Yet did Caesar sleep? Towards sunset the wind arose, and all night a
great gale blew. This was the fourth misfortune the expedition had
experienced. It had first been delayed for twenty-four days in
starting; it had then lost the wind and had been for hours at the mercy
of the tide, only landing at last when the day was far spent after a
whole night upon the waters; it had been compelled by lack of water to
quit the camp at the landing-place without rest, and utterly weary and
sleepless, to undertake a perilous night march in search of water. And
now in the darkness, after the first encounter with the enemy, a great
gale arose.
How often during that night must Caesar have awakened and thought of
the sea and his transports. It was, as he would remember, just such a
storm which had ruined him in the previous summer. To avoid a like
disaster he had had his boats built for this expedition, shallow of
draft and with flat bottoms that they might be beached. But with the
Mediterranean in his mind and the certain weather of the south, Caesar,
seeing the August sky so soft and clear, had anchored and not beached
the ships after all.
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