The final argument for taking passage in a native boat bound for Tangier occurred as they stood along the harbor, gazing at the oily water that reeked of sewage. Visions of typhoid and smallpox and yellow fever floated in Wake’s mind. He rubbed his face, massaging his temples to ease the tension that was building inside his head. A shout suddenly came from only feet away.
“Barak, barak!”
A form in filthy robes hurtled by them, followed by another brandishing a large curved knife. The prey tripped and fell with a terrified look right in front of Wake, who was thrown backward by Rork just as the pursuer plunged the knife into the throat of the first man. He ripped it viciously across with a growl and then impaled the victim repeatedly, each time ripping the blade out sideways—disemboweling him in front of the astonished sailors. In seconds a huge puddle of blood spread around the body.
Both heaving with fear, Wake and Rork fell back a few steps and caught their breath, standing back to back, ready for an onslaught against them next. But to their confusion, they saw that the one-sided butchery incited no observers from the crowd going to and fro around them.
“Good God, Rork. We’re getting out of here, native boat or whatever,” decided Wake, his heart still pounding as the victor robbed the corpse of a pocketful of beads and coins, then strode off with a slope-jawed grin, holding his loot in the air and singing something incongruously lighthearted in Arabic.
“Them scows’re lookin’ better all the time, sir,” muttered Rork.
“Let’s go over there and ask about passage,” said Wake, pointing to some men wearing slightly cleaner robes by a dhow on the wharf. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
Rork’s face tightened into a grim smile. “We’re a bit o’ a far cry from staff duty on the flagship now, eh, sir?”
29
Barbary Corsairs
The heavily laden dhow heeled over in the breeze away from the shore.
“So these bugger’s is the Barbary pirates? By God, a rum-lookin’ piratical lot, ain’t they, sir?” asked Rork, leaning while the dhow heeled over in the breeze.
“Oh yes, I do believe we’re right in among them, Rork.”
Through gestures, and the flash of five gold coins, the Americans had managed to get aboard a vessel said to be leaving that afternoon for Gibraltar. Once aboard they sat atop a pile of cargo crates, waiting for hours and trying to blend in as much as they could in their Western clothes. It turned out that the head man’s interpretation of “afternoon” included the whole time up until sunset, which is when they shoved away from the dock.
The leader of the crew, Wake couldn’t think of him as a captain, was a nasty-faced old man with fierce eyes and a shaggy face that emerged from his cloaked head. Rork determined with a laugh that the man’s name was Dam Khanjar, and after several hours of listening Wake finally figured out that the name meant “bloody dagger” in Arabic—which, in fact, was what the man displayed prominently stuck inside a sash on the front of his robes, complete with dried stains crusted on the unsheathed blade.
“For pirates they sail this relic pretty fancy, sir. Looks like five or maybe six knots at least, in spite o’ being loaded down,” opined Rork, watching the crew setting up a backstay and hauling the sheet in. The coastal mountains faded into a purple haze behind them after they rounded Cap des Trois-Fourches and headed due west into the pink afterglow of the sunken sun. The wind was from the northeast and the lanteen-rigged single-master was on her best point of sail.
“Ancient skills. They’re the ones who taught the Europeans about the lanteen and the gaff a thousand years ago,” said Wake, marveling at the simple yet effective rig. He glanced around and changed tone. “Listen, I don’t like the looks of this. One of us should be on watch at all times. You sleep. I’ll get you up in two hours.”
“Aye, aye, sir. How long till Gib, d’ya think?”
“Not sure, Rork. If the wind holds fair, then tomorrow evening.”
A scar-faced crewman moving forward elbowed his way past Rork, who glanced at Wake. “That’ll be none too soon for the tastes o’ me, sir. I don’t trust these shifty boyos as far as I can throw ’em. Remind me o’ some o’ the skullduggerers in them dark alleys o’ Dublin, they do.”
Wake remembered Fyock’s words. “They think we’re infidels and primitive in our morals, Rork. Even the poorest Arab has a sense of dignity and a sense of strength they get from their faith. So I guess we’re all even. Get some sleep.”
Rork laughed. “Sleep, sir? Like a poxy trollop in a new church, me thinks. But I’ll give it one hellova try anyway.”
***
In the dark Wake’s ribs were jammed hard by Rork’s elbow. The bosun’s breath was warm against Wake’s ear as he whispered. “Somethin’s happenin’, sir. ’Nother vessel comin’ alongside from windward.”
Wake heard Arabs shouting apparent curses and blinked his eyes awake. Rork spoke louder this time. “Sweet Jesus, it’s an attack!”
Straightening his back from the corner of the crate he had been leaning against, Wake saw a sail loom above them against the night sky on the starboard beam, then flinched as a light-caliber cannon, like an old brass four-pounder, cracked close by and shredded the cargo around him. Musket shots popped from all around, and suddenly the dhow heeled over with a splintering crash, knocking Wake and Rork backwards, as the other vessel rammed her broadside.
The deck was swarmed with figures in the dark starlight, all of them looking alike, fighting with their khanjars
