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

of the breaking waves telling their beads of foam.

      Ever more real grew the ship. Striking through its substance came the wavering image of his room. It seemed to struggle against the ship, to strive to cover it. But the ship beat it back, crying out to him with the voices of his comrades and the voices of wind and sea in one.

      "Wolf! We feel you near! Come to us—Sharane! Sharane! Sharane!"

      The phantom outlines leaped into being; they enclosed him.

      The arms of Gigi reached out to him, gripped him, plucked him out of space!

      And as they gripped, he heard a chaotic whirling, a roaring as of another world spinning from under him and lashed by mighty winds.

      He stood again upon the ship.

      He was clasped tight to Gigi's hairy chest. Sigurd's hands were on his shoulders. Zubran was clasping and patting Kenton's own hands clutching Gigi's back, singing in his joy strange intricate Persian curses.

      "Wolf!" roared Gigi, tears filling the furrows of his wrinkled face. "Where did you go? In the name of all the gods—where have you been?"

      "Never mind!" sobbed Kenton. "Never mind where I've been, Gigi! I'm back! Oh, thank God, I'm back!"

      XVI

      HOW THE SHIP WAS MANNED

      Faintness conquered him. The wounds and the effort of will had sapped his strength to its limit. When he came back to consciousness he was on the divan in Sharane's raped cabin. His bandages had been replaced, his wounds redressed. The three men and four of Sharane's maids were looking down upon him. There was no reproach on any of their faces—only curiosity, tempered with awe.

      "It must be a strange place to which you go, Wolf," Gigi said at last. "For see! The slash across my chest is healed, Sigurd's cuts, too—yet your wounds are as fresh as though made but a moment ago."

      Kenton looked and saw that it was so; the slash across Gigi's breast was now only a red scar.

      "Also it was a strange way to leave us, blood-brother," rumbled the Viking.

      "By the fire of Ormuzd!" swore the Persian. "It was a very good way! A good thing for us that you left as you did. Cyrus the King taught us that it was a good general who knew how to retreat to save his troops. And that retreat of yours was a masterly one, comrade, Without it we would not be here now to welcome you."

      "It was no retreat! I could not help but go!" whispered Kenton.

      "Well," the Persian shook a dubious head, "whatever it was, it saved us. One instant there you were lifted on the paws of the black priest's dogs. Another instant you had faded into a shadow. And then, lo, even the shadow was gone!"

      "How those dogs who had held you shrieked and ran," laughed Zubran. "And the dogs who were biting at us ran too—back to their kennels on the bireme they ran, for all Klaneth's cursing. They had great fear, comrade —and so in fact for a moment had I. Then down went their oars, and away sped their ship with Klaneth's cursing still sounding even after they had gotten safely out of sight of us."

      "Sharane!" groaned Kenton. "What did they do to her? Where have they taken her?"

      "To Emakhtila, or Sorcerers' Isle, I think," answered Gigi. "Fear not for her. Wolf. The black priests want you both. To torture her without your eyes looking on, or to slay you without hers beholding your agonies would be no revenge for Klaneth. No—until he lays hands on you Sharane is safe enough."

      "Not comfortable, perhaps, nor happy, but assuredly safe enough," confirmed the Persian,

      "Three of her maids they took with her in the nets," said Sigurd. "Three they slew. These four they left when you vanished."

      "They took Satalu, my little vessel of joy," mourned Gigi. "And for that Klaneth shall also pay when reckoning comes."

      "Half the slaves were killed when the bireme crashed against us," went on the Viking. "Oars crushed in ribs, broke backs. Others died later. The black- skin we put in Zachel's place is a man! He fought those who dropped into the pit and slew his share. Only eight oars have we now instead of twice seven. The black-skin sits at one of them—unchained. When we take new slaves he shall be overseer again and honored."

      "And I remember now," it was Gigi, dropping back to his first thought, "that when I dragged you up the side of Klaneth's cabin that day you fought his priests, you still bled from the bites of Sharane's girls. Yet with us there had been time and time again for them to have healed, And here you are once more with old wounds fresh. It must be a strange place indeed, that you go to, Wolf—is there no time there?"

      "It is your own world," he answered. "The world from whence all of you came."

      And as they stared at him, he leaped up from the divan.

      "Sail to Emakhtila! At once! Find Sharane! Free her! How soon, Gigi? How soon?"

      He felt the wound in his side open, fell back, his spurt of strength exhausted.

      "Not till your wounds are healed," said Gigi, and began to unfasten the reddening bandages. "And we must make the ship strong again before we take that journey. We must have new slaves for the oars. Now lie quiet, until you heal. Klaneth will do Sharane no harm as long as there is hope of taking you. I, Gigi, tell you this. So set your heart at ease."

      And now began for Kenton a most impatient time of waiting. To be chained here by his wounds when, despite Gigi's assurances, the black priest might be wreaking his ultimate vengeance upon Sharane! It was not to be borne.

      Fever set in. His wounds had been more serious than he had known. Gigi nursed him.

      The fever passed, and as he grew stronger he told him of that lost world of theirs; what had passed there during the centuries they had sailed on the timeless ship; of its machinery and its wars, its new laws and its customs.

      "And none now go Viking!" mused Sigurd. "Clearly then I see that there is no place for me there. Best for Sigurd, Trygg's son, to end his days where he is."

      The Persian nodded.

      "And no place for me," he echoed. "For a man of taste such as I, it seems no world at all to live in, I like not your way of waging wars. nor could I learn to like it—I who seem to be a soldier of an old, old school, indeed."

      Even Gigi was doubtful.

      "I do not think I would care for it," he said. "The customs seem so different. And I notice, Wolf, that you were willing to risk chains and death to get out of that world—and lose no time getting back to this."

      "The new gods seem so stupid," urged Zubran. "They do nothing. By the Nine Hells, the gods of this place are stupid enough—still they do something. Although perhaps it is better to do nothing than to do the same stupid things over and over," he ruminated.

      "I will make me a steading on one of these islands," said Sigurd, "after we have carried away Kenton's woman and slain the black priest. I will take me a strong wife and breed many younglings. I will teach them to build ships. Then we shall go viking as I did of old. Skoal! Skoal to the dragons slipping through Ran's bath with the red ravens on their sails and the black ones flying overhead!"

      "Say, blood-brother," he turned to Kenton, "when you have your woman back will you make a steading beside mine? With Zubran taking wives and he and Gigi—if he is not too old—breeding young, and with those who will join us—by Odin, but we could all be great Jarls in this world!"

      "That is not to my liking," replied the Persian promptly. "For one thing it takes too long to rear strong sons to fight for us. No—after we have finished our business with Klaneth I will go back to Emakhtila where there are plenty of men already made. It will be strange if I find there no discontented ones, men who can be stirred to revolt. If there be not enough of them—well, discontent is the easiest thing in the world to breed; much easier than sons, Sigurd. Also I am a great soldier. Cyrus the King himself told me so. With my army