He wedged himself between Vent and me and shook my hand very heartily, saying in a whisper that must have been audible all over the room, "Mysire Horn. An honor it is-a pleasure it is. A prince so distinguished you are. A conqueror, but humbly the gods you serve!"

Judge Hamer hammered his tall desk. "Silence! Silence! Ready you are Mysire Advocaat Taal?"

He rose with the help of his staff and seemed to require a moment to collect his thoughts. "Ready we are, Mysire Rechtor. A motion-my motion you will entertain, Mysire Rechtor? That this be dismissed ab initio, I move."

There was a buzz of excited talk, which the judge rapidly silenced. Taal's motion was denied and the prosecution was invited to present its case. Nat and others testified; I will not burden this account with the details, beyond saying that I was appalled to see matters proceed as quickly as they did.

Vent then rose and made a brief opening speech to the judge. "Mysire Rechtor, our motion to dismiss you heard. Not frivolously it we made. Here no crime is. The law we do not deny. Contrary to the law to imprison another it is. A serious offense it is. This our client has not done. This we will prove."

Another buzz of talk, and a skeptical look from Judge Hamer.

"Neither to our law subject he is. This also we will prove."

Stunned silence.

Taal rose, and seeming to strain his high, reedy voice, said loudly, "Call Mysire Ziek!"

A legerman fetched him from an adjoining room.

"A merchant you are?"

He was, and with some prompting from Taal and Vent, he told of making up the party of merchants, of Nat's forcing his way into it, and of encountering us.

"More than you they are?" (This was Vent.)

"No, mysire."

"Overpowering you they are?"

"No, mysire."

"Many servants they have, and armed these servants are? Slug guns they have? Needlers?"

"Yes, Mysire Advocaat. No, Mysire Advocaat."

"No needlers? Us tell you must."

"Three only they are. A slug gun the young man has, mysire."

Taal raised his eyebrows, which are white too and very thick. "One slug gun, mysire? Of it terrified all of you were?"

"No, Mysire Taal."

"Not, should I hope. Nat's testimony you did not hear?"

"No, Mysire Taal. It to hear, me they would not allow."

"Proper that is. Testis oculatus unus plus valet quam auriti decem. With him servants Nat had?"

"Yes, Mysire Taal. Four."

"Weapons they had?"

"Yes, mysire."

"In this court alleged it is that Mysire Horn, old he is and unarmed he was, Mysire Nat to remain with him he forced."

By that time I had practically ceased to hear them. I was watching a picture on one side of the courtroom. It was a large painting, executed in browns and various shades of orange, of robed men seated around a table. It was suspended by a tasseled cord from an ornamental hook in the shape of a leaping collarfish, and it had begun to swing.

Wijzer came forward to speak with me. "Sent to the old whorl for Mysire Silk you were? This Hide says. A good boy he is?"

"Yes. So is Hoof."

Wijzer nodded and seated himself on the gunwale, one hand grasping a stay. He is larger than most men, solid-looking, with a big, red face. "From New Viron you are? Marrow there you know?"

It reminded me irresistibly of what I had just been writing. I said, "Yes, Mysire Advocaat."

The red face became redder still as he squinted for a moment at the sun. "Me you do not know?"

"Of course I-wait. From New Viron, you mean. What a fool I've been! You're the trader who told me about Pajarocu!"

From his perch on the stay, considerably higher than Wijzer's big, freckled hand, Oreb inquired, "Good man?" Babbie (who was asleep at my feet) raised his massive head and winked, his sign of cautious affirmation.

Wijzer looked from one to the other. "Me you remember, Mysire Horn?"

"Certainly, and I should have placed you much sooner. Marrow told me he'd found a trader who might be able to help me, and the three of us ate at Marrow's-it was a very good dinner. He has a good cook."

For a moment Wijzer studied me. "Dead Marrow is."

"I'm sorry to hear it. He didn't die by violence, I hope."

Wijzer shook his head.

"He was a middle-aged man when we came here twenty years ago. Though it is twenty-two years now, I suppose." I called to Hoof, who was in the waist talking to Hide and Vadsig, and asked how long I had been gone.

"Since summer of year before last, Father."

"Nearly two years," I told Wijzer, "though when I look at my sons it seems that it must surely be longer. They were hardly more than children when I left; now they are young men."

"Brave young men they are. Gallant young men."

I agreed.

"At Judge Kenner's, them I see. Killed both will be I think, but they run and shoot, shoot and run, and after them my sailors come. Young lions they are."

I thanked him. "You must have seen them at my trial as well. I saw you in the audience, and they were sitting almost directly behind me."

Wijzer nodded. "Them in we let. Beroep and me. His family we say, so for them everyone aside moves."

"Would you be willing to give me your impressions of my trial? You would be doing me a great favor, Captain."

"Mine, Mysire Horn?" He looked back at the steersman, then out at the choppy gray-green water. "You too saw."

"Yes, but I would like to have someone else's impressions, and you are a shrewd observer."

He laughed. "Not, my wife thinks."

"Men and women frequently differ as to what is important."

"That girl Vadsig you must ask, mysire, or your daughter." He eyed me slyly.

"Perhaps I will, but I would like your impressions. I have found it difficult to write about. The details keep getting in my way."

I smiled, and Wijzer did too.

"In the course of writing all I have-not just what you see here, but much more that is put away with the clothes I bought in Dorp-"

"New clothes you buy, mysire, but old ones you wear. On a boat wise that is."

"I've learned that I have a sort of mania for writing down conversations. If you would tell me now what you remember best about my trial, I will certainly write that, and my account of it will be so much to the good."

He nodded, his eyes again on the waves and the clouds, then shouted at the young man in the stern. "What I best remember you wish to know, Mysire Horn?"

I nodded (eagerly, I hoped). When he said nothing, I ventured, "The Red Sun Whorl is what you remember best, I imagine. The tower and the pits beneath it."

"This you call that rotting town?" Wijzer shook his head. "Not, I remember. To forget I try." He raised an imaginary bottle to his mouth and pretended to drink.

"Man talk!" Oreb insisted.

"What I remember? Those leggy fellows."

"The Vanished People? I had wondered about that. Surely many of you must have thought that they were no more than tall men in masks."

"It may be, mysire, but four arms they had."

"They were not men like us, Captain, I assure you. They were the Neighbors, whom we on this side of the sea generally call the Vanished People."

"Not that men they may be I think. This others may think, I mean. Vanished Men they were, I know. My crew," he shrugged, "me they serve. These, you serve, Mysire Horn?"

"No. They are my friends, not my employers."

"A fair wind they will give?"

"Perhaps they could-I don't know. Certainly I won't ask it. Let us sail with our own wind, Captain." Now it was I, not he, who was looking out to sea; and I could not repress the thought that Seawrack was there beneath the tossing waves.

"Big wet," Oreb pronounced. And, "Bad place!"

"It's a bad place for birds, certainly-or at least a bad place for such birds as are not sea birds; but you'll learn very quickly to patrol its beaches for dead fish."