above the water. One might find means to climb-
And maybe kill a man or two before the racket fetched every-
body else. Useless, that. Vanimen’s children had beaten the whole
crew erenow; but that had been when no sailor carried more than
a knife, and none really looked for a battle, and anyhow—once
Oluv was out of the way-it had been no death-fight.
Also, Kennin was gone.
With naught save his upper countenance raised forth, Tauno waited for whatever might happen.
At length he heard a footfall, and the man who blotted the starboard sky called, “Well, well, do you pant for us already?”
“You’re on watch, remember,” came Ingeborg’s voice—how dragging, how utterly empty! “I could grit my teeth and seduce you if I thought the skipper would flog you for leaving your post; but so such luck. No, I left that sty in the hold for a breath of air, forgetting that here also are horrible swine.”
“Have a care, harlot. You know we can’t risk you alive for a witness, but there are ways and ways to die.”
“And if you get too saucy, we may not keep you till the last night out,” said the man on the larboard side. “That gold’lI buy me more whores than I can handle, so why bother with Cod-Ingeborg?”
“Aye, piss on her,” said the man aloft, and tried to. She fled~ weeping under the poop. Laughter bayed at her heels. “c.
Tauno stiffened for a moment. Then, ducking silently below, he swam to the rudder.
Its barnacles were rough and its weeds were slimy in his grasp. He lifted himself with more slowness and care than he had used in scouting the kraken’s den. Because of sheer the tiller was about eight feet overhead, in that cavern made by the upper deck. Tauno caught the post with both hands, curved his chine, and got toes in between post and hull, resting on a bracket. In a smooth motion, not stopping to wince as the bronze dug into his flesh, he rose to where he could crook fingers on the after rail; and thus he chinned himself up.
“What was that?” cried a sailor on the twilit main deck.
Tauno waited. The water dripped off him no louder than wave-
lets patted the hull. It felt cold.
“Ah, a damned dolphin or something,” said another man.
“Beard of Christ, I’ll be glad to leave this creepy spot!”
“What’s the second thing you’ll do ashore?” A coarse three-way gabbing began. Tauno reached Ingeborg. She had drawn one breath when she saw him athwart silvery-dark heaven. Afterward she stood most quiet, save for the wild flutterings of her heart.
He caught her to him in the lightlessness under the poop. Even then he marked the rounded firmness of her, the warm fragrance, the hair that tickled his lips laid close to her ear. But he whispered merely: “How goes it on board? Is Niels alive?”
“Until tomorrow.” She could not respond with quite the stead-iness that Eyjan would have shown; but she did well. “They tied and gagged us both, you know. Me they’ll keep a while-did you hear? They’re not so vile that Niels has any use for them. He lies bound yet, of course. They talked about what to do with him while he lis~ned. Finally they decided the be~t sport would be to watch him sprattle from the yardarm tomorrow morning.” Her nails dug into his arm. “Were I not a Christian woman, how good to spring overboard into your sea!”
He missed her meaning. “Don’t. I couldn’t help you; if naught else, you’d die of chill. . . . Let me think, let me think. . . . Ah.”
“What?” He could sense how she warned herself not to hope.
“Can you pass a word to Njels?”
“Maybe when he’s hilled forth. They’ll surely make me come
along.”
“Well. . . if you can without being overheard, tell him to lift his heart and be ready to fight.” Tauno pondered a minute. “We need to pull eyes away from the water. When they’re about to put the rope around Niels’ neck, let him struggle as much as he’s able. And you too: rush in, scratch, bite, kick, scream.”