On the third morning Tippoo was rowed back to the ship, and he climbed up the side and in through the entry port unaided. Without further doses of ipecacuanha, his recovery had amazed the military surgeons ashore, but he was so thin that the skin hung in folds from his jowls like a bulldog, his belly had shrunk so that he had tied his breeches with a length of rope to keep them from sinking down past his flattened belly, but still they flapped around his shrunken buttocks.
His skin was the pale yellow of ancient ivory, and he was so weak he had to pause to rest when he reached the deck. Welcome aboard, Mr. Tippoo, ' Mungo called from the quarterdeck. 'And if you have finished your holiday ashore, I'll thank you to get this ship under way immediately Twelve days later, having struggled with flukey and variable winds, Mungo St. John played the field of his glass down the open gaping maw of False Bay. On his right hand rose the distinctive curved black peak of Hangklip, shaped from this angle like a shark's dorsal fin, and directly opposite it across the mouth of the bay the southernmost tip of the African continent, Cape Point, with its lighthouse perched high above the steep wet Cliffs.
It was a magnificent Cape summer's day, a light and fickle breeze scratching dark patches on the surface of the rolling dark blue sea, leaving the rest of it with a satiny gloss. There were seabirds working, their wings twinkling like flurrying; snow flakes in the sunlight, huge flocks of them that stretched low across the horizon.
Creeping along on the breeze, lying for minutes at a time completely becalmed, Huron took half a day to round the point and came on to west-northwest and a point north, the course that would carry her up the Atlantic, across the equator and finally into Charleston Roads.
Once they were on their new course, Mungo St. John had leisure to inspect the other sails that were in sight.
There were nine, no, ten other vessels in view now, for there was another far out to sea, just her topsails showing. They were small fishing craft out from Hout Bay and Table Bay, and the seabirds clouded the air about them, most of them were between Huron and the land, and all of them were bare-masted or under working sail as they plied their lines or their nets. Only the vessel furthest out was carrying topsails, and though she was hull down she gave to Mungo's seaman's eye the impression of being a bigger ship than the rest of the fishing fleet. There's a ship for you! ' Tippoo exclaimed, touching Mungo's arm to draw his attention and when he swung his glass back towards the land Mungo murmured with pleasure as a square-rigged East Indiaman came into view around the headland that guarded the entrance to Table Bay itself.
She was as splendid a sight as Huron was herself, canvas piled to the sky and her paintwork glearrung in snowy white and Burgundy red, the two lovely ships on reciprocal courses passed each other by two cableslength, the officers eyeing each other through their telescopes with professional interest and appraisal as they paid passing honours.
Robyn was also at Huron's rail, pining towards the land. The proximity of the beautiful ship interested her hardly at all, it was that flat-topped mountain from which she could barely tear her gaze. It was so very close, marking as it did her one hope of succour, her friends there, the British Governor and the Cape Squadron, if they only knew that she was a prisoner aboard this slave ship.
The thought was interrupted by an abrupt movement that she caught from the corner of her eye, strange how receptive she was to Mungo St. John's smallest movement, to his slightest change of expression, and now she saw that he had turned his back on the East Indiaman as she dwindled away astern, and instead he was peering intently over Huron's port side, his expression rapt, his whole body seemed charged with latent energy, and the hands that gripped the barrel of the telescope were ivory knuckled with tension.
Quickly she followed his gaze, and for the first time noticed a tiny shred of white on the horizon that did not fade like the white caps of the waves, but stood constant and bright in the sunlight, though even as she watched it seemed to alter its shape slightly and, was it her imagination, or was it a thin dark wavering line that seemed to appear behind it and spread slowly away in the direction of the wind? Mr. Tippoo, what do you make of that sail?
She heard the timbre of concern and alarm in Mungo St. John's tone, and her heart leapt wildly, with hope and a Judas dread.
For Clinton Codrington it had been a desperate run down the eastern coastline of southern Africa, long days and sleepless nights of unceasing strain, when hope and despair pendulumed against each other. Each shift or change in the wind either alarmed or encouraged him, for it would either aid or hinder the tall clipper ship he was racing to head. The calms elated him, and the revival of the south-easterly prevailing winds sent his spirits plunging.
On the last days there was another worry to plague him. He had burned his coal like a spendthrift on the long thousand-mile run southwards, and his engineer came up on deck, a small red-headed Scot with the grease and coal-dust etched into his skin so that he seemed to be suffering from some debilitating and incurable disease. The stokers' shovels be hitting the bottom of the bunkers already, he told Clinton with mournful relish. 'I warned ye, sir, that we'd not make it if you- Burn the ship's furniture if you must, Clinton snapped at him. 'You can start with my bunk, I'll not be needing it.'
And when the engineer would have argued further Clinton added, 'I don't care how you do it, Mr. MacDonald, but I want a full head of steam on your boiler until I reach Cape Point, and another full head of steam when I bring this ship into action.'
They raised the Cape Point lighthouse a few minutes after midnight the following night, and Clinton's voice was hoarse with fatigue and relief as he stooped over the voice pipe. Mr. MacDonald, you can let your fires damp down, but keep your furnaces warmed and ready to stoke. When I ask for steam again, I'll need it in a hurry. 'You'll be calling at Table Bay to take on fresh bunkers, of course, sir? 'I'll let you know when, Clinton promised him, and snapped the lid of the speaking tube closed and straightened up.
The Cape naval base, with all its amenities lay only a few hours steaming away. By dawn he could be filling Black fake with coal and water and fresh vegetables.
However, Clinton knew that within minutes of dropping anchor in Table Bay, Admiral Kemp or one of his representatives would be on his way out to the ship, and Clinton's term of independent command would be over.
He would revert to being a very junior commander, whose recent actions needed a great deal of explanation.
The closer that Clinton drew to Admiralty House, the louder the warnings of Sir John Bannerman rang in his ears, and the more soberly he was forced to review his own position. The excitement of storming Arab barracoons and of seizing slave-laden dhows on the high seas had long ago cooled, and Clinton realized that once he entered it he would not be able to escape again from Table Bay for weeks, or possibly months. It would not even suit his immediate plans to be seen and recognized from the land, for a boat would immediately be sent out by Admiral Kemp to order him in to face judgement and retribution.
