Teshmar was staring toward the southern bourne. He pointed with his hand: “There rideth a great ship, O king. And methinks she hath a strange look.” Gaslark gazed earnestly at her for an instant, then straightway shifted his helm and steered towards her. He spake no more, staring ever as he sailed, marking ever as the distance lessened more and more particulars of that ship. Her silken sail fluttered in tatters from the yard; she rowed feebly, as one groping in darkness, with barely strength to stay her from drifting stern-foremost before the wind. So hung she on the sea, as one struck stupid by some blow, doubting which way her harbour lay or which way her course. As a thing which hath been held in the flame of a monstrous candle, so seemed she, singed and besmirched with soot. Smashed was her proud figure-head, and smashed was her high forecastle, and burned and shattered the carved timbers of the poop and the fair seats that were thereon. She leaked, so that a score of her crew must be still a-baling to keep her afloat. Of her fifty oars, half were broken or gone adrift, and many of the ship’s company lay wounded and some slain under her thwarts. And now was King Gaslark ware as he drew near that here was the Lord Juss on her ruined poop a-steering, and by him Spitfire and Brandoch Daha. Their jewelled arms and gear and rich attire were black with most stinking soot, and it was as though admiration and grief and anger were so locked and twined within them that none of these passions might win forth to outward showing on their frozen countenances. When they were within hailing distance, Gaslark hailed them. They answered him not, only beholding him with alien eyes. But they stopped the ship, and Gaslark lay aboard of her and came on board and went up on the poop and greeted them. And he said, “Well met in an ill hour. What’s the matter?” The Lord Juss made as if to speak, but no word came. Only he took Gaslark by both hands and sat down with a great groan on the poop, averting his face. Gaslark said, “O Juss, for so many a time as thou hast borne part in my evils and succoured me, surely right requireth I have part of thine?” But Juss answered in a thick, strange voice all unlike himself, “Mine, sayest thou, O Gaslark? What in the stablished world is mine, that am thus in a moment reived of him that was mine own heartstring, my brother, the might of mine arm, the chiefest citadel of my dominion?” And he burst into a great passion of weeping.