Revenge, and now she could fire without fear of hitting the Sprite. She was still presenting her broadside to the enemy, and disappeared momentarily behind the curtain of her own gunsmoke as she let fly with all her cannon.
The range was long but she hit with at least some of her shot. The Arcturus was so close by now that Mansur could hear the iron round shot strike against her timbers like heavy hammer strokes.
'That will invite all Cornish's attention,' Verity said, and her voice was clear in the sudden silence that followed the broadside. Mansur did not answer. He was gazing ahead with a worried frown.
'Where is this triple-damned Deceiver--' He broke off as he saw the sparkle of bright specks like drifting snowflakes deep in the blue waters directly under their bows. They were so unexpected that for a moment he was at a loss. Then it dawned upon him.
'Fusiliers!' he exclaimed. These shoals of tiny, jewelled fish always hung over submerged reefs, even out here in the mid-water at the edge of the continental shelf. The shoals scattered as the Sprite's hull cut through them, and Mansur saw the dark, terrible shadows rising from the depths, like blackened fangs, directly in the ship's path. Kumrah stepped across and pushed away the helmsman. Then he took the wheel of his ship in lover's hands to steer her through.
Mansur saw the dark shapes harden as they rushed down upon them. They were three horns of granite that reached up from dark waters to within a fathom of the sunlit surface. So sharp were the points that they offered little resistance to the flow and push of currents and waves. This accounted for the lack of surface turbulence.
Instinctively Mansur held his breath as Kumrah steered into the centre of this cruel crown of stone. He felt Verity's hand on his arm as she clung to him for comfort, her fingernails digging painfully into his flesh.
The Sprite touched the rock. To Mansur it felt as though he had ridden a horse at full gallop through the forest and a thornbush had tugged at his sleeve. The deck shuddered softly under his feet, and he heard the granite horn rasp against their bottom timbers. Then the Sprite pulled herself free and they were through. Mansur let the air out of his lungs with a sigh, and beside him Verity cried, 'That was as close as I ever want to be.'
Mansur seized her hand and they ran back to the stern rail. They watched the Arcturus run into the trap at full tilt. Despite her battle damage and her soot-blackened rigging she presented a beautiful picture, with every sail drawing and a tall white bow wave sparkling and curling back from her forefoot.
She hit the stone pinnacles and stopped dead in the water, transformed in a single instant from a thing of airy grace to a shambles. Her foremast snapped off level with the deck and half her yards came tumbling down. Her underwater timbers crackled and roared as they
shattered and she hung in the water like part of the reef. The granite horns of the Deceiver were driven deep into her belly. The top yards men in her rigging were hurled from their perches, like pellets from a slingshot, to splash into the water half a pistol shot from the ship's side. The rest of her crew were skittled down the deck to slam into the masts and bulwarks. Their own cannons were turned against them as they were catapulted into the unyielding metal with the full impetus of the ship's way. Arms, legs and ribs broke like green twigs, and skulls cracked like eggs dropped on to a stone-flagged floor. The crews of the two smaller vessels lined the sides, and stared in awe at the devastation they had wrought, too overwhelmed to cheer the destruction of the enemy.
Mansur have to alongside his father's ship. 'What now, Father?'
'We cannot leave Guy in such a state,' Dorian shouted back. 'We must render what help we can. I shall go across in the longboat.'
'No, Father!' Mansur called back. 'You can spend no more time here. Your ship is also in extremes. You must go on to find the safe harbour at Sawda island, where we can repair the underwater damage before she founders and sinks.'
'But what of Guy and his men?' Dorian hesitated. 'What is to become of them?'
'I shall take care of that business,' Mansur promised. 'You can be certain that I will not let your brother, Verity's father, perish here.'
Dorian and Batula conferred quickly, and then Dorian returned to the Revenge's side. 'Very well! Batula agrees that we must get into safe anchorage before another storm brews up. We cannot ride out rough seas in the shape we are now in.'
'I shall take off the survivors from the Arcturus, and follow you with all speed.'
Dorian put the Revenge once more before the wind, and headed in towards the mainland. Mansur handed over command to Kumrah, and went down into the longboat. He stood in the stern sheets as they rowed in towards the stranded and heavily listing Arcturus. As soon as they were within easy hail he ordered the boat crew to rest on their oars. 'Arcturus! I have a surgeon with me. What help do you need?'
Cornish's red face appeared over the top of the canted bulwark. 'We have many broken limbs. I need to get the wounded back to the infirmary on Bombay island, or they will die.'
'I am coming on board!' Mansur shouted back.
But another voice rang out angrily: 'Stand off, you filthy rebel scum!' Sir Guy Courtney was clinging to the main shrouds with one hand. His other arm was thrust into the front of his jacket, using it as a makeshift sling. He had lost his hat, and fresh blood caked his hair and the side of
his face from the deep lacerations in his scalp. 'If you try to board this ship I shall fire into you.'
'Uncle Guy!' Mansur called. 'I am your brother Dorian's son. You must allow me to help you and your men.'
'In God's Holy Name, you are no kith or kin of mine. You are a heathen bastard, an abductor and violator of innocent English woman'
hood.'
'Your men need help. You yourself are wounded. Let me take you and your men to the port of Bombay island.'
Guy did not reply but staggered along the listing deck to the nearest cannon. He snatched a smoking slow-match from the sand tub. The heavy weapon still poked its gleaming bronze barrel through the open gun port but Mansur was not alarmed. The weapon was harmless. The angle of the deck pointed the muzzle down into the water close alongside.
'Listen to reason, Uncle. My father and I wish you no harm. You are of our blood. See! I am unarmed.' He held up his open hands to prove it. But with a chill of horror he realized that Guy was not intending to fire the great cannon. Instead he seized the long handle of the murderer that sat squat and ugly in its gimbal fixed to the bulwark: it was a hand cannon, designed to repel enemy boarders, loaded with a hatful of lead goose-shot. At short range its name described its gruesome capabilities accurately.
The longboat was close under the side of the Arcturus. Guy swivelled the murderer towards them and squinted over the crude notch-and-pin sights at Mansur. The flared muzzle of the gun seemed to leer at them obscenely.
'I gave you fair warning, you lecherous swine.' He thrust the burning match into the touch-hole.
'Down!' shouted Mansur, and flung himself on to the deck. His crew was slow to follow his example and the blast of goose-shot swept through them. In the screams of the wounded Mansur pulled himself upright again. His shirt was splashed by the brains of his coxswain, and three dead men lay piled against the boat's side. Two others were clutching their wounds and struggling in puddles of their own blood. Seawater spurted in through the holes the goose-shot had torn in the planking.
Mansur rallied those of the crew who were unharmed. 'Pull back for the Sprite!' and they flung themselves on the oars with a will. From the stern sheets Mansur shouted back at the figure that still clung to the handle of the smoking hand-cannon: 'Rot your black soul, Guy Courtney. You bloody butcher! These were unarmed men on an errand of mercy.'
Mansur stormed back on to the deck of the Sprite. His face was white and set with rage. 'Kumrah,' he snarled, 'get our dead and wounded on board, then load all our guns with grape. I am going to give that murderous swine a taste of his own dung.'
Kumrah brought the Sprite round on to the port tack and at Mansur's direction steered in to pass the stranded wreck of the Arcturus at a distance of a hundred paces, the optimum range in which the grape would wreak the most slaughter.
'Stand by to fire as you bear!' Mansur called to his gunners. 'Sweep her deck clean. Kill them all. When you have done we will put fire into her and burn her down to the water-line.' He was still trembling with rage.
The crew of the Arcturus saw death coming down upon them, and scattered across the deck. Some ran below and others threw themselves over the side and thrashed around clumsily in the water. Only Captain Cornish and his master Sir Guy Courtney stood four-square and faced the Sprite's gaping broadside.
Mansur felt a light touch on his arm and glanced down. Verity stood beside him. Her face was pale but expressionless. 'This is murder,' she said.
'Your father is the murderer.'
'Yes. And he is my father. If you do this thing, you will never wash his blood from your conscience or from mine, not if we live a hundred years. This might be the one act that will destroy our love.'
Her words struck deep as a dagger. He looked up and saw the number one gunner about to touch off his weapon, the
