“They will all die, and without them I cannot make powder,” Tanar reminded him.
The Cid scowled. “You would have my ship overrun with enemies,” he growled.
“They are unarmed.”
“Then they certainly would be killed,” said The Cid. “No one would survive long among that pack an’ he were not armed;” he waved a hand contemptuously toward the half naked throng below.
“Then leave the hatches off and give them decent air and more and better food.”
“I’ll do it,” said The Cid. “Bohar, have the forward hatches removed, place a guard there with orders to kill any prisoner who attempts to come on deck and any of our men who attempts to go below; see, too, that the prisoners get the same rations as our own men.”
It was with a feeling of relief that amounted almost to happiness that Tanar saw Bohar depart to carry out the orders of The Cid, for he knew well that his people could not long survive the hideous and unaccustomed confinement and the vile food that had been his lot and theirs since they had been brought aboard the Korsar ship.
Presently The Cid went to his cabin and Tanar, left to his own devices, walked to the stern and leaning on the rail gazed into the hazy upcurving distance where lay the land of the Sarians, his land, beyond the haze.
Far astern a small boat rose and fell with the great, long billows. Fierce denizens of the deep constantly threatened it, storms menaced it, but on it forged in the wake of the great fleet—a frail and tiny thing made strong and powerful by the wills of three men.
But this Tanar did not see, for the mist hid it. He would have been heartened to know that his Emperor was risking his life to save him.