Triads of faith

Chapter 2

It was not many minutes before the little vessel had become a Phoenicianbireme with a huge, brown mainsail hanging loosely on the mast, andbarely visible oars churning the water on each side with hasty vigor. Bythis time the last radiance had been swept from the sky. The distantwaters darkened, and their restless, uneasy masses began to show flecksof foam. Presently, for a bare second, through a single rift in thecloud, a thin gleam of sunlight shot out and down to the misty sea,lighting the dark surface to opalescent brightness, and thendisappearing in a single breath. As the sky darkened again the air grewcold. Three or four petrels, birds of the storm, rising from the distantsands, veered joyously out over the flattening waters. A faint murmur ofangry winds came from the west, and with its first sound Charmides wasrecalled from the scene in which he was blithely living to his flock,who were upon the verge of a stampede. They had ceased to eat and werestanding quiveringly still, heads up, nostrils distended, fore-legsstiffening for the leap and race which would follow the firstthunder-clap. Their shepherd was just in time. Putting all thought ofthe storm behind him, he lifted his lyre and started forward, singing ashe went. The sheep followed him, with implicit faith, across the broadpasture and down the long, gentle slope in the direction of their foldand his father's house, till the sea and the galley and the storm wereleft to the petrels and those on the acropolis to watch.

There, indeed, in front of the basilica, quite a band of citizens hadassembled, watching with interest and anxiety the progress of thestorm-beset vessel. The little ship had apparently a daring captain. Noprecautions whatever had been made for the first gust of wind; neitherdid the ship's course suggest that there would be an effort to gain theinner harbor of the city as speedily as possible. Instead, those thatwatched realized that she would be a hundred feet off the base of theacropolis cliff when the storm broke. At present the wind had so nearlydied away that the main-sail flapped at the mast. The double banks ofoars were working rapidly and unevenly, and the main deck of the vesselwas, to all appearances, entirely deserted. Evidently an unusual stateof affairs prevailed on board of the Phoenician galley.

The pause that

preceded the breaking of the storm was unnaturally long.Save for the gleam of an occasional, faintly hissing wave-crest, thewaters had grown black. The heart of the storm-cloud seethed in purple,while all the rest of the sky was hung with gray. There came one longmoment when the atmosphere sank under a weight of sudden heat. Then thefar-distant murmur, which till now had been scarcely audible, rushedupon the silence in a mighty roar, as, up from the south, driven beforethe gale, came a long line of white waves that rose as they advancedtill the very Tritons bent their heads and the nymphs scurried down togreener depths. Now a sudden, zigzag streak of fire shot through thecloud, followed by a crash as of all the bolts of Zeus let off at once.The galley seemed to be scarcely moving. Her sail hung loose upon itsmast. Not a soul was to be seen upon the upper deck. Only the oars stillcreaked in their holes, and the water churned unevenly along thevessel's sides. The wind was nearly upon her. There was a second glareof lightning, a second crash more fearful than the first; and then itwas as if the fragile craft, seized by some cyclopean hand, had beenlifted entirely from the water to be plunged downward again into themidst of chaos.

The number of spectators of this unusual scene had by this time beengreatly augmented. Upon the acropolis, at the point where the street ofVictory came to an end upon the edge of the precipitous cliff, stood acrowd of men and women, to whom others were continually coming from theshelter of their houses. Presently Charmides, together with his brother,Phalaris, both breathless from their run across the valley of theHypsas, arrived on the cliff. The galley was now struggling in thecentre of the storm, writhing and shuddering over the waves directly infront of the acropolis. As the only possible salvation, her bow had beenpointed directly to the south into the wind, a move which made itnecessary for the rowers, backing water with all their strength, to keepher from driving backward upon the great rock, fragments of which werestrewn far out through the water from the base of the cliff behind.Through the incessant lightning flashes the violent and uneven use ofthe oars was clearly visible, and, after watching them in silence for afew moments, Phalaris shook his head.

"The rowers will not endure long under such labor. The boat must bedriven ashore."

"As yet they have lost no distance, though."

And this, indeed, was true. Full fifty yards now lay between the firstrock and the stern of the galley. It seemed, too, as if the storm hadlulled a little. Charmides shouted the idea into his brother's ear, butPhalaris again shook his head, and both looked once more to the vessel,just in time to see her struck by a fresh gust of wind that tore theoverstrained sail into ribbons and shreds. At the same instant the oarsceased their work. The boat spun completely round, twice, like a wheel,and a second later was driven, by one great wave, straight towards thehuge rocks off the cliff.

"Apollo! What has happened to the rowers?" cried one of the elders.

"And where is the captain of this vessel? Is he a madman?"

"In three minutes more she will be a wreck. Come, Charmides!" shoutedPhalaris, starting over the cliff.

Together the brothers climbed down the precipitous descent to the narrowstrip of sand at its base. Here was a scene of no little activity. TheTheronides found themselves last of a company of their friends to arriveat this point of vantage, where not a few had been standing for half anhour. Several older men were also grouped along the beach, anxiouslywatching the drama which threatened to terminate in a tragedy. At themoment when the brothers reached the lower shore, the galley, liftedhigh upon the wave, hung for a second on its summit, and then, as itbroke, spun down and forward with sickening speed straight upon twohorn-shaped rocks, between which she was presently wedged fast andfirmly, twenty yards from shore.