III
THE SLAYING OF THE SIDONIANS
Morning broke in the East. A new day dawned upon the silent sea, and
on the world of light and sound. The sunrise topped the hill at last,
and fell upon the golden raiment of the Wanderer where he slept,
making it blaze like living fire. As the sun touched him, the prow of
a black ship stole swiftly round the headland, for the oarsmen drove
her well with the oars. Any man who saw her would have known her to be
a vessel of the merchants of Sidon--the most cunning people and the
greediest of gain--for on her prow were two big-headed shapes of
dwarfs, with gaping mouths and knotted limbs. Such gods as those were
worshipped by the Sidonians. She was now returning from Albion, an
isle beyond the pillars of Heracles and the gates of the great sea,
where much store of tin is found; and she had rich merchandise on
board. On the half-deck beside the steersman was the captain, a thin,
keen-eyed sailor, who looked shoreward and saw the sun blaze on the
golden armour of the Wanderer. They were so far off that he could not
see clearly what it was that glittered yellow, but all that glittered
yellow was a lure for him, and gold drew him on as iron draws the
hands of heroes. So he bade the helmsman steer straight in, for the
sea was deep below the rock, and there they all saw a man lying asleep
in golden armour. They whispered together, laughing silently, and then
sprang ashore, taking with them a rope of twisted ox-hide, a hawser of
the ship, and a strong cable of byblus, the papyrus plant. On these
ropes they cast a loop and a running knot, a lasso for throwing, so
that they might capture the man in safety from a distance. With these
in their hands they crept up the cliff, for their purpose was to noose
the man in golden armour, and drag him on board their vessel, and
carry him to the mouth of the river of Egypt, and there sell him for a
slave to the King. For the Sidonians, who were greedy of everything,
loved nothing better than to catch free men and women, who might be
purchased, by mere force or guile, and then be sold again for gold and
silver and cattle. Many kings' sons had thus been captured by them,
and had seen the day of slavery in Babylon, or Tyre, or Egyptian
Thebes, and had died sadly, far from the Argive land.
So the Sidonians went round warily, and, creeping in silence over the
short grass and thyme towards the Wanderer, were soon as near to him
as a child could throw a stone. Like shepherds who seek to net a
sleeping lion, they came cunningly; yet not so cunningly but that the
Wanderer heard them through his dreams, and turned and sat up, looking
around him half awake. But as he woke the noose fell about his neck
and over his arms and they drew it hard, and threw him on his back.
Before they could touch him he was on his feet again, crying his war-
cry terribly, the cry that shook the towers of Ilium, and he rushed
upon them, clutching at his sword hilt. The men who were nearest him
and had hold of the rope let it fall from their hands and fled, but
the others swung behind him, and dragged with all their force. If his
arms had been free so that he might draw his sword, it would have gone
ill with them, many as they were, for the Sidonians have no stomach
for sword blades; but his arms were held in the noose. Yet they did
not easily master him; but, as those who had fled came back, and they
all laid hands on the rope together, they overpowered him by main
force at last, and hauled him, step by step, till he stumbled on a
rock and fell. Then they rushed at him, and threw themselves all upon
his body, and bound him with ropes in cunning sailor knots. But the
booty was dearly won, and they did not all return alive; for he
crushed one man with his knees till the breath left him, and the thigh
of another he broke with a blow of his foot.
But at last his strength was spent, and they had him like a bird in a
snare; so, by might and main, they bore him to their ship, and threw
him down on the fore-deck of the vessel. There they mocked him, though
they were half afraid; for even now he was terrible. Then they hauled
up the sail again and sat down to the oars. The wind blew fair for the
mouth of the Nile and the slave-market of Egypt. The wind was fair,
and their hearts were light, for they had been among the first of
their people to deal with the wild tribes of the island Albion, and
had brought tin and gold for African sea shells and rude glass beads
from Egypt. And now, near the very end of their adventure, they had
caught a man whose armour and whose body were worth a king's ransom.
It was a lucky voyage, they said, and the wind was fair!
The rest of the journey was long, but in well-known waters. They
passed by Cephalonia and the rock of Ægilips, and wooded Zacynthus,
and Samê, and of all those isles he was the lord, whom they were now
selling into captivity. But he lay still, breathing heavily, and he
stirred but once--that was when they neared Zacynthus. Then he
strained his head round with a mighty strain, and he saw the sun go
down upon the heights of rocky Ithaca, for that last time of all.
So the swift ship ran along the coast, slipping by forgotten towns.
Past the Echinean isles, and the Elian shore, and pleasant Eirene they
sped, and it was dusk ere they reached Dorion. Deep night had fallen
when they ran by Pylos; and the light of the fires in the hall of
Pisistratus, the son of Nestor the Old, shone out across the sandy
sea-coast and the sea. But when they were come near Malea, the
southernmost point of land, where two seas meet, there the storm
snatched them, and drove them ever southwards, beyond Crete, towards
the mouth of the Nile. They scudded long before the storm-wind, losing
their reckoning, and rushing by island temples that showed like ghosts
through the mist, and past havens which they could not win. On they
fled, and the men would gladly have lightened the ship by casting the
cargo overboard; but the captain watched the hatches with a sword and
two bronze-tipped spears in his hand. He would sink or swim with the
ship; he would go down with his treasure, or reach Sidon, the City of
Flowers, and build a white house among the palms by the waters of
Bostren, and never try the sea again.
So he swore; and he would not let them cast the Wanderer overboard, as
they desired, because he had brought bad luck. "He shall bring a good
price in Tanis," cried the captain. And at last the storm abated, and
the Sidonians took heart, and were glad like men escaped from death;
so they sacrificed and poured forth wine before the dwarf-gods on the
prow of their vessel, and burned incense on their little altar. In
their mirth, and to mock the Wanderer, they hung his sword and his
shield against the mast, and his quiver and his bow they arrayed in
the fashion of a trophy; and they mocked him, believing that he knew
no word of their speech. But he knew it well, as he knew the speech of
the people of Egypt; for he had seen the cities of many men, and had
spoken with captains and mercenaries from many a land in the great
wars.
The Sidonians, however, jibed and spoke freely before him, saying how
they were bound for the rich city of Tanis, on the banks of the River
of Egypt, and how the captain was minded to pay his toll to Pharaoh
with the body and the armour of the Wanderer. That he might seem the
comelier, and a gift more fit for a king, the sailors slackened his
bonds a little, and brought him dried meat and wine, and he ate till
his strength returned to him. Then he entreated them by signs to
loosen the cord that bound his legs; for indeed his limbs were dead
through the strength of the bonds, and his armour was eating into his
flesh. At his prayer they took some pity of him and loosened his bonds
again, and he lay upon his back, moving his legs to and fro till his
strength came back.
So they sailed southward ever, through smooth waters and past the
islands that lie like water-lilies in the midland sea. Many a strange
sight they saw: vessels bearing slaves, whose sighing might be heard
above the sighing of wind and water--young men and maidens of Ionia
and Achaia, stolen by slave-traders into bondage; now they would touch
at the white havens of a peaceful city; and again they would watch a
smoke on the sea-line all day, rising black into the heavens; but by
nightfall the smoke would change to a great roaring fire from the
beacons of a beleaguered island town; the fire would blaze on the
masts of the ships of the besiegers, and show blood-red on their
sails, and glitter on the gilded shields that lined the bulwarks of
their ships. But the Sidonians sped on till, one night, they anchored
off a little isle that lies over against the mouth of the Nile.
Beneath this isle they moored the ship, and slept, most of them,
ashore.
Then the Wanderer began to plot a way to escape, though the enterprise
seemed desperate enough. He was lying in the darkness of the hold,
sleepless and sore with his bonds, while his guard watched under an
awning in the moonlight on the deck. They dreamed so little of his
escaping that they visited him only by watches, now and again; and, as
it chanced, the man whose turn it was to see that all was well fell
asleep. Many a thought went through the prisoner's mind, and now it
seemed to him that the vision of the Goddess was only a vision of
sleep, which came, as they said, through the false Gates of Ivory, and
not through the Gates of Horn. So he was to live in slavery after all,
a king no longer, but a captive, toiling in the Egyptian mines of
Sinai, or a soldier at a palace gate, till he died. Thus he brooded,
till out of the stillness came a thin, faint, thrilling sound from the
bow that hung against the mast over his head, the bow that he never
thought to string again. There was a noise of a singing of the bow and
of the string, and the wordless song shaped itself thus in the heart
of the Wanderer:
Lo! the hour is nigh
And the time to smite,
When the foe shall fly
From the arrow's flight!
Let the bronze bite deep!
Let the war-birds fly
Upon them that sleep
And are ripe to die!
Shrill and low
Do the grey shafts sing
The Song of the Bow,
The sound of the string!
Then the low music died into the silence, and the Wanderer knew that
the next sun would not set on the day of slavery, and that his revenge
was near. His bonds would be no barrier to his vengeance; they would
break like burnt tow, he knew, in the fire of his anger. Long since,
in his old days of wandering, Calypso, his love, had taught him in the
summer leisure of her sea-girt isle how to tie the knots that no man
could untie, and to undo all the knots that men can bind. He
remembered this lesson in the night when the bow sang of war. So he
thought no more of sleeping, but cunningly and swiftly unknotted all
the cords and the bonds which bound him to a bar of iron in the hold.
He might have escaped now, perhaps, if he had stolen on deck without
waking the guards, dived thence and swam under water towards the
island, where he might have hidden himself in the bush. But he desired
revenge no less than freedom, and had set his heart on coming in a
ship of his own, and with all the great treasure of the Sidonians,
before the Egyptian King.
With this in his mind, he did not throw off the cords, but let them
lie on his arms and legs and about his body, as if they were still
tied fast. But he fought against sleep, lest in moving when he woke he
might reveal the trick, and be bound again. So he lay and waited, and
in the morning the sailors came on board, and mocked at him again. In
his mirth one of the men took a dish of meat and of lentils, and set
it a little out of the Wanderer's reach as he lay bound, and said in
the Phnician tongue:
"Mighty lord, art thou some god of Javan" (for so the Sidonians called
the Achæans), "and wilt thou deign to taste our sacrifice? Is not the
savour sweet in the nostrils of my lord? Why will he not put forth his
hand to touch our offering?"
Then the heart of Odysseus muttered sullenly within him, in wrath at
the insolence of the man. But he constrained himself and smiled, and
said:
"Wilt thou not bring the mess a very little nearer, my friend, that I
may smell the sweet incense of the sacrifice?"
They were amazed when they heard him speak in their own tongue; but he
who held the dish brought it nearer, like a man that angers a dog, now
offering the meat, and now taking it away.
So soon as the man was within reach, the Wanderer sprang out, the
loosened bonds falling at his feet, and smote the sailor beneath the
ear with his clenched fist. The blow was so fierce, for all his anger
went into it, that it crushed the bone, and drove the man against the
mast of the ship so that the strong mast shook. Where he fell, there
he lay, his feet kicking the floor of the hold in his death-pain.
Then the Wanderer snatched from the mast his bow and his short sword,
slung the quiver about his shoulders, and ran on to the raised decking
of the prow.
The bulwarks of the deck were high, and the vessel was narrow, and
before the sailors could stir for amazement the Wanderer had taken his
stand behind the little altar and the dwarf-gods. Here he stood with
an arrow on the string, and the bow drawn to his ear, looking about
him terribly.
Now panic and dread came on the Sidonians when they saw him standing
thus, and one of the sailors cried:
"Alas! what god have we taken and bound? Our ship may not contain him.
Surely he is Resef Mikal, the God of the Bow, whom they of Javan call
Apollo. Nay, let us land him on the isle and come not to blows with
him, but entreat his mercy, lest he rouse the waves and the winds
against us."
But the captain of the ship of the Sidonians cried:
"Not so, ye knaves! Have at him, for he is no god, but a mortal man;
and his armour is worth many a yoke of oxen!"
Then he bade some of them climb the decking at the further end of the
ship, and throw spears at him thence; and he called others to bring up
one of the long spears and charge him with that. Now these were huge
pikes, that were wielded by five or six men at once, and no armour
could withstand them; they were used in the fights to drive back
boarders, and to ward off attacks on ships which were beached on shore
in the sieges of towns.
The men whom the captain appointed little liked the task, for the long
spears were laid on tressels along the bulwarks, and to reach them and
unship them it was needful to come within range of the bow. But the
sailors on the further deck threw all their spears at once, while five
men leaped on the deck where the Wanderer stood. He loosed the
bowstring and the shaft sped on its way; again he drew and loosed, and
now two of them had fallen beneath his arrows, and one was struck by a
chance blow from a spear thrown from the further deck, and the other
two leaped back into the hold.
Then the Wanderer shouted from the high decking of the prow in the
speech of the Sidonians:
"Ye dogs, ye have sailed on your latest seafaring, and never again
shall ye bring the hour of slavery on any man."
So he cried, and the sailors gathered together in the hold, and took
counsel how they should deal with him. But meanwhile the bow was
silent, and of those on the hinder deck who were casting spears, one
dropped and the others quickly fled to their fellows below, for on the
deck they had no cover.
The sun was now well risen, and shone on the Wanderer's golden mail,
as he stood alone on the decking, with his bow drawn. The sun shone,
there was silence, the ship swung to her anchor; and still he waited,
looking down, his arrow pointing at the level of the deck to shoot at
the first head which rose above the planking. Suddenly there was a
rush of men on to the further decking, and certain of them tore the
shields that lined the bulwarks from their pins, and threw them down
to those who were below, while others cast a shower of spears at the
Wanderer. Some of the spears he avoided; others leaped back from his
mail; others stood fast in the altar and in the bodies of the dwarf-
gods; while he answered with an arrow that did not miss its aim. But
his eyes were always watching most keenly the hatches nearest him,
whence a gangway ran down to the lower part of the ship, where the
oarsmen sat; for only thence could they make a rush on him. As he
watched and drew an arrow from the quiver on his shoulder, he felt, as
it were, a shadow between him and the deck. He glanced up quickly, and
there, on the yard above his head, a man, who had climbed the mast
from behind, was creeping down to drop on him from above. Then the
Wanderer snatched a short spear and cast it at the man. The spear sped
quicker than a thought, and pinned his two hands to the yard so that
he hung there helpless, shrieking to his friends. But the arrows of
the Wanderer kept raining on the men who stood on the further deck,
and presently some of them, too, leaped down in terror, crying that he
was a god and not a man, while others threw themselves into the sea,
and swam for the island.
Then the Wanderer himself waited no longer, seeing them all amazed,
but he drew his sword and leaped down among them with a cry like a
sea-eagle swooping on seamews in the crevice of a rock. To right and
left he smote with the short sword, making a havoc and sparing none,
for the sword ravened in his hand. And some fell over the benches and
oars, but such of the sailors as could flee rushed up the gangway into
the further deck, and thence sprang overboard, while those who had not
the luck to flee fell where they stood, and scarcely struck a blow.
Only the captain of the ship, knowing that all was lost, turned and
threw a spear in the Wanderer's face. But he watched the flash of the
bronze and stooped his head, so that the spear struck only the golden
helm and pierced it through, but scarcely grazed his head. Now the
Wanderer sprang on the Sidonian captain, and smote him with the flat
of his sword so that he fell senseless on the deck, and then he bound
him hand and foot with cords as he himself had been bound, and made
him fast to the iron bar in the hold. Next he gathered up the dead in
his mighty arms, and set them against the bulwarks of the fore-deck--
harvesting the fruits of War. Above the deck the man who had crept
along the yard was hanging by his two hands which the spear had pinned
together to the yard.
"Art thou there, friend?" cried the Wanderer, mocking him. "Hast thou
chosen to stay with me rather than go with thy friends, or seek new
service? Nay, then, as thou art so staunch, abide there and keep a
good look-out for the river mouth and the market where thou shalt sell
me for a great price." So he spoke, but the man was already dead of
pain and fear. Then the Wanderer unbuckled his golden armour, which
clanged upon the deck, and drew fresh water from the hold to cleanse
himself, for he was stained like a lion that has devoured an ox. Next,
with a golden comb he combed his long dark curls, and he gathered his
arrows out of the bodies of the dead, and out of the thwarts and the
sides of the ship, cleansed them, and laid them back in the quiver.
When all this was ended he put on his armour again; but strong as he
was, he could not tear the spear from the helm without breaking the
gold; so he snapped the shaft and put on the helmet with the point of
the javelin still fixed firm in the crest, as Fate would have it so,
and this was the beginning of his sorrows. Next he ate meat and bread,
and drank wine, and poured forth some of the wine before his gods.
Lastly he dragged up the heavy stone with which the ship was moored, a
stone heavier far, they say, than two other men could lift. He took
the tiller in his hand; the steady north wind, the Etesian wind, kept
blowing in the sails, and he steered straight southward for the mouths
of the Nile.
