I could not see Thurid and Matai Shang now,
but I heard the sounds of conflict and thus knew that they still
fought--the thern for his life and the black for the increased
buoyancy that relief from the weight of even a single body would
give the craft.
Should Matai Shang die before I reached the deck my chances of ever
reaching it would be slender indeed, for the black dator need but
cut the rope above me to be freed from me forever, for the vessel
had drifted across the brink of a chasm into whose yawning depths
my body would drop to be crushed to a shapeless pulp should Thurid
reach the rope now.
At last my hand closed upon the ship's rail and that very instant
a horrid shriek rang out below me that sent my blood cold and turned
my horrified eyes downward to a shrieking, hurtling, twisting thing
that shot downward into the awful chasm beneath me.
It was Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador, Father of Therns, gone to his
last accounting.
Then my head came above the deck and I saw Thurid, dagger in hand,
leaping toward me. He was opposite the forward end of the cabin,
while I was attempting to clamber aboard near the vessel's stern.
But a few paces lay between us. No power on earth could raise me
to that deck before the infuriated black would be upon me.
My end had come. I knew it; but had there been a doubt in my mind
the nasty leer of triumph upon that wicked face would have convinced
me.
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