Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

"You laugh, Wolf!" observed the drummer. "Well—that makes us understand each other better."

His eyes twinkled impishly.

"Yes," he said, "'Kiss me,' they cried. And I would kiss them, because I found them all as singularly attractive as each found me. And as I grew, this mutual attraction increased. You have no doubt noticed," said Gigi complacently, "that I am an unusual figure of a man. But as I passed from adolescence my greatest beauty was, perhaps, my hair. It was long and black and ringleted, and it fell far over my shoulders. I perfumed it and cared for it, and the tender little vessels of joy who loved me would twine their fingers in it when I lifted them upon my head or when my head was on their knees. They joyed in it even as I.

"And then I had a fever. When I recovered, all my beautiful hair was gone!"

He paused to sigh again.

"There was a woman of Nineveh who pitied me. She it was who anointed my head with the chilquor paste; told me how to make it; showed me the growing shrub. After years of—ah, mutual attraction—I had fever again. And again my hair vanished. I was in Tyre then, Wolf, and made what haste I could to return to Nineveh. When I did return, the kindly woman was dead and a sand storm had covered the spot where she had pointed out to me the chilquor shrubs!"

He sighed, prodigiously. Kenton, amused and fascinated by his tale as he was, could not forbear a suspicious glance after that melancholy exhalation. It seemed overdone.

"Then before I could search further," went on Gigi, hurriedly, "word came to me that one who loved me—a princess,—was on her way to Nineveh to see me. Shame was mine and anguish! I could not meet her with a bald pate. For no one loves a bald man!"

"Nobody loves a fat man," grinned Kenton. He had spoken, it seemed, in his own tongue for the drummer apparently had not understood.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said," answered Kenton, gravely, "that for one whose excellencies are as great as yours, the loss of your hair should have been of no more consequence to a woman than the falling of one feather from a pet bird."

"That is a fine tongue of yours," remarked Gigi, stolidly. "That it can say so much in so few sounds."

"Well," he continued. "I was distressed indeed. I could have hidden—but I feared my will would not be strong enough to keep me hid. She was a very lovely princess, Wolf. Besides, I knew that if she found that I was in Nineveh, as find out she surely would, she would rout me out. She was a fair woman. And this is the one difference between the fair women and the dark—that the latter wait for you to come for them, but the former search for you. And I could go to no other city to hide—for in each of them were other women who admired me. What was I to do?"

"Why didn't you get a wig?" asked Kenton, so interested now in Gigi's tale that his chains were forgotten.

"I told you, Wolf, that they loved to thread their fingers through my locks," answered Gigi, severely. "Could any wig stay in place under such treatment? Not when the women were such as loved me—No! No! I will tell you what I did. And here is where you will see how my lost hair and you are entangled. The High Priest of Nergal in Nineveh was a friend of mine. I went to him and asked him first to work a magic that would plant my head afresh with hair. He was indignant—said that his art was not to be debased for such a common purpose.

"It was then. Wolf, that I began to have my suspicions of the real power of these sorcerers. I had seen this priest perform great magic. He had raised phantoms that had raised my hair—when I had it. How much easier then ought it to have been for him to have raised my hair without the trouble of raising the phantoms too? I suggested this. He grew more indignant—said that he dealt with gods, not barbers!

"But now I know better. He could not do it! I made the best of the matter, however, and asked him to put me for a while where my princess could not find me and where, weak willed as I am, I could not go to her. He smiled, and said he knew just the place. He inducted me as an acolyte to Nergal and gave me a token that he said would insure me recognition and good will from one he named Klaneth. Also he sealed me with certain vows, not to be broken. I took them cheerfully, thinking them but temporary, and his friend Klaneth the high priest of some hidden temple where I would be safe. I went to sleep that night trustfully, happy as a child. I awakened, Wolf—here!

"It was a sorry jest," muttered Gigi, angrily. "And a sorry jest would it be for that Ninevite priest if I knew the way back to him!

"But here I have been ever since," he added, briskly. "Barred by my acolytage to Nergal from crossing to that other deck where there is a little vessel of joy named Satalu whom I would fain take within my hands. Barred by other vows from leaving the ship wherever it may touch for food and gear—since it was sanctuary I asked from which I could not go nor my princess come to me."

"By Tiamat of the Abyss—I got the sanctuary I asked!" he exclaimed, ruefully enough. "And by Bel who conquered Tiamat—I am as weary of the ship as Zubran himself. Yet were I not here," he added, as by afterthought, "who would loose you of your chains? A shrub and lack of hair, an amorous princess and my vanity—these brought me on the ship to set you free when you came. Of such threads do the gods weave our destinies."

He leaned forward, all malice gone from twinkling eyes, a grotesque tenderness on the frog–like mouth.

"I like you. Wolf," he said, simply.

"I like you, Gigi," all Kenton's defenses were down. "Greatly, indeed, do I like you. And trust fully. But—Zubran—"

"Have no doubts about Zubran," snapped Gigi. "He, too, was tricked upon this ship and is even more eager than I to be free. Some day he shall tell you his story, as I have mine. Ho! Ho!" laughed the drummer. "Ever seeking the new, ever tiring of the known is Zubran. And this is his fate—to be shot into a whole new world and find it worse than his old. Nay, Wolf, fear not Zubran. With shield and sword will he stand beside you—until he tires even of you. But even then will he be loyal."

He grew solemn, kept unwinking gaze on Kenton, searching, it seemed, his soul.

"Consider well, Wolf," he whispered. "The odds are all against you. We two may not help you as long as Klaneth is lord of his deck. It may be that you cannot free the long–haired one beside you, You have Klaneth to face and twenty of his men—and, it may be, Nergal! And if you lose—death for you—and after long, long torture. Here, chained to your oar, you are at least alive. Consider well!"

Kenton held out to him his prisoned wrists.

"When will you loose my chains, Gigi?" was all he said.

Gigi's face lighted, his black eyes blazed, he sprang upright, the golden loops in his pointed ears dancing.

"Now!" he said. "By Sin, the Father of Gods! By Shamash his Son and by Bel the Smiter—now!"

He thrust his hands between Kenton's waist and the great circlet of bronze that bound it; pulled it apart as though it had been made of putty; he broke the locks of the manacles on Kenton's wrists.

"Run free. Wolf!" he whispered. "Run free!"

With never a look behind him, he waddled to the pit's steps and up them. Slowly Kenton stood upon his feet. His chains dropped from him. He looked down at the sleeping Viking. How could he unfasten his links? How, if he could unfasten, awaken him before Zachel came hurrying down among the slaves?

Again be looked about him. At the foot of the overseer's high stool lay a shining knife, long–bladed, thin–bladed, dropped there by Gigi—for him? He did not know. But he did know that with it he might pick the Viking's locks. He took a step toward it—

How long he was in taking the second step.