United States or Myanmar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.” “Peace,” commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end. “Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?” “If you will be so good, sir captain,” the third Hellene at last broke his silence, “you will hearken to me.” “Who are you?”
And do thou and thy fellow-gods on bright Olympus rule our battle now; the lot is in your hands!” Sunrise. The Nausicaä was ready. Ameinias the navarch walked the deck above the stern-cabin with nervous strides. All that human forethought could do to prepare the ship had long been done. The slim hull one hundred and fifty feet long had been stripped of every superfluous rope and spar.
Here an Æginetan galley dropped behind, yonder a Corinthian navarch suffered his men to back water. Even the keleustes of the Nausicaä slackened his beating on the sounding-board.
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—”
Now dare and do, for ye have staked your all!” “Now dare and do, for ye have staked your all!” Navarch shouted it to navarch. The cry went up and down the line of the Hellenes, “loud as when billows lash the beetling crags.” The trailing oars beat again into the water, and even as the ships once more gained way, Themistocles nodded to Ameinias, and he to the keleustes.
The sails they set hung limp on the mast. The navarch had them furled. The sea spread out before them, a glassy, leaden-coloured floor; the waves roaring in their wake faded in a wide ripple far behind. To hearten his men the keleustes ceased his beating on the sounding-board, and clapped lips to his pipe. The whole trireme chorussed the familiar song together:—
Sicinnus had come down the ladder, smiling, jesting, a dozen subalterns salaaming as he went, and offering all manner of service, for had he not been a bearer of great good tidings to the king? “Till to-morrow,” an olive-skinned Cilician navarch had spoken. “Till to-morrow,” waved the messenger, lightly.
The son of Neocles threw back his helmet, that all might see his calm, untroubled face. He wore a cuirass of silvered scale-armour over his purple chiton. At his side walked a young man, whom the ship’s people imagined the deserter of the preceding night, but he had drawn his helmet close. “This is Critias,” said Themistocles, briefly, to the navarch; “he is a good caster.
“Again,” thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal agony escaped the prisoner. “Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!” “Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.” “In the boat mast.” Hiram spit the words out one by one. “In the cabin. There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the papers.
The trireme, pulling only one of her banks, was dropping behind, her navarch leaving the tiring chase to the penteconter, but the latter hung on doggedly. “Curse those war-ships with their long oars and heavy crews,” growled Hib, reappearing above the hatch with the prisoners. “The penteconter’s only nine furlongs off.”
Word Of The Day