"Look, I've kept you drunk five nights now, and it's time to sober up. And suppose they don't take us, who's going--" But Urson, the idea having taken the glow of a game, made another swipe with his big hand. Geo leapt back with the purse. "Now cut that out," he began; but in leaping, his feet struck the fallen barrel, and he fell backwards to the wet cobbles. The pouch splattered away, jingling. Both of them scrambled. Then the bird's shadow moved in the opening between the cargo piles, a slight figure bounded forward, swept the purse up with one hand, pushed himself away from the pile of cargo with another, and there were two more fists pumping at his side as he ran. "What the devil," began Urson, and then, "What the _devil_!" "Hey you," called Geo, lurching to his feet. "Come back!" And Urson had already loped a couple of steps after the fleeting mutant, now halfway down the block. Suddenly, from behind them, like a wine-glass stem snapping, only twenty times as loud, a voice called, "Stop, little thief. Stop." The running form stopped as though it had hit a wall. "Come back, now! Come back!" The figure turned, and docilely started back, the movements so lithe and swift a moment ago, now mechanical. "It's just a kid," Urson said. He was a dark-haired boy, naked except for a ragged breech. He approached staring fixedly beyond them toward the boats. And he had four arms. Now they turned and looked also. She stood at the base of the ship's gangplank, against what sun still washed the horizon. One hand held something close at her throat, and wind, caught in a veil, held the purple gauze against the red swath at the world's edge, and then dropped it. The boy, like an automaton, approached her. "Give that to me, little thief," she said. He handed her the purse. She took it, and then suddenly dropped her other hand from her neck. The moment she did so, the boy staggered backwards, turned, and ran straight into Urson, who said, "Ooof," and then, "God damn little spider." The boy struggled to get away like a hydra in furious silence. But Urson held. "You stick around ... Owww!... to get yourself thrashed.... There." The boy got turned, his back to the giant; one arm locked across his neck, and the other hand, holding all four wrists, lifted up hard enough so that the body shook like wires jerked taut, but he was still silent. Now the woman came across the dock. "This belongs to you, gentlemen?" she asked, extending the purse. "Thank you, ma'am," grunted Urson, reaching forward. "I'll take it, ma'am," said Geo, intercepting. Then he recited: "_Shadows melt in light of sacred laughter. Hands and houses shall be one hereafter._ "Many thanks," he added. Beneath the veil, on her shadowed face, her eyebrows raised. "You have been schooled in courtly rites?" She observed him. "Are you perhaps a student at the university?"