"Ah, no; I'll take care of that," said Himilco. "Sooner than the painted hound should interfere with us too much, I'd have a rope to his heels, and he should dangle, head in the water, all the way from Joppa to Tarshish. 'Tis not for us to permit ourselves to be treated like dogs."
"No," said I; "but maybe, all will go well; Moloch will be our guardian; and once at sea we shall not fail to secure the protection of our Ashtoreth. To tell you the truth, I am really far more apprehensive about Hanno's pranks with Bodmilcar."
"We must hope for the best," replied Himilco. "Bodmilcar will be on board the gaoul, and we will contrive for Hanno to come with us in one of the galleys."
"True," I assented; "it is indispensable that they should be separated. But with regard to this eunuch's requirements; I hardly see whether it will be better to provide the cabins in the gaoul, as being the more roomy, or to have them under my own supervision. Plague upon the slave and eunuch both!"
At that moment Hanno come up, with his roll of papyrus in his hand, and caught the tenor of our conversation.
"A slave and an eunuch to go!" he exclaimed. "Surely the charge of them ought to fall to my lot. Such duties ever belong to a scribe. Besides, I have made some progress in the studies of a magician; and better even than a magician I could humour their fancies, and understand their likes and dislikes."
I expressed my opinion that they would have enough of magicians in Egypt whither they were going, and resolved that I would keep them under my own eye.
"There's an end then to all my pretty scheme of teaching them calligraphy, rhetoric, and what not," said Hanno, smiling. "I must fall back, I see, upon my own accounts."
He unfolded his roll, and submitted to me his reckoning of the amount that would be requisite to pay our sailors and our oarsmen, at the same time handing me his statement of the sums that had already been expended in the purchase of the goods for barter.