"Sarah Zettel - Miss Underwood and the Mermaid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zettel Sarah)

whale, a living wall between us and the horizon, smelling powerfully of very old fish. It regarded us with
one baleful eye.

On the whale's back perched the mermaid. The blue and green scales of her tail shimmered in
the sunlight. Sea weeds and sea flowers twinned in her green hair. Her, ah, feminine endowments were
bare to the world. Beside her sat a man in a naval uniform much bedraggled from overexposure to salt
water. Where the mermaid sat as calm as a cat or a queen, he seemed uncertain as to what to do,
blinking and bobbing his head in all directions like a man being introduced to too many people at once.

Fine-looking cove, though.

I summoned all my lung capacity. "Ahoy the whale!"

The mermaid answered, her voice ringing clear as a bell over the sounds of wind, wave and
whale. "What do you mean, Mortal, addressing us in that fashion?"

Well. "Madame, that is a King's officer next to you. As a servant of the Queen, I must demand
his return."

The whale snorted. A gout of fishy-smelling water fell across the deck, and consequently across
me.

"I think perhaps we have just been insulted," I said to Miss Sherman.

"I think so, ma'am. Shall we give her a gun?"

"No, I think . . ." My sentence trailed off. Miss Underwood had appeared on deck.

The prudish miss was gone. This was a warrior. A breastplate of bronze and silver encased her
proud torso. A golden, plumed helmet covered her head. Her legs were bare, except for the greaves
covering her, quite probably perfect, knees and shins. She carried a silver-tipped spear. I could not miss
the fact that the fretwork encircling the helmet's brim looked remarkably like a crown.

A person of some importance, indeed.

"The man is mine!" Her eyes flashed and her voice rang and I wondered that I had ever had the
nerve to raise my voice, to her, to this.

She also seemed no longer occupied with my crew. Smiling insensibility was fast being replaced
by incredulity descending into wonderment and into fear. "Miss Sherman, ready all guns. Miss
Chapwick!" I lifted my voice to the rigging. "Haul in the main top gallants. Handsomely now!" All hands
sprang to their work, fear replaced by reflex. Quite suddenly no one seemed to mind the whale and the
mermaid, or the warrior fairy.

The mermaid, however, was not so easily put off. "Jack Tremor is my lawful prize! You shall
not steal him from me!"

"I will reclaim my own!" Miss Underwood hurled her spear with all the force she had used to
hurl that biscuit.