, selecting from among them the fairest
and most noble-looking man, just as they would have selected a bullock
from a herd, they sacrificed him to one of their deities on the prow of
the captured ship. This was a religious ceremony, intended to signalize
and sanctify their victory.

The second vessel they also overtook and captured. The crew of this ship
were easily subdued, as the overwhelming superiority of their enemies
appeared to convince them that all resistance was hopeless, and to
plunge them into despair. There was one man, however, who, it seems,
could not be conquered. He fought like a tiger to the last, and only
ceased to deal his furious thrusts and blows at the enemies that
surrounded him when, after being entirely covered with wounds, he fell
faint and nearly lifeless upon the bloody deck. When the conflict with
him was thus ended, the murderous hostility of his enemies seemed
suddenly to be changed into pity for his sufferings and admiration of
his valor. They gathered around him, bathed and bound up his wounds,
gave him cordials, and at length restored him to life. Finally, when the
detachment returned to the fleet, some days afterward, they carried this
man with them, and presented him to the commanders as a hero worthy of
the highest admiration and honor. The rest of the crew were made slaves.

The third of the Greek guard-ships contrived to escape, or, rather, the
crew escaped, while the vessel itself was taken. This ship, in its
flight, had gone toward the north, and the crew at last succeeded in
running it on shore on the coast of Thessaly, so as to escape,
themselves, by abandoning the vessel to the enemy. The officers and
crew, thus escaping to the shore, went through Thessaly into Greece,
spreading the tidings every where that the Persians were at hand. This
intelligence was communicated, also, along the coast, by beacon fires
which the people of Sciathus built upon the heights of the island as a
signal, to give the alarm to the country southward of them, according to
the preconcerted plan. The alarm was communicated by other fires built
on other heights, and sentinels were stationed on every commanding
eminence on the highlands of Euboea toward the south, to watch for the
first appearance of the enemy.

The Persian galleys that had been sent forward having taken the three
Greek guard-ships, and finding the sea before them now clear of all
appearances of an enemy, concluded to return to the fl