Now, when we came up with the coasts of Atlantis, though Tob, with
the aid of his modern instruments, had made his landfall with most
marvellous skill and nearness, there still remained some ten days’ more
journey in which we had to retrace our course, till we came to that arm
of the sea up which lies the great city of Atlantis, the capital.
The sight of the land, and the breath of earth and herbage which came
off from it with the breezes, were, I believe, under the Gods, the
means of saving the lives of all of us. For, as is necessary with long
cross-ocean voyages, many of our ships’ companies had died, and still
more were sick with scurvy through the unnatural tossing, or (as some
have it) through the salt, unnatural food inseparable from shipboard.
But these last, the sight and the smells of land heartened up in
extraordinary fashion, and from being helpless logs, unable to move even
under blows of the scourge, they became active again, able to help in
the shipwork, and lusty (when the time came) to fight for their lives
and their vessels.
From the moment that I was deposed in Yucatan, despite Tatho’s
assurances, there had been doubts in my mind as to what nature would
be my reception in Atlantis. But I had faced this event of the future
without concern: it was in the hands of the Gods. The Empress Phorenice
might be supreme on earth; she might cause my head to be lopped from its
proper shoulders the moment I set foot ashore; but my Lord the Sun was
above Phorenice, and if my head fell, it would be because He saw best
that it should be so. On which account, therefore, I had not troubled
myself about the matter during the voyage, but had followed out my calm
study of the higher mysteries with an unloaded mind.
But when our navy had retraced sufficiently the course that had been
overrun, and came up with the two vast headlands which marked the
entrance to the inland waters, there, a bare two days from the Atlantis
capital, we met with another navy which was, beyond doubt, waiting to
give us a reception. The ships were riding at anchor in a bay which lent
them shelter, but they had scouts on the high land above, who cried
the alarm of our approach, and when we rounded the headland, they were
standing out to dispute our passage.
Of us there were now but five ships, the rest having been lost in
storms, or fallen behind because all their crews were dead from the
scurvy; and of the strangers there were three fine ships, and three
galleys of many oars apiece. They were clean and bright and black; our
ships were storm-ragged and weather-worn, and had bottoms that were foul
with trailing ocean weed. Our ships hung out the colours and signs of
Tatho and Deucalion openly and without shame, so that all who looked
might know their origin and errand; but the other navy came on without
banner or antient, as though they were some low creatures feeling shame
for their birth.
Clear it seemed also that they would not let us pass without a fight,
and in this there was nothing uncommon; for no law carries out over the
seas, and a brother in one ship feels quite free to harry his brother
in another vessel if he meets him out of earshot of the beach--more
especially if that other brother be coming home laden from foray or
trading tour. So Tob, with system and method, got our vessel into
fighting trim, and the other four captains did the like with theirs,
and drew close in to us to form a compact squadron. They had no wish to
smell slavery, now that the voyage had come so near to its end.
Our Lord the Sun shone brilliantly, giving full speed to the machines,
as though He was fully willing for the affair to proceed, and the two
navies approached one another with quickness, the three galleys holding
back to stay in line with their consorts. But when some bare hundred
ship-lengths separated us, the other navy halted, and one of the
galleys, drawing ahead, flew green branches from her masts, seeking for
a parley.
The course was unusual, but we, in our sea-battered state, were no navy
to invite a fight unnecessarily. So in hoarse sea-bawls word was passed,
and we too halted, and Tob hoisted a withered stick (which had to do
duty for greenery), to show that we were ready for talk, and would
respect the person of an ambassador.
The galley drew on, swung round, and backed till its stern rasped on our
shield rail, and one of her people clambered up and jumped down upon
our decks. He was a dandily rigged-out fellow, young and lusty, and all
healthy from the land and land victual, and he looked round him with a
sneer at our sea-tatteredness, and with a fine self-confidence. Then,
seeing Tob, he nodded as one meets an acquaintance. “Old pot-mate,” he
said, “your woman waits for you up by the quay-side in Atlantis yonder,
with four youngsters at her heels. I saw her not half a month ago.”
“You didn’t come out here to tell me home news,” said Tob; “that I’ll be
sworn. I’ve drunk enough pots with you, Dason, to know your pleasantries
thoroughly.”
“I wanted to point out to you that your home is still there, with your
wife and children ready to welcome you.”
“I am not a man that ever forgets it,” said Tob grimly; “and because
I’ve got them always at the back of my mind, I’ve sailed this ship over
the top of more than one pirate, when, if I’d been a single man, I might
have been e’en content to take the hap of slavery.”
“Oh, I know you’re a desperate enough fellow,” said Dason, “and I’m free
to confess that if it does come to blows we are like to lose a few
men before we get you and your cripples here, and your crazy ships
comfortably sunk. Our navy has its orders to carry out, and the cause of
my embassage is this: we wish to see if you will act the sensible part
and give us what we want, and so be permitted to go on your way home,
with a skin that is unslit and dry?”
“You have come to the wrong bird here for a plucking,” said Tob with a
heavy laugh. “We took no treasure or merchandise on board in Yucatan. We
stayed in harbour long enough to cure our sea victual and fill with food
and water, and no longer. We sail back as we sailed out, barren ships.
You will not believe me, of course; I would not have believed you had
our places been changed; but you may go into the holds and search if
you choose. You will find there nothing but a few poor sailormen half in
pieces with the scurvy. No, you can steal nothing here but blows, Dason,
and we will give you those with but little asking.”
“I am glad to see that you state your cargo at such slender value,” said
the envoy, “for it is the cargo I must take back with me on the galley,
if you are to earn your safe conduct to home.”
Tob knit his brows. “You had better speak more plain,” he said. “I am a
common sailor, and do not understand fancy talk.”
“It is clear to see,” said Dason, “that you have been set to bring
Deucalion back to Atlantis as a prop for Phorenice. Well, we others find
Phorenice hard enough to fight against without further reinforcements,
and so we want Deucalion in our own custody to deal with after our own
fashion.”
“And if I do the miser, and deny you this piece of my freight?”
The spruce envoy looked round at the splintered ship, and the battered
navy beside her. “Why, then, Tob, we shall send you all to the fishes
in very short time, and instead of Deucalion standing before the Gods
alone, he will go down with a fine ragged company limping at his heels.”
“I doubt it,” said Tob, “but we shall see. As for letting you have my
Lord Deucalion, that is out of the question. For see here, pot-mate
Dason; in the first place, if I went to Atlantis without Deucalion, my
other lord, Tatho, would come back one of these days, and in his hands I
should die by the slowest of slow inches; in the second, I have seen
my Lord Deucalion kill a great sea lizard, and he showed himself such a
proper man that day that I would not give him up against his will, even
to Tatho himself; and in the third place, you owe me for your share in
our last wine-bout ashore, and I’ll see you with the nether Gods before
I give you aught till you’ve settled that score.”
“Well, Tob, I hope you’ll drown easy. As for that wife of yours, I’ve
always had a fancy for her myself, and I shall know how to find a use
for the woman.”
“I’ll draw your neck for that, you son of a European,” said Tob; “and
if you do not clear off this deck I’ll draw it here. Go,” he cried, “you
father of monkey children! Get away, and let me fight you fairly, or by
my honour I’ll stamp the inwards out of you, and make your silly crew
wear them as necklaces.”
Upon which Dason went to his galley.
Promptly Tob set going the machine on our own “Bear,” and bawled his
orders right and left to the other ships. The crew might be weak with
scurvy, but they were quick to obey. Instantly the five vessels were all
started, and because our Lord the Sun was shining brightly, got soon to
the full of their pace. The whole of our small navy converged, singling
out one ship of their opponents, and she, not being ready for so swift
an attack, got flurried, and endeavoured to turn and run for room,
instead of trying to meet us bows on. As a consequence, the whole of our
five ships hit her together on the broadside, tearing her planking with
their underwater beaks, and sinking her before we had backed clear from
the engage.
But if we thus brought the enemy’s number down to five, and so equal to
our own, the advantage did not remain with us for long. The three nimble
galleys formed into line: their boatswains’ whips cracked as the slaves
bent to their oars, and presently one of our own ships was gored and
sunk, the men on her being killed in the water without hope of rescue.
And then commenced a tight-locked melee that would have warmed the heart
of the greatest warrior alive. The ships and the galleys were forced
together and lay savagely grinding one another upon the swells, as
though they had been sentient animals. The men on board them shot their
arrows, slashed with axes, thrust and hacked with swords, and hurled the
throwing fire. But in every way the fight converged upon the “Bear.” It
was on her that the enemy spent the fiercest of their spite; it was to
the “Bear,” that the other crews of Tatho’s navy rallied as their own
vessels caught fire, or were sunk or taken.
Battle is an old acquaintance with us of the Priestly Clan, and for
those of us who have had to carve out territories for the new colonies,
it comes with enough frequency to cloy even the most chivalrous
appetite. So I can speak here as a man of experience. Up till that time,
for half a life-span, I had heard men shout “Deucalion” as a battlecry,
and in my day had seen some lusty encounters. But this sea-fight
surprised even me in its savage fierceness. The bleak, unstable element
which surrounded us; the swaying decks on which we fought; the throwing
fire, which burnt flesh and wood alike with its horrid flame; the
great gluttonous man-eating birds that hovered in the sky overhead;
the man-eating fish that swarmed up from the seas around, gnawing and
quarrelling over those that fell into the waters, all went to make up a
circumstance fit to daunt the bravest men-at-arms ever gathered for an
army.
But these tarry shipmen faced it all with an indomitable courage, and
never a cry of quailing. Life on the seas is so hard, and (from the
beasts that haunt the great waters) so full of savage dangers, that
Death has lost half his terrors to them through sheer familiarity.
They were fellows who from pure lust for a fray would fight to a finish
amongst themselves in the taverns ashore; and so here, in this desperate
sea-battle, the passion for killing burned in them, as a fire stone
from Heaven rages in a forest; and they took even their death-wounds
laughing.
On our side the battle-cry was “Tob!” and the name of this obscure
ship-captain seemed to carry a confidence with it for our own crews that
many a well-known commander might have envied. The enemy had a
dozen rallying cries, and these confused them. But as their other
ship-commanders one by one were killed, and Dason remained, active
with mischief, “Dason!” became the shout which was thrown back at us in
response to our “Tob!”
However, I will not load my page with farther long account of this
obscure sea-fight, whose only glory was its ferocity. One by one all the
ships of either side were sunk or lay with all their people killed, till
finally only Dason’s galley and our own “Bear” were left. For the moment
we were being mastered. We had a score of men remaining out of all those
that manned the navy when it sailed from Yucatan, and the enemy had
boarded us and made the decks of the “Bear” the field of battle. But
they had been over busy with the throwing fire, and presently, as we
raged at one another, the smoke and the flame from the sturdy vessel
herself let us very plainly know that she was past salvation.
But Tob was nothing daunted. “They may stay here and fry if they
choose,” he shouted with his great boisterous laugh, “but for ourselves
the galley is good enough now. Keep a guard on Deucalion, and come with
me, shipmates!”
“Tob!” our fellows shouted in their ecstasy of fighting madness, and I
too could not forbear sending out a “Tob!” for my battle-cry. It was a
change for me not to be leader, but it was a luxury for once to fight
in the wake of this Tob, despite his uncouthness of mien and plan. There
was no stopping this new rush, though progress still was slow. Tob with
his bloody axe cut the road in front, and we others, with the lust of
battle filling us to the chin, raged like furies in his wake. Gods! but
it was a fight.
Ten of us won to the galley, with the flames and the smoke from the poor
“Bear” spurting at our heels. We turned and stabbed madly at all who
tried to follow, and hacked through the grapples that held the vessels
to their embrace. The sea-swells spurned the “Bear” away.
The slaves chained to the rowing-galley’s benches had interest neither
one way nor the other, and looked on the contest with dull concern, save
when some stray missile found a billet amongst them. But a handful of
the fighting men had scrambled desperately on board the galley after us,
preferring any fate to a fiery death on the “Bear,” and these had to be
dealt with promptly. Three, with their fighting fury still red-hot in
them, had most wastefully to be killed out of mischief’s way; five, who
had pitched their weapons into the sea, were chained to oar looms, in
place of slaves who were dead; and there remained only Dason to have a
fate apportioned.
The fight had cooled out of him, and he had thrown his arms to the sea,
and stood sullenly ready for what might befall; and to him Tob went up
with an exulting face.
“Ho, pot-mate Dason,” cried he, “you made a lot of talk an hour ago
about that woman of mine, who lives with her brats on the quay-side in
Atlantis yonder. Now, I’ll give you a pleasant choice; either I’ll
take you along home, and tell her what you said before the whole ship’s
company (that are for the most part dead now, poor souls!), and I’ll
leave her to perform on your carcase as she sees fit by way of payment;
or, as the other choice, I’ll deal with you here now myself.”
“I thank you for the chance,” said Dason, and knelt and offered his neck
to the axe. So Tob cut off his head, sticking it on the galley’s beak as
an advertisement of what had been done. The body he threw over the side,
and one of the great man-eating birds that hovered near, picked it up
and flew away with it to its nest amongst the crags. And so we were
free to get a meal of the fruits and the fresh meats which the galley
offered, whilst the oar-slaves sent the galley rushing onwards towards
the capital.
There was a wine-skin in the after-castle, and I filled a horn and
poured some out at Tob’s feet in salutation. “My man,” I said, “you have
shown me a fight.”
“Thanks,” said he, “and I know you are a judge. ‘Twas pretty whilst it
lasted; and, seeing that my lads were, for the most, scurvy-rotten, I
will say they fought with credit. I have lost my Lord Tatho’s navy, but
I think Phorenice will see me righted there. If those that are against
her took so much trouble to kill my Lord Deucalion before he could come
to her aid, I can fancy she will not be niggard in her joy when I put
Deucalion safe, if somewhat dented and blood-bespattered, on the quay.”
“The Gods know,” I said, for it is never my custom to discuss policies
with my inferiors, even though etiquette be for the moment loosened,
as ours was then by the thrill of battle. “The Gods will decide what
is best for you, Tob, even as they have decided that it is best that I
should go on to Atlantis.”
The sailor held a horn filled from the wine-skin in his hand, and I
think was minded to pour a libation at my feet, even as I had done at
his. But he changed his mind, and emptied it down his throat instead.
“It is thirsty work, this fighting,” he said, “and that drink comes very
useful.”
I put my hand on his blood-smeared arm. “Tob,” I said, “whether I step
into power again, or whether I go to the block to-morrow, is another
matter which the Gods alone know, but hear me tell you now, that if a
chance is given me of showing my gratitude, I shall not forget the way
you have served me in this voyage, and the way you have fought this
day.”
Tob filled another brimming horn from the wine-skin and splashed it at
my feet. “That’s good enough surety for me,” he said, “that my woman and
brats never want from this day onward. The Lord Deucalion for the block,
indeed!”