"My wife and I have before now braved tempests alone in our boat, when we made for my ship, anchored far out from shore on account of bad weather."
"But now you are maimed," answered the interpreter. "How will you be able to manage!"
"One hand is enough for the tiller. My companion will raise the sail—the woman's business, since it is a sort of cloth," gaily added the mariner to give the Romans faith in him.
"Go ahead then," said the interpreter. "May the gods direct you."
The bark, pushed into the waves by several soldiers, rocked a minute under the flappings of the sail, which had not yet caught the wind. But soon, held by Meroë, while her husband managed the tiller, the sail filled, and bellied out to the blast. The boat leaned gently, and seemed to fly over the crests of the waves like a sea-bird. Meroë, dressed in her mariner's costume, stayed at the prow, her black hair streaming in the wind. Occasionally the white foam of the ocean, bursting from the prow of the boat, flung its stinging froth in the young woman's noble face. Albinik knew these coasts as the ferryman of the solitary moors of Brittany knows their least detours. The bark seemed to play with the high waves. From time to time the couple saw in the distance the tent of Caesar, recognizable by its purple flaps, and saw gleaming in the sun the gold and silver which decked the armor of his generals.
"Oh, Caesar!—scourge of Gaul—the most cruel, the most debauched of men!" exclaimed Meroë. "You do not know that this frail bark, which at this moment you are following in the distance with your eyes, bears two of your most desperate enemies. You do not know that they have beforehand given over their lives to Hesus in the hope of making to Teutates, god of journeys by land and by sea, an offering worthy of him—an offering of several thousand Romans, sinking in the depths of the sea. It is with hands raised to you, thankful and happy, O, Hesus, that we shall disappear in the bottom of the deep, with the enemies of our sacred Gaul!"
The bark of Albinik and Meroë, almost grazing the rocks and glancing over the surges along the dangerous ashore, sometimes drew away from, sometimes approached the bank. The mariner's companion, seeing him sad and thoughtful, said:
"Still brooding, Albinik! Everything favors our projects. The Roman general is no longer suspicious; your skill this morning will decide him to accept your services; and to-morrow, mayhap, you will pilot the galleys of our enemies——"
"Yes, I will pilot them to the bottom, where they will be swallowed up, and we with them."
"What a magnificent offering to the gods! Ten thousand Romans, perhaps!"