“Vile sins indeed,” I said, “more particularly the second. The wise always think of themselves first, and the holy never love more than one woman, and her not too much, which perhaps is why the wise and the holy are so hateful and so dull. Bring this Philo to me; he is one whom I should wish to know.”
In the end Philo came, though whether because my message had reached him, or because of the advancing storm, I am not certain. At least he came, and as he bowed before me, made a certain secret sign whereby I knew that he was a worshipper of Isis and one of high degree, though not of the highest, since when I tried him with that sign he could not answer. Still his rank in our great company was enough, and thenceforward we spoke to each other under the seal of the goddess, or as our phrase went in those days “within the shadow of her wings,” as brother and sister might, or rather as mother and son.
That is, we did this after I had proved him further and brought to his mind the fate of those who betray the goddess and her ministers upon earth.
This Philo told me in few words, that although the trireme was Egyptian and named Hapi after the god of Nile, for this voyage she was under charter to Tenes and for the most part manned with Sidonians, also with low fellows from Cyprus and the coast-ports. These like the Phœnician guards of Tenes, of whom there were fifty on the vessel, worshipped other gods than those of Egypt, that is, such of them as worshipped any gods at all.
Many of these men, Philo said warningly, murmured because a priestess of Isis was on board their ship, which they thought would anger the Phœnician gods of whom the images had been set upon the prow, as might lawfully be done when a vessel was hired by Tyre or Sidon.
I answered laughing that as he and I knew, Isis could hold her own against Baal, Astarte, and all their company. Then, changing my mien, I asked him suddenly what he meant.
“Only this, Holy one,” he answered: “That if by chance the ship came into danger—and I like not the signs of the sky and the moaning of the black north wind with rocks not two leagues away upon our lee, then I say if this ship came into danger, as might chance this very night, for here gales grow suddenly—well, Holy one, you might be in danger also. In such cases, Holy one, sometimes the Phœnicians demand a sacrifice to the Cabiri, the great gods of the sea whom we do not worship.”
“Is it so?” I answered coldly. “Then tell them that those who demand sacrifices often furnish the victims. Have no fear, my brother-in-the-goddess. But if trouble comes, call to me to help you.”
Then I stretched out to him the sistrum that was part of my ornaments of office in which I had been brought aboard that ship, and he kissed it with his lips and went about his business.
Scarce had he gone when the black north wind began to blow. It blew fearfully, rising hour by hour and even minute by minute, till the gale was terrible. The rowers could no longer row, for the great seas broke their oars, of which the handles struck them, hurling them backward from the benches, and the sail they tried to hoist upon the mast was torn away and went flapping down the wind like a wounded gull. Thus continually the Hapi was driven in toward the coast of Syria where, still some miles away, the moonlight when it broke out between the clouds showed the white surf of breakers foaming on the iron rocks of Carmel.