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The old Greek Church is not all we would have it, but how much better it is than irreligion; and who can now say what will happen once our people are returned to the city?" In the afternoon, a boat with one rower touched at the same marble quay, and disembarked an Arab. His face was a dusty brown, and he wore an abba such as children of the Desert affect.
The man in the rowboat smiled. The air was very still. Sounds carry over quiet water as if telephoned. He could not help hearing what was said. "Wise management," he observed ironically, under his breath. The power yacht, it seemed, had not so much as a dinghy aboard. A figure on the deck detached itself from the group and waved a beckoning hand to the rowboat. The rower hesitated, frowning.
When the well-known Chambers rowed for the championship of England in 1867, an admirer shouted as the rower went to the starting point, "Gan on, Bob; I've putten everything I have on you." Chambers shook his head mournfully and said, "Take it all off again, my man; I cannot win." But the enthusiast would not accept even that excellent authority.
But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost impossible at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out their sentences upon the rowers' bench.
"Thank you, sir," said the rower, as he pulled with more vigor even than before, and did not say another word till the boat was alongside the Vernon. Christy found a rope hanging over the side, to which the boatman attached his valise, the young officer going up the line hand over hand as though he was used to that sort of thing.
Every Athenian, from the wealthiest noble to the poorest rower in the fleet, felt that he had a stake in the country, which to a Greek meant the city, where he was born. He was a statesman, a judge, a lawgiver, and a warrior, and he might even hope to climb to the highest place in the State, and rule, like Pericles, as a prince of democracy.
He spat on the ground with vexation. He was puzzled. While he rolled a cigarette he examined the neck and back of the rower who was rapidly drawing nearer. The sound of the water when the oars struck it resounded in the still air, and the sand crunched under the watchman's bare feet as he stamped about in his impatience.
Sleep as deep, dreamless, and refreshing as if the beneficent spirit of Carlo Borromeo still haunted the enchanted lake, prepared the three for a day of calm delights. The morning was spent floating over the lake in a luxuriously cushioned boat with a gay awning and a picturesque rower, to visit Isola Bella.
They were arranged, as before stated, in three tiers, not, however, directly one over the head of another, but obliquely, each at once above and behind his fellow. Each rower had the sole management of a single oar, which he worked through a hole pierced in the side of the vessel.
The other rower did not reappear above the surface. Malchus shouted in vain to some of the passing boats to pick him up, but all were so absorbed in their efforts to advance and their eagerness to engage the enemy that none paid attention to Malchus or the others in like plight.
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