It was a river boat, and unsuited to the open sea, but it was all that he could obtain.
[Sidenote: Pompey embarks on board a vessel.] [Sidenote: The shipmaster's dream.] He arose the next morning at break of day, and embarked in the little vessel, with two or three attendants, and the oarsmen began to row away along the shore.

They soon came in sight of a merchant ship just ready to sail.

The master of this vessel, it happened, had seen Pompey, and knew his countenance, and he had dreamed, as a famous historian of the times relates, on the night before, that Pompey had come to him hi the guise of a simple soldier and in great distress, and that he had received and rescued him.

There was nothing extraordinary in such a dream at such a time, as the contest between Caesar and Pompey, and the approach of the final collision which was to destroy one or the other of them, filled the minds and occupied the conversation of the world.

The shipmaster, therefore, having seen and known one of the great rivals in the approaching conflict, would naturally find both his waking and sleeping thoughts dwelling on the subject; and his fancy, in his dreams, might easily picture the scene of his rescuing and saving the fallen hero in the hour of his distress.
[Sidenote: Pompey goes on board a merchant ship.] However this may be, the shipmaster is said to have been relating his dream to the seamen on the deck of his vessel when the boat which was conveying Pompey came into view.