"So am I, you lunkhead. Can't you see his arm and sword encircle my neck?" "Oh," said Heraj. "Hum. Well. Can't you force back one of his arms?" "They're like stone. Ouch!" The edge of the scimitar had cut him a little. "I tell you I don't dare move!" "Neither can I," said Heraj, holding his head. "My stars and thaumaturgy, what a knock I took! Which wall fell on me?" "The gorilla fell on you," said Mufaddal spitefully, "and if you think I'll turn a finger to aid either of you two fumble-handed fat-brained cretins, you're badly mistaken. My jaw feels like a boil about to burst." Heraj took a step and winced. "I can't do it, damn the pain, I can't move for a minute." "I'm off balance," shrilled Pepi. "I can't stand here forever." "Look," moaned Heraj, really wanting to help him but unable to bear the skull-cracking ache, "I'll take the spell off him for a tenth of a second. You get ready to push with all your might on that arm. It'll give you enough leeway. Ready?" "I'm pushing," said Pepi. "Here goes, then." El Sareuk had heard all this as he stood motionless with his sword at the wizard's throat. He chuckled deep in his vitals, even though he could not move so much as an eyelash. A whole tenth of a second, eh? Pepi was pushing with insane strength at the arm. Heraj took off the spell and immediately put it back on. There was a swish, a grating sound, and a dull squashing thunk. Pepi, a bumbler to the last, had pushed on the wrong arm. Indeed, he had pressed so hard that El Sareuk in his new immobility now held it straight before him. But the scimitar had been gripped in the capable fist of the other arm. Pepi's head lay on the floor, an expression of astonishment on its homely and now blood-bedabbled features. Heraj raised a howl of anguish. He did not know that at the instant Pepi died, the flying carpet with Godwin aboard it, no longer supported by Pepi's incantation, had fallen into the sea almost on top of the man-eating shark. CHAPTER XIX Godwin was a strong swimmer, and the body he now inhabited was as muscular as any in the world. After swallowing a pint of salt water and thrashing about for a moment below the surface, he struck out toward the plague ship. He was not sure what had happened, but he was afraid it boded ill for his beloved and his friends. Nonetheless, he was glad that the carpet had carried him at least this far. The destruction of the vessel was their major problem and he felt superbly confident that he could accomplish it. The heavy iron broadsword weighed him down, dangling stiff and perpendicular from his waist; but he could not jettison it. It was just as well, though, he thought, swimming with vigorous strokes, that he had lost his shield before he left the land. Otherwise he would regretfully have had to abandon it to the deep. That old shield had been with him in many a tight spot.