magazines. They came ashore with sorry expressions to report that four muskets were missing, with the same number of cutlasses, bullet bags and powder flasks. Tom stopped himself reviling the two captains further, for they had already suffered enough.
Dorian argued vehemently when Tom told him he must stay behind
to take care of the ships and Sarah while they chased the fugitives. In the end, Sarah joined in to convince him that he was not yet strong enough for such an expedition, which would call for hard marches and perhaps even harder fighting. Tom selected ten of his best men to go with him, those who were proficient with sword, musket and pistol.
An hour after they had first stepped ashore all was ready. Tom kissed Sarah, and they left the beach heading inland. Tom and Mansur strode out at the head of the line of armed men.
'I would that little Bakkat were with us,' Tom muttered. 'He would follow them though they grew wings and flew ten feet above the ground.'
'You are a famous elephant hunter, Uncle Tom. I have heard you tell it since I was a child.'
'That was more than a year or two ago,' Tom smiled ruefully, 'and you must not remember all I tell you. Boasts and brags are like debts and childhood sweethearts they often come back to plague the man who made them.'
At noon on the third day they stood on the crest of the range of mountains that ran in an unbroken rampart north and south. The slopes below them were covered with banks of purple heather. This was the dividing line between the littoral and the inland plateau of the continental shield. Behind, the forests lay like a green carpet down to the edge of the ocean. Ahead, the hills were harsh and rocky and the plains were endless, stretching for ever to the horizon, blue with distance. The tiny dust clouds kicked up by the moving herds of game drifted in the warm breezes.
'Any one of those might mark the path of the men we are hunting, but the hoofs of the herds will have wiped out their tracks,' Tom told Mansur. 'Still and all, I doubt they would have headed into that great emptiness. Kadem would have the sense at least to try to find human habitation.'
'The Cape colony?' Mansur looked southwards.
'More likely the Arab forts along the Fever Coast or the Portuguese territory of Mozambique.'
'The land is so big.' Mansur scowled. 'They could have gone anywhere.'
'We will wait for the scouts to come in before we decide what next to do.'
Tom had sent his best men to cast north and south, ordering them to try to cut Kadem's trail. He would not say so to Mansur, not yet at least, but he knew that their chances were remote. Kadem had too long a start on them and, as Mansur had remarked, the land was big.
The rendezvous Tom had set at which to meet the scouts was a
distinctive peak shaped like a cocked hat that could be seen from twenty leagues in any direction. They camped on the southern slope at the edge of the treeline, and the scouts came dribbling back during the night. None had been able to cut human sign.
'They have got clean away, lad,' Tom told his nephew. 'I think we can do naught else but let them go, and turn back for the ships. But I would like your agreement. 'Tis your duty to your mother that dictates what we do next.'
'Kadem was only the messenger,' Mansur said. 'My blood feud is with his master in Lamu, Zayn al-Din. I agree, Uncle Tom. This is fruitless. Our energies may best be expended elsewhere.'
'Think on this also, lad. Kadem will fly straight back to his master, the pigeon to its loft. When we find Zayn, Kadem will be at his side, if the lions have not eaten him first.'
Mansur's face brightened and his shoulders straightened. 'In God's Name, Uncle, I had not considered that. Of course you are right. As for Kadem perishing in the wilderness, it seems to me that he has the animal tenacity and fanatical faith to survive. I feel sure we will meet him again. He will not escape my vengeance. Let's hurry back to the ships.'
Before first light Sarah left her bunk in the little cabin of the Sprite. Then, as she had done every morning since Tom left, she went ashore and climbed to the hilltop above the lagoon. From there she watched for Tom's return. From afar she recognized his tall, straight figure and his swinging walk at the head of his men. The image blurred as her eyes filled with tears of joy and relief.
Thank you, God, that you paid heed to my prayers,' she cried aloud, and ran down the hillside straight into his arms. 'I was so worried that you would get yourself into trouble again, without me to look after you, Tom Courtney.'
'I had no chance for trouble, Sarah Courtney,' he hugged her hard, 'more's the pity.' He looked to Mansur. 'You are faster than me, lad. Run ahead to warn your father that we are returning, and to have the ships ready to sail again as soon as I set foot aboard.' Mansur set off at once.
As soon as he was out of earshot Sarah said, 'You're the crafty one, aren t you, Thomas? You did not want to be the one who gave the bitter news to Dorry that Yassie's murder is unrevenged.'
Tis Mansur's duty more than mine,' Tom replied breezily. 'Dorry would have it no other way. The only profit in this bloody business is that it might bring father and son closer than they have ever been before and that was mighty close.'
They sailed with the ebb of the tide. The wind stood fair and they had made good their offing before darkness fell. The ships were within two cables' length of each other, with the wind fresh on the quarter, their best point of sailing. The Revenge showed her new turn of speed and began to pull ahead of the Sprite. Thus it was with reluctance that Tom gave the order to shorten sail for the night. It seemed a pity not to take full advantage of the wind that was bearing them so swiftly towards Nativity Bay.
'But I am a trader and not a man-o'- war,' Tom consoled himself. As he gave the order to shorten sail he saw Mansur in the Revenge furl his staysail and reef his mizzen and main. Both ships hoisted lanterns to their maintops, to enable them the better to keep night stations on each other.
Tom was ready to give over the quarter-deck to Kumrah and go down to the small saloon for the supper that he could smell Sarah was cooking: he recognized the rich aroma of one of her famous spiced bobooties and saliva flooded into his mouth. He spent a few more minutes checking the set of the sails and the pointing of the helmsman. Satisfied at last, he turned towards the head of the companionway, then stopped abruptly.
He stared at the dark eastern horizon and muttered, mystified, 'There is a great fire out there. Is it a ship ablaze? No, it's something greater than that. The fires of a volcano?'
The crew on deck had seen it too and crowded to the rail, gawking and gabbling. Then, to Tom's utter astonishment, there burst over the dark horizon a monstrous ball of celestial fire. It lit the dark surface of the sea. Across the water the sails of the Revenge glowed palely in this ghostly emanation.
'A comet, by God!' Tom shouted in wonder, and stamped on the deck above the saloon. 'Sarah Courtney, come up here at once. You have never seen aught such as this, nor will you ever again.'
Sarah came flying up the ladder with Dorian close behind her. They stopped and stared in wonder, struck speechless by the splendour of the sight. Then Sarah came to Tom and placed herself within the protective circle of his arms. 'It is a sign,' she whispered. 'It's a benediction from on high for the old life we have left behind at Good Hope, and a promise of the new life that lies ahead of us.'
Dorian left them, moved slowly down the deck until he reached the bows and sank to his knees. He turned his face up to the sky. 'All the days of mourning have passed,' he said. 'Your time here on earth with me is over. Go, Yasmini, my little darling, I commit you to the arms or God, but you must know that my heart and all my love go with you.'
Across the dark water Mansur Courtney saw the comet, and he ran to the main shrouds and leaped into them. He clambered swiftly upwards until he reached the maintop. He threw an arm around the topgallant mast, balancing lithely against the roll and pitch of the hull, which were magnified by the sixty feet that separated him from the surface of the sea. He lifted his face to the sky and his long, thick hair streamed back in the wind. 'The death of kings!' he cried. 'The destruction of tyrants! All these portentous events heralded by God's finger writing in the heavens.' Then he filled his lungs and shouted into the wind, 'Hear me, Zayn al-Din! I am Nemesis, and I am coming for you.'
Night after night as the two little ships sailed northwards the comet climbed overhead, seeming to light their way, until at last they picked out a tall bluff of land that rose out of the dark waters ahead of their bows like the back of a monstrous whale. At the northern end of the promontory, the whale's mouth opened. They sailed through this entrance into a huge landlocked bay, far greater in extent than the Lagoon of the Elephants. On one side the land was steep-to, on the other it stretched in dense mangrove swamps, but between them lay the lovely embouchure of a river of sweet, clear water flanked by gently sloping beaches that offered a natural landing place.
'This is not our first visit to this place. Dorian and I have been here many times before. The natives hereabouts call this river Umbilo,' Tom told Sarah, as he steered for the beach and dropped his anchor in three fathoms. Looking over the side they could watch the steel flukes burying themselves in the pale, sandy bottom and the brilliant shoals of fish swirling as they feasted on the small crabs and shrimps disturbed from their burrows by the anchor.
When
