The seaman nodded in agreement and then looked up, the expression on his face changing. The captain glanced at him, curious. The pox must have been a terrible one to warrant such horror.

“Look,” the crewman whispered, pointing over the captain’s shoulder.

The captain spun lazily in his seat and then leapt to his feet.

There she was, shining in the moonlight, their passenger, naked to the waist.

“Lady,” the captain began. Where had she come from? She balanced her arms on the rail, her body still partially in the water. Was she injured? “We did not mean to leave you behind.”

Something in her eyes transfixed him. They glowed, that was it. Even her short black hair seemed to shine. Her breasts hung heavy over the rail, the smooth skin glittering with droplets of water. She smiled.

The captain smiled back, nervous. She was angry, he could feel it. It would be better to throw her off the vessel now, put her back into the waters and leave her to die. There was no explanation for her appearance here, two hours after she had fallen overboard. Surely, she could not swim as quickly as the felucca could sail.

She shifted on the rail, pushing herself up higher, the better to climb aboard. The captain admired the rosettes of the woman’s nipples, the precise curve of her waist, her navel. It was most unusual to see a naked woman outside of a whorehouse. His gaze roved downward and then stopped, unbelieving.

His passenger undulated her hips to push herself over the rail, and the captain jumped backward, feeling his gorge rising. He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound died. Impossible.

The woman was half snake.

“I hired you,” she said, too calmly, “and you left me.”

The crewman, with startling presence of mind, laid hands on an axe normally used for rope cutting. He heaved it high in the air and swung it with all his strength toward her throat.

Her tail whipped up out of the water and lashed around him, crushing him in its coils just as the blade touched her skin. The creature arced gracefully onto the deck, her body slithering from the depths, an endless serpentine length.

The terrified captain pushed the pile of coins across the table, but she paid them no attention. He fell to his knees to beg for mercy. Surely, this was a deity he’d failed to ferry, and now he would die for his offense. She was a monster with the face of a goddess, scales catching the darkness and turning it to light.

She rose up on her coils, high above him, and looked down upon him without benevolence. Her body writhed, nearly covering the entire deck. He felt her tail twist around his ankles, an icy strength.

Would no one save him? There were no villages nearby. Out there in the dark, all that would hear him would be crocodiles and lions, bats and snakes.

She wrapped about him, and his last thought was that she felt like a woman still, a strong and lovely woman, clutching his entire body as a woman would clutch him between her thighs. Her beautiful face was inches from his. He could almost forget what she was.