The Last Galley, Arthur Conan Doyle [read along books txt] 📗

Carthage was coming swiftly to an endbefore them. Under their very eyes the two Roman galleys had shot in,one on either side of the vessel of Black Magro. They had grappled withhim, and he, desperate in his despair, had cast the crooked flukes ofhis anchors over their gunwales, and bound them to him in an iron grip,whilst with hammer and crowbar he burst great holes in his ownsheathing. The last Punic galley should never be rowed into Ostia, asight for the holiday-makers of Rome. She would lie in her own waters.And the fierce, dark soul of her rover captain glowed as he thought thatnot alone should she sink into the depths of the mother sea.

Too late did the Romans understand the man with whom they had to deal.Their boarders who had flooded the Punic decks felt the planking sinkand sway beneath them. They rushed to gain their own vessels; but they,too, were being drawn downwards, held in the dying grip of the great redgalley. Over they went and ever over. Now the deck of Magro's ship i