had been replaced or repaired, but as they sailed closer it became clear that she still lay impaled upon the granite horns of the Deceiver like a sacrifice on the altar of Mammon. Closer still they saw a small, forlorn group standing at the foot of the mainmast on the heavily canted deck. Through the lens of the telescope Dorian picked out the burly figure and bright features of Ruby Cornish.
In was obvious that the Arcturus offered no threat. She was immobilized and the heavy list in her deck rendered her batteries useless. The cannons along her port side pointed into the water and the starboard side at the sky. However, Dorian took no chances: he ordered both the Revenge and the Sprite cleared for action and the guns run out. They closed in and have to on each side of the Arcturus, covering her with their broadsides.
As soon as he was within hail Dorian called across to Cornish. 'Will you yield your ship, sir?'
Ruby Cornish was astonished to be addressed by the rebel Caliph in perfect English, toned with the sweet accents of Devon. He recovered swiftly, removed his hat and stepped to the rail, balancing there against the listing deck. 'You leave me no choice, Your Majesty. Do you wish to take my sword as well?'
'No, Captain. You fought bravely and acquitted yourself with honour. Please keep it.' Dorian was hoping for Cornish's cooperation.
'You are gracious, Your Majesty.' Cornish was mollified by these compliments. He clapped his hat back on his head and tightened his sword-belt. 'I await your instructions.'
'Where is Sir Guy Courteney.7 Is he below decks?'
'Nine days ago Sir Guy took the ship's boats and a party of my best men. He set off for Muscat where he purposes to find assistance. He will return as speedily as is possible to salvage the Arcturus. In the meantime, he left me to guard the vessel and protect her cargo.' This was a long message to shout, and Cornish's face was as bright as a jewel by the time he had finished.
'I am sending a boarding party to you. I intend to salvage your vessel and float her off the reef. Will you co- operate with my officers?' Cornish fidgeted for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind.
'Majesty, I have yielded to you. I will follow your orders.'
They laid the Sprite and the Revenge along each side of the Arcturus and unloaded her, divesting her of her cannon, shot and water. Then they ran the heaviest anchor cables under her hull as slings. They tightened these with the windlasses on the Revenge and the Sprite until they were rigid as bars of iron. The Arcturus lifted slowly, and they heard the timbers popping and crackling as the granite horns eased their grip in her vitals. The tides were only two days from high springs, and in these waters the tidal variation was almost three fathoms. Before making the final effort, Dorian waited until slack water was at the bottom of the ebb. Then he sent every able-bodied man to his place at the pumps. At his signal they threw themselves on the long handles. The bilge water flew in sheets over the sides, faster than the inflow through rents in the Arcturus's hull. As she lightened, she strained to tear herself free of the rock. The rising tide added its irresistible impulse to the buoyancy of the hull and, with a last, terrible rending sound from below, the Arcturus slowly righted and floated free.
Immediately all three vessels set their mainsails and, still lashed together, glided out of the Deceiver's clutches. With fifty fathoms of water under their hulls Dorian brought the linked vessels slowly around on a course for Sawda island. Then he placed an armed guard over the hatches of the Arcturus's main hold with strict orders that no man be allowed to pass.
The steering was clumsy and erratic, and the three ships staggered along like drinking companions returning homeward from a night of revelry. As the dawn broke they had raised the black massif of Sawda over the horizon, and before noon they had dropped anchor in the bay.
The first task was to draw a heavy canvas sail under the Arcturus's hull and cover the terrible tears through her bottom timbers; only then
could the pumps of all three ships dry her out. Before they warped her into the beach to careen her and complete the repairs, Dorian, Mansur and Verity went aboard her.
Verity went directly to her own cabin. She was appalled by the damage that the battle had wrought. Her clothing was in disarray, torn by wood splinters, stained by seawater. Perfume bottles had shattered, powder pots cracked, and the contents had spilled over her petticoats and stockings. However, all of this could be replaced. It was her books and manuscripts that were her prime concern. Chief of these was a set of rare, beautifully illustrated and centuries-old volumes of the Ramay ana. This had been a personal gift from Muhammad Shah, the Great Mogul, in recognition of her services as interpreter during his negotiations with Sir Guy. She had already translated the first five volumes of this mighty Hindu epic into English.
Among her other treasures was a copy of the Qur'an. This had been given to her by Sultan Obied, when she and her father had last visited him in the Topkapi Saray Palace in Constantinople. The gift had been made on condition that she translate it into English. This was reputed to be one of the original copies of the authoritative text revisions commissioned by the Caliph Uthman in ad 644 to 656, twelve years after the death of Muhammad, and it was known as the Uthmanic Recension. True to her promise to the Sultan, Verity had almost completed the translation of this seminal work. Her manuscripts were an investment of two years' painstaking labour. With her heart in her mouth she dragged out the chest in which she kept them from under a pile of fallen timbers and other debris. She exclaimed with relief when she opened the lid and found them undamaged.
In the meantime Dorian and Mansur were searching Sir Guy's great cabin next door. Ruby Cornish had handed over the key to them. 'I have removed nothing,' he told them. They found him as good as his word. Dorian took custody of the Arcturus's logbooks and all her other papers. In the locked drawers of Guy's desk they found his private papers and his journals.
'These will afford us much valuable evidence about my brother's activities,' Dorian said, with grim satisfaction, 'and of his dealings with Zayn al-Din and the East India Company.'
Then they went back on deck, and broke open the seals on the hatches of the main hold. They lifted off the covers and went down into it. They found it filled with great quantities of muskets, swords and
lance heads, new and unused, still packed in the manufacturers' grease. There was also powder and shot by the ton, twenty light field-artillery pieces, and much other military stores.
'Enough to start a war or a revolution,' Dorian remarked drily.
'Which is Uncle Guy's purpose,' Mansur agreed.
Much of this had been damaged by seawater. It was a lengthy business to clear the hold of this cargo, but at last they were down to the deck timbers, and there was no trace of the gold Verity had promised them.
Mansur climbed out of the hot, fetid hold, and went to find her. She was in her cabin. He paused in the entrance. In this short time she had restored the shambles of her cabin to a remarkable state of order and cleanliness. She sat at the mahogany desk under the skylight. She was no longer clad like an orphan in his oversized cast-off clothing. Instead she was wearing a fresh blue organza dress with leg-o'- mutton sleeves and trimmed with fine lace. Around her throat was a lustrous string of pearls. She was reading a book in a jewelled, engraved silver cover, and making notes in another with a plain vellum cover. Mansur saw that the pages were closely written with her small, elegant script. She looked up at him and smiled sweetly. 'Ah, Your Highness, do I have your attention for the moment? I am greatly honoured.'
Despite his disappointment in finding the hold bare, Mansur gaped at her in admiration. 'There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes upon,' he said, with awe in his tone. In this setting she seemed to him a perfect jewel.
'While you, sir, are rather sweaty and grubby.' She laughed at him. 'But I am sure that is not what you came to hear.'
'There isn't a single coin down there,' he said lamely.
'Have you taken the trouble to look beneath the floorboards, or should that be the deck? I am a little at sea with these nautical terms, if you will forgive the play on words.'
I love you more each hour, my clever darling,' he cried, and ran back to the hold, shouting for the carpenters to come to him.
Verity waited until the banging and hammering in the hold ceased abruptly and she heard the squeal of timbers being prised loose. Then she laid aside the Ramayana and went up on deck. She strolled across to the open hatch. She was just in time to watch the first chest being brought reverentially out of its snug hiding-place beneath the deck. It was so weighty that it took the combined strength of Mansur and five hefty seamen to lift it. As one of the carpenters unscrewed the lid, seawater poured out through the joints, for the chest had been submerged since the ship had run on to the horns of the Deceiver.
There were exclamations of astonishment and wonder as Mansur lifted off the lid. From directly above, Verity caught the wanton shine of pure gold before the men crowded forward and cut off her view. She gazed instead at Mansur's bare back. His muscles were oiled with sweat, and when he reached down to pick out one of the bright yellow bars, she glimpsed the tuft of coppery hair in his armpit.
The sight of the gold had not moved her in the least, but his body did. She felt that strange but particular feeling melting her loins, and had to go back to her book in an attempt to alleviate it. This helped not at all. The
