"How goes it?" I shouted.
"We shall live, I 'ope; but we may end up in Crete or Egypt. I told the admiral we should wait another ten-day."
With dusk, the clouds broke up and the wind fell, though the ship still labored under heavy swells. Shouts from the sailors brought the captain in haste to the forecastle. Before us loomed a mountainous mass.
Polyphron shouted orders. The rowers put out the oars of the upper bank. With short quick strokes and careful timing, we swung to the right and rowed past the thundering, rocky shore. More than once I thought the swell would sweep us on the rocks, but we crept out of their reach. For a time we rowed by starlight.
The sea calmed until I felt I could risk speaking to the captain. "What land is that?"
"Naxos."
Vardanas said: "Was that not a frightful storm, Captain?"
"Not too bad," said Polyphron. "This ship has lived through worse. One can expect such a blow crossing the Aegean almost any season but late summer and autumn."
"Auramasdas save me from a really bad one, then!"
At midnight, as the half moon rose over the peaks of Naxos, we rowed into the harbor. Though the ship was now steady, the elephant refused to rise, but lay groaning and squealing with seasickness. When we dropped the anchor weights, my seasick hipparchia raised a feeble cheer of, "Iai for Thessalia!"
The next day we spent repairing our battered ship. First, howsomever, all the folk—passengers, sailors, and rowers—made a procession to the temple of Dionysos, on an islet in the harbor, to offer money for a handsome votive tablet. Even Pyrron contributed, though he murmured to me:
"Perhaps the gods did save us. But then, what of all the crews they have failed to save?"
That evening we held a party in town and got drunk on the famous wine of the island. Even Kanadas showed a tiny trace of tipsiness. Aside from having to break up a few fights between rowers and townspeople, nought marred our gaiety. The Persians and Indians, though, swore never to set foot on a ship again if ever they survived this voyage.
Next day we rowed to Kynthos, where we put the rowers ashore for the night. Then we proceeded into the Saronic Gulf, past the rocky Paralian Peninsula, and so came at last to Peiraieus. We crept around the promontory of Akte, under the frowning fortress of Eetioneia, through the sea gate in the breakwater, into Peiraieus Bay, and into the inner harbor of Kantharos. Here we dropped our anchor weights amongst many great ships of war.
And thus, on the twenty-fourth of Thargelion, in the eleventh year of Alexander's reign and the third year of the hundred and thirteenth Olympiad, the king's elephant expedition arrived in Attika. We had been ten months and twelve days on the road and had but one day more of travel ahead of us.
After a talk with my officers next morning, I decided not to deliver the elephant that day. There were too many other things to do first. When I proposed leaving Aias aboard the Destroyer an extra day, however, Polyphron objected.
"Look 'ere, 'Ipparch," he said. "I 'ave work to do on the ship, to ready her for the voyage back. I can't get at it whilst that 'ideous monster's in the pen."
"But it would be a fearful bother for us to take Aias off and stable him! It would cost silver, too."
"I can't 'elp that. 'Ere's your destination, so get yourself and your people and your creature ashore."
"Another day's delay won't slay you. You told me it was too early for safe voyaging anyway."
"A plague on this argument! What I say on my own ship stands. Get off, all of you!"
"Gentlemen," said a timid voice with a guttural accent. It was Elisas. "Can tell Captain Polyphron how to turn the elephant's being on his ship to advantage."
"Well?" growled the Milesian.
"You can make a profit from it, noble Captain. For half the taking, I will do it for you."
"What's this idea, man?"
"Do you agree to an even division?"
"Yes, yes. Out with it!"
"All right. You are my witness, Troop Leader Leon. See you those people?"
A small crowd of longshoremen and loafers had collected on the waterfront near the Destroyer. They pointed at our ship and exclaimed with more interest than one would expect a mere ship to arouse. Then I saw that they were looking at Aias' back and the top of his head, which showed above the main deck. The sun shone on the granite-colored hide as the elephant paced about his pen.
Elisas said: "We can send word to shore that men will be allowed aboard to see the elephant for—" He closed his eyes in thought.
"Those are mostly poor men and slaves, are they not? I put the fee at four coppers."
"Done!" said Polyphron. "I'll 'ave her towed to a pier and set out the big gangplank."
I left Polyphron and Elisas to their plans and went about my other affairs. One task was to pay off the Thessalians. I did this in the captain's cabin to get away from the noise of sight-seers who trooped aboard at a half-obolos a head to see the elephant. Of the twenty Thessalians who had begun the journey from India, counting the officers, one had been left behind wounded, two had been slain, and one had deserted. I could not give an accurate reckoning of the women and children, for I had lost count of births, deaths, runaways, and new concubines picked up.
Thanks to the deaths, to the heavy fines I levied after the mutiny in Kilikia, and most of all to Prince Arivarates' generosity, I ended up better than I had feared. I was able to give everybody his due pay and his bonus and still have an adequate sum left over to maintain the Indians during their stay in Athens. The understanding was that they should stay with Aias until they had trained local men to take their places. I also had Xenokrates' fifty talents, but this I kept in sealed bags separate from the rest. There were five of these bags of gold pieces, each weighing fifty pounds.
When all had been paid, we went ashore. Our first task was to change our money into Athenian. Hitherto, we had used Alexandrine with little trouble. For years, Alexander's mints had been melting clown Persian treasure and pouring out new coins. Hence, though much Persian coin was still current in the empire, everybody accepted the new coinage. In Greece, however, each state still clung to its own coinage.
We pushed our way through the chattering throng to the section of the colonnaded Deigma devoted to banks. At random, I got in the line before the change table of the firm of Dareios and Pamphylios. The bankers were a pair of stout middle-aged Anatolians, probably freedmen. Dareios, who handled the money-changing table, came from Armenia. His partner, who took care of loans and deposits at another table, was, as his name showed, a Pamphylian from the southern coast. No doubt his real name was too hard for Greek tongues and so had been lost in the course of his adventures. Both were surrounded by slave clerks with account tablets and abaci and sacks of coin.
When we had bought enough Athenian owls to keep us in food and shelter for several days, we ate our lunch and went to buy horses. I picked a stout chestnut stallion named Thunderbolt. "Snail" would have been a better name, but at least he bore my weight without complaint. Vardanas bought two, one for himself and one for Nirouphar. He remarked:
"We call these little things rabbits in Persia."
He also bought a slave, a lumpish, tattooed, infibulated Scythian with barely enough wit to keep from stepping off a roof. Vardanas paid three hundred drachmai for the man, which I thought much too high. But I had decided that it was hopeless to try to make a thrifty shopper of him.
I did not feel the need of a slave, as I had the faithful Inaudos at my elbow. From him I learned to prefer a willing paid worker to most slaves. For one thing, I do not like to tie up several pounds of my capital in a human being, who is more likely than a well-tended horse or cow to run away, or to be stabbed in a brawl, or even to murder his master. There are of course advantages the other way, too. For example, it is hard to find a really willing free worker; and, if they are unwilling, one cannot beat them much, lest they leave.