Chapter 19: XVII

XVII A Stray Gleam The last blue headland of Sardinia was fading fast on the northwest horizon, and a steady breeze bore before it innumerable ships, the wrecks of Heraclian’s armament, plunging and tossing impatiently in their desperate homeward race toward the coast of Africa. Far and wide, under a sky of cloudless blue, the white sails glittered on the glittering sea, as gaily now, above their loads of shame and disappointment, terror and pain, as when, but one short month before, they…