"They had many names. There were Galleys, Biremes, Triremes. Quadquirimes, Quinquirimes and so on, according to the number of their oars and the way they worked them," answered Sedgwick. "This are a daisy ship thet we is on, don't you reckon?" said Jordan. "Suppose yo' and I cud uv cum along heah with this ship when they hed ther fightin' fleets out? Wouldn't we hev astonished them old-timers?" "I think we would, indeed," said Sedgwick, "but, Tom, with the ships that they had, they did some fighting that gave the world such a thrill that men feel it still when the name of Actium or Salamis is mentioned. As long before the coming of the Savior as it has been since, the Phoenicians were scouring this sea with their craft, founding colonies, and it is said they ventured out upon the Atlantic and went as far north as England, while amid the ruins of Tyre models of boats have been found with lines as fine as any that any modern ship-builder can draw. "Nothing of mechanical achievement to me compares with a ship like this that we are sailing on. Panoplied in steel, with heart of fire, with iron arms picking up the burden of ten thousand horses; facing the storm and the night without a quiver except that which comes of its own great heart's throbbing, buoyant above the beating of the deep sea's solemn pulses, lighted by imitation sunlight, and making its voyages almost with the precision of the hours--what could be grander? "Standing on the deck, with the midnight black above and the ocean black below, feeling its regular pulse-beats and its onward plunges over its uneven path; it is hard to shake off the impression that it is a grim Genie that has come to make ferries of the broad ocean, to draw the continents with their freights of nations closer together. "But suppose, Tom, that the onward rush of this ship should bring us close beside three little ships, two with no decks and the larger one only ninety feet in length, we would look down upon them with a kind of pity, would we not? "Still, with such vessels, the mystery of the sea was first cleared up; with such vessels, the vail was pushed back from the frowning face of the ocean; with such vessels, the New World was found. "It was from over one of those open decks that the cry 'A Light!' rang out upon the night; it was from one of those decks that the vision of the New World materialized before the eyes of the great Italian; on one of those decks he knelt as the vision grew brighter in the dawn, and his soul was thrilled as souls are when they feel that a visible answer to prayer has been vouchsafed. "But the man was there, Jordan; the man who could charm the terrors from the hearts of a fear-stricken crew; who could convert a meteor's fall into an augury of good instead of an omen of terror; who could quell the mutinous spirit which was awakened by a varying needle and raging storms.