With Atar to show us the way, we swam slowly the length and breadth of
the cavern. Here, he said, were the weapons being made. I looked them
over. A thousand of them possibly. Small, dagger-like things; swords;
others long as a lance; still others very thin, but heavy in front to be
thrown through the water like javelins.
The sight of the weapons standing in racks inspired me. With them, I
could equip a thousand fighting men. More perhaps.
Further along we came upon a side cave. In it I saw a dozen sleighs to
be drawn through the water by dolphins. They were not unlike the King’s
sleigh in which I had already ridden upon two memorable occasions, save
that these were smaller—to carry one man only. And slimmer, with
streamlines, so that they might offer a minimum of resistance in passing
through the water.
I examined them more closely. Each had along its sides, banks of
lights—small, torpedo-shaped pods filled with extraordinarily luminous
organisms. The lights were shrouded; but Atar uncovered those of one
sleigh. A blinding glare, pointing only forward, shot like a
search-light beam through the water.
These “light-sleighs,” Atar explained, were designed to precede an
advancing army. They would blind the enemy, throw him into clear light.
And in the comparative darkness behind them, our Marinoid forces could
advance.
We passed along—quickly, for we had little time for these explanations.
Atar was giving orders; the workmen were preparing everything for
immediate action.
There were other sleighs—“sleighs of darkness.” These were in shape
like the others—but larger, for two men. Around them were ink-bags. I
remembered the squid which had attacked us in the Water of Wild Things.
These bags, when squeezed, emitted an inky fluid—a screen of darkness
that could be thrown over the scene of battle at any critical moment of
disaster or retreat.
I was enumerating in my mind the forces at my command. I had men famed
for their power of giving the electric shock. I would use them in a
separate division—to combat the black fishes or the Maagogs.
The black fishes! My heart sank as I thought of them. Fearless! Suicidal
little brutes whose only instinct was to fight until death. How many of
them would Og have to hurl against us?
But we had dolphins. I demanded of Atar what the dolphins were for.
There were several hundred of them, and a score or so were all that
could be needed to draw the sleighs.
“Our men will ride them,” said Atar. “Small, slim, very skillful men
will have to be chosen. Men without the electric power. It would be
useless on a dolphin. We can arm these men with the long, thin spears.
They can go swiftly, anywhere.”
Such words on the very eve of battle! How would we have time to select
such men, train them? And where were the men? There were no small, slim,
skillful men except among the younger group whose electric power would
be more valuable to us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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