They grew very hungry and very thirsty. By this they knew that the ship was far at sea. They knew nothing of time. They only knew that they were hungry and thirsty and that the ship should be far at sea—far out upon an unknown sea, setting its course for an unknown port.
Presently a hatch was raised and men came with food and water—poor, rough food and water that smelled badly and tasted worse; but it was water and they were thirsty.
One of the men said: “Where is he who is called Tanar?”
“I am Tanar,” replied the son of Ghak.
“You are wanted on deck,” said the man, and with a huge key he unlocked the massive, hand-wrought lock that held Tanar chained to the mast. “Follow me!”
The bright light of Pellucidar’s perpetual day blinded the Sarian as he clambered to the deck from the dark hole in which he had been confined and it was a full minute before his eyes could endure the light, but his guard hustled him roughly along and Tanar was already stumbling up the long stairs leading to the high deck at the ship’s stern before he regained the use of his eyes.
As he mounted the highest deck he saw the chiefs of the Korsar horde assembled and with them were two women. One appeared elderly and ill favored, but the other was young and beautiful, but for neither did Tanar have any eyes—he was interested only in the enemy men, for these he could fight, these he might kill, which was the sole interest that an enemy could hold for Tanar, the Sarian, and being what he was Tanar could not fight women, not even enemy women; but he could ignore them, and did.
He was led before a huge fellow whose bushy whiskers almost hid his face—a great, blustering fellow with a scarlet scarf bound about his head. But for an embroidered, sleeveless jacket, open at the front, the man was naked above the waist, about which was wound another gaudy sash into which were stuck two pistols and as many long knives, while at his side dangled a cutlass, the hilt of which was richly ornamented with inlays of pearl and semi-precious stones.
A mighty man was The Cid, chief of the Korsars—a burly, blustering, bully of a man, whose position among the rough and quarrelsome Korsars might be maintained only by such as he.
Surrounding him upon the high poop of his ship was a company of beefy ruffians of similar mold, while far below, in the waist of the vessel, a throng of lesser cutthroats, the common sailors, escaped from the dangers and demands of an arduous campaign, relaxed according to their various whims.