The galley, quivering in every
timber, answered with a leap. Other trumpets joined in the
clamor--all from the rear, none forward--from the latter quarter
only a rising sound of voices in tumult heard briefly. There was
a mighty blow; the rowers in front of the chief's platform reeled,
some of them fell; the ship bounded back, recovered, and rushed on
more irresistibly than before. Shrill and high arose the shrieks
of men in terror; over the blare of trumpets, and the grind and
crash of the collision, they arose; then under his feet, under the
keel, pounding, rumbling, breaking to pieces, drowning, Ben-Hur felt
something overridden. The men about him looked at each other afraid.
A shout of triumph from the deck-- the beak of the Roman had won! But
who were they whom the sea had drunk? Of what tongue, from what land
were they?
No pause, no stay! Forward rushed the Astroea; and, as it went,
some sailors ran down, and plunging the cotton balls into the
oil-tanks, tossed them dripping to comrades at the head of the
stairs: fire was to be added to other horrors of the combat.
Directly the galley heeled over so far that the oarsmen on the
uppermost side with difficulty kept their benches. Again the hearty
Roman cheer, and with it despairing shrieks. An opposing vessel,
caught by the grappling-hooks of the great crane swinging from
the prow, was being lifted into the air that it might be dropped
and sunk.
The shouting increased on the right hand and on the left; before,
behind, swelled an indescribable clamor.
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