l82 THE CALL OF THE SEA 



TOMBS OF YOUR ANCESTORS ; NOW IS THE CON- 

 FLICT FOR THEM ALL ! And, sooth to say, a 

 murmur of the Persian tongue met them from our 

 line, and no longer was it the moment to delay, but 

 forthwith ship dashed her brazen prow at ship. And 

 a Grecian vessel commenced the engagement, and 

 breaks off the whole of a figure-head of a Phccni- 

 cian ship ; and each commander severally directed 

 his bark against another of the enemy's. At first, 

 indeed, the torrent of the Persian armament bore 

 up against them : but when the multitude of our 

 ships were crowded in the strait and no assist- 

 ance could be given to one another, they were 

 struck by their own brazen beaks and were smash- 

 ing their entire equipment of oars, and the Grecian 

 vessels, not without science, were smiting them in 

 a circle on all sides, and the hulls of our vessels 

 were upturned, and the sea was no longer to 

 behold, filled as it was with wrecks and the 

 slaughter of men. The shores, too, and the rugged 

 rocks were filled with the dead ; and every ship, as 

 many as ever there were of the barbaric armament, 

 was rowed in flight without order. But the Greeks 

 kept striking, hacking us as it were tunnies, or 

 any draught of fishes, with fragments of oars and 

 splinters of wrecks ; and wailing filled the ocean 

 brine with shrieks, until the eye of murky night 

 removed it. But for the multitude of our woes — 

 no, not if I should recite them for ten days, could 



