Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy. Margaret Horton Potter
or whether Father Neptune and his dolphins were to lead the men of the galley safely into the little Selinuntian harbor.
It was not many minutes before the little vessel had become a Phœnician bireme with a huge, brown mainsail hanging loosely on the mast, and barely visible oars churning the water on each side with hasty vigor. By this time the last radiance had been swept from the sky. The distant waters darkened, and their restless, uneasy masses began to show flecks of foam. Presently, for a bare second, through a single rift in the cloud, a thin gleam of sunlight shot out and down to the misty sea, lighting the dark surface to opalescent brightness, and then disappearing in a single breath. As the sky darkened again the air grew cold. Three or four petrels, birds of the storm, rising from the distant sands, veered joyously out over the flattening waters. A faint murmur of angry winds came from the west, and with its first sound Charmides was recalled from the scene in which he was blithely living to his flock, who were upon the verge of a stampede. They had ceased to eat and were standing quiveringly still, heads up, nostrils distended, fore-legs stiffening for the leap and race which would follow the first thunder-clap. Their shepherd was just in time. Putting all thought of the storm behind him, he lifted his lyre and started forward, singing as he went. The sheep followed him, with implicit faith, across the broad pasture and down the long, gentle slope in the direction of their fold and his father's house, till the sea and the galley and the storm were left to the petrels and those on the acropolis to watch.
There, indeed, in front of the basilica, quite a band of citizens had assembled, watching with interest and anxiety the progress of the storm-beset vessel. The little ship had apparently a daring captain. No precautions whatever had been made for the first gust of wind; neither did the ship's course suggest that there would be an effort to gain the inner harbor of the city as speedily as possible. Instead, those that watched realized that she would be a hundred feet off the base of the acropolis cliff when the storm broke. At present the wind had so nearly died away that the main-sail flapped at the mast. The double banks of oars were working rapidly and unevenly, and the main deck of the vessel was, to all appearances, entirely deserted. Evidently an unusual state of affairs prevailed on board of the Phœnician galley.
The pause that preceded the breaking of the storm was unnaturally long. Save for the gleam of an occasional, faintly hissing wave-crest, the waters had grown black. The heart of the storm-cloud seethed in purple, while all the rest of the sky was hung with gray. There came one long moment when the atmosphere sank under a weight of sudden heat. Then the far-distant murmur, which till now had been scarcely audible, rushed upon the silence in a mighty roar, as, up from the south, driven before the gale, came a long line of white waves that rose as they advanced till the very Tritons bent their heads and the nymphs scurried down to greener depths. Now a sudden, zigzag streak of fire shot through the cloud, followed by a crash as of all the bolts of Zeus let off at once. The galley seemed to be scarcely moving. Her sail hung loose upon its mast. Not a soul was to be seen upon the upper deck. Only the oars still creaked in their holes, and the water churned unevenly along the vessel's sides. The wind was nearly upon her. There was a second glare of lightning, a second crash more fearful than the first; and then it was as if the fragile craft, seized by some cyclopean hand, had been lifted entirely from the water to be plunged downward again into the midst of chaos.
The number of spectators of this unusual scene had by this time been greatly augmented. Upon the acropolis, at the point where the street of Victory came to an end upon the edge of the precipitous cliff, stood a crowd of men and women, to whom others were continually coming from the shelter of their houses. Presently Charmides, together with his brother, Phalaris, both breathless from their run across the valley of the Hypsas, arrived on the cliff. The galley was now struggling in the centre of the storm, writhing and shuddering over the waves directly in front of the acropolis. As the only possible salvation, her bow had been pointed directly to the south into the wind, a move which made it necessary for the rowers, backing water with all their strength, to keep her from driving backward upon the great rock, fragments of which were strewn far out through the water from the base of the cliff behind. Through the incessant lightning flashes the violent and uneven use of the oars was clearly visible, and, after watching them in silence for a few moments, Phalaris shook his head.
"The rowers will not endure long under such labor. The boat must be driven ashore."
"As yet they have lost no distance, though."
And this, indeed, was true. Full fifty yards now lay between the first rock and the stern of the galley. It seemed, too, as if the storm had lulled a little. Charmides shouted the idea into his brother's ear, but Phalaris again shook his head, and both looked once more to the vessel, just in time to see her struck by a fresh gust of wind that tore the overstrained sail into ribbons and shreds. At the same instant the oars ceased their work. The boat spun completely round, twice, like a wheel, and a second later was driven, by one great wave, straight towards the huge rocks off the cliff.
"Apollo! What has happened to the rowers?" cried one of the elders.
"And where is the captain of this vessel? Is he a madman?"
"In three minutes more she will be a wreck. Come, Charmides!" shouted Phalaris, starting over the cliff.
Together the brothers climbed down the precipitous descent to the narrow strip of sand at its base. Here was a scene of no little activity. The Theronides found themselves last of a company of their friends to arrive at this point of vantage, where not a few had been standing for half an hour. Several older men were also grouped along the beach, anxiously watching the drama which threatened to terminate in a tragedy. At the moment when the brothers reached the lower shore, the galley, lifted high upon the wave, hung for a second on its summit, and then, as it broke, spun down and forward with sickening speed straight upon two horn-shaped rocks, between which she was presently wedged fast and firmly, twenty yards from shore.
A little cry broke from Charmides' lips. With the next flash he beheld the galley heeled far upon her right side, oars shattered, sides still uncrushed, while on her prow there stood at last a black swarm of men.
By this time a dozen of the young Greeks, stripped of their wet tunics, were making their way out into the breakers, intent upon saving the wrecked sailors from being dashed upon the rocks as they escaped from their ship. Charmides hastily followed the example of his fellows and ran into the chilly water after Phalaris, who stood in, shoulder-deep, fifty feet from the ship. It was nearly impossible to keep a footing there. Breaker after breaker dashed over their heads, and Phalaris, expert swimmer as he was, found himself unable to stand upright, and frequently struggled to his feet choking for breath, with sea-water in his eyes, ears, and nose. Charmides fared worse still. Overbalanced by the second wave that struck him, he was whirled round and round in it, and finally washed up on shore, half drowned. After a moment or two of gasping and reeling, he returned pluckily into the water, this time finding shelter beside a rock which he could also grasp. Phalaris managed to reach his side and share his protection, and there the two of them stood, waiting.
A period of delay and general commotion on the deck of the galley ensued. Three men in the centre of the company of sailors were engaged in some altercation, in which all the rest seemed far more interested than in making an escape from the vessel, which, apparently, was in no immediate danger of breaking up. Presently, however, to Phalaris' immense relief, for the useless battling with breakers was becoming too much, alike for his strength and for his patience, one of the men from the galley was seen to throw a rope over the vessel's side, make it fast upon the bulwark, and begin to lower himself, hand over hand, down to the water. At the rope's end he stopped, hung there for a moment, waiting for a wave to go by, and then slipped lightly in. Like all Phœnicians he was a good swimmer. Phalaris knew, from the manner in which he threw himself forward, that there was little danger of his not reaching the shore. Yet when, presently, a wave dashed violently over him, Charmides gave a little cry at seeing the man hurled helplessly forward, and then roll over and over in the grasp of the sea. Phalaris shouted above the clamor of winds and waters:
"Watch, Charmides, to seize him!"
As the writhing body swirled towards them, both Greeks, leaning forward, caught and held it fast. The man was not drowned nor even unconscious. Accustomed to living more or less in the