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opened my eyes and yelled as loudly as Zaras, ‘Of course they are tuna. Get the harpoons ready!’
    I had noticed the harpoons when I came aboard for the first time. They were stowed under the rowing benches. I had supposed that they were used to repel pirates and corsairs if they tried to board the ship. The shafts were about twice as long as a tall man. The heads were of razor-sharp flint. There was an eye behind the barb to which the coir line was spliced. And at the other end of the line was tied a carved wooded float.
    Although I had given the order for harpoons, it was typical of Zaras that he was the first of any of them to act upon it. He always led by his own example.
    He snatched one of the long weapons from where it had been strapped under the thwart, and as he ran with it to the ship’s side he unwrapped the retaining line. He jumped up on to the gunwale of the galley and balanced the long harpoon easily, with the shaft resting on his shoulder and the barbed flint head pointing down at the flashing shoal of fish that was streaming past him like a river of molten silver. They looked up at him with great round eyes that seemed to be dilated with terror.
    I watched him gather himself and then hurl the harpoon, point first, straight down into the water below him. The shaft of the heavy weapon shuddered as the point struck and the harpoon was whipped away below the surface by the rush of the huge fish that was impaled by the flint point.
    Zaras jumped back on to the deck and seized the running line as it streamed away, blurring with speed and beginning to smoke with the friction of the coarse rope against the wood of the gunwale. Three other men of the crew leaped forward to help him and they latched on to the rope and battled to subdue the fish and bring it alongside.
    Four other men had followed Zaras’ example and each of them grabbed a harpoon from its place below the thwarts and ran with it to the gunwale. Soon there were knots of struggling men on each side of the boat, shouting with excitement, swearing and bellowing incoherent orders at each other as they struggled with the massive creatures.
    One after another the fish were heaved on board and clubbed to death. Before the last of the harpooned fish had been killed and butchered, the rest of the mighty shoal had disappeared back into the depths as suddenly and miraculously as they had appeared.
    We went ashore again that night, and by the light of the cooking fires on the beach we feasted on the succulent flesh of the tuna. It is the most highly prized delicacy in all the seas. The men seasoned the flesh with just a little salt. Some of them could not wait for it to be thrown on the coals, and they wolfed it down raw and bleeding. Then they followed it with a swallow from the wine-skins.
    I knew that the next morning they would be strong and eager for the first sight of the enemy. Unlike corn or other insipid foods, meat rouses the demon in the heart of a warrior.
    So that night I sang for them ‘The Ballad of Tanus and the Blue Sword’. It is the battle hymn of the Blues, and it set them afire. Every man joined in the chorus, no matter how rough his voice, and afterwards I could see the light of war shining in their eyes. They were ready to meet any enemy.
    W e launched the galleys again the next morning as soon as it was light enough to make out the reefs below the surface, and to find a safe passage through them.
    The closer we came to the many mouths of the Nile Delta the more certain I became of our position, until in the late afternoon we sailed past an estuarine mouth which was bounded on the east side by a low forested headland and on the west by an exposed mud-bank. On the headland facing the sea stood a rudimentary tower of mud-bricks that were painted with limewash. The roof of the tower had collapsed, as had most of the wall on the seaward side of the construction. However, enough of it was still standing for me to be certain that this was the