ke they might be in contest.

This was reassuring, but as to recovering the lady, that was another
matter over which the good woman shook her head. It was ill coming
between Ar-hap and his tribute, she said; still, if I wanted to see
Heru once again, this was my opportunity, and, for the rest, that
chance, which often favours the enamoured, must be my help.

Briefly, though I should probably have gone forward in any case out of
sheer obstinacy, had it been to certain destruction, this better aspect
of the situation hastened my resolution. I thanked the woman for help,
and then the man outside was called in to advise as to the best and
speediest way of getting within earshot of his hairy sovereignty, the
monarch of Thitherland.

CHAPTER XVI

The Martian told me of a merchant boat with ten rowers which was going
up to the capital in a couple of hours, and as the skipper was a friend
of his they would no doubt take me as supercargo, thereby saving the
necessity of passenger fees, which was obviously a consideration with
me. It was not altogether a romantic approach to the dungeon of an
imprisoned beauty, but it was practical, which is often better if not
so pleasant. So the offer was gladly closed with, and curling myself in
a rug of foxskins, for I was tired with much walking, sailors never
being good foot-gangers, I slept soundly fill they came to tell me it
was time to go on board.

The vessel was more like a canal barge than anything else, lean and
long, with the cargo piled in a ridge down the centre as farmers store
their winter turnips, the rowers sitting on either side of this plying
oars like dessert-spoons with long handles, while they chanted a
monotonous cadence of monosyllables:

Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh,
How high, how high.

and then again after a pause--

How high, how high
Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh.

the which was infinitely sleep-provoking if not a refrain of a high
intellectual order.

I shut my eyes as we pulled away from the wharfs of that nameless
emporium and picked a passage through a crowd of quaint shipping,
wondering where I was, and asking myself whether I was mentally rising
equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether I adequately
appreciated the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which I
had last travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley
from a wharf. Good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if
they could see me no