He threw himself backward, turned over, twice straightened out, and entered the water cleanly, head-down. He came up just in time to see the end of Anana’s dive. They were about 250 yards from the nearest of five anchored galleys. A mile and a half down the river, torches moved toward them; beneath them, helmets threw off splinters of fire and oars rose and dipped.
The eagles were across the river now and climbing, black against the moonlight.
Kickaha called to Anana, and they swam toward the nearest boat. His clothes and the knives pulled at him, so he shed the clothes and dropped the larger knife into the depths. Anana did the same. Kickaha did not like losing the garments or the knife, but the experiences of the last forty-eight hours and the shortage of food had drained his energy.
They reached the boat finally and clung to the anchor chain while they sucked in air, unable to
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control the loud sobbing. No one appeared to investigate on the decks of the ship. If there was a watchman, he was sleeping.
The patrol boat was coming swiftly in their direction. Kickaha did not think, however, that he and Anana could be seen yet. He told her what they must do. Having caught up with his breathing, he dived down and under the hull. He turned when he thought he was halfway across and swam along the longitudinal axis toward the rear. Every few strokes, he felt upward. He came up under the overhanging poop with no success. Anana, who had explored the bottom of the front half, met him at the anchor chain. She reported failure, too.
He panted as he talked. “There’s a good chance none of these five boats have secret chambers for the smugglers. In fact, we could go through a hundred and perhaps find nothing. Meanwhile, that patrol is getting closer.”
“Perhaps we should try the land route,” she said.
“Only if we can’t find the hidden chambers,” he said. “On land, we haven’t much chance.”
He swam around the boat to the next one and there repeated his search along the keel. This boat and a third proved to have solid bottoms. By then, though he could not see it, Kickaha knew that the patrol boat was getting close.
Suddenly, from the other side of the boat, something like an elephant gun seemed to explode. There was a second boom, and then the screams of eagles and men.
Though he could see nothing, he knew what had happened: the green eagles had returned to kill Kickaha. Not seeing, they had decided to take revenge on the nearest humans for their long cap-
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tivity. So they had plunged out of the night sky onto the men in the boat. The booms had been their wings suddenly opening to check their fall. Now, they must be in the boat and tearing with beak and talon.
There were splashes. More screams. Then silence.
A sound of triumph, like an elephant’s bugling, then a flapping of giant wings. Kickaha and Anana dived under the fourth boat, and they combined hiding from the eagles with their search.
Kickaha, coming up under the poop, heard the wings but could not see the birds. He waited in the shadow of the poop until he saw them rising out and away from the next boat. They could be giving up their hunt for him or they could be intending to plunge down out of the skies again. Anana was not in sight. She was gone so long that Kickaha knew she had either found what they were looking for or had drowned. Or had taken off by herself.
He swam along under the forepart of the boat, and presently his hand went past the lip of a well cut from the keel. He rose, opening his eyes, and saw a glimmer of darkest gray above. Then he was through the surface and in a square chamber lit by a small lamp. He blinked and saw Anana on all fours, knife in hand, staring down at him from a shelf. The shelf was two feet above the water and ran entirely around the chamber.