Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/21

be kissed; then, fearing some more spiteful wave might separate us as we clung together, he passed his belt around us both. “If nothing else,” he cried, “the sea will at least bear us longer, joined together, and if, in pity, it casts us up upon the same shore, some passerby may pile some stones over us, out of common human kindness, or the last rites will be performed by the drifting sand, in spite of the angry waves.” I submit to this last bond and, as though I were laid out upon my death-bed, await an end no longer dreaded. Meanwhile, accomplishing the decrees of the Fates, the storm stripped the ship of all that was left; no mast, no helm, not a rope nor an oar remained on board her; she was only a derelict, heavy and water-logged, drifting before the waves. Some fishermen hastily put off in their little boats to salvage their booty, but, seeing men, alive and ready to defend their property, they changed their predatory designs into offers of help.