“And where are the slaves?” enquired Conops.
“On the stable.”
Lycon poled the boat between the buildings. Suddenly it was shaken from stem to stern by a strange, mysterious shock, which congealed the blood in Lycon’s veins. This shock was repeated, though the boat was floating in water three ells deep and had not run against anything.
At the same moment a cry of horror ran from roof to roof.
“Seiei, seiei! The earth is shaking, it’s an earthquake.”
Lycon now understood that the day’s prodigies, the noise and the flood, were connected with what was occurring.
Though neither of the shocks had lasted longer than the short time required for a man to raise his arms and let them fall again, the result was terrible; two of the houses in the street sank crashing into the water with the hapless people on their roofs. Fortunately the ruins formed a heap large enough to enable most of the inmates to keep themselves above the tide until the boats could come to their assistance.
Lycon perceived that there was no time to lose. Anxiously as his own heart throbbed, he encouraged Dorion and Conops. They took off Paegnion, though not without difficulty and, uniting their strength, urged the boat towards the women’s apartment.
But between the buildings the dark, muddy water moved in a powerful stream and, as Dorion unluckily broke his oar, the boat was swept with irresistible force past the corner of the women’s apartment out into the garden. Here it struck against the tops of some bushes and suddenly struck fast between the trunks of two trees concealed at the bottom by the water and at the top by leaves. It required a long time and much exertion to release it from this position, and the task was not accomplished until after the water had reached a level in the flooded streets, so that the current was less swift. When they at last succeeded in getting back to the women’s apartment, they found it impossible to save Simonides and his daughter without the help of a ladder.
Lycon was beginning to get impatient over these delays, for the day was waning.