Soon the strait opened out again to the south. We crept past the Heraion, rising back from the beach, and saw Myron's colossal statues of Zeus, Athena, and Herakles standing about the shrine. As the sun was setting behind Mount Kerkis, we came into Samos Harbor and dropped our anchor weights behind the huge breakwater. The city is built on flat ground around the harbor, but tiers of white-plastered houses extend up the hillside like rows of marble benches in a theater.
The whole hundred and sixty sweating and stinking rowers swarmed out on deck, climbed down the bow, and plunged into the shallow water, splashing and yelling. Then they waded to shore and went into the town, their wet rags clinging to them. They shouted boasts of what they would do, and how many times, to the whores of Samos.
Small boats put out, some with merchandise, some merely offering to ferry folk to land. I went ashore with my friends. We toured the town, where Pyrron showed us the birthplace of Pythagoras. We also visited the temple of Hera, which we had seen from the ship, but we did not have time to climb the mountain to see the famous aqueduct bored by the tyrant Polykrates through the bowels of the hill.
The next day we headed westward. We coasted around the north of Ikaria and stopped for the night at the island's only town, Oinoe. This, however, is such a wretched little village that few of us went ashore at all.
We left the Sporades behind and drove west into the Aegean. Polyphron told me he meant to pass between Delos and Tenos.
Poseidon, however, had other ideas. Shortly before noon, clouds swept over the sky from the north, and Boreas howled in our ears. The waves, already choppy, rose still further. The ship broke into a hard trot, jerking and groaning. Presently the oars of the lower bank were pulled in so that the oar holes could be stopped up. Sailors formed a chain to hand bailing buckets up from the oar deck. To my anxious questions, Polyphron replied:
"I like it not. It looks like an Etesian storm."
The elephant squealed and moaned. The motion of the ship made him stagger about his pen, bumping against the sides. Every time he did so, the ship shuddered and tipped. The Indians were in the pen with him, shouting endearments over the roar of the wind to soothe him. They had to keep skipping about in the ankle-deep water to avoid being trampled.
Polyphron hastened to the pen. He said to me: "By Zeus, 'Ipparch, you'd better do something before that monster charges through the side of the ship and sinks us!"
Kanadas slipped on the watery floor of the pen and sat down. Aias made one of his lunges. I was sure the elephant would tread the Indian flat. But Kanadas, with a mighty wrench, threw himself to one side as the elephant's feet came clown.
"Kanadas!" I shouted. "Can you make the elephant lie down?"
The Indians held a brief but hot discussion in their own tongue. Then they shouted: "Leto!"
The elephant knelt and lowered himself to the floor of his pen. There he lay with the water washing about him. He squealed and gurgled whilst the Indians petted and praised him.
The wind howled louder. Gusts of rain lashed the deck. My people huddled at the stern, where the cabins gave some protection. The women and children had been put into the cabins lest they be washed overboard. Vardanas, gray of face, clung to a piece of woodwork and muttered prayers to Auramasdas between retching spells.
The only one who seemed undisturbed was Pyrron. The philosopher clung to the rail, looking out into the raging seas with keen interest as the wind whipped his shirt and fluttered his hair and beard. As I came up to him, clutching the rail to keep from being swept away, he said:
"A fascinating phenomenon, the sea. For instance, why does it stay the same depth, when so many rivers constantly augment its volume?"
"By all the gods, how keep you so calm?" I shouted. "Belike we're on our way to Poseidon's realm, elephant and all!"
Pyrron pointed to the pigpen. One of the pigs stood with its legs braced against the motion of the ship, eating sturdily into the pile of garbage that had been dumped in the pen.
"A wise man could take a lesson in serenity from that young fellow!" he shouted back.
Polyphron blew his trumpet. Naked sailors picked up the light jury mast that lay on the main deck and tried to step it in a small socket forward, abaft the forecastle. They staggered about, wrestling with the mast, screaming at one another, and hauling on ropes. Several times they almost had it in the hole, when a pitch of the ship threw their plan awry. More than once I looked to see the whole lot swept overboard as wave crests slashed across the deck, covering it with water several fingers deep.
Polyphron stood on the forecastle, shouting directions. At last the stick went home, and the sailors secured it by stays to posts on the deck. Then they began trying to hoist a small sail. There were many failures and tangles of ropes before they got the thing up. It was not much bigger than a cloak, but it seemed to suit Polyphron. And indeed, the ship's gait settled down to an easy canter as soon as the sail had filled with wind.
Then Polyphron hurried to the main deck and clambered down to the oar deck, where he shouted more orders. The rowing stopped. Pair by pair, the long oars of the upper bank were pulled in through the oar holes.
Curious, I risked a dash across the deck to the hatch to see how this was done. The stench and din in the oar deck were frightful, but there was a kind of mad order about it. For each group of five men to draw a thirty-cubit oar in through the oar hole took careful timing so as not to fall foul of their comrades. With the ship pitching so violently, this became difficult. A couple of oars had broken; rowers sprawled on the deck, adding their cries to the hubbub. Water raced back and forth along the low outer parts of the deck with each pitch of the ship.
Little by little the captain brought order out of the confusion. In time the last oar had been stowed and lashed down. Then Polyphron let rowers come on deck, a few at a time, for a breath of fresh air.
They grinned and cracked jokes as they did so. I decided that professional rowers were all men of mighty thews and puny wits, without the sense to be frightened by their deadly peril.
I started for the stern. A monstrous wave washed right over the poop, drenching those huddled there. Water raced over the main deck. I clung to the rail and should have made out well enough, but Pyrron lost his grip and shot down the edge of the deck, knocking my feet from under me. I managed to keep my grasp on the rail, and clung with my legs dangling overside as water rushed over me. I thought my grip was weakening when a strong hand hauled me back to safety. It was Inaudos. As he led me back to the quarter-deck he bawled in my ear:
"See, I save your life, as I say!"
Up forward, Polyphron and a sailor caught Pyrron as he was being washed overboard and hauled him back by his ankles. They righted him and dragged him back to the quarter-deck. Polyphron bellowed:
"Now stay there, you two idiots! I've enough worries without 'aving to fish you out of the deep!"
When I got my wind back and saw that my friend was safe, I asked Inaudos: "Have you ever been on a ship before?"
"No. What of it? Kordians fear nought on land or sea."
Except your wives, methought. With the oar ports all blocked, the sailors bailing, and the small sail keeping our bow downwind, the ship steadied. Great seas raced up behind us; it looked as if each wave would overwhelm us. But the poop deck rode high; the wave passed under us, hissing and boiling; and the stern dropped into the trough that foreran the next.
Polyphron reeled aft to the quarter-deck to assure himself that the steersmen were holding hard to the tiller that worked the steering oars. Then he tumbled down the ladder again.