raid, and the commanders of the
several ships began to devise, each for his own vessel, the best means
of safety. Some, whose vessels were small, drew them up upon the sand,
above the reach of the swell. Others strengthened the anchoring tackle,
or added new anchors to those already down. Others raised their anchors
altogether, and attempted to row their galleys away, up or down the
coast, in hope of finding some better place of shelter. Thus all was
excitement and confusion in the fleet, through the eager efforts made by
every separate crew to escape the impending danger.

In the mean time, the storm came on apace. The rising and roughening sea
made the oars useless, and the wind howled frightfully through the
cordage and the rigging. The galleys soon began to be forced away from
their moorings. Some were driven upon the beach and dashed to pieces by
the waves. Some were wrecked on the rocks at one or the other of the
projecting points which bounded the bay on either hand. Some foundered
at their place of anchorage. Vast numbers of men were drowned. Those who
escaped to the shore were in hourly dread of an attack from the
inhabitants of the country. To save themselves, if possible, from this
danger, they dragged up the fragments of the wrecked vessels upon the
beach, and built a fort with them on the shore. Here they intrenched
themselves, and then prepared to defend their lives, armed with the
weapons which, like the materials for their fort, were washed up, from
time to time, by the sea.

The storm continued for three days. It destroyed about three hundred
galleys, besides an immense number of provision transports and other
smaller vessels. Great numbers of seamen, also, were drowned. The
inhabitants of the country along the coast enriched themselves with the
plunder which they obtained from the wrecks, and from the treasures, and
the gold and silver vessels, which continued for some time to be driven
up upon the beach by the waves. The Persians themselves recovered, it
was said, a great deal of valuable treasure, by employing a certain
Greek diver, whom they had in their fleet, to dive for it after the
storm was over. This diver, whose name was Scyllias, was famed far and
wide for his power of remaining under water. As an instance of what they
believed him capable of performing, they said that when, at a certain
period subsequent to these transactions, he determined to desert to the
Greeks, he accomplished his desi