apacity of the pumps and the most frantic efforts of the men at them; the
vessel settled lower and lower, labored more and more heavily and was
manifestly about to founder.

The officers were capable men, the small boats sturdy and their crews and
steersmen skillful and confident. Clatenna was brave and Libo magnificent.
He kept his head, dominated his officers, and insisted that Rufius and I
should embark in a different boat from that to which he and Clatenna
trusted themselves. He personally saw to it that Clatenna and Rufius had,
on their persons, each their copy of his will.

Both boats were successfully launched, and, as we drew away from the
doomed ship, we saw a third and fourth put off with other valued members
of his household. While a fifth and sixth were being swung overboard we
saw, from the top of a huge swell, the yacht go under and vanish; saw,
when we next rose on the chine of a billow, the water dotted with spars,
wreckage and swimmers; saw, five or six times more, the three other boats:
and then many times, high on a vast wave, beheld only the waste of
lifeless waters, without boat or swimmer.

All night we floated and, not long after sunrise, we were seen and rescued
by a trading ship from Carales in Sardinia, bound for Carthage.

At Carthage we were soon in the palace formerly Libo's and now the
property of Rufius. He, on succeeding to his uncle's estate, at once
rewarded with a huge donation the steersman of the boat in which we had
been saved, saying that the other steersmen did their best, but that, if
the others had been as dexterous as he, his aunt and uncle would not have
perished by so deplorable and so untimely a death.

Within a few days he, now my owner by inheritance, sold me to Pomponius
Falco, as Nonius had intended to do himself.

Falco liked me at first sight and I him. He was a man between thirty-five
and forty years of age, a natural born bachelor and art connoisseur. He
was of medium height, of stout build, with curly black hair and a curly
black beard, a swarthy complexion, a bullet head, a bull neck, a huge
chest and plump arms and legs. He was by no means unhandsome in appearance
and very jovial, good-humored, and good-natured; manifestly fond of all
the good things of life and able to discriminate and appreciate the best.

For several days after I came into his possession I was his dearest toy.
He spent most of his waking hours conversing with me about music and
musicians,