s. Into their sight shot
the penteconter, the brass glistening on her prow, the white blades
leaping in rhythm. Marines in armour stood on the forecastle. A few arrows
pattered on the plankings of the _Bozra_. Her abject crew obeyed the
demand to surrender. Their helmsman pushed over the steering-paddle, and
flung himself upon the deck. The sea-mouse went up into the wind. The
grappling-irons rattled over the bulwark. Glaucon heard the Phoenicians
whining, "Mercy! mercy!" as they embraced the boarders' feet, then the
_proreus_, in hearty Attic, calling, "Secure the prisoners and rummage the
prize!"

Glaucon had suffered many things of late. He had faced intolerable
captivity, immediate death. Now around his eyes swam hot mist. He fell
upon a sea chest, and for a little cared not for anything around, whilst
down his cheeks would flow the tears.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE READING OF THE RIDDLE

A hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they
caught the _Bozra_. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted
prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil,
fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop,
listening to the report of his _proreus_.

"We're all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they've some jars of
their good Numidian wine in the forecastle."

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--"

"Phormio the fishmonger,"--Cimon dropped his steering oar,--"on a
Carthaginian ship? You're mad yourself, man."

"See with your own eyes, captain. They'll yield to none save you. The
prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant."

For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an
instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble
up the ladder, covered with blood, the red lines of the fetters marked
into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was
screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene's face was hid
under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morn