"I am glad to see that you state your cargo at such slender
value," said the envoy, "for it is the cargo I must take back with
me on the galley, if you are to earn your safe conduct to home."

Tob knit his brows. "You had better speak more plain," he
said. "I am a common sailor, and do not understand fancy talk."

"It is clear to see," said Dason, "that you have been set to
bring Deucalion back to Atlantis as a prop for Phorenice. Well, we
others find Phorenice hard enough to fight against without further
reinforcements, and so we want Deucalion in our own custody to deal
with after our own fashion."

"And if I do the miser, and deny you this piece of my freight?"

The spruce envoy looked round at the splintered ship, and the
battered navy beside her. "Why, then, Tob, we shall send you all
to the fishes in very short time, and instead of Deucalion standing
before the Gods alone, he will go down with a fine ragged company
limping at his heels."

"I doubt it," said Tob, "but we shall see. As for letting you
have my Lord Deucalion, that is out of the question. For see here,
pot-mate Dason; in the first place, if I went to Atlantis without
Deucalion, my other lord, Tatho, would come back one of these days,
and in his hands I should die by the slowest of slow inches; in the
second, I have seen my Lord Deucalion kill a great sea lizard, and
he showed himself such a proper man that day that I would not give
him up against his will, even to Tatho himself; and in the third
place, you owe me for your share in our last wine-bout ashore, and