"Hear me! Lay down your arms and your lives shall be spared. You will be set free without ransom. May Jupiter or someone strike me dead if I lie! Hear me!"
After he had harangued them a while, a shaken voice called: "How do we know you will do this, if we yield?"
"You know it will be to the death if you don't!" said Eodan. "Lay down your arms and live!"
As he returned to the deck, he heard the fight resume uncertainly. Neither side pressed too hard, now that a truce might be close. Eodan saw the graybearded pirate cutting the throat of a wounded man, in the shelter of a bollard. The oldster shrank back from him, afraid. Eodan said: "Throw that knife against my shield, as noisily as you can, and cry that you surrender to the freebooter captain."
The fellow obeyed, given a kick to add urgency to his recital. A moment afterward, Eodan heard from across the deck: "Stop, I yield me!"
It spread like a plague. Within minutes, a disarmed crew huddled gloomily under the pikes of a few crowing pirates.
Eodan took off his helmet and wiped reddened hands on a fallen man's cloak. His tunic was plastered to him with sweat. It came as a dull surprise that the blood painting him was not his own. Just a few scratches and bruises. Well, the Powers which took all else from him gave him victory in war, a miser's payment.... He looked at the sun above the yardarm. The battle had lasted perhaps an hour. And now he held two ships.
He walked over planks grisly with the dead and the hurt. There were more of the latter, there always were, but many of them would die, too, from bleeding or inflammation. The still air quivered with their groans. He counted up. Besides himself and Tjorr, eight pirates were hale. Eleven merchant crewmen stood on their feet; but their captain had quit the world bravely. "This should cool our lads off," said the Cimbrian. "I scarcely think they will want to try piracy again."
"They can raise their numbers, disa," Tjorr reminded him. "There must be forty slaves below decks, at least."
"True—indeed—Well, so be it. If we can come to Egypt, I care not." Eodan looked glumly down the boarding plank to the smaller craft. "I am sick of blood. Can you set matters to rights here?"