laughing. "But this is not resting you. Shall we give these steersmen a lesson?"

Two long oars rigged one on either side of the keel-line at the stern served as rudders. They were joined by a brace at the handles, by which they could be connected or disconnected, and thus be worked by one person in quiet water, but needed the strength of two in heavy seas, or in putting the bireme through rapid manœuvres. Two brawny fellows were manning them, as the wind was rising. The brace of helmsmen, doffing their caps, gave place to the king and his companion.

"Quicker!" shouted Hiram to the master of the oarsmen, whose hands beat out the gradually accelerating time, until the sixty blades cut the water as the wings of a kingfisher cut the air. The wind still freshening, they set the great square sail. Soon they tacked far to the north, and, rounding to the west, crossed the bows of the bireme of Herodotus.

"The king! the king!" shouted the sailors on the Dido, as they recognized the well-known forms at the helm.

And "Hanno! Hanno! Hanno!" was given with equal enthusiasm.

All the oar-blades of the Dido were lifted from the water as the Dolphin dashed past. On the high stern stood the venerable Herodotus, his head uncovered, and his noble brow white and shining like an aureole, in contrast with his bronzed lower face and dark beard. He held aloft a goblet of wine, and shouted, as the Dolphin flew by:

"To Hiram! To Tyre!"

The Dolphin careened far over as she turned, her great square sail throwing a shadow on the deck of the Dido as it intercepted the western sun. It was a dangerous manœuvre for any but helmsmen of utmost skill to have attempted.

"It was never done better since your father, Captain Hanno, ran the gantlet of a score of Greek ships at Salamis," said one of the helmsmen, as they took again the steering oars.

"There's no praise we like so well as that of our sailors," replied Hanno.

Turning to Hiram, as they moved out of hearing of the men, Captain Hanno said: "So I would work with you, my king. The two oars, though disconnected, worked as one in our hands. I followed with my whole might every movement you made."

"No," said Hiram, "I waited until I caught your purpose, for you are the better helmsman. Had I not done so, we surely had gone over."

"It is strange! I thought I followed you, and you thought you followed me. I suspect that we both followed our common sailor's instinct. We will take it, then, as an omen. So we will work together for the throne of Tyre. Events may occur in which it will be wise for me to appear to take no part in the affairs of the court. But, believe me, I shall pull with you, as on the steering oar. I think I know your heart, O king! And I put my heart within yours. I believe as little in the gods as you do. I have but one object of devotion on earth, but one vow, and that I give to my king."

Hiram gazed into his friend's face. The tears started to his eyes. But, though the heartiness of this avowal was grateful to him, he could not repress his surprise at it. He knew Hanno's loyalty; but why should the noble fellow make so much of telling it? It was very unlike him. He was generally either reticent, or extremely laconic, in speaking of his purposes. He acted quickly—like lightning, that lets the report come afterwards. Hiram again searched his friend's face for some explanation, but saw nothing unusual, except a closer knitting of the brows as if from perplexity and pain; a silent prophecy of evil that the noble fellow would avert, though with the sacrifice of his own life.

CHAPTER III.

The two friends parted at the quay. The king entered the palanquin which had awaited his return.

"To Trypho, the dyer's!"

An unusual commotion was made in the streets, or rather the alleys, through which the king's litter passed; for seldom until Hiram's accession had royalty cast its aristocratic lustre among the shadows of the common artisan's life. But Hiram was well known in these places. As a lad he had spent many hours in the factories, amusing himself with tools, and questioning the workmen about the details of their various arts.

The palanquin stopped at a low door, from which a cloud of steam was emitted. In the midst of this, like the statue of some god in a halo of incense, stood a man, naked to the waist, his arms and parts of his bare breast red, as if with blood.

As the king alighted, the man made an awkward salâm, knocking his head against the low lintel in resuming the perpendicular. Without losing any of his courtliness of manner, Hiram put the fellow at case by his genial familiarity.

"Ah, Trypho! You are like the god Tammuz, killed by the wild boar, but coming to life with the blood-marks on him."

"Like a king, rather," said Trypho, "for the red will be purple when it dries."

"No, like a queen," retorted Hiram, pleased with the man's banter, "for I swear by Astarte that the dye on your arms is the same that is going into the robe of the future queen of Tyre."

"Such is the honor your patronage has brought me," replied Trypho, making another salâm, that ended by nearly tripping the king into a dyeing vat.

"But how goes the cloth?" asked Hiram, laughing.

"It is nearly completed," said the workman, leading the way to an inner room. "Come in, and judge for yourself. I need not keep the secret of my art from one who knows it already."

At a leaden sink a half-grown boy was drawing the snail-like murex from its shell. Cutting off its head, he dexterously detached from its body the long sac of yellow liquid, which, on exposure, changed first to green, and, passing through the intermediate shades, to a bright purple. At a bench near by a workman crushed with a wooden hammer the smaller shell of the insect since called buccinum, which, together with the body of the animal, was thrown into a vat, mixed with salt, the whole mass heated, and reduced to a liquid state by an injection of steam. The gritty substance from the shell was then carefully skimmed from the surface, leaving a lighter purplish liquid than that obtained from the murex.

"They tell me, Trypho, that you can mix these two dyes at sight, so as to produce the rare tint for which your cloths are so famous. Have you no written formula, and do you never measure out the proportions?"

"No, sire," replied the man, "I never learned the proportions by weight or by measure. If I knew them myself I might tell somebody; then my secret would be gone. So I never told myself how I do it. I think of a tint, and pour the dyes together, and they always come out the tint I think of. How do I do it? Just as my old legs carry me where I think of going, without counting my steps, or watching which way my toes turn."

The fellow was garrulous, and, seeing that he had the king's attention, went on:—

"I got this secret where I got my blood—from my father; and he from his, and he from his. For, you see, we have been in this trade for thousands of years. You know that story the priests tell about the discovery of the art of dyeing? Well, it is true, because it was to one of my grandfathers that the great god Melkarth came when his dog ate off the head of a shell-fish, and colored his jaws with such beautiful tints that the nymph Tyrus refused to marry the god until he gave her a gown of the same color. It was my ancestor, the first Trypho, who helped the great Melkarth get his bride; and to no one else than to Trypho, the last, should the noble King Hiram come for a gown for his beautiful queen: whom may Tyrus bless!