no fear, Majesty” mouthed the figure. “It is San Thoy that has rescued you.”
“You drugged me.”
“For your own sake, Majesty. You might otherwise have made an outcry when I came to carry you off, thus arousing the ship and defeating your rescue.”
“And you will take me back to Reabon at once?”
“In the morning. Tonight we must seek shelter. The surface of the Azpok swarms with fierce and mighty monsters, which by day seek their dark lairs in the ocean’s depths. Night travel in a small boat is extremely dangerous. Hark! I hear the breakers now. The island is not far off.”
Steering entirely by the sounds that came to him—for nothing was visible in the pitchy blackness—San Thoy brought the little sailboat through booming breakers which evidently covered a bar or sunken reef, and into comparatively calm water. It was not long after that the keel rasped on a gravelly shore.
Leaping into the shallow water, the pirate dragged the boat high up on the beach. Then he furled the sail, and taking Vernia by the hand said:
“Come. I will take you to a place where you may spend the night safely. In the morning, I will call for you and take you to Reabon.”
“You will be well rewarded,” replied Vernia. “I will double the ransom which was offered for me and add to it a thousand kantols of land, and purple of a nobleman for life.”
“Your Majesty is generous,” said San Thoy, “but then I have cut myself off from my own people, property, and position, in order to effect your rescue.”
He led her up a narrow winding path, where leaves, dripping with the night dew, brushed her face and body. Presently they came to a small clearing.
San Thoy fumbled with a latch for a moment, and then opened a door. He released Vernia’s hand, and struck a light with the small flame maker which he carried. When he had lighted a torch that hung from a bracket on the wall, Vernia saw that they were in a tiny cabin which contained a sleeping shelf, a crude table, three chairs, some utensils, and a place for cooking beside which fuel was piled.
“I will light the fire for you, that you may dry your clothing,” said San Thoy. “Then I will brew kova.”
Vernia seated herself on one of the chairs, and watched the broad, greasy back of the pirate as he squatted before the fire. When he had it blazing brightly, he took a kettle and went outside for water. Returning, he dropped in some kova roots which he found on a shelf beside the fireplace, and soon had it boiling. As Vernia watched, she wondered if his intentions were as magnanimous as he pretended, or if he were as perfidious as the words of his commander implied. So far, his impassive features had betrayed nothing. Only time would tell.
Presently, he placed a chair before the fire for her, that she might dry her clothes, and poured her a bowl of steaming kova. While she slowly sipped the hot, stimulating beverage, he tossed off bowl after bowl until the pot was empty and another had been set to brewing. She noticed that with each bowl, the slits in his round eyes became more bestial. San Thoy was drunk.
When the second pot of kova was ready, the pirate offered to refill Vernia’s bowl, but she declined. He leered a little as he refilled his own, and it was not long before the second had gone the way of the first. Then San Thoy extracted a kerra pod from his belt pouch, and, breaking it open, emptied the red contents into his toothless mouth.
For a while he mumbled the drug, expectorating thin streams of scarlet juice into the fire from time to time, and muttering drunkenly to himself as they hissed among the hot embers.
Presently he arose, and unclasping a belt which held his tork, scarbo, and knife, hung it on a peg on the wall. Then he stretched his arms and yawned hideously, the red juice trickling from the corners of his flabby mouth, and staining his greasy chin.
“My dear,” he said thickly, “it is time to retire. May your humble servant assist you to disrobe?”
With this he lurched unsteadily toward her.
Panic stricken, Vernia jumped up and placed the chair between herself and the advancing pirate.
“Back!” she said. “Go back! Don’t you dare touch me!”
“There, there,” he said, still advancing. “Do not be frightened. I will not hurt you.”
Only the chair and two feet of space separated them now. Suddenly seizing the chair, he hurled it to one side and flung out both arms to grasp her. She leaped back, and his arms embraced empty air. But now she was cornered. She looked longingly at the weapons hanging on the peg, but between her and them was San Thoy.
Half crouching, arms spread, he advanced toward her. Suddenly he sprang like a beast of prey. Then like crushing bands of steel his greasy arms encircled her. His grinning, lecherous features were close to hers, leering down at her.
“Little she-marmelot!” he said. “Think you that you can resist San Thoy, who has subdued a thousand slave-girls?”
She struggled desperately, striking and clawing at the bestial face, squirming and kicking with all her strength, but to no avail.
With a laugh of exultation, he picked her up, and carrying her to the sleeping shelf, flung her down upon it.
Chapter 4. A Treacherous Shoal
The monster with which Grandon’s fishing boat had collided in the darkness was evidently not of the belligerent type, for it submerged, nearly swamping them, before they attained an even keel.
But they were not yet out of danger. Kantar the Gunner suddenly called to Grandon that the boat had sprung a leak as a result of the collision, and was filling rapidly.
“Then steer for the ship in the center of the squadron, and let us hope that it’s the flagship,” said Grandon. “I’ll row and bail. It’s our only chance.”
With the strong strokes of Grandon assisting the sail of the swift little vessel, they were able to gain rapidly on the ship which was at the apex of the wedge-shaped squadron. As they drew near it, Kantar called:
“It is the flagship, Majesty.”
“Good. Preserve absolute silence from now on,” replied Grandon. “If possible, we must get aboard her without being detected.”
Presently they came close enough to hear the sounds of conversation and people moving about. Yet, their boat went unnoticed because the mast lights of the flagship cast little illumination in their direction. The powerful searchlight beams of the ship were directed ahead, as were those of the ships which flanked it on either side.
And they came up under the stern of the pirate vessel without attracting attention. By this time their boat was half-filled with water, and despite Grandon’s bailing was likely to sink at any moment.
Hanging from two pulleys high above them were the two chains with which the rudder was turned from the steersman’s cabin in the front of the ship.
“You climb one chain,” directed Grandon, “while I go up the other. We are of nearly the same weight, so if we climb at the same time each will counterbalance the other, and the steersman may not notice anything amiss.”
Leaping out onto the rudder, Grandon seized the chain on the side opposite them. At the same moment, Kantar grasped the chain next to the boat, and the two went up, hand over hand. Just as Kantar left the little boat, the gunwales went under, and before they had gotten half-way up the chains her masthead disappeared from view. They had reached the flagship just in time.
Together the two men went over the railing, each drawing his scarbo as he did so. A single watchman stood between them, but before he had time even to touch a weapon, a thrust from one side and a cut from the other, laid him low.
The