To face [page 293].
Meanwhile the clamour of the fighting had given place to silence. On remounting the deck I found several dead bodies, and pools of blood in various places; I saw that the Adonibal and the Cabiros were lying alongside right and left, but Bodmilcar's vessels had vanished in the twilight.
Hannibal and Chamai were furious at their escape, and could hardly find words strong enough to express their contempt of a cowardice that had shirked a fair fight. Hanno, with his bow still in his hand, avowed that nothing else than the gathering gloom of night had saved Bodmilcar; if he could have recognised him, he would have been a dead man.
"When I was attacked in the boat," said Himilco, "I recognised the villain who took my eye out of my head; and if there had not been some thousand of them peppering away at us all at once——"
"How many, do you say?" asked Hannibal, with a smile.
"Well, then, I am sure there were six or eight; but never mind, many or few, there was one man I knew only too well, and while I was down there looking after that leak, no one knows how my heart was burning for a chance of getting him by the throat."
All this time the wind was rising, and after a while it blew a hurricane. There was every cause for apprehension; the leak was stopped so insufficiently that it might break open again at any moment, and the waves were playing with our ship like a ball.
There was no sleep that night. The men, in relays, had to toil with all their might at scooping out the water; and after that had been reduced below the level of the leakage, it took more than five hours to strengthen and caulk the fresh planking that had repaired the gap. All danger, however, from that source was averted.
Daylight came, but the tempest was more violent than ever. I hardly recollect so furious a wind; the pigeons that I let loose were unable to withstand the hurricane, and fluttered back helplessly on to the deck. All control over the ship was lost, and there was no alternative but to allow her to drift we knew not whither.