"I paid you—" began Mjipa.
"Aye, but not to race clear to Majbur against a ship with twice the speed and twice the crew of ours. And whither they'll hale you, ye'd have no use for money. I'd ne'er have taken you and your folk had ye not sworn that once out of the harbor, that were the end of't."
"Suppose it's one of the kidnapping gangs instead of Vuzhov's men? Then if they boarded you, they'd probably kill everyone on general principles. So you might as well fight; they might pull back if they saw you determined to take a few with you."
"Aye, mayhap." The captain cast a glance at the lowering sky and the rising waves. Down in the waist, the twelve oarsmen were having a hard time with the oars. A wave would catch them in the midst of a back stroke and send them staggering. "Master Ghanum! In sweeps! And brail up the mainsail a trifle. I like not this blow."
Mjipa told Alicia of the development. "Oh, damn!" she said. "Every time we think we 're in the clear, something else happens. I've been working on Krishna for years, and I've never had so many menaces to cope with. Could we escape in the ship's boat?" She pointed to the dinghy atop the deckhouse.
"I doubt it. That cockleshell would barely hold the three of us."
"We needn't take Isayin. He's been nothing but a nuisance, first seasick, then complaining about the quarters."
"Even without him, a ship like the Yur could overhaul us in no time."
"Could you grab Captain Farrá and hold a knife to his throat, like you did with Khorosh?"
"What good would that do? Those blokes chasing us wouldn't give a damn if we killed the captain and his entire crew. It's us they're after."
The pursuing ship was now close enough so that Mjipa could appreciate her rakish lines. The water had roughened to the point where the Yur, too, had taken in her oars.
Mjipa went back to where the captain stood. "May I have your glass again, Captain?"
Through the tube, Mjipa could now make out figures on the deck. After a long look, he said: "They're nothing but naked Kalwmian sailors. Not a spangled loin cloth in the lot. So they must be one of the gangs of kidnappers. Couldn't you put the helm up and run for Malayer? It should be almost due west."
"Nay; they'd still sail rings around us. The Yur cannot bear enough honest cargo to pay costs; that's how they get such a turn of speed out of her."
Alicia came .and stood at the rail beside Mjipa. On the fantail Isayin, oblivious, continued to study his fish.
Time oozed past. The Yur was coming up on their starboard quarter. The captain said: "They'll blanket our sails and so retard us that we shall be easy prey."
"You could turn down-wind and gain some distance ..."
"Terran!" snapped the captain. "By the six teats of Varzai, yet be an interfering busybody, a tyro at seamanship, and a bringer of ill luck. Now shut your gob! I wot what my vessel can and cannot do!"
The bow of the Yur now drew abreast of the Tarvezid's stern. A Krishnan shouted through a speaking trumpet: "Heave to! In the name of my master, the mighty Heshvavu Khorosh, I command you to halt!"
"Oh, hell!" said Alicia. "It's Verar. He's the worst of the lot."
"What saith she?" asked the captain, since she had spoken English.
Mjipa explained: "There were two of these bands. One sought to seize Mistress Dyckman for King Ainkhist "s harem; the other wanted our heads. Those on the Yur are the latter."
Farrá grunted. "Cutthroats like that are wont to have a mort of sport with their victims ere dispatching them. I can rob them of that pleasure. If ye'll lend me your sword, and if ye twain will kneel down and bow your heads, I'll have them off in a twinkle, ready to give yonder carls when they come aboard. There'll be no pain, I promise. Just whisht! and 'twill be all over."
"Thanks," said Mjipa, grasping his hilt. "If my sword is drawn, it'll drink blood other than mine, I assure you."
The captain turned away. The wind had freshened still further, so that Mjipa and Alicia had to grip the rail to keep their footing on the tossing deck. Water foamed along the port edge of the deck. Mjipa saw the captain in vigorous argument with the first officer and the boatswain, but he could not hear what was said over the roar of the wind and the waves.
A cloud blacker than those before loomed up to starboard. A flash of lightning lit up the dark scene, and thunder mingled with the sounds of the angry sea. Both ships rolled until their people could barely move about their decks.
The captain concluded his argument, and several sailors emerged from the hold with armfuls of boarding pikes. One carried swords, which he passed out to the captain and his officers.
"At least," Mjipa shouted in Alicia's ear, "he seems to have decided to put up a fight. Go get Khostavorn's sword from the cabin."
"Why? You already have—"
"Not for me; for you! You might get a chance to let the stuffing out of one of those bad lots."
As Alicia staggered towards the deckhouse door, another cry came from the Yur: "Heave to, or we'll run you down!"
A sailor was inching up the slanting yard of the Tarvezid's mainsail. He untied the brails he had previously tied up and took them in his teeth, so that the sail resumed its full area. The sailor was halfway back down to the foredeck when another clap of thunder heralded a terrific gust, bringing a blinding sheet of rain.
"Hold on!" shouted Mjipa as the ship heeled further. He wondered if they were about to capsize. A glance aft showed that Doctor Isayin, holding his sheets of notepaper in his teeth, was also gripping the rail.
A loud cracking resounded over the tumult. With a snapping of stays, the mainmast broke off at deck level and fell away to port, taking the mainsail with it. That left the smaller mizzen standing; but the loss of sail, together with the drag of the mass of rigging in the water, brought the Tarvezid to a halt.
At almost the same instant, a chorus of screams from the Yur competed for the Terrans' attention. The Yur rolled over to port until her sails were in the water. She kept on rolling, slowly, until she showed her keel, like the back of some sea monster. All around the barnacled bottom, the heads of swimmers and pieces of debris bobbed in the merciless waves.
"Captain!" shouted Mjipa, pointing."Did you see that?"
Farrá exchanged a brief glance with Mjipa, gave a curt affirmative head motion, and turned stolidly to the repair of damage. A sailor threw a rope to the one who had been on the yard when the mast went over, and hauled the mariner back to the deck. Others climbed out along the broken mast in the water, to chop away the parrel holding the yard to the mast. Still others belayed ropes to the mainsail and its yard.
The squall blew itself out. The rain died away; Roqir broke through the clouds again. The wind dropped to its former level, although the sea still heaved and tossed the Tarvezid.
To starboard, the raft attached by light lines to the roof of the Yur's deckhouse had broken loose when the ship capsized. Now, one by one, the Yur's people climbed aboard this raft, which bobbed in the lee of the inverted hull.
For the next hour, the crew of the Tarvezid worked to get the fallen mainsail and yard back aboard. They cut the sail loose from the yard and folded it up. The yard they laid atop the deckhouse. Since it was as long as the whole ship, its end projected far out over the stern.
With the cutting of the last lines to the floating broken mast, the Tarvezid, urged on by the mizzen sail, began to move. Then came a yell from starboard: "Ahoy! Leave us not! Take us aboard!"