Would it bring the Romans or the pirates?
If the pirates, his charge was lost.
At last morning broke in full, the air without a breath.

Off to the left he saw the land, too far to think of attempting to make it.
Here and there men were adrift like himself.

In spots the sea was blackened by charred and sometimes smoking fragments.

A galley up a long way was lying to with a torn sail hanging from the tilted yard, and the oars all idle.

Still farther away he could discern moving specks, which he thought might be ships in flight or pursuit, or they might be white birds a-wing.
An hour passed thus.