But the man was not daunted. He renewed his effort to cut the rope asunder, an attempt in which he was foiled by receiving a second arrow in his throat.
"Shall we shoot them all?" asked Bichri.
"No; wait a bit!" I said; "they look sturdy fellows, and ought to fetch a good price at Carthage; we may as well do an extra stroke of business."
Again I called to them to lay down their arms and to surrender, but they made no sign of submission. One of them hurled his lance at me, just grazing my shoulder; but another, apparently convinced that the case was desperate, jumped overboard, and as we were a long distance out at sea, was probably drowned.
To face [page 140].
Fifteen men still remained, and I made Hanno and Chryseis bespeak their attention in their own language, and thus succeeded in bringing them to terms. Hanno, by my instruction, promised them that their lives should be spared, and that they should be conveyed to a land where they might earn good pay as soldiers of a king, and have good treatment besides. After a while they yielded, and laid down their arms, which were immediately hauled up on deck; and then a rope was thrown down, and one by one the men, crestfallen and agitated, climbed on board.
The remainder of our assailants were now flying in complete disorder. Night was coming on, and to them a voyage in the darkness was scarcely less terrible than a second battle. Although some of the boats were quite uninjured, we could see that several of them had sustained so much damage that they could hardly make any progress, and that more than one had been set on fire by the combustibles discharged by the Dagon. From the distant shore we could hear the lamentations of the women bewailing the fate of the drowned and slain.
Hamilcar and Hasdrubal obtained my leave to go in pursuit of the fugitives, and I told off thirty men under Bichri and Chamai to go with them. While they were absent I sent some men to take in tow the two boats that had been abandoned by their crews, and found that they contained a number of dead bodies, the whole of which I had stripped and thrown into the sea. The two ships returned very shortly, bringing three prizes and twenty-two prisoners.