in hand, with prodigious force among the enemy, and cutting and thrusting right and left, slaughtered them like sheep; insomuch that the Rhodians, marking the fury of his onset, threw down their arms, and as with one voice did all acknowledge themselves his prisoners.  To whom Cimon:—­“Gallants,” quoth he, “’twas neither lust of booty nor enmity to you that caused me to put out from Cyprus to attack you here with force of arms on the high seas.  Moved was I thereto by that which to gain is to me a matter great indeed, which peaceably to yield me is to you but a slight matter; for ’tis even Iphigenia, whom more than aught else I love; whom, as I might not have her of her father in peaceable and friendly sort, Love has constrained me to take from you in this high-handed fashion and by force of arms; to whom I mean to be even such as would have been your Pasimondas:  wherefore give her to me, and go your way, and God’s grace go with you.”

Yielding rather to force than prompted by generosity, the Rhodians surrendered Iphigenia, all tears, to Cimon; who, marking her tears, said to her:—­“Grieve not, noble lady; thy Cimon am I, who, by my long love, have established a far better right to thee than Pasimondas by the faith that was plighted to him.”  So saying, he sent her aboard his ship, whither he followed her, touching nought that belonged to the Rhodians, and suffering them to go their way.  To have gotten so dear a prize made him the happiest man in the world, but for a time ’twas all he could do to assuage her grief:  then, after taking counsel with his comrades, he deemed it best not to return to Cyprus for the present:  and so, by common consent they shaped their course for Crete, where most of them, and especially Cimon, had alliances of old or recent date, and friends not a few, whereby they deemed that there they might tarry with Iphigenia in security.  But Fortune, that had accorded Cimon so gladsome a capture of the lady, suddenly proved fickle, and converted the boundless joy of the enamoured gallant into woeful and bitter lamentation.  ’Twas not yet full four hours since Cimon had parted from the Rhodians, when with the approach of night, that night from which Cimon hoped such joyance as he had never known, came weather most turbulent and tempestuous, which wrapped the heavens in cloud, and swept the sea with scathing blasts; whereby ’twas not possible for any to see how the ship was to be worked or steered, or to steady himself so as to do any duty upon her deck.  Whereat what grief was Cimon’s, it boots not to ask.  Indeed it seemed to him that the gods had granted his heart’s desire only that it might be harder for him to die, which had else been to him but a light matter.  Not less downcast were his comrades; but most of all Iphigenia, who, weeping bitterly and shuddering at every wave that struck the ship, did cruelly curse Cimon’s love and censure his rashness, averring that this tempest was come upon them for no other cause than that the gods had decreed, that, as ’twas in despite of their will that he purposed to espouse her, he should be frustrate of his presumptuous intent, and having lived to see her expire, should then himself meet a woeful death.