It would seem as if the fate of this wild adventurer should have brought pause to any who had thought to do even as he, and to call upon the wind in aid in passage of the sea paths, but with me it was not so. Eagerly had I noted the feats of Neco, and it had been borne in upon me that there was a degree of wisdom in his madness. Even his death, of which we became assured, brought me no fear. I, too, would seek to learn what might be done to make the wind our servant, and I set about this swiftly, being to my wonder well supported by both Malchus and Aradnus, who sometimes showed less hardihood than I, but who now, strangely enough, became as deeply lost in this dream of a new conquest for the toilers of the sea. We devised a curious plan whereby we thought we might try the issue with less risk of our lives than had been faced by Neco.
We knew that the greater danger from the wind was that the boat might capsize in a storm, and our first care was to avoid this risk as best we might, though we were resolved to test these dreaded sea-blasts to the utmost. Truly we were half mad, but the zest of the thing had grown upon us. If the risk were great, the stake was great as well, and we fell together under some sort of spell of joyous madness over the prospect of we knew not what. And this was our crafty plan!
“I, too, would seek to learn what might be done to make the wind our servant”
Often when ships laden with timber had been cast upon the rocks and crushed, those in dire peril had escaped by lashing together as many of the floating beams as they could, making a raft which would not easily overturn, and so drifting by good fortune to some place of safe landing. Our ship, so we devised, should be a raft; yet more than that; it should be a sort of boat as well, but one unsinkable, and thus we built it, working long with our two slaves, and hewing and spiking the seasoned cedar timbers, of which there was a great store at hand for purchase and of which we owned a part. For many days we hewed and shaped and fashioned until we had a great raft some thirty forearm cubits long, more than seven times the length of a tall man, and more than half its length in width. Of double depth were the dried timbers and so mortised and interset and spiked together that the whole was as one great piece of wood not to be torn apart by the mightiest seas. Caulked it was, though needlessly, for we knew that the water would often come aboard, and all about the sides was raised a stout timbered wall of the height of a man and having many openings at its bottom that the water might escape and we might walk dry shod when seas were calm. So much we allowed the strange craft the nature of a boat that it was tapered to a prow at either end and, furthermore, was hewn so that each prow swept upward from beneath, that the boat might rise on any sloping shore. At each end provision was made for a long steering oar such as we used on the biremes. Upon either side, amidships, was erected a stout mast between which the broad sail of strongest linen was stretched flatly, and in the centre was a shorter mast to which were bound many things which were to form our cargo. There were other short posts as well, placed here and there to serve a like purpose. We carried our arms and much food, and many lashed casks of water we provided, and certain chests of trinkets and some of more worthy things to barter; for we could not guess what might be our landing-place should our plans fail. It was decided to attempt the voyage to Yatnan and thence homeward as our first venture. So, one afternoon when the sun shone most fairly and the wind was from the east, we cast off the long mooring-rope and were blown gently away to sea, while half of Akko stood looking upon us curiously or jeering at our uncouth vessel.
We were steering for Yatnan, as we thought, but many are the things in the laps of the gods.
Like how many things is the sea! It is like a woman, soft and smiling and caressing, at least upon the surface; it is like a stallion pawing and tossing his white mane; it is like a green forest bending and heaving before the wind; it is like an unbounded sheet of shimmering, supple glass, supine beneath a calm; and, at last, it is like a herd of wild beasts, roaring and hungry and devouring. Let none count our Mediterranean as harmless as compared with the mighty western ocean. The leopard is more treacherous than the lion! Much we knew already of the changing sea, but much more were we to learn!
The eastern wind, still strong and even, bore us steadily, though far from swiftly, away from our own coast until the shore line became dim, and, since it was so squarely astern of us, we found no difficulty in steering straight for Yatnan. Even with our laggard movement we should reach the island by daybreak, and this sailing seemed, in sooth, an easy matter. My companions laughed and jested, and the two slaves, relieved of all rowing, were agrin and happy. Then the breeze abated somewhat and the wind began veering here and there, and the raft-ship lost something of its headway, while the oar with which I myself was steering became more and more an ineffective thing. Most irresponsive to guidance was yet our new ship upon which we had so laboured in the building. There arose a little black cloud in the far northwest, and, somehow, I liked it not. I wished for the bireme!
At last the breeze died away altogether and we lay there rocked as gently as a first-born by its mother. The little cloud in the northwest was becoming somewhat too lusty for my taste, but as yet there was no sign of really dangerous weather. So we swung and swayed until the sun was low down in the west, and then the lightness changed to something more sombre very quickly, for the cloud had extended itself ambitiously, and the sun’s last slanting rays we failed to get. The breeze, too, had returned, coming this time from the north and having a greater and increasing vigour to it. The raft began to act with even less obedience to the steering oar, strain I ever so hardly, for the sail now took the wind endwise alone, and this could not avail. Not long did this continue. The waves had begun to rise, though by no means roughly, and the end of the vessel where I laboured was caught and twirled by one of them so smartly that it lay in a new way, and in a moment the wind had caught a hold upon the sail again and we were turned fairly about and headed for the south, stern foremost, if, indeed, we might be said to have a stern, since the ends of the craft were alike in every way. We had but one resource. The steering oar was shifted from what had been the stern to the end now made so, and we were sailing again, with oaths or prayers in our mouths according to the impulse of each. My own mood was not greatly either for oath or prayer now. As the uncouth sail filled or tautened and the boat leaped forward as clumsily as it did strenuously, the wild, fierce sense of abandon and utter daring came back upon me in a wave and I whooped aloud in zest of it, my comrades catching the wild unction and yelling as loudly in the same headstrong spirit. Often since have I thought of that audacious moment and wondered if such lifted moods might not be sometimes but the flaming out of a new man and a greater one, to make the most of dangerous opportunity? Have not the best deeds been often but the issue of an outbreak, foolhardy and desperate it may have seemed, of some strong man inspired by that for which he could give no reason? And, launched into some course of hazard, has not man often been so sustained throughout it that he has won his way, laughing or cursing at every jeopardy, until he has accomplished that which was good for him and for his kind as well? Truly the gods have curious ways!
So drove we southward half through the night, when again the wind changed, this time carrying us to the westward, though so gradually that Malchus, who had replaced me at the oar while I lay sleeping, held it so skilfully and firmly that the stern was still the stern, with which feat he was much delighted. With the morning the sun was shining again, though the wind had not abated.