ea. Sometimes, too, a sharp word of command, or a signal
heard for a long distance, pierced through the awful sounds.

Here and there, and at last everywhere on the squadron, which surrounded
the tongue of land in a shallow curve, dim lights began to appear on the
masts and prows of the ships; but darkness brooded over the coast. Only
in the three fortified guardhouses, which had been hastily erected here,
the feeble light of a lantern illumined the gloom.

Twinkling lights also appeared in the night heavens between the swiftly
flying clouds. One star after another began to adorn the blue islands in
the cloudy firmament, and at last the full moon burst through the heavy
banks of dark clouds, and shone in pure brilliancy above their heads,
like a huge silver vessel in the black catafalque of a giant.

At the end of the first hour after sunset Eumedes ordered the boat to be
manned.

Armed as if for battle, he prepared for the row to the scene of misery,
and requested Hermon to buckle a coat of mail under his chlamys and put
on the sword he gave him. True, a division of reliable Macedonian
warriors was to accompany them, and Ledscha was in a well-guarded place,
yet it might perhaps be necessary to defend themselves against an
outburst of despair among the condemned prisoners. On the short trip, the
crests of the tossing waves sometimes shone with a flickering light,
while elsewhere long shadows spread like dark sails over the sea. The
flat coast on which both men soon stepped was brightly illumined by the
moonbeams, and the forms of the doomed men stood forth, like the black
figures on the red background of a vase, upon the yellowish-brown sand on
which they were standing, running, walking, or lying.

At the western end of the tongue of land a sand hill had been surrounded
by a wall and moat, guarded by heavily armed soldiers and several
archers. The level ground below had been made secure against any attack,
and on the right side was a roof supported by pillars.

The officials intrusted with the examination of the ringleaders had
remained during the day in this hastily erected open hut. The latter,
bound to posts, awaited their sentence.

The only woman among them was Ledscha, who crouched, unfettered, on the
ground behind the enclosure, which consisted of short stakes fastened by
a rope.

Without presenting any serious obstacle, it merely indicated how far the
prisoners might venture to go. Whoever crossed it mus