his teeth and didn't answer. His cousin was a clever fellow - cleverer than I am, Menedemos thought, without rancor or envy - and a first-rate toikharkhos. But Sostratos had never had to give orders to a crew; he'd never been responsible for a whole ship and everybody in it. He could say things would turn out all right, but Menedemos was the one who had to make them turn out all right. Just getting that akatos back into the sea was harder work than it would have been with a trireme or even a piratical pentekonter. The Aphrodite had fewer men and, because of the cargo she carried, was heavier in proportion to her size than a vessel meant solely for fighting. Menedemos put half a dozen oarsmen into the ship's boat, and ran a line from its stern to the Aphrodite's stempost. While they rowed with all their might to help pull the beached ship forward, he and the rest of the crew pushed against her stern and sides. She didn't want to move. Wiping sweat from his forehead with his hand, Diokles said, 'We may have to lighten her before she'll get back where she belongs.' 'To the crows with that,' Menedemos said, though he'd been thinking the same thing. 'Taking jars and sacks off, putting them back aboard - we'd never make Knidos by nightfall. The hours aren't so long as they will be come summertime.' In the winter, a day's twelve hours were cramped, while a night's twelve stretched. In summer, the reverse held true. At this season of the year, daylight hours and those of the nighttime roughly matched. 'Shall we give it another try, then?' the keleustes asked. 'Unless you feel like swimming home,' Menedemos answered. Diokles tossed his head. Menedemos raised his voice to a shout: 'Come on! Put your backs into it this time! One more good heave and we'll be off!' He was anything but sure he was telling the truth, but it was what the sailors needed to hear. He heaved with them, his bare feet digging into the golden sand. At first, he thought this try would prove as fruitless as the last. But then the false keel grated as the ship lurched forward: not much, only a digit's worth or not even that, but some. Everyone felt the tiny motion. 'We can do it!' Menedemos cried. 'At my count . . . one, two, three!' Another scrape of timber on sand. The men grunted and cursed as they shoved. Out in the little bay, the rowers in the boat pulled as if they had a five full of Carthaginians on their tail. The Aphrodite moved a little more, and then a little more - and then, more than a little to Menedemos surprise, slid into the Aegean. The sailors raised a cheer. 'We'll spend the night tied up to a pier in Knidos,' Sostratos said, 'but the next time we have to go aground on a sandy shore, let's not beach ourselves so hard.' 'Well, that isn't the worst idea I've ever heard,' Menedemos answered. 'Still and all, though, we do want to let the timbers dry whenever we get the chance. Rowing's harder work when you have to shove along the extra weight that goes into a waterlogged ship.' He waded out into the cool water of the bay and, agile as a monkey, swarmed up a rope and over the side of the Aphrodite. Rather less gracefully, Sostratos followed. Before long, all the men were in the Aphrodite and the akatos' boat tied to the sternpost once more for towing. 'Out of the inlet,' Menedemos said, 'then around the southern coast of Syme, and then west and a little north to Knidos.' Still dripping, his hair wet and slick, he took his place at the steering oars and dipped his head to Diokles. 'If you'd be so kind, keleustes.'
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