A creaking from the mainmast told that it might fall at any moment. Passengers and crew redoubled their shouts to Poseidon and to Zeus of Ægina. A fat passenger staggered from his cabin, a huge money-bag bound to his belt,—as if gold were the safest spar to cling to in that boiling deep. Others, less frantic, gave commissions one to another, in case one perished and another escaped.
“You alone have no messages, pray no prayers, show no fear!” spoke a grave, elderly man to Glaucon, as both clutched the swaying bulwark.
“And wherefore?” came the bitter answer; “what is left me to fear? I desire no life hereafter. There can be no consciousness without sad memory.”
“You are very young to speak thus.”
“But not too young to have suffered.”
A wave dashed one of the steering rudders out of the grip of the sailor guiding it. The rush of water swept him overboard. The Solon lurched. The wind smote the straining mainsail, and the shivered mainmast tore from its stays and socket. Above the bawling of wind and water sounded the crash. The ship, with only a small sail upon the poop, blew about into the trough of the sea. A mountain of green water thundered over the prow, bearing away men and wreckage. The “governor,” Brasidas’s mate, flung away the last steering tiller.
“The Solon is dying, men,” he trumpeted through his hands. “To the boat! Save who can!”
The pinnace set in the waist was cleared away by frantic [pg 154]hands and axes. Ominous rumblings from the hold told how the undergirding could not keep back the water. The pinnace was dragged to the ship’s lee and launched in the comparative calm of the Solon’s broadside. Pitifully small was the boat for five and twenty. The sailors, desperate and selfish, leaped in first, and watched with jealous eyes the struggles of the passengers to follow. The noisy merchant slipped in the leap, and they heard him scream once as the wave swallowed him. Brasidas stood in the bow of the pinnace, clutching a sword to cut the last rope. The boat filled to the gunwales. The spray dashed into her. The sailors bailed with their caps. Another passenger leaped across, whereat the men yelled and drew their dirks.
“Three are left. Room for one more. The rest must swim!”
Glaucon stood on the poop. Was life still such a precious thing to some that they must clutch for it so desperately? He had even a painful amusement in watching the others. Of himself he thought little save to hope that under the boiling sea was rest and no return of memory. Then Brasidas called him.