“THE DEAD PURSUE ME.” Page 61.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SWORD OF THE DEAD.
“It is well done,” said Eboracus in an undertone to the physician; “Otherwise there had been the cross for you and me. The thong broke.”
“I severed it,” said Luke.
“That I saw,” said the slave, “I shall report that it yielded. One must obey a master even to the risk of the cross. Did’st see the noble Lamia, how ready he was? He assumed the mask of my dead master and we have slipped by and sent a shiver through the whole company of the Trireme, and the August too, I trow,—for they have thought us the Ship of the Dead.”
After a pause he said,—“In my home we hold that all souls go to sea in a phantom vessel; and sail away to the West, to the Isles of the Blessed. At night a dark ship with a sail as a thundercloud comes to the shore, and those near can hear the dead in trains go over the beach and enter the ghostly vessel, till she is laden, and then she departs.”
The Artemis made her way without disaster to Rhegium, and thence coasted up Italy to the port of Rome. She had gained on the Imperial vessel, that was delayed at Brundusium to collect the scattered fleet. Nero would not land until he reached Neapolis, and then not till all his wreaths and golden apples, as well as his entire wardrobe of costumes and properties had arrived.
Then only did he come ashore, and he did so to commence a triumphal progress through the Peninsula, the like of which was never seen before nor will be seen again.