The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04

by Anthology

  Would Tatho continue the work so healthily begun? I trusted so, even in spite of his selfish words. And at all hours, during the radiance of our Lord the Sun, or under the stars of night, I was free to pursue that study of the higher mysteries, on which we of the Priests' Clan are trained to set our minds, without aid of book or instrument, of image or temple.

  The refitting of the navy was gone about with speed. Never, it is said, had ships been reprovisioned and caulked, and remanned with greater speed for the over-ocean voyage. Indeed, it was barely over a month from the day that they brought up in the harbour, they put out beyond the walls, and began their voyage eastward over the hills and dale of the ocean.

  Rowing-slaves from Europe for this long passage of sea are not taken now, owing to the difficulty in provisioning them, for modern humanity forbids the practice of letting them eat one another according to the home custom of their continent; sails alone are but an indifferent stand by; but modern science has shown how to extract force from the Sun, when He is free from cloud, and this (in a manner kept secret by mariners) is made to draw sea-water at the forepart of the vessel, and eject it with such force at the stern that she is appreciably driven forward, even with the wind adverse.

  In another matter also has navigation vastly improved. It is not necessary now, as formerly, to trust wholly to a starry night (when beyond sight of land) to find direction. A little image has been made, and is stood balanced in the forepart of every vessel, with an arm outstretched, pointing constantly to the direction where the Southern Cross lies in the Heavens. So, by setting an angle, can a just course be correctly steered. Other instruments have they also for finding a true position on the ocean wastes, for the newer mariner, when he is at sea, puts little trust in the Gods, and confides mightily in his own thews and wits.

  Still, it is amusing to see these tarry fellows, even in this modern day, take their last farewell of the harbour town. The ship is stowed, and all ready for sea, and they wash and put on all their bravery of attire. Ashore they go, their faces long with piety, and seek some obscure temple whose God has little flavour with shore folk, and here they make sacrifice with clamour and lavish outlay. And, finally, there follows a feast in honour of the God, and they arrive back on board, and put to sea for the most part drunken, and all heavy and evil-humoured with gluttony and their other excesses.

  The voyage was very different to my previous sea-going. There was no creeping timorously along in touch with the coasts. We stood straight across the open gulf in the direction of home, came up with the band of the Carib Islands, and worked confidently through them, as though they had been signposts to mark the sea highway; and stopped only twice to replenish with wood, water, and fruit. These commodities, too, the savages brought us freely, so great was their subjection, and in neither place did we have even the semblance of a fight. It was a great certificate of the growing power of Atlantis and her finest over-sea colony.

  Then boldly on we went across the vast ocean beyond, with never a sacrifice to implore the Gods that they should help our direction. One might feel censure towards these rugged mariners for their impiety, but one could not help an admiration for their lusty skill and confidence.

  The dangers of the desolate sea are dealt out as the Gods will, and man can only take them as they come. Storms we encountered, and the mariners fought them with stubborn endurance; twice a blazing stone from Heaven hissed into the sea beside us, though without injuring any of our ships; and, as was unavoidable, the great beasts of the sea hunted us with their accustomed savagery. But only once did we suffer material loss from these last, and that was when three of the greater sea lizards attacked the "Bear," the ship whereon I travelled, at one and the same time.

  The hour of their onset was during the blazing midday heat, and the Sun being at the full of His power, our machines were getting full force from Him. The vessel was travelling forward faster than a man on dry land could walk. But for the power escape she might as well have been standing still when the beasts sighted her. There were three of them, as I have said, and we saw them come up over the curve of the horizon, beating the sea into foam with their flappers, and waving their great necks like masts as they swam. Our navy was spread out in a long line of ships, and in olden days each of the beasts would have selected a separate prey, and proceeded for it; but, like man, these beasts have learned the necessities of warfare, and they hunt in pack now and do not separate their forces.

  It was plain they were making for our ship, and Tob, the captain, would have had me go into the after-castle, and there be secure from their marauding. He was responsible to the Lord Tatho, he said, for my safe conduct; it was certain that the beasts would contrive to seize some of the ship's company before they were satiated; and if the hap came to the Lord Deucalion, he (the captain) would have to give himself voluntarily to the beasts then, to escape a very painful death at Tatho's hands later on.

  However, my mind was set. A man can never have too much experience in fighting enemies, whether human or bestial, and the attack of these creatures was new to me, and I was fain to learn its method. So I gave the captain a letter to Tatho, saying how the matter lay (and for which, it may be mentioned, the rude fellow seemed little enough grateful), and stayed in my chair under the awning.

  The beasts surged up to us with champing jaws, and all the shipmen stood armed on their defence. They came up alongside, two females (the smaller) on the flank of the ship, the giant male by himself on the other. Their great heads swooped about, as high as the yards that held the sails, and the reek from them gave one physical sickness.

  The shipmen faced the monsters with a sturdy courage. Arrows were useless against the smooth, bull-like hides. Even the throwing fire could not so much as singe them; nothing but twenty axe blows delivered on an attacking head together could beat it back, and even these succeeded only through sheer weight of metal, and did not make so much as the scratch of a wound.

  During all time beasts have disputed with man the mastery of the earth, and it is only in Atlantis and Egypt and Yucatan that man has dared to hold his own, and fight them with a mind made strong by many previous victories. In Europe and mid-Africa the greater beasts hold full dominion, and man admits his puny number and force, and lives in earth crannies and the higher tree-tops, as a fugitive confessed. And upon the great oceans, the beasts are lords, unchecked.

  Still here, upon this desolate sea, although the giant lizards were new to me, it was a pleasure to pit my knowledge of war against their brute strength and courage. Ever since the first men did their business upon the great waters, they fulfilled their instincts in fighting the beasts with desperation. Hiding coward-like in a hold was useless, for if this enemy could not find men above decks to glut them, they would break a ship with their paddles, and so all would be slain. And so it was recognised that the fight should go forward as desperately as might be, and that it could only end when the beasts had got their prey and had gone away satisfied.

  It was in a one-sided conflict after this fashion then, that I found myself, and felt the joy once more to have my thews in action. But after my axe had got in some dozen lusty blows, which, for all the harm they did, might have been delivered against some city wall, or, indeed, against the ark of the Mysteries itself, I sought about me till I found a lance, and with that made very different play.

  The eyes of these lizards are small, and set deep in a bony socket, but I judged them to be vulnerable, and it was upon the eyes of the beast that I made my attack. The decks were slippery with the horrid slime of them. The crew surged about in their battling, and, moreover, constantly offered themselves as a rampart before me by reason of Tob, the captain's threats. But I gave a few shrewd progues with the lance to show that I did not choose my will to be overridden, and presently was given room for manoeuvre.

  Deliberately I placed myself in the sight of one of the lizards, and offered my body to its attack. The challenge was accepted. It swooped like a dropping stone, and I swerv
ed and drove in the lance at its oozy eye.

  I thanked the Gods then that I had been trained with the lance till certain aim was a matter of instinct with me. The blade went true to its mark and stuck there, and the shaft broke in my hand. The beast drew off, blinded and bellowing, and beating the sea with its paddles. In a great cataract of foam I saw it bend its great long neck, and rub its head (with the spear still fixed) against its back, thereby enduring new agonies, but without dislodging the weapon. And then presently, finding this of no avail, it set off for the place from which it came with extraordinary quickness, and rapidly grew smaller against the horizon.

  The male and the other female lizard had also left us, but not in similar plight. Tob, the captain, seeing my resolve to take hazards, deliberately thrust a shipman into the jaws of each of the others, so that they might be sated and get them gone. It was clear that Tob dreaded very much for his own skin if I came by harm, and I thought with a warming heart of the threats that Tatho must have used in his kind anxiety for my safety. It is pleasant when one's old friends do not omit to pay these little attentions.

  3. A RIVAL NAVY

  Now, when we came up with the coasts of Atlantis, though Tob, with the aid of his modern instruments, had made his landfall with most marvellous skill and nearness, there still remained some ten days' more journey in which we had to retrace our course, till we came to that arm of the sea up which lies the great city of Atlantis, the capital.

  The sight of the land, and the breath of earth and herbage which came off from it with the breezes, were, I believe, under the Gods, the means of saving the lives of all of us. For, as is necessary with long cross-ocean voyages, many of our ships' companies had died, and still more were sick with scurvy through the unnatural tossing, or (as some have it) through the salt, unnatural food inseparable from shipboard. But these last, the sight and the smells of land heartened up in extraordinary fashion, and from being helpless logs, unable to move even under blows of the scourge, they became active again, able to help in the shipwork, and lusty (when the time came) to fight for their lives and their vessels.

  From the moment that I was deposed in Yucatan, despite Tatho's assurances, there had been doubts in my mind as to what nature would be my reception in Atlantis. But I had faced this event of the future without concern: it was in the hands of the Gods. The Empress Phorenice might be supreme on earth; she might cause my head to be lopped from its proper shoulders the moment I set foot ashore; but my Lord the Sun was above Phorenice, and if my head fell, it would be because He saw best that it should be so. On which account, therefore, I had not troubled myself about the matter during the voyage, but had followed out my calm study of the higher mysteries with an unloaded mind.

  But when our navy had retraced sufficiently the course that had been overrun, and came up with the two vast headlands which marked the entrance to the inland waters, there, a bare two days from the Atlantis capital, we met with another navy which was, beyond doubt, waiting to give us a reception. The ships were riding at anchor in a bay which lent them shelter, but they had scouts on the high land above, who cried the alarm of our approach, and when we rounded the headland, they were standing out to dispute our passage.

  Of us there were now but five ships, the rest having been lost in storms, or fallen behind because all their crews were dead from the scurvy; and of the strangers there were three fine ships, and three galleys of many oars apiece. They were clean and bright and black; our ships were storm-ragged and weather-worn, and had bottoms that were foul with trailing ocean weed. Our ships hung out the colours and signs of Tatho and Deucalion openly and without shame, so that all who looked might know their origin and errand; but the other navy came on without banner or antient, as though they were some low creatures feeling shame for their birth.

  Clear it seemed also that they would not let us pass without a fight, and in this there was nothing uncommon; for no law carries out over the seas, and a brother in one ship feels quite free to harry his brother in another vessel if he meets him out of earshot of the beach—more especially if that other brother be coming home laden from foray or trading tour. So Tob, with system and method, got our vessel into fighting trim, and the other four captains did the like with theirs, and drew close in to us to form a compact squadron. They had no wish to smell slavery, now that the voyage had come so near to its end.

  Our Lord the Sun shone brilliantly, giving full speed to the machines, as though He was fully willing for the affair to proceed, and the two navies approached one another with quickness, the three galleys holding back to stay in line with their consorts. But when some bare hundred ship-lengths separated us, the other navy halted, and one of the galleys, drawing ahead, flew green branches from her masts, seeking for a parley.

  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 w
ith 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.