The Last of the Wine: A Novel

22

WE SAW ALKIBIADES PROCLAIMED upon the Pnyx supreme leader of the Athenians, a place that only Perikles had held before him; we cheered him as he stood on the great stone rostrum, his bright hair crowned with a wreath of golden olive, looking over the City like a charioteer above his team. We saw the curse pronounced against him for impiety thrown on its lead tablet into the sea; and marched with him along the Sacred Way, escorting the Procession of the Mysteries to Eleusis in King Agis’ teeth; the first time since Dekeleia fell that the City had dared to send it by land. We saw him received into the great temple, like the Goddess’s favourite son.

Even his enemies joined in the paean of praise, lauding his victories so that the people, who never tired of gazing, would send him off to get more. It was said in those days that he need only have whistled, and Athens might have had a king again. Had he not come when we were beaten to our knees, and oppressed with tyrants, and made us the masters of the sea? But he left for Samos again before three months were up; and when people marvelled at his modesty, we who had come with him only laughed.

We thought for our part that we could guess his mind. Nothing would content him now but to win the war. He was not moderate in any of his desires, but above all he liked to excel. It would be a sweet day for him when King Agis came suing for terms of surrender. The war had lasted twenty-three years now; he had been engaged in it, on one side or another, since he was a young ephebe, whom a sturdy hoplite, one Sokrates, had pulled out wounded from under the spears at Potidea, giving him back his life to use as he chose.

So we said goodbye to friends and kindred, and made ready to sail. Once, before I left, I went back to Mikkos’ school to watch the boys at exercise. But this time my old trainer was there, and kept me talking; so it was only for a moment that I saw the boy Aster, standing with the javelin poised at his shoulder, aiming at the mark.

We sailed to Samos, and dined out with envious friends upon our news from the City, and settled down to the war again.

But lately, over in the Spartan base at Miletos, we found that there had been a change. We had profited well in the past from their stupid old custom of changing admirals every year. Sometimes the man they sent had never even been to sea before. Just lately the time had come round again. The new man was called Lysander.

It did not do nowadays, we found, to reckon on a Doric wit. He had contrived very soon to meet the young Prince Cyrus, Darius’ son, a heart of fire in whom Marathon and Salamis rankled as if they had been yesterday. The Spartans he forgave; no one had lived to boast of Thermopylae. It was the Athenians who had turned the host that drank the rivers dry. So he gave Lysander money enough to raise his rowers’ pay.

Neither side owned slaves enough to row a fleet. Each used free aliens mostly, who worked to make a living. Ours, therefore, began at once slipping over to Lysander. He had moved his fleet from Miletos, where we had had it under our eye, north to Ephesos. There, where a deserter from us could reach him in a day, he sat at ease, drilling his men, choosing the best rowers, and spending Cyrus’ silver darics on timber and pitch.

We had all been ready to push on to Chios, whose capture would have been decisive. None of us doubted it would fall to Alkibiades; after all, he had taken it before, when it was ours. But now, with Lysander’s fleet between, and not enough silver to bid against him for rowers, we must wait for money from Athens, or sail to squeeze tribute out. One does not expect a commander-in-chief to sail on such petty missions, when his mind is fixed on total victory. For the first time on Samos, Alkibiades was bored.

As men make light of the first signs of sickness, so did we of the change we began to find. We were angry with the Athenians at home, for plaguing him with despatches about the delay; the injustice put us on his side. “Let him be merry sometimes,” we said; “by Herakles he has earned it.” If when we wanted orders the street of the women had swallowed him up, we laughed, and saw to it for him, and said that when he had work worth while he would be there soon enough. If he was drunk, he was not silly drunk; and we put up with a good deal of insolence from him because he had a way with him even then. But we seldom saw him on the ships. The rowers we had were a rough lot, the remnant when Lysander had picked the market over; if their pay was behind, they would grumble and curse even in his hearing, knowing we dared not pack them off. He would make a joke of it, or would not hear; but I think it burned his soul, even from scum like these. He was in love with being loved, as some people are with loving.

From this cause, I fancy, more than from indolence, he came less and less aboard, and used to send his friend Antiochos instead.

I can’t pretend that I disliked this man as much as some did. On the Siren Lysis always offered him a drink, saying to me that it was a pleasure to hear anyone talk who knew his work so well. If he was vain of his seamanship, he was a fine seaman, bred to it from childhood; he could both sail a ship and fight it, and the most villainous rowers cringed before his eyes. As things were, he was much fitter for the harbour drill than Alkibiades; he had humour too, or you may be sure they would not have been friends so long. But if he got on a ship where the trierarch stood on his dignity at getting his orders through a pilot, or would not be told anything, he lost patience quickly, and was not very careful of his tongue. He had come from the people; if he did not expect to have it thrown at him in a city like Samos, I do not blame him; however, he was very much resented. The more so because Alkibiades, whose fortunes he had shared through all the years of exile, would never hear a word against him.

Presently money got so tight that Alkibiades decided he would sail out himself to collect arrears of tribute. He was taking half the fleet north to the Hellespont, and leaving the rest behind to hold the Spartans. He roused himself to inspect the ships of his squadron; then he went back to his girls again; and the news broke that he was leaving Antiochos at Samos in supreme command.

Our hut was full half the night of men standing about and swearing, drinking our wine, and saying what they would do, with the heat of men who know they can do nothing. At length some of them decided upon a deputation to Alkibiades, and invited Lysis to lead it. “Good luck to you,” said he, “but count me out. I came to Samos as a lieutenant; my men promoted me by vote. I didn’t equip my ship, nor fit her, nor do I pay my pilot’s wage. Dog doesn’t eat dog.”—“Don’t compare yourself with that fellow,” someone said; “a gentleman is another matter.”—“Tell Father Poseidon so next time he blows a gale. Old Bluebeard is the first democrat. And if you’re calling on Alkibiades, bear in mind that he’ll have all the company he needs, by this time of night.”

Some cooled off at this; but the angriest urged one another on, and went. They found him, I believe, with his favourite girl, a new one called Timandra, and in no mood to be disturbed. He told them shortly that he had been appointed to lead a democrat army, and, not having heard of any change, had given command of the fleet to the best seaman in it. This, with the blue open stare that made his insolence bite like a wind off the mountains, sent them home with flattened hackles. He sailed next day.

He called a council of the trierarchs just before he left; not to explain himself, but to tell us we were only to fight defensive actions while he was gone, and none that were in any way avoidable. We were only half a fleet; and all of Lysander’s was in port.

I was busy just then. The Samians were about to hold the Games of Here, and learning I was a crowned victor, called me in to help train the boys. I found I liked the work; there were some fine youngsters there, whom it was a pleasure to give advice to; so I listened with half an ear when people complained of Antiochos, and of the blunt way he told the trierarchs that they were letting the mastery of the sea slip through their fingers. Now Alkibiades was gone he got us out twice as often on manoeuvre. Lysis, and some other keen young captains who wanted to learn, did not mind it; but some of those who owned their ships were so angry at being run here and there at a pilot’s orders, that they could have eaten him raw. Before long he decided that we needed an observation post at Cape Rain, across the strait, in case Lysander should try to slip north and take Alkibiades in the rear. So he took a score or so of ships, and stood across to Ionia.

It seemed to me a folly. Samos has high mountains inland, from whose tops one sees a great space of sea all mixed with sky, and the isles like dolphins swimming in cloud. We kept lookouts up there, who could very well tell us what Ephesos was up to. It was one of these very men, indeed, who rode his mule down into Samos some days later, to say that a sea-fight was going on just outside Ephesos harbour.

It had taken him some hours to get down from the mountain. We stripped for action, and stood by. Then another scout came from the hills to eastward, and reported a great smoke-plunge rising from Cape Rain, as if someone were putting a trophy up.

We were not left uncertain long. Hard on this news, south through the straits limped the crippled ships, those that were left, with ragged oar-banks and started timbers, the men bone-tired with baling, the decks full of the hurt and half-drowned, picked up from the sinking wrecks. We helped the wounded to disembark, and sent out for wood to burn the dead.

After three years of victory unbroken, we had forgotten the feel of a defeat. We were the army of Alkibiades, for whom, when we entered a tavern, all other troops made way, or left, if they had lately shown their back in battle; for we were choice about whom we drank with, and made no secret of it.

Ship after ship came in, confirming the tale which at first we had disbelieved. Antiochos had sailed out of port that morning, on patrol as he said, with a couple of ships, dropped sail outside Ephesos harbour, and rowed right into it, across the prows of Lysander’s beached warships, shouting insults, till the readiest put out in chase of him. The Athenians at Cape Rain, seeing an engagement going on, sent some ships to help; the Spartans reinforced their own; and this went on till both fleets were fully engaged, all piecemeal and haphazard; with such result as, considering the difference in numbers alone, might have been foreseen.

Already an ugly crowd was gathering on Samos waterfront, waiting for Antiochos to come in. If he had been stoned, I don’t think some of the trierarchs would have stirred to stop it.

As for Lysis and me, though we had lost good friends in the action, it had got beyond that with us. We saw that this man, who had been loyal to Alkibiades through every change of fortune for five and twenty years, would now be his ruin. After these months of idleness, his credit in Athens would never hold through this. His enemies would get at last all they had needed. So we two waited, a little ashamed perhaps of our curiosity, to see how a man would look who had done such a thing to his friend, and had yet to bring him news of it.

“Did he run mad?” I said. “He could close-haul anyone; a planned assault, even against odds, would have given him a chance.”—“How many trierarchs do you think would have followed him, clean against orders, if he had asked them first?”—“They say,” I answered, “that he has been at Alkibiades for years to give him a command. For his friend’s sake, I suppose, he gave it the look of accident, not to flout his orders openly.” Lysis shook his head. “Everyone is to blame,” he said. “Alkibiades for giving in to him, from laziness, or out of softness for the man because he saw him slighted. The trierarchs who goaded him till he flaunted, like a green lad new to arms, to prove himself as good as they. But he himself most of all, for buying his pleasure with what was not his to spend. The trierarchs hated him, yet they stood by him in his folly; the worst of them, in the event, have shown themselves his betters. All these three years it has been our honour to stand together, to obey a sudden order without question, never to leave a hard-pressed ship without support. All this, which he held in trust, he spent in his own quarrel; and that, though I pity him, I can’t forgive. For it will be flawed henceforward, as you will see.”

Just then his ship rounded the point, water-logged, dragging on splintered oars. She came in and beached, and the crowd growled and waited. The wounded were helped or carried off, and still Antiochos did not show himself. Then they brought ashore a dead body, lying on a plank. The breeze lifted the sea-cloak and showed the face. I daresay that when he saw what the end would be, he had not been very careful of his life. He had never feared death, or any man living, except Alkibiades.

The fleet was sighted a few days later, returning from the Hellespont. There was a great crowd round him when he came ashore, and I was far back in it; but he was so tall that one could see his face over other men’s heads. I saw him stare, wondering at the silence; and, when he had the news, I could have told you to the moment when he said, “Send Antiochos to me,” and got his answer.

He stood quite still, with his blue eyes fixed and empty. He had no need to hide his face when he would hide his heart. There came back to my mind the tale of their first meeting, which I had once heard Kritias tell. There was a table, I suppose, set up in the orchestra of the theatre, with a row of grey bankers sitting at it; the rich stiff citizens were coming up in turn with their gifts for the public chest, making the most of their progress down the aisle; the tallymen counted, the herald announced the sum, the crowd cheered, the donor bowed and went back to the compliments of his friends and sycophants. Then over the dusty grass strolled Alkibiades, and hearing the noise had a whim to see whom they could be cheering when he was not there. He walked through the pine-trees and came out above the benches, and asked what was going on; and his love of emulation quickened. So down the long stairs strode the youth, tall and strong and shining, and everyone applauded the mere sight of his beauty: it was said in those days that if swift-footed Achilles was as perfect of face and form as Homer sang, he must have looked like Alkibiades. He walked up to the board where the bankers were sitting behind their boxes, and planked down the gold he had been taking to buy a pair of matched greys for a chariot; the people yelled, and, frightened by their noise, out of his mantle flew the quail with its clipped wing, and flapped about the assembly. The bankers clicked their tongues, the rich men sulked, the people fell about the seats trying to catch the bird and win a look from its master, till in fright it fluttered out on the hillside and lodged in a fir-tree. And while everyone pointed and did nothing, up ran a young sailor with a black beard and gold earrings, and went aloft like a monkey, and fetched down the bird, and walking up to Alkibiades, gave him a bold bright look with eyes as blue as his own. So golden Achilles held out his hand laughing to Patroklos, and they walked away together through the noise and the longing faces. That was the beginning of it, and this the end.

For a moment or two he stood silent on the waterfront, looking before him; then he turned and gave an order. A trumpet brayed over Samos the call to arms; the crowd broke up, seamen ran to the ships, soldiers to the camp to fetch their armour; Alkibiades strode away to his flagship. As I came back with the hoplites I saw him pacing the poop deck, back and forth, or hailing a ship that was delaying and telling them with curses to make haste. Then he gave the word to stand away; the fleet shook itself free of the land, and set sail for Ephesos. I felt my blood run warm again, the poison of defeat gone out of it; we followed him like lost dogs that have found the master and run round him barking, ready to tackle anything they see.

The Spartans were exercising before the harbour when we sighted it. But when we reached it, not one was outside the bar. Lysander had been willing to do business, when he saw victory going cheap; but he knew who was here now to drive the bargain. His ships had their orders; and in Sparta, orders are obeyed.

All day we beat up and down between Ephesos and Cape Rain, while Alkibiades waited for the Spartans to come out and give him battle. When the sun was sinking, we turned for Samos again. The lamps were lit when we got there, beckoning kindly from the harbour taverns. We beached the ship, and I said to Lysis, “I shall get drunk tonight. Will you come?” He answered, “I was going to propose it.”

We made a night of it, but in the end we shook off the company we had found and went off together, both feeling, I think, that we could only share with one another what was in our hearts. A grief of loss ran through us, like a tune without words. It was not so much the loss of Alkibiades; for some time past he had been slipping away from us. If you can believe that a lyre may grieve for its own music, when the poet hangs it up and leaves it for boys to play on, that was our grief.

In due course the City censured him, and relieved him of his command. They remembered enough of justice to leave it there; but none of us were surprised when, instead of returning to Athens, he sailed off alone to Thrace. He had built himself a castle there, during his comings and goings; and his enemies said that if he had ever been loyal at heart, he would not have got this bolt-hole ready. On the other hand, he knew the Athenians as a potter knows his clay.

He loved to be loved, but was shrewd enough to guess that if anything went wrong, he would pay at the rate of their expectations. They scarcely believed at home that he was mortal, or that there was anything he could not do. One might have supposed they thought that like King Midas he could make gold of stones, for when it came out that on his last foray he had raided one of the subject allies, they were outraged at it; yet they had sent him nothing for months and our affairs were desperate. I for one never blamed him for building his castle; he was justified by the event. He went without saying goodbye to us; in the weeks after the battle he had become impossible; it was a kind of relief to see him go; yet when his sail dropped over the skyline, the sun shone less brightly, and the wine tasted flat.

A whole board of generals was sent out to replace him. We put ourselves in mind of our duty, and said to each other that we were there to fight the war, not to complain of everyone who could not give it the dash of an Olympic chariot-race. That was in the early days.

It was in autumn that the Spartan fleet trapped a flotilla of ours in Mytilene harbour, so that we looked like losing ships and men and Lesbos as well. To avert disaster, they reinforced our fleet with one from Athens, and we all sailed north together. Off the White Isles, on a rough grey morning, we met and beat the Spartans. It had rained and thundered in the night, and a heavy swell was getting up. We cheered when they began to fall back on Chios; none too soon either, for the wind was freshening. But some of their ships were still game; as we found when we saw one coming down on the Siren, to ram us on the beam.

She was a big black ship with a dragon figure-head, which opened its red mouth at us. Wind and sea were with her; and though our rowers were breaking their backs to get away, I knew we should never do it. We had rammed twice already, ourselves, in the battle. I have yet to see a ship do it three times and get safe home, and as it was we were leaking like a basket. We dragged wallowing through the sea, while she swept down on us. I heard Lysis and the pilot shouting to the deck-hands to get the spare oars and try to fend off. Then I ran to the arms-rack and took an armful of javelins, issued them to the men, and climbed up myself with the rest to the deckhouse roof, because I saw she was going to strike us on the quarter. As she came on, I felt at my javelins to be sure they were sharpened well, picked out the best, twisted the thong round the shaft, and balanced it with my fingers in the loop, ready to get a good spin on it. The Siren was a fine ship, and we were all for selling her as dear as we could.

I marked my man, standing on the catwalk, and waited to throw till he started to climb inboard before they rammed. You can often pin a man then by the arm or thigh, and put him out for the rest of the action. He was a Spartan, in a scarlet tunic, a tall man, who had pushed his helmet back to see better. He had a good face, and I was sorry there was no one else so well placed to aim at. The ship came on, very fast, but he stayed where he was, proud and calm, with a kind of exaltation in his eyes; till I almost forgot what I was waiting for, and felt like shouting, “Get in, fool! She’s going to strike!” With the heavy swell, their ram was under the water-line, but I could reckon the length. Then I thought, “Zeus! It’s the trierarch!” and brought back my arm and threw. Just as I did it, the ships struck.

There was a great shock and grinding of timbers, shouts from the deck, howls and screams from the rowers’ benches below. I was thrown to my knees, and barely held on. As for the Spartan officer, I don’t know if I hit him, and it made no difference. The rail of the catwalk, which is flimsy in most ships, split with the shock and over he went. His arm came out, clutching at air; then he met the green sea and sank in his armour like a stone. It may be he was their latest general, Kallikratidas, who was lost overboard in just this way during the battle: Lysander’s greatest rival in war, and in honour much his superior; by all accounts, a great-hearted soldier and a thorough gentleman. If he had not been too proud to survive defeat, much might have been altered afterwards.

At all events, he died with his last work done, for the ram had gone right through our side. If it had not been for the ship’s great hempen girdle, bound round her stem to stern, I think she would have split in two. As it was, as soon as the Spartans had staved us off, the sea came pouring in.

I sent a last javelin after the Spartan ship, an act of rage as useless as a child’s crying; then I leaped down to get some order on deck. Lysis had gone below to deal with the rowers. I whistled up the soldiers and got them into a moving chain, baling. The seamen having the buckets, we had only our helmets to use. We slid and splashed about, while the seamen tried to fish up the ballast for throwing overboard. Our corselets hampered and chafed us; armour was not made for working; but a man who throws away his arms in battle throws away something more, as well as his reputation after. When I saw someone fidgeting with a buckle, I gave him a look that sent him back to work with a red face. It could not be long before the fleet turned back to help us; the Spartans were in flight all along the line; and no one was going to say if I could help it that the men of the Siren were picked up in the hour of victory looking like a rabble in rout. From below I heard Lysis’ voice encouraging the rowers. I could not see him (I was standing at the hatchway, passing the filled helmets up on deck) but the mere sound of him did me good.

When the crew could not get down to the ballast any more, they started throwing the stores over, and then the spare tackle. When I saw the shields going, I looked the other way. Two or three hurt rowers had been carried up on deck. One, who had been hit by the ram itself, was clearly dying. The others had been caught by the leaded looms of the upper-tier oars, which are counterweighted because of their length, and looked badly knocked about. I caught the eyes of one of them fixed upon me, black eyes with a clear white rim; he looked as if he hated me; but men understand each other at such times for better or worse, and I knew he hated anyone with two good arms, who could save himself in the sea.

Meantime the pilot and some of the hands had got the great sail lowered over-side, and were trapping it over the breach with hawsers run below the keel. It stanched the wound of the ram, and though it was clear she was making water all over her hull, the baling did begin to gain a little. I looked about, as a wave lifted us, in search of help, but all the ships I could see were in trouble themselves. One of them went down as I watched. She settled stern first, her ram rearing up like the horn of a unicorn; then she slid backward, and the water was full of little black heads. I shouted out some nonsense to the men to take their minds off it.

Lysis now came on deck, and split us into shifts, two on and one off, to give us some rest. The men were pleased; but he had gone up first to the deckhouse roof, and I guessed it meant no help in sight yet. The slaves were working along with the rowers. Their benches were under water, but none had been lost; Lysis never kept them shackled at sea. Presently my rest turn came, and I went over to him. “How goes it, Alexias?” he said, and then, “You handled the hoplites very well.” He was never too much pressed to think of such things.

“The trierarch went overboard,” I said, “for what it’s worth. Did you see any of our ships?” He did not answer at first; then he said, “Yes, I saw them. They were hull down, running before the wind.” I stared and said, “But the enemy will be out of Lesbos the moment he gets this news. Our work’s done; why don’t they come for us?”—“I daresay,” he said, “they want to cut up the Spartans getting away.” But there was a note in his voice which I had not heard since the day at Corinth, when he lay in the temple of Asklepios.

I felt a bitterness beyond speech; presently I said, “Alkibiades would have come back.” Lysis nodded. I said, “How many times have we gone to help the lame ducks, and lost a prize by it?” Just then we wallowed into a wave, and shipped enough water to undo a good spell of baling. He said, “The ship has been stripped; now it is time to lighten the men.” I knew what he meant.

He went over to the hoplites. “Well, friends, the enemy has run. No Spartan can boast of seeing us throw away our arms. What we would not give up to men, we can offer to Father Poseidon. Gentlemen, unarm.”

I worked away at the wet straps of my armour, trying to be quick with it. He had made me a soldier, and it was his due that I should do it before him. The corselet of Archagoras, with its gold studs and its Gorgon, came away from me. I walked over the wet deck, and dropped it in the sea.

Just then Theras the pilot came up and said, “You’re none too soon, Lysis.” I looked at the weather and saw he was right. “With your permission,” he said, “I’ll get the deckhouse broken up.” There was no need to say more; one does it at the end, to get spars for the swimmers. Lysis said, “Very well. Break up the boat too.” We carried a little one, for places where we could not beach, to get water and stores. Theras looked at him; he said, “How many will she take, in this sea?”—“Four,” said Theras. “Five maybe.”—“She’ll give planks for ten or twelve. Break her up.”

I went back to my baling again, and soon heard the crash of the axes. But presently there were other sounds. I told the men to get on without me, and ran on deck. Four of the seamen had turned their backs on the boat and their axes on their fellows. They meant to get away in her, and the riot was spreading. Already there were enough men fighting for the boat, to have swamped her if they had got in, just as Lysis had foreseen. Just then I saw him striding towards the scrimmage, unarmed.

All this was in a moment. But I remember thinking, “Has he still such faith in men?” Amidships, below the broken deckhouse, there were a few javelins left in the rack. I snatched one up. Lysis was speaking to the men, most of whom had lowered their axes and looked ashamed. But behind him, the man whose eyes I had read beforehand was swinging back an axe-blade over his bare head. I threw, calling on Apollo. The point went deep, just left of the backbone; the weight of the axe swung the man backward, to fall upon the shaft. I think it went through his heart. All the javelins were sharp on the Siren. It was one of the things I saw to myself.

When they were back at work again, Lysis came over to me. “You told me once,” he said, “that your life was mine. You have taken back your pledge again.” I smiled and said, “Not for long.” There was a great wave coming for us; when it broke I thought we should founder at once, but we limped on a little longer. I found Lysis’ hand in mine; he had caught it to keep me from being washed overboard. He said, “I wonder what Sokrates is talking about now.”

We looked at one another. After so much action we were short of words, and felt no need of them. I thought, “It is finished, then: as it is now, will the god receive it.”

Someone came running over the deck to us shouting, “Land!” We stared where he pointed, at a dim grey loom of little islands, beyond the tossing seas. Lysis said to me, “Where’s the water now?” I looked into the hatchway. “Over the second-tier benches.” He nodded, and blew his whistle to call all hands. He had just told them there was land in sight, and pointed it out to them, when the next sea hit us.

She gave a great sick stagger, heavy and dull; then she foundered, on an almost even keel, quite slowly. I think if Lysis had not shouted to me to jump, I should have stood there, to feel the deck under my feet, till the suck of her sinking pulled me after her.

I don’t recall very clearly the time while I was in the water. I remember I had a bit of planking at first, but it was too slight to bear my weight and kept dipping under. I let it go impatiently, then thought, “It was my life I threw away then; well, it is done.” I did not know east from west; the seas tossed and half choked me; I said to myself that it would be better to sink now and die quickly, but the life in me was stronger than reason and struggled on. All around me in the sea was shouting and crying; I heard someone calling again and again, “Tell Krates not to sell the land! Not to sell the land!” till his voice was cut off in the middle. My ears roared with water; when I came up there was still shouting, though less than before; something in my head said, “Listen, attend,” and again I thought, “How can I? I have enough to do.” Then I listened; and the voice of Lysis was shouting “Alexias! Alexias! Alexias!” I hailed him back and thought, “Well, we have spoken to one another.” Then I heard a swimmer gasping near by, and spitting out water, and Lysis was there with one of the stern-oars, pushing it towards me.

I got my hands on it, then, coming to myself a little, said, “Will it bear two?”—“You can see it does.” It satisfied me at the time, being half-dazed, and used to believing what he said. I don’t think he did more than push it along, to help me forward.

We swam a long time, for days and nights it seemed to me. As weariness grew on me, my body forgot its lust to live; there was a heavy pain in my breast; and presently a time came when rest seemed the only thing beautiful and good. I was so dull of mind that I would have let go the oar, and slipped away without a word; yet at the last my soul stirred for a moment, and I said, “Goodbye, Lysis.” Then I let go. But I felt a great tug at my hair, and rose up again. “Hold on,” he said, “You fool, we’re close to land.” But I cared only to be still. “I can’t, Lysis. I’m finished. Let me go.”—“Hold on, curse you,” he said. “Do you call yourself a man?” I don’t remember all he said to me. Afterwards, when I lay in the shepherd’s house on the island, coming to myself, I felt my mind all bruises I could not quite account for, as a man might feel his body who had been beaten while half-stunned. I think he called me a coward. At all events, one way or another he convinced me that letting go would be like dying with a wound in the back. Later on at night, while we sat dressed in old blankets, drinking black bean soup by a driftwood fire, he began to apologise, but in rather general terms, hoping I had forgotten. So when I saw what he wanted, I said I had.

We two were the only survivors of the Siren. Twenty-five Athenian ships were lost in the battle, the greater part of them with all hands.

It was nearly a month before we got back to the City; for the island was a little place, where few but fishermen ever put in. At last we got a Lesbian ship, and made our way back from there. I got home to find the household in mourning for me, and my father with shaven head. He looked old and ill, and was so much moved at seeing me that I was confused by it, and hardly knew what to say. I suppose he may have blamed himself for my leaving home and going to sea. For my own part, time had taught me to see in it only the conjunction of planets and the hand of fate. My mother was much calmer, and said she had dreamed I was not dead. My sister Charis danced about us on her long legs, and complained of the beard I had grown on the island, and would not kiss me till I took it off.

Later, when the house was quieter, and I had told my story, my father said the City was very angry with the generals, and had dismissed them from their command. They had written home various excuses, saying in one breath that the storm was too high for them to turn back for us, and, in the next, that they had told off two junior officers to do it. As one of these was Thrasybulos, and the other Theramenes, whom we had found perfectly reliable in the field, I guessed this must have been an afterthought when the fleet was safe in harbour. Probably half of us had gone down before they started out. Their choosing Thrasybulos as a scapegoat made me angrier than ever. I said, “When are they going to be tried?”

“As soon,” my father said, “as they are all back. In the interests of justice, it had better be when the passion of the mob has cooled a little.” I said, “Let the mob save its pains, Father, and leave them to the men who got off the wrecks alive. We’re too few to make a mob. We’ll do them justice. I wish I had all their necks in one noose, and my hand on the rope.”—“You have changed, Alexias,” he said, looking at me. “When you were a child, I thought you too gentle to make a soldier.”—“I have seen a shipful of brave men betrayed since then. And on a won battlefield I threw away my arms.” And, my anger returning with the memory, I said, “If Alkibiades had been there, he would have laughed in their faces, and told them to get to the loom with the women; and he would have sailed alone. They can say what they like; but when he led us, we had a man.”

My father sat silent, staring into the bowl of his wine-cup. Then he said, “Well, Alexias, what you have suffered I cannot make good to you; nor, I daresay, will the gods. But in the matter of armour, if I had been in the City when you enrolled as a citizen, you would have had a suit from me, like anyone else in our position. The estate is not what it was, but I can still take care of that, I am glad to say.” He went to the big press and opened it. There was a suit of armour hanging there, nearly new. “Take it,” he said, “to some reliable man, and get it made to fit. It is doing no good to anyone lying here.”

It was a very good suit. He must have had it made when he felt his strength coming back again. I need not have complained so loudly of throwing away my arms, to a man who had been stripped of his by the enemy. “No, Father,” I said, “I can’t take this from you. I’ll manage some other way.”—“I daresay I forgot to tell you, Phoenix is dead. Let us admit that the time when we could afford new horseflesh is over; and marching is beyond me nowadays, I find. My shield is over there in the corner. Pick it up, and try it for weight.”

I picked it up, and put my arm through the bands. It balanced well, and was just about the weight I was used to. I said, “Of course, Father, for me it’s on the heavy side. But it’s a pity to tamper with a good shield like this. Perhaps, if I exercise, I can manage it as it is.”