"A favor? Do you wish me to kill someone? I have not dispatched a pirate or a thieving dock rat for three years." Where had that pathetic attempt at humor come from? There was no laugh, more's the pity, for that would have made the voice human, and perhaps that was why 1 had tried to jest. Still, I was not afraid, even though I knew in some part of my brain that I should be scared out of my few wits. But I was not.

"Who are you?" I asked again.

"I am your savior. You owe me your life. Are you willing to repay your debt?"

"I have gone from granting a favor to paying a debt."

"What is your life worth, Captain Jared Vail?"

"My life is worth all that I am. Will you let me live if I do not agree?"

The Cretan light -flashed bright blue for an instant, then flickered, as if brushed by a waving hand. Once again it settled. The shadows behind it remained impenetrable, like a black curtain covering an empty stage. My imagination was on fire. The voice brought me back. "Will I let you live? 1 do not know." A heavy pause. "I do not know."

'Then I have no choice, do I? I do not wish to die, al-though I would be well dead now had you not saved me. But I do not know how you managed it. The huge wave was on me, and the wound in my side-I would have died from that blow probably before the water crushed me."

I realized in that instant that I felt no pain from the gaping tear in my side that had hurled me into a madness of agony. I felt nothing at all except the strong, solid beating of my own heart, no stuttering with pain or fear, no gasping to find a breath.

"Ah, the pain. That is another debt you owe me, would you not agree?"

Why was I not afraid? The absence of fear made me feel cold to my soul. I was thinking it made me less a man, less- alive. Had he somehow removed my human fear? "How did you heal me?"