VIII.
Accompanied by the gigantic Conops, who had volunteered his services, Lycon went to the market. It was a little open square, one side occupied by the council-hall, a pretty new pillared building, another by an ancient temple of Poseidon, one of the noteworthy objects in the city, a third by an arcade used for a shelter in rainy weather, and the fourth by the houses of the citizens.
Though it was still early in the day, the place was crowded. Lycon found entertainment in looking about him for, although only in miniature, this market-place was an image of the one in Athens.
Country people, standing in booths made of interwoven green branches, were selling fresh cheese, eggs, honey, oil, fruit, and green vegetables; one or two potters were loudly praising their painted jars; bakers’ wives were half concealed behind huge piles of bread and cakes, and young flower-girls sat among their bright-hued, fragrant wares, busily making wreaths. Freemen, as well as male and female slaves, wandered among the booths, bargaining here and there, while youths in light mantles, with embroidered fillets around their hair, jested with the prettiest saleswomen. But the most successful person was a neurospastes, the owner of a puppet-show, who had taken his stand on a spot generally used for a slave-mart. Unseen himself, he pulled the hidden strings which set the ugly puppets’ bodies in motion so that, to the delight of the children and their pedagogues, the figures made the most ridiculous gestures.
Lycon had stopped a moment to look at the busy puppets and the laughing children, when a strange, deafening noise was suddenly heard.
It seemed as though a countless number of chains were falling with a prolonged, rattling clash into a measureless depth, yet it was impossible to tell whence the sound came. It filled the earth and the air, and withal was so mighty, so startling, that all jest, all conversation ceased. Even the animals were roused from their usual repose, and the swallows which had been darting and twittering about the market-place and up and down the long Street of the Bakers, suddenly gathered into flocks and soared screaming into the air as if trying to escape some danger.
No one remembered having heard anything like it; no one knew what it was. But, from the people who came thronging up, it was soon learned that the noise had been just as loud inside the most closely shut rooms in the houses as in the open market-place and just as near and distinct in each remote part of the city, nay even on the ships in the port. The crews of the vessels declared that the sound came from the water.
Only one old smith, a man almost a hundred years of age, seemed to suspect the cause. He shook his head anxiously, but would not speak freely. “I may be wrong,” he said, “but take my advice. Keep out of the houses—that will perhaps save many a life.”
Lycon felt as though some misfortune was impending. Accompanied by Conops, without knowing where he was going, he had walked down to the harbor, where he had not been since his return to the city. The view here offered to his gaze was so magnificent and beautiful that it made the same impression as if he were beholding it for the first time. Ere long he felt his mind relieved and his former light-heartedness return.
“What should happen?” he said to himself. “Can a summer day be clearer or brighter than this?”
The sun rode high in the heavens. Not a cloud was visible far or near, and not a breath of air was stirring. About thirty boats and small vessels were lying at a quay built of large limestone-blocks—the ones whose masts were seen from the Street of the Bakers. On the right the gaze rested upon the highest part of the city, above which rose the distant mountains of Pherae; at the left the smiling, fertile coast extended almost as far as the eye could reach, towering upward into a spur of Pelion. Over the green water of the bay, that glittered like a mirror, fishing boats and pleasure craft glided past each other and beyond, like a broad dark-blue stripe, appeared the Pagasaean Gulf, which melted into the open sea, flashing like gold in the sunshine. On the opposite side of the gulf rose the promontory of Pyrrha, while through the mists of distance gleamed the coast-cities, and behind them the ridge of the Othrys mountains, over which led the road to Locris, Bœotia, and Attica.
Lycon stopped at the first of the little vessels, whose owner, an old sailor named Dorion, he had formerly known. The sight of this man vividly brought to mind what strangely different fates the same years may bring. While he himself had been in Athens, seeing and hearing so many new things that his memory could scarcely retain them, Dorion had daily sailed to and fro across the same corner of the bay to get and sell sand. Yet he seemed content, and when Lycon entered into conversation with him he told him with joyous satisfaction that his boat was new, that his sons had built it, and that it was large enough for him to make longer voyages.
“But,” cried Dorion, suddenly interrupting himself and springing into the bow, “look, look, how the sea is falling! Holy Dioscuri! What is happening before our eyes?... I never saw the water run out so fast.”
“It is the second marvel to-day,” said Lycon. “What can it mean?”
Even while they were speaking the boat and all the other small vessels sank lower and lower, so that the lime-stone quay seemed to tower far above them. Confused shouts and shrieks echoed from one craft to another and a moment after the inner bay, except for a few pools of water, lay as dry as a heath. Where the glittering surface of the waves had just extended, nothing was now seen save the greyish sand overgrown here and there with large and small patches of sea-weed. The little vessels which a short time before were flitting about far out on the water, now lay on dry ground, keeling over upon one side, and their crews were seen like small black dots standing around them uncertain what to do.
Conops, who had watched what was occurring with less indifference and dullness than usual, now made an apt remark.
“If the bay had been a drinking cup,” he said, “and there was an invisible mouth reaching from one shore to the other, the water could not have been drained quicker—in five, six long swallows.”
“What!” cried Dorion suddenly, “if I see aright, the water is returning.”
Lycon shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out towards the bay. The mass of water was moving across the cove like a rampart nine or ten ells high, the crest and bottom white with foam, and at a velocity greater than that of a man running at full speed. He saw the billow roll under the craft resting on the ground, raise them aloft, and sweep them onward in its own mad course.
Followed by Conops, he leaped into Dorion’s boat, shouting at the top of his voice to the people in the other vessels:
“Loose the boats from the quay!... or the water will fill them and drown us all.”
These words ran from mouth to mouth.
Then a thundering roar echoed from the approaching mass of water, it buried the quay in snowy foam, raised one boat after another,—not without partially filling them—and bore them with furious speed up the Street of the Bakers, which lay straight before the landing-place.
Lycon, Dorion, and Conops had succeeded, with the help of oars and poles, in keeping their craft clear of trees and houses. As if in a dream they heard wild cries of terror and saw the two buildings nearest the harbor sink under the force of the water, while some of the small vessels were stranded on the fallen walls and pillars.
Soon after another surge came rolling in and, amid fresh shrieks from drowning men, swept the boats farther on into the middle of the long street. Lycon saw with delight that Simonides’ house stood uninjured, though the water was more than half way over the door.
Almost at the same moment human figures were seen on the roofs of the nearest houses, and they heard the shrieks and wails of women, which reminded Lycon of the lamentations daily resounding during the Adonis festival in Athens. But it was easy to perceive that this was a more serious matter for, with the shrieks mingled the shouts of numerous men calling, each from his own side of the street, to the boats for aid.
Lycon’s heart swelled with a humanity as warm as the greatness of the peril surrounding him. Springing to the stern he shouted to the men in the nearest boats:
“Friends! let us thank the gods for our own deliverance by saving as many of these unfortunates as possible. Let nine or ten of the boats row about in the next street. There is enough for us all to do until evening, though there seems to be only one street besides this under water.”
“The Athenian is right,” replied a voice from another vessel. “Let us do what we can for the city. Have we not all acquaintances and friends here?”
Lycon and Dorion now rowed the boat to Simonides’ house. There was only one person to be seen on the roof—Paegnion.
“Where are Simonides and his daughter?” asked Lycon.
“On the roof of the women’s apartment.”
“And where are the slaves?” enquired Conops.
“On the stable.”
Lycon poled the boat between the buildings. Suddenly it was shaken from stem to stern by a strange, mysterious shock, which congealed the blood in Lycon’s veins. This shock was repeated, though the boat was floating in water three ells deep and had not run against anything.
At the same moment a cry of horror ran from roof to roof.
“Seiei, seiei! The earth is shaking, it’s an earthquake.”
Lycon now understood that the day’s prodigies, the noise and the flood, were connected with what was occurring.
Though neither of the shocks had lasted longer than the short time required for a man to raise his arms and let them fall again, the result was terrible; two of the houses in the street sank crashing into the water with the hapless people on their roofs. Fortunately the ruins formed a heap large enough to enable most of the inmates to keep themselves above the tide until the boats could come to their assistance.
Lycon perceived that there was no time to lose. Anxiously as his own heart throbbed, he encouraged Dorion and Conops. They took off Paegnion, though not without difficulty and, uniting their strength, urged the boat towards the women’s apartment.
But between the buildings the dark, muddy water moved in a powerful stream and, as Dorion unluckily broke his oar, the boat was swept with irresistible force past the corner of the women’s apartment out into the garden. Here it struck against the tops of some bushes and suddenly struck fast between the trunks of two trees concealed at the bottom by the water and at the top by leaves. It required a long time and much exertion to release it from this position, and the task was not accomplished until after the water had reached a level in the flooded streets, so that the current was less swift. When they at last succeeded in getting back to the women’s apartment, they found it impossible to save Simonides and his daughter without the help of a ladder.
Lycon was beginning to get impatient over these delays, for the day was waning.
Conops knew that there ought to be a ladder in the stable, but when the boat reached the place it had disappeared. After some search it was found where they least expected to discover it. A rude two-wheeled harvest cart had caught on a marble monument by the side of the house, and the pole of this cart had accidentally run between the rounds of the ladder and held it fast.
It was not without fresh difficulties that they succeeded in raising the ladder to the roof of the women’s apartment; and it was high time, for the stars were beginning to twinkle in the sky. Lycon found Simonides and Myrtale in a very exhausted condition; the clothing of both was drenched with water, and they had spent the whole afternoon in dread lest the house should yield to the pressure of the flood and sink beneath it. The overseer Carion, who had helped Myrtale carry her father up the stairs, had vainly sought to obtain dry garments; nothing could be found in the little rooms under the roof.
Simonides was shaking so violently with a feverish chill that his teeth chattered; his eyes were closed and he muttered now and then a few unintelligible words; but when Lycon carried him down to the boat he pressed his hand. When Lycon turned to bring Myrtale she was already standing by her father’s side. Light and agile as the pretty little creature which shades itself with its tail,[V] she had sprung into the boat unaided.
[V] Squirrel.
Fortunately the craft was a large one, for there were many to save and, much as Lycon hastened the work of rescuing the slaves and their children from the stable-roof, by the time all had embarked night had closed in, so that it was difficult to find the way out between the buildings.