with her sail in disarray and her guns unmanned.
'Run out the starboard guns!' Mansur gave the order, and the lids of the gun ports crashed open. They crossed the dhow's stern so closely that Mansur could have thrown his hat on to her deck.
'Fire as you bear!'
In quick succession the cannons roared out, and each ball smashed into the dhow's stern. Mansur could see the timbers shatter and burst open in clouds of flying wood splinters. One of them as long as his arm pegged like an arrow into the mast beside his ear. At that range not a single shot missed the mark, and the iron balls raked through the dhow from stem to stern. There were screams of terror and agony from the crew as the Sprite sailed on past her into the open sea.
Following her closely through the channel in the coral, the Revenge bore down on the stricken vessel in her turn. As she passed she raked her again, and the dhow's single mast toppled and fell over side
Mansur looked ahead. The way was clear. Not one of the other dhows was in position to head them off. Kumrah's seemingly suicidal manoeuvre had taken them by surprise. 'Run in the guns!' he ordered. 'Close the ports and secure the gun tackles.'
He looked back and saw the Revenge only half a cable's length behind them. A long way back the dismasted dhow was drifting on to the reef, driven before the wind. She struck and heeled over violently. Through the glass Mansur saw her crew abandon her. They were leaping over the side, hitting the water with tiny white splashes, then striking out for the shore. Mansur wondered how many would survive the rip current at the foot of the cliffs, and the sharp fangs of the coral.
He backed his mainsail and let the Revenge come up alongside, close enough to enable his father to hail them through the speaking trumpet: Tell Kumrah never to play that trick on us again! He took us through the gates of hell.'
Kumrah made a deep and penitent obeisance, but Dorian lowered the trumpet and saluted his cool head and nerves. Then he lifted the trumpet again. 'It will be dark in an hour. I shall burn a single lantern in my stern port for you to keep your station on me. If we should become separated during the night, the rendezvous will be the same as always, Sawda island.'
The Revenge forged ahead and the Sprite fell in behind her. Weeks before Dorian had decided on their final destination. There was only one port in all the Ocean of the Indies open to them now. Zayn had all the Fever Coast and the harbours of Oman under his thrall. The Dutch had Ceylon and Batavia. The English East India Company controlled
all the coast of India. Sir Guy would close that to them. There remained only the safe haven of Fort Auspice in Nativity Bay. There they would be able to gather their reserves and make plans for the future. He had marked the chart and given Mustapha Zindara and bin-Shibam the sailing directions for Fort Auspice: they would send a ship to find him there as soon as they had united the desert tribes and made all the preparations for his return. They would need gold rupees and strong allies. Dorian was as yet uncertain as to where he would find men and money, but there would be time to ponder this later.
He turned to his immediate concerns, and the course that he set now was east by south-east to clear the Gulf of Oman. Once they were into the open ocean they could steer directly for Madagascar and pick up the Mozambique current to carry them southwards. Mansur took up close station on the Revenge and they sailed on beneath a sunset of awe inspiring grandeur. Mountainous anvil-headed thunderclouds marched along the darkling western horizon to the sound of distant thunder, and the sinking sun costumed them with suits of rosy gold and glittering cobalt blue.
Yet all this beauty could not lift from Mansur's shoulder the sudden oppressive weight of the melancholia that bore down upon him. He was leaving the land and the people he had swiftly learned to love. The promise of a kingdom and of the Elephant Throne had been snatched from them. Yet all that was of little account when he thought of the woman he had lost before he had won her. He took from the inner pocket of his robe the letter he carried close to his heart, and read yet again her words: 'Last night you asked me if I did not feel anything between you and me. I would not answer you then, but I answer you now. Yes, I do.'
It seemed to him that those were the most beautiful words ever written in the English language.
Darkness fell with the dramatic suddenness that is seen only in the tropics, and the stars showed through the gaps left in the high canopy of the storm clouds Within a short time they were closed by the rolling thunderheads and the darkness was complete, except for the tiny firefly of light that was the lantern on the stern of the Revenge.
Mansur leaned on the compass pinnacle and let himself lapse into romantic fantasy, dreaming half the night away without seeking his bunk. Suddenly, he was roused by a stroke of forked lightning that flew
from the cloud ceiling to the surface of the sea, and was followed immediately by a sky-shattering thunderclap. For an instant the Revenge appeared out of the darkness ahead, shimmering in vivid blue light, each detail of her rigging and sails stark and clear. Then the darkness fell over her again even more heavily than before.
Mansur jumped erect from his slouch over the binnacle and ran to the starboard rail. In that blinding lightning flash he thought he had seen something else. It had been an evanescent flash of reflected light, almost on the far horizon.
'Did you see it?' he shouted at Kumrah, who stood beside him at the rail.
'The Revenge.' Kumrah answered, from the darkness, and his tone was puzzled. 'Yes, Highness. She is not more than a single cable's length ahead. There you can see the glimmer of her stern light still.'
'No, no!' Mansur cried. 'Not on our bow. Abaft our beam. Something else.'
'Nay, master. I saw nothing.'
Both men peered out into the night, and again the lightning cracked overhead like a gigantic whip, then thunder deafened them and seemed to shiver the surface of the dark sea with its monstrous discharge. In that fleeting moment of diamond-sharp clarity Mansur saw it again.
'There!' Mansur seized Kumrah's shoulder and shook him violently. There! Did you see it this time?'
'A ship! Another ship!' Kumrah cried. 'I saw it clear.'
'How far off?'
'Two sea miles, no more than that. A tall ship. Square-rigged. That is no dhow.'
'Tis the Arcturusl Lying here in ambuscade.' Desperately Mansur looked to his father's ship, and saw that the tell-tale lantern still burned on her stern. 'The Revenge has not seen the danger.'
'We must catch up with her and warn her,' Kumrah exclaimed.
'Even if we clap on all our canvas we will not overhaul the Revenge and be within hail of her in less than a hour. By then it may be too late.' Mansur hesitated a moment longer, then made his decision: 'Beat to action quarters. Fire a gun to alert the Revenge. Then bring her on to the starboard tack and run in to intercept the enemy. Do not light the battle lanterns until I give the order. God grant we can take the enemy by surprise.'
The war drums boomed out into the dark, and as the crew scrambled to their stations a single peremptory gunshot thudded. As the Sprite came about, Mansur peered across at the other ship, waiting for her to extinguish her lantern or show some sign that she had taken heed of
the warning, but at that instant the thunderclouds burst open and the rain teemed down. All was lost in the warm, smothering cascade of water. It seemed to fill the air they breathed, cutting out any faint glimmer of light and muting all sound other than the roar of the heavy drops on the canvas overhead and the deck timbers underfoot.
Mansur ran back to the binnacle and took a hasty bearing, but he knew that it was not accurate, and that the enemy ship might also have spotted them and changed her course and heading. His chances of coming upon her in this deluge were remote. They might pass each other by half a pistol shot without either being aware of the other's presence.
Turn the hourglass and mark the traverse-board,' he ordered the helmsman. Perhaps he could intercept her on dead reckoning. Then he snapped at Kumrah, Tut two good men on the wheel.'
He hurried to the bows, and through the sheets of blinding rain tried for a glimpse of the stern lantern of the Revenge. He took little comfort from the fact that he could see and hear nothing.
'God grant that Father is aware of the danger, and that he has doused the lantern. Otherwise it might guide Sir Guy to him, and he could be taken unawares.' He considered firing another gun to emphasize the urgency of the danger, but discarded the idea almost at once. A second gun would confuse the warning. His father might be led to believe that the Sprite had already engaged an enemy. It might alert the Arcturus and bring her down upon them. Instead he sailed on into the darkness and the torrents of blood-warm rain.
'Send your sharpest lookouts aloft,' he ordered Kumrah grimly, 'and have the gunners ready to run out on the instant. We will not have much warning if we come upon the enemy.'
The hourglass was turned twice, and still they sailed on in darkness, every man aboard straining all his senses for some warning of the enemy ship. And the rain never let up.
The enemy might have sailed on without spotting us, Mansur thought. He pondered the chances and the choices that were open to him. Or she might have turned to
