Read Online The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens by L. Sprague de Camp - Free Book Online Page A

the small sails. Howsomever, it looks as if our chase would be all running free, if this breeze holds. Would ye put in to Zamba?”
    Abreu made the negative head motion. “He’s not likely to have stopped there, after such a short run from Majbur, unless the machinery broke down. We might sail a reach past the Reshr harbor, just to make sure he’s not lying there, and go on to Jerud.”
    “One point to port!” said Zardeku, and went on to talk of piracy and nautical lore and ship design; how the shipwrights, before they found the trick of putting two or more men on the same oar, used to range the oars in several tiers, with all sorts of elaborate arrangements to keep the rowers out of each other’s hair . . .
    Although there was no sign of the Kerukchi in the harbor of Reshr, the harbor master at Jerud told them: “Yes, we saw this craft go past with a long stream of smoke blowing ahead of her. Thinking she was afire, we sent a galley out to help, and sore foolish they felt when the fire-ship signaled that all was well.”
    Captain Zardeku topped off his supplies of food and water for the gigantic hunger and thirst of his rowers, and set out again over the emerald waters. They stopped at Zá, where the folk have tails like those of the Koloft Swamp; at Ulvanagh, where Dezful the gold-plated pirate reigned before his singular demise; and at Varzeni-Ganderan, the isle of women, who allow the men of passing ships to company with them but let no grown males settle.
    The dames of Varzeni-Ganderan had indeed seen the fire-ship go by on the horizon, but it had not stopped. This in itself was unusual.
    “Small crew, or else he’s in a hell of a hurry,” mused Abreu. He told Zardeku: “We should find him soon. I think he’ll have to stop for firewood for his machine.”
    They lost most of a night in Varzeni-Ganderan because the crew of the Alashtir scattered to enjoy the pleasures the place afforded, and rounding them up took hours. On the fourth day the Alashtir came in sight of Darya, where the folk wear coats of grease in lieu of clothes. They recognized the island by its two rocky peaks long before the rest of it came in sight.
    The lookout called down: “Smoke in the harbor, but I see not what it means.”
    “Captain,” said Abreu, “I think our man stopped here for wood and is just about to pull out. Hadn’t you better rig your catapult and give the rowers a rest?”
    “Aye-aye. You there!” Zardeku began giving orders in his usual mild tone, but little above the conversational. Abreu, however, noted that the crew hopped to it nevertheless.
    While the rowers loafed and the ship eased towards the harbor under sail, the sailors brought up a mass of timbers and rope from below, which they assembled on the foredeck into a catapult. They piled beside it the missiles, which could be called either feathered javelins or oversized arrows.
    “What now?” asked Zardeku.
    “Heave to; we can’t go into the harbor to take him.”
    Zardeku brought his ship’s bow up-wind and let go his main sheet so that the big mainsail flapped, while the small fore and mizzen sails, as close-hauled as they could be braced, kept just enough way on the Alashtir to prevent her from drifting shorewards. The swells smacked obliquely against her bow, giving her an uneasy rotary motion.
    Through a telescope, Abreu could see the paddle-wheel steamer, her stack puffing angrily. They must be stoking her up, he thought. As the Alashtir worked slowly past the harbor, a quarter-hoda away, he got a view of his quarry from several angles. Another conversion job, evidently; he could see the places where the outriggers for the oarlocks had been attached when she had been a galley.
    “Aren’t we getting too far north?” he asked Zardeku. “If she heads south when she comes out we might have trouble catching her.”
    “Right ye be,” said Zardeku. “Haul the main sheet! Let her fall off a point!”
    As the ship gathered speed, Abreu asked: