“Ah!” said the passenger. “Let us hope we make good time then. I have an urgent appointment in Crete, or thereabouts.”
“Urgent appointment?” Nun repeated. “What kind of a creature is that? I’ve not heard it spoken before.”
“I mean I must be there by a certain time,” said the passenger. “That is why I took your ship. You have a reputation for swift voyages.”
“I don’t like to waste time certainly,” said Nun, pleased by the compliment. “But as for appointments, and times that are certain, I’ve very little knowledge of them. The winds blow or they don’t; the sea gives you a calm passage or holds you up with storms. All right, we make the best time we can, but there’s never anything certain about it.”
“I speak of sun-time and star-time,” said the passenger. “These are always certain, for centuries ahead. We who watch the heavens in Chaldea know that in a short while certain stars and planets will meet. What this conjunction signifies is less certain, though we expect some great disaster. Nor do we know exactly where this will take place. My calculations lead me to the island of Crete, if Crete lies where they say it does: but it may be that when I get there I shall find it is not the place. I have already completed half my journey from Chaldea, and I trust you will let nothing delay me now. But since there is nothing interesting to see while the sun occupies the heavens, perhaps you will permit me to sleep.”
So saying the stranger wrapped himself in his robe and stretched himself out on the deck. Nun was puzzled and irritated. Who was this overbearing foreigner with his urgency and concern for the future? It was enough to spoil the pleasure of any voyage—having to get there by a certain time, and wondering what was going to happen when you did. A Chaldean, did he say he was? A priest, or a magician, or one of those astrologers, Nun supposed. The sort of person one went to sea to get away from. Nun felt like throwing him overboard to feed the fishes. If there was any trouble with storms or calms he would not hesitate long to do so; but at present all was going well and the stranger had impressed him to such an extent that Nun found himself giving orders in a low voice so as not to disturb his daytime sleep.
All day the east wind drove them on, and there was never even any need to make adjustment to the sail or the sheets. But as the sun sank toward the sea ahead of them, and Nun leaned on the steering oar and steered a little north of where it would disappear below the horizon, he could see that the crew were beginning to look anxiously around, and he could feel a slight anxiety beginning to form inside his own stomach. Darkness was coming, and still no sign of land. He had done this passage often enough before, but from Gebal to Cyprus was a good day’s sail from dawn to dusk. He sent a man up to the masthead and told him to keep a good look-out on the starboard bow, and it was not long before the cry came, “Land ho!”
The passenger woke and got to his feet. “What land is this, Master?” he asked.
Nun was busy altering course toward the land by leaning on the steering oar and giving orders to adjust the pull of the sheets.” He answered the passenger’s question shortly, “Cyprus.”
“Have you business in Cyprus, Master?” asked the passenger.
“No,” replied Nun, “we’re buying no copper on this trip.”
“Why are we altering course, then?”
“It will soon be dark,” said Nun. “We must find a haven for the night.”
The man from the East looked at the heavens. “It will not be dark,” he said. “There is no cloud, and the stars will soon be out.”
“Starlight’s no good to me,” said Nun. “I like to see where I’m going.”
The Chaldean came across the deck and stood close to Nun, putting his hand on the steering oar. “Listen,” he said. “I have traveled many nights across the desert already, under the stars. Why should we waste a night in haven when we have the open sea before us?”
Nun looked at him and thought for a while. Then he said, “When you are traveling across the desert in the dark there is little danger of falling into the sea. But if you strike land while you are crossing the sea it can be fatal. That’s why we like to see where we are going.”
But the passenger continued to argue. “You have made this passage by day?”
“Yes,” replied Nun.
“Did you strike any land?”
“No.”
“If there is no land to run on to by day, why should there be any by night?” the stranger went on persuasively.
“It’s all very well for a landsman to talk,” retorted Nun. “You don’t know how confusing the sea can be at night, with the sea sprites flashing their lights in every wave and all those nameless stars spinning above your head.”
The stranger put his hand over Nun’s on the steering oar and looked deep into his eyes. “Captain,” he said, “would you learn secrets unknown to any other shipmaster? Would you not like to be at home on the sea by night as well as by day? The stars are not nameless; each one has his place and direction. Sail with me tonight and other nights, and I will teach you the names of the stars and the constellations, and tell you how they can guide you.”
No man had ever laid hands on the steering oar when Nun was manning it, and few had ever argued a point of navigation with him since he had become master of a ship. Now is the time to throw this interfering stranger to the fishes, Nun thought. And yet he did not even feel anger rising inside him, and he wondered why. I should assert myself as captain, he told himself. What would the crew think? And yet, what was it that made the crew respect him? Could he pull an oar better than the oarsmen? No. Could he splice a rope better than the seamen? No. Was it because he could curse them and keep them in order? Not even that, for the boatswain could curse much more fluently than his captain. No, it was because he knew where they were going. He had the whole voyage, out and back—the gods willing—planned in his head. The crew respected Nun for it, and Nun could not help respecting this stranger who seemed to carry in his head not merely landmarks of a voyage but also signs in the heavens to guide him. It might be something worth learning.
Without a word, Nun let the steering oar move over to starboard under the pressure of the stranger’s hand, and the ship’s head turned slowly away from the land and toward the open sea and the setting sun.
He saw the startled and outraged looks on the faces of the crew, but spoke to them casually. “What’s the matter, then? You’ve slept all day, while the wind’s done the work. Let’s see if you can sleep as well by night. I only need half of you to keep company with me and the stars. Boatswain, the oarsmen on the starboard side can keep the first watch.” And there was enough confidence in his voice to make the men move obediently to their look-out positions as ordered by the boatswain, though not without some muttering.
“No shore tonight?” he heard them remark. “The Old Man off his head, then?”
Nun did not feel as confident as he hoped he sounded, but part of him felt a surge of excitement at the prospect of the night passage.
The sun sank on to the horizon ahead of the ship, and as it did so it seemed in the haze to lose its roundness and collapse like a pricked bladder. The sailors watched it with long faces. Would they ever see it again in its proper shape, or would they reach the edge of the world in the darkness and be poured over it into nothingness? The last red spark showed above the sea, turned suddenly bright green, and sank. The sailors’ hearts seemed to sink with it. But Nun’s eyes were already on the zenith, the highest part of the sky where the stars were beginning to appear, and on the darkening eastern sky astern of the ship.
“Tell me!” said Nun impatiently. “What is the name of that one? And that one, and the bright one alone by itself there?”
“Have patience!” said the Chaldean calmly. “We shall see them all together soon. Those you see now will not help you with your voyaging, for they are wanderers too, every night in a different part of the sky. It needs many years of
study to learn their paths.”
The east wind drove them on, and darkness came quickly. Soon the whole sky was aglitter with stars, and Nun craned his neck and stared as if he had never seen them before. “I shall never know all their names!” he sighed.
“Patience!” said the stranger again. “If a man lived a thousand years and never slept by night, he would still leave many stars unnamed. Learn them by their groups first, their constellations. First of all tell your steersman to steer by that bright group that is now above the horizon. That you may call the Lesser Dog, and it will lead you west for a while until it sinks below the sea. Now look to the North. There is the Great Bear, who is always with us, and the Little Bear, in whose tail sits the North Star, the only one that stays still in the firmament. If you want to steer north at any time, that is your mark.”
“Who wants to steer north?” Nun scoffed. “It’s a region of monsters and barbarians. But if I wish to steer west for Crete, I follow the Little Dog?”
“Ah, but only for the next hour. Then, you must look for the stars of the Hydra, the Virgin, and the Serpent as they come down to the horizon before you. And following them will be the Water-Bearer, the Fish, the Whale, and finally, the Giant Orion.”
“I must remember all that?” Nun mused. “Hydra, Virgin, Serpent, Water-Carrier, Fish, Whale, and Giant? Follow them, and they will always lead me westward from Gebal to Crete?”
“Aye, but only at this time of year, in the Dog Days. See, to the South, the greenish eye of the Great Dog Star. The sun is between the houses of the Bull and the Heavenly Twins, so the Dog is above the horizon.”
“What a busy life these heavenly creatures lead!” exclaimed Nun. “How shall I ever follow their comings and goings?”
“What I have so far told you is simple,” said the astrologer. “You must also learn the sequence of the sun’s travel through the houses of the Zodiac, some of which I have mentioned, and others such as the Ram and the Crab, the Goat and the Lion, the Scales, the Scorpion, and the Archer. And you may wish to know the constellations of the North, the Lyre and the Swan, and of the South, such as the Ship which voyages over unknown seas well down on the southern horizon, as you can now see. These all contain the stars that are fixed.”
“I am glad to hear it. They are always there to see, then?” asked Nun.
“They may rise and set like the sun,” said the other. “And their position in summer is different from their position in winter. But the case of the wandering planets is more difficult, though we can tell their paths among the other stars with reasonable certainty.”
“That must be a great comfort to you,” said Nun, unable to restrain his mockery. “But the only path I wish to know with certainty is that of my ship.”
The Chaldean ignored the interruption, and continued: “But then there are the comets and meteors whose paths no man can foretell and whose significance puzzles our understanding. For the direction of a ship by night or of a line of march over the desert is nothing compared with advising a king in decisions of state, or reading the meanings of celestial conjunctions which may foretell events far distant in time and space. And it is for this that I have been sent with you to the most western point of the civilized world. Something is going to happen which concerns the House of the Bull, and as you must know, both Babylon and Crete are much concerned with the Bull. A little before dawn the constellation of the Bull will be in the heavens. That is one reason I wished to be at sea—there is often mist and cloud near land at that time.”
“An appointment with the Bull!” Nun exclaimed silently to himself. “So it is for that he wants to risk my ship!”
But the Chaldean seemed to read his thoughts. “Be not anxious,” he smiled. “If the stars can guide great empires, surely they can steer your little ship through the night.”
So the night passed, with the Chaldean patiently pointing out the constellations and Nun repeating their names, and the same with the greater individual stars, Altair and Deneb and Alphecca and Dubhe and Algol and Mirfak and Aldebaran and Betelgeuse. The watching sailors looked with awe and suspicion at their captain in deep confabulation with the mysterious stranger, and Nun had to detach himself from his studies now and then to see that the look-outs were awake or to give another star to the steersman to steer by; but he could feel already that this new knowledge was giving him power over his men. And he was so captivated by his lessons that he quite forgot he had not slept. But at last he noticed that it was his tutor who seemed to be losing interest, and was gazing fixedly over the stern of his ship.
“The lesson is finished for the night,” said the Chaldean. “The Bull is rising in the East, and I have my calculations to make.” And not until then was Nun overcome with a great weariness of body and mind, and having given the steersman a last star to steer by until dawn, he stretched himself out to sleep and dreamt of wandering among the Houses of the Virgin and the Twins, and encountering the Serpent and the Scorpion along the Milky Way.
He did not sleep long, but when he woke the sun had risen astern, the easterly breeze still drove the ship through the blue waves, and all around was an empty horizon. Some of the crew were sleeping after having kept the night watches, but those who were awake turned their eyes toward him, with the unspoken question written on their faces: “Where are we?” They looked expectantly at him, as if awaiting new steering orders or adjustments to the sail—but Nun could think of nothing to do but keep driving westward. Indeed, he began to regret the absence of his newly made friends, the stars. The great blazing sun was comforting to see, but the higher he rose in the heavens the less helpful he was in keeping direction. Nun looked at the Chaldean, peacefully sleeping now that the stars were gone, but decided not to wake him. He took some breakfast, doing his best to look more confident than he felt, and told the boatswain to find the crew jobs such as splicing cordage and scrubbing planks to keep them occupied.
All day the ship drove on, and all day the Chaldean slept, but now Nun took comfort from his presence and told himself that all must be well if his learned passenger slept so peacefully. At noon the sun rose so high that the masthead seemed to strike at it as the ship rolled to the port side, and all Nun could do was to keep the wind astern and draw as straight a furrow as possible through the blue sea, trusting that the wind was not playing him tricks but was still coming directly from the East. And after noon, when most of the crew were lying around forward, resting in the heat, the boatswain came aft to Nun and spoke to him quietly.
“Captain, you’re running into danger,” he said.
“Danger?” Nun repeated. “The sea’s wide and clear of rocks, the sun shines and we’ve a fair wind. What’s this talk of danger?”
“I daresay there’s no danger in the sea,” said the boatswain. “Not for me to say you don’t know where you’re going, sir, you and the foreign gentleman. But it’s the crew, sir. The men aren’t happy, not seeing land for a night and a day. They say we’re being driven west to barbarian lands, or worse still heading for the brink of the world, where the water goes over the edge. They want to know where they are.”
“Tell ’em they’re at sea,” said Nun curtly. “That ought to be enough for them. If they don’t like it they should have gone for soldiers or woodcutters.”
“Aye, sir,” said the boatswain, still troubled. “Trouble is, there’s some of them aren’t sailors, and never will be. I tell you, sir,” and the boatswain’s voice lowered to a husky whisper, “it’s the big fellow, Quoph, that’s the troublemaker. He’s no seaman, best of times. Been a soldier, but thinks sitting in a ship’s an easier way of getting around than foot-slogging it through the desert. Now he’s wishing he’d never left shore. Him and some of the others are saying they’ll make you turn round and go back to land.”
“Do they think I can turn the wind round too, so they can sail back?” asked Nun scornfully.
“They say they’d rather row, tha
n sail the devil knows where,” replied the boatswain.
“Tell ’em never mind what the devil knows, their captain knows where he’s going,” said Nun angrily. “And I’ll alter course when I see fit, not when they do.” The boatswain looked at him, as if still uncertain that the captain did know where he was going, but said no more and went forward again. Nun looked after him, saw him speaking to a knot of men, among whom he recognized Quoph, the monkey-faced ex-soldier, saw the boatswain leave the group and the rest of them continue to wave their arms in argument. Then he saw Quoph coming aft down the ship toward him. A few steps behind him was a small group of men, looking equally surly but not quite so bold.
“We’re going back to land,” said Quoph roughly, halting at the beginning of the poop deck.
“Good-bye,” said Nun, just as curtly, leaning lightly on the steering oar and eyeing the waves. “Enjoy your swim!”
Quoph flushed angrily. “We’re not joking,” he growled. “Turn the ship round!”
Nun noted Quoph’s rising rage, and also that the rest of the group were hanging back. I can deal with this one alone, he thought. Aloud he said: “No ignorant soldier gives orders here. I’m in command.”
“If you won’t turn, we’ll make you,” Quoph snarled. He pulled out a copper seamen’s knife from his dress.
If I provoke him, he’ll rush me with the knife, thought Nun, judging the lift of the swell from astern. He turned to Quoph, and putting all the contempt he could into words, sneered, “Get forrard, you scabby ape!”
That did it. Red with rage and without looking to see if he was followed by his supporters, Quoph launched himself with a shambling run across the deck. At the same instant Nun put all his weight on the steering oar. The ship yawed, a swell from astern caught her on the quarter, the deck tilted, and Quoph’s rush took him straight over the ship’s side into the sea. Only then did Nun hesitate for a second, seeing a coil of rope lying handy by the bulwarks. But his second thoughts made him pick up the coil and fling it toward the man floundering in the water. Quoph grasped the bare end and hung on, Nun took a turn round a post with the other end and held it, then turned to the other members of the crew who were still holding back at the other end of the deck.
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