'I don't want those waves smacking us broadside-to,' Menedemos said. 'We're liable to end up on our beam-ends.' Diokles rubbed his ring again. 'Right you are. Get some rest then, if you can.' Menedemos doubted he'd be able to, not with the Aphrodite pitching as much as she was and the rain pouring down in sheets. He lay down on the poop deck even so. He didn't bother with a wrapping. What point, in such weather? He closed his eyes . . .. When he opened them, it was still dark. He didn't think he'd slept till he noticed how the galley's motion had eased. It was still raining, but not so hard. 'What's the hour?' he asked the man at the steering oars. 'Middle of the night sometime, captain - about the sixth hour, I'd say,' the man replied - not Diokles, but a burly sailor named Hagesippos. 'How long has the oarmaster been off?' Menedemos asked. 'I've had the steering oars about an hour,' Hagesippos answered. 'He gave 'em to me not long after the weather started easing off a bit.' 'That sounds like him.' Menedemos yawned and stretched. He still felt abused, but he could return to duty. The Aphrodite was his ship. 'I'll take them now, Hagesippos. Get some sleep yourself. Stretch out where I was, if you care to.' The sailor tossed his head. 'All the same to you, I'll go back to my bench. That's how I'm used to sleeping when we're at sea.' 'Suit yourself.' Menedemos slapped the sailor's bare shoulder as Hagesippos went down into the waist of the akatos. The slap rang louder than he'd expected: his hand was wet, and so was Hagesippos' flesh. As the rain diminished, men's snores came through it. The rowers who weren't at their oars grabbed rest as they could. Menedemos wondered how the peafowl had come through the storm. He peered up toward the bow, hoping to spot Sostratos' long, angular form silhouetted against the sky. When he didn't see his cousin, he felt miffed. He knew that was foolish - Sostratos had the right to rest, too - but he couldn't help it. Because he was miffed, he took longer than he should have to realize he could see stars, there in the north. The rain died to spatters, and then stopped. The clouds blew past the Aphrodite. By the time rosy-fingered dawn began streaking the eastern sky, the storm might never have happened. Diokles opened his eyes, saw Menedemos at the steering oars, and said, 'Well, I might have known you'd be there. When did you take 'em back from Hagesippos?' 'Middle of the night sometime,' Menedemos answered with a shrug. 'That's what he told me, and how can I guess any closer?' 'You can't,' the keleustes agreed. He got up, stretched as Menedemos had, and looked around. 'Good weather after the storm.'
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