Slaves of Sleep Read online

The Marid's hoofs knocked sharply as he came around and playfully poked the pike straight at Jan's eyes. Jan dodged back from the grill.

  "So, what I hear is a lie," said the Marid. "You plenty smart, you Tiger. Lie, lie, lie. All the time lie. You get yours this time."

  "I... I haven't lied about anything," said Jan.

  "We hear. Nobody talks but we hear just the same. Last night you put us on beach or almost which is just as bad. You take too much rum, I think. This time you get the galleys, I think. Now sit down before I shove this through your guts. They'll come for you quick enough."

  Jan very tamely seated himself and the pike was withdrawn from the grill. Twice in the next half an hour sailors came by and were fain to linger about the grill but the Marid poked them on their way.

  "I do you a favor," said the Marid after a while. "Them men want to cut you up very bad. If you wasn't too drunk last night, I think, you would not have ever tried to put us up on that shoal."

  "I wasn't drunk," said Jan.

  "Tiger not drunk! I think that's a good one. I tell that one. You know what shoal that was?"

  "No."

  "See, you drunk. Everybody know that shoal. The Isle of Fire just behind those shoals and you say you not know! Haw!"

  "The Isle of Fire? Never heard of it."

  "Oh, no, you never heard of it. You never stood off and on m the ship here listening to Admiral Tyronin's flagship people burn up every one. You never on boat that go in to pull off what men left. Haw! You fool, Tiger. Me, I was with you and you still got burns on your leg. Lie to me, I think, and I take pike to you."

  Jan thoughtfully lifted up his wide-bottomed pants and stared at his brawny leg. He was startled both by the strength which was obviously in it and by the white burn marks which were there. Then, too, there was a purple scar which ran from knee to ankle and which plainly bespoke a boarding ax. He examined it care足fully as though it might vanish under his touch and the Marid, glancing through the grill laughed at what he thought was a joke in pantomime.

  "Tiger's memory come back fast enough in galleys," said the Marid. "Good you leave or the crew..."

  He was interrupted by the clang of a door which opened and closed, admitting a party of men. They came briskly up to the brig and stopped, grounding their muskets with a large gesture. The captain opened the door of the brig and Jan came carefully out, to instantly be thrust between two files of the most evil-looking Marids imaginable.

  They faced smartly about, their cloaks swirling, shouldered their arms and marched Jan up a ladder to the deck. The captain made a motion toward the port gangway and the file halted there, tightly ringing Jan.

  At some distance a knot of seamen stood, growling among themselves and looking toward the prisoner. But the Marids stood very complacently, hairy hands wrapped about their gun barrels.

  Jan blinked in the blazing sunlight which glanced hurtfully back from polished bitts and scoured deck and from the wide harbor. Wonderingly he looked about at the ship itself to find that it was not unlike a cromster of the Middle Ages though consider足ably larger. The sterncastle deck, however, was cut into by the after house and the helm was a large wheel. A conglomerate rig it was, with a lateen on the mizzen, fore and aft on the main, the peaks held up with sprits, with a large square topsail and a t'g'l'nt above that and with three large staysails forward. A sprits'l

  was furled under the bowsprit, and long abandoned had such "water sails" been in modern usage. A dozen brass cannon, glittering and ferocious, thrust their snouts out from the quarterdeck rail. Two bow-chasers loomed on the fo'c's'le head. And all along each side, evidently manned from the deck below, were the muzzles of thirty demi-cannon. Aloft there floated from the now naked peak the strangest flag Jan had ever seen. It was a brilliant scarlet and upon it was emblazoned in gold a wheeling bird of prey. Other streamers there were in plenty but he could not make them out, so bright was the greenish sky.

  In the harbor about them lay hundreds of other vessels, both large and small, ranging in style from a Greek corbita to a seventy-four. Small shoreboats, not unlike sampans, scudded back and forth on a brisk breeze, carrying all sorts of passengers. Among these, by far, Ifrits predominated, and it was strange indeed to see peaked caps between their pointed ears and massive rings upon their claw-tipped fingers. It was as though the animal kingdom had blended with the human race and that these men-beasts were mocking the ancient history of their human ancestors.

  Such, however, could not be the case as Jan well knew. Ifrits were Ifrits. And if the Jinn wished to conquer the sea with ships for war and cargo, eschewing other means of transportation (as far as he could see at the moment) then it was certainly being done.

  But about the deck of the vessel on which he stood Jan saw far more human beings than he did Ifrits. In fact only the captain and the mate were of the Jinn. The guard about him was made up of ugly little Marids and there were two or three other one-eyed demons astroll. But the sailors who worked aloft to put harbor furls on the restive canvas were all human beings, seem足ingly not much different from any other men Jan had ever seen beyond their devil-may-care aspect.

  "I suppose," muttered Jan to himself, staring intently across the blinding way at a long, gilded vessel, obviously a galley, "that I'll get the Pinchoti, damn her. She's the worst puller of the lot."

  And again he startled himself by finding that he knew the names of most of these vessels and, indeed, the names of most of the men about the deck. How he came to know them he was not at all sure.

  A werewolf, in his human identity, must often feel the beast stirring uneasily within him, threatening to spring forth uncalled. More and more, as time went along, did Jan experience just that sensation, except that, in his case, it was more like that Malay demon, the were-tiger. Scholar that he was, he knew considerable about lycanthropy but never in his life had he thought to experience such a thing, even in a reasonable way, but now, certainly, things were happening to him which he could not begin to discount. WereTiger was certainly the only name for it. He was vaguely conscious of latent wells of knowledge within him, of information which he could almost-but not quite-bring to the surface of his brain. It was as though he had always known these things but was suffering, at the moment, a slight lapse of memory.

  He gazed critically at the work of a man working on the lateen sail, whom he knew as Lacy. Lacy was bungling the job as usual and it crossed Jan's mind that he bet they could use Tiger's help about the ship just then. Still, he had not the least idea of what he should have been doing.

  Further, he found himself in the grip of a very alien impulse. Now nobody in all his life on earth had ever dreamed that there was an ounce of facetiousness in one Jan Palmer. All jokes he had received with funereal mien, startled when others laughed at them. He had always read of pranks with wondering suspicion, puzzled that anyone could get pleasure out of such things. It must be confessed that Jan Palmer had missed much in the way of edu足cation due to the thorough isolation of his youth. Never had he felt the slightest desire to understand, much less commit, what might be called a practical joke.

  It was with horror, then, that he found himself contemplating the most foolhardy adventure imaginable. Here he was, packed tight by ten well-armed and doubtlessly zealous Marids, all of them wholly humorless. Here he was charged with God knew what crime and faced with devil knew what sentence. And the Tiger in him stirred and laughed silently to see that one of the Marids was carrying his musket on his shoulder, hand well away from the trigger which was, providentially or otherwise, within six inches of Jan's face. And the barrel of that musket was pointed up in the general direction of the cantankerous Lacy, balanced precar足iously upon the whippy lateen yard.

  "Marvelous," chortled Tiger.

  "No! My God, no!" gasped the appalled Jan.

  There was the trigger and there was Lacy. The shot would go several feet below the seaman, certainly, but it would crack when it passed through the sail.

  "Wonderful!" yearned the laughing Tiger.

  Jan covered his face with his hands so that he couldn't see the trigger or Lacy. In a moment the Marid would move temp足tation far away from Tiger. In a moment Lacy would finish his clumsy furl and come scampering thankfully down from the dizzy heights. In a moment all would be well and Jan would have triumphed.

  But the joke was too good. Nobody liked Lacy and Lacy was an avowed coward. Jan's finger slipped and his eye fell upon the burnished trigger. It was too much for him.

  Out went his finger quick as a blink. The trigger came back softly. Back came Jan's hand to his innocent side. The match fell, the pan flared, the musket roared and leaped upwards to bang the Marid in the head and knock him sprawling.

  From aloft, close on the heels of the shot, came the returning crack of the bullet through canvas and, instantly after, the ter足rified scream of Lacy who stared at the round hole not two feet under his hand. Lacy clung tight to the yard. The yard vibrated enough already in the wind without that; it began to sway and tip and the more it did the more Lacy screamed bloody mayhem.

  Malek came streaking down the waist bellowing, "Get him down before the fool shakes out that sail! Get him down, I say, before that canvas catches air and puts weigh on us! GET HIM DOWN!"

  A dozen sailors were standing about the deck. Lacy was in no trouble at all, though swaying back and forth fifty feet from the quarterdeck straight down must have been very uncomfortable. The sailors began to laugh happily. Lacy screamed curses, almost fell off to the right and clutched so hard that he overdid his adjust足ment and almost went off to port. The yard wove great circles against the greenish sky. Lacy screamed in terror. The sailors doubled up on the deck, holding their sides with glee.

  "GET HIM DOWN, DAMN YOU!" screamed Malek as canvas began to shake loose and fill. Uneasily, the ship pushed ahead against her anchor cables, pointing toward another vessel not a hundred yards dead ahead. And now the unstayed lateen billowed with a crack which almost boosted Lacy all the way off.

  Malek despaired of getting anything done for him. He seized the halyards and, braking them on the pins, swiftly slacked them off. Lateen yard, Lacy and a mass of disorderly canvas came billowing down to the quarterdeck. Lacy climbed off and weakly sought the wall where his shoulders hitched convulsively. Malek blew sourly upon his rope-scorched hands. The sailors, to the best of their ability, stilled their mirth.

  Malek hitched at his belt to get his exposed pistols around into reach. With grim visage and glittering fangs, he stalked down toward Tiger. But Tiger was gone again and Jan cowered in his soul.

  "So, you are a different man, are you?" scowled Malek most awfully. "So, you know nothing, do you?" His fingers wrapped around the butt of a gun and he brought it forth, tossing it up so that it came down with the muzzle in his fist. With this for a club Malek stepped so close to Jan that Jan could count the crumbs in his beard. The guard, especially the victimized Marid, pressed close about and seized Jan's arms from behind.

  "Let him alone," said the bosun, coming over from the star足board rail. His thick, rolling body was belligerent and his heavy face was dark. He was a very tough human being. "I seen it with me own peepers, Mr. Malek. This here Marid, like the dummy he is, was monkeying with his trigger. I seen it, I tell you."

  Malek looked doubtfully at the bosun. "You expect me to believe you?"

  "We seen it too!" chimed some of the other sailors, coming up. "This here Marid was the one. It wasn't Tiger. Nosir!"

  "Captain Tombo!" shouted Malek as the captain appeared in a hatch. "Tiger is at it again. I..."

  "He isn't either!" yelped the crew. "This here Marid..."

  "Stow it," said Captain Tombo. "What's the odds? Leave him alone, Mr. Malek. He's out of our hands now. The port captain is taking charge."

  Behind Tombo came a portly and foppish Ifrit who fanned the air before him with a perfumed handkerchief to fend off the odor of sailors. He handed a signed release to Tombo.

  "Thank you, Boli," said the captain. "There's your man. I wouldn't be too extreme if I were you. After all, Tiger's got some little reputation."

  "For brawling, theft and rapine," sniffed Boli, gazing with disgust at Jan. "But the matter isn't in my hands either. This is a case for the crown. Yes, indeed, the crown. Hail my boat," he added to Malek.

  Malek shouted to a barge which had been drifting under the quarter and now it was pulled forward to the gangway. It was crammed from gunwale to gunwale with armed men, but they were port sailors and rather given to fat and softness.

  "Down with you," said Boli, punching Jan in the back with his sword scabbard as though appalled at the thought of touching him with a hand and so soiling it.

  Jan started down the ladder. Along the rail thronged the fickle ship's company, wholly won again by the incident of Lacy.

  "S'long, Tiger."

  "Give'm hell, Tiger."

  "Mess 'em up. Tiger."

  "Give Her Majesty m'love, will yuh?"

  Jan suddenly found that he was grinning up at the faces above him and swaggering down the steps. The boat was bobbing in the slight swell and, loaded as it was, the gunwale was none too far above the water. The guard sailors were ready with their weapons as though expecting anything to happen and rather surprised that Tiger took it so mildly. Evidently he knew some of them, thought Jan.

  Suddenly he remembered his manners and stepped back so that Boli, fat and awkward, could enter the boat first. And, seeing that the guard was quite on the alert and that the boat was, after all, bobbing rather badly even in this glassy sea, Boli was nothing loth to have a hand all of a sudden, even from a criminal.

  Jan felt things stirring inside him and was too frightened to think the matter through, afraid lest he discover another awful plot within him. He took hold of the bowman's boat pike and helped him hold the barge in to the landing stage.

  Boli, striving to see over his chest ruffles, watched the barge drop four feet below the stage and then bounce four feet above it. In truth, the condition was very ordinary, seeing that there had to be some manner of swell about a vessel anchored in the roads, but Boli had had one or two in the captain's cabin and he well knew that his reputation only wanted a ridiculous inci足dent to throw down much of his carefully built authority.

  "Here, you," said Jan (or rather Tiger) to the gunwale guards. "Give M'Lord the port captain a hand before I knock you about. Look alive, swabs!"

  The two moved hastily, getting up on thwarts to reach for Boli's hands and steady him. They were going through a usual routine but the presence of Tiger had rather shattered their composure. Boli wished ardently that the vessel weren't so far to sea.

  "Easy, now, M'Lord," said Tiger, looming above Boli as a church steeple rears above its alms house. "When she starts down, step aboard and lively. And you, y'landlubbers, don't muss'm up or I'll break your skulls like they was eggs. Now!"

  He eased Boli ahead. The barge swooped down from the height of the port captain's head. Boli, aided by Tiger's left hand, stepped to the gunwale as it flew downward. His men eased him quickly aboard while the barge kept on going down to four feet below the stage.

  Tiger, still holding the bowman's pike in his right hand to help the bowman hold the barge in, suddenly yelped, "Don't pull her in, you fools!" And pulled her in with a jerk which almost hauled the bowman out of the boat.

  The next instant an awful thing happened. The barge, four feet under the stage, started instantly on its upward surge. But this time it didn't miss the underside of the protruding stage. With a rending jar, the gunwale caught under the stage itself and the wave did the rest.

  With a swoop, the barge capsized! One instant it was a nor足mal enough boat, full of sleek and flawlessly uniformed sailors and the next the only thing which could be seen was the keel, all dripping and bobbing on the waves. From tumblehome to tumblehome, the boat displayed its bottom.

  "Help!" bellowed Tiger, safe and dry on the landing stage.

  But before help could even start, sailors out of the barge were rocketing into sight all about it, having ducked out of the ter足rifying but perfectly safe air pocket under the boat.

  Tiger waited to see no more. He went overboard in a long dive. The green water fled past him. The dark barge was over him. And just ahead was a pair of very fat legs kicking desperately. Tiger encircled them deftly and hauled hard. Down into the sea went Boli!

  Tiger came up by the stage an instant later to let a wave boost him to a hold. Boli was floundering like a grounded whale but still Tiger did not let him be. Up he came and up went Boli to his brawny back. Swiftly Tiger made the deck, surging past the ship sailors who were fishing up the boat guard, man by man.

  Laying the port captain out on a hatch cover, Tiger pumped him thoroughly dry, taking the weak but strengthening protests as unworthy of notice. Artificial respiration seemed to work won足derfully upon Boli and in no time at all the man Tiger had rescued from a watery grave was sitting up turning the air scarlet and azure all about him.

  The barge men were hauled up, every man of them, to be dumped in all postures by the ship sailors. There was no great love lost between seamen and this spying patrol which policed the port.

  All the while Jan was shuddering in horror. If he was in trouble now, what would he be in, in a few moments. But he was utterly powerless to do anything about it and he was aghast to hear himself say, upon Boli's running out of breath, "By God, M'Lord, it's lucky I was there. If you'll take a sailor's advice, M'Lord, I'd jail that bowman for a month, so I would. Why, by God, sir, even when I yelled at him to desist he insisted upon hooking his pike into the stage itself and pulling you under it! Beggin' M' Lord's pardon, but you'd better get some sailors in that crew of yours that know their business. Damned if not."

  Boli glowered and had dark suspicions. Tombo and Malek tried to keep scowling and be severe. The sailors attempted to stifle their merriment until a more appropriate moment.

  "Is your breath all right now, M'Lord?" said Tiger with earnest interest. "Captain, perhaps he'd better be let to rest in a cabin, if I might suggest it. That was a very trying thing and though he came out of it like a hero..."