CHAPTER XIX.
BODMILCAR AGAIN.
Some easy sailing carried us past both the eastern and western limitsof Prydhayn and the Tin Islands, and brought us off the rocky shoresof the archipelago of Ar-Mor, with its islands all perforated andundermined by the action of the waves. Hanno recognised nearly everylocality.
"There," he said, pointing out one spot after another, "there is theisland where I learnt to croak my little bit of Celtic; and that isthe rock from which Jonah and I used to fish with bone-hooks; andover there is the island where the priestesses paint their faces blueand black for their religious mysteries. Whilst we were with themthey wanted us to shave all our hair off our faces, with razors madeof shells."
"They gave the same advice," said Himilco, "on the Tin Islands toHannibal and Chamai, who came back to us one day with their beardsgone and their chins as smooth as pebbles."
"I only wish," remarked Hannibal, "that they would do for Bodmilcarwhat we did for ourselves; only instead of a shell I should like tohave a good sharp sword put across his throat."
The mention of Bodmilcar's name led Hanno to inquire whether we knewanything of him; and this led Hannibal to tell him how on the day ofthe ambush he had given him a thrust in his side, which had been, nodoubt, severely wounded, but his people had succeeded in carrying himoff.
"Never mind," exclaimed Chamai; "we are sure to have another chance."
"And then I trust," said Hanno, "it will fall to my lot to deal withhim after his deserts."
"Unless I am beforehand with an arrow from my good bow," said a voicefrom the yard-arm high up in the air. Bichri and Dionysos were upthere, playing with the monkey. Hanno laughed, and said that Bichrihad been associated so long with the monkey that he was becoming amonkey himself, and was making Dionysos just as volatile. Withoutleaving his perch Bichri asked:
"Why should I not teach the boy the use of his limbs? and why shouldI not drill him to use a bow?"
"And why," added Hanno, "should you not teach him to read?"
"How can I," he said, "when I have never learnt myself? besides,reading will not help him to climb mountains, hunt wild goats, or putan arrow in a mark."
"You may learn some day," rejoined the scribe, "that a pen may be asurer and a sharper weapon than an arrow. Would you and Dionysos liketo learn to read?"
Startled by the suggestion, the archer caught hold of a rope, andin an instant had slid down to Hanno's feet. Dionysos followed. Themonkey flew up to the mast-head.
"To learn to read, did you say?"
"Yes," replied Hanno. "Let us make a compact; you shall teach me toshoot, and I will teach you both to read."
"Agreed!" cried Bichri, enthusiastically; "and I'll warrant that ina month you shall hit a mark no bigger than my hand at the ship'slength."
And so the days passed on. Hanno taught Bichri and the young Phocianthe alphabet. Himilco, as he piloted the vessel, kept up a perpetualhowling over his compulsory abstinence; Chamai and Hannibal, whenthey were not yawning in idle listlessness, were generally playingat knuckle-bones; the two women gossipped contentedly in theircabin; and Jonah confided to Judge Gebal his dreams of futuregreatness.
In something more than six weeks we sighted the pillars of Melkarth,and shortly afterwards entered the harbour of Gades. The suffect,Ziba, and all our acquaintances had imagined that we had long sincebeen drowned, and were loud in their congratulations on seeing usback again safe and well, and were full of surprise when I exhibitedmy magnificent cargo of tin and amber.
I inquired eagerly about Bodmilcar, but could only gather from thesuffect's account that fragments of what were supposed to be hisvessels had been picked up at the mouth of the Illiturgis, butthat nothing whatever had been seen of his gaoul, so that the mostprobable conjecture I could form was that the scoundrel had beenmassacred in the interior of the country.
It cannot be denied that we had all been looking forward with muchimpatience for the opportunity of obtaining some decent food anddrink. Himilco was really getting exhausted with his subsistencefor so many months on a water diet; so that on reaching land Itook the very earliest chance of allowing my men to go ashore,where, doubtless, they directed their steps only too quickly to thewine-shops. Before Jonah left the ship I observed that he had someshekels in his hand, and asked him if he would not put them in hispurse.
"No," he said; "they will never be quite safe until I have changedthem for wine, and put them into my inside."
Hanno, Chamai, and their sweethearts went with me to dinner at Ziba'shouse; Bichri and Dionysos wandered about the streets and gardens ofthe city; while Hannibal, who said that now that we had come to acivilised country he should wish his trumpeter to be a credit to histroop, carried off Jonah to buy him a proper tunic.
We had given up two days to recreation when, returning to the_Ashtoreth_, I met Himilco and Gisgo, both extremely excited, incompany with a Phœnician sailor who was a stranger to me.
"Good news, captain!" shouted Himilco, as soon as he was withinhearing; "good news! tidings of Bodmilcar!"
"Tell me, quick!" I answered impatiently.
"Well, you must know," said Himilco, who was anything but steady uponhis legs, "we met this good man; he was thirsty and we were thirsty,and I treated him to a cup at a tavern, where he told us that he hadescaped from Bodmilcar's ship."
"Leave your plagued thirst," I said; "go on, tell me what you know."
"Leave my thirst? no, no; it's my thirst will not leave me."
"Curse you!" I said, half-frantic with irritation; "tell me at once!"
"Give me time and I will tell you all that he told us in the tavern."
"Where's Bodmilcar? you drunken fool!" I roared, stamping with rage;and turning in despair to the sailor, said: "Tell me, my good man,where have you come from?"
"Come from?" echoed the irrepressible pilot; "why he has come withus; he has come from where we have been drinking."
My patience was exhausted, and I struck him a sharpish blow acrossthe mouth, a hint that he took that he had better keep quiet.
According to what I could make out from the sailor's version ofthings, he had come from an unfrequented bay some 150 stadia to thesouth-east; that Bodmilcar had been there, at first with one gaoul,the _Melkarth_, but afterwards he had three galleys besides; that hehad forced a number of the natives of Tarshish into his service; andthat by some means he had collected a great body of criminals anddeserters. He had himself, he said, been kidnapped by Bodmilcar, buthad contrived to escape, and having made his way on foot along thecoast, was now going to make his deposition before the naval suffectat Gades.
I inquired how long it was since he had run away from Bodmilcar, andwhether he knew anything of Bodmilcar's movements. He replied that itwas a week since he effected his escape, and that he knew that it wasthe Tyrian's intention to make for the country of the Rasennæ, andthence to proceed to Ionia.
Telling the man that I was returning to Tyre, I offered him apassage with me, if he liked, as one of my crew, to which he agreedwith apparent pleasure; he not only assured me of his fidelity, butdeclared that nothing would gratify him more than to be able toavenge himself upon Bodmilcar.
On the third day after this, having thoroughly revictualled theships, we set sail with our hearts all elated at the prospect ofseeing our native shores. We sighted Calpe and Abyla, but the windhaving freshened, we were obliged to beat to windward to enterthe strait. Next evening I noticed a large galley sailing in thedirection opposite to ourselves, and tried to hail her; but asthe weather did not permit us to get near, I made Himilco takehalf-a-dozen sailors in one of the boats and row towards her; acircumstance that struck me was the extreme readiness with which thenew sailor volunteered to take an oar.
The boat had not long pushed off before one of the crew rushed up tome with consternation written in his face, and exclaimed:
"Captain, we have sprung a leak!"
I lit a lamp, and in a minute was making my way down into the hold.Two sailors and one
of the helmsmen followed. My heart sunk within meat what I saw. The water had not only got into the hold, but it wasalready knee-deep; worst of all, it was still rising rapidly. The seawas rough, and the ship was labouring hard against the wind. Unlessthe evil could be remedied, another quarter of an hour would see usat the bottom. Almost beside myself with agitation, I caught holdof a handspike and plunged it wildly about in every direction; theill-tidings soon ran through the ship, and there was a general rushtowards the hold, but I drove every one back, and suffered nobodyto remain except the three men who had first come down with me, andyoung Dionysos, who had slipped in unobserved, and was paddling aboutin the water, which was up to his shoulders.
In the midst of my frantic endeavours to ascertain the positionof the leak, my attention was arrested by voices above speakinghurriedly in a tone that indicated alarm, and I distinctly caughtthe names of Bodmilcar and the _Melkarth_. Almost at the same momentthe man standing on the ladder to hold the lamp moved on one side toallow by-way for some one who flew, rather than ran, into the hold.The light was not so dim but that I recognised Himilco, his headbare, his hair dishevelled, and his cutlass in his hand. Before I hadtime to speak to him a trumpet was sounding overhead, and Hannibal'sstentorian voice was shouting:
"Make ready the scorpions! Archers, to your ranks!"
"Good gods!" I exclaimed at last, "what does this mean?"
"Soon told," said Himilco; "the man we took on board was Bodmilcar'sagent, bent on mischief. I have managed to get my boat back, but the_Melkarth_ and her galleys will be upon us in a moment."
He had hardly time to finish speaking, when the commotion above madeit manifest that the struggle was already beginning.
"Then we are lost," I cried, in absolute despair at our twofoldperil: "that infernal rascal has scuttled the ship."
Himilco groaned aloud in dismay.
A shrill cry of distress at this very moment rose from Dionysos,calling for help:
"Save me! save me! I am in a hole; I am sinking!"
The lad's head had already disappeared, when Himilco, stickinghis cutlass into the ladder, and shouting that the child had foundthe leak, made a dive and brought him back half-fainting from thewater, and delivered him to the sailors, who carried him on deck. Nota moment was lost. Carpenters and sailors were summoned to the task,and a heavy wave making the ship lurch so that the leak was actuallyseen, we put forth all our energies, and notwithstanding the combatthat was being waged above our heads, succeeded--all praise to ourgracious Ashtoreth!--in temporarily stopping the hole.
THE CHILD HAD FOUND THE LEAK. _To face page 293._]
Meanwhile the clamour of the fighting had given place to silence. Onremounting the deck I found several dead bodies, and pools of bloodin various places; I saw that the _Adonibal_ and the _Cabiros_ werelying alongside right and left, but Bodmilcar's vessels had vanishedin the twilight.
Hannibal and Chamai were furious at their escape, and could hardlyfind words strong enough to express their contempt of a cowardicethat had shirked a fair fight. Hanno, with his bow still in his hand,avowed that nothing else than the gathering gloom of night had savedBodmilcar; if he could have recognised him, he would have been a deadman.
"When I was attacked in the boat," said Himilco, "I recognised thevillain who took my eye out of my head; and if there had not beensome thousand of them peppering away at us all at once----"
"How many, do you say?" asked Hannibal, with a smile.
"Well, then, I am sure there were six or eight; but never mind, manyor few, there was one man I knew only too well, and while I was downthere looking after that leak, no one knows how my heart was burningfor a chance of getting him by the throat."
All this time the wind was rising, and after a while it blew ahurricane. There was every cause for apprehension; the leak wasstopped so insufficiently that it might break open again at anymoment, and the waves were playing with our ship like a ball.
There was no sleep that night. The men, in relays, had to toil withall their might at scooping out the water; and after that had beenreduced below the level of the leakage, it took more than five hoursto strengthen and caulk the fresh planking that had repaired the gap.All danger, however, from that source was averted.
Daylight came, but the tempest was more violent than ever. I hardlyrecollect so furious a wind; the pigeons that I let loose wereunable to withstand the hurricane, and fluttered back helplessly onto the deck. All control over the ship was lost, and there was noalternative but to allow her to drift we knew not whither.
Les aventures du Capitaine Magon. English Page 21