captain: 'Captain Kumrah, in God's name, get this last load on board as quick as you like.' He went back to the rail and looked down at Dorian, who was still in the lighter. He called to him, 'As soon as you're on board the Gift of Allah douse all lights and hoist anchor, we must be clear of the land before first light. I don't want Keyset and the Dutch lookouts in the castle to spy out in which direction we are headed. Let them guess whether it be east or west, or even south to the Pole.'
The last of the baggage to come on board from the lighter was Sarah's harpsichord. As it dangled over the side, Tom called to the men on the fall of the tackle, 'A guinea for the man who lets that damn thing drop down to Davy Jones.'
Sarah prodded him sharply in the ribs, and the crewmen paused and looked at each other. They were never sure what to make of Tom's sense of humour. Tom put his arm around Sarah and went on, 'Of course, once you have your guinea, out of deference to the feeling of my wife, I shall be obliged to throw you in after it.'
They laughed uncertainly and swung the harpsichord in board. Tom strode back to the side. 'Be away with you then, brother,' he called to Dorian.
The crew of the lighter shoved off and Dorian hailed back, 'If we become separated in the dark, then the rendezvous will be off Cape Hangklip, as always?' '
'As always, Dorry.'
The two ships sailed within minutes of each other, and for the first ] hour they were able to keep station. Then the wind increased to near j gale force and the last sliver of moon went behind the clouds. In the ; darkness they lost contact with each other. i
When dawn broke the Maid* found herself alone, with the south' ,: easter howling through her rigging. The land was a blue smear, low on ; the northern horizon, almost obscured by the breaking waves and the ' swirling sea fret. ;
298 }
'Fat chance that the Dutch will make us out in this weather,' Tom shouted at Kumrah, as the tails of his tarpaulin coat flapped around his legs, and the ship heeled over to the push of the storm. 'Make this your offing, and come about for Cape Hangklip.'
Close-hauled against the storm they raised the Cape the next morning, and found the Gift there before them, beating back and forth on the rendezvous. Once more in convoy they set out eastwards to round Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa. The wind held steadily out of the east. They spent many weary days tacking back and forth, steering clear of the treacherous shoals that guarded Agulhas and clawing their way into their eas tings At last they were able to double the Cape and turn northwards along that rugged and inhospitable coast.
Three weeks after leaving High Weald they finally passed through the heads of grey rock that guarded the great Lagoon of the Elephants. They dropped anchor in the blessedly calm waters, clear as good Hollands gin and learning with shoals of fish.
'This is where my grandfather Frankie Courtney fought his last battle with the Dutch. Here, they made him prisoner and took him down to Good Hope to perish on the gallows,' he told Sarah. 'My sacred oath, they were tough old devils those ancestors of mine,' he said with pride.
Sarah smiled at him. 'Are you suggesting that you are a milk toast and a caitiff when compared with them?' Then she shaded her eyes and peered up at the hillside that rose above the lagoon. 'Is that your famous post stone?'
Half-way up the hill a prominent lump of grey stone the size of a hayrick had been painted with a large, lop-sided letter P in scarlet paint, so that it was visible to any ship anchored in the lagoon.
'Oh, take me ashore immediately. I feel certain that there is a letter from Jim awaiting us.'
Tom was certain that her hopes were doomed to disappointment, but they rowed to the beach in the longboat. Sarah was first over the side with the water reaching to her thighs and soaking her skirts. Tom had difficulty keeping up with her as she lifted the sodden cloth to her knees and scrambled up the hillside. 'Look!' she cried. 'Someone has placed a cairn of stones on the summit. That surely is a sign that a letter is waiting for us.'
A hollow space had been burrowed out beneath the post stone, and he entrance to it was blocked with smaller ones. She pulled these apart and beyond them she found a bulky parcel. It was stitched up in a wrapper of heavy tarpaulin and sealed with tar.
*t i l knew it! Oh, yes, I knew it,' Sarah sang, as she dragged the parcel otn its hiding-place. But when she read the inscription on it her face
fell. Without another word she handed the packet to Tom and started back down the hill.
Tom read the inscription. It was in an ill-formed hand, misspelled and crude: 'Hail, you tru and worfy sole who doth this miss if find. Tak it with you to London Town and gif it over to Nicolas Whatt Esquire at 51 Wacker Street close by the East Hindia Dok. He shall gif you a giny for it. Opun not this pa ket Fayle me nefer! If you do so, then I do rot your balls and dam your eyes! May your mannikin never rise, you God forsaken boger!' The message was signed, 'Cpt Noah Calder abord the Brig Larkspur out bound for Bombay, 21 May in the year of ow Lord Jassus 1731.'
'Words well chosen, and sentiments sweetly expressed.' Tom smiled as he replaced the packet in the recess and covered it with the stones. 'I am not headed for old London Town, so I will not risk the dire consequences of failure. It must wait for a bolder soul heading in the right direction.'
He went down the hill, and half-way to the beach he found Sarah sitting forlornly upon a rock. She turned away as he sat down beside her, and tried to stifle her sobs. He took her face between his big hands and turned it towards him. 'No, no, my love. You must not take on so. Our Jim is safe.'
'Oh, Tom, I was so sure it was his letter to us, and not that of some oaf of a sailor.'
'It was most unlikely that he would come here. Surely he will be heading further north. I do believe he had set upon Nativity. We shall find him there, and little Louisa with him. Mark my words. Nothing can befall our Jim. He is a Courtney, ten feet tall and made from billets of cast iron covered with elephant hide.'
She laughed through her tears. 'Tom, you silly man, you should be upon the stage.' 'Even Master Garrick could not afford my fee.' He laughed with her. 'Come along now, my own sweet girl. There is no profit in pining, and there is work to do if we purpose to sleep ashore this night.'
They went back down to the beach, and found that Dorian and his party from the Gift had already come ashore. Mansur was unloading the water casks into the longboat. He would refill them from the sweet water stream that flowed into the top end of the lagoon. Dorian and his men were building shelters on the edge of the forest, weaving frameworks of saplings. They were thatching these with new reeds, fresh cut from the edge of the water. The smell of sweet sap perfumed the air.
After the trying weeks at sea in rough weather the women needed comfortable quarters on dry land in which to recuperate. It was over a
year since the brothers had visited the lagoon on their last trading expedition along the coast. The huts they had built then they had burned to the ground when they sailed, for by now they would have been infested by scorpions, hornets and other unpleasant flying insects and crawling creatures.
There was a brief alarum when they heard a succession of musket shots banging out from the top end of the lagoon, but Dorian reassured them quickly: 'I told Mansur to bring us in fresh meat. He must have found game.'
When Mansur returned with the refilled water casks, he brought with him the carcass of a half-grown buffalo. Despite its tender age the beast was the size of an ox, enough to feed them all for weeks once it was salted and smoked. Then the other longboat returned from the edge of the channel where Tom had sent five of the crew to catch fish. The bins amidship were filled with sparkling silver mounds, still quivering and twitching.
Sarah and Yasmini set to work at once with their servants to prepare a suitable feast to celebrate their arrival. They ate under the stars, with sparks from the campfire rising into the dark sky in a torrent. After they had eaten their fill, Tom sent for Batula and Kumrah. They came ashore from the anchored ships and took their places, sitting cross-legged on their prayer mats in the circle around the fire.
'I ask your forgiveness for any disrespect,' Tom greeted the two captains. 'We should have heard the news you bring sooner than this. However, with the need to sail from Good Hope with such despatch, and the gale that assailed us since then, there has been no opportunity.'
'It is as you say, effendi,' Batula, the senior captain, replied. 'We are your men and there was never any disrespect.'
The servants brought coffee from the fire in brass kettles, and Dorian and the Arabs lit their hookahs. The water in the bowls bubbled with each breath of the perfumed Turkish tobacco smoke they drew.
First they discussed the trade and the goods that the captains had gathered during their last voyage along this coast. As Arabs they were able to travel where no Christian ship was allowed to pass. They had even sailed on past the Horn of Hormuz into the Red Sea as far as holy Medina, the luminous city of the Prophet.
On their return journey they had parted company, Kumrah in the Maid turning eastwards to call in at the ports of the empire of the Moguls, there to deal with the diamond merchants from the Kollur mines, and to buy bales of silken rugs from the souks of Bombay and Delhi. Meanwhile, Batula sailed along the Coromandel coast and loaded his ship with tea and
