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have been pleased. I lifted my head, wildly. The ships were now drifting apart. They were held close only at the sterns. I smelled fire. I saw a man on the Tina plunge backward, his hands clutching at an arrow protruding from his forehead. In two steps I climbed the archer's platform and leaped behind the blind. I passed my blade into the fellow's body, and he fell, turning, from the platform, arrows spilling, like rattling sticks, to the deck. A pirate leaped toward me and I cut him from the platform. Arrows sped toward me, two of them, and caught, tearing, in the wicker. Behind me I could see another pirate vessel looming. Near the stem castle I saw some of my fellows cutting through pirates. Burning pitch flamed upon the deck.
    "This way, Ladsl" I called, leaping down from the archer's platform. An arrow struck into the deck at my feet.
    We sped down the deck. The ship shuddered as the great catapult loosed a stone which shattered into the rowing frame on the port side of the Tina.
    In moments I and the others, now some seven men, cutting at pirates, severing ropes, separated the two vessels and, as they slipped loose of one another, leaped onto the stern of the Tina, falling upon the pirates who had boarded her there.
    The pirates, pressed by our defenders, and attacked now from their own vessel, fought for their lives. We forced them to the railing, and over it, those who were not cut down, into the Vosk.
    "Are there no more?" I inquired.
    "Are you disappointed?" asked a man.
    "Our decks are cleared of the sleen," said a man.
    "They fought well," said a man
    "They are men of the Voskjard," said another.
    Our deck was run with blood. It was splintered. Arrows protruded from it. The port rowing frame was half struck away. Damage had already been incurred by our stern castle in an earlier engagement. Our starboard shearing blade was awry.
    We sought our men in the water, throwing them ropes. "Aiii!" I cried.
    "What is it?" asked a man.
    "That ship," I said, pointing, to a vessel less than some hundred yards away, engaged in war. "That is the Tamara!"
    This legend was emblazoned on her starboard bow. Doubtless it appeared, as well, on her port bow. The same legend also appeared on her stern. Gorean merchantmen are often identified at these three points.
    "So what of it?" asked a man.
    "She is not our ship," said another.
    "She flies the pennons of the Voskjard," said another.
    "She is the ship which, in the Vosk, east of the chain, with the Telia, captained by Sirnak, of the men of Policrates, took the Flower of Sibal" These things I had learned while held captive in the holding of Policrates.
    "What of it?" asked a man.
    "She is captained by Reginald, in the fee of Ragnar Voskjard," I cried. "She is the scout ship of Ragnar Voskjard."
    "What of it?" asked a man.
    "She came to clear the way for the passage of the Voskjard east," I said. "But," I said, anxiously, "was the rendezvous with the Voskjard's fleet at his holding or was it in the river?"
    "What difference does it make?" asked a man. He threw a rope to one of our fellows, struggling in the water.
    "Perhaps no difference," I said. "Perhaps no difference."
    "Would you engage her?" laughed a man.
    "She is supported by heavy galleys," said another man.
    "That she is!" I said, elated.
    "That pleases you?" asked a man.
    "It suggests to me that the rendezvous was, indeed, made in the river, and not at the Voskjard's holding."

"Is that good?" asked a man.
    "It could be splendid," I said. "But, too, it might make no difference."
    "You are mad," laughed a man.
    We then heard again battle horns. Swiftly I gave my aid to drawing two more men from the water. They were survivors from the Claudia, she of Point Alfred.
    Fifty yards astern we saw the jury-rigged ram of the Sita, a converted merchantman of Jort's Ferry, take a ship of the Voskjard in the stern.
    "To the benches!" called an officer. I, too, ran to the benches and seized an oar.
    Behind us we heard the rending of