Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 5. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

stood, shoulders touching deck, legs writhing as though in grotesque mid-somersault. Then crumpled and lay still.

      "Well thrown!" he heard the Persian shout.

      Long fingers clutched his ankles; his feet flew from beneath him. As he fell he caught glimpse of a face staring up at him, a face that was but one red smear; the face of the first priest he had battered down. Falling, Kenton swept out his arms. Claws clutched his throat. There flashed into Kenton's mind a dreadful thing he had seen done in another unequal combat upon a battlefield in France. Up swept his right hand, the first two fingers extended. They found place in the eye sockets of the throttler; pressed there cruelly; pressed there relentlessly. He heard a howl of agony; tears of blood spurted over his hands; the choking fingers dropped from his throat. Where eyes had been were now two raw red sockets with dreadful pendants.

      Kenton leaped to his feet. He stamped upon the crimson smeared face looking up at him stamped once, twice, thrice—and the grip about his ankles was gone.

      He caught a glimpse of Sharane, white faced, wide-eyed; realized that the laughter of the black priest was stilled.

      At him rushed the fourth acolyte, a broad-leafed knife gleaming in his grip. Kenton bent his head, rushed to meet him. He caught the hand that held the blade; bent the arm back; heard the bone snap. The fourth priest shrieked and fell.

      He saw Klaneth, mouth loose, staring at him.

      Straight for the black priest's throat he leaped, right fist swinging upward to the jaw as he sprang. But the black priest thrust out his arms, caught him in mid-leap; lifted him high, over his head; balanced him to dash him down upon the deck.

      Kenton closed his eyes—this, then, was the end.

      He heard the voice of the Persian, urgent:

      "Hai, Klaneth! Hai! Kill him not! By Ishak of the Hollow Hell—kill him not. Klaneth! Save him to fight again!"

      Then the drummer—

      "Nay, Klaneth! Nay!" He felt the talons of Gigi catch him; hold him tight in double grasp. "Nay, Klaneth! He fought fairly and well. He would be a rare one to have with us. Mayhap he will change his mind—with discipline. Remember, Klaneth—he can pass the barrier."

      The great bulk of the black priest trembled. Slowly his hands began to lower Kenton.

      "Discipline? Ha!" it was the snarling voice of the overseer. "Give him to me, master, in the place of the slave who died at the oar. I will teach him —discipline."

      The black priest dropped Kenton on the deck; stood over him for a moment. Then he nodded, turned and stalked into his cabin. Kenton, reaction seizing him, huddled; hands clasping knees.

      "Unchain the dead slave and cast him over, Zachel," he heard Gigi say. "I will watch this man till you return."

      Kenton heard the overseer patter away. The drummer bent over him.

      "Well fought, wolf cub," he whispered. "Well fought! Now to your chains. Obey. Your chance shall come. Do as I say, wolf cub—and I will do what I may."

      He walked away. Kenton, wondering, raised his head. He saw the drummer stoop, lift the body of the priest with the broken neck and with one sweep of his long arm send it whirling over the ship's rail. Bending again he sent after it the body of him upon whose face Kenton had stamped.

      He paused speculatively before the wailing, empty-socketed horror stumbling and falling about the deck. Then. grinning cheerfully, he lifted it by the knees and tossed it overboard.

      "Three less to worry about hereafter," muttered Gigi,

      A tremor shook Kenton; his teeth chattered; he sobbed. The drummer looked down on him with amused wonder.

      "You fought well, wolf cub," he said. "Then why do you quiver like a whipped hound whose half chewed bone has been cast away?"

      He laid both hands on Kenton's bleeding shoulders. Under their touch he steadied. It was as though through Gigi's hands flowed some current of strength of which his soul drank. As though he had tapped some ancient spring, some still pool of archaic indifference both to life and death, the current ran through him.

      "Good!" said Gigi, and stood up. "Now Zachel comes for you."

      The overseer was beside Kenton; he touched his shoulder; pointed down a short flight of steps that led from the black deck to the galley-pit. Zachel behind him, Kenton groped down those steps into the half darkness of the pit. He stumbled along a narrow passage-way; was brought to halt at a great oar over whose shank a head, golden-haired, long-haired as any woman's, bent from muscle-gnarled shoulders. This golden-haired oarsman slept. Around his waist was a thick bronze ring. From this ring a strong chain swung, its end fastened to a staple sunk deep in the back of the bench on which he sat. His wrists were manacled. The oar on which his head rested was manacled, too. Between manacled wrists and manacled oar two other strong chains stretched.

      There was an empty chained circlet at the sleeper's left side; on the oar at his left two empty manacles hung from chains.

      Zachel pushed Kenton down on the bench beside the sleeping oarsman; girdled his waist with the empty bronze circlet; snapped it close; locked it.

      He thrust Kenton's unresisting hands through the manacles dangling from the oar; closed them on him; locked them.

      And suddenly Kenton felt warmth of eyes upon him: looked behind him; saw leaning over the rail the face of Sharane. There was pity in her face; and dawning of something that set his heart to beating wildly.

      "I'll discipline you—never fear!" said Zachel.

      Kenton looked behind him again.

      Sharane was gone.

      He bent over his oar beside the sleeping giant.

      Bent over his oar—

      Chained to it.

      Slave of the ship!

      VIII

      THE TALE OF SIGURD

      Kenton awakened to the shrilling of a whistle. Something flicked his shoulder like the touch of a hot iron. He jerked his head up from the bed of his arms; looked stupidly at the chained wrists. Again the flick upon the shoulder, biting into the flesh.

      "Up, slave!" he heard a snarling voice say—a voice he knew and struggled with deep drugged mind to place. "Up! Stand to your oar!"

      Then another voice, close beside him, whispering, hoarse, but with warmth of comradeship in it:

      "On your feet before his whip covers your back with the blood runes."

      He struggled upright; hands falling mechanically into two smooth, worn hollows in the wooden shaft to which he was chained. Standing thus upon the bench, his eyes looked out upon a tranquil, turquoise ocean, waveless, within a huge inverted bowl of silver mists. In front of him were four men, two standing, two sitting, at shanks of great oars which, like that he clutched, thrust through the side of a ship. Beyond them sloped a black deck—

      Memory rushed upon him, banishing the last of sleep. The first voice had been that of Zachel, and the hot touches on his skin the bite of his whip. He turned his head. A score of other men, black and brown, sat and stood at other great sweeps, bending and rising, sending the Ship of Ishtar cutting through the still blue sea. And there on a platform at the mast step was Zachel, grinning derisively, Out at Kenton nicked the long lash once more.

      "Look not back! Row!" snarled Zachel.

      "I will row," whispered the second voice. "Stand and sway with the oar till strength comes to you."

      He looked down on a head fair-haired, long-haired as any woman's. But there was nothing womanish in the face that was lifted for an instant to his. Ice cold and ice blue were the eyes in it, though thawed now by a rough kindliness. The skin was storm beaten, tempest tanned. Nor was there aught womanish in the muscles