The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

"We were beached on a rocky island to rest the crew and pick up water. Captain Mavaen was quarreling with the boatswain. Although I could not understand their speech, I gathered that this officer had seen Mavaen thrust me into his cabin and now taxed the captain with perfidy towards his crew. To a sea thief it is a dreadful offense to secrete a part of the loot for one's own benefit, instead of throwing it into the common store to be divided at the share-out. Captain Mavaen had not only done this; he had also risked the freebooters' lives by keeping a bulky, heavy piece of loot—meaning me—aboard when the rest was abandoned.

"The boatswain, therefore, challenged Mavaen to fight him to the death. So the pirates climbed down over the bow, hustling me with them. They marked out a place for the fight, and Mavaen and the boatswain went at it with swords and bucklers.

"For a time they circled, leaping, slashing, thrusting, and parrying, without either's gaining the advantage. Then Mavaen lightly wounded the boatswain on the leg. The boatswain could no longer leap so swiftly, and soon Mavaen wounded him again, on the left shoulder.

"Now the boatswain had much ado to defend himself, as he could no longer move his buckler swiftly enough to guard his vitals. But he fought on, limping and gasping. The crew began to cheer Captain Mavaen and urge him to finish the fellow off, though methinks they would have cheered as loudly for the boatswain if he had held the vantage.

"Mavaen began a mighty attack, slashing and thrusting and striking at his antagonist with his shield. He drove the boatswain around the circle like a dog driving sheep. I hoped to see the boatswain soon fall; for, while both were bloody ruffians, at least Mavaen had tried to save my life.

"But then a gull, flying overhead, let fall a bit of offal, which struck Mavaen in the face. As the disconcerted captain gave back, the other plunged his sword into Mavaen's breast. The captain fell to the sand and soon gasped out his life.

"The pirates chose the boatswain to be their new captain. But then another dispute arose. For some who knew Greek had understood the curse which Klea had hurled at the captain; and it was plain to the veriest dunce, from the act of the gull, that the gods had taken a hand in the fight. Fearing lest the curse should damn them all, they were troubled as to what to do with me. One faction was for cutting my throat then and there; another for returning me to my home, at whatever risk; and a third for speedily selling me.

"Whilst the argument raged, another ship drew up offshore and anchored. The pirates flew to arms, but the new vessel neither attacked nor showed fear. She was a Phoenician trader, of the kind sometimes called a mussel boat, with more oars than a regular merchantman but fewer than a war galley. We could see from the shore that her people were well-armed. After some shouting across the water, her captain came ashore in the ship's boat.

"This captain, a big ox of a man in a shirt of lizard mail, said he was Baalram of Arvad. Seeing the pirates beached, he had bethought him that they might have some lately acquired merchandise to sell. Lest they get any clever ideas, he was not in the least afraid of them, because his ship had a beak like that of a warship and could smash the stern of the beached pirate craft as easily as a man crumples a sheet of papyrus.

"Since their cruise had not proved very profitable, the pirates were glad to dispose of their remaining loot so quickly. They sold me to Baalram, who took me back to Phoenicia. I was sold again, and taken to Egypt, where I was bought by a Persian colonel on his way to command the frontier fortress of Buhen on the Upper Nile.

"I had been a few months in Buhen, working as lady's maid to the colonel's wife, when the Kushites captured the fortress by a sudden attack at dawn. The colonel died sword in hand before the spears of a hundred foes, and the women—those not butchered in the excitement—were dragged away across the desert. General Puerma, who commanded the raid, set his eye on me; and that is how I came to Meroê."

"How did you find Puerma?"

"Not bad; certainly preferable to the cruel Baalram or the peevish Persian colonel. He summoned me to his bed but once. I do not think he liked me much that way, preferring his dark beauties. When he dismissed me, he said: 'You are a good girl, Phyllis, though I do not think that armies will march and thrones will topple on your account. You are too sweet and placid. Some day I shall find you a husband, of a good steady type like yourself.' " She began to weep. "And now, I fear, such hope is forever beyond me. I was betrothed to a rich youth of Aineia, but even if with the help of the gods I regained my home, his family would no longer even look at me after my shameful fate. I shall never have a home of my own."

Myron, too, wiped away a tear. For a wild instant he thought of offering her marriage himself; but prudence prevailed. No sensible, rational, temperate Hellene, he told himself, ever married for love alone, and certainly not for pity. Marriage was a serious matter, involving property and family, not to be entered into on a mere gust of emotion.