"Hazael the eunuch," he said, "is a chattering fool. When I went to the palace I saw him, and wormed out of him that the slave in question had been brought from some Chaldean merchants, and that she had been originally carried away from her own country by a Tyrian pirate, so that the whole truth was not hard to guess."
"Not a word of this," I said; "not a word to Bodmilcar. More than ever it makes me resolve to have both eunuch and slave on board my own galley; otherwise I foresee there will be no end of mischief. Neither you nor Himilco must breathe a syllable until we have seen our unwelcome passengers securely landed at their destination."
Each promised faithfully to preserve the strictest reticence: Hanno, for his part, vehemently asseverating that if a word upon the matter should escape him, he would forthwith cut off his tongue, and devote himself to Horus, the Egyptian god of silence.
As we now reached our lodging, the conversation dropped, and for the next few days we were far too much engaged in active duties to think any further of what had transpired.
I gave my own personal superintendence to the weaving of all the sails, which were made strictly after the directions prescribed by the goddess Tannat.[21] I saw that my ropes were well twisted and thoroughly tarred; and I arranged the benches for my oarsmen with such compactness that there was only an interval of a hand's breadth between the seat of the rower on the upper tier and the head of the man in the tier below.
To give extra strength to the masts and yards, I had them bound at regular distances with bands of ox-hide, and finally I had the entire hulls plated with sheets of copper, fastened together with bolts of bronze.
Never had prouder ships been launched upon the Great Sea.[22]