Her fingers tremble with excitement.

Her breath catches:

“What if they’d broken into our house? It would have been awful. Aren’t you proud of Phaon?”

The whole misadventure leaves me cold. I think of the burial of our dead. I see the blood rushing down the neck of the wounded man. There was blood on Phaon’s sword. He and Alcaeus had bellowed over their victory. Victory?

I pushed away the pirate’s sword, and said: “It would be better if there were no pirates.”

Gyrinno is disgusted.

What is wrong with man? Is man’s piratical weakness an instinct? Women don’t go in for piracy. We know the value of living and appreciate life’s perilous­ness. We give birth to kindness...each baby is kindness itself.

I have forbidden Gyrinno to keep the sword: she must get rid of it, give it away, throw it away, I don’t care.

P

Rain, rain, rain.