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said another man. “Reckon you care for your own skin too. We’ll be better off with you than with that ape on the rope’s end.”
    â€œRight,” said Nun, making his end fast. “I’ll get you there and back, never fear, if you do what I say. As for our shipmate here, he can follow us for a bit if he wishes.” So while the men went back to their stations and he settled the ship back on course, he left Quoph trailing astern, his cries getting more and more waterlogged. When at last he gave orders for him to be hauled aboard gasping and trembling, there was nothing left in him but seawater and the despairing resolution that had kept him grasping the end of the rope. Nun saw that Quoph would cause no more trouble.
    Then Nun perceived that the Chaldean was awake and watching him.
    â€œCongratulations, Captain,” said the passenger. “I see you are a man of courage and resource.”
    But Nun felt a burst of anger toward this man who had got him into the present situation. “Thank you,” he said curtly. “But where are we?”
    â€œI was about to ask you that,” the passenger said calmly.
    Nun took him by the arm to the side of the ship, away from the seaman who had now taken over the steering, and spoke low but angrily. “You don’t know where we are?” he expostulated. “After all your magic with the stars! Perhaps the men were right, and I should have thrown you overboard.”
    â€œBe calm, Captain,” said the Chaldean mildly. “This is a matter of mathematics, not sorcery. If your ship were a camel I should know how far we had traveled in a day’s march over the desert, but I must confess that this thing of wood and rope and canvas is strange to me. Let us reason calmly. This passage, coasting along the mainland and the Isle of Cyprus, takes you how long, usually?”
    â€œFour days.”
    â€œAnd that is going north a little, and south a little, and sleeping in haven every night?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWe have been at sea for a day and a half, with a good following wind,” mused the Chaldean. “Even so, we can hardly be nearing Crete yet, let alone the edge of the world.”
    Nun was torn between feeling irritated at his passenger’s air of superior intelligence, and being soothed by his calm approach to the crisis.
    â€œLet us wait till sundown again,” said the Chaldean. “Maybe the stars, or perhaps the moon, will tell us a little more about where we are, and maybe we shall alter course to the North, and to the islands.”
    Then darkness came again, the stars reappeared, and the Chaldean noted the height of some of them over the northern horizon. He observed the rising of the moon, and questioned Nun closely about the running of the ship. Then he was silent for a while, and Nun was aware of things going on inside this stranger’s head that were quite new to him. Calculations, to Nun, were a matter of fingers and toes or pebbles, or beads on strings; but the stranger seemed to be able to perform them instantly.
    A little before dawn, as they still forged ahead on the same course, the constellation of the Bull rose again astern, and the Chaldean gazed at it in rapt contemplation. At last he spoke, and his voice seemed troubled by uncertainty, but his instructions were clear.
    â€œCaptain,” he said. “If you were to alter course now toward the sign of the Lyre, by noon next day we should sight the islands.”
    â€œIs this sure?” Nun asked. “You sound doubtful.”
    â€œFinding the islands is a little thing,” said the sage. “The doubt arises as to what we shall find when we get there. I must confess that I am troubled. Some great disaster is what the stars foretell, but what its nature is I cannot make out.”
    â€œMy men will be happy enough to see land,” said Nun. “Disasters can take care of themselves. If what you say is the