Occasionally there was a
crash, followed by sudden peals of fright, telling of other ships
ridden down, and their crews drowned in the vortexes.
Nor was the fight all on one side. Now and then a Roman in armor
was borne down the hatchway, and laid bleeding, sometimes dying,
on the floor.
Sometimes, also, puffs of smoke, blended with steam, and foul
with the scent of roasting human flesh, poured into the cabin,
turning the dimming light into yellow murk. Gasping for breath
the while, Ben-Hur knew they were passing through the cloud of
a ship on fire, and burning up with the rowers chained to the
benches.
The Astroea all this time was in motion. Suddenly she stopped.
The oars forward were dashed from the hands of the rowers, and the
rowers from their benches. On deck, then, a furious trampling, and on
the sides a grinding of ships afoul of each other. For the first time
the beating of the gavel was lost in the uproar. Men sank on the floor
in fear or looked about seeking a hiding-place. In the midst of the
panic a body plunged or was pitched headlong down the hatchway,
falling near Ben-Hur. He beheld the half-naked carcass, a mass
of hair blackening the face, and under it a shield of bull-hide
and wicker-work--a barbarian from the white-skinned nations of
the North whom death had robbed of plunder and revenge. How came
he there? An iron hand had snatched him from the opposing deck--no,
the Astroea had been boarded! The Romans were fighting on their own
deck? A chill smote the young Jew: Arrius was hard pressed--he might
be defending his own life.
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