Shao Yen is very well with the Governor and could send him your message in five minutes, if he is there. The Governor is wholly favourable to us, and within another five minutes he could lay his hand on some ship, boat or vessel. You have seen Batavia roads: a maritime Hyde Park Corner.'
'Then in the best of cases, providing he hits on a windward craft (and after all he was born at sea) even with this breeze we could begin hoping to see them on Sunday. New Manila cordage, fresh six-inch spikes, pots of paint! To say nothing of the essential powder and shot, rum and tobacco. Long live Sunday!'
'Long live Sunday,' said Stephen, creeping off up the hill. And 'Long live Sunday,' he repeated, swinging in his hammock and trying to find sound reasons for the feeling of extreme dissatisfaction at the back of his mind. His calling led him to be intensely suspicious and he acknowledged that he often went much too far, particularly when he was not well. Yet why had Kesegaran told Ahmed to bring them to the camp by the middle path, the quite arduous middle path rather than by the strand? It was clear that she knew the island fairly well, although she had observed in passing, and quite truly no doubt, that because of its dangerous currents it was little frequented. The middle path meant that she had seen the camp in all its nakedness and the poor simple half-wit Ahmed had made the nakedness more apparent still by telling her about the powder. The chance meeting, the circumstances in which the camp was seen, could hardly have been more unfortunate. But on the other hand, down by the slip she had seen a hundred powerful men and more, no negligible force at all; and the fact of having one's second incisors filed to a point (no doubt a tribal custom) did not necessarily argue any very great depravity of mind.
Chapter Two
'Another misery of human life,' remarked Stephen to the morning darkness, 'is having a contubernal that snores like ten.'
'I was not snoring,' said Jack. 'I was wide awake. What is a contubernal?'
'You are a contubernal.'
'And you are another. I was wide awake; and I was thinking about Sunday. If Raffles' stores come in, we shall rig church by way of thanksgiving, eat a full ration of plum-duff, and observe the rest of the day as a holiday. Then on Monday we shall set to...'
'What was that noise? Not thunder, Heaven preserve?'
'It was only Chips and the bosun stealing away without a sound: they and their party mean to lay out the work early and start the tar-kettle a-going well in advance, and Joe Gower is taking his fishgig in the hope of some of those well-tasting stingrays that lie in the shallows by night. You will smell the smoke and the tar presently, if you pay attention.'
They lay there paying mild attention for several wholly relaxed, luxurious minutes, but it was not the smell of tar that brought Jack Aubrey leaping from his hammock. From down by the slip came a furious confused bellowing, the sound of blows, an immensely loud bubbling scream that died in agony.
It was still dark when he reached the breastwork, but lights were moving about down there and over the sea. The flames under the tar-kettle seemed to show the loom of a considerable vessel just off shore, but before he could be certain of it the first of the carpenter's party came scrambling up the hill. 'What has happened, Jenning?' he asked.
'They killed Hadley, sir. They killed Joe Gower. Black men are stealing our tools.'
'Beat to quarters,' cried Jack, and as the drum thundered several more hands came up the slope, the last half-carrying the bosun between them, pouring blood as he came.
Then first light in the east: false dawn: the red rim of the sun, and all at once full brilliant day. The largest double-hulled proa Jack had ever seen was lying a few yards off the mouth of the slip, close enough at low tide for dense lines of men to wade out, carrying tools, cordage, sailcloth, metal-work, while on the shore still others were gathered, some round their dead friends, some round their dead enemies.
'May I fire, sir?' asked Welby, whose Marines had lined the breastwork.
'At that distance, and with doubtful powder? No. How many charges do your men possess?'
'Most have two, sir; in moderate condition.'
Jack nodded. 'Mr Reade,' he called. 'My glass, if you please; and pass the word for the gunner.'
The telescope brought the shore startlingly close. They were carefully cutting off the carpenter's head: Gower and another man he could no longer identify had already lost theirs. There were two dead Malays or Dyaks and even at this juncture he was shocked to see that one was Kesegaran. Although she was now wearing Chinese trousers and although she had been pierced through and through she was perfectly recognizable, lying there looking fiercely up at the sky.
Jennings was still at his side, still voluble from the shock. 'It was Joe Gower that done it,' he said. 'Mr White went for to stop her taking his broad axe; she slashed his leg out of hand, and as he lay there she slit his throat quick as whistlejack - he screamed like a pig. So Joe served her out with his fishgig. It came natural to him, being a quean, as they say, and carpenter's mate.'
'Sir?' said the gunner.
'Mr White, let the carronades be drawn and reloaded with grape. What do you say to their charges?'
'I should not like to answer for the piece forward, sir; but the nine-pounder and the after carronade may do their duty.'
'At least change the old flannel for something dry, mix in a little priming and bet them air. Those people will be busy down there for quite a while.' He turned to his first lieutenant and said 'Mr Fielding, boarding-pikes and cutlasses have been served out, I am sure?'
'Oh yes, sir.'
'Then let the people go to breakfast watch by watch; and pray search all possible sources for powder, flasks, fowling-pieces, pistols that may have been overlooked, rockets. Ah, Doctor, there you are. You have seen what is afoot, I dare say?'
'I have a general notion. Should you like me to go down and parley, make peace if it is at all possible?'
'Do you know that Kesegaran was there, and has been killed?'
