The magistrate Aemilius Rufus came up: more trouble.
'We'll soon overtake,' he boasted. Wrong as usual. We never caught the Sea Scorpion. When we finally made it round the headland towards Positanum, the sea was full of litter from her decks, but the ship had disappeared.
There was no point in hurrying; they reefed our sail.
Then a marine yelled. The Pax rowed up nearer and gently stopped. Some of the sailors were there, clinging to driftwood; we pulled them in. Then I let out a hoarse sob of relief. Grinning weakly, but so tired he could not speak, I recognized my nephew floating on his back. He was desperately struggling to subdue a half-submerged figure who was thrashing stupidly: 'Milo!' cried Gordianus.
'Falco, your brave young nephew has saved my steward!'
I muttered that Larius had never showed much sense.
We must have missed quite a party. When Milo saw Atius Pertinax grinning in triumph as he was greeted by the sea captain, the steward ran amok. In the process of being overcome he was beaten and roped up with fishing lines. Meanwhile, my nephew stood by looking innocent; the sea captain suggested to Pertinax keeping Larius as a hostage.
'Did he, by Jupiter! But how did you get in the water, Larius-and where is the ship?'
Larius assumed his expression of playful nonchalance. 'Oh, I could see the Sea Scorpion needed a new coat of pitch so I guessed she was pretty barnacled. I pretended to feel seasick and went below decks. I had a chisel in my satchel from when we were selling lead, so I just set to in the bilges. The worms had nearly done the job anyway; she was so spongy one good storm would have claimed her as a wreck. I soon punched her hull full of more holes than a wine strainer-'
'Then what happened?'
'What do you think? She sank.'