CHAPTER 23Godwin looked up from his wound-cleansing. He had had a glimpse of a gray shape scuttling across a field of crimson flame. He stared, and saw a score of large rats eyeing him from the lower deck. He bounded to his feet, thick gorilla toes and fingers curling with a fear that no amount of bravery could still. The plague! The ravishing, filthy, obscene plague! Even from a flaming ship in the midst of a waste of waters, there might be some escape at the last moment: but from the bite of one of these rats would come a foul death that nothing could turn aside, not even the djinn themselves!
He canvassed the poop. No high pedestals on which a man (or a great ape) might perch, no protective armor of any description to foil the attack of the rats. Here he stood, alone, armed with a broa
