The sun was so brazen off the sea that the other galley had come well over the horizon before the lookout cried its presence. It was also eastbound. Eodan grew tense. "Stand by to come about!" he said.
"Row down there, you clotheads!" bellowed Tjorr. "You may be rowing to your fortunes!"
Eodan took the steering oar himself. It was maddeningly slow, the way they crept over miles. He thought, once, that if he built himself a galley in the North it would not be so heavy and round as these—yes, open decks, so a man could pull his oar beneath the sky....
"She's a big one," said Demetrios. "Too big for the likes of you." Sweat glistened on his nose; his eyes rolled in unease.
Eodan felt the old captain was right. The ship he neared had half again the length of his, and its freeboard towered over his deck. Nonetheless, it had no ram, no war engines at all that he could see, though he only knew such by description. And he had eaten too much rage the last few days. It must out somehow.
"We will go nearer," he said. "We have decided nothing yet."
"We'll decide to slink off again, that's what we'll do," muttered Quintus, down on the main deck. "A coward as well as a tyrant, that's our skipper."
One or two nodded furtively.
Still they edged closer. The captain of the other galley hailed: "Ho, there! This is the Bona Dea of Puteoli, bound for Miletus with a cargo of wine! Who are you?"
Eodan repeated his old lie. "Well," replied the stranger, "give us some sea room, then."