light dead ahead!'
He placed one arm. around Judith's shoulders and she made no move to pull away from him. Instead, she leaned closer.
'There is the answer to your question,' he whispered. 'God has provided for us,' she replied.
'I must go aloft.' Hal dropped his arm from around her shoulders.
'Perhaps we are too hasty, and the devil is playing us tricks.' He strode across to Ned. 'Dark ship, Mister Tyler. I'll keel haul the man who shows a light. Silent ship, no sound or voice.' He went to the mainmast shrouds.
Hal climbed swiftly until he had joined Aboli. 'Where is this light?' He scanned the darkness ahead. 'I see nothing.'
'It has gone, but it was almost dead ahead.' 'A star in your eye, Aboli?'
'Wait, Gundwane. It was a small light and far away.'
The minutes passed slowly, and then suddenly Hal saw it. Not even a glimmer, but a soft luminescence, so nebulous that he doubted his eyes, especially as Aboli beside him had shown no sign of seeing it. Hal looked away to rest his eyes then turned back and saw in the darkness that it was still there, too low for a star, a weird unnatural glow.
'Yes, Aboli. I see it now.' As he spoke it became brighter, and Aboli exclaimed also. Then it died away again. 'it could be a strange vessel, not the Gull.'
'Surely the Buzzard would not be so careless as to show a running light.'
'A lantern in the stern cabin? The reflection from his binnacle?'
'Or one of his sailors enjoying a quiet pipe?
'Let us pray that it is one of those. It is where we could expect the Buzzard to be,' said Hal. 'We will keep after it until moonrise.'
They stayed together, peering ahead into the night. Sometimes the strange light showed as a distinct point, at others it was a faint amorphous glow, and often it disappeared. Once it was gone completely for a terrifying half hour, before it shone again perceptibly stronger.
'We are gaining,' Hal dared whisper. 'How far off now, do you reckon?'
'A league, said Aboli, 'maybe less.'
'Where is the moon?' Hal looked into the east, 'Will it never rise?'
He saw the first iridescence beyond the dark mountains of Arabia and, shyly as a bride, the moon unveiled her face. She laid down a silver path upon the waters, and Hal felt his breath lock in his chest and every sinew of his body drawn tight as a bowstring.
Out of the darkness ahead appeared a lovely apparition, soft as a cloud of op aline mist.
'There she is!' he whispered. He had to draw a deep breath to steady his voice. 'The Gull of Moray dead ahead.'
He grasped Aboli's arm. 'Do you go down and warn Ned Tyler and Big Daniel. Stay there until you can see the Gull from the deck, then come back.'
When Aboli was gone he watched the shape of the Gull's sails firm and harden in the moonlight, and he felt fear as he had seldom known it in his life, fear not only for himself but for the men who trusted him and the woman on the deck below and the child aboard the other ship. How could he hope to lay the Golden Bough alongside the Gull while she fired her broadsides into them, and they could make no reply? How many must die in the next hour and who would be among them? He thought of Judith Nazet's proud slim body torn by flying grape. 'Do not let it happen, Lord God. You have taken from me already more than I can bear.
How much more? How much more will you ask of me?'
He saw the light again on board the other ship. It glowed from the tall windows in her stern. Were there candles burning in there? He stared until his eyes ached, but there was no single source to the emanation of light.
There was a light touch on his arm. He had not heard Aboli climb back to him. 'The Gull is in sight from the deck, 'he told Hal softly.
Hal could not leave the masthead yet, for he felt a sense of religious dread as he stared at the strange light in the Gull's stern.
'Tis no lamp or lantern or candle, Aboli,' he said. 'Tis the Tabernacle of Mary that glows in the darkness. A beacon to guide me to my destiny.'
Aboli shivered beside him. 'Tis true that it is a light not of this world, a fairy light, such as I have never seen before.' His voice shook. 'But how do you know, Gundwane? How can you be so sure that it is the talisman that burns so?'
'Because I know,' said Hal simply, and as he said it the light died away before their eyes, and the Gull was dark. Only her moonlit sails towered before them.
'It was a sign,'Aboli murmured.
'Yes, it was a sign,' said Hal, and his voice was strong and serene once again. 'God has given me a sign.'
They climbed down to the deck, and Hal went directly to the helm. 'There she is, Mister Tyler.' They both looked ahead to where the Gull's canvas shone in the moonlight.
'Aye, there she is, Captain.'
'Douse the light in the binnacle. Lay me alongside the Gull, if you please. Have four spare helmsmen standing by to take the whipstall when the others are killed.'
'Aye, Sir.' Hal went forward. Big Daniel's figure emerged out of the darkness. 'Grappling irons, Master Daniel?'
'All ready, Captain. Me and ten of my strongest men will heave them.'
'Nay, Daniel, leave that to John Lovell. I have better work for you and Aboli. Come with me.'
He led Daniel and Aboli back to where Judith Nazet stood at the foot of the mainmast.
'The two of you will go with General Nazet. Take ten of your best seamen. Do not get caught up in the fighting on deck. Swift as you can, get down to the Gull's stern cabin. There you will find the Tabernacle and the child. Bring them out. Nothing must turn you aside from that purpose. Do you understand?'
'How do you know where they are holding the Emperor and the Tabernacle? 'Judith Nazet asked quietly.
'I know,' Hal said, with such finality that she was silent. He wanted to order her to stay in a safe place until the fight was over, but he knew she would refuse and besides which there was no safe place when two ships of such force were locked in mortal combat.
'Where will you be, Gundwane?'Aboli asked softly.
'I shall be with the Buzzard,' Hal said, and left them without another word.
He went towards the bows, pausing as he reached each of the divisions who crouched below the gunwale, and speaking softly to their boatswains. 'God love you, Samuel Moone. We might have to take a shot or two before we board her, but think of the pleasure that waits you on the Gull's deck.'
To Jiri he said, 'This will be such a fight as you will boast of to your grandchildren.'
He had a word for each, then stood once more in the bows and looked across at the Gull. She was a cable's length ahead now, sailing on serenely under her moon, radiant canvas.
'Lord, keep us hidden from them,' he whispered, and looked up at his own black sails, a tall dark pyramid against the stars.
Slowly, achingly slowly they closed the gap. She cannot elude us now, Hal thought, with grim satisfaction. We are too close.
Suddenly there came a wild scream of terror from the Gull's masthead. 'Sail ho! Dead astern! The Golden Bough!' Then all was shouting and confusion on the other ship's deck. There was the savage beat of a drum calling the Buzzard's crew to battle quarters, and the rush of many feet on her planking. A loud series of crashes as her gun ports were flung open, and then the squeal and rumble as the guns were run out. From twenty points along her dark rail came the glow of slow-match burning, and the glint of their reflection from steel.
'Light the battle lamps!' Hal heard the Buzzard's bellows of rage as he drove his panicky crew to their stations, then clearly his order to the helm. 'Hard to larboard! Lay the bastards under our broadside!
We'll give them such a good sniff of gunsmoke that they'll fart it in the devil's face when we send them down to hell.'
The Gull's battle lanterns flared, as she lit up to give her gunners light to work. In their yellow glow Hal glimpsed the Buzzard's bush of red hair.
Then the silhouette of the Gull altered rapidly as she came around. Hal nodded, the Buzzard had acted instinctively but unwisely. In his position Hal would have stood off and shot the Golden Bough to a wreck while she was unable to reply. Now he would have to be fortunate and quick to get off one steady broadside before the Golden Bough was upon him.
Hal grinned. The Buzzard was the victim of his own iniquity. Probably it had not even entered his calculations that Hal would hold his fire on account of a child and an ancient relic. If he were in the same position as Hal, the Buzzard would have blazed away with all his cannon.
As the Gull came slowly around, the Golden Bough flew at her and, for a moment, Hal thought they might be alongside her before her guns could bear.
They closed the last hundred yards and Ned had already given the order to shorten to fighting sail, when the Gull turned through the last few degrees of arc and all her guns were aimed straight at where Hal stood.
Looking directly into the Gull's battery,
