Front matter (continued 2)

"Oh, I couldn't do that," said the bony wizard, turning if possible a little paler than before. "I can only do small things, such as—"

"Then I guess you may as well die too," said Godwin regretfully, and reached out a paw.

Pepi nearly collapsed. "Wait a m-m-m-m," he said. "I mean wait a s-s-s-s. Maybe there's a way."

"Think of it fast, scrawny one," said El Sareuk.

"I'm thinking," said Pepi hurriedly. "I'm thinking."

Godwin just then gave a cry of pleasure. He had spied his broadsword in its leather sheath, hanging on the wall above Mufaddal's inert form like a trophy, together with his Saracen helmet and kite-shaped shield and his curved Persian dagger. He bounded across and tore them down.

"A chap may be given the lineaments of a gorgon," he said, buckling the sword around his waist and clapping the helmet atop his round animal's head, "but he still seems naked without his weapons. By heaven, I feel better already! Now, Pepi, the method."

"Well, look, O Superb and Generous Prince," stammered the sorcerer, "I think I might work it with a carpet."

"I fail to see your point, sirrah."

"A flying carpet, O—"

"Never mind the O's. What's a flying carpet?"

"Not a very hard trick, really. You get on a carpet and say a certain incantation, and you're flying."

"How fast?"

"As fast as you will it."

"And you can do it? You can turn a carpet into a bird, as it were?"

"I think I can," said Pepi doubtfully. "No, no," he added hastily as Godwin flexed his biceps, "I'm sure I can."

"Do it, then. El Sareuk, put your blade across his neck. At the first out-of-the-ordinary thing that happens, except for the carpet's enchanting, deprive him of his head."

El Sareuk laid his scimitar to Pepi's throat with a warm smile.

Pepi looked at a rolled-up Persian carpet in a corner of the room, the only corner that did not seem to be jammed full of bodies. He muttered something under his breath. The carpet slowly unrolled.

"By the diamonded pillars of Hell!" gasped El Sareuk. "I believe he can do it!"

Pepi brightened up as his magic drifted the carpet across the floor toward them. "If you will sit on it, O Magnificence, it will carry you to the ship, be it so far as a hundred leagues to sea."

"How do I work it?" asked the gorilla suspiciously.

"Merely sit cross-legged upon it and think. It will speed or slow as you desire. It is attuned to the wishes of the rider."

"That's right," put in Ramizail. "I have ridden many a carpet, dear. Nothing to it."

Godwin tugged at his bare chin, where in happier times there had been a yellow beard. He dropped his shield on the blue and red surface of the carpet, which was now floating leisurely an inch off the floor. It seemed solid enough. "Listen, old wolf," he said. "See you take care of the girl till I come back."

"Have I not done so for nineteen years?" asked El Sareuk reproachfully.

"And send these lads out to fortify the house as well as possible. The barracks will be sure to find out sooner or later that something's amiss over here. I hope I'll be back in time to help you, when the brawl erupts; but the ship's the important thing just now."

"By Allah, it is! If we all die, 'twas in a worthy cause."

"We won't," said Ramizail complacently. "I feel it in my bones." She smiled at Godwin. "Good fortune, my dear."

"Thanks. I'd ask you to kiss me, but I've seen this face. By the way," said he to Pepi, at whose neck the blade of El Sareuk still pressed lightly but insistently, "can you give me back my own body?"

"Only Heraj could have done that," said Pepi wanly.

"Damnation. Oh, well," said the gorilla, and without more ado climbed onto the carpet and sat down. "Good-bye, all," he said. His short brow furrowed. Great fangs bared briefly in a grin of concentration. Nothing happened.

"Give it t-t-time," yipped Pepi, as the Arab's sword just nudged his throat.

The carpet gave a preliminary lurch, like a horse testing its muscles of an early morning, and then with a whoosh shot through the door and disappeared. From the other rooms that lay between them and the front of the house rose shouts of astonishment, as Godwin's forces observed him sail past them, clawing madly at the front edge of the rocketing carpet.

At that moment Mufaddal gave a low groan, unheard by anyone there; and Heraj the senior sorcerer opened his eyes and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

CHAPTER XVII

Making a test flight on the blue and red carpet in the house was tantamount to bestraddling a horse for the first time and having to jump him over a series of rivers and log falls and then gallop along a precipice edge, thought Godwin. He wished he had carried or led the thing out of doors before he got aboard. He missed the first door jamb by a fraction, canted over dangerously to skirt a startled Bedouin, aimed for the second door and saw he was too far off the floor, ducked his head just in time to escape a crack from the lintel, had the almost overpowering urge to close his eyes and let himself be buttered all over the ceiling, missed another door by a nice margin, grinned proudly, and saw that the front door was shut fast.

"Open it!" he bawled, something of the timbre of the gorilla in his frantic voice. "Open it, you pygmy-brained nincompoop!"

The Crusader on guard at the door flung it wide. It was an involuntary reaction, not in any way due to Godwin's command; he merely meant to dash through it himself. But carpet and gorilla slanted sidewise and flew at him, he dropped prone with a screech that four hundred Saracen foes would never have drawn from his lips, and the apparition sailed over him at thirty miles an hour, the gorilla hanging on to the edge for dear life.

Outside, Godwin righted the carpet and sped across the docks and over the Mediterranean. Now he took thought. He had controlled the carpet, it seemed, more by the quick fears and desperate hopes of his mind, than by any conscious direction of its flight. He would have to calm down. He exercised his iron will to the utmost. The carpet gave a couple of jerks, like a fractious horse being brought under control of the reins, and settled down to a smooth straight course. He glanced over his great hairy shoulder. The land of Egypt was receding rapidly behind him. Below, the choppy waves were blue and green with white caps, and the ocean looked extremely deep.

"God and the Holy Sepulcher defend me!" gasped Godwin. He pushed down on the carpet with an experimental finger. It gave slightly, but appeared to be quite safe. He tried a banking turn and then another which brought him to his straightaway course again. Courage returned with a rush. He laughed deep in the enormous chest. "This is pleasant, by my halidom!" he shouted.

His shield had fallen off the carpet somewhere back in Mufaddal's house. His sword was safe, as was the Persian dagger in its thong about his neck, and his Saracen-style helmet. The sigil of Solomon was still hung round his bull throat.

He speeded up a trifle. The wind sang in his small flat ears. He shoved his broad ugly muzzle forward, drinking in the rushing air. Never had he known a sensation such as this. It made horses seem like snails. He increased his velocity again. There was evidently no limit to the acceleration possibilities. He nearly forgot his mission in the joy of this stimulating experience.

He made the carpet swoop toward the sea, confident in his new-found skill; it plunged like a diving eagle at the waves, which reached hungrily up for it. "Tantivy, tantivy!" roared the great ape deliriously. "Gone away! Lu wind 'em, boy!" At the last second he skidded the carpet level and shot along above the surface, just skimming the crests of the waves, laughing like a maniac. Then once more he rose into the heavens and slammed forward, small sharp eyes now searching the horizons for the dark blot of the plague ship, on its way to England with a cargo of hideous all-conquering death.

Shortly he sighted a sail. It might or might not be the vessel he sought. He headed the carpet for it. It grew swiftly, until he was circling over it at a height of perhaps two hundred feet. He slowed the carpet till its motion was scarcely perceptible, until it finally hovered motionless above the ship. Then he lay prone on his belly and peered over the edge.

In the windy upper air the carpet rocked just a trifle, as a cork rocks on a pond caressed by a summer breeze. Godwin cocked an ear. From the ship below came the horrid din of thousands of imprisoned rats, squealing and keening and skirling their ghastly song of destruction.

He had found the plague ship. He drew back and grinned. Now....

Canting off to a spot some distance to the port side, he dropped the carpet, until it nearly touched the choppy sea, then aimed it at the side of the ship. He reasoned that he would be less likely to be seen if he came in at the level of the waves, rather than from above. There might be some element of terror about his descent from the clouds, but these men would be used enough to Heraj's spells to take a flying carpet in stride. Surprise was what he needed on his side, and if he could climb over the side without being seen, he might be able to reconnoiter the deck for a moment before beginning his attack.

He was then about two hundred feet from the vessel.

Abruptly, without any warning, the carpet dropped out from under him; crumpled, became a very ordinary red and blue carpet instead of a magical winged steed, and hit the waves, where it floated for an instant until his body struck it in falling; when it collapsed and sank into the depths of the Mediterranean Sea.

Some distance below, a forty-foot white shark, called also a man-eater, peered eagerly up at the commotion.

CHAPTER XVIII

Heraj opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

He had the grandfather of all headaches. He attempted to recall the spell against headaches, but it eluded him. He tried several others, but none of them would come out right. Evidently the blow at the base of his skull had somewhat addled his memory. He closed his eyes and resignedly waited for the thumping ache to pass.

He heard shouts of fear in other rooms, and then after a minute or two Pepi's voice nearby said plaintively, "Don't you think you might remove that blade now?"

Pepi was Heraj's favorite brother. He seemed to be in trouble. Heraj made a valiant effort and rolled his head, ache and all, to one side, opening his eyes as he did so. He saw the soles of Mufaddal's cheap shoes, in the left one of which was a large hole with the dirty foot showing through; disgustedly he swiveled his gaze and saw Habu, than whom he had never seen anyone deader.

He lifted his gaze and saw El Sareuk standing beside Pepi, one arm about the sorcerer's shoulders holding him steady, the other presenting a scimitar to the poor fellow's throat.

Heraj worked through the spell of immobility in his mind. He felt he had this one right. He flung it at El Sareuk.

El Sareuk did not move a muscle.

Heraj, uncertain that he had accomplished his purpose, glanced about at the half dozen Crusaders and Bedouins who were in the room. He gave them each a repetition of the spell. He enchanted Ramizail, who was eating dates. Then he cautiously rose to his knees.

No one moved, not even Pepi.

"All right, boy," said Heraj, standing. "They're stuck."

"So am I," groaned Pepi.

His sound of sorrow was echoed by Mufaddal, who sat up and felt his jaw tenderly. "Allah smite everybody," said Mufaddal. "Everybody!"

"Move, Pepi," said Heraj encouragingly. "He's immobilized."

"So am I, you lunkhead. Can't you see his arm and sword encircle my neck?"

"Oh," said Heraj. "Hum. Well. Can't you force back one of his arms?"

"They're like stone. Ouch!" The edge of the scimitar had cut him a little. "I tell you I don't dare move!"

"Neither can I," said Heraj, holding his head. "My stars and thaumaturgy, what a knock I took! Which wall fell on me?"

"The gorilla fell on you," said Mufaddal spitefully, "and if you think I'll turn a finger to aid either of you two fumble-handed fat-brained cretins, you're badly mistaken. My jaw feels like a boil about to burst."

Heraj took a step and winced. "I can't do it, damn the pain, I can't move for a minute."

"I'm off balance," shrilled Pepi. "I can't stand here forever."

"Look," moaned Heraj, really wanting to help him but unable to bear the skull-cracking ache, "I'll take the spell off him for a tenth of a second. You get ready to push with all your might on that arm. It'll give you enough leeway. Ready?"

"I'm pushing," said Pepi.

"Here goes, then."

El Sareuk had heard all this as he stood motionless with his sword at the wizard's throat. He chuckled deep in his vitals, even though he could not move so much as an eyelash. A whole tenth of a second, eh?

Pepi was pushing with insane strength at the arm. Heraj took off the spell and immediately put it back on. There was a swish, a grating sound, and a dull squashing thunk.

Pepi, a bumbler to the last, had pushed on the wrong arm. Indeed, he had pressed so hard that El Sareuk in his new immobility now held it straight before him. But the scimitar had been gripped in the capable fist of the other arm. Pepi's head lay on the floor, an expression of astonishment on its homely and now blood-bedabbled features.

Heraj raised a howl of anguish. He did not know that at the instant Pepi died, the flying carpet with Godwin aboard it, no longer supported by Pepi's incantation, had fallen into the sea almost on top of the man-eating shark.

CHAPTER XIX

Godwin was a strong swimmer, and the body he now inhabited was as muscular as any in the world. After swallowing a pint of salt water and thrashing about for a moment below the surface, he struck out toward the plague ship. He was not sure what had happened, but he was afraid it boded ill for his beloved and his friends. Nonetheless, he was glad that the carpet had carried him at least this far. The destruction of the vessel was their major problem and he felt superbly confident that he could accomplish it.

The heavy iron broadsword weighed him down, dangling stiff and perpendicular from his waist; but he could not jettison it. It was just as well, though, he thought, swimming with vigorous strokes, that he had lost his shield before he left the land. Otherwise he would regretfully have had to abandon it to the deep. That old shield had been with him in many a tight spot.

The white shark kept pace with him, some twelve feet below, looking up at him and considering which portion of this strange hairy beast might prove most succulent for an appetizer. At last it decided upon a leg. It lifted and turned in the water, opening its terrible mouth with row behind row of huge razor-sharp teeth that could tear a man in two with one snap. Godwin fortunately had just thrust his head under the surface as he brought an arm over and down, and saw the quick flash of the white belly below him. Automatically he contracted his whole body, hauling his legs up and then propelling himself forward with a tremendous flailing of his long arms. The shark missed its snap.

Godwin glanced at the ship and saw it was too far off for him to gain its side before the huge fish had had several more tries at him. The wind had sprung up, too, and the vessel was making away from him at a good clip. Cursing, he turned in the water and shot down through its depths, searching for the man-eater.

A flicker of white showed off to his left; he twisted, waited, holding his breath and thanking heaven for the capacious lungs of the gorilla.

It came straight at him, revolving to bring its underslung mouth into play. He maneuvered a foot to one side, and hurled himself upon it, catching it by a pectoral fin. With every ounce of power the gorilla's body could command, he tore at the fin. It ripped from the shark's side, sluggishly, loosing a slow torrent of blood into the dark waters.

The man-eater writhed around toward him. He caught the jaws, upper and lower, with both hands, and wrenched them apart. Even the terrible potency of the shark's mouth could not withstand the strength of the gorilla and the whole-hearted will to win of Godwin of England. The hinges cracked and the lower jaw hung useless.

Godwin backed off, shoving himself through the encumbering waters, even his spacious lungs straining by now for air; but before he surfaced he meant to finish this brute. He hauled out the iron broadsword from its sheath, advanced once more toward the furiously thrashing white shark, and thrust half a dozen times. Then he swam upward, leaving behind him an ever-expanding blotch of blood and a quivering, twitching, forty-foot piece of dead meat.

The ship was far away. He sheathed the sword and set out to overhaul her where she sailed serenely, dark sail spread, with her cargo of obscene death.

"Even Godwin in his proper form could never have caught her," he thought to himself. "Heraj's baneful magic will win the day for England yet!"

Slowly he crept up on the ship. At last he reached out a paw and touched the slimy wooden hull. He gave a little quiet laugh. Now!

Dripping salt water, he hauled himself up the side. Cautiously his blunt head in its steel helmet poked over the bulwarks.

The vessel was fairly long for a lateen-rigger, with a low poop deck and a high rail, the great triangular sail, with a pair of quite small auxiliary sails, flapping merrily overhead, and the eternal quarrelsome noise of the rats pervading all the air within a quarter mile. The watch, four Mamelukes, were dicing on the poop. At the tiller lazed a tall black Nubian slave, his loins wrapped in a bright orange cloth. Godwin presumed a crew of about six more, who were probably below in a portion of the hold shut off from the rats' quarters. Mufaddal would want a good handful of men for a job like this. He envisaged them loosing the rats in the seaports of England, likely at night, and slipping away on the tide, leaving their gruesome messengers to spread the bubonic plague far and wide. The picture gave him added strength and determination; though God knew he had needed no more than already boiled in his veins!

As silently as he could make the cumbersome body move, he hoisted himself over the rail.

Then he stood erect, all six feet four of gray-black hideous-visaged brute, drew the broadsword from its scabbard, set his thews for quick action, and pounding his naked chest with his left paw, so that a hollow drumming boom-boom drowned for a moment even the racket of the rats, he opened his saber-fanged maw and gave vent to a terrible cataclysm of sound, an utterance wholly at variance with his usual war-cry, which seemed to come not from his human spirit, but from the body of the jungle beast—an ear-shattering, soul-searing mixture of highpitched barks, raging shrieks, deep-bellied howls and half-joyous, half-oddly-sad roars, roars which spoke of peaceful days beneath great sheltering trees now left forever for the crash and thunder of grim yet gratifying war.

Godwin of England had come aboard.

CHAPTER XX

The Mamelukes were stunned. To say this is an understatement. They were shaken, terrified, horror-struck, and a thousand more emotions—all bad—filled their hearts than they could ever have catalogued.

They were very brave men indeed, but they had never seen a gorilla, and certainly never a gorilla that appeared out of the sea to stand waving a Crusader's broadsword on their deck. As one man they stiffened, and gaped, and were lost. For Godwin, with a somewhat shortened repetition of his initial greeting, was bounding into their midst before they could budge.

One man died with the dice in his hand. Another lost his head before he could recover his wits. A third put hand to hilt and was cloven with a leer of terror still on his face. The fourth managed to get his scimitar cleared. Precious little good it did him. It came from the sheath only to clatter on the deck.

The Nubian slave at the tiller was a different proposition. He was as tall as Godwin, a thick-legged old warrior, with broken teeth and scarred face to attest his many battles. Leaving his post, and catching up a naked scimitar (that was easily six feet in length) as he passed the rail where it had lain propped, he ran at Godwin full tilt, yelling a battle slogan from his homeland far to the south.

Godwin thrust out his blade to parry the first vicious swinging cut. The swords clanged like hammer on anvil. The black was skillful. Godwin had all he could do to keep the singing steel from his chest. He tried a two-handed swipe, which the slave ducked blithely, and the scimitar came licking in to draw a thin scarlet line across the gorilla's belly. Half an inch further and Godwin's guts would have been spilt on the sun-hot boards.

Godwin's new reach, a stupendous one, was an advantage. In ferocity and broadsword skill he was unbeatable, but a long scimitar was a terribly formidable weapon in the hands of such a swordsman as his opposite number. He parried, parried and cursed the fact that this tall grinning half-naked black should keep him at bay so long. From the corner of an eye he saw more Saracens emerging from a hatch up forward. It was no time to stand and fight according to gentlemen's rules. He had a job to do, and this Nubian might very well cry halt to that job. Given equal weapons, Godwin would have dueled with him thus by the hour; but now he needed quick victory.

"Sorry about this," he grunted, in apology for the dirty trick he meant to play. He did not need to play it. The Nubian fell back, eyes and mouth starting wide.

"It spoke!" he cried out, and flung down his scimitar. "Oh, Allah, it spoke!" He turned and ran for the rail and dived over it like a man fleeing the wrath of Eblis. Godwin could not help laughing. Evidently, to this fellow's way of thinking, a gorilla that climbed out of the sea and fought with a broadsword was acceptable, but one that did these things and spoke in Arabic also was an intolerable wonder and a thing to boggle the mind. There was a loud splash. Another foeman was dispensed with.

There were half a dozen coming up the deck toward him: his estimate of the crew had been right. He saw two bowmen among them. Bad! He tucked his broadsword into its sheath and bent his knees and leaped for the yard of the lateen sail, caught it by both paws, hoisted himself like a gymnast up and over and knelt on the yard, balancing by a palm on the bellying sail. Carefully he got to his feet, which were prehensile enough to grip the round yard and give him a feeling of confidence in his balance. Commending his soul to his God, he ran straight down the yard until he had reached the mast. Behind him four arrows had thunked through the sail as the bowmen shot at the places they thought he might be.

He shinnied up the mast, which was on the opposite side of the sail, luckily, from the crew, and cautiously peered round it. Something out on the ocean caught his gaze, and he saw it was a small black dot, rapidly receding from the ship. The Nubian swordsman was still in a hurry.

The bowmen would be on his side of the sail in six jumps. The only solution to his plight burst into Godwin's brain like a crossbow bolt from the sky. He slid down the mast, came to a teeth-jolting stop as his feet hit the yard, took the mast between both powerful paws and shook it. It was stout, but thin compared with the masts used in other rigs. Fangs bared with effort, hind feet curled and braced round the yard, he exerted all the lusty power of the gorilla's arms, all the brawn of the strapping torso, all the pent-up energy that roiled and pulsed beneath the tough old hide. One mighty heave he gave, and another, and a third.

The mast complained, creaked like the nine-mile-high gate of Hell opening, and splintered in two as if struck by lightning.

Of all Godwin's feats of strength—and they were many—this was surely the greatest. As the mast crashed downward, carrying the ripping sail with it to the deck, he stood on the swaying yard and ostentatiously dusted his hands together. Suppose it had been done by the body of a jungle beast? Was he, Godwin, not inside it?

The broken mast struck with a crash that shook the ship and brought a chorus of piercing squeals from the imprisoned rats below. The yard swung violently and its end thudded to the deck, so that Godwin was knocked off balance and only saved himself by a quick kneeling and grab with both paws.

A large area of the main deck was covered by the collapsed dark sail, beneath which struggled a number of formless lumps that were the crew. Godwin picked himself up again and ran like a tightrope artist down the slanted yard to the poop, where he leaped off and turned at bay, teeth and claws and broadsword all bristling and ready.

The bumps in the sail moved about futilely, hunting an exit. The invisible rats made the air hideous with their unclean, abominable rantings.

The thing to do was go down and wade into those lumps with his sword. It may not have been precisely a fair attack, but Godwin was not absorbed with fairness at that time. He had taken two steps, the short ferocious steps of the gorilla, when an archer found the edge of the sail and rolled out from under it, an arrow nocked on his bow. He sighted Godwin at once and the bowstring tightened. Lying on his back, he took swift aim at the chest of the slavering horror on the poop deck.

There was no time to reach him, no barricade to dodge behind, and the distance was too long to fling his sword accurately. Godwin jerked his head round. A brazier of burning coals stood on a brass trivet at his side. Quicker than thought he had caught up the pot of them and in the same sidearm motion flung them down at the bowman. The man saw them coming, let fly his arrow and tried to roll out of range. Several coals took him in the face and neck. Seared and scorching flesh sent up an acrid, nauseous stench as the poor wretch screamed with agony. His arrow had gone wild by the slimmest of margins.

The other archer emerged from the opposite edge of the sail, shaking his head. He was bleeding from the nose and his eyesight had gone slightly awry. He leaned on the bulwarks and rubbed a fist into his eyes. He looked up and saw the gorilla coming at him over the crumpled, heaving sail.

He plucked an arrow from his belt and fitted it hastily to the string. He did not understand in the slightest how this awful creature had appeared aboard his ship, but it had fled once from his bow and so it might be slain by a mere mortal. He was a Seljuk Turk, this archer, proud and cruel and infinitely superstitious; he felt sure that Godwin was a spirit of some kind, yet he knew that spirits may be slain and all the odds seemed to be on his arrows.

The first one twanged out from his short sturdy bow.

Godwin saw it hurtle at his breast, and in his proper shape might only have watched it strike him, for he had no shield and only the smallest fraction of a second in which to take thought. But the gorilla's body was made of faster muscles, quicker reflexes, than ever a knight possessed. One arm flicked across his chest, and the arrow was caught in flight, three inches before it would have buried itself feather-deep in his thorax.

The Turk, a second arrow already on the string, froze. Before he could force action into his petrified hands, the gorilla was upon him. Great black paws took him by throat and groin, he was lifted over the brute's head, and the air whistled around him as the waves of the Mediterranean reached up to assuage their age-old hunger for living flesh.

Godwin watched him vanish into the sea. Weighted by his armor, he never came up. Godwin grinned.

Unnoticed behind him, the coals from the brazier had started a fire in the fallen sail, a fire which was rapidly spreading in a score of directions.

CHAPTER XXI

Godwin the gorilla bethought himself of the four men remaining under the sail. He turned about and saw the fire, which was now licking up fiercely.

"God defend the right!" he gasped. "Here's a rare hazard!"

Two men had succeeded in freeing themselves from the smothering confines of the sail. They came at him warily, side-stepping the flames, their curved Damascus blades at the ready.

"Beast or Satan," shouted one, "prepare to perish!"

"Ho ho," said Godwin throatily in Arabic, "you'll have to back that threat with action, little man!"

The fellow halted, turned a sickly green hue, and buckling at all his joints pitched over in a dead faint.

The other was affected in quite another fashion, and leaped toward Godwin, scimitar flashing.

Godwin yanked out his long sword and batted down the first attack. The Saracen was a swift and elusive fencer. His point darted through Godwin's guard and slashed a long wound down the biceps of his left arm, laying bare the dark flesh for a moment before red gore covered it and trickled out through the fur.

Godwin yelled and swung his weapon in an arc, knocking off the other's helmet and inflicting a nasty gash across his scalp.

The Saracen stabbed straight. Godwin twisted his body sidewise, and the keen blade cut through all but a thread or two of the belt that held his scabbard.

Before the enemy could recover from his lunge, Godwin brought his wounded left arm over and down in a hammer blow. The doubled paw caught the man exactly on the center of his skull, and he fell like an arrow-pierced hare, kicked a time or two, and lay still.

Two foemen remained beneath the sail. One of these had been knocked unconscious and now lay smothering to death. The other, crippled by the falling mast, was slowly dragging his broken body along in search of the open air when the fire burst into crimson bloom about him. He wailed like a tormented soul on a spit, broke his nails on the deck in a mad endeavor to crawl to safety, and at last struck his forehead on the coaming of a hatchway.

Forgetting the rats below, he threw all his waning vitality into a heave that sent the hatch cover up and flat on the deck. Then he pushed himself over the edge and fell, to escape the flames among the ravenous horde of great gray rodents.

In the frightful din of crackling flames, gibbering rats, and lapping sea, Godwin never heard him scream at all.

He stared narrowly around him now, scratching absent-mindedly for an annoying flea in the small of his back, and saw that no one moved on the deck of the plague ship. By good fortune, by the grace of God, and by his own skill and brute force, he had obliterated the crew. Even the men who had fainted had inhaled flame and died. Godwin stood alone on the deck, while beneath him sounded the perpetual vociferant clamor of the rats.

The flames spreading dangerously close to his bare flat feet, he skipped along the bulwarks and up to the poop, which was as yet untouched by fire. Here he watched it eat out across the deck, devouring sail and broken mast and at last portions of the deck itself.

The heat in the hold became unbearable for the rats then, and they began to fight savagely to get at the open hatchway, the sail above which had burnt away. Their bodies piled up beneath its square of smoky light, and the pile grew and grew....

Godwin in his gorilla body stared glumly at the flames. "What a way to die," he growled aloud. "What an end for Godwin, who was once king of all broad England! Look at the damned water; probably a million hogsheads of it within spitting distance. Look at the damned fire. Look at the two of them, and here am I, who can't begin to bring the one to the other until the ship sinks under me! What a finish!"

For the first time in his life he felt total despair. He had saved his home country, aye, but it was not likely that his deed would go down in song and story, for El Sareuk and Ramizail and the others were in all probability dying at this very moment under the swords of Mufaddal's three hundred scum. If only, he thought, one small ballad might be written about this geste!

He stiffened the gorilla's backbone and put such selfish wishes behind him. He had saved England, whether anyone ever heard of it or not. That was worth dying for! That was even, God save the mark, worth Ramizail's death or enslavement as a concubine! Much as he loved the wench, the population of England outweighed her in the end.

If there were but some chance at survival. If only there were a small cockleshell of a boat he could put off in, even the material for a makeshift raft. But there was nothing, nothing but the sea and the sky and the ship in flames, and the raging rats below him.

The sky! What now, if stout old Mihrjan the djinni were to come swooping down out of that clear hot sky!

But no, Godwin must needs relegate Mihrjan to other parts, must forbid him by the Seal to follow them, because of stubborn pride and petty resentment against Ramizail's harmless tricks!

His wound hurt him. He felt the gorilla's body yearning to tend it, to lick it clean and start the healing processes. For a moment he was disgusted at the idea, and then hopeless, for what did it matter if the wound began to heal, when he was doomed to a terrible death by fire or water? But the instincts of his body would not be denied.

With a long sigh, Godwin of England sat down on the rough planks of the poop and began to lick his torn biceps with a rasping tongue.

Simultaneously with his seating himself, the first rat clambered up the pile of torn corpses and launched itself out of the hatchway and onto the deck.

CHAPTER XXII

"Well," said Mufaddal, who was eating a hard-boiled egg in a sloppy manner, "did you get to the barracks?"

Heraj picked up a cold towel from the air near his knees and wrapped it around his head. "I did. Wow! I had to cast immobility spells on two more of these devilish Crusaders, who were stationed at the back door. But I made it to the barracks. The soldiers are even now deploying around the palace. Oosh! What an ache!"

"I don't see why you can't collect yourself and put the whole pack of them under a spell," said Mufaddal irritably.

"I've told you and told you, I have a headache, that's why I can't do it, curse you," said Heraj. "I have all I can do to keep the ones in this room and those two back there motionless. I have to keep concentrating and it hurts like seven devils in my brain. Then I've flung a force wall around this room, so no one can get in or out except myself, and that takes concentration. I tell you, I never went through anything like it. All I can recall are these two spells and the one for curdling milk. I could no more bewitch all these benighted villains than I could—could fly to the moon."

"Incidentally, did you find the gorilla? Godwin?"

"No I didn't, and I hope I never do. I don't want to come within range of those ham-sized fists again, not even with a legion of fiends at my back."

"Is he still a gorilla, if he's alive, I mean? Or did he switch back when you swooned away?"

"No, he's a gorilla. That's a different sort of spell from force walls and immobility. But to hell with Godwin. I want to nurse this lump. And you're confusing me, too. My spells are wobbling. I just saw El Sareuk there move a good half inch. If you want those swine kept alive for torture and other pleasantries, I've got to concentrate. Oh, my newts and bat-wings! I shall die!" He went over and collapsed in a corner, where he stared moodily at the corpses of his two brothers and mumbled to himself.

Mufaddal peered out the window. It was too small to negotiate, but wide enough to command a partial view of the back grounds. He saw a dozen of his men go dashing from the shelter of one outbuilding to that of another.

"In a minute or two," he said confidently, "in a very few minutes, by Allah, these renegades and infidels will see what a real besieging is like!"

And at the thought, he stroked his greasy beard and crinkled up his soft brown eyes, and giggled like a maniac.

CHAPTER XXIII

Godwin looked up from his wound-cleansing. He had had a glimpse of a gray shape scuttling across a field of crimson flame. He stared, and saw a score of large rats eyeing him from the lower deck. He bounded to his feet, thick gorilla toes and fingers curling with a fear that no amount of bravery could still. The plague! The ravishing, filthy, obscene plague! Even from a flaming ship in the midst of a waste of waters, there might be some escape at the last moment: but from the bite of one of these rats would come a foul death that nothing could turn aside, not even the djinn themselves!

He canvassed the poop. No high pedestals on which a man (or a great ape) might perch, no protective armor of any description to foil the attack of the rats. Here he stood, alone, armed with a broadsword and a dagger, a helmet and a golden sigil. There was but a single chance. He might squat on the bulwarks at the very stern, for they were high and would give him the advantage of being a little above his squealing enemies. He leaped and balanced and squatted, and his naked iron broadsword hung down between his bent knees as he awaited their first move.

This was not long in coming. The poop was the only part of the ship which was not being ravaged by fire. The rats headed for its temporary safety. As they poured over it, a repulsive and horrible crew, snapping and snarling at one another, their fangs yellow as amber slivers, their hides mangy and often showing the first signs of plague, the leaders spied Godwin roosting unhappily on the rail. They halted, considered, twitched their whiskers, and then made for him. He was meat.

The first rank charged in and were slain eight at a blow, by the sweeping sword. The second rank fared likewise. The rats drew back and stared beadily at him. He could fairly hear their odious, menacing thoughts. He waited. A gigantic rodent, half its fur gone in some hideous battle below decks, came flying at him. The perfect reflexes of the gorilla flicked the sword out and spitted the beast through the guts. It hung on the sword, squirming and piping weakly, as Godwin whipped the blade back and forth and clove the small skulls of a dozen more.

A myriad of the grisly horde came tumbling up to the poop deck. Godwin was now mangling and mutilating constantly, as more rats poured upon him. Some of the devils were already feasting on their defunct cousins.

And so, for minutes that dragged like weeks, Godwin of England fought off the rats, and waited without hope for the inevitable end, when even his mighty muscles should grow weary and his eye become slow, and at last they should reach him.

A close-packed group of them attacked him from the right, and some of them even leaped upon the rail and came at him. He flailed his sword frantically into the brown of them, sending them slithering along the deck, knocking them into the sea, or spoiling them where they stood by messy divisions and squashings. Then a legion came from the left, and he leaped up to his feet and balanced precariously on the bulwarks as he bent and swiped back and forth.

The closest any of them had come yet was in this moment, when three great bullies of rats, all fat and evil and ugly, leaped upon his swaying leathern scabbard and clung there. They might have crept up it and bitten him before he could slay them, except for the fortunate stab of the late Saracen fencer, which had all but severed his sword belt. The last few strands parted now, and the sheath fell to the deck, carrying rats and belt with it.

Something rolled out of the sheath and made a small metallic sound as it struck the overturned brazier. Godwin risked a glance at it. It gleamed dull yellow in the sunlight.

"By the rood, mass, book and candle!" yelled Godwin, startling the rats so that they drew back in haste, "the ring of Solomon! So that's where I put it! In the bloody scabbard! Of course, I remember. Someplace where 'twould be always near my hand!"

Nothing, not ten thousand times as many rats, could have kept him from that ring. He leaped from the rail, half-squatting to bring his sword hand near the deck, and the blade was a flaming scythe in his grip. It mowed down rats by dozens, by scores, by hundreds as they came crowding at him. They leaped, and the point shot up and down more swiftly than the eye could command, and they had died in mid-jump. They crouched in at him, and the tops of their heads were torn off or jellied by the sweeping broadsword. Then they drew back, for a rat is intelligent, and even their hunger was not enough to force them out against that invincible weapon without some thought on the matter.

In the few seconds' respite Godwin leaped, scooped up the ring, dived back to his seat on the rail. The rats came forward once more. With his left hand he locked the ring to the sigil on its chain about his neck, and in a voice of joyous thunder he shouted, "Mihrjan! I cry up Mihrjan!"

Spang in the midst of the rats, shod with sandals of blue-white fire so that the gruesome beings scrambled back from his vicinity, appeared the ten-foot form of Mihrjan the djinni, turbanned with ivory silk, pantalooned with lustrous purple velvet, and exuding an aroma of attar of roses.

He salaamed deeply.

"The Lord of My Life," said Mihrjan sonorously, as the rats retreated down the poop deck, "would seem to have need of my humble services. I am his to command!"

CHAPTER XXIV

Godwin the gorilla sighed. He had never uttered a more fervent and thankful sound in all his life. "Mihrjan," he said, "I must say, yes, by gad, I will say, I'm glad to see you."

Mihrjan cast a look about him. "Thy sentiments are understated, Lord. It is a trait of thy race."

"Yes, well, never mind that. Look here, can you get rid of these damned slimy things? My arm's weary with swatting 'em."

The djinni gestured; a wind arose and swept along the poop, and the rats were tumbled down onto the main deck, where they commenced to brawl among themselves again, on the edge of the fire.

"And see here, while I think of it, there's a black fellow swimming out there somewhere. Can you see if he's still at it, or has he sunk?"

Mihrjan vanished and returned before the air could rush into the vacuum his passing had created. "He swims, Master, but weakly."

"Well, he's a good chap, albeit misguided into serving under that lousy Mufaddal beggar. He's one of the best swordsmen I ever faced. Can you transport him home to Nubia?"

Mihrjan grinned. "It is done."

"Good. I felt rotten about him. Poor devil jumped overboard because I spoke to him. Which brings up this: can you make me myself again? That is to say, take this ape's body back where Heraj got it, and give me my own?"

Mihrjan scowled. His mind seemed to be wandering among far countries. At last he said, brightening, "I see how 'twas done. I can undo it."

"Then by all means—" Godwin found that the paw with which he was gesticulating had become a strong brown hand, a bit grubby, perhaps, but still his own natural hand. He stared down. His robe and armor were in tatters. They had evidently seen some life and hard times in the jungle. The body appeared to be whole, however, and tingled pleasantly as Godwin's personality took it over once more.

Mihrjan said, "Suitable raiment is in order," and Godwin was wearing white samite and sky-blue silk over gold-washed armor of meshed steel. His broadsword hung in a new scabbard, bedecked with gauze, and his beard and hair were freshly cut and combed. His skin felt clean, and seemed to have been bathed within the hour.

"What a talent you have there, Mihrjan, old fellow," he said admiringly. "May heaven beshrew me if I ever part with you again."

"'Tis wise to allow me to stay within call." The djinni frowned. "And my mistress, O King? She is safe?"

"I hope so, but I left her quite a while back. Had to sink this ship, you know. It was going to England with a cargo of plague. Oh, you know that, you were there when we found Sir Malcolm. We'd better get back to Mufaddal's palace at once, Mihrjan. Just one more request: will you sink this pest ship for me?"

"It already sinks of its own accord, My Lord." And indeed, the deck was slanting beneath their feet. Down at the bow the rats were huddled, quarreling and fighting among themselves and making their revolting chorus rise up to foul the heavens.

"Good. Then let's go."

Mihrjan placed a hand under his elbow, and suddenly they were five hundred feet above the Mediterranean, looking down at the ship which Mufaddal had fondly hoped would be the death of the British nation. Even up here Godwin fancied he could hear the final squeals and horrible wailing shrieks of the cargo of great gray rats. Then Mihrjan headed landward, and the plague ship disappeared behind.

CHAPTER XXV

They stood together in Mufaddal's private chamber. The spell of immobility had been transferred to the dark-faced Mufaddal and his chief sorcerer, while Ramizail and El Sareuk with their allies the Bedouins and captured Crusaders were free to move where they chose. They clustered now about the ten-foot djinni.

"What of my eight men at the prison and barracks?" asked Godwin.

Mihrjan said, "Slain, O King, cut down by surprise without a chance to defend themselves."

"Damn. And my falcon, Yellow-eyes?"

"She perches on a roof-top in the heart of Alexandria, watching anxiously for a sight of thee."

"Bring her here, please."

The old bird, looking rather wind-blown and surprised, appeared on Godwin's mailed shoulder. She thrust her notched beak into his ear affectionately, and he said with fervor, "Ah, thou!"

"And now, O Master of My Being, shall I vanquish the foemen without the house by a whirlwind from the plains of Hell, or lightning from the clouds? Shall I bubble their eyes from their heads with gouts of searing flame?" asked the djinni fiercely.

"No, man, no! We'll beat 'em in fair fight. Only keep this Heraj's magic cancelled out, send him and Mufaddal out there now, and give me a hundred more allies."

"That will still be two to one against thee," said Mihrjan, as the pair of plotters vanished.

"Naturally. More fun. And don't bring me a hundred of the djinn, either, but a hundred desert fighters or good tough Frankish champions. And see my other lads are weaponed properly."

"They await your orders in the forepart of the house," said Mihrjan resignedly.

"Then I'm off. El Sareuk, ready? Mihrjan, keep that fire-eating woman of mine out of the thick of things, will you? Come on, boys, up and at 'em!" He charged out toward the front door.

Mihrjan said to Ramizail, understanding her nature as well as she did herself, "Wouldst watch the battle, little one?"

"Oh, yes, Mihrjan, yes!"

"Then come." He gathered her in his monstrous, tender arms, and flying upward, caused their atoms to pass between those of the clay and timber, so that in a wink they were high above the earth, and hovered there comfortably, peering down on the tiny figures of Mufaddal's soldiers deploying around the house. Two standing by themselves and pointing this way and that with shouts unintelligible at this height, were the black-visaged Mufaddal himself, and his one-time potent sorcerer Heraj.

From the door issued a running warrior, who at once engaged six men in dazzling swordplay; behind him came others, many others, until a hundred and fifty-five men had emerged. Hand-to-hand combats were joined all over the grounds. Ramizail cried out with delight.

It was like observing two bands of toy soldiers endowed with the power to move and fight and maneuver. Both the girl and the djinni were enthralled. Godwin's force fanned out, coalesced, drove through Mufaddal's ranks and turned and came back and drove again, till the enemy broke and fled in hapless confusion. The Crusaders and Bedouins pursued them, hacking them down from behind, forcing them to stand and die in little knots. Two who fled toward the dock, casting away their weapons, Mihrjan pointed out as Mufaddal and Heraj. After them bounded a great figure in white, sky-blue, and gold, flourishing a long sword above its head. "Godwin!" said Ramizail, biting her nails with excitement. "Oh, Mihrjan, go lower! I want to see!"

The djinni sank until their feet were no more than ten yards from the wharf. There they drifted along above the pursued pair.

Mufaddal panted out, "Only chance! Under the dock!"

Heraj gasped, "We might stand and fight him," with no conviction in his voice at all.

"Ha," said Mufaddal, and with one desperate leap plunged off the wharf into the sea. Heraj was one step behind him. Godwin came to the edge and halted, baffled. Their heads did not show above the water.

"Mihrjan," whispered Ramizail, "they'll escape!"

"Observe," said the djinni equably. He gestured with a finger, and a section of the dock became transparent to her gaze. Beneath it, Heraj and his master were clambering up, dripping, onto a shelf of boards some twelve feet from the outer edge of the wharf. Godwin still scratched his head in bafflement. Obviously he could not see through the pier as she could.

The two conspirators crouched there, watching the sea apprehensively. "Now look," said Mihrjan. Ramizail, staring intent, saw a gray snout poke up into view behind them, followed by a multitude more. "Rats!" she breathed.

"Aye, rats. All those who live beneath the wharf, mistress, called here by the scent of their dinner."

It was as though the lead rat had given a signal. In a trice the legions of furred ghastly beings had poured over the two squatting men.

Screams of pain and horror came up through the boards of the upper dock. Heraj straightened as though to stand, cracked his head on the wharf, and sank down, half-conscious, into the midst of the swarming rodents. He gurgled and flung his arms in the air as their small sharp unclean teeth found his throat, his belly, his eyes.

Mufaddal flung himself into the water. His gallabiyah snagged on a projection, and held him fast, thrashing and squalling, only his head above water. For a wonder, the cheap cloth did not give way. The rats leaped down onto his head, slipping into the water, swimming back to tear at his face, perching on his bare head and clawing insanely at his scalp. And so, held helpless by the clutch of chance, Mufaddal died as hideous a death as anyone might have wished him.

El Sareuk came up to Godwin. "What were those fearful sounds just now, companion?" he asked, wiping the sweat of honest battle from his lean bearded face.

"Mufaddal and Heraj, I take it, though how and where they died I can't tell."

Mihrjan settled to earth with Ramizail in his arms. "Lords," he boomed, setting the girl on her feet, "they perished in a niche beneath the wharf, as they should have perished, shut from the light of day, with the teeth of their own evil minions fastened in their gullets. Now is the stain they put upon Islam cleansed with a vengeance."

"By gad," said Godwin, as Yellow-eyes fluttered down to perch on his shoulder, "then it's finished, and as neat a case of poetic justice as ever came my way." He looked about him. Mihrjan had on his own initiative sent the Bedouins and Crusaders back to their own places. Only corpses met his eye. "To horse, friends!" he bellowed gleefully. "This battle's done, and there are a power and lashing of wrongs left in the world to be righted!"

"Oh, heavens," groaned Ramizail. "Don't you even want to rest a week or two, swashbuckler?"

"Rest is for the dead and the aged, witch-wench."

El Sareuk nodded fiercely. "The work for willing swords is never done, lass."

Ramizail rolled up her beautiful eyes and shrugged, a slight smile of resignation on her full lips. Mihrjan pointed out their horses, saddled and champing at a little distance. "O Lord of My Life, I know a wrong in Egypt that needs four, or it might be eight, strong hands," said he.

"We are in Egypt, by coincidence," said Ramizail.

"This Egypt lies three thousand years in the past," said Mihrjan.

"Can you transport us back?" asked Godwin eagerly.

"Assuredly, Sire."

"Well then, let's go!" he roared. He put an arm over the shoulder of El Sareuk and another about the slim waist of Ramizail, and ran them toward the horses. And Mihrjan's great laugh of fierce pleasure boomed thunderously through the desert air....