Give me the oars, O son of a snail.
SENTINEL (threatening Ftatateeta). Now mistress: back to your henhouse. In with you.
FTATATEETA (falling on her knees and stretching her hands over the waters). Gods of the seas, bear her safely to the shore!
SENTINEL. Bear who safely? What do you mean?
FTATATEETA (looking darkly at him). Gods of Egypt and of Vengeance, let this Roman fool be beaten like a dog by his captain for suffering her to be taken over the waters.
SENTINEL. Accursed one: is she then in the boat? (He calls over the sea) Hoiho, there, boatman! Hoiho!
APOLLODORUS (singing in the distance).
My heart, my heart, be whole and free:
Love is thine only enemy.
Meanwhile Rufio, the morning’s fighting done, sits munching dates on a faggot of brushwood outside the door of the lighthouse, which towers gigantic to the clouds on his left. His helmet, full of dates, is between his knees; and a leathern bottle of wine is by his side. Behind him the great stone pedestal of the lighthouse is shut in from the open sea by a low stone parapet, with a couple of steps in the middle to the broad coping. A huge chain with a hook hangs down from the lighthouse crane above his head. Faggots like the one he sits on lie beneath it ready to be drawn up to feed the beacon.
Caesar is standing on the step at the parapet looking out anxiously, evidently ill at ease. Britannus comes out of the lighthouse door.