him, and a third stood forward, watching the milky wake of the cruiser. One of the men had a gun.
He said: 'Do as you're told, old man. This one goes to Menos. You have your orders. You will be paid.'
Serafin said: 'I never agreed to this. I won't—'
The other man's hand moved, fast and accurate, and struck Serafin across the face. Serafin tensed, and Craig sweated again, until he moved to the wheel.
'One of you start the engine,' he said.
The man without the gun uncovered the hatch combing, and as he did so Craig moved out from the nets and hit the gunman on the back of the neck with the bottle. He dropped like a log, and the other man spun round, hurled the hatch cover at Craig. It crashed inches from his bare toes as Craig leaped back, vulnerable now to the third one for'ard, his hands shaking with weakness. The man who had so nearly crippled him moved in slowly, and Craig saw that he too was armed, with a knife, a lonj*, slightly curved blade. Craig moved warily, cursing his body s clumsiness, then the man sprang in and lunged with the knife as though it were an epee. Craig's hand grabbed for the wrist as his body swerved, but he was too slow, the blade scored and burned across his ribs, his fingers missed. The other man swerved and struck again, and again. Craig only just escaped. They circled slowly, and Craig felt the weakness mount inside him, knew he was good for one more pass, and no more than one.
Again it was the other who attacked, and Craig forced his body out of the way of the gleaming steel, struck at the man's throat with the edge of his hand. This time he was a little nearer, jarring the other's shoulder so that he gasped with pain as Craig swung the bottle. But he was quick enough to parry, and the glass shivered on the steel blade, the stump fell from Craig's hands as the other man lunged in a great, disemboweling sweep. Craig leaped inside it, his hands locked on the knife arm, and this time it was his body's weight that did the work as he pivoted from his hip, and held on. The man screamed as the pressure on his arm increased, threatening to break bone, and the knife dropped, then Craig's foot flicked out, found his throat, and he went limp. Craig grabbed the knife and swung round, facing the third one for'ard. Behind Craig's back, Serafin chuckled. He held the gun and his old hand did not tremble.
'This one will not hurt you,' he said.
The gun moved toward the shadowy figure for'ard.
'Come here,' he said.
There was no movement, then the gun lifted, pointed, and the figure moved into the light of the lamps. Black woollen sweater, black jeans, the dangerous grace of a cat. Serafin picked up a deck light and lifted it high.
Almond-shaped eyes, so brown as to look black; heavy hair, gleaming, glowing, oiled; a proud little beak of a nose, and a full, passionate mouth. The sweater and jeans were skintight and her figure was magnificent. Her skin was a glowing gold, her face a smooth, impassive mask that betrayed no emotion at all, as she looked into the gun's black barrel.
'What is your name?' Serafin asked.
No answer.
'Tour name,' said Craig in Arabic. 'Speak you.'
'Selina bin Hussein,' the girl said.
Craig said: 'Go into the cabin. Fetch me the tin box which is on the shelf by the door.' The girl made no move. 'Go you,' said Craig. 'I will not speak three times.' The girl looked into his eyes; cold, gray northern eyes, bloodshot and yet unblinking. She looked down at his hand, which was pressed tight to his side. Blood oozed slowly from his fingers, black in the lamplight. Without a word, she went down into the cabin.
'A Turk?' Serafin asked.
'An Arab,' said Craig. 'What's happening, you old robber?'
'These people are my suppliers,' said Serafin, and nodded at the two men on the deck. 'It's time you stopped drinking. You were very clumsy. I can remember—'
'So can I,' said Craig. 'But not now. These men will come round soon.'
Serafin sighed, took a length of twine from his pocket, and stooped to tie them up. As he worked, the girl came up carrying the box. Craig told her to open it, and she did so, then took out a roll of adhesive bandage at his orders. The two men had clean, white handkerchiefs in their breast pockets, and Serafin passed them to him. Craig asked the old man for ouzo.
'Are you (irinking again?' Serafin asked.
'I wish I were,' said Craig. 'Oh, how I wish I were.'
Serafin grinned and sat back on bis heels to watch as Craig rolled up his jersey and poured the spirit on to the wound. It ate into the raw cut like liquid fire, and Craig gasped aloud, then sprinkled more ouzo on to the handkerchiefs, pressed them over the wound, and gasped once more. Then Serafin heard him speak again in Arabic, saw the girl unwind the bandage, press it over the wound. He noticed how beautiful and sure her hands were, how deft her fingers. He noticed too, how Craig took it all without a word. Craig was his son, and he was proud of him. Methodically, with an old man's painstaking slowness, he tied his two suppliers together, then took the wheel again and thought about the girl. Beautiful, proud, lots of courage. The proper girl for his son, and she wasn't a Turk. He was glad about that. Serafin hated Turks.
The girl finished the bandaging, and Craig sat down, slowly, carefully, bis back propped up against the diesel housing.
'Selina bin Hussein,' Craig said. She moved closer to him. She wore thick-soled yachting slippers, and she walked like a queen. 'Sit,' said Craig.
She knelt before him, within the circle of lamplight, then settled back on her neat, round haunches, her hands easy and motionless in her lap. There was no suggestion of fear in her eyes, and yet Craig had no doubt that she was terrified.
'Tell me who you are,' said Craig, 'and don't waste my time with lies.'
'The Tuareg do not lie,' said the girl.
Craig willed himself to sit impassive. The Tuareg live in the Hoggar district of the Sahara. They are a warrior nation with their own customs and their own language, and their women go unveiled. Some of them still carry the straight, cross-hilted swords their ancestors captured from
Crusaders nearly nine centuries ago. They are cruel, chivalrous, and brave, and abhor lying, even as a means of defense.
'Where are you from?' asked Craig.
'From the Haram in Zaarb,' said the girl. 'My Father is emir there.'
'Zaarb?'
'Beyond Yemen,' said the girl. 'The Haram is my father's country. He owns it all: the Arabs and the Negroes, the oasis and the desert—all except the rest of us, his kinsmen.'
'The Tuareg live in the Sahara,' said Craig. 'Their town is Janet, their territory is beyond the Hoggar Mountains.'
'My family went to help an Arab sheikh fight the Yemenis three hundred years ago,' said the girl. 'It was a good place. They beat the Yemenis and kept it for themselves. We have lived there ever since.'
'But you left this good place?'
'I have business for my father,' she said.
'With smugglers?'
'I have to go into Europe,' the girl said. For Europe she used the old Arabic word—Frangistan—the country of the Franks.
'Which part of Frangistan?'
And incredibly, the place she named was England.
'You speak English?' asked Craig, and she nodded, gravely, slowly, with the pride of one who admits that, if forced, she could play the second violin part in Schubert's 'Trout' quintet.
'Speak it then,' said Craig in English.
'You speak it too?' she asked, astonished.
'I am English,' said Craig, and the dark, intense eyes looked for an instant hard into his, but the emotion they showed was hidden too quickly for him to read it.
'But how perfecdy extraordinary,' she said at last.
Somehow Craig sat unmoved and at last she began to talk, her English fluent and easy with debutante overtones.
