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Callisthenes," said Callimachus. "It is here that we will wait for him."
    "Where is Callisthenes?" asked the man next to me.
    "I do not know," I said.
    I noted the approach of the Voskjard's fleet, the ships moving in pairs, with more than a hundred yards between the pairs. It is difficult, of course, for a single ship to protect itself against a brace of assailants. The members of the pair circle about, so as to attack at right angles to one another. It is thus impossible to protect oneself, if caught, against both. One's hull must be exposed to the strike of at least one ram.
    "We must hold the line," said a man beside me, tensely.
    "Yes," I said. "That is true."
    Another fellow, near me, lifted his bow, an arrow fitted to the string. He bent the bow, drawing the string back, the arrow at a sharp angle. Then he relaxed the bow, but did not remove the shaft from the string. "They will soon be within range," he said.
    "Withdraw!" begged the officer above and behind us on the stem castle with Callimachus. "Withdraw!" he begged.
    "They would be upon us before we could come about," said Callimachus.
    I heard steel leaving sheaths about me.
    "Sound the battle horns," said Callimachus,
    "Sound the battle horns!" called the officer beside him.
    The bronze horns of battle then smote with their shrill trumpeting the air of the Vosk.
    I withdrew my sword from its sheath.
     
    V
    I SEE THE TAMIRA;
    I CONSIDER THE TUKA
     
     
    I kicked back, screaming, the face that thrust itself over the gunnels. With the blade I slashed down, cutting the rope taut on the grappling hook caught over the wood. I thrust twice, driving back pirates. One of my feet was on the Tina. The other was on the railing of the pirate vessel. Others, too, stood between the ships. Others stood on the decks of their own vessels, thrusting and cutting, stabbing, over the bulwarks. Men on the Tina, using loose oars as levers, were trying to pry the ships apart. There was a screaming of metal as shearing blades, locked together, protested the stresses imposed upon them by the shifting ships. The port shearing blade of the pirate vessel was torn, splintering strakes, from its hull. Our starboard shearing blade, that great crescent of iron, some seven feet in height, some five inches in width, was bent oddly askew. It had been turned like tin. A man next to me fell, reaching out, clutching, grasping, between the ships. He screamed. Then he was lost among the splinters of oars and the grinding of the hulls. The bowman, below me on the deck, and to my left, unleashed an arrow, at point-blank range across the gunnels. I could not follow its flight. Only the blood at the pirate's throat marked its passage. The shaft itself was lost somewhere behind, among the screaming men.

I lid onto the deck of the pirate vessel, slashing about myself. A spear thrust from behind tore through the side of my tunic. I twisted away, hacking passage. Then pirates thrust forward and I felt them sweeping about me. They pressed toward the rail. I turned. They did not even realize, in the heat of battle, in the confusion, that I was not of their number. I nearly struck, by accident, an oarsman from the Tina, too on the pirate's vessel. As pirates swarmed toward our ship we cut at the backs of their necks. I saw the fellow I had nearly struck board the Tina, literally with the pirates. He struck a defender's pile away from himself. Then he cut at the pirates to his left and right. Then he was again on the deck of the Tina. Then he had turned and was fighting the pirates. I heard timbers creak. Pirates were at the stern castle of the Tina We had ten or more men fighting on the pirate vessel in the vicinity of her stem castle. I cut two more of the ropes attached to grappling hooks. "Rogue!" cried a fellow. I turned to face him. We crossed swords five times. His blood was on me. With two hands, grunting, I jerked the sword from his body. Ribbing snapped. It had been a clumsy stroke. Callimachus would not