“You were not among the prisoners, young one—nor sailors either! I recall them—to a man. I’ll test your truth. Mind your tongue! Describe the ship, the passengers, the prisoners.” “I took ship at Fair Havens, Crete. I came down from Phrygia. You remember the Prophet, who was a prisoner from Cæsarea, wanted you to tarry there for the winter?” “By Jupiter, I do; and now I wish I had, for I’d be back in Idumea, leading our General Vespasian’s cohorts if I hadn’t wrecked that accursed corn ship, and not be cooling my heels here, waiting the trial of these Jewish fanatics—what next? Describe what next—the ship?” “The ship had a golden goose at the stern. It was full of Egyptian corn to the rowers’ benches. She was deep as she was broad, and long as from here to the Three Taverns—” “Go on! You guess well and may lie better—all corn ships are the same—” “She had flaming pennants and huge iron anchors and two monstrous oars as paddles that you used as rudders, and the pilot at the helm was a bald-headed old man—” “They all are—these Greeks—from wearing caps so tight. Any bargeman at the Taverns could have told you that. Go on—” “And she had only one little boat astern, that almost swamped in the mountain waves; and when the northeaster struck her you were afraid of being driven to Africa, and cut the great mainmast and threw her overboard, and drifted for fourteen days, four hundred miles; and when the hull sprang a leak and strained to split apart you frapped her round and round with great cables and trussed her up as cooks tie up the legs of a fowl! And when the soldiers would have sprung into the little boat, you cut her adrift; and when you would have slain the prisoners to prevent escape, and slain yourself to avoid punishment for the loss, it was the Prophet, who is the prisoner in your hut there, stopped your hand and foretold you not a soul would lose his life. Then you cast the cargo overboard. “No stars, no sun we saw for fourteen days, only the clouds and the pelting rain, and fogs so thick a sword could cut them. When the breakers and the surf roared ahead, you heaved and heaved and heaved the lead, and knew we were driving straight ashore to wreck in the breakers, and you cast four great iron anchors out astern to hold her back; but they only combed the fine sand as a housekeeper’s knife cuts dough. The shore of Malta Bay was soft as paste. The pumps you set to work; but she settled on her prow, like a swine’s snout in mud, with her goose-beaked stern, high in the crash of waves, breaking to splinters—” “Stop!” cried the Idumean. “I’ll test your truth right there! The bargemen of the Taverns might have told you all the rest. When the ship broke and the sailors and the prisoners plunged over in the pelting dark to swim for it, what said the Prophet, who is my prisoner, then?”