Explorers Of Gor

21
What I Saw One Night In The Marsh, While I Was Chained In The Rogues' Cage

"Awaken," said Ayari. nudging me.

I rolled over in the chain, on the raft.

"Something is coming," he said.

"Raiders?" I asked.

"I do not think so," he said.

I struggled to a crouching position, the iron ring, with its chain, heavy on my neck. The raft on which the rogues' chain was kept was a long one, covered by a barred cage, locked.

I peered into the darkness.

"I do not see anything," I said.

"I saw the brief glint of a dark lantern, momentarily unshuttered," said Ayari.

"Whoever it is, then, moves in stealth," I said. Raiders, of course, would not possess such lanterns.

"Listen," said Ayari.

Suddenly the snout of a tharlarion, half lying on the edge of the raft, thrust against the bars. I drew back. It grunted. It kept its snout for a time on the edge of the raft. Then, with a soft splash, it slipped back in the dark, shallow water.

"Listen," said Ayari.

"I hear it now," I said. "Oars, muffled, several of them."

"How many vessels?" asked Ayari.

"Two, at least," I said, "and moving in tandem order." I could hear, slightly out of time, the softer entry into the water of a second set of oars.

"They could not be askaris," said Ayari.

"No," I said. Askaris used not oars but paddles, and used canoes. Moreover, when moving at night, each canoe's paddles kept the exact rhythm of that of the lead canoe. This makes it difficult to count their number. It is common, of course, to use a tandem order in night rowing, the first vessel's untroubled passage marking the safe channel, its impeded passage marking the location of an obstacle.

"How do you judge the draw?" asked Ayari.

'The craft are light," I said, "and, being rowed in this water, must be shallow-drafted."

"The number of oars suggests length," said Ayari. "They must be light galleys."

"No," I said. "I know the draw of a light galley. These vessels are too light for even such a galley. Furthermore, any light galley with which I am familiar, though comparatively shallow-drafted, would be too deeply keeled to traverse this marsh."

"What manner of vessels can they be?" asked Ayari. "And where would they come from?"

'They can be but one thing," I said, "and yet that they should be here, now, at night, is madness."

We then heard a thrash in the water, as a tharlarion, perhaps the same one which had thrust its snout against the bars of our cage, struck against wood in the darkness, some twenty yards from us.

We heard a cry of anger and, for an instant, a dark lantern was unshuttered. We saw two men, in the prow of a low, medium-beamed, bargelike vessel. One pushed down with a spear, forcing the broad head of the tharlarion away from the vessel.

I clutched the bars of the cage in which, on the raft, I was confined.

Then the dark lantern was again shuttered. The vessels slipped past us. There were three of them. The shafts of the oars, where they rested in the open, fixed-position, U-shaped oarlocks, had been wrapped in fur, that they might make no sound as they moved against these fulcrums. The oars themselves had barely lifted from the water and had then entered and drawn again, almost splashlessly. The oarlocks, too, had been lined with fur.

"What is wrong?" asked Ayari.

"Nothing," I said.

In the light of the dark lantern, when it had been briefly unshuttered, I had seen the faces of three or four men, the faces of those in the prow and two others, who had stood near to them. One of the faces I knew. It had been that of Shaba, the geographer.

I clenched the bars. I was helpless. For a moment I shook them with futile rage. Then I was quiet.

"What is wrong?" asked Ayari.

"Nothing," I told him.