"I've told you and told you, I have a headache, that's why I can't do it, curse you," said Heraj. "I have all I can do to keep the ones in this room and those two back there motionless. I have to keep concentrating and it hurts like seven devils in my brain. Then I've flung a force wall around this room, so no one can get in or out except myself, and _that_ takes concentration. I tell you, I never went through anything like it. All I can recall are these two spells and the one for curdling milk. I could no more bewitch all these benighted villains than I could--could fly to the moon." "Incidentally, did you find the gorilla? Godwin?" "No I didn't, and I hope I never do. I don't want to come within range of those ham-sized fists again, not even with a legion of fiends at my back." "Is he still a gorilla, if he's alive, I mean? Or did he switch back when you swooned away?" "No, he's a gorilla. That's a different sort of spell from force walls and immobility. But to hell with Godwin. I want to nurse this lump. And you're confusing me, too. My spells are wobbling. I just saw El Sareuk there move a good half inch. If you want those swine kept alive for torture and other pleasantries, I've got to concentrate. Oh, my newts and bat-wings! I shall die!" He went over and collapsed in a corner, where he stared moodily at the corpses of his two brothers and mumbled to himself. Mufaddal peered out the window. It was too small to negotiate, but wide enough to command a partial view of the back grounds. He saw a dozen of his men go dashing from the shelter of one outbuilding to that of another. "In a minute or two," he said confidently, "in a very few minutes, by Allah, these renegades and infidels will see what a real besieging is like!" And at the thought, he stroked his greasy beard and crinkled up his soft brown eyes, and giggled like a maniac. CHAPTER XXIII Godwin 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!