me I could not help being tickled by the flattery.
Condemn my
weakness how you will, but I came very near then to
liking the Empress of Atlantis in the way she wished. And as for
that other woman who should have filled my mind, I will confess
that the
stress of the moment, and the fury of the
engagement, had
driven both her and her
strait completely out beyond the marches of
my memory. Of such frail stuff are we made, even those of us who
esteem ourselves the strongest.
Now it is a
temptation few men born to the sword can resist,
to throw themselves heart and soul into a fight for a fight's sake,
and it seems that women can be
bitten with the same fierce
infection. The attack slackened and halted. We stood in the
middle of a ring of twisted dead, and the rest of the
fishers and
their women who hemmed us in
shrank back out of reach of our
weapons.
It was the moment for a truce, and the moment when a few
strong words would have sent them back cowering to their huts, and
given us free passage to go where we chose. But no, this Phorenice
must needs sing a hymn to her sword and mine, gloating over our
feats and invulnerability; and then she must needs ask
payment for
the bearers of her
litter whom they had killed, and then speak
balefully of the burnings, and the skinnings, and the sawings
asunder with which this
fishers' quarter would be treated in the
near future, till they
learned the virtues of
deportment and
genteel manners.
"It makes your backs creep, does it?" said Phorenice. "I do
not wonder. This
severity must have its
unpleasant side. But why
do you not put it beyond my power to give the order? Either you
must think yourselves Gods or me no Goddess, or you would not have
gone on so far. Come now, you nasty-smelling people, follow out
your theory, and if you make a good fight of it, I swear by my face
I will be lenient with those who do not fall."
But there was no pressing up to meet our swords. They still
ringed us in,
savage and
sullen, beyond the ring of their own dead,
and would neither run back to the houses, nor give us the game of
further fight. There was a certain
stubbornbravery about them
that one could not but admire, and for myself I determined that
next time it became my duty to raise troops, I would catch a
handful of these men, and teach them handiness with the utensils of
war, and train them to
loyalty and faithfulness. But presently
from behind their ranks a stone flew, and though it whizzed between
the Empress and myself, and struck down a
fisher, it showed that
they had brought a new method into their attack, and it behoved us
to take thought and meet it.
I looked round me up and down the beach. There was no sign of
a
rescue. "Phorenice," I said in the court tongue, which these
barbarous
fishers would know little enough of, "I take it that a
whiff of the sea-breeze would come very pleasant after all this
warm play. As you can show such pretty sword work, will you cut me
a way down to the beach, and I will do my poor best to keep these
creatures from snapping at our heels?"
"Oh!" cried she. "Then I am to have a
courtier for a husband
after all. Why have you kept back your
flattering speeches till
now? Is that your trick to make me love you?"
"I will think out the reason for it another time."
"Ah, these stern, commanding husbands," said she, "how they do
press upon their little wives!" and with that leaped over the ring
of dead before her, and cut and stabbed a way through those that
stood between her and the waters which creamed and crashed upon the
beach. Gods! what a
charge she made. It made me
tingle with
admiration as I followed sideways behind her, guarding the rear.
And I am a man that has spent so many years in battling, that it
takes something far out of the common to move me to any enthusiasm
in this matter.
There were two boats creaking and washing about in the edge of
the surf, but in one, happily, the wicker-work which made its frame
was crushed by the weight of the waves into a
shapelessbundle of
sticks, and would take half a day to
replace. So that, let us but
get the other craft
afloat, and we should be free from further
embroiling. But the
fishers were quick to see the object of this
new
manoeuvre. "Guard the boat," they shouted. "Smash her; slit
her skin with your knives! Tear her with your fingers! Swim her
out to sea! Oh, at least take the paddles!"
But, if these
clumsyfishers could run, Phorenice was like a
legged snake for speed. She was down beside the boat before any
could reach it, laughing and shouting out that she could beat them
at every point. Myself, I was slower of foot; and, besides, there
was some that offered me a fight on the road, and I was not wishful
to baulk them; and
moreover, the fewer we left clamouring behind,
the fewer there would be to speed our going with their stones.
Still I came to the beach in good order, and laid hands on the
flimsy boat and tipped her dry.
"Fighting is no trade for, me," I cried, "
whilst you are here,
Phorenice. Guard me my back and walk out into the water."
I took the boat,
thrusting it
afloat, and wading with it till
two lines of the surf were past. The
fishers swarmed round us,
active as fish in their native element, and
strove mightily to get
hands on the boat and slit the hides which covered it with their
eager fingers. But I had a spare hand, and a short stabbing-knife
for such close-quarter work, and here, there, and everywhere was
Phorenice the Empress, with her thirsty dripping sword. By the
Gods! I laughed with sheer delight at
seeing her art of fence.
But the swirl of a great fish into the shallows, and the
squeal of a
fisher as he was dragged down and home away into the
deep, made me mindful of foes that no skill can
conquer, and no
bravery avoid. Without
taking time to give the Empress a word of
warning, I stooped, and flung an arm round her, and threw her up
out of the water into the boat, and then
thrust on with all my
might, driving the flimsy craft out to sea,
whilst my legs crept
under me for fear of the beasts which swam
invisible beneath the
muddied waters.
To the
fishers, inured to these
horrid perils by daily
association, the seizing of one of their number meant little, and
they pressed on,
careless of their dull lives, eager only to snatch
the jewels which still flaunted on Phorenice's breast. Of the
vengeance that might come after they recked nothing; let them but
get the wherewithal for one night's good debauch, and they would
forget that such a thing as the morning of a
morrow could have
existence.
Two fellows I caught and killed that, diving down beneath,
tried to slit the skin of the boat out of sight under the water;
and Phorenice cared for all those that tried to put a hand on the
gunwales. Yes, and she did more than that. A huge long-necked
turtle that was stirred out of the mud by the
turmoil, came up to
daylight, and swung its great horn-lipped mouth to this side and
that, seeking for a prey. The
fishers near it dodged and dived.
I,
thrusting at the stern of the boat, could only hope it would
pass me by and so offered an easy mark. It scurried towards me,
champing its noisy lips, and
beating the water into spray with its
flippers.
But Phorenice was quick with a
remedy and a
rescue. She
passed her sword through one of the
fishers that pressed her, and
then
thrust the body towards the
turtle. The great neck swooped
towards it; the long slimy feelers which protruded from its head
quivered and snuffled; and then the horny green jaws crunched on