double gutturals of the local Hebrew; but at least I did not bore the company with an account of what is perhaps the most curious thing about the Beni Mzab - curious, but difficult to explain in a few words.
I mean the fact that not only are the Moslems Ibadite heretics, but many of the Jews are Cainites, equally erroneous according to the orthodox.’
Stephen reflected, grinding still, and then said, ‘I do not think I know about Cainites.’
‘They derive their descent from the Kenites, who themselves have Abel’s brother Cain as their common ancestor: furthermore, the initiated still bear his mark; though discreetly, since they do not choose to have it generally known, there still being so many vulgar prejudices against him. This shared mark of Cain forms the strongest bond imaginable, far outdoing that between Freemasons, and of infinitely greater antiquity.’
‘So I should imagine.’
‘In early Christian times some of them formed a Gnostic sect; but those belonging to the Beni Mzab have returned to the ancient ways, maintaining that Cain was brought into being by a superior power and Abel by an inferior; and that he was the ancestor of Esau, Korah and the Sodomites.’
‘Come in,’ called Stephen.
Captain Hobden came stooping under the lintel. ‘I beg pardon for interrupting you, Doctor Maturin. I beg your pardon. Here is my apology’ - handing his letter - ‘and here is my dog.’
‘You are very good, sir,’ cried Stephen, starting up and shaking his hand. ‘Do not fear for Naseby: these are very simple operations, and I would not hurt him for the world.’
Seamen, according to Dr Maturin’s experience, were even fonder of remedies that could be seen and felt to work at once than most people; and the Surprise’s medicine-chest was well stocked with powerful emetics.
‘There is little hope,’ said Stephen as he slid the dose down Naseby’s unresisting throat. ‘At this late hour there is little hope, at all.’
‘On the other hand, the animal’s early detection and subsequent evident guilt may well have diminished or even arrested his digestive secretions.’
‘Hold the bucket and belay, there. Stand back.’
Sick, sick as a dog he was: but indeed it was too late. ‘Yet at least we have virtually all the bones,’ said Stephen, stirring with a pair of retractors. ‘And they are almost untouched. All the rest is now meaningless, but once the bones are boiled clean we can wire them together: the hand will be even more emphatically hand-like, and that will comfort the crew. Poll. Poll there! Be so good as to call for a couple of swabbers, and I will take this poor fellow back to his master.’
The wiring-together with the help of the carpenter’s finest drills, the very convincing wiring-together, which was completed before the end of the last dog-watch, did indeed comfort the crew. They waited in files to see the dead-white fingers rising tall and high from the neat pattern of carpalbones set in black-gleaming pitch, the whole enclosed in a stern-lantern glass. Each group, having gazed upon it for the regulation minute, hurried back to the beginning of the line to see it again; and it was universally agreed that a more Glorious Hand did not exist. No one was foolish enough to mention luck, but the Surprises wore a deeply satisfied look that said much more than any open exultation.
At quarters the next day they were still unusually lively and cheerful in spite of the falling breeze, backing so far easterly that it might come foul before the end of the exercise, and that also carried drifting swathes of mist, and sometimes rain. But even downright snow would neither have chilled or damped their spirits, and they ran their guns in and above all out with a fine hearty thump.
Then, just before the drum beat the retreat and hammocks were piped down, an extremely shrill and piercing voice from the foretopmast cried, ‘On deck, there. On deck, there. Two sail of ships, four points on the starboard beam. Standing south-east. Just about hull-up.’
‘Mr Daniel,’ called Jack to the master’s mate. ‘Follow me aloft with my night-glass from the cabin, will you?’ He was settled in the topgallant cross-trees by the time Daniel and the telescope reached him; but whereas the Commodore was puffing, Daniel, in spite of his recent hardships, was not.
‘There, sir,’ called the lookout some way along the yard. ‘Just abaft the preventer-stay.’ And there indeed, just for a moment, was a white blur: perhaps two white blurs. Then the low cloud hid them entirely.
‘Joe,’ said the Commodore, who had known the lookout from childhood, ‘what did you make of them at best?’
‘Just when I hailed, sir, they were pretty clear. I should have said a right man-of-war, a medium frigate: trim, though foreign. And maybe a merchantman in her wake. Under all plain sail. But when I see them again they had altered course,
