Koots gathered his courage and the last of his strength and rushed at Jim, trying by sheer weight and strength to drive him back. Jim stood to meet him. It seemed that only an evanescent barrier of darting metal separated them. The clash and scrape of the blades rose to a dreadful crescendo. Beshwayo's warriors were enthralled by this novel form of combat. They recognized the skill and strength it demanded, and they chanted encouragement, drumming their assegais upon their shields, dancing and swaying with excitement.
It could not last much longer. Koots's pale eyes were covered by the
sheen of despair. Sweat diluted the blood that streamed down his side. He felt the slackness in his wrist, and the give of his muscles when he tried to press Jim harder. Jim blocked his next desperate thrust high in the natural line of attack, and locked their blades in front of their eyes. They stared at each other through the cross of silver formed by the quivering steel. They formed a statue group that seemed carved from marble. The Beshwayo sensed the high drama of the moment and fell silent.
Koots and Jim both knew that whichever one tried to break away would expose himself to the killing stroke. Then Jim felt Koots break. Koots shifted his feet and, with a heave of both shoulders, tried to throw Jim back and disengage. Jim was ready for it, and as Koots released, Jim shot forward like the strike of an adder. Koots's eyes flew wide, but they were colourless and blind. His fingers opened, and he let his sword drop into the mud.
Jim stood with his wrist locked and the point of his own steel buried deep in Koots's chest. He felt the hilt thump softly in his hand, and thought for an instant that it was his own pulse. Then he realized that his blade had transfixed Koots's heart, and it was the pumping of his opponent's lifeblood that he could feel transmitted up the blade.
Koots's expression was puzzled. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Slowly his knees buckled and, as he sagged, Jim all owe3 him to slip off the blade. He fell face down in the mud, and Beshwayo's men roared like a pride of lions at the kill.
Weeks before, the three ships, Revenge, Sprite and Arcturus, had sailed out of Nativity Bay on the dawn tide. They left Tasuz in his little felucca within sight of the bluff to watch for the arrival of Zayn's fleet while they went on to lie in ambush out of sight of land below the eastern horizon. The endless days that followed were of unrelieved monotony and uncertainty, patrolling back and forth along the edge of the oceanic shelf, watching for Tasuz to summon them to battle.
Ruby Cornish in the Arcturus made his sun shot at noon each day, but the instincts of Kumrah in the Sprite and Batula in the Revenge were almost as accurate as his navigational instruments at keeping them on their station.
Mansur spent almost all the hours of daylight high in Arcturus's main top, watching the horizon through the lens of his telescope until his right eye was bloodshot with the strain and the glare of the sun off the
water. Each evening, after an early dinner with Cornish, he went to Verity's cabin. He sat late at her writing bureau. She had given him the key to the drawers when they parted on the beach of Nativity Bay. 'No one else has ever read my journals. I wrote them in Arabic, so that neither my father nor my mother could decipher them. You see, my darling, I never trusted either of them very far.' She laughed as she said it. 'I want you to be the first to read them. Through them you will be able to share my life and my innermost thoughts and secrets.'
'I feel humble that you should do me such great honour.' His voice choked as he said it.
'It is not about honour, it is about love,' she replied. 'From now onwards, I shall never keep a secret from you.'
Mansur found that the journals spanned the last ten years of her life, since she had turned nine. They were a monumental record of a young girl's emotions as she groped her way towards womanhood. He sat late each night, and by the light of the oil lamp he shared her yearnings and her bewilderment at life, her girlish disasters and petty triumphs. There were outpourings of joy, and others of such poignancy that his heart ached for her. There were dark, enigmatic passages when she pondered her relationship with her parents. He felt his flesh creep when she hinted fearfully at the unspeakable as she wrote of her father. She spared no detail when she described the punishments he had inflicted on her, and his hands shook with anger as he turned the perfumed pages. There were other passages that brought him up short with their brilliant revelations. Always her fresh, inspired use of words amazed him. At times she made him laugh aloud, and at others his vision blurred with tears.
The last pages of the penultimate volume covered the period from their first meeting on the deck of the Arcturus in Muscat harbour until their parting on the road back from Isakanderbad. At one point she had written of him, Though he does not yet know it, already he owns a part of me. From this time onwards our footsteps will be printed side by side in the sands of time.'
When at last she had burnt out his emotions with her words, he blew out the lamp and went dazed with emotional exhaustion to her bunk. The rich fragrance of her hair still lingered on her pillow and the sheets were perfumed by her skin. In the night he woke and reached for her, and when he realized that she was not there the agony made him groan, Then he hated his own father for not allowing her to stay with him, and sending her away in the wagons with Sarah, Louisa and little George into the wild hills of the hinterland.
No matter how little he had slept he was always on Arcturws's deck
when eight bells sounded in the middle watch, and before the first blush of dawn he was at the masthead, watching and waiting.
As the most powerful but slowest ship in the squadron, the Arcturus kept the windward station, and Mansur had the sharpest pair of eyes on board. It was he who spotted the tiny fleck of the felucca's sail as she came up over the horizon. The moment that they were certain of her identity Ruby Cornish brought the Arcturus about and they ran down to intercept her. Tasuz answered his hail: 'Zayn al-Din is here, with twenty-five great dhows.' Then he turned and led the squadron back towards the African mainland, which now lay low on the horizon, dark blue and as menacing as some monster of the deep. Again it was Mansur who first picked out the shapes of the enemy flotilla anchored off the mouth of the Umgeni river. Their sails were furled and their dark hulls blended with the background of hills and forest.
'They are lying exactly where your father expected them.' Cornish studied them carefully as they raced down upon them. 'They are already sending their boats in to the beach. The attack has begun.'
Swiftly they closed the gap, and it seemed that the enemy were so intent on their landing that they were neglecting the watch they should have kept on the open sea behind them.
'Those are the five war-dhows of the escort.' Mansur pointed them out. 'The others are transports.'
'We have the weather gauge.' Cornish smiled comfortably and his face glowed with satisfaction. 'The same wind that blows to our advantage has them pinned against the lee shore. If they hoist their anchors they will go aground almost immediately. We have Kadem ibn Abubaker at our mercy. How should we proceed, Your Highness?' Cornish looked at Mansur. Dorian had given his son the overall command of the squadron: Mansur's royal rank dictated that. The Arab captains would not have understood or accepted any other in place of him.
'My instinct is to go straight at the war-dhows while we have them at our mercy. If we can destroy them, the transports will fall into our laps like overripe fruit. Would you agree, Captain Cornish?'
'With all my heart, Your Highness.' Cornish showed his appreciation of Mansur's tact by touching the brim of his hat.
'Then, if you please, let us close with the other ships so that I may pass the order to them. I shall allot an enemy ship to each. We in the Arcturus will engage the largest of them,' Mansur pointed to the dhow in the centre of the line of anchored ships, 'for that is almost certainly
commanded by Kadem ibn Abubaker. I shall board immediately and capture it, while you sail on and do the same to the next in line.'
The Sprite and the Revenge were sailing a little ahead, backing their sails slightly so as not to head-reach too far on the Arcturus. Mansur hailed them, and pointed out which of the dhows were their separate targets. As soon as they understood what he wanted of them they barged ahead, charging at the line of anchored ships.
At last the enemy saw them coming, and confusion spread swiftly through their fleet. Three of the transports were occupied with landing the horses they were carrying. They were winching them out of the holds with slings passed under their bellies, then lowering them over the side into the water. When they reached it, they turned them loose to swim unaided. The sailors waiting for them in the small boats drove them into the breaking surf to fight their way to the beach as best they were able. Already more than a hundred of the sick, exhausted animals were in the water, struggling to keep afloat.
When they saw the tall ships bearing down on them with all their guns run out, the captains of the horse transports panicked. With a few axe strokes they severed their anchor cables, and tried to bear away. Two collided, and in the confusion they drifted into the line of heaving white surf. Still locked together, the waves broke over their decks. One capsized and took the other with it. The surface of the water was covered with wreckage, struggling men and horses. One or two of the other troop ships managed to cut their cables and hoist their sails. It was close work but they cleared the lee shore and made good their
