by Harold Lamb
Michael made out the tall mast, with the clewed-up lateen sail, the hanging pennons and burgees; he could hear the low voices of men in the lookout over the beak of the galley, mingled with the tinkle of a guitar from the poop where colored lanterns gleamed. A figure passed slowly back and forth along the bridge above the slaves, snoring on their benches.
A faint breath of wind, and he caught the odor of the rowing-benches which is not easily forgotten—the stench of sweated rags, of foul water and human flesh. The skin on his back prickled over the healed scars that had been given him by a warden's whip. Another scent came to him, the incense and rose perfume of the poop that served to keep the stink of the rowing benches from the masters of the galley.
By its rig and the cut of the beak he was now satisfied that the galley was from Barbary—an Algerine, most likely, on business of the sultan— a swift craft, adapted for fighting. This meant that a good watch would be kept, and that the two light cannon in the forepart would be shotted.
This fact he could not make known to Ayub. Besides, it was then too late to withdraw. A voice hailed them sharply—
"What is there?"
Ayub muttered under his breath, and a Tatar made answer as instructed.
"We have fish for the noble lords."
The sounds from the poop ceased, and a man in gilt mail and a green turban stood up by the lanterns.
"Kubardar—have care! We will make fishes of you, filth eaters. Be off!"
But the skiff rowed nearer, more swiftly now, and there was a moment's silence while the watchers on the galley puzzled over the screen of rushes. A lanthorn was thrust over the forward rail, hardly eight feet above the surface of the black water. By its gleam Michael made out the muzzles of two perriers peering over the beak, and Ayub thrust the tiller to one side, turning the skiff to avoid the ram.
A shout from the lookout, a pattering of feet, and the clash of cymbals, as the Cossacks crouching in the skiff were seen. Pitch torches began to sizzle over their heads.
"Mud-fish!" bellowed Ayub, dropping the tiller and catching up one end of the long net. "Wriggle out of this if you can. U-ha!"
"U-ha!" roared the warriors, springing up. The giant Cossack was swinging a length of net over his head. Weighted as it was with stones in the corners, it gained momentum slowly, but soon whistled through the air like one of the lassos of the Cossacks.
Michael stepped clear of the other end as Ayub grunted and released the net just when the skiff drifted abreast the low forecastle of the galley, a spear's stretch away.
The twisted hempen mesh spread out in the air and the stones thumped on the deck as arrows began to flash toward the skiff. Pulling on his end of the net, Ayub drew the boat against the galley's quarter.
Entangled in the mesh, several Moslems struggled to win clear of it. Taken completely by surprise, their efforts only served to draw the strands tighter. As many more—sailors roused from sleep—drew scimitars and sprang to the rail barely in time to oppose the Cossacks who climbed up aided by the strands of the net, by the beak, and the muzzle of the cannon that gaped at them silently.
One pitched into the net on the deck, an arrow through his jaw, but the rest cut down the Moslems before they could flee to the runway leading aft. The sailors caught under the net were dispatched at once.
Meanwhile torches flared up, and bedlam burst forth in the waist of the ship. The slaves, awakened by the fight, were howling, cursing and praying in a dozen tongues. Lacking time to chain their arms, the Moslem wardens who had sprung to the bridge were hewing down the bolder spirits who had stood up. Plying long blades, the guards thrust and cut down into the shadows until Ayub sighted them and leaped upon the runway, his broadsword gripped in both hands.
"Death to the sheep-slayers!" he roared, striding forward.
The runway, serving as a platform for the overseers, was wide enough for only one man to wield a weapon, and the first Moslem who faced Ayub set his back to the mast around which the bridge ran. The big Cossack swept aside the warden's steel and hewed back. Biting into the man's ribs, the heavy blade turned down, ground through the spine and sank to the hip bone on the other side.
Michael, at Ayub's shoulder, saw the doomed Moslem actually fall apart, his body dropping over upon the slave's bench, his legs twisting on the runway. At once the rowers were on their feet, their hairy faces gleaming, their hands straining at the chains that bound their ankles to the deck.
Three of the guards now formed abreast on the runway; the two, in the rear thrust their long spears past the center man, who glared at Ayub from behind his round shield.
The prospect of having to deal with three weapons instead of one did not halt Ayub, whose blood was up. Luckily for him the Cossacks on the foredeck used their pistols and the leading Moslem stumbled forward to his knees. Then the broadsword flashed and Michael saw the two remaining guards knocked over the rail of the runway as if the mast had fallen upon them.
They fell into the upstretched hands of the slaves, and Michael was glad to look away, toward the poop where a hot fight was in progress.
Demid, in his shirt-sleeves, had climbed over the rail of the afterdeck followed by a dozen warriors. Long pistols flashed from behind him, and cleared a space for the Cossacks to set their feet. A score of white tur-baned janissaries fared them, plying scimitar and dagger, while nearly as many under the reis of the galley defended the other rail against Togrukh and his men.
As more of the Moslem swordsmen came up from the cabins, where they had been asleep, the captain of the galley drove back Togrukh, casting him bodily into the water
"Yah Allah!" they cried, triumphantly.
"U-ha! Christ!" echoed Ayub's men, pushing forward along the bridge.
This shout drew the attention of the reis, who, experienced in hand-to-hand fighting aboard ship, determined to clear the runway. He feared the slaves who were striving desperately to win free of their bonds and take their share in the fray now that the slave guards had been slain.
For the moment the Moslems had the upper hand. Good swordsmen all, they were fired with the ardor of their race, and to Michael it seemed as if they were a picked lot, and the galley no ordinary merchant craft.
When a dozen of them swarmed down the steps to the runway after the reis, Ayub stepped forward to meet them. But he felt an elbow in his ribs, and looked down to see Michael slip past him. The cavalier took his stance in the center of the narrow bridge, and the light from the spluttering torches glittered on the slender rapier. Perforce the big Cossack hung back, for to press against Michael would be to throw him off balance, and already a youthful warrior was rushing upon the rapier point.
Gliding rather than running, the Turk struck down at the slender weapon of the cavalier. Then, leaping bodily through the air as a panther springs, he brought down his left arm that held a curved dagger.
Quickly as the Turk attacked, the wrist of the swordsman forestalled him. Michael's rapier flickered around the scimitar and passed through the heart of the Turk, who fell heavily to the planks.
Drawing his blade clear at once, Michael faced the bearded captain who came on crouching, shield advanced before his throat, mail encasing his body.
Thus, he presented no opening for a thrust. His black eyes over the round, leather shield glittered. Twice he cut powerfully at Michael's head, and twice the curved blade slithered off the rapier that moved only in tiny circles before his eyes.
"Reload your hand-guns, dog-brothers," snarled Ayub over his shoulder to his men who pressed close behind him.
Michael studied the eyes of his foeman, and when the reis lunged three inches of steel passed into his knotted forearm, and withdrew, all in the same instant. Pain maddened the Moslem, who began to slash fiercely, yet as he did so, felt the burning dart of the rapier point into his biceps.
Foam flew out on his beard, and he lunged with all his remaining strength. In so doing he let the shield drop just a little, and, swifter than the eyes of the intent spect
ators could follow, the rapier flashed into the beard of the Moslem and its point came out at the nape of his neck.
He coughed once convulsively and straightened to the toes, then Ayub thrust the cavalier aside and rushed with his mates upon the captain's followers. Long pistols barked in the Cossacks' hands, and smoke swirled around the twisting figures.
A shout of dismay went up from the poop at the fall of the reis, and Michael, satisfied with what he had accomplished, saw that more Cossacks had come up under Togrukh, who dripped blood and water alike as he moved. All hope of victory now left the janissaries, who fought stubbornly in knots and were cut down by the heavier weapons of the Cossacks.
To the astonishment of the Moslems, when a score of them were still on their feet, Demid held up his arm and offered quarter.
"Mashallah!" cried one, his lips snarling. "Are we to be thrown to the rowers?"
"On my head," Demid made answer in their tongue, "it shall not be."
First a few and then many, the scimitars clattered to the deck and Togrukh gathered them up. Above decks, resistance on the galley was at an end.
Taking with him one of the unwounded janissaries Demid made his way down the steps into the aftercastle, the long, narrow cabin that perched on the upward slope of the galley's stern. Several Cossacks hastened after him, to ransack the castle.
A great lanthorn, gleaming with many colors, revealed a confusion of carpets and mattresses, tabourets that still bore little bowls of coffee, garments and the chests of the Moslem warriors. Incense was burning and its pungent scent mingled with the acrid odor of powder.
The cabin seemed deserted, and the Cossacks, listening, heard only the splash of bodies thrown over the galley's rail and the thumping of booted feet overhead.
What held their attention at once was the pair of glistening black forms erect against a heavy teak lattice at the upper end of the cabin. Two Ethiopians stood here, upon a kind of dais. They were naked to the waist and they held drawn scimitars; only the sweat that shone on their skin and their rolling eyes marked them as living beings, so still did they stand.
"What men are these?" Demid asked the captive.
"Eunuchs of the mighty, the merciful Protector of the Faith. They are a guard set over the treasure."
"Bid them throw down their weapons."
"O my lord, a higher command has been laid upon them by one greater than I." The soldier lifted his hands indifferently. "Also, they are deaf mutes."
Impatiently Demid ordered his men to disarm the mutes without slaying them, and the Cossacks sprang forward obediently. The slaves struck out wildly, and defended themselves with fingers and teeth after they were thrown to the deck. It was more difficult to break down the wooden bars that had been built into place without any door as far as Demid could see.
He tore down a damask hanging within the lattice, and stared in silence at the treasure of the galley.
At the end of the cabin and raised above it by several steps was a large recess made comfortable with silk rugs, draperies of cloth sewn with gold, and pillowed couches.
"Women!" Balaban's voice was exultant.
Straight as a spear, a young girl stood beside an older woman who crouched, wailing and tearing at her hair. One glance the serving maid cast at the Cossacks, and straightway ripped off her jade armlets, her rings and even the long earrings. These trinkets she pushed toward them, on the floor, and fell to beating her forehead against the rug.
The Cossacks glanced inquiringly at Demid, who shook his head without speaking.
Balaban stepped forward and thrust his knee against the attendant, rolling her over on the floor; then, turning up her face with his foot, he pulled off her veil and stared at her, scowling.
"Wrinkled as a quince," he observed in disgust, "and bony as a camel,
by the Unshriven One. A scavenger of-would flee from her if she
smiled."
And he stooped to pick up the ornaments, muttering at their poor quality as he put them into his pocket. His eyes gleamed as he contemplated the young girl.
"A veritable moon of delight," he leered. "Surely the angel Riwah hath opened the gates of paradise and let out this houri."
And he made a motion to pull aside the yashmaq, the veil which all Moslem women must wear before the eyes of men.
"It is death to touch me," the girl cried, in a clear, high voice.
Balaban, a little disconcerted, glanced at her robe of flowered silk, her tiny slippers, embroidered with diamonds, and the long sleeves that concealed her hands.
"On her girdle—the writing on her girdle!"
He pointed at several Turkish words sewn upon the length of green silk that wrapped the body of the girl under the breast.
"‘The treasure of the lord of lords.’ Ohai, my Falcon, that means the sultan and this is one of his women."
Even Balaban hesitated to set a rude hand on one who had been taken into the household of Mustapha, knowing that to do so would be to place
upon his own head a price so great that life would be sought of him in the uttermost corners of the earth.
"What is your name?" Demid asked the girl.
"Lali el Niksar—Lali, the Armenian."
"Are you a sultana?"
She shook her head, the dark eyes watchful and defiant.
"A slave?"
"Taib —true."
Hereupon the maid saw fit to voice the importance of her mistress, hoping to impress it upon the Cossacks. "Yah khawand,—my lord, she is a pearl of the palace, a favorite singing girl. How many times has she been given a robe of honor! How often have noblemen offered a thousand dinars for her! She knows the rarest Persian verses, aye, the blandishments of the Greeks, and the dances of the Cairenes. The child can wag her tongue with priests, even as she can confound the wits of the young warriors—"
"Peace, or your tongue will wag no more. Is she a captive?"
The old woman hesitated for a bare instant.
"O captain of a host, it is not so with her. They call her the Armenian, but she was raised from childhood in the imperial seraglio. May I burn, but that is truth. Now she is sent as a gift to Sidi Ahmad, Pasha of Aleppo, as a token of the favor of the sultan to that great lord."
"Was a writing sent with the girl?" asked Balaban, frowning.
"Beyond a doubt, the aga of the janissaries had it upon him. He was our leader."
Demid gave command to his followers to search for the body of the officer and retrieve all papers before it was thrown into the sea: also to ransack the quarters of the reis. The serving woman grew bolder because no harm had been done to her mistress, and plucked Demid's sleeve.
"O thou captain of nien, take thought for the profit thou canst garner. Turn the ship back to Constantinople; ask what ransom thou wilt of the Grand Signior, and it will be granted if the hand of an unbeliever is not laid upon the singing girl. Aye, even to two thousand pieces of gold, it will be granted."
The lidless eyes of Balaban blinked shrewdly, as he tried to gain a glimpse of the letter that one of the men brought to Demid presently. Two thousand pieces of gold would tempt most men.
"The price is not sufficient," responded the Cossack chief, who was scanning the parchment.
It was not, as he had hoped, a pass for the janissaries, nor did it contain directions as to the route to be taken to Aleppo. But it gave Demid food for thought, in that it contained a veiled reproach from Mustapha because Sidi Ahmad had not sent the revenues from the captured provinces of Armenians or the tax from the caravans for the last year.
Mustapha said that a general campaign was to be undertaken against the war-scarred nations of Christian Europe in the Spring—that he, Mustapha, had broken the power of the Cossacks, and concluded a secret treaty with the nobles of Poland by which the Poles were excused from paying tribute to Constantinople, so that the way into the cities and monasteries of Hungary and Russia was opened.
"Gold," muttered Demid angrily to himself. "When will gold buy peace? Nay
, the point of the sword is surer."
The letter concluded with an order for Sidi Ahmad to set out from Aleppo over the mountain passes to the Black Sea, as soon as the snow melted, with horses and men and the revenues of the sultan. As surety of the favor of Mustapha to the first of the pashas, the singing girl was sent.
"The Sidi must be a strong prince," Demid reflected, "for the Grand Signior uses soft words with him. Aye, and Aleppo is far from Constantinople. That is well, for us."
The kohl-darkened eyes of the singing girl did not appear to look at Demid, but under the long lashes they studied covertly the face of the young chief. In it she wished to read her fate. And it piqued her that she could read little.
Demid had dismissed everyone else from the women's cabin; he had stationed the two blacks on guard again at the broken lattice, and now stood looking out of the oval port, apparently listening to the sounds on the upper deck where the captives were being chained to the rowers' benches.
The girl, too, heard the uproar of the slaves who were being freed from their chains. Her eyes, over the silk veil, were stoic, although the flowered robe quivered where her heart beat thuddingly.
Suddenly the muscles of her slender arms tensed, and her eyes snapped angrily. Demid had reached out swiftly and grasped both her wrists under the wide sleeves. A moment she strained, gasping, and then, feeling the power of the man, ceased struggling. From the limp fingers of one hand he took a dagger that had been hidden by the sleeve.
"Yak shatir—captain of thieves! Prince of hyenas, father of treachery!" she cried. "Can a dog change his hide? Eh, wah! He cannot. Nor can a son of ill-born robbers stay his fingers!"
Between those same muscular fingers Demid snapped off the blade of the poniard and tossed the steel out of the port, returning to Lali the hilt, set with sapphires and gold bands.
"Keep all your jewels, singing girl," he observed, "for the time will come when you will need them."
"And how, my ruffian?"
"To make you beautiful."
"Boar of the steppe, what know ye of beauty? I have heard of your people; they spend their days digging in the ground for roots, or feeling hens for eggs. Aye, Kazaks, vagabonds, eaters of filth—ye ride two on a horse, ye suck the juice of one weed and swallow the smoke of another!"