“Eight score ships i’ the Straits,” said Juss. “And ours an hundred. ’Tis well seen what great difference and odds there is betwixt us. Which we must needs encounter, or else ne’er sail home again, let alone to Carcë. For out of this sea is no sea-way for ships, but only by these Straits of Melikaphkhaz.”
“We shall do of Laxus,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “that he troweth to do of us.”
But Juss was fallen silent, his chin in his hand.
Goldry Bluszco said, “I would allow him odds and beat him.”
“It is a great shame in thee, O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou wilt be abashed at this. If that they be in number more than we, what then? They are in hope, quarrel, and strength far inferior.”
But Juss, still in a study, reached out and caught him by the sleeve, holding him so a moment or two, and then looked up at him and said, “Thou art the greatest quarreller, of a friend, that ever I knew, and if I were an angry man I could not abear thee. May I not three minutes study the means, but thou shalt cry out upon me for a milksop?”
They laughed, and the Lord Juss rose up and said, “Call we a council of war. And let Hesper Golthring be at it, and his skippers that were with him o’ that voyage. And pack up the stuff, for we will away o’ the morn. If we like not these lettuce, we may pull back our lips. But no choice remaineth. If Laxus will deny us sea-room through Melikaphkhaz Straits, I trow there shall go up thence a crash which when the King heareth it he shall know it for our first banging on the gates of Carcë.”
