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Updated: May 17, 2025
Arkal and Beniah sprang down the bank to his assistance, and were themselves nearly swept into the flood which had swallowed up the hunter, but Konar was not quite gone. Another moment and his legs appeared above the flood, then his head turned up, and then the raging waters tossed him as if contemptuously on a projecting spit of bank, where he lay half in and half out of the torrent.
Arkal paused and was perplexed. "You must just exercise your wisdom," he replied. "If the fellow has an ill-looking countenance, kill him. If he looks a sensible sort of man, stretch him out somehow. I would offer to go instead of you, being more of a match for him, but I could not match his legs or yours, so it might well chance that he would reach the pass before me."
"And another pond for the healthy folk," suggested Captain Arkal; "we like to give ourselves a wash now and then, and it would never do for the healthy to go spluttering about with the sick would it?" "Certainly not," interposed little Maikar, "but what about the women? They would need a pond for themselves, would they not? Assuredly they would keep us all in hot water if they didn't have one."
No, I shall return home once more to fetch my wife and child here then I shall have done with salt water for ever, and devote myself to hot water in time to come." "A wise resolve, no doubt," said Beniah, "and in keeping with all your other doings." "See," interrupted Arkal, "there is the river and the women's bath, and the big drain that I spoke of."
While the robber chief was thus conversing with his scouts, two men were advancing through the forest, one of whom was destined to interfere with the plans which were so well conceived by Addedomar. These were our friends Arkal and Maikar.
The ambuscade on the other side of the Swamp had been put under the command of Captain Arkal, with Maikar for his lieutenant. Being entirely ignorant of what was going on, the men of this contingent lay close, abiding their time. Inaction, during the development of some critical manoeuvre, while awaiting the signal to be up and doing, is hard to bear.
Captain Arkal was the only one of the three survivors of the wreck who had seen that coast before or knew anything about it, for, when Bladud had entered the Mediterranean many years before, he had passed too far to the southward to see the northern land. As they staggered up the beach to a place where the thundering waves sent only their spray, Bladud looked round with some anxiety.
Captain Arkal, on the contrary, was dark, with a thick reddish beard, luxuriant brown hair, piercing black eyes, and limbs that were hardened as well as darkened by thirty years of constant exposure to elemental and other warfare.
"What! not gone yet?" exclaimed the captain, turning to him. "I cannot swim," said the man. "But neither can these," returned the captain, pointing to the men who had left last. "My father used to say," rejoined Maikar, as if murmuring to himself, "that I was born to be drowned, and I'm inclined to think he was right." "Surely you are not afraid," said Arkal.
"And the remainder of our band," said little Maikar, wiping his mouth after finishing the last morsel, "will sit in judgment on your deliberations." "Be it so," returned Bladud. "Wisdom, it is said, lies in small compass, so we should find it in you." Captain Arkal, whose knitted brows and downcast eyes showed that his thoughts were busy, looked up suddenly.
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