The Argonauts by Charles Kingsley — Read

So they fled away in haste to the westward; but Aietes manned his fleet and followed them. And Lynceus the quick-eyed saw him coming, while he was still many a mile away, and cried, 'I see a hundred ships, like a flock of white swans, far in the east. ' And at that they rowed hard, like heroes; but the ships came nearer every hour.

Then Medeia, the dark witch-maiden, laid a cruel and a cunning plot; for she killed Absyrtus her young brother, and cast him into the sea, and said, 'Ere my father can take up his corpse and bury it, he must wait long, and be left far behind.'