The Tyrrhenian fires disappeared and in the darkness I exclaimed to Dionysius, “Your luck is still with us. The Etruscans fear the black sea and are returning to shore.”
He stared out over the water and thus lost a precious moment. From the stern we heard a crash and, lighting the torches, saw that all the steering oars had been chopped off by the stealthy Etruscans, who had approached under cover of the dark. In the distance they again set fire to their pitchpots.
A feeling of guilt came over me as I thought of Arsinoe. She would still be in the safety of the temple if I had not abducted her and led her to certain death. I descended to her compartment where she lay, thin and wan, her eyes darker than ever in the flicker of the tallow lamp.
“Arsinoe,” I said, “the Etruscans are upon us. Our steering oars are broken, and when dawn comes the heavy Etruscan galleys will arrive to stave in our sides. Nothing can save us.”
Arsinoe merely sighed and said, “I have been counting the days on my fingers and am amazed. And I have developed a terrifying longing to eat crushed snail shells such as are given to hens.”
I thought her mind was muddled from fear and felt her forehead, but she had no fever. Softly I said, “I did wrong in abducting you from the temple, but all is not yet lost. We can signal the Etruscans and hand you to them before the battle. When you tell them that you are a priestess of Eryx they will not harm you, for the Etruscans are a godfearing people.”
She stared at me in disbelief and began to weep. “I cannot live without you, Turms! Even though I am a little frivolous I love you more than I believed it possible to love any man. Besides, I greatly fear that I am pregnant by you. It must have happened that first time when I forgot my mystic silver ring in the temple.”
“In the name of the goddess,” I cried, “that is impossible!”
“Why should it be,” she retorted, “although it is a disgrace since I am a priestess. But in your arms that time I forgot everything. I had never experienced anything so wonderful as I did that time with you.”
I pressed her close to my breast. “Ah, Arsinoe, I too never experienced anything like that. How happy I am!”
“Happy!” she repeated and wrinkled her nose. “I myself am anything but happy. I feel so wretched that I actually hate you. If you intended to bind yourself to me, Turms, you have succeeded, and see that you answer for your deed.”
Holding her in my arms, so frail and helpless and bitter, I felt a greater tenderness toward her than ever before. Whatever was her guilt with Dorieus and Mikon, it had nothing to do with us and I forgave her. Such was my faith in her.
Then I remembered where we were and what was happening, and knew that only my own strength could save Arsinoe and our unborn child. Despite hunger, exhaustion and lack of sleep I suddenly felt myself freed of earthly clay. My power was kindled within me like a flame in a lamp, and I was no longer mortal. I released Arsinoe, rose and ran to the deck. It was as though I walked on air.
Exultantly, head high and arms upraised, I turned in every direction and shouted, “Come, wind; wake, storm, for I, Turms, call you!”
So loud was my cry over the black sea that Dionysius hurried to me. “Are you calling the wind, Turms? If you are, you might as well ask that it be the east wind. That would best answer our purpose.”
My feet were already moving uncontrollably in the steps of the sacred dance. “Silence, Dionysius, shame not the gods. Let them determine the direction. I merely summon the storm.”
At that moment the sea already sighed, our vessels swayed, the ropes creaked, the air grew damp and a puff of wind blew over us. Dionysius called for the torches to be extinguished. Quickly it was done, but the Etruscans, who were caught unaware, saw the wind whip the flames from their pitchpots onto the deck of the nearer galley. In a few minutes the vessel was ablaze. Over the howl of the wind we heard the mast of the second Etruscan vessel crack in two.
My dance grew wilder, my calls to the wind louder until Dionysius, to silence me, struck me a blow that sent me to the deck. As the storm raged Dionysius himself cut the ropes that tied the vessels together. From one of the penteconters came cries that the sheepskins had loosened and water was rushing in through the holes. In anger and disappointment Dionysius commanded the men to abandon the sinking vessel and clamber onto the trireme, which itself was listing badly. The second penteconter disappeared into the thundering darkness.
Somehow Dionysius righted our vessel, raised the mast and part of the sail, and the trireme began to obey its temporary steering oars.
With the sunrise the sea brightened and the storm calmed to a brisk breeze that bulged the sail. We raced with the giant waves toward the west, the vessel leaping under us like a snorting mount. The men began to laugh and shout and Dionysius gave them all a measure of wine. He sacrificed some to Poseidon also, although many felt that to be unnecessary.
A sail was sighted far ahead. The sharpest-eyed sailor climbed the mast and cried out joyously that it was the striped sail of our lost penteconter. By midday we had reached it and saw that it was not badly damaged.
The east wind continued to blow and on the third day we sighted blue mountains rising like clouds against the sky. During the night the currents carried us with them, and at dawn we sighted the outline of a hump-necked mountain.
Dionysius cried out in surprise, “By all the gods of the sea, I recognize that mountain, so often have I heard it described! How the gods must be laughing, for we are back almost to our starting point. That mountain is on Sicily’s coast, the shore is a part of Eryx and behind the mountain is the town and harbor of Panormos. At last I see that the gods did not intend to lead us to Massilia. I can only regret it though, for they could have piloted us to Massilia with far less trouble. Now Dorieus may assume command, since that seems to be the will of the gods. I will stand down.”
He sent his men to see whether Dorieus was still alive and, if so, to untie him and bring him on deck. But, to tell the truth, Mikon and I had long since cut away his fetters, in such bad condition was he.
At last Dorieus appeared, hair matted by the salt water, face lined and eyes narrowed like a bat blinded by the sudden light. He seemed to have aged ten years during that month of imprisonment. Faintly he called for his sword and shield. I brought him the sword but had to confess that his shield had been tossed into the sea as an offering to the gods. He nodded and said that he well understood how such a noble offering had saved the vessel.
“So thank my shield for your lives, you wretched men of Phocaea,” he said. “I myself would have sacrificed it to the sea goddess Thetis, who is well disposed toward me. I have had strange experiences the while you have thought that I lay in the hold. But I will not speak of -them.”
His eyes were the color of gray salt as he turned to Dionysius and tested the edge of his sword. “I should kill you, Dionysius of Phocaea, but seeing your foolish head finally bowed before me, I forgive you. I will even admit that the oarstroke which I received at Lade still troubles me at times.” He laughed and nudged Dionysius with his elbow. “Yes, oarstroke, not swordstroke. I don’t understand why I should have been ashamed to call it an oarstroke. Only when the goddess Thetis and I met as equals in the depths of the sea did I come to realize that nothing shameful can happen to me, but that everything I experience is godly in its way. For that reason, Dionysius, I thank you for what you did to me.”
Suddenly he straightened himself and shouted, “But enough of foolish prattle! To arms, men! We will go ashore and conquer Panormos as was intended.”
The men ran for their spears, arrows and shields. When we had numbered our ranks we found that, in addition to Arsinoe and the cat, one hundred and fifty of us had survived. Three hundred had sailed from Himera, and the fact that exactly one half remained was considered by the men to be a good omen.
But Dorieus commanded them to be silent about things of which they knew nothing. “Three hundred we were, three hundred we still are, and three hundred we shall always be no matter how many fall. But you will not fall, for from now on you are Dorieus’ three hundred. Let three hundred be our battle cry, and three hundred years from now people will still talk of our exploits.”
“Three hundred, three hundred!” shouted the men and beat their shields with their swords. Light-headed from hunger and thirst, we forgot our past miseries and impatiently ran to and fro on the deck.
The water murmured under our leaking prow and when we had passed the hump-necked mountain, there before us lay the harbor of Panormos with a few galleys and boats, a miserable wall and beyond, a fertile plain with fields and woods. But behind the plain rose the mountains of Eryx, steep and of a wondrous blue.
