"Make ready the scorpions! Archers, to your ranks!"
"Good gods!" I exclaimed at last, "what does this mean?"
"Soon told," said Himilco; "the man we took on board was Bodmilcar's agent, bent on mischief. I have managed to get my boat back, but the Melkarth and her galleys will be upon us in a moment."
He had hardly time to finish speaking, when the commotion above made it manifest that the struggle was already beginning.
"Then we are lost," I cried, in absolute despair at our twofold peril: "that infernal rascal has scuttled the ship."
Himilco groaned aloud in dismay.
A shrill cry of distress at this very moment rose from Dionysos, calling for help:
"Save me! save me! I am in a hole; I am sinking!"
The lad's head had already disappeared, when Himilco, sticking his cutlass into the ladder, and shouting that the child had found the leak, made a dive and brought him back half-fainting from the water, and delivered him to the sailors, who carried him on deck. Not a moment was lost. Carpenters and sailors were summoned to the task, and a heavy wave making the ship lurch so that the leak was actually seen, we put forth all our energies, and notwithstanding the combat that was being waged above our heads, succeeded—all praise to our gracious Ashtoreth!—in temporarily stopping the hole.
