Promontory. When they left Poseidonia, a brisk offshore breeze carried them far out to sea, until the coast faded to a mottled olivebrown streak along the horizon. The crew swung the Muttumalein so that she headed shoreward at an acute angle, her yellow sail clewed around as near as it would go to the fore-and-aft position. Still the northeast wind drove her farther and farther from land. With the wind abeam, the deck heeled over at a constant slope; but the ship was otherwise steadier than before. Zopyros found Asto alone and asked in Punic:

"Go we not a great way from shore?"

"Fear not," said Asto. "Belike the wind will turn shoreward by even. At worst, you might have to pass the night on deck. What we truly fear is a mighty onshore gale against a rocky coast. Then, if your sail be new, perchance you can claw off; but, if it be old and baggy like ours, the crabs will pick your bones."

Most of the passengers were feeling better than the day before. Hippomedon the singer marked off a section of deck into small squares with a piece of charcoal and played robbers with Sophron the bodyguard, using black and white beans for pieces. The weather warmed so much that Zopyros put away his laced Thracian boots and donned a pair of sandals. In rummaging through his belongings, he came upon a little portable game set for playing Sacred Way. He undertook to teach Segovax the game. The Celt proved an apt pupil but a reckless plunger. After a few games, Segovax said:

"Zopyros darling, wouldn't it make the game livelier, now, to put up a small stake?"

This, thought Zopyros, will be easy. "All right; I'll bet you a penny on the next game." And he rolled the die.

However, sudden reversals of fortune were characteristic of Sacred Way. Zopyros had gotten one of his men home and had taken three of Segovax's men prisoner when, with his remaining man, the Celt took one of Zopyros' men, then another, and soon had swept the rest of Zopyros' men from the board.

The next two games followed the same pattern. Out of pocket threepence, Zopyros began to worry. Half an obolos might make the difference between eating a decent dinner and going hungry someday. He was just as glad when the Celt, looking up, said:

"Praise the gods, 'tis headed back towards land that we are! I had begun to fear we would sail on until we fell over the edge of the world."

"According to the latest theories, the world hasn't any edge. It's round, like a ball."

"Oh, come now! If it was round, all the water would run off at the bottom."

"No, it wouldn't, because 'down' is the direction towards the center of the earth. So, if you were on the opposite side of the earth from me, your 'down' would be my 'up' and vice versa."

"You wouldn't be having a bit of a joke with a poor simple Celt, now would you? Everybody knows that up is up and down is down, and how can the one be the other?"

"Why, it's as if we were on opposite sides of the mast. Then it might be south of you, but north of me. So, if somebody asked us which way the mast was, we should each give a different answer; but we should both be right."

Segovax shook his head. "With all respect to your honor, I still don't believe you. The next thing, you clever Greeks will be telling folk that spirits don't cause sickness, or that men are descended from monkeys."

"We might at that. One philosopher has already suggested that we come from fish."

"Ara! A man can't ever be easy with you people around. Just when he thinks he knows something, along comes a spalpeen like you and upsets him by saying 'tis not so at all." He yawned and stretched. "I'll be taking a bit of a nap, before all them theories have addled my wits for fair."

As the mate had predicted, the wind had backed to northwest. The setting sun saw the Muttumalein drop anchor in one of Velia's two splendid harbors—that at the mouth of the Hales. Around the margins of the harbor, fishing vessels and coastal merchantmen rode at anchor or lay canted on the beach. Several were still being refitted after their winter lay-up. Men climbed over them, caulking and painting hulls and repairing rigging.

As the people from the Muttumalein plodded towards the city, they saw before them a broad plain, covered with houses and girt with frowning walls. Above the walls, temples gleamed on the acropolis. Zopyros said:

"I didn't know Velia was such a great city."

"Oh, but it is," said Korinna. "It ranks with Taras and Neapolis. The Velians call it the Athens of the West, because of its philosophers."

"We should at least find decent lodgings. By the way, has anyone seen Captain Ethbaal's fabulous wife yet?"

Hippomedon the singer said: "Not I. I begin to think the woman's dead, and he has a mania for keeping her body with him."

Segovax, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, added: "If the poor lady is a dead corp, you will be knowing it soon."

"Unless she's packed in salt," said Hippomedon, "like the lady Korinna's uncle. I once knew a man who so loved a corpse that he—"

The musician broke off as Ethbaal jogged by on a rented ass, his head bowed and his face bearing its usual preoccupied frown.

"He goes to town to find a merchant with a stock of salted fish," said one of the sailors.

This time the inn was good, with private rooms for the women. In the tavern below, Hippomedon unlimbered his lyre and sang in a clear tenor:

As the singer was passing his cap, Captain Ethbaal appeared in the doorway and said in his harsh voice: "My people may sleep late tomorrow. I shall be loading fish until market time; but then we shall sail promptly. Don't be late!"

The morning sun warmed the agora of Velia, where sellers of cakes and blood sausage were unpacking their wares, sellers of roasted nuts and hot scented water were building their little fires, other hawkers were setting up their displays, orators were tuning up their voices, and beggars had begun to whine. A fortuneteller laid out a battered skull and other magical paraphernalia; a juggler tossed a few balls to limber his muscles; and the owner of a trained bear shared a loaf with his pet.

In the center of an admiring circle, three philosophers argued vehemently about the difference between Being and Becoming, and whether the Real Existent were basically One or Many. Among the crowd stood Segovax the Celt, in his checkered coat and trousers, with his mouth open. Zopyros, Korinna, and the latter's two servants approached from the acropolis, where they had made a brief tour of the temples. Several small boys, sensing foreigners, rushed up and began shouting for money with their hands out.

"Go away," said Zopyros, then to Korinna: "My dear, why are you crying?"

"They made me think of my little Ahiram. Isn't there anything I can do to persuade you to undertake his rescue?"

"Don't torture me, please! I'd do anything for you—but you know what I promised."

"Promises are made to be broken."

"To you as well as to other people? I'm not that kind of fellow ... E, Master Segovax, hadn't we better be getting back to the ship?"

The Celt roused himself like a man coming out of a dream. "So we had, young sir, so we had. The talk of the wise men was so beautiful I could have stood all day listening, and me not understanding a word of it. Tell me, does all that grand talk really mean something, or is it after listening to a lot of madmen that I am?"

"That's what they were arguing about; whether or not their subject of discussion is real. But I'll tell you a secret. It's a put-on job, like a make-believe sword duel in which nobody gets hurt."

"And why would they be doing that?"

"To show how clever they are, so they can enroll more rich young men in their classes. It's what we call higher education."

"And the young men pay to learn all about this Being and Becoming?"

"That's right. They also learn to reason, to argue, and to make speeches."

"Ah, a grand thing it must be to be a rich young Hellene and learn all about arguing and speechmaking! We have some powerful orators among the Celts, too; but I'm thinking they could learn a thing or two here."

As they climbed the ladder to the deck of the Muttumalein, the last basket of fish was just going into the hold. A heavy smell of fish hung in the air. Zopyros shot a covert glance at the cabin, but no sign of life appeared. The sky had again become overcast.

The last passengers had come aboard, the ladder had been pulled up, and the crew were winching up the anchors when a shout from the shore caused heads to turn. A young man was waving from the beach. As they watched, he ran through the shallows towards the ship, splashing mightily. He leaped up, caught an anchor, and climbed aboard like a monkey. Dripping and panting, he approached Captain Ethbaal.

"Have you room for another passenger?" he asked when he got his breath. "How far are you going?"

"Yes, we have room. We're going to Laos, Tempsa, and Messana; then west to Panormos and our home port, Motya."

"I'm trying to get to Syracuse. Could I take passage with you to Messana and catch another ship from there to Syracuse?"

"I suppose so. There's plenty of coastal shipping. Your fare will be one drachma."

"By Herakles, that's outrageous! I could buy passage on a state galley for that!"

Ethbaal shrugged. "Take it or leave it. Somehow I don't think you'll climb over the side and wade back to shore."

Ethbaal was staring shoreward. On the road to the harbor, small in the distance, appeared a group of running men. One of them wore a magistrate's purple cloak, which he clutched with both hands as he ran. Some of the others carried spears.

The young man, with a frightened glance shoreward, mumbled: "Phy! I suppose I shall have to take it. Here!"

Coins clinked. Ethbaal said: "Up sail, Asto! Now, young man, who are you?"

"Alexis son of Krates. I—"

The running men reached the shore. Their voices came thinly across the water: "Captain Ethbaal, come back! Bring back that young man! We want him!"

"What?" shouted Ethbaal, making a trumpet of his hands.

The yells from shore continued, growing fainter as the distance widened. Ethbaal shouted again:

"I can't hear you. I shall see you again in a month; tell me about it then!"

Ethbaal allowed himself a bitter little smile. "When you appeared in your shirt, without cloak or other baggage, I knew you weren't leaving Velia of your own accord. I could have made you pay twice as much, so count yourself lucky."

"Speaking of cloaks," said Alexis, "it'll be cold on the water. Could I borrow one for the voyage?"

"You may rent one for an extra obolos."

"Why, you—" began Alexis, but glanced shoreward and choked down his words. "Here!"

"Thanks. Just remember to stay away from the cabin, where I keep my wife, the most beautiful woman of Egypt."

"Oh? If you say so. Don't think I did anything wrong at Velia; it was just that I—"

"Young man," said Ethbaal coldly, "the less I know about your private affairs, the better for all of us. Now please permit me to run my ship."

The new arrival turned to the other passengers, who sat or squatted by the rail, an interested group all staring at him. "Rejoice, everybody!" he said. "I'm Alexis son of Krates, on my way to the court of Dionysios, and I'm pleased to know you all. Do tell me your names!"

He went through the list, greeting each affably, with a special smile for Korinna. He was a few years older than Zopyros, but smaller and slighter, with light brown hair worn long and blue eyes in a face of striking if slightly effeminate beauty. Strangely enough in that company of bearded men, his face was innocent of hair. Zopyros envied his easy way with strangers. He asked the newcomer:

"Why did you leave Velia in such a hurry? We are interested, even if the captain isn't."

Alexis waved a hand airily. "Just philosophy, that's all. Some of my friends and I got together to promote the higher wisdom, and the whipworthy magistrates thought they smelled a subversive plot. Ridiculous, of course."

"What school of philosophy?" said Zopyros.

"The Elcatic or Velian, if you know what that means."

"I'm not ignorant," said Zopyros. "As a boy, I studied under the great Philolaos."

"The man who said the earth flies in circles around the moon, or something? Beastly idea! Then you're a Pythagorean?"

"People call me one because I learned from them and have followed mathematical studies. But I'm not a teacher or lecturer by profession. I'm an engineer, and a good one if I do say so."

"Why, so am I, of sorts! We're shipbuilders. That's what my friends and I were trying to convince the Velians of: that their state should be ruled by a technocracy of scientific experts. But the stupid, benighted Assembly—well, anyway, I may find more sensible folk elsewhere. Do you suppose we could persuade the Tarentines to adopt such a government?"

"I don't know. We like our government as it is. Anyway, I keep out of politics."

Alexis clucked. "A well-rounded citizen can't keep out of politics; least of all a philosopher. A citizen's polis is the center of his existence."

"Well, I prefer to be less well rounded and to follow my own bent in peace."

The old Etruscan spoke up: "All this Greek word-chopping you call philosophy is a waste of time. For all your scientific—how you say—pretensions, you cannot change universe. You can only learn to fit yourself to it. And that you do by studying omens by which gods make their plans known to men, as nymph Vegoia taught us Etruscans to do at beginning."

"Which gods?" said Segovax. "At home we worshiped our own gods: Esus and Cernunnos and Epona and the rest. When I was in the Etruscan country, they said the true gods are Tinia and Uni and Minerva and others whose names I'm forgetting. The Latins had another lot, with a fellow named Jupiter as high king; and the Greeks and the Phoenicians have still others. Now, what I'm wanting to know is: Are all these gods different, with each ruling only a little patch of the earth like a mortal king? Or are they all the same gods with different names?"

"We philosophers of the Eleatic school," said Alexis with a supercilious expression, "hold that there is really only one God—a universal divine principle, you might say—but this principle manifests itself in various guises and has been different names in different places."

"You mean," said Segovax, "like the different numbers on the different sides of a die, even though the die is still one little square piece of bone?"

"That's a good example. We certainly don't believe that any gods worthy of the name go about seducing each other's wives and clouting each other over the head. And we disagree as to how our God principle can be known. Some think it can be grasped by observation and reason; but others doubt that observation and reasoning are adequate. Zenon, who taught my father, proved by his paradoxes —like his story of Achilles and the tortoise—that the combination of observation and reason are inadequate for grasping the true nature of reality. Observation tells us that Achilles could catch the tortoise, while reason says he couldn't. It follows that the phenomenal world is not the real world. This must be sought by some other mode of perception, such as dreams or divine inspiration."

Zopyros: "I wouldn't give up observation and reason just because they failed in one case. If my tool breaks when I'm making a machine, I don't say tools are no good for machine making. No, I get another and—I hope—a better tool. All Zenon proved was that his reasoning was faulty. As to this divine principle, I don't doubt that, if it can ever be known at all, it will be found out by observation and reason."

"True high gods are unknown to mortals," said the Etruscan. "We only know the Elder Gods exist, not who they are or anything about them. Elder Gods have planned everything that happens on earth. Little gods we worship are—how you say—just errand boys for Elder Gods. Lesser gods must do as they are told. Everything fixed in advance, including omens that tell us what gods have in store. Everything run in cycles. Etruscan nation will run for ten cycles only; then we lose power and disappear."

"So it doesn't matter what I do," said Segovax, "because these Elder Gods have it all planned anyway?"

"That right."

"Then why shouldn't I go into battle next time without a shield? If the gods have decided I'm not to be killed, it wouldn't make any difference."

"If you do not carry shield, is because gods have planned you shall not carry shield."

"Valetudo save us! It seems I can't win. Now at home, the druids told us we have not one life but many, one after the other. And, if we try to do right in this life, we may get a better job in the next, like being promoted at the court of the Great King. According to you, it does a man no good even to try."

"That's a Pythagorean doctrine, too," said Alexis, "although I don't know about the promotions. Personally I have always known I'm a reincarnation of Daidalos."

"The fellow who made the wings?" said Segovax. "That the son of him was drowned trying to fly with?"

"That's the one—the greatest inventor and artificer the mortal race has produced, if we believe the traditions."

"How do you know you're Daidalos reborn?" asked Zopyros.

"I've dreamt of my former life as Daidalos, and the idea agrees with my mathematical and engineering skill."

Zopyros grinned. "That's odd, because when I was a boy in school, learning the Pythagorean doctrines, I was sure I was a reincarnation of Daidalos. Obviously, Daidalos might or might not be reborn in one of us, but hardly both at the same time."

"I know what I know," said Alexis sulkily.

"Well, whatever the truth, I doubt if we can really remember our former lives, save perhaps by special divine favor. That's the trouble with metempsychosis. Not remembering your former lives, you go on making the same stupid mistakes over and over."

Alexis put in: "But I can remember mine!"

"Congratulations."

Segovax, trying to keep up with the spate of ideas, stood leaning against the rail, frowning and tugging his mustache. He asked Zopyros: "What did your Pythagoras say about the gods?"

"Much the same as the Eleatics. Pythagoras taught that God may be symbolized by a sphere, which is the perfect figure. When it came to more precise details, however, the Man became vague or confessed that the inner nature of divine was unknowable. Anyway, these doctrines were only for members of the sect. We must always, he said, assure the masses that there are gods, and these gods take an interest in mortals, rewarding virtue and punishing sin, because without such threats and promises the masses will not behave themselves."

Segovax chuckled. "The trouble is, who are the wise philosophers and who are the masses? Everybody will be thinking he's a wise man, and 'tis the other fellow who is one of the vulgar herd. Is it not so?"

Zopyros smiled, for he loved this kind of discussion. "You should have been a philosopher instead of a warrior, man. When I was in Tyre I heard still another doctrine. The Babylonians claim the gods were the stars—or the stars were the chariots of the gods, it wasn't clear—and they controlled events on earth by their movements around the heavens."

"Now, isn't that the massive thought, though?" said Segovax. "But a star moves around the heavens in one certain way, over and over. So I don't see what good it would do to pray to one, because he'll go right on moving the same way as always and making things on earth come out the same as before. That's as bad as the Etruscan gentleman's—excuse me, sir, what's your name?"

"Vibenna."

"As Master Vibenna's idea, that the Elder Gods have laid out one master plan for the world, and everything that happens is according to that plan. What do you think of the gods, Master Zopyros?"

"I suspect they're the mathematical principles that rule the universe," said Zopyros.

Segovax said: "But prayer wouldn't help a man change your mathematical principles, any more than he could change the mind of a star, or Alexis' divine principle, or Vibenna's grand world plan."

"Perhaps not. But, if a man learns how these principles work and puts them to practical use, perhaps he can better his lot in the world of the living."

"I think you are all wrong," said Asto the mate, who had been quietly bossing the sailors. "And, if you will excuse me, very impious men. You speak of learning the truth about the gods." Asto glanced upward and touched his chest, lips, and forehead. "Can a man catch a whale with a fishhook, or climb to the moon by a ship's ladder? Then, how can the little spirits of mortal men understand the mighty thoughts of the gods? All we know is that the gods are strong, and jealous, and terrible. We are to them as insects under the feet of men. If we abase ourselves before them and give them all they ask, including our first-born, perhaps they'll let us live—for a while. To talk of measuring and weighing the gods is madness. We must obey them without thinking. Why, if one of them overheard you speaking about him in this insolent way, he might puff the world out of existence, as you blow out a taper!"

"How do you know what the gods wish?" asked Zopyros.

"The priests tell us. If they didn't know, how could they be priests?"

"They could be men seeking their own power and wealth," said Alexis.

"That's your wicked Greek atheism, and I will have no part in it!"

"Who's an atheist?" said Alexis. "The Libyans worship baboons, and anybody who kills a baboon is put to death for atheism."

"You know what I mean," persisted Asto. "What the priests say must be true, because the gods would never let them live if they lied in such matters."

"You mean," said Zopyros, "that there must be gods because the priests say so, and the priests must tell the truth because the gods compel them to?"

"That is right."

"Alexis, it seems to me there's a flaw in our friend's logic, even if I can't quite put my finger on it."

"He's assuming what he wishes to prove. It's arguing in a circle," said Alexis. "I'm clever enough to see that."

"So it is! One could argue just as logically, as did Kritias, that the priests invented the gods to frighten the common people into behaving themselves."

Asto shuddered at this blasphemy, rolled his eyes heavenward, and muttered a short prayer in Punic. Then he said: "Your logic is just a game with words; but I have faith, which is better. My faith tells me there are gods, as the priests say. I don't need logic; I know I am right. You Greeks get yourselves tangled up in big words, like those men in the agora this morning. While I am not an educated man, I think half your arguments are not about the real world at all, but about the Greek language. Because you have a word like Becoming, you think there must be something in the real world that the word answers to. If you learnt other languages, you would know that this is not always so."

"My dear fellow!" said Alexis. "Do you actually expect Hellenes to learn a barbarous dialect like your Punic speech, with all those funny sounds made down in the throat?"

"It would be good for your national self-conceit if you did. I can speak with men all over the Inner Sea, but Master Zopyros is almost the only Hellene I ever met who knew any language but his own. Well, in the Canaanitish tongue we don't have fancy expressions like—what is it you call them?—Phenomenal Universe and—ah— Essential Being. So we get along very well without them. By Milkarth's bronzen balls, I should like to see Ethbaal try to sell fifty amphorae of your Becoming in the harbor at Syracuse!"

"There are things of greater worth than vulgar trade," said Alexis. "Such as cutting your neighbors' throats, as you Hellenes so love to do?" said Asto. "Any fool with a spear can go out and kill, but it takes skill and courage and effort to build up a flourishing trade route. Without us men of business to carry the world's goods to your harbors, where would all your clever philosophers and handsome athletes and brave warriors be? Wearing stinking sheepskins and living like the Lucanians in huts of mud and reeds, with pigs underfoot, that's where!"

A silence followed this impassioned speech. Zopyros thought, the little man has more fire in his belly than one would guess from his mousy appearance and diffident manner. At last Segovax spoke:

"I'm thinking I like Master Vibenna's gods pretty well. If they won't help us, at least they won't puff us away unless it's already in their great plan, and that's some comfort. But I like my own Celtic gods best of all. Maybe they are not so wise as Master Vibenna's, nor so powerful as Master Asto's, nor so scientifical as those of Master Zopyros. But they're a comfortable, easygoing lot of gods, the which a man can get along with if he flatters them a bit, and gives them a little meat and beer, and now and then burns a thief or a slave in their honor. So, begging your pardon, I'll say a little prayer to old Esus and take me a nap."

"And I," said Vibenna, "shall watch flight of birds, to see what I can learn of next stage of divine master plan."

At dusk they anchored at the mouth of the Pyxous River and passed the night in the town of the same name. As they were going ashore, Alexis said to Zopyros:

"I'm eaten with curiosity about this so-called wife, whom Ethbaal keeps so completely out of sight. I'm going to get a look in that cabin."

"I wouldn't," said Zopyros. "A sea voyage has risks enough, without inventing new ones."

"Spoilsport! You wait and see. Now as I was telling you ..."

Alexis resumed his lecture on his plan for building a lighthouse as tall as a mountain at Syracuse, and on his sanguine hopes for persuading the tyrannos of Syracuse, the mighty Dionysios, to adopt his plan. "They say he's hiring gifted men like me. Wiry, a mere ten-day ago, an agent from Dionysios stopped at Velia to tell the young men of the fame and fortune awaiting them at Syracuse."

Zopyros had begun to find Alexis' charm wearing thin. The fellow was such a tireless talker, always chattering about himself and his own inexhaustible virtues. He also had a habit of pushing up against his hearer. When he stood beside Zopyros at the rail, he pressed his arm gently against that of Zopyros. When they sat on deck, he slid a foot over so that it touched that of Zopyros, until the latter got up and moved away.

Zopyros surmised that the man was seeking a male lover. Although no Greek regarded such a liaison as anything extraordinary, Zopyros was not attracted by the idea, since his own preference, like that of many others, was wholly for women. He regarded male love affairs as an absurd aristocratic pose, along with the drawling voices, the languid gestures, and the shaven pubic areas affected by the rich youths of Taras.

"O Alexis," said Zopyros, "I'm afraid you'll never make a living as a philosopher." 'And why not?"

"For the same reason some women can never earn their keep as harlots: because you give away what you ought to charge for."

"Phy! By Hera, if I bore you, I'll find somebody else to talk to, who better appreciates the profundity of my knowledge!"

So Alexis lagged behind the rest and kept pace with lame old Vibenna, to whom he poured out his stream of random thoughts. Zopyros hurried to catch up with Korinna, whose company he craved more ardently with every passing hour.

The next day Zopyros was late for the ship again—he had gotten into a discussion with a Pyxountian about the local water supply— and had to take another scolding from Captain Ethbaal. Soon the ship was heeling to the offshore morning wind. It was drawing away from the coast, when Zopyros was startled to hear Ethbaal shout at Alexis:

"Ai, you! Get away from there! Don't you dare go sneaking around the cabin!"

"I was not looking into your fornicating cabin! By the God, I was merely watching the sea—"

"I saw you with my own eyes! By Tanith's teats, I'll kill any man who so much as lays a lecherous glance upon her—"

"Captain, sir!" cried the mate in Punic. "Pray excite yourself not; the youth did but—"

"Hold your tongue, Asto! As for you, young man, if I see you in the after part of the ship again, I'll leave you at the next stop!"

"Then give me back my fare!"

"Try to get it!"

"Cheat! Temple robber! Dung-eating knave!" screamed Alexis.

Both men had their hands on their knives when Asto, Zopyros, and the bodyguard Sophron thrust themselves between them, coaxing and soothing. Segovax said:

"A pity it is to stop a good fight, but I suppose we must have a live captain to run the ship. I'm after bringing a little jug of wine on board, thinking a drop now and then would make the clay pass quicker. If everybody will get out his cup, I'll pour you each a wee dollop. Not too much at a time on this bouncing boat, or the fishes will get it. Now, who can sing a song or tell a tale? You first, Master Hippomedon."

The singer tuned his lyre while Segovax poured. Alexis, his rage quickly forgotten, took his share; but the captain declined with curt thanks. "I need all my wits," he said.

The singer swept his fingers over the strings and sang:

When Hippomedon had sung several songs, Vibenna told some of the secrets of the augur's art:

"Our ancient religion is set forth in Sacred Books. Of these, one of most important is Book of Lightning, which tells of different kinds of lightning and thunder and the meanings of each. Are eleven kinds of lightnings, and nine gods have power to send lightning. Of these Tinia, sky-father, has three lightnings, all blood-red in color. Of Tinia's three lightnings, the first is warning to men; he can send it whenever he wants. Second kind of lightning is full of peril; Tinia sends it only on advice of other lesser gods. Third kind brings destroying fire of heaven; it is so dangerous that Tinia must have permission of Elder Gods to send it. Others gods and goddesses like Uni also have lightnings.

"Book of Lightning divides sky in sixteen parts. Lightning interpreter faces south, so he has eight sections of sky to left and eight to right. He interprets lightning by direction it comes from and place where it strikes ground. Lightning coming from left is good luck; from right, bad ..."

Next, Asto related Phoenician legends. He told of the war of the hero Milkarth against the demoness Masisabal: "... and he pursued the she-monster, whose tail writhed over the dead leaves like a silver brook, into the forest, and came to a plain where women with the hinder parts of dragons stood round a fire, erect on the points of their tails. The blood-colored moon was shining within a pale circle, and the scarlet tongues of the dragon-women, forked like fish spears, curled outward to the very edge of the flame ..."

Alexis regaled them with riddles and paradoxes. When Zopyros' turn came, he recited passages from the Hellenic national epics:

At Laos they stopped for a day to load more wine. Then they were becalmed for a day. The passengers and the crew killed time in various ways. They gathered on the beach to watch Alexis and Segovax shave each other's chins, with many a jest at the cost of the amateur barbers. Vibenna said:

"What this? Some new barbarian fad?"

"Whatever it is," said Sophron, "it's un-Hellenic, by Herakles!"

Asto: "They do it in Egypt; and I hear the pretty boys of Athens do it, too, in order to hold their lovers."

The father of the twelve-year-old boy said: "Beards were good enough for my father and my grandfather, and they're good enough for me. I say, leave your face as the gods intended it."

Zopyros: "Alexis can't bear to grow up."

"Oi!" said the twelve-year-old boy. "He's cut himself."

"What did I tell you?" said his father. "That's what comes of interfering with nature."

Later, somebody organized a game of hockey with a local team. In the first period, Zopyros took a bad crack in the knee. As he limped off the field, Korinna cried:

"Are you hurt, dear Zopyros? What can I do?"

"Curse my luck! It'll be all right. I could have been hit in worse places. Sophron, you're drafted to take my place."

The bodyguard grumbled something, but Korinna said: "Yes, go ahead and play!" Sophron obediently laid down his spear and began to strip. Zopyros hobbled down to the beach, leaning on Korinna's shoulder, to wash off the sweat and dust. She said:

"I need a bath, too, and they're all watching the game. Will you promise not to try to paw me or make lewd remarks?"

"I promise."

For all Zopyros' good intentions, the sight of Korinna bathing roused his manhood, so that he had to finish his bath with his back turned to her. As they dressed, he glanced towards the field, where a crowd of naked men raced about with hockey sticks, panting and yelling, in a cloud of dust. He said:

"I've always been a dub at sports: I'm as clumsy as an ass on a roof. But my stomach tells me it's lunchtime. Why don't we pick up some food and go off by ourselves for a picnic?"

"We should have to take Sophron out of the game."

"Why not leave him? He's happy."

"No, he must stay with me. My father gave us clear commands."

"He'd never even notice we were gone."

"Listen, friend Zopyros. Sophron may not be intelligent, but he is honest and faithful, and there are few enough people of whom you can say that. Suppose we did sneak off without him. When he gets back to Messana, the first thing my father will ask is: Did he keep a faithful watch over me? And the poor stupid fellow will say: 'Yes, all but that day in Laos, when she gave me the slip.' And then the perfume will be spilt into the soup for all of us. I love my father and don't want trouble with him.

"Moreover, as a twice-wed woman, I am not altogether ignorant of men. You all want your bit of fun; and, when it's over, off you go, not caring if you leave the woman to pay the price of your pleasure. In this godless age, no one believes any more in stories about Zeus's visiting a maiden in the form of a swan or a shower of gold."

"I swear by the divine tetractys not to lay a finger on you! After all, I am a Pythagorean of sorts."

"That's what you say now; but I know better. Though you were as chaste as Melanion, once we were out among the asphodels you'd want a kiss—just one little harmless kiss—and then anything might happen." Zopyros was silent, because just such a possibility had been running through his mind. With downcast eyes, Korinna murmured: "I'm not made of marble myself, you know."

He caught his breath and grasped her hand. "Korinna—"

"Yes?"

His shyness choked him, but at last he stammered: "I l-love you!"

She looked at him steadily. "I'm fond of you, Zopyros. More than that it wouldn't be proper for me to say. If you mean what you say, speak to my father when you meet him in Messana."

"I mean to. But there will be problems."

"Of course; there always are."

"After all, I am part Persian."

"Dear Zopyros, don't always talk of your Persian blood in that defensive way! It's not as if you were applying for Athenian citizenship. After marrying me to a Phoenician, Father could hardly deem you a foreigner. I was thinking more of property settlements and things like that. And there's my child."

Zopyros waved a hand. "Those things can usually be worked out in time. I should have to get my father's permission, too."

"Then let's not talk of love until we can do something practical about it. Agreed?"

"I thought I was a logical person, but you make me look as woolly-minded as Alexis."

"Do you agree? I want a straight answer."

"Oh, very well."

In the end, they had their picnic; hut Sophron sat with them, gnawing a leg of fowl and listening blankly as Zopyros discoursed on aqueducts and fortifications.

They sailed on to Tempsa, where they spent a day loading copper ore. As the ship was now fully laden, they had to anchor well out from the beach and go to and from shore in a harbor boat. On the morning of the eighteenth, all were aboard except the captain, whom some commercial complication had delayed ashore. At last the harbor boat put out from the beach with Ethbaal huddled in the stern.

Zopyros, glancing about the deck, was alarmed to see Alexis crouching in front of the entrance to the little cabin and plucking at the flaps that closed it. Fearing another dispute, Zopyros wanted to shout a warning. He was, however, torn by fear of arousing Ethbaal's attention and also by distaste for meddling in others' business. For an instant he stood undecided, with his mouth half open. It took him a few heartbeats—which seemed like an age—to pull himself together. He finally called: "Ea, Alexis! Get away—" just as Captain Ethbaal's head appeared over the rail.

The captain took in the scene at a glance. With a snarl he vaulted over the rail, threw off his cloak, snatched out his dagger, and rushed towards Alexis. He had covered half the distance before the Velian looked up to sec the gaunt Phoenician bearing down upon him, eyes glaring and foam on his lips.

Alexis leaped to his feet and started to run, dodging zigzag through the rest of the ship's people. All the latter were now on their feet, beginning to shout advice to or to cry out to each other to seize the pursuer, or the pursued, or both. But the two moved too fast. Missing Alexis in his first rush, Ethbaal spun around and raced after the young man across the deck.

At the rail, over which Ethbaal had leaped aboard, Alexis turned. He tore off his rented cloak, whirled it, and tried to throw it over Ethbaal's head. The Phoenician struck the garment aside, and it did not impede him long enough for Alexis to dive over the rail. It did, however, check him sufficiently so that, as he closed with Alexis, the latter caught the wrist of his knife hand. There was an instant of furious struggle. Ethbaal strove to drive the dagger home, while Alexis strained to keep it away from his body. Then the pair toppled over the rail and disappeared. A crash and a splash from below released the company from its momentary paralysis.

Zopyros, still limping a little from his mishap of the day before, rushed to the shoreward rail with the rest. At the ship's side, the harbor boat was rocking, partly filled with water, while the boatman, shrieking curses, sought to steady it. There was a foamy splashing of limbs in the water alongside.

The splashing stopped. Alexis' head appeared. He caught the gunwale of the harbor boat and clung, gasping and coughing water.

"Where's Ethbaal?" shouted Zopyros.

Alexis wordlessly pointed downward. The people on the deck of the Muttumalein shouted advice to do this, that, and the other thing. Zopyros doffed his cloak, tunic, and sandals and dove naked over the side. He opened his eyes and swam around under the water. In the green-gold shimmer between the sandy sea bottom and the black hull, furred with green plumes of seaweed and fanged with white clusters of barnacles, Zopyros sighted Ethbaal. The captain lay on the white sand, motionless save for a slight to-and-fro movement imparted to the body by the water.

Zopyros had to surface for breath. He came up too steeply, cracked his head on the hull, and scratched a hand on a barnacle. But a kick took him out from under the ship. He trod water for a few long, gasping breaths, ignoring the shouts from above. Then he upended and dove again. This time he caught an ankle and pulled Ethbaal to the surface. Korinna's slave dove in beside him. A rope was passed clown from the deck, and by this means first the captain and then the two swimmers were hauled up.

They laid the captain across the rail to force the water out of his lungs. They fanned him, massaged him, and tried to pour wine down his throat to revive him. Alexis, standing aside and wringing the water from his wet shirt, said:

"I think you're wasting your time. He hit his head on the gunwale of the harbor boat as we fell."

The body remained limp and cold. The passengers, drawing back a little, fell silent save for a mutter of prayers and incantations. At length Asto the mate cried: "He's dead," and burst into tears. "He was a hard master and more than a little mad. But he was the bravest and most skillful skipper of Motya. He brought us rich trade, and we shan't see another like him soon. It's all your fault, too." He glared at Alexis.

Alexis was busy toweling his nakedness with the rented cloak. Tossing it over one shoulder, he said: "Oh, to the crows with that stuff! He brought it on himself with all his mystery about the cabin. Somebody was sure to try to peek. What is in there, anyway?"

"Go and look," said Asto.

"We-ell, I don't know—it's really of no interest..."

"Go ahead! You started this; you finish it. You can't hurt Ethbaal now."

Under the stares of the whole ship's company, the Velian approached the cabin and gingerly untied the flaps, as if he expected a lion to issue forth. At last he bent over, put his head through the narrow opening, and said:

"Well, I'll be an Aethiopian!"

He turned a blank, bewildered face back toward the spectators. Zopyros, whom Korinna was helping to dry himself, called: "What is it?"

"There's nothing; nothing in there at all!" As several spectators made gestures to ward off the evil eye, Alexis continued: "What is this? Witchcraft? Or was this wonderful woman a figment of Ethbaal's imagination?"

As he stepped forward with his cloak trailing, people parted so as not to be touched by him. Asto said:

"That is right. Ethbaal did once have an Egyptian wife, before I sailed with him. One day on the Lykian coast, she left the ship to bathe in a secluded bay, and some of the local louts came upon her. After the usual rape they cut her throat and left her for Ethbaal to find. So"—Asto spread his hands—"he went slowly mad. But he harmed no one so long as we respected his fancy, and you had no right to rouse him. As I am now master of this ship, you shall have your just desert."

As the Velian, sudden alarm on his face, moved towards the rail, Asto rapped out a command in Punic. Several sailors threw themselves upon Alexis and held him fast.

"Hold on there!" said Zopyros. "What are you going to do?"

"Hang a murderer, my lords, that's all," said Asto.

"Wait! This man may not be any hero, but nobody's convicted him of any crime."

"I convict him. I am now captain, and on shipboard what the captain says is clone."

"Not in a Hellenic harbor." A sidelong glance showed Zopyros that Segovax was quietly rummaging in his luggage for his sword, and that Korinna's bodyguard had grasped his spear. "Look, friend, let's not quarrel over this. We all want your first voyage to be smooth."

"Well then? What punishment do you advise?"

"Let's all sit down and discuss the case. If we decide a crime has been committed, we'll lay information before the magistrates of Tempsa and bear witness. Since they don't know the people involved, they can judge the case more justly than any one of us."

Asto seemed about to demur but, seeing the weapons, thought better of it. The sailors tied Alexis to the mast. Asto and the free men among the passengers talked the case over through the morning, while Alexis looked unhappy in his bonds. For some time Asto held out for punishing Alexis; but at last he yielded to the others' arguments.

"If he'd really tried to seduce the captain's wife," said Zopyros, "that would be different. But there was no wife to seduce."

In the end they agreed that, while it had been wrong of Alexis to look into the cabin, it had hardly been a crime. Moreover, Alexis could not be fairly blamed for trying to keep a madman from killing him. The death of Ethbaal had been due to the ire of some god, or the mysterious workings of Fate. The sailors released Alexis on the latter's promise to pay for Ethbaal's grave marker.

"Do you mean to take the body to Motya?" Zopyros asked Asto.

"No. We are not so fussy about corpses as you Greeks. Seamen often die on far shores; we can't bring them all home. We'll bury him deeply and hire a local mason to carve him a simple stela. Then tomorrow we shall sail for Messana."

Zopyros noted a new decisiveness and air of command about the hitherto gentle mate. "What will you do then, Asto?"

"Take the Muttumalein back to Ethbaal's partners in Motya, of; course. Trade must go on. Maybe they'll give me a ship of my own. In any case, I shall want letters from you and the other gentlemen to confirm my story."

Later, Korinna said: "Zopyros, you were wonderful, the way you stopped that dispute before it got started. How did you ever have the courage?"

"Between you and me, I was frightened witless. But I saw what would happen if I didn't step in. One of these racial feuds would arise. After threats and insults, there'd be a battle, either right then or—what would be worse—after we'd put to sea. The Hellenes would be on one side and the Phoenicians on the other, with Segovax whacking at everybody with his great sword for the fun of fighting. Being part Persian and having lived among the Phoenicians, I was the logical peacemaker."