Page:Weird Tales v34n03 (1939-09).djvu/73

Rh though we did see strange sights that filled us with dread.

One night our lookout came below, squealing and white with fear, crying out that the sea was blazing and we were lost. Hurrying to look, we were startled to find that all around us the water was glowing and shimmering with light. But it was not fire, my Emperor, and it was harmless, though I cannot explain the mystery.

One must expect odd things if one travels. Not everything strange is dangerous, and who but cowards would hold back from great adventure because of odd, unexplainable events?

We took it for a portent, but it was not—unless indeed it foretold good, for no evil happened us. Fear not this trivial oddity, native to these seas, but boldly disregard it when found, and press onward. We passed from it unscathed.

We saw dolphins and mightier fish also, but none so huge as the unbelievable fish Jasconye, which Brandon describes as being the hugest fish in all the world, and writes that upon its back he and all his men celebrated the Feast of the Resurrection, not knowing but that they stood upon an island, until they lit fire to cook some victual, and their island sunk and left them all swimming!

This I take to be a tale for children. Disregard it. We saw none so huge, though we were companied for some distance by a convoy of very large creatures who sported around us, watching us while they sent high spurts of water and froth into the air from their nostrils as they breathed. They harmed us not, being curious only, though by their very size and weight they might prove dangerous if maddened. Be warned in this matter!

After this we met another kind of fish, very evilly disposed toward man, and we learned about it as follows:

Kinial'ch, one of our bravest, though without any Roman blood, being purely Cymric, had been wounded severely in our affray with the rebels. While we had food he lived and languished, becoming no better and in fact failing slightly each day, until in the end when our rations grew scanty and coarse, he died.

E BURIED him in the only way we could. His Cymric comrades keened over him, gashing themselves with their knives. Myrdhinn prepared him for burial, marking his winding-sheet not only with a Christian cross, but also with a sickle which he painted upon the cloth in gold, while beside it he pinned a scrap of mistletoe, these things being symbols of the old Druidic faith never yet completely destroyed in the dark fastnesses of the Cambrian hills.

So prepared for any future, we slid the body over the side, and witnessed a horrid sight. Scarce had it touched the water when a fierce fish seized upon it in a welter of foam, and fought for the fragments with other of its kin which instantly appeared.

We slew several with javelin casts, but finding these victims were speedily set upon, we ceased, for others smelling the blood in the water came and followed us. They kept in our wake for days, until, as I have written, we were dying for want of food. Then Myrdhinn came to our help.

We had tried to kill one of these fish before, for food, but when wounded, each was rent apart by its companions. Now, Myrdhinn bade us try again, saying that this time we would not fail.

He formed a length of rope into a circle, coated it with greenish paste from a small pot, gave three of us heavy mittens and warned us not to touch the rope with our bodies. Then, telling us what to do, he dangled his foot overside and pretended to slip.

As one of the man-eaters came to the