The fair-haired artist was ill, and it would be no difficult matter to take him alive, even if he should put himself on the defensive.

Hermon, on the contrary, was a strong fellow, and to bind him without injuring him severely would require both strength and skill.
Yet it must be done, for only in case Hanno succeeded in delivering both sculptors to her alive would she consider herself--she could not repeat it often enough--bound to fulfil what she had promised him.
With the exception of the two artists, only Myrtilus's servant, the old doorkeeper, and Bias, Hermon's slave, remained during the night in the house which was to be attacked, and Hanno would undertake the assault with twenty-five sturdy fellows whom he commanded on the Hydra if his brother Labaja consented to share in the assault, this force could be considerably increased.
To take the old corsair into their confidence now would not be advisable, for, on account of his mother's near presence, he would scarcely consent to enter into the peril.

Should the venture fail, everything would be over; but if it succeeded, the old man could only praise the courage and skill with which it had been executed.
Nothing was to be feared from the coast guard, for since Abus's death the authorities believed that piracy had vanished from these waters, and the ships commanded by Satabus and his sons had been admitted from Pontus into the Tanite arm of the Nile as trading vessels..