The Lost Continent, Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne [the best ebook reader for android TXT] 📗

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;