“All right,” said Urson, “why not?”
“Because he was not a spy, and didn’t know how to work the jewel. Yes, he had felt its power once. Perhaps he was going to pretend he had it hidden on his person. But he did not want her to get her hands on it for reasons that were strong, but not selfish.
“Here, Snake,” said Geo. “You know how to work the jewel now, don’t you; but you learned from Argo just now.”
The boy nodded.
“Here, then, why don’t you take it?” Geo lifted the jewel from his neck and held it out to him.
Snake drew back and shook his head violently.
Urson looked puzzled.
“Snake has seen into human minds, Urson. He’s seen things directly which the rest of us only learn from a sort of second hand observation. He knows that the power of this little bead is more dangerous to the mind of the person who wields it than it is to the cities it may destroy.”
“Well,” said Urson, “as long as she thinks he’s a spy, at least we’ll have one of them little beads and someone who knows how to use it. I mean if we have to.”
“I don’t think she thinks he’s a spy any more, Urson.”
“Huh?”
“I give her credit for being able to reason at least as well as I can. Once she found out he had no jewel on him, she knew that he was as innocent as you and I are. But her only thought was to get it in any way she could. When we came in, just when she was going to put Snake under the jewel’s control, guilt made her leap backwards to her first and seemingly logical accusation for our benefit. Evil likes to cloak itself as good.”
They stepped down into the forecastle. By now a handful of sailors had come into the room, mostly drunk and snoring on berths around the walls. One had wrapped himself completely up in a blanket in the middle berth of the tier that Urson had chosen for the three. “Well,” said Urson to Snake, “it looks like you’ll have to move.”
Snake scrambled to the top bunk.
“Now look, that one was mine.”
Snake motioned him up.
“Huh? Two of us in one of those?” demanded Urson. “Look, if you want someone to keep warm against, go down and sleep with Geo there. It’s more room and you won’t get squashed against the wall. I’m a thrasher when I sleep.”
Snake didn’t move.
“Maybe you better do what he says,” Geo said. “I have an idea that …”
“You’ve got another idea now?” asked Urson, “Oh, damn, I’m too tired to argue.” He vaulted up to the top bunk. “Now move over and be very small.” He stretched out, and Snake’s slight body was completely hidden. “Hey, get your elbows out of there,” Geo heard Urson mutter before there was only a gentle thundering of his snore.
Silver mist suffused the deck of the ship and wet lines glowed a phosphorescent silver; the sky was pale as ice; pricks of stars dotted over the whole bowl. The sea, once green, seemed bleached to blowing clouds of white powder. The door of a cabin opened and white veils flung forward from the form of Argo who emerged like silver from the bone-colored door. The whole movement of the scene made it look like a picture imagination fastens in the slow ripplings of gauze under breeze. One dark spot was at her throat, pulsing darkly, like a heart, like a black flame. She walked to the railing, peered over. In the white washing a skeletal hand appeared. It raised on a beckoning arm, then fell forward in the water. Another arm raised now, a few feet away, beckoning, gesturing. Then three at once; then two more.
A voice as pale as the vision spoke “I am coming. We sail in a hour. The mate has been ordered to put the ship out before dawn. You must tell me now, creatures of the water.”
Two glowing arms raised up, and then an almost featureless face. Chest high in the water, it listed backwards and sank again.
“Are you of Aptor or Leptar?” spoke the apparitional figure of Argo again in the thinned voice. “Are your allegiances to Argo or Hama? I have followed thus far. You must tell me before I follow farther.”
There was a whirling of sound which seemed to be the wind attempting to say, “The sea … the sea … the sea …”
But Argo did not hear, for she turned away and walked from the rail, back to her cabin.
Now the scene moved, turned toward the door of the forecastle. It opened, moved through the hall, the walls more like polished steel than weathered wood, and went on. In the forecastle, the yellow oil lamp seemed a white flaring of magnesium.
The movement stopped in front of a tier of three berths; on the bottom one lay a young man with a starved, pallid face. His mop of hair was bleached white. On his chest was a pulsing darkness, a black flame, a dark heart, shimmering with the indistinctness of absolute shadow. On the top bunk a great form like a bloated corpse lay. One huge arm hung over the bunk, flabbed, puffy, without muscle.
In the center berth was an anonymous bundle of blankets completely covering the figure inside. On this the scene fixed, drew closer … and the paleness suddenly faded before darkness, into shadow, into nothing.
Geo sat up and knuckled his eyes.
The dark forecastle was relieved by the yellow glow of the lamp. The gaunt mate stood across the room. “Hey, you,” he was
