behind the Gull.' He pointed across the moonlit channel at the dark shape of the other ship. 'Have you thought what might happen if one of your fiendish vessels drifts past the mark and comes down upon us here? Dismasted as we are, we cannot manoeuvre the ship.'
'Aboli has already cut long bamboo poles in the forest.' Hal's tone could not conceal that he was weary to his bones. 'We will use them to deflect any drifters from us and send them harmlessly 'up onto the beach over there.' He turned and pointed back towards where the fires of the encampment flickered among the trees. 'The Buzzard will he taken by surprise, and will not be equipped with bamboo poles.'
At last his father was satisfied. 'Go to your rest now. Tomorrow night we will open the Lodge, and you must be able to make your responses to the catechism.' al came back reluctantly from the abyss of sleep into which he had sunk. For some moments he was not certain what had woken him. Then the soft scratching came again from the bulkhead.
Instantly he was fully awake, every vestige of fatigue forgotten He rolled off his pallet, and knelt at the panel. The scratching was now impatient and demanding. He tapped a swift reply on the woodwork, then fumbled in the darkness to find the stopper of his peep-hole. The moment he removed it, a yellow ray of lamp- light shone through but was cut off as Katinka placed her lips to the opening on the far side and whispered angrily, 'Where were you last night?'
'I had duties ashore, 'he whispered back.
'I do not believe you,' she told him. 'You try to escape your punishment. You deliberately disobey me.'
'No, no, I would not-' 'Open this panel at once.'
He groped for his dirk, which hung on his belt on the hook at the foot of his bunk, and prised out the dowels. The panel came away in his hands with only the faintest scraping sound. He set. it aside, and a square of soft light fell through the hatch.
'Come! her voice ordered, and he wriggled into the gap. It was a tight squeeze, but after a short struggle he found himself on his hands and knees on the deck of her cabin. He started to rise to his feet, but she stopped him.
'Stay down there.' He looked up at her as she stood over him, She was dressed in a flowing night-robe of some gossamer material. Her hair was loose and hung in splendour to her waist. The lamp-light shone through the cloth of her robe and silhouetted her body, the lustre of her skin gleaming through the transparent folds of silk.
'You have no shame,' she told him, as he knelt before her as though she were the sacred image of a saint. (You come to me naked. You show me no respect. I 'I am sorry!' he gasped. In his anxiety to obey her he had forgotten his own nudity, and now he cupped his hands over his privy parts. 'I Meant no disrespect.'
'No! DO not cover Your shame.) She reached down and pulled away his hands. Both stared down at his groin. They watched him slowly stretch out and thicken, thrusting out towards her, his prepuce peeling back of its own accord.
'Is there nothing I can do to stop such revolting behaviour?' Katinka took him by the hand and dragged him to his feet and after her into the splendid cabin where first he had laid eyes on her beauty.
She dropped onto the quilted bed, and sat facing him. The white silk skirts parted and fell back on each side of her long slim thighs. She twisted the handful of his curls, and said, in a voice that was suddenly breathless, 'You must obey me in all things, you child of the dark pit.'
Her thighs fell apart, and she pulled his face down and pressed it hard at their apex against the impossibly soft and silky mound of golden curls.
He smelt the sea in her, brine and kelp, and the scent of the sparkling living things of the oceans, the warm soft odour of the islands, of salt surf breaking on a sun-baked beach. He drank it in through flaring nostrils, and then tracked down the source of this fabulous aroma with his lips.
She wriggled forward on the satin covers to meet his mouth, her thighs spread wider, and she tilted her hips forward to open herself to him. With a handful of his curls, she moved his head, guiding him to that tiny bud of pink, taut flesh that nestled in its hidden crevice. As he found it with the tip of his tongue she gasped and she began to move herself against his face as though she rode bareback upon a galloping stallion. She gave. small incoherent contradictory cries. 'Oh, stop! Please stop! No! Never stop! Go on for ever!' Then suddenly she wrenched his head out from between her straining thighs, and fell backwards upon the covers lifting him over her. He felt her hard little heels dig into the small of his back as she wrapped her legs around him, and her fingernails, like knives, cutting into the tensed muscles of his shoulders. Then the pain was lost in the sensation of slippery engulfing heat as he slid deeply into her, and he smothered his cries in the golden tangle of her hair.
The three Knights had set up the Lodge on the slope of the hills above the lagoon, at the foot of a small waterfall that dropped into a basin of dark water surrounded by tall trees hung with lichens and lianas.
The altar stood within the circle of stones, the fire burning before it. Thus all the ancient elements were represented. The moon was in its first quarter, signifying rebirth and resurrection.
Hal waited alone in the forest while the three Knights of the Order opened the Lodge in the first degree. Then his father, his bared sword in his hand, came striding through the darkness to fetch him, and led him back along the path.
The other two Knights were waiting beside the fire in the sacred circle. Their swords were drawn, the blades gleaming in the reflection of the flames. Lying upon the stone altar under a velvet cloth, he saw the shape of his great-grandfather's Neptune sword. They paused outside the circle of stones and Sir Francis begged entrance to the Lodge.
'In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost!'
'Who would enter the Lodge of the Temple of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail?' Lord Cumbrae thundered, in a voice that tang against the hills, his long two-edged claymore glinting in his hairy red fist.
'A novice who presents himself for initiation into the mysteries of the Temple,' Hal replied, 'Enter on peril of your eternal life,' Cumbrae warned him, and Hal stepped into the circle. Suddenly the air seemed colder and he shivered, even as he knelt in the radiance of the watch fire
'Who sponsors this novice?' the Buzzard demanded again.
'I do.' Sir Francis stepped forward and Cumbrae turned back to Hal.
'Who are you?' 'Henry Courtney, son of Francis and Edwina.' The long catechism began as the starry wheel of the firmament turned slowly overhead and the flames of the watch fire sank lower.
It was after midnight when, at last, Sir Francis lifted the velvet covering from the Neptune sword. The sapphire on the hilt reflected a pate blue beam of moonlight into Hal's eyes as his father placed the hilt in his hands.
'Upon this blade you will confirm the tenets of your faith.'
'These things I believe,' Hal began, 'and I will defend them with my life. I believe there is but one God in Trinity, the Father eternal, the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost eternal.'
'Amen!' chorused the three Nautonnier Knights.
'I believe in the communion of the Church of England, and the divine right of its representative on earth, Charles, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.'
'Amen!' Once Hal had recited his beliefs, Cumbrae called upon him to make his knightly vows.
'I will uphold the Church of England. I will confront the enemies of my sovereign lord, Charles.' Hal's voice quivered with conviction and sincerity. 'I renounce Satan and all his works. I eschew all false doctrines and heresies and schisms. I turn my face away from all other gods and their false prophets.'
'I will protect the weak. I will defend the pilgrim. I will succour the needy and those in need of justice. I will take up the sword against the tyrant and the oppressor.'
'I will defend the holy places. I will search out and protect the precious relics of Christ Jesus and his Saints. I will never cease my quest for the Holy Grail that contained his sacred blood.'
The Nautonnier Knights crossed themselves as he made this vow, for the Grail quest stood at the centre of their belief. It was the granite column that held aloft the roof of their Temple.
'I pledge myself to the Strict Observance. I will obey the code of my Knighthood. I will abstain from debauchery and fornication,' Hal's tongue tripped on the word, but he recovered swiftly, 'and I will honour my fellow Knights. Above all else, I will keep secret all the proceedings of my Lodge.'
'And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!' the three Nautonnier Knights intoned in unison. Then they stepped forward and formed a ring around the kneeling novice. Each laid one hand on his bowed head and the other on the hilt of his sword, their hands overlapping each other.
'Henry Courtney, we welcome you into the Grail company, and we accept you as brother Knight of the Temple of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail.'
Richard Lister spoke first, in his sonorous Welsh voice, almost singing his blessing. 'I welcome you into the Temple. May you always follow the Strict Observance.'
Cumbrae spoke next. 'I welcome you into the Temple. May the waters of far oceans open wide before the bows of your ship,' and may the force of the wind drive you on.'
Then Sir Francis Courtney spoke with his hand firmly
