Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/261

 swimmers diagonally and drown as many as possible at the first onset. We came among them at terrific speed. I was standing with my feet wide apart and my arms stretched out leaning with both hands braced against the platform bulwark rail. So I was not thrown down like most of the rest, and saw the whole thing. For as we drove into the mass of heads we ran hard and fast aground, all five ships at once. Half the oars snapped, of course, so we were utterly helpless. Nearly every standing man was hurled flat or flung overboard or from his platform to the deck or into the waist. We were in the utmost confusion. Anyhow, as against undisciplined irregulars, we had no boarding netting out, being all for the attack and defense unthought of.

"And as we struck the whole ten thousand savages stood up and yelled."

"Stood up!" the Emperor interjected. "Stood up?"

"Yes, Sir," Bassus went on. "Stood up, not a man of them over knee deep and many not ankle deep!"

"On what?" the Emperor queried, mystified.

"On the bar," Bassus explained. "Mud-flat or sand-bank or whatever it was. You see, the water was all so muddied no one could see the difference between deep and shoal water by color