hering breath and letting their unscathed comrades
pass. Then gradually the battle drifted round them also. A Cyprian, noting
they had lost their ram, strove to charge them bow to bow. The skill of
the governor avoided that disaster. They ran under the stem of a Tyrian,
and Glaucon proved he had not forgotten his skill when he sent his
javelins among the officers upon the poop. A second Sidonian swept down on
them, but grown wise by her consort's destruction turned aside to lock
with an AEginetan galley. How the fight at large was going, who was
winning, who losing, Glaucon saw no more than any one else. An arrow
grazed his arm. He first learned it when he found his armour bloody. A
sling-stone smote the marine next to him on the forehead. The man dropped
without a groan. Glaucon flung the body overboard, almost by instinct.
Themistocles was everywhere, on the poop, on the foreship, among the
rowers' benches, shouting, laughing, cheering, ordering, standing up
boldly where the arrows flew thickest, yet never hit. So for a while, till
out of the confusion of ships and wrecks came darting a trireme, loftier
than her peers. The railing on poop and prow was silver. The shields of
the javelin-men that crowded her high fighting decks were gilded. Ten
pennons whipped from her masts, and the cry of horns, tambours, and
kettledrums blended with the shoutings of her crew. A partially disabled
Hellene drifted across her path. She ran the luckless ship down in a
twinkling. Then her bow swung. She headed toward the _Nausicaae_.

"Do you know this ship?" asked Themistocles, at Glaucon's side on the
poop.

"A Tyrian, the newest in their fleet, but her captain is the admiral
Ariamenes, Xerxes's brother."

"She is attacking us, Excellency," called Ameinias, in his chief's ear.
The din which covered the sea was beyond telling.

Themistocles measured the water with his eye.

"She will be alongside then in a moment," was his answer, "and the beak is
gone?"

"Gone, and ten of our best rowers are dead."

Themistocles drew down the helmet, covering his face.

"_Euge!_ Since the choice is to grapple or fly, we had better grapple."

The governor shifted again the steering paddles. The head of the
_Nausicaae_ fell away toward her attacker, but no signal was given to
quicken the oars. The Barbarian, noting what her opponent did, but justly
fearing the handiness of the Greeks, slackened also. The two ships drifted
slowly together. Long b