The old man, who had, indeed, the experience of sixty years to draw from, was quite right in his prediction that they would find themselves among the tunnies at dawn. They had been able to get over a considerable distance during the night. At first their progress had been slow, for it was a dead calm,[64] and the sweeps had to be used. About midnight, when they were well out of the shelter of the land, a light breeze from the south sprang up. The broad lateen sail was gladly hoisted, and the little craft sped gaily along, making, with the wind due aft, some six or seven miles an hour. Cleanor, who had fallen asleep shortly after midnight, not a little fatigued by the share which he had insisted on taking in the rowing, was awakened, after what seemed to him five minutes of slumber, by the captain.

[64]

"See," cried the old man, "there they are yonder. Thanks to Dagon, we have got among them quite as soon as I hoped."

And sure enough, about three hundred yards off, just in a line with the sun, which was beginning to lift a crimson disk out of the sea, the water seemed positively alive with fish, little and big. The tunnies had got among a shoal of sardines, and were busy with the chase. Every now and then some score of small fry would throw themselves wildly out of the water to escape their pursuer; behind them the water swirled with the rush of some monster fish, whose great black fin might be discerned, by a keen eye, just showing above the surface. Elsewhere, one of the tunnies would leap bodily into the air, his silvery side gleaming in the almost level rays of the rising sun. The sail had already been lowered, and the[65] sweeps, after some dozen strokes to give a little way to the vessel in the right direction, had been shipped again. In another minute the little craft had quietly glided into the middle of the shoal.

[65]

Cleanor, in spite of all the grave preoccupation of his mind, was still young enough to enjoy the brisk scene which followed. There were two ways of securing the fish: the harpoon was one; the hand-line was the other, the hook being baited with a small fish or with a bit of brilliant red cloth. Syphax and two of his sailors used the former. Cleanor and the third sailor, a young man of about the same age, as being not sufficiently expert with the harpoon, were furnished with hand-lines.

The fun was fast and furious. At his very first shot the captain drove his harpoon into the side of a huge tunny. So strong was the creature that it positively 

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