"Hannibal is wonderfully clever. I should fancy he could play the ape's part to perfection."
Not discerning the satire, Hannibal replied with the greatest gravity:
"I don't know about my being more clever than any of my people from Arvad; but I think that if I could understand the old man's tongue, I could perform for him better than an ape."
CHAPTER VIII.
AN AFFAIR WITH THE PHOCIANS.
Having entrusted Bodachmon with various commissions, and especially with the duty of delivering a letter from myself to King Hiram, I took my leave of him and his companions. In the afternoon, the breeze being favourable, we resumed our voyage to Italy. In order to pass between the islands of Cephallenia and Leucas, it was necessary to deviate somewhat to the north, after which we should have to steer nearly due east for the south of the great Iapygian gulf.
The Cabiros was about ten stadia ahead, and consequently so far in advance that she was lost to sight as she rounded the southern cape of Cephallenia; but she had hardly disappeared beyond the headland, when it struck me that I could hear her trumpet sounding signals of distress. Having sounded an alarm, I put my men in readiness for any emergency, and it was well I did so; for when we had rounded the promontory far enough to get her within view, we saw her not only surrounded by nearly twenty large boats of the Hellenes, but the object towards which some fifty other boats were making their way with the greatest speed.
