CHAPTER XVI

Heraj uncoiled like a spring, his mind hastily flitting through mental file cards for an appropriate spell against gorillas. He had no doubt that it _was_ the gorilla. He was turning to check, and had just decided on the brief but pithy incantation which sent victims to the plains of Afghanistan, when a large firm paw smote him on the nape of the neck, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

Habu clutched for his wand. He was a very minor warlock and needed a wand to do anything more complicated than the three-shell trick. His hand never reached the ebony stick. Godwin picked him up and threw him contemptuously at the wall, which he hit so hard that his backbone was telescoped into itself and some twenty-nine of his other bones were fractured in more or less intricate ways.

Pepi woke up, saw the tip of El Sareuk's sword held steadily at the hollow of his throat, and closed his eyes as if he had been sand-bagged. "One move of those lips, witch-man," said the old Arab pleasantly, "one small spell begun, and you will be breathing through several more orifices than nature intended." Pepi lay as silent and motionless as a defunct stork, which he vaguely resembled.

Mufaddal was waving his scimitar in arcs before him, bellowing for his soldiers, calling on Allah to smite these heathen devils, and cursing the magic of Heraj that had turned a plain man into this ghastly demon-thing advancing on him. He had entirely forgotten that it had been his idea to change Godwin to an animal for vengeance's sake.

Ramizail lay on her back and drummed her heels on the floor and laughed with delight at the spectacle of her beloved--and despite his present shape, he _was_ her beloved--wading in amongst the enemy in such headlong fashion. "Smear the big hellhound all over the wall, darling!"

"Ramizail," said the gorilla, maneuvering for advantage, "that is not ladylike. Get up off the floor and stop swearing." He then feinted with one paw, caught the scimitar by the flats with the steel fingers of his other, twitched it out of Mufaddal's horrified grasp, stepped up to him and gave him a splendid uppercut on the point of the jaw.

Mufaddal joined his sorcerers on the floor.

"Now then," said Godwin, rubbing his paws briskly together, "fetch me that necromancer, El Sareuk!"

Pepi, milk-faced and shaking, was led into the center of the room. Had he been Heraj, he could have mumbled a spell ventriloquially and relegated them all to the top of a pyramid. Luckily he was not Heraj.

Godwin regarded him for a moment. Pepi found that the direct gaze of an angry gorilla is not a thing to put heart in a man. He gave a tiny moan, almost a squeak. The gorilla expanded his chest, which measured seventy inches, and said, "You're Pepi, if I recall correctly?"

"Y-y-yes, O Magnificent One," said Pepi.

"Pepi, I want you to transport me to the plague ship. Instanter."

"Oh, I couldn't do that," said the bony wizard, turning if possible a little paler than before. "I can only do small things, such as--"

"Then I guess you may as well die too," said Godwin regretfully, and reached out a paw.

Pepi nearly collapsed. "Wait a m-m-m-m," he said. "I mean wait a s-s-s-s. Maybe there's a way."

"Think of it fast, scrawny one," said El Sareuk.

"I'm thinking," said Pepi hurriedly. "I'm thinking."

* * * * *

Godwin just then gave a cry of pleasure. He had spied his broadsword in its leather sheath, hanging on the wall above Mufaddal's inert form like a trophy, together with his Saracen helmet and kite-shaped shield and his curved Persian dagger. He bounded across and tore them down.

"A chap may be given the lineaments of a gorgon," he said, buckling the sword around his waist and clapping the helmet atop his round animal's head, "but he still seems naked without his weapons. By heaven, I feel better already! Now, Pepi, the method."

"Well, look, O Superb and Generous Prince," stammered the sorcerer, "I think I might work it with a carpet."

"I fail to see your point, sirrah."

"A flying carpet, O--"

"Never mind the O's. What's a flying carpet?"

"Not a very hard trick, really. You get on a carpet and say a certain incantation, and you're flying."

"How fast?"

"As fast as you will it."

"And you can do it? You can turn a carpet into a bird, as it were?"

"I think I can," said Pepi doubtfully. "No, no," he added hastily as Godwin flexed his biceps, "I'm sure I can."

"Do it, then. El Sareuk, put your blade across his neck. At the first out-of-the-ordinary thing that happens, except for the carpet's enchanting, deprive him of his head."

El Sareuk laid his scimitar to Pepi's throat with a warm smile.

Pepi looked at a rolled-up Persian carpet in a corner of the room, the only corner that did not seem to be jammed full of bodies. He muttered something under his breath. The carpet slowly unrolled.

"By the diamonded pillars of Hell!" gasped El Sareuk. "I believe he can do it!"

Pepi brightened up as his magic drifted the carpet across the floor toward them. "If you will sit on it, O Magnificence, it will carry you to the ship, be it so far as a hundred leagues to sea."

"How do I work it?" asked the gorilla suspiciously.

"Merely sit cross-legged upon it and think. It will speed or slow as you desire. It is attuned to the wishes of the rider."

"That's right," put in Ramizail. "I have ridden many a carpet, dear. Nothing to it."

Godwin tugged at his bare chin, where in happier times there had been a yellow beard. He dropped his shield on the blue and red surface of the carpet, which was now floating leisurely an inch off the floor. It seemed solid enough. "Listen, old wolf," he said. "See you take care of the girl till I come back."

"Have I not done so for nineteen years?" asked El Sareuk reproachfully.

"And send these lads out to fortify the house as well as possible. The barracks will be sure to find out sooner or later that something's amiss over here. I hope I'll be back in time to help you, when the brawl erupts; but the ship's the important thing just now."

"By Allah, it is! If we all die, 'twas in a worthy cause."

"We won't," said Ramizail complacently. "I feel it in my bones." She smiled at Godwin. "Good fortune, my dear."

"Thanks. I'd ask you to kiss me, but I've seen this face. By the way," said he to Pepi, at whose neck the blade of El Sareuk still pressed lightly but insistently, "can you give me back my own body?"

"Only Heraj could have done that," said Pepi wanly.

"Damnation. Oh, well," said the gorilla, and without more ado climbed onto the carpet and sat down. "Good-bye, all," he said. His short brow furrowed. Great fangs bared briefly in a grin of concentration. Nothing happened.

"Give it t-t-time," yipped Pepi, as the Arab's sword just nudged his throat.

The carpet gave a preliminary lurch, like a horse testing its muscles of an early morning, and then with a whoosh shot through the door and disappeared. From the other rooms that lay between them and the front of the house rose shouts of astonishment, as Godwin's forces observed him sail past them, clawing madly at the front edge of the rocketing carpet.

At that moment Mufaddal gave a low groan, unheard by anyone there; and Heraj the senior sorcerer opened his eyes and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.