repaired win dripped canvas, and watched him. He was as robust and broad-shouldered as a lad three years older, and long in limb he already stood as tall as his father. Yet he still retained the fresh smooth skin, the unlined face and sunny expression of boyhood. His hair, tied with a thong behind his head, spilled from under his cap and glistened blueblack in the early sunlight. At this age his beauty was still almost feminine, and after more than four months at sea since they had laid eyes on a woman some, whose fancy lay in that direction, watched him lasciviously.
Hal reached the main yard and left the security of the mast. He ran out along it, balancing with the ease of an acrobat forty feet above the curling rush of the bow wave and the planks of the main deck.
Now every eye was on him-. it was a feat that few aboard would care to emulate.
'For that you have to be young and stupid,' Ned Tyler growled, but shook his head fondly as he leaned against the whipstall and stared up.
'Best the little fool does not let his father catch him playing that trick.'
Hal reached the end of the yard and without pause swung out onto the brace and slid down it until he was ten feet above the deck. From there he dropped to land lightly on his hard bare feet, flexing his knees to absorb the impact on the scrubbed white planks.
He bounced up, turned towards the stern and froze at the sound of an inhuman cry. It was a primordial bellow, the menacing challenge of some great predatory animal.
Hal remained pinned to the spot for only an instant then instinctively spun away as a tall figure charged down upon him. He heard the fluting sound in the air before he saw the blade and ducked under it. The silver steel flashed over his head and his attacker roared again, a screech of fury.
Hal had a glimpse of his adversary's face, black and glistening, a cave of a mouth lined with huge square white teeth, the tongue as pink and curled as a leopard's as he screamed.
Hal danced and swayed as the silver blade came arcing back. He felt a tug at the sleeve of his jerkin as the sword point split the leather, and fell back.
'Ned, a blade!' he yelled wildly at the helmsman behind him, never taking his eyes off those of his assailant. The pupils were black and bright as obsidian, the iris opaque with fury, the whites engorged with blood.
Hal leaped aside at the next wild charge, and felt on his cheek the draught of the blow. Behind him he heard the scrape of a cutlass drawn from the boatswain's scabbard, and the weapon slide across the deck towards him. He stooped smoothly and gathered it up, the hilt coming naturally to his hand, as he went into the guard stance and aimed the point at the eyes of his attacker.
In the face of Hal's menacing blade, the tall man checked his next rush and when, with his left hand, Hal drew from his belt his ten-inch dirk and offered that point also, the mad light in his eyes turned cold and appraising. They circled each other on the open deck below the mainmast, their blades weaving, touching and tapping lightly, as each sought an opening.
The seamen on the deck left their tasks even those on the handles of the pumps and came running to form a ring around the swordsmen as though they watched a cockfight, their faces alight with the prospect of seeing blood spurt. They growled and hooted at each thrust and parry, and urged on their favourites.
'Hack out his big black balls, young Hal!' 'Pluck the cockerel's saucy tail feathers for him.' Aboli stood five inches taller than Hal, and there was no fat on his lean, supple frame. He was from the eastern coast of Africa, of a warrior tribe highly prized by the slavers. Every hair had been carefully plucked from his pate, which gleamed like polished black marble, and his cheeks were adorned with ritual tattoos, whorls of raised cicatrices that gave him a terrifying appearance. He moved with a peculiar grace, on those long muscular legs, swaying from the waist like some huge black cobra. He wore only a petticoat of tattered canvas, and his chest was bare. Each muscle in his torso and upper arms seemed to have a life of its own, serpents slithering and coiling beneath the oiled skin.
He lunged suddenly, and with a desperate effort Hal turned the blade, but. almost in the same instant Aboli reversed the blow, aiming once more at his head. There was such power in his stroke that Hal knew he could not block it with cutlass alone. He threw up both blades, crossing them, and trapped the Negro's high above his head. Steel rang and thrilled on steel, and the crowd howled at the skill and grace of the parry.
But at the fury of the attack Hal gave a pace, and another then another as Aboli pressed him again and again, giving him no respite, using his greater height and superior strength to counter the boy's natural ability.
Hal's face mirrored his desperation. He gave more readily now and his movements were uncoordinated: he was tired and fear dulled his responses. The cruel watchers turned against him, yelling for blood, urging on his implacable opponent.
'Mark his pretty face, Aboli!' 'Give us a look at his guts!'
Sweat greased Hal's cheeks and his expression crumpled as Aboli drove him back against the mast. He seemed much younger suddenly, and on the point of tears, his lips quivering with terror and exhaustion. He was no longer counter-attacking. Now it was all defence. He was fighting for his life.
Relentlessly Aboli launched a fresh attack, swinging at Hal's body, then changing the angle to cut at his legs. Hal was near the limit of his strength, only just managing to fend off each blow.
Then Aboli changed his attack once more: he forced Hal to overreach by feinting low to the left hip, then shifted his weight and lunged with a long right arm. The shining blade flew straight through Hal's guard and the watchers roared as at last they had the blood they craved.
Hal reeled sideways off the mast and stood panting in the sunlight, blinded by his own sweat. Blood dripped slowly onto his jerkin but from a nick only, made with a surgeon's skill.
'Another scar for you each time you fight like a woman!' Aboli scolded him.
With an expression of exhausted disbelief, Hal raised his left hand, which still held the dirk, and with the back of his fist wiped the blood from his chin. The tip of his earlobe was neatly split and the quantity of blood exaggerated the severity of the wound.
The spectators bellowed with derision and mirth.
'By Satan's teeth!' one of the coxswains laughed. 'The pretty boy has more blood than he has guts!'
At the gibe, a swift transformation came over Hal. He lowered his dirk and extended the point in the guard position, ignoring the blood that still dripped from his chin. His face was blank, like that of a statue, and his lips set and blanched frosty white. From his throat issued a low growl, and he launched himself at the Negro.
He exploded across the deck with such speed that Aboli was taken by surprise and driven back. When they locked blades he felt the new power in the boy's arm, and his eyes narrowed. Then Hal was upon him like a wounded wildcat bursting from a trap.
Pain and rage put wings on his feet. His eyes were pitiless and his clenched jaws tightened the muscles of his face into a mask that retained no trace of boyishness. Yet his fury had not robbed him of reason and cunning. All the skill that the lad had accumulated, over hundreds of hours and days upon the practice deck, suddenly coalesced.
The watchers bayed as this miracle took place before their eyes. It seemed that, in that instant, the boy had become a man, had grown in stature so that he stood chin to chin and eye to eye with his dark adversary.
It cannot last, Aboli told himself, as he met the attack. His strength cannot hold out. But this was a new man he confronted, and he had not yet recognized him.
Suddenly he found himself giving ground he will tire soon but the twin blades that danced before his eyes seemed dazzling and ethereal, like the dread spirits of the dark forests that had once been his home.
He looked into the pale face and burning eyes and did not know them. He felt a superstitious awe assail him, which slowed his right arm. This was a demon, with a demon's unnatural strength. He knew that he was in danger of his life.
The next coup sped at his chest, glancing through his guard like a sunbeam. He twisted aside his upper body, but the thrust raked under his raised left arm. He felt no pain but heard the rasp of the razor edge against his ribs, and the warm flood of blood down his flank. And he had ignored the weapon in Hal's left fist and the boy used either hand with equal ease.
At the edge of his vision he saw the shorter, stiffer blade speed towards his heart and threw himself back to avoid it. His heel caught in the tail of the yard brace, coiled on the deck, and he went sprawling. The elbow of his sword arm slammed into the gunwale, numbing it to the fingertips, and the cutlass flew from his fingers.
On his back, Aboli looked up helplessly and saw death above him in those terrifying green eyes. This was not the face of the child who had been his ward and special charge for the last decade, the boy he had cherished and trained and loved over ten long years. This was a man who would kill him. The bright point of the cutlass started down, aimed at his throat, with the full weight of the lithe young body behind it.
'Henry!' A stern, authoritative voice rang across the deck, cutting through the hubbub of the blood-crazed spectators.
Hal started, and stood still with the point against Aboli's throat. A bemused expression spread across his face, like that of an awakening dreamer, and he looked up
