The Golden Wind

BOOK VIII — Mandonius the Iberian

My mate was a Spaniard named Mandonius, who wore the tight breeches, black cloak, and Utile, round black bonnet of the Iberian peoples. He had sailed the Mauretanian coast and seemed able. When we set out, I had the sailors rig a tent forward of the deckhouse, which I assigned to our six music girls. I told Mandonius:

"Pass the word that I will have no intrigues with those girls. The men shall keep hands off."

Madnonius' black, drooping Spanish eyebrows rose. "You cannot mean that, Captain!"

"Of course I mean it! What do you mean?"

"But—but my Captain! What are women for, anyway?"

"Whatever they're for, these girls are not for the pleasure of the crew. That includes you."

"Is it that you want them all for youself, Captain? At your age, I should think—"

"Never mind my age!"

"A thousand pardons, sir. But it is not as if these women were virgins—"

"Look, little man," said I with an effort to keep calm. "I'm taking the wenches to India to sell to Greek soldiers, who want to free and wed them. Now, everybody knows that a virginal dancing girl is like a fish with feathers. But I don't intend to spoil the deal by having them arrive in India with babes in their arms."

"You can always drop unwanted infants over the side—"

"Plague! Eight months pregnant, then."

Mandonius cocked his head, with a flicker of amusement on his usually dignified countenance. "Captain, do you really hope to have six pretty girls on a crowded ship with thirty-odd healthy men for a year, and not have even one tiny little bit of belly-bumping?"

"By Bakchos' balls, I certainly do expect it! Now run along and pass the order."

"Aye aye, sir. But you are feeling your years, Captain," he murmured, and then was gone before I could retort.

We sailed south from Gades, across the western horn of the Strait of the Pillars. Aft lay the pale-yellow sand hills of Belon, conspicuous against the dark olive-brown Iberian mountains. To port, barely visible in the distance, rose the vast rock of Calpe, soon hidden behind the other Pillar. This is the long Elephant Ridge, culminating in Mount Abila, which is really much larger and higher than Calpe albiet not so precipitous. We steered to starboard and headed down the Moorish coast, pushed by a fresh, mild northeaster.

The sun set as we passed Tingis. While taking a turn on deck after dinner, I observed Mandonius at the rail with one of the girls. They were laughing their heads off, and the mate was buzzing about the girl in a way that left no doubt of his intentions. He poked her ribs, pulled her hair, tickled her, and fondled her, while she shrieked and giggled. I nudged the mate and jerked my head towards the cabin, which he and I shared.

When we were seated inside, I said: "I told you, hands off those girls! Don't you understand plain Greek?"

"But I had no harm in mind, Captain—"

"Oh, yes? I suppose all that fingering was just a challenge to a game of sacred way? When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed, without any ifs or buts! Do I make myself plain?"

Mandonius gave a snarl of anger. "Captain Eudoxos! I will have you know that I am a real man. And when a real man sees a woman, what does he do? I will tell you—he futters her, that is what he does!" He smote the table. "You Greeks can do without women, because you amuse yourselves with sodomy and other beastliness. But we Spaniards are real men. When there is a woman on board, I do what my nature tells me—"

"Shut up!" I shouted. "I don't care what kind of man you are. Either you keep those wandering hands—and other organs—to yourself, or by all the gods and goddesses, I'll put you off at Zelis!"

"You insult my honor!" he yelled, jumping to his feet.

Although Mandonium was shorter than I, the overhead of the cabin was still too low for him to stand upright. As a result, he hit his head a terrific blow against a beam and fell to the deck, between the table and his bunk.

Stooping carefully, I rose and went to him. He was crouched on the floor, holding his head in his hands and groaning. I helped him to bed and fetched the physician Mentor, who dosed him with drugged wine. Although, the next day, Mandonius had a headache and a great lump on his scalp, nothing seemed to be cracked. He was very apologetic, and for some days a more respectful and conscientious first officer could not have been found.

On our port, the distant, olive-colored peaks of the Atlas slid away, becoming lower as the days passed. The Tyria stood well out from shore, a good league from land, so that the actual shoreline could not be seen from the deck. The breeze freshened as we got farther south, and a current helped us along.

My passengers—the music girls, the doctor and his apprentice, and the shipwrights—pestered me with silly questions, like: "Are we halfway to India yet?" or "When shall we see a sea monster?" As the hills sank below the horizon, they became nervous and urged me to sail closer to shore.

"By Zeus the Savior, I assure you I know where the land is!" I told them. "I send a man up the mast every few hours to make certain."

"But it makes us fearful that we cannot see the coast," said one of them. "Please, Captain, do us a favor by sailing closer in!"

"No! And I'll tell you why. This is a dangerous coast, with sandy shoals extending far out under water. You think you're safely offshore, and plêgê! you're aground."

"But, Captain—"

"Besides, out here in the Atlantic you have those beastly flows and ebbs of the sea called tides, which pick the sand up from one shoal and dump it on another, so that they are always changing position. It seems to have something to do with the moon. No, thank you, I'll stay out here where it's safe."

This nonsense continued for three days. Then came a night when I went to sleep at midnight, giving Mandonius the watch until dawn.

The next thing I knew, the cabin lurched violently, spilling me off my pallet. There was a frightful racket of snapping timbers, shireks and screams, the roar of breakers, and the sound of water rushing into the hull.

In no time I was out on deck. A lantern, hung from the mast, shed a faint, yellow light into the darkness. A mist hid the stars, and the moon had not yet risen. It took no yogin's wisdom, however, to tell that we had gone aground.

The sailors reported several feet of water in the hold. Others ascertained that we were on a sandy beach, but that with the moderate surf we were not likely to break up. There was nothing to do but wait until dawn. When I had the screaming women calmed, I took Mandonius aside.

"Now then," I said, "what happened?"

He sighed and drew his dagger. Thinking that he meant to stab me, I leaped back and grabbed for my own; but he only extended his to me hilt first. With his other hand, he pulled his tunic aside to expose his chest.

"Kill me, Captain Eudoxos," he said.

"Later, perhaps. Right now, I merely wish to know how this occurred."

"It is all my fault."

"I have guessed that already. But how?"

"Well, sir, you know those girls?"

"Yes."

"As I have told you, a real man who sees such a filly thinks of only one thing; and we Spaniards—"

"By Herakles, will you get to the point, you stupid ox?"

"Well, as you know, they have wanted to sail closer to shore, because the sight of so much water terrifies them. And yesterday they came to me and promised that, if I would take the ship in closer, I might lie with any or all of them as my reward. So I steered a little nearer the coast, and then that polluted mist came up, and I lost my way."

"Why in the name of the Dog didn't you take soundings and anchor when you found it was shoaling?"

"Because I was futtering one of the girls, sir, and a man does not think of such things at such a time. Now will you please slay me?"

I drew a long breath. "By the Mouse God, you deserve it! But I shall have to deny myself that pleasure. We must either repair the ship and sail on; or, if that prove impossible, we must get back to Gades. In any case, I shall need every able man. Now take some hands below to see what can be done about hauling cargo out of the water in the hold."

Dawn showed us beached on an offshore island—actually, a big sand bar, several stadia long and separated by a narrow channel from the Moorish coast. This coast was low and level here; with a row of hills rising a few furlongs inland. We had evidently struck at high tide, for the entire hull was now out of water.

Since there was no chance that the ship would float away with the rising tide, we all climbed down the ladder and stood on the sand. I called the shipwrights and made a circuit of the ship to inspect the damage. I was puzzled by the speed with which we had filled, since so stoutly built a ship should have been able to withstand grounding with no worse effect than springing a few seams.

"Here you are, Captain," said my head shipwright, a Gaditanian named Spurius Kalba. "That's what holed her."

The Tyria had run, not merely upon a sandy beach, but also upon a ledge of rock that protruded from the sand like a boulder. There was not another such rock in sight in either direction along this beach. With leagues of soft sand to choose from, Mandonius had to put my ship upon the one real rock in the entire region. The rock had split several garboard strakes to kindling and had cracked the keel right through.

"What are our chances of repairing her?" I asked Spurius Kalba.

"None, Captain," he replied. "If this were the Bay of Gades, and we had plenty of men and an Archimedean winch to haul her out on a shipway, we could cut out all that broken wood and mortise in new timbers. But here we have no ship-way, no winch, and no spare timbers."

"Let's try the long boats," I said. "Could we get everybody into them to row back to Zelis?"

We unhitched the boats and shoved them into deeper water. We found that we could crowd our nearly forty persons into them. But then they were heavily laden, with little freeboard, and so would fill and sink at the first real blow. Moreover, we could not carry food and water enough for the journey.

We unloaded the longboats and hauled them up on the beach. The hysterical excitement of the first few hours after the grounding had died down. Sailors and passengers stood or sat, watching me with expressions of doglike expectancy, as if I were a god who could solve our problem with a snap of my fingers. While the cook got breakfast, I discussed schemes with Kalba. Others joined in from time to time.

"I say we should walk it," said Mentor. "Each of us can carry enough food and water to get him to the nearest town—"

"Ha!" barked Mandonius. "Do you know where we are, Doctor?"

"No. Where?"

"Near the mouth of the Lixus. The Lixites are the world's worst robbers. If we tried to walk the coast, a horde of them would swoop upon us the first day out and cut all our throats for the sake of our possessions."

"But if we had no possessions except food and water—"

"They'd slaughter us first and ask questions afterwards. Believe me, sir, I know these knaves." The mate turned to me. "If I may suggest it, Captain, you had better serve out arms and post watches right now, before they get wind of our presence."

I took Mandonius' advice about reorganizing the party. Some brought supplies ashore whilst others put up a camp. Setting up the camp and digging a ditch around it for a fortification took the rest of the day.

I also sent sailors off in the longboats to explore. Late in the day they returned. One reported a dry stream bed, a league to the northeast, which would probably run water with the first autumnal rain. The other announced the mouth of a big river—undoubtedly the Lixus—three leagues to the southwest.

Over dinner, I resumed my discussion with Spurius Kalba but seemed to get no nearer to finding a way out of our predicament. "At least," said I, "we have plenty of time to make up our minds. There's food for months."

"And plenty of firewood to cook it with," said Kalba, jerking a thumb towards the bulk of the Tyria looming above us.

"You're thinking of breaking her up?"

"Not exactly, sir; but those broken timbers in the bottom, at least, will never be good for anything else."

"You give me an idea," I said. "Suppose we did break up the ship. Could you build a slipway from some of the timbers, and a smaller ship from the rest?"

He stared at me popeyed. "Why, Captain, if that isn't the damnedest—begging your pardon, sir—the damnedest idea anybody ever—well, I suppose we could, now that I think. Let's see. If we planned a seventy-footer ..."

He jumped up and strode off into the dusk, muttering numbers. I followed him. He paced off a rectangle, thirty by eighty feet, on the sand, and marked its outline with a piece of driftwood.

"Now," he said, "we should need wood for a frame of this size, good and solid, and wood for props to brace the hull. We shouldn't need to prop up the shoreward end of the frame, because the natural slope of the beach takes care of that ..."

The next ten-day, Kalba and I spent in designing the new ship while the rest of the crew plowed up a plot of the sand bar and planted our wheat. About the third day after our stranding, a party of Lixhes—lean, brown men in goatskins— appeared on the mainland opposite our island. Although they bore spears and had quivers full of light javelins slung on their backs, they did not look like a war party. They had their families, their asses, and their flocks of sheep and goats with them.

"If we were few, they might attack," said Mandonius. "As it is, they may decide to make friends."

The Lixites approached the channel sundering the island from the mainland. After long hesitation, one man, smiling nervously, laid aside his arms and splashed through the shallows to the island. Nobody could understand him until I awoke a sleeping sailor who spoke Moorish. After listening to the Lixite, he said, "He speaks Moorish, Captain, but a dialect. I can understand about half of it."

We bought three sheep and a jarful of goat's milk in return for some of my trade goods. I said, "Ask him whence the Lixus River comes."

"He says," translated the sailor, "that it flows from the southeast, then from the northeast, and finally rises in the Dyris Mountains. That's what the Moors call the Atlas."

When we had drawn and erased a hundred sketches of the new ship on my waxed tablets and argued every little point from a hundred angles, I gave the word to the shipwrights. I told my people that, until we were at sea again, Spurius Kalba was their boss, under me, and anybody who did not wish to turn a hand to shipbuilding was welcome to start for Tingis afoot. Despite some grumbling, nobody challenged my order.

Luckily, we had shipped plenty of tools. Extra tools were given to the handier sailors, while those who showed less skill were reserved for simpler tasks, such as lowering timbers from the deck of the Tyria and dragging them to the shipway.

All day, the camp rang with the sound of saw and hammer, as the men knocked out pegs and pulled out nails. The music girls, who were a little light for such rough work, I put to cleaning up the camp, carrying water, and entertaining us in the evening with their musical specialties.

As I prowled the camp one evening, I saw, in the dying light, two pairs of bare feet protruding from the door of a tent: a male pair together with toes pointing downwards, and a female pair flanking these and pointing upwards. Enraged at this flouting of my orders, I had a mind for an instant to drag the guilty pair forth by their telltale feet and give them a good drubbing with my fists. But then I thought: relax, Eudoxos. You will not reach India on this try anyway, so why not let them have their fun?

I planned to call the new ship the Mikrotyria ("Little Tyria"). She could not be started until the Tyria was almost completely broken up, since we needed the keel timbers of the old ship to build the keel of the new. The curved members of the new ship required adzing to make them fit the smaller plan; but then the Mikrotyria, being smaller, did not need such massive timbering.

When the Mikrotyria was under way, with keel and gar-board strakes in place, I took one of the longboats to explore. We rowed up the Lixus a few leagues and then drifted down again. Whereas most of the country was near-desert, with occasional patches of dry grass of thorny shrubs, the vale of the Lixus was well wooded, with hundreds of date palms and acacias.

At the mouth of the river, as we descended, another party of Lixites called out to us. "They say," said the Moorish-speaking sailor, "that if we will come ashore, they will give us a feast."

"They outnumber us," I said. "We'd better stay where we are. Ask them ..."

With the help of the sailor, I conversed with the leader of this band. Among other things, he told me that there was a large island out of sight in the ocean. By sailing due west for a day and a night, I should come within sight of it. Then he renewed his importunities to get us ashore, holding out a handful of dates as bait. When they saw that, despite their solicitations, we were heading out to sea, they gave a yell of disappointment and hurled a volley of javelins at us. These missiles fell into the water all around us, and one struck the side of the boat and stuck quivering in the wood.

"You guessed right that time, Captain," said a sailor.

"Let's have a look at that island," I said. "If we don't find it, well cut across the wind back to the African shore."

We put up our little sail and followed the setting sun westward, while the African coast sank out of sight on our port. Sure enough, by the middle of the following morning, the top of a mountain appeared out of the waves ahead of us, and soon after noon we reached the island. It was mountainous and looked at least thirty leagues in length.

We coasted along the southeastern shore for a few leagues, noting landing places and streams that entered the ocean. At one small, sheltered beach, we rowed in, beached our boat, and ate our lunch on the sand. We saw no signs of men or of large beasts, although the scrub was full of small, bright-yellow birds, singing melodiously. Then we reembarked, pointed our bow southeast, and sailed with the wind abeam back to the African coast.

It was the beginning of Anthesterion, five months after our grounding, that the Mikrotyria was completed. The weather was comfortably cool, with occasional showers. To the east, the barren mainland turned green. The northeaster blew day and night We had never been in danger of starvation, for several times during the five-month stay, parties of Lixites had come past and sold us food. Now our wheat was harvested, so that we did not lack for bread. The six girls took turns at the querns.

Looking at the Mikrotyria, anyone could see that she was a rough job, without the finish that a real shipyard gives its craft. We cared nothing for that, however, so long as she floated, sailed, took us whither we would go, and did not leak faster than we could pump her out.

At high tide one day, therefore, we launched her, with my entire company, including the girls, hauling on the ropes to make sure that she did not bound out to sea and blow away for good. We anchored her just beyond the grounding line at low tide, rigged her, and loaded her with the gear we had taken out of the Tyria. We had to abandon some of our bulkier pieces of cargo.

I should like to have made a couple of practice cruises before taking the company on board. Such a proposal would have caused trouble, however, because those left ashore would fear that I was about to sail off and abandon them. So, a ten-day after the launch, we hoisted the anchors and stood out to sea.

Now began our troubles. For we wanted to sail directly into the teeth of the prevailing northeaster, and the Mikrotyria had other ideas. Some ships can sail a fair angle to windward; others cannot. The Mikrotyria proved one of the latter, besides responding erratically to the steering oars. We spent the day sailing out from shore and back again, trying to beat to windward. Between the ship's bad steering and the current— which flowed the same way as the wind—we ended each shoreward reach exactly where we had started, offshore from our abandoned camp.

At the end of the day, much cast down, we anchored and came ashore again. The next day we tried towing into the wind, without any sail. The sailors sweated and strained at the oars of the longboats and gained a few score furlongs. Then, when they tired, wind and current swept us right back to our island again.

Ashore that night, I told Spurius Kalba: "I have long wished there were some kind of sail whereby one could sail closer to the wind."

"What other kind of sail could there be, Captain? Sure, the oblong sail is the only kind of sail there is or ever has been, and it's used the world over."

"Well, you've seen for yourself that it is not good enough. Why won't an oblong sail permit one to sail closer to the wind?"

"Because that's the nature of things, sir, and the nature of things can't be changed."

"Oh, rubbish! You're like most people: you think because you were brought up on one way of doing things, it's the only method possible."

"Well, you clever Greeks do make some wonderful inventions; but I'd rather stick to what I know works."

"To get back: what interferes with the use of the oblong sail against the wind?"

"How should I know, Captain?"

"Use your eyes, man! The wind catches the weather edge of the sail and flutters it. That spills the air out of the sail, so that it no longer presses against its yard."

"I suppose so," mumbled Kalba.

"So the big weakness of this sail is that it has a loose weather edge, not stiffened by any yard. What we must do is to devise a sail with some sort of stiffening on its weather edge."

"But, Captain, the weather edge on one tack becomes the lee edge on the other! Are you going to stiffen both?"

"I might. What I need is a model; it's easier than experimenting with a full-sized ship. Let you and the boys make me a model of the Mikrotyria, about so long." I held my hands a cubit apart. "The cabin and such need not be accurate, but the mast and the rigging must be carefully made to scale."

Three days later, my company sat watching me and trying not to laugh as I waded the channel between the island and the mainland, sailing my model boat. After each day's experiments, I gave the shipwrights orders for another model sail, and they had it ready for me the next day.

I tried all sorts of weird rigs, such as a rectangular sail with yards that ran completely around the rectangle. I had to knock down one sailor whom I caught describing circles with his forefinger next to his head to show what he thought of my ideas.

At last some god—if gods there be—whispered in my ear: why must a sail be rectangular? Why not three-sided? With a yard carried at a slant, so that one edge of the triangle skimmed the deck ...

It worked fine on one tack but not on the other, since to wear ship in the usual manner brought the lee edge of the sail upwind. I puzzled over this difficulty for hours.

Then I thought: who says the normal position of the yard must be athwartships? Why not mount it parallel to the keel and let it swing to port or starboard, depending upon which side the wind is on? Then the yard would be the weather edge on both tacks. To change tacks, put the helm down instead of up, until the wind fills the sail from the other side.

"I've got it!" I yelled. "Kalba, come here ..."

"Begging your pardon, Captain, but nobody in his right mind would sail under such a crazy rig."

"Well, some people in their wrong minds are going to sail with it Cut and sew me a full-sized sail like this."

"But, Captain Eudoxos! You won't be able to tack like you say, because the forward end of the spar will foul the forestay!"

"Oi!" said I, frowning. "You're right, curse it" I pondered some more and said: "We'll cut off the forward point of the triangle, so. Then the spar will clear the forestay. Also, the sail will look a little more like a conventional sail and so frighten the sailors less. There will still be a short unstiffened weather edge, but I hope that won't matter."

Spurius Kalba still looked upon my new sail design with something like horror. Then began a tug of wills, which no doubt a god looking down from Heaven would have found very funny, between Kalba and me. He did everything he could think of, short of open mutiny, to prevent the construction of the new rig. He made transparent excuses; he invented delays; he sulked and grumbled. But I stood over him and drove him on until the sail was made to my directions.

The sail was no longer a true triangle, but a figure that the geometers call a rhomboid. I still call it a triangular sail, though, since nearly everybody knows what a triangle is, while the term "rhomboid" only brings a blank look to the faces of most people.

When the Mikrotyria was rerigged, the sailors all put on long faces. One said: "Begging your pardon, sir, but I'd rather stay here to be speared by the Lixites than go to sea in that thing."

The rest wagged their heads in agreement. I could see that force would only push them into open mutiny, and I did not care to have to fight them at odds of twenty to one.

"I'm going, anyway," I said. "I wouldn't ask you to sail until the rig has been tried out, but the ship is too big for one man to handle. I must have five or six men. You've taken chances already; who'll take one more to get us home?"

They avoided my eye until Mandonius said: "Captain, I will sail with you. It takes a real man to sail with a crazy rig like that, but we Spaniards are real men. Now, which of you dung-eating dogs will prove that he has more courage than a mouse, by sailing with us?"

We rounded up four more volunteers, who went aboard with the look of men going to their doom. When we weighed anchor and stood out to sea, though, their expressions changed. For the Mikrotyria headed north, diagonally against the wind, as if the sea nymphs were pushing her along. When we were half a league out to sea, I put the helm down and swung the bow to starboard. The wind filled the sail on the other side, and soon we were slanting in towards the coast at a point well to windward of that we had left.

The new rig did not work quite so well on the port tack as on the starboard, because the slanting yard was hung on the port side of the mast. Therefore, on the port tack, the wind blew the sail against the mast. But it worked well enough to enable us to gain on wind and current, so that we returned to the coast several furlongs upwind from where we left it. I made two more tacks to prove that this had not been accidental, then put the helm up and ran free back to our island.

The next few days were spent in modifying the new rig in the light of experience, and then we sailed for home. "I always knew that sail would work," quoth Spurius Kalba.

Despite the success of my new sail, the Mikrotyria soon showed the effects of her hasty construction. She leaked, and every day she leaked faster. Everyone was kept busy with pumps and buckets, and I put in at Zelis to beach her at high tide for hasty caulking and tarring. Then we went on to Tingis.

I had hoped to sail her back to Gades, but to attempt this in winter in the ship's present condition had been foolhardy. So I put in at Tingis, a bustling port through which passes nearly all the foreign trade of Mauretania. To tell the truth, I was also ashamed, after all my big talk, to face Eldagon and Tubal and admit that I had run the Tyria aground during the first ten-day of our voyage.

At Tingis, the harbor was practically closed down, because it was still winter, and snow could be seen on the peaks of the Atlas. The only ships that went out were fishermen, and they only for brief cruises on fair days. The Mikrotyria's arrival was a startling event. Her bizarre rig advertised her coming. Within an hour of arrival, every seaman, shipbuilder, longshoreman, and waterfront loafer was swarming around and asking questions. Were we from the fabled land of the Antipodes? From the moon?

Then came the merchants, sniffing out a chance to buy new stock ahead of their competitors. Not having received any cargoes for months, they were hungry. I took my time, selling the cargo bit by bit. Thus I got quite a decent price on most items.

I paid off the crew, adding fares to take them back to Gades. The Athenian shipwrights I sent home to Peiraieus. Learning that there was not a single Greek physician in Tingis, Mentor and his apprentice resolved to stay, set up practice, and write to Athens for their families to join them. The six music girls I gave their freedom. Some had formed attachments to members of the crew, and I think they all found one way or another of making a living.

I rehired four sailors, including the one who spoke Moorish. They were grateful, since winter is a lean time for seamen. Although, like all ports in the Inner Sea, Tingis had a few Hellenes, most of the folk were Moors who spoke little or no Greek. Therefore I determined to learn the rudiments of that tongue, which I did with the help of the Moorish-speaking sailor. I also needed a few men to help me demonstrate the Mikrotyria, which I meant to sell. Between chaffering with the merchants and taking the Mikrotyria out to show off her paces, the ten-days slipped by. When I hinted that the ship could be had, there were remarks about her crazy rig. But a syndicate of merchants and shipbuilders came secretly to offer to buy the ship. Although doubtful about the strange sail, they would try it out. If it did not work, they could change it for a more conventional rig.

When the ship and the longboats had been sold and I added up my total gains, I was astonished to discover how well I had done. I had a total of around three talents of silver. Little by little, I changed nearly all of this into gold. That weight of silver could not be carried on the person, and to travel about with a two-hundred-pound chest of money was asking for trouble. The equivalent in gold was a mere eighteen pounds, which I divided between Pronax and myself. Each of us wore a money belt under his clothing.

By the middle of Elaphebolion, the weather showed signs of spring, and the shipmen began caulking, tarring, and painting their craft. Pronax and I visited the local sights. One was the alleged tomb of Antaios, which some clever fellow had put a fence around and charged admission to see. The grave was half open, exposing the huge bones of the giant They said he must have been as big as the Colossus of Rhodes. To me, the bones looked suspiciously like those of an elephant.

I also meant to call on King Bocchus, who ruled the land from a castle high up on Mount Abila. Perhaps I could get him to back another attempt at circumnavigating Africa. With reasonable luck this time, I ought to clear enough profit to pay back the investments both of the king and of my Gaditanian backers, with a profit for each as well as myself.

While I was mulling this plan, Tingis staged a spring fair in honor of some moon goddess. Pronax and I enjoyed the storytellers, the musicians, the games, and the sports. One fellow asked people to guess which of three walnut shells a chick-pea was under. I discomfited him by guessing right three times running, having learnt that trick from Hippalos.

I also astounded all of Tingis by winning the archery contest. I had learnt to shoot among the Scythians, and the Moors are even worse archers than my fellow Hellenes. I let them put a wreath on my head and made a little speech of thanks, first in Greek and then in bad Moorish, which mightily pleased the Moors. I also had to listen to a longwinded ballad improvised in my honor by the local bard, who twanged his lyre and sang about the tall, gray-bearded stranger who came from far, unknown lands to carry off the prize, as Odysseus had done at the court of King Alkinoos.

Afterwards, when Pronax and I were wandering the grounds, we stopped before a tent with several people lined up in front of it. Over the entrance, a pair of posts upheld a wooden board on which was written, in Greek letters:

SRI HARI

THE GREAT INDIAN YOGIN

SEES ALL KNOWS ALL

SPEAKS WITH GODS AND SPIRITS

CASTS HOROSCOPES

I said: "Let's have a look at this fellow. I'll speak to him in prakrita, and if he's a fake I shall know it."

After a wait, the people in front of me had taken then-turns and departed. The flap of the tent was drawn back, and a voice said: "Come in!"

I entered, with Pronax behind. A small man was holding back the tent flap, but in the sudden gloom I could not tell much about him.

The tent was lit by a pair of huge, black Etruscan candles in candlesticks at the ends of a low, "narrow table placed athwart the tent. At the rear rose a piece of canvas, about four feet wide and seven high, on which was painted the elephant-headed god Ganesha sitting on a flower.

Behind the table and before the painting, on a pile of cushions, Sri Hari sat cross-legged. He was a tall man with a graying red beard and a huge red turban On his head. He spoke:

"Welcome, my beloved son. How can I serve—"

"Hippalos!" I roared, and hurled myself across the low table with my hands clutching for his throat.

My eye caught a metallic flash in the candlelight as Hippalos snatched up a short sword, which lay on the floor in front of him, hidden by the table top. As I threw myself upon him, he whirled the sword up for a slash at my head. The blow would have split my skull like a melon had it not been too hasty to have much force, and had it not been stopped by my wreath.

Then we were grappling on the floor, tearing and kicking. One candle and then the other fell over and went out. I got a hand on the wrist that held his sword arm. When he persisted in trying to stab me, I sank my teeth into his arm until I tasted blood. Then he dazed me with a blow on the side of the head and a kick in the belly and tore himself loose.

I grabbed the sword, which he dropped. As he bolted out the rear of the tent, I plunged after him, tripping and stumbling in the dark. By the time I found the back door to the tent, Hippalos had vanished.

I turned back into the tent, where there was now some light, since the doorkeeper had tied back the flap of the front door. Hippalos' next clients were peering in.

"That's all for today," I said. "A demon invoked by Master Hari got out of control and carried him off. You had better go away, lest the demon return for more victims."

They went, fast. I turned to the doorman and cried: "Gnouros!"

"Master! Is good to see you!" We threw ourselves into each other's arms, kissing and babbling.

"Let's light the candles and close the door," I said, "and you shall tell me everything. Where is Astra?"

"Is dead, master."

"Oh," I said.

"You bleed!"

"Just a little scalp cut."

I sat down on Hippalos' cushions and wept while Gnouros lit the candles and bandaged my head. He and Pronax tidied up the tent, which looked as if a whirlwind had been through it.

A dull gleam from the floor caught my eye. I picked up the little bronze statuette of Ganesha, which I had given to Hippalos. It had served as a model for the painting at the back of the tent. I must have grasped it during our struggle in the dark and broken the chain by which it hung from Hippalos' neck.

When the tears stopped flowing, I asked: "How did she die? Did he kill her?"

"Nay, master. She kill herself."

"Oh?"

He told me the story. Astra had fallen madly in love with Hippalos, for reasons that were plain to me now after old Glaukos' talk on the needs of women. For the first month or two of their elopement, all was love and kisses. They settled in an apartment in Gades.

Then Hippalos' cruel side, of which I had had a glimpse in India, reappeared. He began by tormenting Astra in petty ways, playfully threatening to abandon her, to sell her, or to feed her to the fishes. From this he passed to physical torment, poking, pinching, and finally beating. When she wept and pleaded, he told her: "You're only a burden to me. If you really loved me, you would slay yourself."

So, when he was away on a voyage, she hanged herself.

"By Herakles, why didn't she come back to me?" I asked. "Why didn't you urge her to?"

"I did. I said you- would do no worse than beat her little. But she said she could not face you, because she had done you so big wrong. She was ashamed. And when he acted like he hated her, she had nothing to live for."

I now have cursed little to live for myself, I thought. "Death take him! Why did he quit his job with Eldagon ben-Balatar? How did he come to be here?'

"When we were sailing from Peiraieus to Gades, he bribed harbor masters to write him if they saw you sailing west after him. One day he got letter, and away we went. We fled to Balearic Islands, and then Master Hippalos had idea of dressing up as Indian wise man. So now he is King Bocchus' big wizard. We came down to Tingis for fair, to make money from stupid people."

"I suppose he's bolted back to his royal master's castle, eh?"

Gnouros shrugged. "Maybe so. We go kill him, yes?"

I could have reproached Gnouros for not having avenged his mistress by slaying Hippalos himself, but I forebore. He was a dear little man but no fighter—one of those natural-born slaves of whom Aristoteles wrote. In any case, a slave who attacks a free man, whatever the reason, has little chance of living when the other free men get their hands on him. Perhaps there is something to this idea of some radical philosophers, that slavery is inherently wrong.