attention away from the nasty little scene.
The evening breeze at Prabang was reasonably predictable and at present it was behaving just as they had hoped, blowing across the west-east line from the seaward gap in the crater-rim to the town. The targets had been towed to their positions north and south of this line and four hundred yards from it, two to starboard, two to larboard.
The Diane let fall her topsails, sheeted them home and hoisted the yards, bracing them to the steady breeze just abaft the beam; she gathered way remarkably fast and Jack said to the master at the con, 'Pray keep her to five knots, Mr Warren.' She was to fire only the eleven forward guns of the main battery on either side, but here Fielding had concentrated all the frigate's talent, and he and Richardson, seconded by the four most responsible young gentlemen, were to supervise the firing. Not that there was any great need of supervision: the first and second captains of each gun thoroughly understood their business - Bonden, in charge of the starboard bow gun, had been pointing twenty-four- or eighteen-pounders ever since the battle of St Vincent - and by now the picked crews were all well above the average for speed and accuracy. Since the Diane was new, well-built and strong she could stand the shock of a simultaneous broadside, the most spectacular by far; but everyone concerned knew that this was an all-or-nothing affair, that no error could be corrected, and that they were being watched attentively by knowing eyes; most had taken off their shirts (their best shirts, embroidered in the seams), laying them carefully folded amidships or on the chain-pump brakes, and most were a little nervous. For this kind of exercise, where the new flint-lock might fail, Jack always preferred the old-fashioned slow-match; and now its smoke eddied along the deck, awaking countless memories.
The frigate was almost abreast of the first target, the water rippling along her side. 'She bears,' murmured Bonden. 'Fire!' cried Fielding and the whole broadside went off in an immense long-thundering crash, eleven jets of flame with wadding dark in the brilliance; and before the smoke-bank rose to veil the sea those on the quarterdeck saw the target leap in an eruption of white water, with a few plumes beyond it and one shot that went skipping over the sea in great bounds until it hit the rocky shore. The Sultan's face was suffused with fierce delight; he pounded his right fist into his left palm in a European or perhaps a universal gesture and called out to the Vizier, his eyes sparkling with a most unusual animation. Meanwhile the teams were holding their guns inboard, sponging, reloading, ramming home the wad and running the piece up with a fine satisfying thump.
The Diane approached the second target in dead silence. The gunners glared out of their gunports with total concentration, making minute changes of bearing and elevation; the Sultan and his men lined the rail, motionless, wholly absorbed.
'She bears,' murmured Bonden again, and again Fielding, peering along the barrel behind him cried 'Fire!' This time there were no visible misses, and the Sultan laughed aloud.
'Hands about ship,' said Jack, and the frigate stayed in little more than her own length; the gun crews straightened for a moment, hoisting their trousers and spitting on their hands. They were now in perfect form, and bending to the guns again they destroyed the two remaining rafts with a deliberate certainty. The Diane picked up her moorings once again, by the two-hulled proa, twelve minutes after she had left them.
Jack and the returning first lieutenant exchanged private glances of relief. It had been a somewhat perilous caper, but they knew that the ship had performed it well, even by the most professional standards. 'Upon my word, sir,' said Fox at his elbow, 'that was a most impressive sight. The Sultan wishes you to know that he has seen nothing to equal it.'
Jack and the Sultan bowed and smiled to one another and Jack, glancing at the setting sun, said, 'Pray tell His Highness that in a few minutes I hope to show him something that may perhaps go beyond it, at least as an expression of loyalty. At one bell in the last dog-watch we are to fire a salute in honour of Princess Sophia's birthday.'
By one bell the tropical dusk had become tropical darkness, and Mr White stalked forth in his best uniform, a red-hot poker in his hand and a mate with a brazier behind him, and while the officers and Marines stood to attention and the hands to something faintly resembling it, he put the poker to the touch-hole of the first quarterdeck nine-pounder, which instantly shot out a vast tongue of crimson fire and a strangely shrill explosion.
'Oh!' cried the Sultan, in spite of himself; and repeating 'If I wasn't a gunner I wouldn't be here' Mr White paced on to the next: a jet of more than sapphire blue, and the whole court uttered a great 'Ah!' The brilliant white of camphor, the green of brass filings, a rosy pink, a most uncommon violet derived from orpiment, and so it went at perfectly regular intervals, timed by the gunner's ritual words, to the final prodigious blast from the aftermost carronade, crammed with a deafening, blinding mixture of pedok, datang and colophony.
Stephen saw the welcome light in van Buren's window, and stepping over the python that was travelling along the outer path he walked in by the garden gate.
'How pleasant to see you again,' they said almost simultaneously; and when van Buren had described his journey, safely performed but slow, tedious and unrewarding from the point of view of natural philosophy, and his treatment of the patient, Stephen said, 'By the way, there was a python in your lane.'
'Reticulatus, I suppose?'
'I imagine so. There was neither time nor light to examine his labial scales, but I imagine so. Twenty-five feet long, perhaps, and reasonably stout for a serpent of that length.'
'Yes. I see him from time to time. Pythons are said to be ill-tempered, but he has never proved objectionable; though perhaps it might not be wise to linger underneath his tree. Now tell me, how have matters come along?'
'As far as the official negotiations are concerned, they began well; but now they tend to become difficult, with endless restatements of the case.'
'Of course they will drag on for a great while; in these parts a rapid conclusion would be a loss of consequence. I put Cuvier's bones for the very small, very delicate red ants to clean, a long task for them, considering the tapir's bulk; but I am sure the hones will be perfectly white long before you carry them off to be sent to France.'
'Oh, I should be happy to stay. I have scarcely begun on the coleoptera, and I have never caught so much as a glimpse of an orang-utang, even in the summit of a very distant tree. But what distresses me is that although with your invaluable advice and the help of the amiable Wan Da I have won the good-will of the Vizier and the greater part of the council, particularly the Sultana Hafsa's relations, every time Fox makes real headway, the Sultan imposes his veto and the Vizier is obliged to overthrow everything, sometimes on pretexts that can hardly be attempted to be believed. And both Fox and I are convinced that this is because of Abdul. The Sultan has a strong, dominant character - his council is afraid of him - but as you said yourself some time ago, never was a man so besotted. It was embarrassingly obvious at the otherwise very successful reception aboard the frigate.'
'But what interest can Abdul have in the matter?'
