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