with dazzling brilliancy in the hot air of the first day of an Egyptian
August.

Amid this blazing, flashing, and sparkling in the morning air, so steeped
in warmth and radiance, the sounds of warlike preparations from the land
and fleet constantly grew louder. Barine, exhausted, had just sunk into
a chair which Dione, the fisherman's daughter, had placed in the shade of
the highest rock on the northwestern shore of the flat island, when a
crashing blast of the tuba suddenly echoed from all the galleys in the
Egyptian fleet, and the whole array of vessels filed past the Pharos at
the opening of the harbour into the open sea.

There the narrow ranks of the wooden giants separated and moved onward in
broader lines. This was done quietly and in the same faultless order as
a few days before, when a similar manoeuvre had been executed under the
eyes of Mark Antony.

The longing for combat seemed to urge them steadily forward.

The hostile fleet, lying motionless, awaited the attack. But the
Egyptian assailants had advanced majestically only a few ships lengths
towards the Roman foe when another signal rent the air. The women whose
ears caught the waves of sound said afterwards that it seemed like a cry
of agony--it had given the signal for a deed of unequalled treachery.
The slaves, criminals, and the basest of the mercenaries on the rowers'
benches in the hold had doubtless long listened intently for it, and,
when it finally came, the men on the upper benches raised their long oars
and held them aloft, which stopped the work of those below, and every
galley paused, pointing at the next with the wooden oars outstretched
like fingers, as if seized with horror. The celerity and faultless order