They did, ignoring the mercenary's yelps of pain and protest. Diokles counted coins. They clinked musically as he stacked them in piles of ten. Sostratos took the eggs back to the peafowl cages on the foredeck. He got pecked twice replacing them. As far as he was concerned, Diokles was welcome to make a few drakhmai, or more than a few, disappear on his own behalf, too. Maybe the oarmaster would. Diokles was a practical man in every sense of the word.
Alexidamos kept whining and complaining till Menedemos said, "If you don't shut up, we'll put a gag on you. You did this to yourself, and you've got no cause to moan." The mercenary did quiet down after that, but the look on his face was eloquent.
Flying fish jumped from the water and glided through the air. One unlucky fish, instead of falling back into the sea, landed in a rower's lap. "Isn't that nice?" the fellow said, grabbing it. "First time I ever had my opson come to me."
Dolphins leaped from the water, too. Sostratos recalled that Arion had set out from Taras on the journey where the dolphins carried him to shore at Cape Tainaron. When he said as much to Menedemos, his cousin answered, "Well, of course. That's why the Tarentines put a man riding a dolphin on their coins."
Sostratos made an irritated noise. He'd forgotten that, and he shouldn't have. He said, "Now that we've bailed out the ship, may I start exercising the peafowl again? We'll want them at their best when we get in to Taras."
"Yes, go ahead," Menedemos said. "It does look to do them good."
Sure enough, the birds seemed eager to run up and down the length of the Aphrodite. After a while, Sostratos wasn't so eager to run after them. But he and the sailors he detailed to help him stayed with the peafowl. Each one got its exercise and went back into its cage. Sostratos hoped being away from the peahens hadn't hurt the eggs Alexidamos had purloined.
As he hurried past Alexidamos after the peacock, the mercenary growled, "Who would've thought anybody'd keep track of how many eggs each miserable bird laid?"
"I keep track of all sorts of things," Sostratos answered. Alexidamos suggested something rude he could keep track of. He contrived to step on the thief's foot. Alexidamos cursed. Sostratos said, "I told you I keep track of all sorts of things," and went on by to keep track of the peacock.
So things went until, on the afternoon of the sixth day out from Zakynthos, the lookout at the bow - it wasn't Aristeidas, but Teleutas, one of the men Sostratos had taken on at the last moment when they set out from Rhodes - sang out: "Land ho! Land ho dead ahead!"
From his station at the steering oars, Menedemos said, "That's not bad. That's not bad at all. The storm hardly slowed us at all." He raised his voice to call to Teleutas: "Can you make out what land it is? It's got to be Italy, but whereabouts along the coast are we?"
"I'm sorry, captain, but I'm not the one to tell you," the sailor answered. "This is my first time in these waters."
Sostratos peered northwest, too, along with everyone else aboard the Aphrodite except the men at the oars, who naturally faced the other way. He couldn't see land yet. He stood in the waist of the ship, beside a peahen that had hopped up onto a rower's bench. The peahen looked toward the bow, too, but only for a couple of heartbeats. Then, taking advantage of Sostratos' momentary distraction, it leaped into the air and, wings whirring, struck out as if for that distant shore.
The motion drew Sostratos' eye - just too late. "Oimoi!" he cried in horror, and grabbed for the bird. One tail feather - one drab, worthless tail feather - was all he had to show for the desperate lunge. "Oimoi!" he cried again, as the peafowl went into the sea perhaps ten cubits from the Aphrodite.
"Back oars!" Diokles shouted. "Bring her to a stop!" Sostratos yanked his tunic off over his head and jumped onto the rower's bench himself, ready to dive in after the peahen - unlike most of the sailors, he knew how to swim. But, before he could go into the water, the peahen, which had been swimming with surprising strength, let out a squawk and vanished. He never knew what took it - tunny? a shark? one of the playful dolphins? - but it was gone. A few bubbles rose. That was all.
"Go on," Menedemos told the rowers, his voice frozen with shock. "You might as well go on." As they resumed their usual stroke, Menedemos added one word more - "Sostratos" - and gestured for him to come back to the poop.
Alexidamos laughed when Sostratos hurried past him. Not even pausing, Sostratos backhanded the mercenary across the face. He mounted the stairs to the poop deck as if about to be put to the sword. Diokles silently stepped out of his way. When he came up to Menedemos, he said, "Say what you want to say. Do what you want to do. Whatever it is, I deserve it."
