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mostly refitted merchantmen, would dare to leave the security of their lines to launch their own attack, not bolstered by the ships of Port Cos, had not entered its ken. They did not know, perhaps, that one named Callimachus stood upon our stem castle.
    We backed from the wreckage, much of it flaming. The smell of pitch was in the air.
    Dozens of ships, trying to come about, maneuvering, milling, struck by other ships, had been trapped against the chain.
    There were hundreds of men in the water. Hundreds of oars, like sticks, had been snapped in the stresses involved, even against the hulls of their own vessels.
    Archer shields, of heavy wicker, floated in the water, and ruptured posts and strakes, and parts of oars.
    Vosk gulls dove and glided among the carnage, hunting for fish.
    "Back oars! Reform our lines!" called Callimachus.
    I saw a pirate galley slip under the water, near the chain.
    "Back oars! Reform our lines!" called Callimachus. He was no fool. He would not risk open battle, not even on even terms, with ships such as those of the Voskjard
    "We have been fortunate," said a man.
    "Yes," said another.
    "The Voskjard will be angry," said another.
    "I fear so," said another.
    "There is still time to gee," said another.
    Then the Tina, with the Mira to starboard and the Talender to port, lay to in our lines. The ships of Port Cos, now only the Tais and four others, resumed their station at our right flank. Had it not been for these ships of Port Cos it is difficult to know how we might have fared. They had taken heavy toll of the enemy before he had turned the wedge to face them, and then, as confused, he, struck by our unexpected attack, that of the independent ships and those of Ar's Station, had turned to face us, the Tais and her sisters had renewed their attack on his flank. I thought it not improbable that the Voskjard had lost in the neighborhood of thirty ships. Yet now we conjectured some fifty ships still faced us, for the chain, clearly, no longer provided a barrier north of his position. Those ships which we had for so long prevented from joining him had, by now, amplified his forces. I could not but think, bitterly, that if the Voskjard, truly, had had only some fifty ships, as we had gathered from the intelligences supplied to us by Callisthenes, we, if supplemented by the twenty ships of Callisthenes, yet to appear, would now have outnumbered him. In such a situation it was not unlikely that he would have come about and, at his leisure, still in strength, withdrawn to the west. We lay to, waiting. Now, in our lines, there were only seventeen ships, including those of Port Cos, on which we so crucially depended.
    "The enemy fleet is marshaling," said a man.
    "Is it again the wedge?" asked a man.
    "One ship is astern and to the starboard of another," said a man.

"They will come with care, and hunt us in pairs," said a man.
    "There is still time to flee," repeated a man.
    "I recommend, Captain," said an officer above and behind me on the stem-castle deck, "immediate withdrawal."
    "We must hold the line for Callisthenes," said Callimachus.
    "Draw back to the south guard station. Join him there," pressed an officer.
    "To be outflanked and trapped between the chain and the southern shore?" asked Callimachus.
    "I counsel retreat," said the officer.
    "Their ships are faster than ours," said Callimachus.
    "Not faster than the Tina," said the officer.
    "Am I then to abandon the fleet?" asked Callimachus.
    The officer looked at him, angrily.
    "You counsel not retreat, my friend," said Callimachus, "but rout, and slaughter."
    "What, then, shall we do?" asked the man.
    "Wait for Callisthenes," said Callimachus.
    "Withdraw," said the officer.
    "And leave Callisthenes to face fifty ships?" asked Callimachus.
    "Forget about Callisthenes," said the officer.
    "I will not forget about him," said Callimachus, "as he would not forget about me."
    "Withdraw," said the officer.
    "It is here that we are to be joined by