snapping. She canted over heavily and lay quiescent, transformed in the
instant from a thing of grace to a broken hulk. Her crew swarmed out of her, and left her lying abandoned at the water's edge.
'Enough!' Dorian called to his men. 'We have no more need of that.' With obvious relief they tipped the hot ball out on to the earth. Dorian scooped a ladleful from one of the buckets of drinking water and poured it over his head, then wiped his streaming face in the crook of his arm.
'Behold!' screamed the foreman of the furnace and pointed down. Immediately there was an excited clamour from the gun-crews, as they recognized the tall figure in cloud' white robes who clambered down from the stranded dhow and, with his distinctive limp, led his men along the beach towards the fort.
'Zayn al-Din!' they shouted.
'Death and damnation to the tyrant!'
Tower and glory to al- Salil.'
'God has given us the victory. God is great.'
'No.' Dorian jumped to the top of the emplacement wall where they could all see him. 'The victory is not ours yet. Like a wounded jackal into his hole, Zayn al-Din has taken refuge in the fort.'
They saw the enemy seamen who had escaped from the other ships creep out of the forest, then hurry more boldly after Zayn al-Din. They streamed into the deserted fort after him.
'We must smoke him out,' Dorian told them, and jumped down from the wall. He called his gun captains to him and gave them swift orders. 'No more need for heated shot. Use only cold balls, but keep up a lively fire on the walls of the fort. Give them no rest. I am going down to round up all our men and lay siege to the fort. They have no food or water. We left no powder in the magazine, and the guns on the parapets have been spiked. Zayn cannot hold out for more than a day or two.'
A groom had already saddled his horse and Dorian rode down with every man who could be spared from the guns trooping after him. The men who had put up the token defence of the fort were waiting at the bottom of the hill to swell his ranks. He sent them to surround the building and make certain that none of the enemy could escape.
He saw Muntu coming through the forest from the direction of the entrance channel, and rode to meet him. 'Where is Smallboy?'
'He has taken ten men and gone with Klebe to follow the wagons.'
'Have you opened the boom, so that our ships can re-enter the bay?'
'Yes, master. The channel is clear.' Dorian lifted his telescope and checked the entrance. He saw that Muntu had severed the cable and the current had pushed the boom aside.
'Well done, Muntu. Now take your oxen.' He pointed down the shore to where Zayn's dhow lay stranded. 'Get the cannon out of that ship,
and drag them round to cover the fort. We will pound the enemy from all sides. Knock a breach through the walls, so that when Jim arrives with Beshwayo's imp is they can storm in and finish the business.'
By late afternoon the captured cannons from the stranded dhow had been towed by the oxen into position and the first shots knocked clods of earth and shattered timbers from the walls of the fort. They kept up the bombardment all night, giving the besieged enemy no rest.
In the dawn the Sprite sailed into the bay through the channel. She was followed by the Arcturus and the Revenge, shepherding all the captured Omani dhows and transports ahead of them. The warships anchored, and immediately turned all their guns on the fort. The three long nine pounders on the heights of the bluff and the captured carronades from Zayn's own ships were already hammering away. Between them they directed a withering fire on the fort.
No sooner had the Revenge dropped her anchor than Mansur came ashore. Dorian was waiting to greet him on the beach, and ran forward when he saw his son's head swathed in the bandage. He embraced him and asked anxiously, 'You are hurt. How badly?'
'A scratch on my eyeball.' Mansur shrugged it off. 'It is almost healed. But Kadem, who inflicted the injury, is dead.'
'How did he die?' Dorian demanded, holding him at arm's length and staring into his face.
'By the knife. The same way that he murdered my mother.'
'You killed him?'
'Yes, Father. I killed him, and he did not die an easy death. My mother is avenged.'
'No, my son. There is still another. Zayn al-Din is holding out within the fort.'
'Can we be certain he is in there? Have you seen him with your own eyes?' They both stared along the shore at the battered palisades of the building. They could make out the heads of a few doughty defenders behind the parapets. However, Zayn had no artillery and most of his'j men were crouching behind the walls. The thudding of their muskets | was a feeble response to the thunder of the cannon.
'Yes, Mansur. I have seen him. I will not leave this place until he also has paid the price in full, and gone to join his minion Kadem ibnt Abubaker in hell.'
They both became aware of a new sound, faint at first but growing! louder with every minute. Half a mile down the shores of the bay a! dense column of men trotted out of the forest. They ran in a precis el military formation. Like the foam on the crest of a dark wave, their'! feather headdresses danced in rhythm to their step. The early sunlight|
sparkled on their assegais, and on their oiled torsos. They were singing, a deep warlike chant that thrilled the blood and rumbled across the top of the forest. A lone horseman rode at the head of the leading column. He was mounted on a dark stallion whose long mane and tail streamed back in the wind of his canter.
'Jim on Drumfire.' Mansur laughed. Thank God he's safe.' A dimuv uti ve figure ran beside one of Jim's stirrups, and beside the other a giant of a man.
'Bakkat and Beshwayo,' said Dorian. Mansur ran to meet Jim, who swung down from the saddle and took him in a bear-hug.
'What is this rag you wear, coz? Is it some new fashion you have struck upon? It suits you not at all, you should take my word on it.' Then he turned to Dorian with his arm still around Mansur's shoulder.
'Uncle Dorry, where is my father?' His expression changed to dread. 'He is not hurt or killed? Tell me, I beg of you.'
'Nay, Jim lad. Breathe easy. Our Tom is impervious to shot and steel. As soon as his work here was done, he went to take care of the women and little Georgie.'
Dorian knew that if he told them the full truth about Guy's intervention, he would not be able to fulfill his promise to Tom and keep the boys with him. They would rush off immediately to defend their womenfolk. Quickly he glossed over his deception. 'But what of your side of the battle?'
'It is over, Uncle Dorry. Herminius Koots, who commanded the enemy, is dead. I saw to that myself. Beshwayo's men have cleared the forests of the rest of them. The pursuit took all of yesterday and most of the night. They chased some of the Turks a league up the beach and over the hills before they caught up with them.'
'Where are the prisoners?' Dorian demanded.
'Beshwayo does not understand the meaning of that word, and I was unable to educate him.' Jim laughed. But Dorian did not laugh with him: he could imagine the slaughter that had taken place in the forest, and his conscience troubled him. Those Omani who had perished under the assegais were his own subjects. He could not rejoice in their deaths. His anger towards Zayn al-Din flared even higher. Here was more blood for which he must pay.
Jim did not notice his uncle's expression. He was still buoyed up by the wild excitement of battle and intoxicated with the taste of victory. Look at him now.' He pointed to where Beshwayo was already parading his imp is before the walls of the fort.
The guns had knocked a wide breach through them and Beshwayo strode down the ranks, stabbing his assegai towards the breach and
haranguing his warriors: 'My children, some of you have not yet earned the right of marriage. Did I not give you opportunity enough? Were you slow? Were you unlucky?' He paused and glared at them. 'Or were you afraid? Did you piss down your own legs when you saw the feast I laid for you?'
His imp is shouted an angry denial. 'We are thirsty still. We hunger still.'
'Give us to eat and drink again, Great Black Bull.'
'We are your faithful hunting dogs. Let us slip, great king. Let us run!' they pleaded.
' i 'A before Beshwayo can send in an impi through the breach,' Jim said
I''to Dorian, 'you must order the batteries to cease firing so as not 1 J to endanger his men.'
Dorian sent his runners out to the gun captains with the order. One after the other the batteries ceased firing. It took the message longer to reach the three guns on the heights of the bluff, but at last a tense, heavy silence fell over the bay. The only movement was the waving of the feather headdresses of the Beshwayo. The Arab defenders on the parapets looked down on this array, poised so menacingly before their walls, and their desultory! musket-fire dried up. They stared bleakly upon implacable death.
Then, abruptly, a ram's-horn trumpet blared out from the walls of the| fort. The ranks of black warriors stirred restlessly. Dorian turned hisj telescope to see a flag waved from the parapets.
