Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

"Good!" said Gigi, and stood up. "Now Zachel comes for you."

The overseer was beside Kenton; he touched his shoulder; pointed down a short flight of steps that led from the black deck to the galley–pit. Zachel behind him, Kenton groped down those steps into the half darkness of the pit. He stumbled along a narrow passage–way; was brought to halt at a great oar over whose shank a head, golden–haired, long–haired as any woman's, bent from muscle–gnarled shoulders. This golden–haired oarsman slept. Around his waist was a thick bronze ring. From this ring a strong chain swung, its end fastened to a staple sunk deep in the back of the bench on which he sat. His wrists were manacled. The oar on which his head rested was manacled, too. Between manacled wrists and manacled oar two other strong chains stretched.

There was an empty chained circlet at the sleeper's left side; on the oar at his left two empty manacles hung from chains.

Zachel pushed Kenton down on the bench beside the sleeping oarsman; girdled his waist with the empty bronze circlet; snapped it close; locked it.

He thrust Kenton's unresisting hands through the manacles dangling from the oar; closed them on him; locked them.

And suddenly Kenton felt warmth of eyes upon him: looked behind him; saw leaning over the rail the face of Sharane. There was pity in her face; and dawning of something that set his heart to beating wildly.

"I'll discipline you—never fear!" said Zachel.

Kenton looked behind him again.

Sharane was gone.

He bent over his oar beside the sleeping giant.

Bent over his oar—

Chained to it.

Slave of the ship!

KENTON awakened to the shrilling of a whistle. Something flicked his shoulder like the touch of a hot iron. He jerked his head up from the bed of his arms; looked stupidly at the chained wrists. Again the flick upon the shoulder, biting into the flesh.

"Up, slave!" he heard a snarling voice say—a voice he knew and struggled with deep drugged mind to place. "Up! Stand to your oar!"

Then another voice, close beside him, whispering, hoarse, but with warmth of comradeship in it:

"On your feet before his whip covers your back with the blood runes."

He struggled upright; hands falling mechanically into two smooth, worn hollows in the wooden shaft to which he was chained. Standing thus upon the bench, his eyes looked out upon a tranquil, turquoise ocean, waveless, within a huge inverted bowl of silver mists. In front of him were four men, two standing, two sitting, at shanks of great oars which, like that he clutched, thrust through the side of a ship. Beyond them sloped a black deck—

Memory rushed upon him, banishing the last of sleep. The first voice had been that of Zachel, and the hot touches on his skin the bite of his whip. He turned his head. A score of other men, black and brown, sat and stood at other great sweeps, bending and rising, sending the Ship of Ishtar cutting through the still blue sea. And there on a platform at the mast step was Zachel, grinning derisively, out at Kenton, flicked the long lash once more.

"Look not back! Row!" snarled Zachel.

"I will row," whispered the second voice. "Stand and sway with the oar till strength comes to you."

He looked down on a head fair–haired, long–haired as any woman's. But there was nothing womanish in the face that was lifted for an instant to his. Ice cold and ice blue were the eyes in it, though thawed now by a rough kindliness. The skin was storm beaten, tempest tanned. Nor was there aught womanish in the muscles that swelled on shoulders, back, and arms as he swung the great sweep, handling it as easily as a woman a broom.

Norseman from tip to toe; a Viking straight out of some ancient Saga—and, like Kenton, a slave to the ship; the giant who had been asleep over the oar when Kenton's own chains had been locked upon him.

"Sigurd, Trygg's son, I," muttered the Norseman. "What Norn of ill–luck set you on this ship of warlocks? Speak low—bend to your oar. The devil with the lash has sharp ears."

To the motion of the oar Kenton bent and rose, standing there on the bench. The benumbment that had held his mind was passing: passed ever more swiftly as his tightened grip on the oar began to send the blood more swiftly through his veins. The man beside him grunted approval,

"No weakling, you," he whispered. "The oar wearies—yet up it flows strength from the sea. But sip that strength slowly. Grow strong—slowly. Then it may be that you and I together—"

He paused; shot a wary side glance at Kenton.

"By your looks, you are a man of Eirnn, of the Southern Isles," he whispered. "No grudge bear I against them. They met us always sword to sword and breast to breast. Many the blows we have struck between us, and the hovering Valkyries went never empty–handed back to Valhalla where we met the men of Eirnn. Brave men, strong men, men who died shouting, kissing sword blade and spear point as gayly as a bride. Are you one of these?"

Kenton thought swiftly. He must shape his answer cunningly to bind this comradeship so plainly offered him neither bewilder by whole truth nor be so vague as to rouse suspicion.

"Kenton, my name," he answered softly. "My fathers were of the Eirnn. They knew well the Vikings and their ships—nor have they handed down to me any grudge against them. I would be friend of yours, Sigurd, Trygg's son, since for how long neither of us knows I must labor here beside you. And since you and I—together—"

He paused meaningly, as had the Viking. The Norseman nodded, then again shot that keen side glance at him.

"How fell this bane upon you?" he muttered. "Since they drove me aboard this ship at Isle of Sorcerers we have entered no harbor. You were not here when they chained me to the oar."

"Sigurd—by Odin All–Father—I do not know!" The Norseman's hand quivered at the name of his god. "A hand that I could not see plucked me out of my own land and set me here. That son of Hela who rules the black deck offered me freedom—if I would do a thing of shame. I would not. I battled with his men. Three I slew. And then they chained me to this oar."

"You slew three!" The Viking looked up at Kenton, eyes blazing, teeth bared. "You slew three! Skoal! Comrade! Skoal!" he shouted.

Something like a flying serpent hissed by Kenton; hissed and struck the Norseman's back. It withdrew, blood spurting from where it had bitten. It struck and struck again.

Zachel's voice snarled through the hissing of the lash:

"Dog! Sow spittle! Have you gone mad? Shall I flay you then!"

Under the lash the body of Sigurd, Trygg's son, shuddered. He looked up at Kenton, bloody froth on his lips. Suddenly, Kenton knew that it was not from the pain of the blows—that it was from the shame of them and from rage; that the whiplash was drawing redder drops from his heart, threatening to break it.

And Kenton, leaning over, thrust his own bare back between that lash and the bloody shoulders; took the blows itself.

"Ha!" shouted Zachel. "You want them, do you? Jealous of my whip's kisses, are you? Well, then—take your fill of them!"

Mercilessly the lash hissed and struck, hissed and struck. Kenton endured its bite stoically, never shifting the shield of his body from the Norseman; meeting each sharp agony by thought of what he would do to repay when his time had come—

When he had mastered the ship!

"Stop!" Through pain–misted eyes he saw the drummer leaning over the pit. "Would you kill the slave, Zachel? By Nergal, if you do I'll ask Klaneth as gift to me to chain you to his oar for a while!"

Then Zachel, sullenly:

"Row, slave!"

Silently, half fainting, Kenton bent over the oar. The Norseman caught a hand, held it in iron grip.