“Hear, Baal! Hear, Moloch!” chorussed the crew; and [pg 384]gathering courage from necessity seized boat-hooks, oars, dirks, and all other handy weapons for their attack.
But below the released prisoners had not been idle. Never—Glaucon knew it—had his brain been clearer, his invention more fertile than now, and Phormio was not too old to cease to be a valiant helper. The cabin was small. A few spears and swords stood in the rack about the mast. The athlete bolted the sliding hatch-cover, and tore down the weapons.
“Release your wife,” he ordered Phormio; “yonder sea chest is strong. Drag it over to bar the hatch-ladder. Work as Titans if you hope for another sun.”
“Ai, ai, ai!” screeched Lampaxo, who had released Lars’s fingers only to resume her din, “we all perish. They are hewing the hatch-cover with their axes. Hera preserve us! The wood splinters. We die.”
“We have no time to die,” called the athlete, “but only to save Hellas.”
A dozen blows beat the frail hatch-cover to splinters. A dark face with grinning teeth showed itself. A heavy ballast stone grazed the athlete’s shoulder, but the intruder fell back with a gurgling in his throat, his hands clutching the empty air. Glaucon had sent a heavy spear clean through him.
More ballast stones, but the Titanic Alcmæonid had torn a mattress from a bunk, and held it as effective shield. By main force the others dragged the chest across to the hatchway, making the entrance doubly narrow. Vainly Hasdrubal stormed at his men to rush down boldly. They barely dared to fling stones and darts, so fast their adversary sped them back, and to the mark.
“A god! a god! We fight against Heaven!” bleated the seamen.
Their groans were answered by the screechings of Lampaxo through the port-hole and the taunts of Phormio.
“Sing, sing, pretty Pisinoë, sweetest of the sirens,” tossed the fishmonger, playing his part at Glaucon’s side; “lure that dear penteconter a little nearer. And you, brave, gentle sirs, don’t try ‘to flay a skinned dog’ by thrusting down here. Your hands are just itching for the nails, I warrant!”