have not marked it on the chart.' Kumrah pricked the waxed leather with the point of his dividers. 'Some things are best kept from the eyes of the world. But it is here.'
'How much longer to run?' Mansur asked.
'If this wind holds, we will be there an hour after noon.'
'By then the Arcturus will have overhauled the Revenge.' Mansur glanced across his father's ship.
'If it is God's will,' said Kumrah, with resignation, 'for God is great.'
'We must try to shield the Revenge from the fire of the Arcturus until we reach the Deceiver.' Mansur gave Kumrah his orders, then went back to the stern where the gun-crew were gathered around the nine-pounder.
Kumrah shortened sail again and dropped back until he could interpose the Sprite between the other two ships. During that time the Arcturus fired twice with her bow chaser. Both shots fell short. However, the Arcturus's next splashed heavily alongside the Revenge.
'Very well.' Mansur nodded. 'We can try a ranging shot at her now.'
He chose a round-shot from the locker, rolling it under his foot to check its symmetry. Then he measured the charge of powder with care, and had his crew swab the bore carefully to remove as much powder residue as possible.
Once the gun was loaded and run out he stood behind it and noted how the stern of the Sprite lifted and yawed as she rode over the swells. He calculated the adjustments necessary to counteract these movements. Then, slow-match in hand, he stood well clear of the breech and watched for the next swell. As the Sprite kicked up her heels and lifted her stern, like a flirtatious girl swishing her skirts, he pressed the burning end of the match to the quill of powder in the touch-hole. The elevation would give the iron ball the extra carry.
I he long cannon bellowed and slammed back into its tackle. Verity and Kumrah were watching for the fall of shot.
Seconds later they picked out the tiny feather of white that jumped from the surface of the dark sea. 'Short by a hundred yards and about three degrees left,' Verity called sharply.
Mansur grunted and wound the elevation screw to its maximum height. They fired again. 'Under again, but on line.' They kept firing steadily.
The Revenge had joined in the bombardment. The Arcturus closed in slowly, firing her bow chasers as she came on. However, by the middle of the morning none of the ships had managed a hit, although some of the shot had fallen close. Mansur and his gun-crew were stripped to the waist in the rising heat: their bodies were shining with sweat, and their faces were blackened with gunsmoke. The barrel of the cannon was too hot to touch. The wet swab sizzled and steamed as it was thrust down the bore. For the twenty-third time that morning they ran out the long nine-pounder and Mansur laid it with care. The Arcturus appeared much taller as he squinted at it over the sights. He stood back and waited for the pitch and roll of the hull under him before he fired.
The gun carriage bounded back violently and slammed against its tackle. This time, though they strained their eyes through the lens, there was no splash of falling shot. Instead Verity saw shattered timbers explode from the Arcturus's bows and one of her chaser cannon knocked from its carriage and upended.
''A hit! A very palpable hit!'
'Say Miss Verity and the Bard!' Mansur laughed and gulped down a mouthful from the water dipper before laying the next shot.
Seemingly in retaliation, the Arcturus dropped a ball from the remaining bow chaser so close under the Sprite's stern that a fountain of spray rose high into the air, then cascaded over them, drenching them to the skin.
All this time the rocky cape of Ras al-Had was rising higher out of the sea, and Arcturus was slowly overhauling them from astern.
'Where is Kos al-Heem?' Mansur asked impatiently.
'You will not see it until you are about to strike. That is how it was given the name, but these are the landmarks. The white streak in the cliff face, there. The tip of the egg-shaped rock that stands to the left of it, there!'
'I want you to take the helm now, Kumrah. Luff her a little and spill your wind. I want to let the Arcturus close up to us, without making it obvious that it is deliberate.'
The raging duel between the ships carried on. Mansur hoped to distract Cornish's attention from the hazard ahead, and to let the Revenge draw further ahead. The Arcturus came on eagerly, and within
the hour she was so close that through the glass Mansur and Verity could recognize the burly figure and distinctive features of Captain Ruby Cornish.
'And there is Sir Guy!' Mansur had been about to say 'your father', but he changed the words at the last moment. He did not want to emphasize the relationship of his enemy to his love.
In comparison to Ruby Cornish, Guy Courtney cut a slim, elegant figure. He had changed his attire, and even in this heat he wore a cocked hat and a blue coat with scarlet lapels, tight-fitting white breeches and black boots. He stood staring across at them. His expression was set and hard, and there was a deadly purpose about him that chilled Verity to the marrow: she well knew this mood of his and dreaded it like the cholera.
'Kumrah!' Mansur called to him. 'Where is this Deceiver? Where is Kos al-Heemi' Is it something you dreamed after a pipe of hashish?'
Kumrah glanced at the Revenge, which had forged slowly ahead. She was now leading them by a quarter of a sea mile.
The Caliph, your revered father, is almost upon the Deceiver.'
'I can see no sign of it.' Minutely Mansur studied the waters ahead of the other ship, but the swells marched on inexorably, and there was no break or check in their ranks; no swirl nor flurry of white water that he was able to descry.
That is why it is called the Deceiver,' Kumrah reminded him. 'It keeps its secrets well. It has murdered a hundred ships and more, including the galley of Ptolemy, the general and favourite of the mighty Isakander. It was only by God's favour that he survived the wreck.'
'God is great,' Mansur murmured automatically.
'Praise God,' Kumrah agreed and, as he spoke, the Revenge abruptly put up her helm and turned her bows into the wind. With all her sails backed and shuddering, she have to.
'Ah!' cried Kumrah. 'Baris has found and marked the Deceiver for us.'
'Run out the port battery and prepare to come about on the starboard tack,' Mansur ordered. While the crew ran to their battle stations, he eyed the approaching Arcturus.
She was rushing in towards them jubilantly, with every stitch of canvas set. Even as he watched, Mansur saw the lids of her gun ports crash open and the muzzles of her cannon poke out menacingly along her sides. He turned and strode forward until he had a full view of the Revenge, hove-to dead ahead; she also had run out her guns, offering battle.
Mansur went back to the helm. He was conscious that from the angle
below the poop Verity was watching him intently. Her expression was calm and she showed no fear.
'I would like you to go below, my love,' he told her quietly. 'We will very soon be under fire.'
She shook her head. 'The ship's timbers offer no protection from nine-pound iron balls. This I know from experience,' she replied, with a naughty sparkle in her eyes, 'when you fired upon me.'
'I have never apologized for my bad manners in so doing.' He smiled back at her. 'It was unforgivable. But I swear I will make it up to you in spades and trumps.'
'All other things apart, from now on my place is at your side, not cowering under the bunk.'
'I shall always treasure your presence,' he said, and turned to look back at the Arcturus. She was within easy cannon shot at last. Now he must engage all her attention, and lure her on at the top of her speed. Kumrah was watching for his order.
'Up helm,' Mansur snapped, and the Sprite turned like a dancer. Suddenly she had turned her full broadside on the Arcturus.
'Steady, gunners!' Mansur shouted, through the trumpet. 'Make good your aim!' One after the other the captains raised their right arms to show that they had laid their pieces true.
Tire!' Mansur cried, and the broadside bellowed out like a single clap of thunder. Gunsmoke poured back across the deck in a thick grey cloud, but was almost at once blown away by the wind and they could see a single spout of seawater rise from under the Arcturus's bows, but the rest of the broadside smashed into her stem, tearing holes in her timbers. The ship seemed to tremble to these terrible blows but came on without a check in her speed.
'Bring her about on the old course,' Mansur ordered, and the Sprite obeyed her helm at once. They sped away towards where the Revenge lay waiting for them. Bows on to them, the Arcturus had not been able to fire her own broadside in return, but the manoeuvre had cost the Sjrrite almost all of her lead, and the enemy was scarcely more than a cable's length behind her. She fired her bow chaser, and the Sprite shuddered as the ball struck her stem and tore through her hull.
Kumrah was staring ahead with slitted eyes, but Mansur could see no sign of the Deceiver. Kumrah called a correction to the helm and the man on the wheel eased her over to port a trifle. This cleared the range for the
