The usual players were Hippalos, Linos, the cook, and I, although one or another of the sailors sometimes took part. We had to keep the stakes very low, for otherwise the crew could not have afforded to play at all. Hippalos urged me to stake my partner with some of my gems while he staked his with pearls. I tried this once; but, after Hippalos had won a good sardonyx from me, I saw through his maneuver. Since he had had the most practice, he was by far the most skilled player amongst us, and he hoped to use his skill to get my gems away from me. So we went back to playing for pence and chick-peas.
When we grew tired of chaturanga, I asked Hippalos: "What were those tricks I saw you amusing the Indians with in Barygaza?"
He grinned. "Old boy, didn't you know I have mysterious powers, drawn from the nighted caverns of the underworld and the black gulfs of outer space? That, with a wave of my hand, I could make this ship and all aboard it vanish in a puff of smoke?"
"Ha! Let's have the truth for once. Where did you pick up these tricks?"
He was reluctant to discuss this skill at first; but at length his own boredom with the peacefulness of the voyage persuaded him to open up. "I learnt sleight-of-hand when I was a wandering entertainer," he said, "in the years after the fall of Corinth, when I was a stripling. The boss of our little band of showmen taught me, for his own fingers were getting too stiff with age for the tricks. Of course, it's easier to learn these things when one is young and limber, as I was. You, I fear, are much too old."
"Is that so! Suppose you try to teach me, and we shall see."
At last I won Hippalos' consent to make me his apprentice magician. As he had warned, I found my fingers exasperatingly clumsy; but, with hard work and incessant practice, I improved faster than he had thought possible.
He also taught me the patter and the tricks of misdirection. These presented no great difficulty, since a merchant's sales talk is basically the same sort of thing. Having, in my time, sold perfumes to stinking Scythian nomads and fur-trimmed mantles to sweltering Egyptians, I had no trouble with the verbal parts of Hippalos' lessons.
On the fourteenth of Anthesterion, [* Approx. February 4.] we moored the Ourania at the same rickety pier at Myos Hormos, whence we had set out seven months before. The port officials, who had never expected to see us again, were so astonished by our return that they never searched us and so did not discover the fortunes in pearls and gemstones that we bore, sewn into pockets on the insides of our belts. We had agreed that Hippalos should set out at once for Alexandria to report to the king, whilst I followed with our cargo. The day after we arrived, I saw him off, jouncing away on the desert road on a camel.
What with transferring my cargo from the Ourania to camels, and from camels to a barge at Kainepolis on the Nile, I did not reach Alexandria until the third of Elaphebolion. Spring was well advanced, although in those latitudes there is no real winter. I came out on the deck of the barge that morning to find us rowing gently through a predawn mist along the Alexandrine Canal, which follows the winding shore of Lake Mareotis. Now and then I glimpsed the surface of the lake through the immense beds of reeds that border it.
As the sky lightened, I was surprised to see, on the flats between the canal and the lake, what appeared to be a large, dark, shiny boulder. If there is any place where boulders are not to be found, it is the Delta, which is a great, flat, muddy plain cut up by the many serpentine arms of the Nile. As the mist thinned, the light waxed, and the barge came closer, I was startled to see the boulder move. At my exclamation, one of the Egyptian boatmen looked around, grunted "Tebet!" and went back to his rowing. It was a river horse, which had been grazing on some unlucky farmer's wheat. It trotted off towards the lake at our approach.
The sun was well up when we came to the south wall of Alexandria. The space between the wall and the canal was given over to flower gardens, now in a riot of color. After we had rowed along the south wall for ten or twelve furlongs, we pulled into the canal harbor and tied up. An inspector, followed by a couple of civilians and four soldiers, came aboard. The inspector said:
"Are you Eudoxos of Kyzikos?"
"Yes. This is—"
"Let's see your manifest."
"Here," said I. "This stuff belongs to His Divine Majesty."
The inspector ran his eye down the list and made a sign to the soldiers. Quick as a flash, two of them seized my arms and twisted them behind my back.
"E!" I cried. "What's this? Tm on a mission for the king—"
"You're under arrest," said the inspector. "Strip him."
In twenty winks, I was standing naked, while the civilians went through my clothing. One said:
"Here they are, Inspector.
He held up my belt, showing the little pockets on the inside. With a knife he slit the stitching of one pocket and squeezed out the emerald it contained. There was a gasp from the customs squad and the boatmen, for it was a fine stone.
The inspector looked again at the manifest. "As we thought, that stuff is not entered. Put his shirt back on but hold the belt for evidence."
'You stupid idiots!" I shouted with a fine show of indignation, "of course it's not entered! Do you think I want the king's jewels stolen by the first rascal who hears a rumor of this treasure? Those gauds are all to be presented to His Majesty in person. By the gods, you shall sweat when he learns of this outrage!"
"Shut up," said the inspector, and cuffed me across the mouth.
Rage gave me more than my usual strength, which even in middle age was considerable. With a mighty heave, I hurled one soldier away from me, so that he fell sprawling on the deck. I staggered the other with a blow from my free arm and then tried to tear loose to get at the inspector. Could I have reached him, I believe I should have broken his neck. Bat the rest of the boarding party sprang upon me and bore me to the deck in a kicking, clawing mass. Somebody whacked me on the head with the weighted pommel of a the handle, so that I saw stars and the world spun dizzily.
When I got my senses back, I was standing with arms tied behind me and a noose around my neck. One soldier held the other end of the rope, so that if I tried to pull away I should merely strangle myself.
Soon I was being marched through the Canopic Quarter to the law courts. After half a day's wait, my case was called. The inspector showed the judge the belt and dug a double handful of gems from the secret pockets. I saw nothing of the emerald they had taken on the barge; no doubt the inspector had appropriated it for himself.
This man," said the inspector, "has not only violated the taw in regard to traffic in gemstones, but he also resisted arrest. Such a hardened criminal deserves a severe penalty."
The judge asked me if I had anything to say. I repeated in more detail the story I had told the inspector on the barge: how I had hidden the gemstones to protect them from thieves until I could present them to the king in person.
The judge listened without expression. With a faint smile, he picked up a roll of papyrus, saying:
"I have here the confession of the confederate of the accused, one Hippalos of Corinth, wherein he states: 'My captain, Eudoxos of Kyzikos, suggested that we try to get around His Divine Majesty's monopoly of all trade in gemstones in Alexandria and in Egypt, arguing that it was unfair for us to take all the risks of this voyage to unknown lands, while the king got all the profit. So we bought pearls and gems in India with our own money and had a native craftsman make us belts to hide these things in."
I was startled to hear that Hippalos had been caught, too, and then angry when I heard how he had put all the blame on me. I swore vengeance upon him if I should ever catch him.