across the seas with no danger in it.' He chuckled, and swept the bay with his telescope, checking that nothing had changed since his last visit, that there were no lurking dangers such as newly em placed cannon along the shore.
Even though the sun was past its noon and it was a long journey back to where the longboat waited on the beach, he spent a little longer studying the rigging of the prize through the glass. Once he had seized her, his men must be able to get her sails up speedily, and work her off the lee shore in the darkness.
It was after midnight when the Buzzard, using as his landmark the immense bulk of Table Mountain which blotted out half the southern sky, brought the Gull into the bay from the west. He was confident that, even on a clear starry night like this with half a moon shining, he was still well out of sight of the lookout on Lion's Head.
The dark whale shape of Robben Island rose with startling suddenness out of the gloom ahead. He knew there was no permanent settlement on this barren piece of rock so he was able to bring the Gull close into its lee, and drop his anchor in seven fathoms of protected water.
The longboat on deck was ready to launch. No sooner had the cat ted anchor splashed into the easy swells, than it was swung outboard and dropped to the surface. The Buzzard had already inspected the boarding-party. They were armed with pistol and cutlass and oak clubs, and their faces were darkened with lamp-black so that they looked like a party of wild savages with only their eyes and teeth gleaming. They were dressed in pitch-blackened sea-jackets, and two men had axes to cut the anchor cable of the prize.
The Buzzard was the last man down the ladder into the longboat, and as soon as he was aboard they pushed off. The oars were muffled, the row locks padded, and the only sound was the dip of the blades, but even this was lost in the breaking of the waves and the gentle sighing of the wind.
Almost immediately they crept out from behind the island they could see the lights on the mainland, two or three pinpricks from the watch fires on the walls of the fort, and lantern beams from the buildings outside the walls, spread out along the se afront
The three vessels he had spotted from the saddle of the mountains were still anchored in the roads. Each showed a riding lantern at the masthead, and another at the stern. Cumbrae grinned in the darkness. 'Most obliging of the cheese-heads to put out a welcome for us. Don't they know there's a war a-raging?'
From this distance he was not yet able to distinguish one ship from, the others, but his boat- crews pulled eagerly, the scent of the prize in their nostrils. Half an hour later, even though they were still well out in the bay, Cumbrae was able to pick out the Lady Edwina. He discarded her from his calculations and switched all his interest to the other vessel, which had not changed position and still lay furthest away from the batteries of the fort.
'Steer for the ship on the larboard side,' he ordered his boatswain in a whisper. The long-boat-altered a point, and the beat of the oars picked up. The second boat was close astern, like a hunting dog at heel, and Cumbrae peered back at its dark shape, grunting with approval. All the weapons were covered, there was no reflection of moonlight off a naked blade or pistol barrel to flash a warning to the watch on board the chase. Neither was there a lit match to send the reek of smoke down the wind, or a glow of light ahead of their arrival.
As they glided in towards the anchored vessel Cumbrae read her name from her transom, De Swael, the Swallow. He was alert for any sign of an anchor watch. this was a lee shore, with &e sou'-easter swirling unpredictably around the mountain, but either the Dutch captain was remiss or the watch was asleep for there was no sign of life aboard the dark ship.
Two sailors stood ready to fend off from the side of the Swallow as they touched and mats of knotted oakum hung over the longboat's side to soften the impact. A solid contact of timbers against hull would carry through the ship like the sounding body of a viol and wake every hand aboard.
They touched with the gentleness of a virgin's kiss, and one of the men, chosen for his simian climbing prowess, shot up the side and immediately made a line fast to the shackle of a gun train and dropped the coil back into the boat below.
Cumbrae paused long enough to lift the shutter of the storm lantern and light the slow-match from the flame, then seized the line and went up on bare feet hardened by hunting the stag without boots. In a silent rush the crews of both boats, also barefoot, followed him.
Cumbrae jerked the marlin spike from his belt and, his boatswain at' his side, raced silently to the bows. The anchor watch was curled on the deck, out of the wind, sleeping like a hound in front of the hearth. The Buzzard stooped over him and clipped his skull with one sharp blow of the iron spike. The man sighed, uncurled his limbs and sagged into an even deeper state of unconsciousness.
His men were already at each of the Swallow's hatches, leading to the lower decks, and as Cumbrae ran back towards the stern they were quietly closing the covers and battening them down, imprisoning the Dutch crew below decks.
'There'll not be more than twenty of a crew on board her,' he muttered to himself. 'And, like as not, de Ruyter will have taken most of the prime seamen for the Navy. They'll be only boys and fat old fools on their last legs. I doubt they'll give us too much trouble.'
He looked up at the dark figures of his men silhouetted against the stars as they raced up the shrouds and danced out along the yards. As the sails unfurled, he heard from forward the soft clunk of an axe blow as the anchor cable was severed. Immediately the Swallow came alive and unfettered under his feet as she paid off before the wind. Already his boatswain was at the whipstall.
'Take her straight out. Due west!' Cumbrae snapped, and the man put her head up into the wind as close as she would point.
Cumbrae saw at once that the heavily laden ship was surprisingly handy, and that they would be able to weather Robben Island on this tack. Ten armed men waited ready to follow him. Two carried shuttered storm lanterns, all had match burning for their pistols. Cumbrae seized one of the lanterns and led his men at a run down into the officers' quarters in the stern. He tried the door of the cabin that must open out onto the stern galleries and found it unlocked. He went through it swiftly and silently. When he flashed the lantern, a man in a tasselled night cap sat up in the bunk.
Wic is dit?' he challenged sleepily. Cumbrae swept the bedclothes over his head to smother any further outcry, left his men to subdue and bind the captain, ran out into the passageway and burst into the next cabin. Here another Dutch officer was already awake. Plump and middle-aged, his greying hair tangled in his eyes, he was still staggering groggily with sleep as he groped for his sword where it hung in its scabbard at the foot of his bunk. Cumbrae shone the lantern in his eyes, and placed the sharp point of his claymore at the man's throat.
'Angus Cumbrae, at your service,' said the Buzzard. 'Yield, or I'll feed you to the gulls a wee bit tie at a time.' The Dutchman might not have understood the buffed Scots accent, but Cumbrae's meaning was unmistakable. Gaping at him, he raised both hands above his head and the boarding-party swarmed over him and bore him to the deck, wrapping his bedclothes around his head.
Cumbrae ran on to the last cabin but, as he laid his hand on the door, it was' flung open from inside with such force that he was thrown across the passage into the bulkhead. A huge figure charged out of the darkened doorway with a blood-curdling yell. He aimed a full overhead blow at the Buzzard, but in the narrow confines of the passageway the blade of his sword slashed into the door lintel, giving Cumbrae an instant to recover. Still bellowing with rage the stranger cut at him again. This time the Buzzard parried and the blade sped over his shoulder to shatter the panel behind him. The two big men raged down the passageway, fighting at close range, almost chest to chest. The Dutchman was shouting insults in a mixture of English and his own language, and Cumbrae answered him in full- blooded Scottish tones. 'You blethering cheese-headed nun-raper! I'll stuff your giblets down your ear-hqles.' His men danced around them with clubs raised, waiting for an opportunity to cut down the Dutch officer, but Cumbrae shouted, 'Don't kill him! He's a dandy laddie, and he'll fetch a pretty price at ransom!'
Even in the uncertain lantern light, he had recognized his adversary's quality. Freshly roused from his bunk the Dutchman wore no wig on his shaven head but his fine pointed moustaches showed him to be a man of fashion. His embroidered linen nightshirt and the sword he wielded with the panache of a duelling master all proved that he was a gentleman, and no mistake.
The longer blade of the claymore was a disadvantage in the restricted space, and Cumbrae was forced to use the point rather than the double edges. The Dutchman thrust, then feinted low and slipped in under his guard. Cumbrae hissed with anger as the steel flew under his raised right arm, missing him by a finger's width and slashing a shower of splinters from the panel behind him.
Before his adversary could recover, the Buzzard whipped his left arm around the man's neck and enfolded him in a bear-hug. Locked together in the narrow passage, neither man could use his sword. They dropped them and wrestled from one end of the corridor to the other, snarling and snapping like a pair of fighting dogs, then grunting and howling with pain and outrage as first one then the other threw a telling fist to the head or smashed his elbow into the other's belly.
'Crack his skull,' Cumbrae gasped at his men. 'Knock the brute down.' He was unaccustomed to being bested in a straight trial of muscle, but the other was his match. His up-thrust knee crashed into the Buzzard's crotch, and he howled
