Our first business now was to empty the boat that had struck upon the sunken stockade; it had already nearly two cubits of water in its hold, and was consequently liable to sink at any moment. There were no prisoners to be made here; during our engagement with the other vessels some of the men had escaped in a small boat, and the rest had swum to shore, but only to be captured by the Samnites. The Cabiros and Dagon, however, had thirty-three prisoners, making, with the nine I had myself taken, a total of forty-two, who were first stripped of everything of any value that was found belonging to them, and then distributed amongst our three crews, who would be entitled to dispose of them to our colonists on the coast of Libya, where no doubt they would be in demand either for soldiers or artisans.
The eleven Phœnicians were highly delighted at what had befallen them; their capture was really a deliverance. They told me that they had formed part of the crew of a Sidonian gaoul which had been wrecked off the coast of Sardinia, and that they had escaped in one of the small boats. They had attempted to reach one of our settlements in the island, but tempestuous weather had frustrated their plan, and they had been carried out to sea, and finally drifted to the mainland. They had next tried to make their way northward to one of the Phœnician marts, established on the coast; and it was more than a week ago since they had fallen into the hands of the Rasennæ, who had sent them to serve on board their privateers. All of them were ragged, and more than half-starved; and their rejoicing seemed unbounded, when I not only provided them with clothes and food, but allowed them to enter my service on an equal footing with the rest of my crews. Amongst them was an experienced helmsman and a master mariner; so that all our losses were to a great extent replaced, especially as the whole of the wounded were in a fair way of recovery.
Stripping the dead, collecting the booty, conveying it on board, and making lists of it all, occupied us till the close of the day, and it was past sunset before we were at liberty to avail ourselves of the wind, which was quite favourable for our coasting along towards the Straits of Sicily. We left the captured boats, and whatever plunder was too heavy or too valueless to be worth carrying away, to the Samnites, who, with shouts of joy, rushed forward to take possession of their unexpected prize.
The evening meal was merry. Our successful negotiations, our victorious skirmish, our release of our countrymen, our valuable booty, were all topics of mutual congratulation. Hannibal was loud in his praises of my stratagem of the stockade.
"Ah! that's an old trick," said Himilco; "we once played it off upon the Carians of Rhodes, and took eleven of their ships and no end of plunder. Old Tarshish mariners are adepts at schemes of that sort."
Chamai held up a pair of twisted bracelets, and a necklace of a similar pattern, ornamented with a large flat crescent.
"Are these solid gold, captain?" he asked me.
"Aye, and of the finest sort," I answered; "it is the gold they get from the Eridanus and the Rhone; you are to be congratulated on your lucky prize."
"Not one man did I either kill or catch," said Hanno; "and I suppose I shall have to be content with my share-and-share-alike portion of the plunder; but I confess I should be very pleased if I might have a vase which I discovered amongst the captured goods; it is exquisitely painted, and I have no doubt that these Rasennæ, ugly as they are themselves, are highly-skilled as artists."