"He brought you along for his pleasure on the _Tuka_," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I took her by the arms, and held her from me. "I have little time for you now," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. "Oh, Master!" she said, as I pressed her back, and then put her on her back, on the wet boards of the hold. Swiftly I had her, for I had little time for her, then. She clutched at me, hot and shuddering. The _Tuka_ was then free of the bar. I could hear feet on the deck over our heads. Men were taking their places at the benches. The ropes by which the _Tina_ and the _Tais_ had drawn the _Tuka_ from the bar were being cast off. I could hear Aemilianus giving orders. I rose from the girl's side. I snapped my fingers. "On your feet," I told her. "We must board the _Tina_."
"Yes, Master," she said. She groaned, gaining her feet.
I went to the rupture in the side of the _Tuka_. Through the jagged rupture I could see the _Tais_, and the river chain, behind her.
I tumbled the body of the fellow who had struck at me from the hold, into the water.
The girl joined me, at my side.
"Can you swim?" I asked her.
"No," she said.
I took her by the arm and, lowering my head and crouching, pulling the girl with me, leapt downward into the water.
"Turn about," I said, "lie on your back, relax, completely."
"Yes, Master," she said, frightened.
I then, my hand in the girl's hair, drawing her behind me, swam slowly about the bow of the _Tuka_ and to the side of the _Tina_. In moments, helped by crewmen, we had attained the deck of the _Tina_.
"Welcome, Jason," said Callimachus. He grinned. "While we have been hard at work, moving the _Tuka_, it seems you have been trying chain luck."
"I did my share of the work," I laughed. "It merely chanced that she fell across my path."
We turned to regard the wet, shivering girl. Like most girls, either of Earth or Gor, she was short, curvaceous and luscious, sweetly slung.
"She is nice," said Callimachus.
"She is a pretty bauble," I granted him. The girl put down her head, smiling.
"Bring a cloak," I said. I then put the cloak about her. She drew it closely about her, holding it with her small hands.
"Thank you, my Master," she whispered.
"Lock her in the hold," I told a sailor.
"Yes, Jason," he said, and conducted the lovely slave to her confinement.
"We must soon make away," said Callimachus.
"I shall find a place at one of the benches," I said.
"Sir," said an officer to Callimachus, "there is movement on the ship to starboard."
"Then she is not abandoned," said Callimachus. "I thought not."
I remembered, then, the ship I had heard of, shortly before entering the hold of the _Tuka_, that which had been identified as a derelict, one presumably drifting downriver, lost from the confusion of the night, illuminated by our diversion of the burning _Olivia_, a pasang or so to the east. She had perhaps been struck by one of the pirate ships, or perhaps, earlier, a casualty from a previous day, had come loose from one of the bars in the river.
Callimachus and I, with the officer, went to the starboard rail of the _Tina_.
We saw oars sliding outboard. The ship was not dead.
"Surely it does not mean to attack three ships," said the officer.
"Why has it not attacked earlier?" asked a man.
"Doubtless it has been waiting," I said, "hoping that other ships would join it."
"Why should it be preparing to attack now?" asked a man. "It is not supported by other ships."
"It knows the _Tuka_ is free," said Callimachus. "If it is going to attack, it must now do so."
"But we are three ships," said a man.
"Two, if we do not count the _Tuka_," said a fellow.
"The odds, even so, are decisively in our favor," said a man. One ship, in oared battle, cannot well defend itself against two. One flank, at least, must be exposed.
"The captain is desperate," I said.
"Do you know the ship?" asked Callimachus.
"It was the first ship which left the line, the first ship to strike at us," I said. "In the movement and clashing of ships, in the confusion, in spite of the diversion, in spite of the Voskjard pennons which we have flown, she has not lost us. She has stayed with us. She has followed us, tenaciously."
"Ah," said Callimachus.
"Yes," I said, "it is the _Tamira_."
"She is moving!" said the officer.
"So, too, is the _Tais_," cried a man. I spun about. The _Tais_, dark, low in the water, beautiful, scarred and lean, fierce, one of the most dangerous fighting ships in the navy of Port Cos, under the command of Calliodorus, captain in Port Cos, swept about the stern of the _Tuka_ and the bow of the _Tina_. She, too, had spotted the _Tamira_.
"She must not be sunk!" I cried. "Signal Calliodorus!"
"No," said Callimachus, grimly. "The horns would give away our position."
I watched the advance of the _Tamira_. She was an armed merchantman.
"Her captain must be mad," said a man.
"He has doomed his own ship," said another.
I did not even know if Reginald, on the _Tamira_, was aware of the _Tais_.
"She must not be sunk," I cried. "If anything, she must be boarded."
There was a rending of wood, a jarring and ripping of timber. I heard the screaming of men.
"It is too late," said Callimachus.
"Blood for Port Cos," said a man.
"To the _Tamira_," I begged Callimachus. "Please, Callimachus!"
"There is no time, Jason," said Callimachus.
"Other ships will be searching for us," said an officer.
"We must make away," said Callimachus.
I discarded my belt and sword and dove from the rail of the _Tina_. I heard Callimachus cry out behind me, "Come back, Jason!"
In moments I was at the side of the _Tamira_. The dark hull rolled toward me, and pressed me beneath the water. I felt her keel with my two hands, and pushed away, and again came to the surface of the water. My arm struck against an oar, unmanned, projecting downward from her side. I was aware of other men in the water about me. Some yards away I saw the dark shadow in the darkness which was the _Tais_. I pushed away a man in the water near me. My hand struck on a piece of wreckage.
"She is coming again!" I heard a man cry out in misery.
I turned in the water. The dark shape that was the _Tais_ seemed almost upon me. I twisted to the side. Under the water I felt myself being lifted and flung back and to the side by the bow wave of the _Tais_ and, at the same time, I heard the second impact. For the moment I could not think. I was aware only of the sound, my motion, and the pain. My head then again broke the surface, and I could once more breathe. I was at the side of the _Tais_. Men in the water were crying out about me. I put out my hand. I could feel the port shearing blade of the _Tais_. Then the blade moved back and the _Tais_, oars cutting at the dark river, with a ripping of strakes, extricated her ram from the hull of the stricken _Tamira_. Through wood and men I swam to the side of the _Tamira_. A dozen feet of planking, lengthwise, and some three planks vertically, had been lost.
I put my hand onto the breakage. The hole in the hull was some two feet in height. Water, as the hull shifted, would rush past me, flooding into the hold. I climbed into the hold. It was dark. A crate, loose in the water, struck against my legs. The water was then to my knees. I felt the _Tamira_ shudder, and water rushed past me, aft. The floor of the hold tilted beneath my feet. Outside I saw the dark shape of the _Tais_ swinging to starboard. Then, not hurrying, she withdrew. She had done her work.
The ship suddenly tilted sternward and I slipped in the hold, and slid aft, then struggling in the water. The breakage in the hull, through which I could see stars, was several feet away, and up the steep slope of the tilted floor of the hold. More water poured in through the breakage. Holding to the side of the hold I pulled my way toward the breakage. I got my hands on its edges and pulled myself through. I dove swiftly into the water.