The closest any of them had come yet was in this moment, when three great bullies of rats, all fat and evil and ugly, leaped upon his swaying leathern scabbard and clung there. They might have crept up it and bitten him before he could slay them, except for the fortunate stab of the late Saracen fencer, which had all but severed his sword belt. The last few strands parted now, and the sheath fell to the deck, carrying rats and belt with it.
Something rolled out of the sheath and made a small metallic sound as it struck the overturned brazier. Godwin risked a glance at it. It gleamed dull yellow in the sunlight.
"By the rood, mass, book and candle!" yelled Godwin, startling the rats so that they drew back in haste, "the ring of Solomon! So that's where I put it! In the bloody scabbard! Of course, I remember. Someplace where 'twould be always near my hand!"
Nothing, not ten thousand times as many rats, could have kept him from that ring. He leaped from the rail, half-squatting to bring his sword hand near the deck, and the blade was a flaming scythe in his grip. It mowed down rats by dozens, by scores, by hundreds as they came crowding at him. They leaped, and the point shot up and down more swiftly than the eye could command, and they had died in mid-jump. They crouched in at him, and the tops of their heads were torn off or jellied by the sweeping broadsword. Then they drew back, for a rat is intelligent, and even their hunger was not enough to force them out against that invincible weapon without some thought on the matter.
In the few seconds' respite Godwin leaped, scooped up the ring, dived back to his seat on the rail. The rats came forward once more. With his left hand he locked the ring to the sigil on its chain about his neck, and in a voice of joyous thunder he shouted, "Mihrjan! I cry up Mihrjan!"
Spang in the midst of the rats, shod with sandals of blue-white fire so that the gruesome beings scrambled back from his vicinity, appeared the ten-foot form of Mihrjan the djinni, turbanned with ivory silk, pantalooned with lustrous purple velvet, and exuding an aroma of attar of roses.
He salaamed deeply.
"The Lord of My Life," said Mihrjan sonorously, as the rats retreated down the poop deck, "would seem to have need of my humble services. I am his to command!"