The Arrows of Hercules
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Arrows of Hercules». Краткое содержание книги:
“Exciting and quite believable adventures.”—Classical World
“Rousing piece of fiction...pace is rapid and unrelenting.” —The Arizona Republic
The splashing stopped. Alexis' head appeared. He caught the gunwale of the harbor boat and clung, gasping and coughing water.
"Where's Ethbaal?" shouted Zopyros.
Alexis wordlessly pointed downward. The people on the deck of the Muttumalein shouted advice to do this, that, and the other thing. Zopyros doffed his cloak, tunic, and sandals and dove naked over the side. He opened his eyes and swam around under the water. In the green-gold shimmer between the sandy sea bottom and the black hull, furred with green plumes of seaweed and fanged with white clusters of barnacles, Zopyros sighted Ethbaal. The captain lay on the white sand, motionless save for a slight to-and-fro movement imparted to the body by the water.
Zopyros had to surface for breath. He came up too steeply, cracked his head on the hull, and scratched a hand on a barnacle. But a kick took him out from under the ship. He trod water for a few long, gasping breaths, ignoring the shouts from above. Then he upended and dove again. This time he caught an ankle and pulled Ethbaal to the surface. Korinna's slave dove in beside him. A rope was passed clown from the deck, and by this means first the captain and then the two swimmers were hauled up.
They laid the captain across the rail to force the water out of his lungs. They fanned him, massaged him, and tried to pour wine down his throat to revive him. Alexis, standing aside and wringing the water from his wet shirt, said:
"I think you're wasting your time. He hit his head on the gunwale of the harbor boat as we fell."
The body remained limp and cold. The passengers, drawing back a little, fell silent save for a mutter of prayers and incantations. At length Asto the mate cried: "He's dead," and burst into tears. "He was a hard master and more than a little mad. But he was the bravest and most skillful skipper of Motya. He brought us rich trade, and we shan't see another like him soon. It's all your fault, too." He glared at Alexis.
Alexis was busy toweling his nakedness with the rented cloak. Tossing it over one shoulder, he said: "Oh, to the crows with that stuff! He brought it on himself with all his mystery about the cabin. Somebody was sure to try to peek. What is in there, anyway?"
"Go and look," said Asto.
"We-ell, I don't know—it's really of no interest..."
"Go ahead! You started this; you finish it. You can't hurt Ethbaal now."
Under the stares of the whole ship's company, the Velian approached the cabin and gingerly untied the flaps, as if he expected a lion to issue forth. At last he bent over, put his head through the narrow opening, and said:
"Well, I'll be an Aethiopian!"
He turned a blank, bewildered face back toward the spectators. Zopyros, whom Korinna was helping to dry himself, called: "What is it?"
"There's nothing; nothing in there at all!" As several spectators made gestures to ward off the evil eye, Alexis continued: "What is this? Witchcraft? Or was this wonderful woman a figment of Ethbaal's imagination?"
As he stepped forward with his cloak trailing, people parted so as not to be touched by him. Asto said:
"That is right. Ethbaal did once have an Egyptian wife, before I sailed with him. One day on the Lykian coast, she left the ship to bathe in a secluded bay, and some of the local louts came upon her. After the usual rape they cut her throat and left her for Ethbaal to find. So"—Asto spread his hands—"he went slowly mad. But he harmed no one so long as we respected his fancy, and you had no right to rouse him. As I am now master of this ship, you shall have your just desert."
As the Velian, sudden alarm on his face, moved towards the rail, Asto rapped out a command in Punic. Several sailors threw themselves upon Alexis and held him fast.
"Hold on there!" said Zopyros. "What are you going to do?"
"Hang a murderer, my lords, that's all," said Asto.
"Wait! This man may not be any hero, but nobody's convicted him of any crime."
"I convict him. I am now captain, and on shipboard what the captain says is clone."
"Not in a Hellenic harbor." A sidelong glance showed Zopyros that Segovax was quietly rummaging in his luggage for his sword, and that Korinna's bodyguard had grasped his spear. "Look, friend, let's not quarrel over this. We all want your first voyage to be smooth."
"Well then? What punishment do you advise?"
"Let's all sit down and discuss the case. If we decide a crime has been committed, we'll lay information before the magistrates of Tempsa and bear witness. Since they don't know the people involved, they can judge the case more justly than any one of us."
Asto seemed about to demur but, seeing the weapons, thought better of it. The sailors tied Alexis to the mast. Asto and the free men among the passengers talked the case over through the morning, while Alexis looked unhappy in his bonds. For some time Asto held out for punishing Alexis; but at last he yielded to the others' arguments.
"If he'd really tried to seduce the captain's wife," said Zopyros, "that would be different. But there was no wife to seduce."
In the end they agreed that, while it had been wrong of Alexis to look into the cabin, it had hardly been a crime. Moreover, Alexis could not be fairly blamed for trying to keep a madman from killing him. The death of Ethbaal had been due to the ire of some god, or the mysterious workings of Fate. The sailors released Alexis on the latter's promise to pay for Ethbaal's grave marker.
"Do you mean to take the body to Motya?" Zopyros asked Asto.
"No. We are not so fussy about corpses as you Greeks. Seamen often die on far shores; we can't bring them all home. We'll bury him deeply and hire a local mason to carve him a simple stela. Then tomorrow we shall sail for Messana."
Zopyros noted a new decisiveness and air of command about the hitherto gentle mate. "What will you do then, Asto?"
"Take the Muttumalein back to Ethbaal's partners in Motya, of; course. Trade must go on. Maybe they'll give me a ship of my own. In any case, I shall want letters from you and the other gentlemen to confirm my story."
Later, Korinna said: "Zopyros, you were wonderful, the way you stopped that dispute before it got started. How did you ever have the courage?"
"Between you and me, I was frightened witless. But I saw what would happen if I didn't step in. One of these racial feuds would arise. After threats and insults, there'd be a battle, either right then or—what would be worse—after we'd put to sea. The Hellenes would be on one side and the Phoenicians on the other, with Segovax whacking at everybody with his great sword for the fun of fighting. Being part Persian and having lived among the Phoenicians, I was the logical peacemaker."
Three – TARAS
The red sun dipped behind the Hills of Poseidon as the Muttumalein nosed into the shelter of the Sickle, the curved peninsula embracing Messana's harbor. The yellow sail came flapping down; grunting sailors heaved at the oars. When the ship was tied up, the passengers filed ashore and separated, with handshaking, back-slapping, and waving.
Zopyros, thrusting his way through the swarm of donkey boys, beggars, pimps, guides, drunken sailors, broken-down whores, and idlers, picked out a likely-looking stripling and asked:
"Do you know where Xanthos son of Glaukos, the landlord, lives?"
"Kai malista!"
Zopyros gave the boy a sheet of papyrus and a bronze penny, with a promise of another when the message was delivered. The boy ran off with the letter, which Zopyros had composed to give Korinna's family time to prepare themselves before the travelers appeared with Nestor's body.