Birds of Prey

Once, weeping like an old woman, he had even offered her freedom and marriage, her deed of emancipation on the day that she married him.

She spat like a cat at the thought.

Twice she had tried to kill him. Once with a dagger and once with poison. Now he made her taste every dish or bowl she served him, but the thought sustained her that one day she might succeed and watch his death throes.

"She does seem to have an angelic presence," Katinka agreed, knowing instinctively that the description would enrage its subject. "Come here, Sukeena," she ordered, and the girl came to her moving like a reed in the wind.

"Kneel down!" said Katinka, and Sukeena knelt before her, her eyes modestly downcast. "Look at me!" She raised her head.

Katinka studied her face, and spoke to Kleinhans without looking at him. "You say she is healthy?"

"Young and healthy, never a day's illness in her life."

"Is she pregnant?" Katinka asked, and ran her hand lightly over the girl's stomach. It was flat and hard.

"No! No!" Kleinhans exclaimed. "She is a virgin."

"There is never any guarantee of that state. The devil enters even the most heavily barred fortress." Katinka smiled. "But I will accept your word on it. I want to see her teeth. Open your mouth." For a moment she thought Sukeena would refuse, but then her lips parted, and her small teeth sparkled in the sunlight, whiter than freshly carved ivory.

Katinka laid the tip of her finger on the girl's lower lip. It felt soft as a rose petal, and Katinka let the moment hang, drawing out the pleasure, prolonging Sukeena's humiliation. Then, slowly and voluptuously, she ran her finger between the girl's lips. "The gesture was sexually fraught, a parody of the masculine penetration of the woman. As he watched, Kleinhans'hand began to tremble so violently that the sweet Constantia wine spilled over the rim of the glass he held. Cornelius Schreuder scowled and moved uneasily in his seat, crossing one leg over the other.

The inside of Sukeena's mouth was soft and moist. The two women stared at each other. Then Katinka began to move her finger slowly back and forth, exploring and probing while she asked Kleinhans, "Her father, this Englishman, what happened to him? If he loved his concubine, as you say he did, why did he allow her children to be sold on the slave block?"

"He was one of the English bandits that were executed while I was Governor of Batavia. I am sure you are acquainted with the incident, are you not, Mevrouw?"

"Yes, I recall it well, The accused men were tortured by the Company executioner to ascertain the extent of their villainy," Katinka said softly, still gazing into Sukeena's eyes. The extremity of the suffering she saw in them amazed and intrigued her. "I did not know that you were the Governor at that time. The girl's father was executed at your orders, then?" Katinka asked, and Sukeena's lips quivered and closed softly around Katinka's long white finger.

"I have heard that they were crucified," Katinka breathed huskily, and Sukeena's eyes filled with tears although her features remained serene. "I have heard that burning sulphur flares were applied to their feet," Katinka said, and felt the girl's tongue slide over her finger as she swallowed her grief. "And then the flares were held under their hands." Sukeena's sharp little teeth closed on her finger, not hard enough to be painful and certainly not hard enough to break or mark the white skin, but the threat was in her eyes, which were filled with hatred.

"I regret that it was necessary. The man's obstinacy was extraordinary. It must be a national trait of the English." Kleinhans nodded. "To endorse the punishment I ordered that the condemned man's concubine, her name was Ashreth, be made to watch the execution, she and the two children. Of course, at the time I knew nothing of Sukeena and her brother. It was not idle cruelty on my part but Company policy. These people do not respond to kindness, which they mistake for weakness." Kleinhans gave a sigh of regret at such intransigence.

The tears were sliding silently down Sukeena's cheeks as Kleinhans went on, "Once they had fully confessed their guilt, the criminals were burned. The flares were thrown onto the faggots of wood at their feet and the whole lot went up in the flames, which was a merciful release for all of us."

With a small shudder Katinka withdrew her finger from between the girl's trembling lips. With the tenderness of a satisfied lover she stroked the satiny cheek, her finger still wet with the girl's saliva leaving damp streaks on the amber skin.

"What happened to the woman, the concubine? Was she also sold into slavery with the children?" Katinka asked, not taking her gaze from those grief-wet eyes in front of her.

"No," Kleinhans said. "That is the strange part of the story. Ashreth threw herself into the flames and perished on the same pyre as her English lover. There is no understanding the native mind, is there?"

There was a long silence, and when a cloud passed over the sun the day seemed suddenly dark and chill.

"I will take her," Katinka said, so softly that Kleinhans cupped a hand to his ear.

"Please excuse me, Mevrouw, but I did not catch what you said."

"I will take her," Katinka repeated. "This girl, Sukeena, I will buy her from you."

"We have not yet agreed a price." Kleinhans looked startled. he had not expected it to be so easy.

"I am certain your price will be reasonable that is, if you also wish to sell me the other slaves in your span."

"You are a lady of great compassion." Kleinhans shook his head in admiration. "I see that Sukeena's story has touched your heart and that you want to take her into your care. Thank you. I know you will treat her kindly.-" Hal hung on the grating of the cell window and called his sighting to Aboli, who held him on his shoulders.

"They have returned in the Governor's carriage. The three of them, Kleinhans, Schreuder and Governor van de Velde's wife. They are going back up the staircase " He broke off and exclaimed, "Wait! There is someone else alighting from the carriage. Someone I do not know. A woman."

Daniel, who was standing at the grille gate, relayed this message up the staircase to the solitary cells at the top. "Describe this strange woman," Sir Francis called.

At that moment the woman turned to say something to Fredricus the driver and, with a start, Hal recognized her as the slave girl who had stood in the crowd while they were being marched across the parade.

"She is small and young, almost a child. Balinese, perhaps, or Malaccan, something about the look of her." He hesitated. "She is probably of mixed blood, and almost certainly a servant or a slave. Kleinhans and Schreuder walk ahead of her."

Daniel passed this on, and suddenly Althuda's voice came back to them down the stairwell. "Is she very pretty? Long dark hair twisted up on top of her head, with flowers in it. Does she wear a green jade ornament at her throat?"

"All those things," Hal shouted back. "Except that she is not pretty, she is lovely beyond the telling of it. Do you know her? Who is she?"

"Her name is Sukeena. She is the one for whom I came back from the mountains. She is my little sister."

Hal watched Sukeena mount the stairs, moving with the lightness and alacrity of an autumn leaf in a gust of wind. Somehow, while he watched this girl, his thoughts of Katinka were not so all-consuming. When she disappeared from his sight, the light filtering into the dungeon seemed dimmer and the stone walls more damp and cold. first they had all been amazed by the treatment meted out to them in the castle dungeons. They were allowed to slop out the latrine bucket every morning, drawing lots for the privilege. At the end of the first week, a load of" fresh straw was delivered by one of the Company field slaves, driving an ox cart and they were allowed to throw out the verminous old straw that covered the floors. Through a copper pipe the water cistern was fed continuously from one of the streams that rushed down from the mountain, so they suffered no hardship from thirst. Each evening a loaf of coarse-grained bread, the size of a wagon wheel, and a great iron pot were sent down from the kitchens. The pot was filled with the peelings and off cuts of vegetables, boiled up with the meat of seals captured on Robben Island. This stew was more plentiful and tastier than much of the food they had eaten aboard ship.

Althuda laughed when he heard them discussing it. "They also feed their oxen well. Dumb animals work better when they are strong."

"We ain't doing much work here and now," Daniel remarked comfortably, and patted his belly.

Althuda laughed again. "Look out of the window," he advised them.

"There is a fort to build. You will not be sitting down here much longer. Believe me when I say it."

"Ahoy there, Althuda," Daniel shouted, "your sister isn't English, so it makes sense that you aren't an Englishman either. How is it that you speak like one?"

"My father was from Plymouth. I have never been there. Do you know the place?"

There was a roar of laughter and comment and clapping, and Hal spoke for them all. "By God, except for Aboli and these other African knaves, we are all Devon men and true. You are one of us, then, Althuda!"

"You have never seen me. I must warn you that I don't look like you,"Althuda warned them. "if you look half as good as your little sister, then you'll do well enough," Hal replied, and the men hooted with laughter.

For the first week of their captivity, they saw the sergeant gaoler, named Manseer, only when the stew pot was brought in or when the bedding straw was changed then, suddenly, on the eighth morning, the iron door at the head of the stairs was thrown open with a crash and Manseer bellowed down the well, "Two at a time, form up. We are taking you out to wash some of the stink off you, or the judge will suffocate before he has a chance to send you to Stadige Jan. Come on now, shake yourselves."

With a dozen guards keeping watch over them they were taken out in pairs, made to -strip naked and wash themselves and their clothing under the hand pump behind the stables.

The following morning they were turned out again with the dawn, and this time the castle armourer was waiting with his forge and anvil to shackle them together, not this time in one long ungainly file but into pairs.

When the iron-studded door to Sir Francis's cell was opened, and his father emerged with his hair hanging lankly to his shoulders and a grizzled beard covering his chin, Hal pushed himself forward so that they were shackled together.

"How are you, Father?" Hal asked with concern, for he had never seen his father looking so seedy.

Before Sir Francis could reply a bout of coughing overtook him. When it passed, he answered hoarsely, "I prefer a good Channel gate to the air down here, but I am well enough for what has to be done."

"I could not shout it to you, but Aboli and I have been working out a plan to escape," Hal whispered to him. "We have managed to lift one of the floor slabs in the back of the cell and we are going to dig a tunnel under the walls."

"With your bare hands?" Sir Francis smiled at him.

"We need to find a tool," Hal admitted, "but when we do..."

He nodded with grim determination, and Sir Francis felt his heart might burst with love and pride. I have taught him to be a fighter, and to keep on fighting even when the battle is lost. Sweet God, I hope the Dutchies spare him the fate that they have in store for me.

In the middle of the morning they were marched from the courtyard up the staircase into the main hall of the castle, which had been converted into a courtroom. Shackled two by two, they were led to the four rows of low wooden benches in the centre of the floor and seated upon them, Sir Francis and Hal in the middle of the front row. Their guards, with drawn swords, lined up along the wall behind them.

A platform had been built against the wall before them and on it, facing the benches of the prisoners, was set a heavy table and a tall chair of dark teak. This was the judge's throne. At one end of the table was a stool, on which the court writer was already seated, scribbling busily in his journal. Below the platform was another pair of tables and chairs. At one of these sat someone Hal had seen many times before through the cell window. According to Althuda, he was a junior clerk in the Company administration. His name was Jacobus Hop and, after one nervous glance at the prisoners, he did not look at them again. He was rustling and scratching through a sheaf of documents, pausing from time to time to wipe his sweating face with a large white neck cloth

At the second table sat Colonel Cornelius Schreuder. He was the romantic poet's image of the gallant and debonair soldier, all a-glitter with his medallions and stars and the wide sash across one shoulder. His wig was freshly washed, the curls hanging down to his shoulders. His legs were thrust out in front of him, his soft thigh-high boots crossed at the ankles. On the table top in front of him books and papers were scattered and laid carelessly upon them were his plumed Hat and the Neptune sword. As he rocked backwards and forwards on his chair he stared relentlessly at Hal, and though Hal tried to match his gaze he was forced at last to drop his eyes.

There was a sudden uproar at the main doors, and when they swung open the crowds from the town burst in and scrambled to find seats on the benches down each side of the hall. As soon as the last seat was taken, the doors were forced closed again in the faces of those unfortunates at the rear. Now the hall was clamorous with excited comment and anticipation, as the lucky spectators studied the prisoners and loudly gave their opinions to each other.

To one side an area had been railed off, and two green, jackets with drawn swords stood guard over it. Behind the railing a row of comfortable cushioned chairs had been arranged. Now there was further hubbub, and the crowd's attention turned from the accused men to the dignitaries who filed out through the doors of the audience chamber. Governor Kleinhans led them, with Katinka van de Velde on his arm, followed by Lord Cumbrae and Captain Limberger, chatting casually together, ignoring the stir that their entrance was causing among the common folk.

Katinka took the chair in the centre of the row. Hal stared at her, willing her to look in his direction, to give him a sign of recognition and reassurance. He tried to sustain in himself the faith that she would never abandon him, and that she had already used her influence and had interceded with her husband for mercy, but she was deep in conversation with Governor Kleinhans and never as much as glanced at the ranks of English seamen. She does not want others to see her preference and concern for us, Hal consoled himself, but when the time comes for her to give her evidence she will surely speak out for us.

Colonel Schreuder clumped down his booted feet heavily and came to his feet. He stared around the crowded hall with huge disdain, and the female spectators gave little sighs and squeals of admiration.

"This tribunal is convened by virtue of the power conferred upon the honourable Dutch East India Company in the terms of the charter issued to the aforesaid Company by the government of the Republic of Holland and the Lowlands. Pray silence and stand for the president of the tribunal, His Excellency Governor Petrus van de Velde."

The spectators came to their feet with a subdued murmur and stared in anticipation at the door behind the platform. Some of the prisoners struggled up, rattling their chains, but when they saw Sir Francis Courtney and Hal sit unmoving they subsided back onto the benches.

Through the far door appeared the president of the court. He mounted ponderously to the platform and glared down upon the seated rows of prisoners. "Get those rogues on their feed" he bellowed suddenly. and the crowds quailed before his murderous expression.

In the stunned silence that followed this outburst, Sir Francis spoke out clearly in Dutch. "Neither I nor any of my men recognize the authority of this assembly, nor do we accept the right of the self-appointed president to examine and sentence free-born Englishmen, subjects only of His Majesty King Charles the Second. Van de Velde seemed to swell like a great toad. His face turned a dark and furious shade of crimson, and he roared, "You are a pirate and a murderer. By the sovereignty of the Republic and the charter of the Company, by the right of moral and international law, the authority is vested in me to conduct this trial." He broke off to gasp for breath, then went on even louder than before. "I find you guilty of gross and flagrant contempt of this court, and I sentence you to ten strokes of the cane to be administered forthwith." He looked to the commander of the guard. "Master of arms, take the prisoner into the courtyard and carry out the sentence at once."

Four soldiers hurried forward from the back of the hall, and hauled Sir Francis to his feet. Hal, shackled to his father, was dragged with him to the main doors. Behind them, men and women leaped onto the benches and craned for a view, then rushed in a body to the doorway and the windows as Sir Francis and Hal were urged down the staircase into the yard.

Sir Francis kept silent, his head high and his back straight, as he was pushed to the hitching rail for officer's horses at the entrance of the armoury. At the shouted orders of the sergeant, he and Hal were placed on either side of the high rail, facing each other, their manacled wrists hooked into the iron rings.

Hal was powerless to intervene. The sergeant placed his forefinger in the back of the collar of Sir Francis's shirt and yanked down, splitting the cotton to the waist. Then he stepped back and swished his light malacca cane.

"You have made an oath on your Knighthood. Do you stand by it on your honour?" Sir Francis whispered to his son.

"I do, Father."

The cane fluted and snapped on his bare flesh, and Sir Francis winced. "This beating is but a little thing, the play of children compared to what must follow. Do you understand that?"

"I understand full well."

The sergeant struck again. He was laying the stripes one on top of the other, the pain multiplying with each blow.

"No matter what you do or say, nothing and no one can change the flight of the red comet. The stars have laid out my destiny and you cannot intervene."

The cane hummed and cracked, and Sir Francis's body stiffened, then relaxed.

"If you are strong and constant, you will endure. That will be my reward."

This time he gave a small, hoarse gasp as the cane bit into the tautly stretched muscles of his back.

"You are my body and my blood. Through you I also will endure."

The cane hummed and clapped, again and again.

"Swear it to me one last time. Reinforce your oath, that you will never reveal anything to these people in a futile attempt to save me."

"Father, I swear it to you," Hal whispered back, his face white as bleached bone, as the cane sang, a succession of cruel blows.

"I put all my faith and my trust in you," said Sir Francis, and the soldiers lifted him down from the railing. As they marched back up the staircase, he leaned lightly on Hal's arm. When he stumbled Hal braced him, so that his head was still high and his bloody back straight as they entered the hall and marched together to their seats on the front bench.

Governor van de Velde was now seated on the dais. A silver tray was set at his elbow, loaded with small china bowls of appetizers and spiced savouries. He was munching contentedly on one of these and drinking from a pewter mug of small beer as he chatted to Colonel Schreuder at the table below him. As soon as Sir Francis and Hal were shoved by their guards onto the bench again his amiable expression changed dramatically. He raised his voice and an immediate, dense silence fell over the assembly. "I trust that I have made it clear that I will brook no further hindrance to these proceedings." He glowered at Sir Francis and then raised his eyes to sweep the hall. "That goes for all persons gathered here. Anyone else who in any way attempts to make a mockery of this tribunal will receive the same treatment as the prisoner." He looked down at Schreuder. "Who appears for the prosecution?"

Schreuder stood up. "Colonel Cornelius Schreuder, at your service, your excellency."

"Who appears for the defence?" Van de Velde glowered at Jacobus Hop, and the clerk sprang to his feet, sending half the documents in front of him showering to the tiles.

"I do, your excellency."

"State your name, man!" van de Velde roared at him, and Hop wriggled like a puppy.

He stammered, "Jacobus Hop, clerk and writer to the Honourable Dutch East India Company." This declaration took a long time to enunciate.

"In future speak out and speak clear," van de Velde warned him, then turned back to Schreuder. "You may proceed to present your case, Colonel."

"This is a matter of piracy on the high seas, together with murder and abduction. The accused are twenty-four in number. With your indulgence, I will now read a list of their names. Each prisoner will stand when his name is read so that the court may recognize him." From the sleeve of his tunic he drew a roll of parchment and held it at arm's length. "The foremost accused person is Francis Courtney, captain of the pirate bark the Lady Edwina. Your excellency, he is the leader and instigator of all the criminal acts perpetrated by this pack of sea wolves and corsairs." Van de Velde nodded his understanding and Schreuder went on. "Henry Courtney, officer and mate. Ned Tyler, boatswain. Daniel Fisher, boatswain..." He recited the name and rank of each man on the benches, and each stood briefly, some of them bobbing their heads and grinning ingratiatingly at van de Velde. The last four names on Schreuder's list were those of the black seamen. "Matesi, a Negro slave.

"Jiri, a Negro slave. "Kimatti, a Negro slave. "Aboli, a Negro slave.

"The prosecution will prove that on the fourth day of September in the year of Our Lord sixteen sixty-seven, Francis Courtney, while commanding the caravel the Lady Edwina, of which the other prisoners were all crew members, did fall upon the galleon De Standvastigheid, Captain Limberger commanding..." Schreudet spoke without reference to notes or papers, and Hal felt a reluctant admiration for the thoroughness and lucidity of his accusations.

"And now, your excellency, if you please, I should like to call my first witness." Van de Velde nodded, and Schreuder turned and looked across the floor. "Call Captain Limberger."

The captain of the galleon left his comfortable chair in the railed-off enclosure, crossed to the platform and stepped up onto it. The witness's chair stood beside the judge's table and Limberger seated himself.

"Do you understand the gravity of this matter and swear in the name of Almighty God to tell the truth before this court?" van de Velde asked him.

"I do, your excellency."

"Very well, Colonel, you may question your witness." Swiftly Schreuder led Limberger through a recital of his name, rank and his duties for the Company. He then asked for a description of the Standvastigheid, her passengers and her cargo. Limberger read his replies from the list he had prepared. When he had finished Schreuder asked, "Who was the owner of this ship and of the cargo she was carrying?"

"The honourable Dutch East India Company."

"Now, Captain Limberger, on the fourth of September of this year was your ship voyaging in about latitude thirty four degrees south and longitude four degrees east that is approximately fifty leagues south of the Agulhas Cape?"

"It was."

"That is some time after the cessation of hostilities between Holland and England?"

"Yes, it was."

Schreuder picked up a leather-bound log-book from the table in front of him and passed it up to Limberger. "Is this the log-book that you were keeping on board your ship during that voyage?"

Limberger examined it briefly, "Yes, Colonel, this is my log."

Schreuder looked at van de Velde. "Your excellency, I think I should inform you that the log-book was found in the possession of the pirate Courtney after his capture by Company troops." Van de Velde nodded, and Schreuder looked at Limberget. "Will you please read to us the last entry in your log?"

Limberger turned the pages and then read aloud, "Fourth September sixteen sixty-seven. Two bells in the morning watch. Position by dead reckoning four degrees twenty-three minutes south latitude thirty4 our degrees, forty-five minutes east longitude. Strange sail in sight bearing south-south-east. Flying friendly colours."" Limberger closed the log and looked up. "The entry ends there," he said.

"Was that strange sail noted in your log the caravel the Lady Edwina, and was she flying the colours of the Republic and the Company?"

"Yes, to both questions."

"Will you recount the events that took place after you sighted the Lady Edwina, please."

Limberger gave a clear description of the capture of his ship, with Schreuder making him emphasize Sir Francis's use of false. colours to get within striking distance. After Limberger had told of the boarding and fighting on board the galleon, Schreuder asked for a detailed account of the numbers of Dutch sailors wounded and killed. Limberger had a written list prepared and handed this to the court.

"Thank you, Captain. Can you tell us what happened to you, your crew and your passengers once the pirates had taken control of your ship?"

Limberger went on to describe how they had sailed east in company with the Lady Edwina, the transfer of cargo and gear from the caravel into the galleon, and the dispatch of the Lady Edwina in command of Schreuder to the Cape with letters of demand for ransom, the onward voyage aboard the captured galleon to Elephant Lagoon and the captivity of himself and his eminent passengers there until their salvation by the expeditionary force from the Cape, led by Schreuder and Lord Cumbrae.

When Schreuder had finished questioning him, van de Velde looked at Hop. "Do you have any questions, Mijnheer?"

With both hands full of papers Hop stood up, blushed furiously, then took a deep, gulping breath and let out a long, unbroken stammer. Everybody in the hall watched his agony with interest, and at last van de Velde spoke. "Captain Limberger intends sailing for Holland in two weeks" time. Do you think you will have asked your question by then, Hop?",. Hop shook his head. "No questions," he said at last, and sat down heavily.

"Who is your next witness, Colonel?" van de Velde asked, as soon as Limberger had left the witness chair and was seated back in the enclosure.

"I would like to call the Governor's wife, Mevrouw Katinka van de Velde. That is, if it does not inconvenience her."

There was a masculine hum of approval as Katinka rustled her silk and her laces to the witness's chair. Sir Francis felt Hal stiffen beside him, but did not turn to look at his face. Only days before their capture, when Hal had been absent from the camp for long periods and had begun to neglect his duties, he had realized that his son had fallen into the golden whore's snare. By then it had been far too late to intervene, and in any case, he remembered what it was like to be young and in love, even with an utterly unsuitable woman, and had understood the futility of trying to prevent what had already happened.

He had been waiting for the correct moment and the right means to end the liaison when Schreuder and the Buzzard had attacked the camp.

With great deference, Schreuder led Katinka gently through the recital of her name and position and then asked her to describe her voyage aboard the Standvastigheid, and how she had been taken prisoner.

She answered in a sweet, Clear voice that throbbed with emotion, and Schreuder went on, "Please tell us, madam, how you were treated by your captors." then Katinka began to sob softly. "I have tried to put memory from my mind, for it was too painful to bear thinking upon. But I will never be able to forget. I was treated like a caged animal, cursed and spat upon, kept locked up in a grass hut." Even van de Velde looked amazed by the testimony, but realized that it would look impressive in the report that went to Amsterdam. After reading it Katinka's father and the other members of the Seventeen would have no other option but to approve even the harshest retribution visited on the prisoners.

Sir Francis was aware of the turmoil of emotion that Hal was suffering as he listened to the woman in whom he had placed so much trust pouring out her lies. He felt his son sag physically as she destroyed his faith in her.

"Be of good heart, my boy," he said softly, from the corner of his mouth, and felt Hal sit up straighter on the hard bench.

"My dear lady, we know that you have suffered a terrible ordeal at the hands of these inhuman monsters." By this time Schreuder was trembling with anger to hear of her ordeal. Katinka nodded and dabbed daintily at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "Do you believe that animals such, as these should be shown mercy, or should they be subjected to the full force and majesty of the law?"

"Sweet Jesus knows that I am only a poor female, with a soft and loving heart for all God's creation." Katinka's voice broke pitifully.

"But I know that everybody in this assembly will agree with me that a simple hanging is too good for these unspeakable wretches." A murmur of agreement spread slowly along the benches of spectators, then turned into a deep growl. Like a pit full of bears at feeding time, they wanted blood.

"Burn them!" a woman screamed. "They are not fit to be called men."

Katinka lifted her head and, for the first time since entering the hall, she looked directly at Hal, staring through her tears straight into his eyes.

Hal lifted his chin and stared back. He felt the love and awe he had cherished for her withering, like a tender vine struck with the black mould. Sir Francis felt it too, and turned to look at him. He saw the ice in his son's eyes and could almost feel the heat of the flames in his heart.

"She was never worthy of you," Sir Francis said softly. "Now that you have renounced her, you have taken another mighty leap into manhood."

Did his father really understand, Hal wondered. Did he know what had taken place? Did he know of Hal's feelings? If that were so, surely he would long ago have rejected him. He turned and looked into Sir Francis's eyes, fearing to see them filled with scorn and revulsion.

But his father's gaze was mellow with understanding. Hal realized that he knew everything, and had probably known all along. Far from rejecting him, his father was offering him strength and redemption.

"I have committed adultery, and I have disgraced my Knighthood," Hal whispered. "I am no longer worthy to be called your son."

The manacle on his wrist clinked as Sir Francis laid his hand on the boy's knee. "IT was this harlot that led you astray. The blame is not yours. You will always be my son and I shall always be proud of you, "he whispered.

Van de Velde frowned down upon Sir Francis. "Silence! No more of your muttering! Is it another touch of the cane you are seeking?" He turned back to his wife. "Mevrouw, you have been very brave. I am sure Mijnheer Hop will not wish to trouble you further." He transferred his gaze to the unfortunate clerk, who scrambled to his feet.

"Mevrouw!" The single word came out sharp and clear as a pistol shot, surprising Hop as much as everyone -else in court. "We thank you for your testimony, and we have no questions." There was only one catch, on the word "testimony," and Hop sat down again triumphantly.

"Well said, Hop." Van de Velde beamed at him in avuncular fashion, and then turned a doting smile on his wife. "You may return to your seat, Mevrouw." There was a lust-laden hush and every man in the hall let his gaze drop as Katinka. lifted her skirts just high enough to expose her perfect little ankles clad in white silk and stepped down from the platform.

As soon as she was seated, Schreuder said, "Now, Lord Cumbrae, may we trouble you?"

In his full regalia the Buzzard mounted the platform, and as he took the oath placed one hand on the flashing yellow cairngorm in the hilt of his dagger. Once Schreuder had established who and what he was, he asked the Buzzard, "Do you know the pirate captain, Courtney?"

"Like a brother." Cumbrae smiled down on Sir Francis. "Once we were close."

"Not any more?" Schreuder asked sharply.

"Alas, it pains me but when my old friend began to change there was a parting of our ways, although I still feel great affection for him."

"How did he change?"

"Well, he was always a braw laddie, was Franky. We sailed in company on many a day, through storm and the balmy days. There was no man I loved better, fair he was and honest, brave and generous to his friends-" Cumbrae broke off and an expression of deep sorrow knitted his brow.

"You speak in the past tense, my lord, what changed?" "Twos Francis who changed. At first it was in little things he was cruel to his captives and hard on his crew, flogging and hanging when it weren't called for. Then he changed towards his old friends, lying and cheating them out of their share of the prize. He became a hard man and bitter."

"Thank you for this honesty," Schreuder said, "I can see it gives you no pleasure to reveal these truths."

"No pleasure at all," Cumbrae confirmed with sadness. "I hate to see my old friend in chains, though God Almighty knows well he deserves no mercy for his murderous behaviour towards honest Dutch seamen, and innocent women."

"When did you last sail in company with Courtney?"

"It was not too long ago, in April of this year. Our two ships were on patrol together off Agulhas, waiting to waylay the Company galleons as they rounded the Cape to call in here at Table Bay." There was a murmur of patriotic anger from the spectators, which van de Velde ignored.

"Were you, then, also a corsair?" Schreuder glared at him. "Were you also preying on Dutch shipping?"

"No, Colonel Schreuder, I was not a pirate or a corsair.

During the recent war between our two countries, I was a commissioned privateer."

"Pray, my lord, tell us the difference between a pirate and a privateer?"

"Tis simply that a privateer sails under Letters of Marque issued by his sovereign in times of war, and so is a legitimate man-of-war. A pirate is a robber and an outlaw, carrying out his depredations without any sanction, but that of the Lord of Darkness, Satan himself."

"I see. So you had a Letter of Marque when you were raiding Dutch shipping?"

"Yes, Colonel. I did."

"Are you able to show this document to us?"

"Naturally!" Cumbrae reached into his sleeve and drew out a roll of parchment. He leaned down and handed it to Schreuder.

"Thank you." Schreuder unrolled it and held it up for all to see, heavy with scarlet ribbons and wax seals. He read aloud, "Know you by these presents that our dearly beloved Angus Cochran, Earl of "Cumbrae-" "Very well, Colonel," van de Velde interrupted testily. "No need to read us the whole thing. Let me have it here, if you please."

Schreuder bowed. "As your excellency pleases." He handed up the document. Van de Velde glanced at it then set it aside. "Please go on with your questions."

"My lord, did Courtney, the prisoner, also have one of these Letters of Marque?"

"Well, now, if he did I was not aware of it." The Buzzard grinned openly at Sir Francis.

"Would you have expected to be aware of it, if the letter had, in fact, existed?"

"Sir Francis and I were very close. No secrets between US. Yes, he would have told me."

"He never discussed the letter with you?" Schreuder looked annoyed, like a pedagogue whose pupil has forgotten his lines. "Never?"

"Oh, yes. Now I do recall one occasion. I asked him if he had a royal commission."

"And what was his reply?"

"He said, "It ain't nothing but a bit of paper anyway. don't trouble me self with rubbish like that!" "So you knew he had no letter and yet you sailed in his company?"

Cumbrae shrugged. "It was wartime, and it was none of my business."

"So you were off Cape Agulhas with the prisoner after the peace had been signed, and you were still raiding Dutch shipping. Can you explain that to us?"

"It was simple, Colonel. We did not know about peace, that is until I fell in with a Portuguese caravel outward bound from Lisbon for Goa. I hailed her and her captain told me that peace had been signed."

"What was the name of this Portuguese ship?" "She was the El Dragdo."

"Was the prisoner Courtney present at this meeting with her?"

"No, this patrol station was north of mine. He was over the horizon and out of sight at the time."

Schreuder nodded. "Where is this ship now?"

"I have here a copy of a news-sheet from London, only three months old. It arrived three days ago on the Company ship lying in the bay at this moment." The Buzzard produced. the sheet from his sleeve with a magician's flourish. "El Dragib was lost with all hands in a storm in the Bay of Biscay while on her homeward voyage."

"So, it would seem, then, that we will never have any way of disproving your meeting with her off Agulhas?" "You'll just have to take my word for it, Colonel."

Cumbrae stroked his great red beard.

"What did you do when you heard of the peace between England and Holland?"

"As an honest man, there was only one thing I could do. I broke off my patrol, and went in search of the Lady Edwina."

"To warn her that the war was over?" Schreuder suggested.

"Of course, and to tell Franky that my Letter of Marque was no longer valid and that I was going home."

"Did you find Courtney? Did you give him that message?"

"I found him within a few hours" sailing. He was due north of my position, about twenty leagues distant."

"What did he say when you told him the war was over?" "He said, "It may be over for you, but it ain't over for me. Rain or shine, wind or calm, war or peace, I am going to catch myself a fat cheese-head." There was a ferocious clanking of chains and Big Daniel sprang to his feet, dragging the diminutive figure of Ned Tyler off the bench with him. "There ain't a word of truth in it, you lying Scots bastard! "he thundered.

Van de Velde jumped up and wagged his finger at Daniel. "Sit down, you English animal, or I'll have you thrashed, and not just with the light cane."

Sit Francis turned and reached back to grab Daniel's arm. "Calm yourself, Master Daniel," he said quietly. "Don't give the Buzzard the pleasure of watching us ache." Big Daniel sank down, muttering furiously to himself, but he would not disobey his captain.

"I am sure Governor van de Velde will take notice of the unruly and desperate nature of these villains," Schreuder said, then turned his attention back to the Buzzard. "Did you ever see Courtney again before today?"

"Yes, I did. When I heard that, despite my warning, he had seized a Company galleon, I went to find him and remonstrate with him. To ask him to free the ship and its cargo, and to release the hostages he was holding to ransom."

"How did he respond to your pleas?"

"He turned his guns upon my ship, killing twelve of my seamen, and he attacked me with fireships." The Buzzard shook his head at the memory of this perfidious treatment by an old friend and shipmate. "That was when I came here to Table Bay to inform Governor Kleinhans of the galleon's whereabouts and to offer to lead an expedition to recapture the ship and her cargo from the pirates."

"As a soldier myself, I can only commend you, my lord, on your exemplary conduct. I have no further questions, your excellency." Schreuder bowed at van de Velde.

"Hop, do you have any questions?" van de Velde demanded.

Hop looked confused, and glanced in appeal at Sir Francis.

"Your excellency," he stuttered, "might I speak to Sir Francis alone, if only for a minute?"

For a while it seemed that van de Velde might refuse the request, but he clasped his brow wearily. "If you insist on holding up these proceedings all the time, Hop, we will be here all week. Very well, man, you may talk to the prisoner, but do try to be quick."

Hop hurried across to Sir Francis and leaned close. He asked a question, and listened to the reply with an expression of dawning horror on his pale face. He nodded and kept nodding as Sir Francis whispered in his ear, then went back to his table.

He stated down at his papers, breathing like a pearl diver about to plunge out of his canoe into twenty fathoms of water. Finally he looked up and shouted at Cumbrae, "The first you knew of the end of the war was when you tried to cut out the Swallow from under the fortress here in Table Bay and were told about it by Colonel Schreuder."

It came out in a single rush, without check or pause, but it was a long speech and Hop reeled back, gasping from the exertion.

"Have you lost your wits, Hop?" van de Velde bellowed. "Are you accusing a nobleman of lying, you little turd?"

Hop drew another full breath, took his fragile courage in both hands, and shouted again, "You held Captain Courtney's Letter of Marque in your own two hands, then brandished it in his face while you burned it to ashes." Again it came out fluently, but Hop was spent. He stood there gulping for air.

Van de Velde was on his feet now. "If you are looking for advancement in the Company, Hop, you are going about it in a very strange way. You stand there hurling crazy accusations at a man of high rank. Don't you know your place, you worthless guttersnipe? How dare you behave like this? Sit down before I have you taken out and flogged." Hop dropped into his seat as though he had received a musket ball in the head. Breathing heavily, van de Velde bowed towards the Buzzard. "I must apologize, my lord. Every person here knows that you were instrumental in rescuing the hostages and saving the Standvastigheid from the clutches of these villains. Please ignore those insulting statements and return to your seat. We are grateful for your help in this matter."

As Cumbrae crossed the floor, van de Velde suddenly became aware of the writer scribbling away busily beside him. "Don't write that down, you fool. It was not part of the court proceedings. Here, let me see your journal." He snatched it from the clerk, and as he read his face darkened. He leaned across and took the quill from the writer's hand. With a series of broad strokes he expurgated those parts of the text that offended him. Then he pushed the book back towards the writer. "Use your intelligence. Paper is an expensive commodity. Don't waste it by writing down unimportant rubbish." Then he transferred his attention to the two advocates. "Gentlemen, I should like this matter settled today. I do not want to put the Company to unnecessary expense by wasting any more time. Colonel Schreuder, I think you have made a thoroughly convincing presentation of the case against the pirates. I hope that you do not intend to gild the lily by calling any more witnesses, do you?"

"As your excellency pleases. I had intended calling ten more-, "Sweet heavens!" Van de Velde looked appalled. "That will not be necessary at all."

Schreuder bowed deeply and sat down. Van de Velde lowered his head like a bull about to charge and looked at the defence advocate. "Hop!" he growled. "You have just seen how reasonable Colonel Schreuder has been, and what an excellent example in the economy of words and time he has set for this court. What are your intentions?"

"May I call Sir Francis Courtney to give evidence?" Hop stuttered.

"I strongly advise against it," van de Velde told him ominously. "Certainly it will do your case little good."

"I want to -show that he did not know the war had ended and that he was sailing under a commission from the English King," Hop ploughed on obstinately, and van de Velde flushed crimson.

"Damn you, Hop. Haven't you listened to a word I said? We know all about that line of defence, and I will take it into consideration when I ponder my verdict. You don't have to regurgitate those lies again."

"I would like to have the prisoner say it, just for the court records." Hop was close to tears, and his words limped painfully over his crippled tongue.

"You are trying my patience, Hop. Continue in this fashion, and you will be on the- next ship back to Amsterdam. I cannot have a disloyal Company servant spreading dissension and sedition throughout the colony."

Hop looked alarmed to hear himself described in such terms, and he capitulated with alacrity. "I apologize for delaying the business of this honourable court. I rest the case for the defence."

"Good man! You have done a fine job of work, Hop. I will make a notation to that effect in my next despatch to the Seventeen." Van de Velde's face resumed its natural colour and he beamed jovially about the hall. "We will adjourn for the midday meal and for the court to consider its verdict. We will reconvene at four o'clock this afternoon. Take the prisoners back to the dungeons."

To avoid having to remove their shackles Manseer, the gaoler, bundled Hal who was still chained to his father into the solitary cell near the top of the spiral staircase, while the rest went below.

Hal and Sir Francis sat side by side on the stone shelf that served as a bed. As soon as they were alone Hal blurted out, "Father, I want to explain to you about Katinka - I mean about the Governor's wife."

Sir Francis embraced him awkwardly, hampered by the chains. "Unlikely as it -now seems, I was young once. You do not have to speak about that harlot again. She is not worthy of your consideration."

"I will never love another woman, not as long as I live," Hal said bitterly.

"What you felt for that woman was not love, my son." Sir Francis shook his head. "Your love is a precious currency. Spend it only in the market where you will not be cheated again."

At that there was a tapping on the iron bars of the next cell, and Althuda called, "How goes the trial, Captain Courtney? Have they given you a good taste of Company justice?"

Sir Francis raised his voice to answer. "It goes as you said it would, Althuda. It is obvious that you also have experienced it."

"The Governor is the only god in this little heaven called Good Hope. Here, justice is that which pays a profit to the Dutch East India Company or a bribe to its servants. Has the judge pronounced your guilt yet?"

"Not yet. Van de Velde has gone to guzzle at his trough." "You must pray that he values labour for his walls more than revenge. That way you might still slip through Slow John's fingers. Is there anything you are hiding from them? Anything they want from you to betray a comrade, perhaps?" Althuda asked. "If there is not, then you might still escape the little room under the armoury where Slow John does his work."

"We are hiding nothing," Sir Francis said. "Are we, Hal?" "Nothing," Hal agreed loyally.

"But," Sir Francis went on, "van de Velde believes that we are."

"Then all I can say, my friend, is may Almighty Allah have pity on you."

Those last hours together went too swiftly for Hal. He and his father spent the time talking softly together. Every so often Sir Francis broke off in a fit of coughing. His eyes glittered feverishly in the dim light, and when Hal touched his skin it was hot and clammy. Sir Francis spoke of High Weald like a man who knows he will never see his home again. When he described the river and the hill, Hal dimly remembered them and the salmon coming upstream in the spring and the stags roaring in the rut. When he spoke-of his wife, Hal tried to recall his mother's face, but saw only the woman in the miniature painting he had left buried at Elephant Lagoon, and not the real live person.

"These last years she has faded in my own memory," Sir Francis admitted. "But now her face comes back to me vividly, as young and fresh and sweet as she ever was. I wonder, is it because soon we will be together again? is she waiting for me?"

"I know she is, Father." Hal gave him the reassurance he needed. "But I need you most and I know that we will be together many more years before you go to my mother."

Sir Francis smiled regretfully, and looked up at the tiny window set high in the stone wall. "Last night I climbed up and looked through the bars, and the red comet was still in the sign of Virgo. It seemed closer and fiercer, for its fiery tail had altogether obliterated my star."

They heard the tramp of the guards approaching and the clash of keys in the iron door. Sir Francis turned to Hal. "For the last time let me kiss you, my son."

His father's lips were dry and hot with the fever in his blood. The contact was brief, then the door to the cell was thrown open.

"Don't keep the Governor and Slow John waiting now," said Sergeant Manseer jovially. "Out with the pair of you." The atmosphere among the spectators in the court room was like that at the cockpit just before the spurred birds are released to tear into each other in a cloud of flying feathers. Sir Francis and Hal led in the long file of prisoners and, before he could prevent himself, Hal looked quickly towards the railed-off area at the far end of the hall. Katinka sat in her place in the centre of the front row with Zelda directly behind her. The maid leered viciously at Hal, but there was a soft contented smile on Katinka's face, and her eyes sparkled with violet lights that seemed to light the dim recesses of the room.

Hal looked away quickly, startled by the sudden hot hatred that had replaced the adoration he had so recently felt for her. How could it have happened so quickly, he wondered, and knew that if he had a sword in his hand he would not hesitate to drive the point between the peaks of her soft white breasts.

As he sank into his seat he felt compelled to look up again into the pack of spectators. This time he went cold as he saw another pair of eyes, pale and watchful as those of a leopard, fastened on his father's face.

Slow John sat in the front row of the gallery. He looked like a preacher in his puritanical black suit, the wide, brimmed Hat set squarely upon his head.

"Do not look at him," Sir Francis said softly, and Hal realized that his father, too, was intensely aware of the scrutiny of those strange, faded eyes.

As soon as the hall had settled into an expectant silence, van de Velde appeared through the door of the audience chamber beyond. When he lowered himself into his seat his smile was expansive and his wig was just the slightest bit awry. He belched softly, for clearly he had eaten well. Then he looked down on the prisoners with such a benign expression that Hal felt an unwarranted surge of hope for the outcome.

"I have considered the evidence that has been laid before this court," the Governor began, without preamble, "and I want to say right at the outset that I was impressed with the manner in which both the advocates presented their cases. Colonel Schreuder was a paradigm of succinctness-" He stumbled over both of the longer words, then belched again. Hal fancied that he detected a whiff of cumin and garlic on the warm air that reached him a few seconds later.

Next van de Velde turned a paternal eye on Jacobus Hop. "The advocate for the defence behaved admirably and made a good job of a hopeless case, and I shall make a note to that effect in his Company file." Hop bobbed his head and coloured with gratification.

"However!" He now looked squarely at the benches of the prisoners. "While considering the evidence, I have given much thought to the defence raised by Mijnheer Hop, namely that the pirates were operating under a Letter of Marque issued by the King of England, and that when they attacked the Company galleon, the Standvastigheid, they were unaware of the cessation of hostilities between the belligerents in the recent war. I have been forced by irrefutable evidence to the contrary to reject this line of defence in its entirety. Accordingly, I find all twenty-four of the accused persons guilty of piracy on the high seas, of robbery and abduction and murder."

The seamen on the benches stared at him in pale silence.

"Is there anything you wish to say before I pass sentence upon you?" van de Velde asked, and opened his silver snuff box.

Sir Francis spoke out, in a voice that rang the length and breadth of the hall. "We are prisoners of war. You do not have the right to chain us like slaves. Neither do you have the right to try us nor to pass sentence upon us."

Van de Velde took a pinch of snuff up each nostril and then sneezed deliciously, spraying the court writer who sat beside him. The clerk closed the one eye nearest to the Governor but kept his quill flying across the page in an effort to keep up with the proceedings.

"I believe that you and I have discussed this opinion before." Van de Velde nodded mockingly towards Sir Francis. "I will now proceed to sentence these pirates. I will deal firstly with the four Negroes. Let the following persons stand forth. Aboli! Matesi! Jiri! KimattiP The four were shackled in pairs, and now the guards prodded them to their feet. They shuffled forward and stood below the dais. Van de Velde regarded them sternly. "I have taken into account that you are ignorant savages, and therefore cannot be expected to behave like decent Christians. Although your crimes reek to heaven and cry for retribution, I am inclined to mercy. I condemn you to lifelong slavery. You will be sold by the auctioneer of the Dutch East India Company to the highest bidder at auction, and the monies received from this sale will be paid into the Company treasury. Take them away, Sergeant!"

As they were led from the hall Aboli looked across at Sir Francis and Hal. His dark face was impassive behind the mask of tattoos, but his eyes sent them the message of his heart.

"Next I will deal with the white pirates," van de Velde announced.

"Let the following prisoners stand forth." He read from the list in his hand. "Henry Courtney, officer and mate. Ned Tyler, boatswain. Daniel Fisher, boatswain. William Rogers, seaman..." He read out every name except that of Sir Francis Courtney. When Sir Francis rose beside his son, van de Velde stopped him. "Not you! You are the captain and the instigator of this gang of rogues. I have other plans for you. Have the armourer separate him from the other prisoner." The man hurried forward from the back of the court with the leather satchel containing his tools, and worked swiftly to knock the shackle out of the links that bound Hal to his father.

Sir Francis sat alone on the long bench as Hal left him and went forward to take his place at the head of the row of prisoners below the dais. Van de Velde studied their faces, beginning at one end of the line and moving his brooding gaze slowly along until he arrived at Hal.

"A more murderous bunch of cutthroats I have never laid eyes upon. No honest man or woman is safe when creatures like you are at large. You are fit only for the gibbet."

As he stared at Hal, a sudden thought occurred to him, and he glanced away towards the Buzzard, who sat beside the lovely Katinka at the side of the hall. "My lord!" he called. "May I trouble you for a word in private?" Leaving the prisoners standing, van de Velde heaved his bulk onto his feet and waddled back through the doors in the audience chamber behind him. The Buzzard made an elaborate bow to Katinka and followed the Governor.

As he entered the chamber he found van de Velde selecting a morsel from the silver tray on the polished yellow-wood table. He turned to the Buzzard, his mouth already filled. "A sudden thought occurred to me. If I am to send Francis Courtney to the executioner for questioning as to the whereabouts of the missing cargo, should not his son go also? Surely Courtney would have told his son or had him with him when he secreted the treasure. What do you think, my Lord?"

The Buzzard looked grave and tugged at his beard as he pretended to consider the question. He had wondered how long it would take this great hog to come round to this way of thinking, and he had long ago prepared his answer. He knew he could rely on the fact that Sir Francis Courtney would never reveal the whereabouts of his wealth, not even to the most cunning and persistent tormentor. He was just too stubborn and pigheaded unless and here was the one possible case in which he might capitulate if it were to save his only son. "Your excellency, I think you need have no fear that any living person knows where the treasure is, apart from the pirate himself. He is much too avaricious and suspicious to trust another human being."

Van de Velde looked dubious and helped himself to another curried samosa from the tray. While he munched, the Buzzard mulled over his best line of argument, should van de Velde choose to debate it further.

There was no question in the Buzzard's mind but that Hal Courtney knew where the treasure from the Standvastigheid lay. What was more, he almost certainly knew where the other hoard from the Heerlycke Nacht was hidden. Unlike his father, the youngster would be unable to withstand the questioning by Slow John and, even if he proved tougher than the Buzzard believed, his father would certainly break down when he saw his son on the rack. One way or the other the two would lead the Dutch to the hoard, and that was the last thing on this earth that the Buzzard wanted to happen.

His grave expression almost cracked into a grin as he realized the irony of his being forced to save Henry Courtney from the attentions of Slow John. But if he wanted the treasure for himself, he must make sure that neither father nor son led the cheese-heads to it first. The best place for Sir Francis was the gallows, and the best place for his brat was the dungeon under the castle walls.

This time he could not prevent the grin reaching his lips as he thought that while Slow John was still cooling his branding irons in Sir Francis's blood, the Gull would be flying back to Elephant Lagoon to winkle out those sacks of guilders and those bars of gold from whatever nook or cranny Sir Francis had tucked them into.

He turned the grin now on van de Velde. "No, your excellency, I give you my assurance that Francis Courtney is the only man alive who knows where it is. He may look hard and talk bravely, but Franky will roll over and spread his thighs like a whore offered a gold guinea just as soon as Slow John gets to work on him. My advice is that you send Henry Courtney to work on the castle, and rely on his father to lead you to the booty."

"Governer Van de Velde nodded. "That's what I thought myself. I just wanted you to confirm what I already knew." He popped one last samosa into his mouth and spoke around it. "Let's go back and get the business finished, then."

The prisoners were still waiting in their chains below the dais, like oxen in the traces, as van de Velde settled himself into his chair again.

"The gibbet and the gallows, these "are your natural homes, but they are too good for you. I sentence every last man of you to a lifetime of labour in the service of the Dutch East India Company, which you conspired to cheat and rob, and whose servants you abducted and maltreated. Do not think this is kindness on my part, or weakness.

There will come a time when you will weep to the Almighty and beg him for the easy death that I denied you this day. Take them away and put them to work immediately. The sight of them offends my eyes, and those of all honest men."

As they were herded from the hall, Katinka hissed with frustration and made a gesture of annoyance. Cumbrae leaned closer to her and asked, What is it that troubles you, madam?"

"I fear my husband has made a mistake. He should have sent them to the pyre on the parade." Now she would be denied the thrill of watching Slow John work on the beautiful brat, and listening to his screams. It would have been a deeply satisfying conclusion to the affair. Her husband had promised it to her, and he had cheated her of the pleasure. She would make him suffer for that, she decided.

"Ah, madam, revenge is best savoured like a pipe of good Virginia tobacco. Not gobbled up in a rush. Any time in the future that the fancy takes you, you need only look up at the castle walls and there they will be, being worked slowly to death."

Hal passed close by where Sir Francis sat on the long bench. His father looked forlorn and sick, with his hair and beard in lank ropes and black shadows beneath his eyes, in dreadful contrast with his pale skin. Hal could not bear it and suddenly he cried, "Father!" and would have run to him, but Sergeant Manseer had anticipated him and stepped in front of him with the long cane in his right hand. Hal backed away.

His father did not look up, and Hal realized that he had taken his farewell and had moved on into the far territory where only Slow John would be able now to reach him.

When the file of convicts had left the hall and the doors had closed behind them, a hush fell and every eye rested on the lonely figure on the bench.

"Francis Courtney," van de Velde said loudly. "Stand forth!"

Sir Francis threw back his head, flicking the greying hair out of his eyes. He shrugged off the guards" hands and rose unaided to his feet. He held his head high as he marched to the dais, and his torn shirt flapped around his naked back. The cane stripes had begun to dry into crusted black scabs.

"Francis Courtney, it is not by chance, I am certain, that you bear the same Christian name as that most notorious of all pirates, the rogue Francis Drake."

"I have the honour to be named for the famous seafarer," said Sir Francis softly.

"Then I have the even greater honour of passing sentence upon you.

I sentence you to death." Van de Velde waited for Sir Francis to show some emotion, but he stared back without expression. At last the Governor was forced to continue. "I repeat, your sentence is death, but the manner of your death will be of your own choosing." Abruptly and unexpectedly, he let out a mellow guffaw. "There are not many rogues of your calibre that are treated with such beneficence and condescension."

"With your permission, I shall withhold any expression of gratitude until I hear the rest of your proposal," Sir Francis murmured, and van de Velde stopped laughing.

"Not all the cargo from the Standvastigheid has been recovered. By far the most valuable portion is still missing, and there is no doubt in my mind that you were able to secrete this before you were captured by the troops of the honourable Company. Are you prepared to reveal the hiding place of the missing cargo to the officers of the Company? In that case, your execution will be by a swift and clean beheading."

"I have nothing to tell you," said Sir Francis, in a disinterested tone.

"Then, I fear, you will be asked the same question under extreme compulsion by the state executioner." Van de Velde smacked his lips softly, as though the words tasted good on his tongue. "Should you answer fully and without reservation the headsman's axe will put an end to your suffering. Should you remain obstinate, the questioning will continue. At all times the choice will remain yours."

"Your excellency is a paragon of mercy," Sir Francis bowed, "but I cannot answer the question, for I know nothing of the cargo of which you speak."

"Then Almighty God have mercy on your soul," said van de Velde, and turned to Sergeant Manseer. "Take the prisoner away and place him in the charge of the state executioner."

Hal balanced high on the scaffolding on the unfinished wall of the eastern bastion of the castle. This was only the second day of the labours that were to last the rest of his natural life, and already the palms of his hands and both his shoulders were rubbed raw by the ropes and the rough, undressed stone blocks. One of his fingertips was crushed and the nail was the colour of a purple grape. Each masonry block weighed a ton or more and had to be manhandled up the rickety scaffolding of bamboo poles and planks.

In the gang of convicts working with him were Big Daniel and Ned Tyler, neither of whom was fully recovered from his wounds. Their injuries were plain to see for all were dressed only in petticoats of ragged canvas.

The musket ball had left a deep, dark purple crater in Daniel's chest and a lion's claw across his back, where Hal had cut him. The scabs over these wounds had burst open with his exertions and were weeping watery blood-tinged lymph.

The sword wound crawled like a raw red vine around Ned's thigh, and he limped heavily as he moved along the scaffold. After their privations in the slave deck of the Gull they were all honed clean of the last ounce of fat. They were lean as hunting dogs, and stringy muscle and bone stood out clearly beneath their sun reddened skins.

Though the sun still shone brightly, the winter wind whistled in from the nor-"west and seemed to abrade their bodies like ground glass. In unison they hauled at the tail of the heavy manila rope and the sheaves screeched in their blocks as the great yellow lump of stone lifted from the truck of the wagon far below and began its perilous ascent up the high structure.

The previous day a scaffolding on the south bastion had collapsed under the weight of the stones and had hurled three of the convicts working upon it to their death on the cobbles far below. Hugo Barnard, the overseer, had muttered as he stood over their crushed corpses, "Three birds with one stone. I'll have the next careless bastard that kills himself thrashed within an inch of his life," and burst out laughing at his own gallows" humour.

Daniel took a turn of the rope end around his good shoulder and anchored it as the rest of the team reached out, seized the swinging block and hauled it onto the trestle. Between them they manhandled it into the gap at the top of the wall, with the Dutch stonemason in his leather apron shouting instructions at them.

They stood back panting after it had dropped into place, every muscle in their bodies aching and trembling from the effort, but there was no time to rest. From the courtyard below Hugo Barnard was already yelling, "Get that cradle down here. Swiftly now or I'll come up and give you a touch of the persuader," and he flicked out the knotted leather thongs of his whip.

Daniel peered over the edge of the scaffold. Suddenly he stiffened and glanced over his shoulder at Hal. "There go Aboli and the other lads."

Hal stepped up beside him and looked down. From the doorway to the dungeon a small procession emerged. The four black seamen were led out into the wintry sunshine. Once again, they were wearing light chains. "Look at those lucky bastards," Ned Tyler muttered. They had not been included in the labour teams, but had stayed in the dungeon, resting and being fed an extra meal each day to fatten them up while they waited to go on the auction block. This morning Manseer had ordered the four men to strip naked. Then Doctor Soar, the Company surgeon, had come down to the cell and examined them, probing and peering into their ears and mouths to satisfy himself as to the state of their health. When the surgeon had left, Manseer ordered them to anoint themselves all over from a stone jar of oil. Now their skins shone in the sunlight like polished ebony. Though they were still lean and finely drawn from their stay aboard the Gull, the coating of oil made them appear sleek prime specimens of humanity. Now they were being led out through the gates of the castle onto the open Parade where already a crowd had gathered.

Before he passed through the gates Aboli raised his great round head and looked up at Hal on the scaffold, high above. For one moment their eyes met. There was no need for either to shout a message, chancing a cut of the cane from their keepers, and Aboli strode on without looking back.

The auction block was a temporary structure that at other times was used as a gibbet on which the corpses of executed criminals were placed on public view. The four men were lined up on the platform and Doctor Soar mounted the platform with them and addressed the crowd. "I have examined all of the four slaves being offered for sale today," he stated, lowering his head to peer over the tops of his wire-framed eye-glasses. "I can give the assurance that all of them are in good health. Their eyes and teeth are sound and they are hale in limb and body."

The crowd was in a festive mood. They clapped at the doctor's announcement, and gave him an ironical cheer as he climbed down from the block and hurried back towards the castle gates. Jacobus Hop stepped forward and held up a hand for silence. Then he read from the proclamation of the sale, the crowd jeering and imitating him every time he stuttered. "By order of His Excellency the Governor of this colony of the honourable Dutch East India Company, I am authorized to offer for sale, to the highest bidder, four Negro slaves-" He broke off and removed his Hat respectfully as the Governor's open carriage came down the avenue from the residence, passing through the gardens and wheeling out onto the open Parade behind the six glossy greys. Lord Cumbrae and the Governor's wife sat side by side on the open leather seats facing forward, and Colonel Schreuder sat opposite them.

The crowd opened to let the carriage come to the foot of the block, where Fredricus, the coloured coachman, called the team to a halt and wound down the hand brake. None of the passengers dismounted.

Katinka lolled elegantly on the leather seat, twirling her parasol, and chatting gaily to the two men.

On the platform Hop was thrown into confusion by the arrival of these exalted visitors, and stood flushing, stammering and blinking in the sunlight until Schreuder called out impatiently, "Get on with it, fellow! We didn't come here to watch you goggle and gape."

Hop replaced his Hat and bowed first at Schreuder then at Katinka.

He raised his voice. "The first lot is the slave Aboli. He is about thirty years of age and is believed to be a member of the Qwanda tribe from the east coast of Africa. As you are aware, the Qwanda Negroes are much appreciated as field slaves and herdsmen. He could also be trained into an excellent wagon driver or coachman." He paused to mop his sweaty face and gather his tripping tongue, then he went on, "Aboli is said to be a skilled hunter and fisherman. He would bring in a good income to his owner from any of these occupations."

"Mijnheer Hop, are you hiding anything from us?" Katinka called out, and Hop was once more thrown into disarray by the question. His stammer became so agonized that he could hardly get the words out.

"Revered lady, greatly esteemed lady," he spread his hands helplessly, "I assure you-" "Would you offer for sale a bull wearing clothes?" Katinka demanded. "Do you expect us to bid for something that we cannot see?"

As he caught her meaning, Hop's face cleared and he turned to Aboli. "Disrobe!" he ordered loudly, to bolster his courage while facing this huge wild savage. For a moment Aboli stared at him unmoving then contemptuously slipped the knot of his loincloth and let it fall to the planks under his feet.

Naked and magnificent, he stared over their heads at the table-topped mountain. There was a hissing intake of breath from the crowd below. One of the women squealed and another giggled nervously, but none turned away their eyes.

"Hoots!" Cumbrae broke the pregnant pause with a chuckle. "The buyer will be getting full measure. There is no makeweight in that load of blood-sausage. I'll start the bidding at five hundred guilders!"

"And a hundred more!" Katinka called out.

The Buzzard glanced at her and spoke softly from the corner of his mouth. "I did not know you were intending to bid, madam."

"I will have this one at any price, my lord," she warned him sweetly, "for he amuses me."

"I would never stand in the way of a beautiful lady." The Buzzard bowed. "But you will not bid against me for the other three, will you?"

"Tis a bargain, my lord." Katinka smiled. "This one is mine, and you may have the others."

Cumbrae folded his arms across his chest and shook his head when Hop looked to him to increase the bid. "Too rich a price for my digestion," he said, and Hop looked in vain for a buyer in the rest of the crowd. None was foolhardy enough to go up against the Governor's wife.

Recently they had been given a glimpse of his excellency's temper in open court.

"The slave Aboli is sold to Mevrouw van de Velde for the sum of six hundred guilders!" Hop sang out, and bowed towards the carriage. "Do you wish the chains struck off, Mevrouw?"

Katinka laughed. "And have him bolt for the mountains? No, Mijnheer, these soldiers will escort him up to the slave quarters at the residence." She glanced across at Schreuder who gave an order to a detachment of green-jackets waiting under their corporal at the edge of the crowd. They elbowed their way forward, dragged Aboli down from the block and led him away up the avenue towards the residence.

Katinka watched him go. Then she tapped the Buzzard on the shoulder with one finger. "Thank you, my lord."

"The next lot is the slave Jiri," Hop told them, reading from his notes. "He is, as you see, another fine strong specimen-" "Five hundred guilders!" growled the Buzzard, and glared at the other buyers, as if daring them to bid at their peril. But without the Governor's wife to compete against, the burghers of the colony were bolder.

"And one hundred," sang out a merchant of the town. "And a hundred more!" called a wagoner in a jacket of leopard skins The bidding went quickly to fifteen hundred guilders with only the wagoner and the Buzzard in the race.

"Damn and blast the clod!" Cumbrae muttered, and turned his head to catch the eye of his boatswain who, with three of his seamen, hovered beside the rear wheel of the carriage. Sam Bowles nodded and his eyes gleamed. With his men backing him he sidled through the press until he stood close behind the wagoner.

"Sixteen hundred guilders," roared the Buzzard, "and be damned to ye!"

The wagoner opened his mouth to push upwards and felt something prick him under the ribs. He glanced down at the knife in Sam Bowles's gnarled fist, closed his mouth and blanched white as baleen.

"The bid is against you, Mijnheer Tromp!" Hop called to him, but the wagoner scurried away across the Parade back towards the town.

Kimatti and Matesi were both knocked down to the Buzzard for well under a thousand guilders each. The other prospective buyers in the crowd had seen the little drama between Sam and the wagoner and none showed any further interest in bidding against Cumbrae.

All three slaves were dragged away by Sam Bowles's shore party towards the beach. When Matesi struggled to escape a shrewd crack over his scalp with a marlin spike quieted him and, with his mates, he was shoved into the longboat and rowed out to where the Gull lay anchored at the edge of the shoals.

"A successful expedition for both of us, my lord." Katinka smiled at the Buzzard. "To celebrate our acquisitions, I hope you will be able to dine with us at the residence this evening."

"Nothing would have given me greater pleasure, but alas, madam, I was lingering only for the sale and the chance of picking up a few prime seamen. Now my ship lies ready in the bay, and the wind and the tide bid me away."

"We shall miss you, my lord. Your company has been most diverting. I hope you will call on us and remain a while longer when next you round the Cape of Good Hope."

"There is no power on this earth, no storm, ill wind or enemy which could prevent me doing so," said Cumbrae and kissed her hand. Cornelius Schreuder glowered. he could not stand to see another man lay a finger on this woman who had come to rule his existence.

As the Buzzard's feet touched the deck of the Gull he shouted to the helm, "Geordie, my Alod, prepare to weigh anchor and get under way."

Then he singled out Sam Bowles. "I want the three Negroes on the quarterdeck, and swiftly." As they were ranged before him, he looked them over carefully. "Does any one of you three heathen beauties speak God's own language?" he asked, and they stared at him blankly. "So it's only your benighted lingo, is it?" He shook his head sadly. "That makes my life much harder."

"Begging your pardon," Sam Bowles tugged obsequiously at his Monmouth cap, "I know them well, all three of them. We was shipmates together, we was. They're playing you for a patsy. They all three speak good English."

Cumbrae grinned at them, with murder in his eyes. "You belong to me now, my lovelies, from the tops of your woolly heads to the pink soles of your great flat feet. If you want to keep your black hides in one piece, you'll not play games with me again, do you hear me?" And with a swipe of his huge hairy fist he sent Jiri crashing to the deck. "When I talk, to you you'll answer clear and loud in sweet English words. We're going back to Elephant Lagoon and, for the sake of your health, you're going to show me where Captain Franky hid his treasure. Do you hear me?"

Jiri scrambled back onto his feet. "Yes, Captain Lardy, sir! We hear you. You are our father."

"I'd rather have lopped off my own spigot with a blunt spade than fathered the likes of one of you with it!" The Buzzard grinned at them. "Now get ye up to the main yard to clap some canvas on her." And he sent Jiri on his way with a flying kick in the backside. atinka sat in sunlight, in a protected corner of the terrace out of the wind, with Cornelius Schreuder beside her. At the serving table Sukeena poured the wine with her own hands, and carried the two glasses to the luncheon table with its decorations of fruit and flowers from Slow John's gardens. She placed a tall glass with a spiral stem in front of Katinka, who reached out and caressed her arm lightly.

"Have you sent for the new slave?" she asked with a purr in her voice.

"Aboli is being bathed and fitted with a uniform, as you ordered, mistress," Sukeena answered softly, as if unaware of the other woman's touch. However, Schreuder had seen it, and it amused Katinka to watch him frown with jealousy.

She raised her glass to him and smiled over the rim. "Shall we drink to a swift voyage for Lord Cumbrae?" "Indeed." He lifted his glass. "A short swift voyage to the bottom of the ocean for him and all his countrymen."

"My dear Colonel," she smiled, "how droll. But, softly now, here comes my latest plaything."

Two green-jackets from the castle escorted Aboli onto the terrace.

He was dressed in a pair of tight-fitting black trousers and a white cotton shirt cut full to encompass his broad chest and massive arms. He stood silently before her.

Katinka switched into English. "In future you will bow when you enter my presence and you will address me as mistress, and if you forget I will ask Slow John to remind you. Do you know who Slow John is?"

"Yes, mistress," Aboli rumbled, without looking at her. "Oh, good! I thought you might be tiresome, and that I would have to have you broken and tamed. This makes things easier for both of us." She took a sip of the wine, then looked him over slowly with her head on one side. "I bought you on a whim, and I have not decided what I shall do with you. However, Governor Kleinhans is taking his coachman home with him when he sails. I will need a new coachman." She turned to Colonel Schreuder. "I have heard these Negroes are good with animals. Is that your experience also, Colonel?"

"Indeed, Mevrouw. Being animals themselves they seem to have a rapport with all wild and domestic beasts." Schreuder nodded, and studied Aboli unhurriedly. "He is a fine physical specimen but, of course, one does not look for intelligence in them. I congratulate you on your purchase."

"Later, I may breed him with Sukeena," Katinka. mused. The slave girl went still, but her back was turned so that they could not see her face. "It might be diverting to see how the black blood mingles with the gold."

"A most interesting mixture." Schreuder nodded. "But are you not worried that he may escape? I saw him fight on the deck of the Standvastigheid and he is a truculent savage. A leg iron might be suitable costume for him, at least until he has been broken in."

"I do not think I need go to such pains," Katinka said. "I was able to observe him at length during my captivity. Like a faithful dog, he is devoted to the pirate Courtney and even more so to his brat.

I believe he would never try to escape while either of them is alive in the castle dungeons. Of course, he will be locked in the slave quarters at night with the others, but during working hours he will be allowed to move around freely to attend to his duties."

"I am sure you know best, Mevrouw. But I for one would never trust such a creature," Schreuder warned her.

Katinka turned back to Sukeena. "I have arranged with Governor Kleinhans that Fredricus is to teach Aboli his duties as coachman and driver. The Standvastigheid will not sail for another ten days. That should be ample time. See to it immediately."

Sukeena made the gracious oriental obeisance. "As Mistress commands, she said, and beckoned for Aboli to follow her.

She walked ahead of him down the pathway to the stables where Fredricus had drawn up the coach and Aboli was reminded of the posture and carriage of the young virgins of his own tribe. As little girls they were trained by their mothers, carrying the water gourds balanced on their heads. Their backs grew straight and they seemed to glide over the ground, as this girl did.

"Your brother, Althuda, sends you his heart. He says that you are his tiger orchid still."

Sukeena stopped so abruptly that, walking behind her, Aboli almost collided with her. She seemed like a startled sugar bird perched on a pro tea bloom on the point of flight. When she moved on again he saw that she was trembling.

"You have seen my brother?" she asked, without turning her head to look at him.

"I never saw his face, but we spoke through the door of his cell. He said that your mother's name was Ashreth and that the jade brooch you wear was given to your mother by your father on the day of your birth. He said that if I told you these things, you would know that I was his friend."

"If he trusted you, then I also trust you. I, too, shall be your friend, Aboli," she agreed.

"And I shall be yours,"Aboli said softly.

"Oh, do tell me, how is Althuda? Is he well?" she pleaded. "Have they hurt him badly? Have they given him to Slow John?"

"Althuda is puzzled. They have not yet condemned him. He has been in the dungeon four long months and they have not hurt him."

"I give all thanks to Allah!" Sukeena turned and smiled at him, her face lovely as the tiger orchid to which Althuda had likened her. "I had some influence with Governor Kleinhans. I was able to persuade him to delay judgement on my brother. But now that he is going I do not know what will happen with the new one. My poor Althuda, so young and brave. If they give him to Slow John my heart will die with him, as slowly and as painfully."

"There is one I love as you love your brother," Aboli rumbled softly. "The two share the same dungeon."

"I think I know the one of whom you speak. Did I not see him on the day they brought all of you ashore in chains and marched you across the Parade? Is he straight and proud as a young prince?"

"That is the one. Like your brother, he deserves to be free."

Again Sukeena's feet checked, but then she glided onwards. "What are you saying, Aboli, my friend?"

"You and I together. We can work to set them free." "Is it possible?" she whispered.

"Althuda was free once. He broke his jesses and soared away like a falcon." Aboli looked up at the aching blue African sky. "With our help he could be free again, and Gundwane with him."

They had come to the stableyard and Fredricus roused himself on the seat of the carriage. He looked down at Aboli and his lips curled back to show teeth discoloured brown by chewing tobacco. "How can a black ape learn to drive my coach and my six darlings?" he asked the empty air.

"Fredricus is an enemy. Trust him not." Sukeena's lips barely moved as she gave Aboli the warning. "Trust nobody in this household until we can speak again." the house slaves, as well as most of the furniture in the residence, Katinka had purchased from Kleinhans all the horses in his string and the contents of the tack room. She had written him an order on her bankers in Amsterdam. It was for a large sum, but she knew that her father would make good any shortfall.

The most beautiful of all the horses was a bay mare, a superb animal with strong graceful legs and a beautifully shaped head. Katinka was an expert horsewoman, but she had no feeling or love for the creature beneath her and her slim, pale hands were strong and cruel. She rode with a Spanish curb that bruised the mare's mouth savagely, and her use of the whip was wanton. When she had ruined a mount she could always sell it and buy another.

Despite these faults, she was fearless and had a dashing seat. When the mare danced under her and threw her head against the agony of the whip and the curb, Katinka sat easily and looked marvellously elegant. Now she was pushing the mare to the full extent of her pace and endurance, flying at the steep path, using the whip when she faltered or when it seemed as though she would refuse to jump a fallen tree that blocked the pathway.

The horse was lathered, soaked with sweat as though she had plunged through a river. The froth that streamed from her gaping mouth was tinged pink with blood from the edged steel of the curb. It splattered back onto Katinka's boots and skirt, and she laughed wildly with excitement as they galloped out onto the saddle of the mountain. She looked- back over her shoulder. Schreuder was fifty lengths or more behind her. he had come by another route to meet her in secret. His black gelding was labouring heavily under his weight, and though Schreuder used the whip freely his mount could not hold the mare.

Katinka did not stop at the saddle but, with the whip and -the tiny needle-sharp spur under her riding habit, goaded the mare onward and sent her plunging straight down the far slope. Here a fall would be disastrous, for the footing was treacherous and the mare was blown. The danger excited Katinka. She revelled in the feel of the powerful body beneath her, and of the saddle leather pounding against her sweating thighs and buttocks.

They came slithering off the scree slope and burst out into the open meadow beside the stream. She raced parallel with the stream for half a league, but when she reached a hidden grove of silver leaf trees she reined in the mare in a dozen lunges from full gallop to a wrenching halt.

She unhooked her leg from over the horn of the sidesaddle and in a swirl of skirts and laced under linen dropped lightly to earth. She landed like a cat, and while the mare blew like the bellows of a smithy and reeled on her feet with exhaustion, Katinka. stood, both fists clenched on her hips, and watched Schreuder come down the slope after her.

He reached the meadow and galloped to where she stood. There, he jumped from the gelding's back. His face was dark with rage. "That was madness, Mevrouw," he shouted. "If you had fallen!"

"But I never fall, Colonel." She laughed in his face. "Not unless you can make me." She reached up suddenly and threw both arms around his neck. Like a lamprey she fastened on his lips, sucking so powerfully that she drew his tongue into her own mouth. As his arms tightened around her she bit his lower lip hard enough to start his blood, and tasted the metallic salt on her own tongue. When he roared with pain, she broke from his embrace and, lifting the skirts of her habit, ran lightly along the bank of the stream.

"Sweet Mary, you'll pay dearly for that, you little devil!" He wiped his mouth, and when he saw the smear of blood on his palm, he raced after her.

These last days, Katinka had toyed with him, driving him to the frontiers of sanity, promising and then revoking, teasing and then dismissing, cold as the north wind one moment then hot as the tropical sun at noonday. He was dizzy and confused with lust and longing, but his desire had infected her. Tormenting him, she had driven herself as far and as hard. She wanted him now almost as much as he wanted her. She wanted to feel him deep inside her body, she had to have him quench the fires she had ignited in her womb. The time had come when she could delay no longer.

He caught up with her and she turned at bay. With her back against one of the silver leaf trees, she faced him like a hind cornered by the hounds. She saw the blind rage turn his eyes opaque as marble. His face was swollen and encarnadined, his lips drawn back to expose his clenched teeth.

With a thrill of real terror she realized that this rage into which she had driven him was a kind of madness over which he had no control. She knew that she was in danger of her life and, knowing that, her own lust broke its banks like a mighty river in full spate.

She threw herself at him and with both hands ripped at the fastenings of his breeches. "You want to kill me, don't you?"

"You bitch," he choked, and reached for her throat. "You slut. I can stand no more. I will make you-" She pulled him out through the opening in his clothes, hard and thick, swollen furious red and so hot he seemed to sear her fingers. "Kill- me with this, then. Thrust it into me so deeply that you pierce my heart." She leaned back against the rough bark of the silver leaf and planted her feet wide apart. He swept her skirts up high, and with both hands she guided him into herself. As he lunged and bucked furiously against her, the tree against which she leaned shook as though a gale of wind had struck it. The silver leaves rained down over them glinting like newly minted coins as they spun and swirled in the sunlight. As she reached her climax Katinka screamed so that the echoes rang along the yellow cliffs high above them. atinka came down from the mountain like a fury, riding on the wings of the north-west gale that had sprung so suddenly out of the sunny winter sky. Her hair had broken free of her bonnet and streamed out like a brilliant banner, snapping and tangling in the wind. The mare ran as though pursued by lions. When she reached the upper vineyards, Katinka put her to the high stone wall, over which she soared like a falcon.

She galloped through the gardens down to the stableyard. Slow John turned to watch her go by. The green things he had nurtured were uprooted, torn and scattered beneath the mare's flying hoofs. When she had passed, Slow John stooped and picked up a shredded stem. He lifted it to his mouth and bit into it softly, tasting the sweet sap. He felt no resentment. The plants he grew were meant to be cut and destroyed, just as man is born to die. To Slow John, only the manner of the dying was significant.

He stared after the mare and her rider and felt the same reverence and awe that always overcame him at the moment when he released one of his little sparrows from this mortal existence. He thought of all the condemned souls who died under his hands as his little sparrows. The first time he had set his eyes on Katinka van de Velde he had fallen completely under her spell. He felt that he had waited all his life for this woman. He had recognized in her those mystical qualities that dictated his own existence but, compared to her, he knew that he was a thing crawling in primeval slime.

She was a cruel and untouchable goddess, and he worshipped her. It was as though these torn plants he held in his hands were a sacrifice to that goddess. As though he had laid them on her attar and she had accepted them. He was moved almost to the point of tears by her condescension. He blinked those strange yellow eyes and for once they mirrored his emotion. "Command me," he breathed. "There is nothing that I would not do for you."

Katinka spurred the mare at full gallop up the driveway to the front doors of the residence, and flung herself from its back before it had come fully to rest. She did not even glance at Aboli as he sprang down from the terrace, gathered up the reins and led the mare away to the stableyard.

He spoke gently to the horse in the language of the forests. "She has made you bleed, little one, but Aboli will heal your hurt." In the yard he unbuckled the girth and dried the mare's steaming sweat with the cloth, walking her in slow circles, then watering her before he led her to her stall.

"See where her whip and spurs have cut you. She is a witch," he whispered, as he anointed the torn and bruised corners of the horse's mouth with salve. "But Aboli is here now to protect and cherish you."

Katinka strode through the rooms of the residence, singing softly to herself, her face lit with the afterglow of her loving. In her bedchamber she shouted for Zelda then, without waiting for the old woman to arrive, she stripped off her clothing and dropped it in a heap in the middle of the floor. The winter air through the shutters was cold on her body, which was damp with sweat and the juices of her passion. Her pale pink nipples rose in haloes of gooseflesh and she shouted again, "Zelda, where are you?" When the maid came scurrying into the chamber she rounded on her, "Sweet Jesus, where have you been, you lazy old baggage? Close those shutters! Is my bath ready, or have you been dozing off again in front of the fire?" But her words lacked their usual venom and when she lay back in the steaming, perfumed waters of her ceramic bathtub, which had been carted up from the cabin in the stern of the galleon, she was smiling warmly and secretly to herself.

Zelda hovered around the tub, lifting the thick strands of her mistress's hair out of the scented foam and pinning them atop her head, soaping her shoulders with a cloth.

"Don't fuss so! Leave me be for a while!" Katinka ordered imperiously. Zelda dropped the cloth and backed out of the bathroom.

Katinka lay for a while, humming softly to herself and lifting her feet one at a time above the foam to inspect her delicate ankles and pink toes. Then a movement in the steam-clouded mirror caught her attention and she sat up straight and stared incredulously. Quickly she stood up and stepped out of the tub, slipped a towel around her shoulders to soak up the drops of water that ran down her body and crept to the door of her bedroom.

What she had seen in the mirror was Zelda gathering up her soiled clothing from where she had dropped it on the tiles. The old woman stood now with Katinka's under linen in her hands examining the stains upon it. As Katinka watched, she lifted the cloth to her face and sniffed at it like an old bitch scenting the entrance to a rabbit warren.

"You like the smell of a man's ripe cream, do you?" Katinka asked coldly.

At the sound of her voice Zelda spun about to face her. She hid the clothing behind her back and her cheeks went pale as ash as she stammered incoherently.

"You dried-up old cow, when did you last have a sniff of it?" Katinka asked.

She dropped the towel and glided across the floor, slim and sinuous as an erect female cobra and her gaze as icy and venomous. Her riding whip lay where she had dropped it and she scooped it up as she passed.

Zelda backed away in front of her. "Mistress," Zelda whined, "I was worried only that your pretty things might be spoiled."

"You were snuffling it up like a fat old sow with a truffle," Katinka told her, and her whip arm flashed out. The lash caught Zelda in the mouth. She squealed and fell back on the bed.

Katinka stood over her, naked, and plied the whip across her back and arms and legs, swinging with all her strength, so that the layers of fat wobbled and shook on the maid's limbs as the lash bit into them.

"This is a pleasure too long denied, Katinka screamed, her own fury increasing as the old woman howled and wriggled on the bed. "I have grown weary of your thieving ways and your gluttony. Now you revolt me with this prurient trespass into intimate areas of my life, you sneaking, spying, whining old baggage."

"Mistress, you are killing me."

"Good so! But if you live you will be on board the Standvastigheid when she sails for Holland next week. I can abide you around me no longer. I will send you back in the meanest cabin without a penny of pension. You can eke out the rest of your days in the poorhouse." Katinka was panting wildly now, raining her blows on Zelda's head and shoulders.

"Please, mistress, you would not be so cruel to your old Zelda, who wet-nursed you as a baby."

"The thought of having sucked on those great fat tits makes me want to puke." Katinka lashed out at them, and Zelda whimpered. and covered her chest with both arms. When you leave I will have your baggage searched so that you take with you nothing that you have stolen from me. There will be not a single guilder in your purse, I shall see to that. You thieving, lying crone."

The threat transformed Zelda from a pathetic wriggling fawning creature into a woman possessed. Her arm shot out and her plump fist seized Katinka's wrist as she was about to strike again. Zelda held onto her with a strength that shocked her mistress and she glared into Katinka's face with a terrible hatred.

"No!" she said. "You will not take everything I have from me. You will not beggar me. I have served you twenty-four years and you will not cast me off now. I will sail on the galleon, yes, and nothing will give me greater joy than to see the last of your poisonous beauty.

But when I go I will take with me all I own and on top of that I will have in my purse the thousand gold guilders you will give to me as my pension."

Katinka was stunned out of her rage, and stared in disbelief at her. "You rave like a lunatic. A thousand guilders? More likely a thousand cuts with the whip."

She tried to pull her arm free, but Zelda hung on with a mad strength. "A lunatic you say! But what will his excellency do when I bring him proof of how you have been rutting with the Colonel?"

Katinka froze at the threat then slowly lowered her whip arm. Her mind was racing, and a hundred mysteries unravelled as she stared into Zelda's eyes. She had trusted this old bitch without question, never doubting her complete loyalty, never even thinking about it. Now she knew how her husband always seemed to have intimate knowledge of her lovers and her behaviour that should have been secret.

She thought quickly now, her impassive expression masking the outrage she felt at this betrayal. It mattered little if her husband learned of this new adventure with Cornelius Schreuder. It would simply be an annoyance, for Katinka had not yet tired of the colonel. The consequences would, of course, be more serious for her new lover.

Looking back, she realized just how vindictive Petrus van de Velde had been. all her lovers had suffered some grievous harm once her husband knew about them. How he knew had always been a mystery to Katinka until this moment. She must have been naive, but it had never occurred to her that Zelda had been the serpent in her bosom.

"Zelda, I have wronged you," Katinka said softly. "I should not have treated you so harshly." She reached down and stroked the angry weal on the maid's chubby cheek. "You have been kind and faithful to me all these years and it is time you went to a happy retirement. I spoke in anger. I would never dream of denying you that which you deserve. When you sail on the galleon you will have not a thousand but two thousand guilders in your purse, and my love and gratitude will go with you."

Zelda licked her bruised lips and grinned with malicious triumph. "You are so kind and good to me, my sweet mistress."

"Of course, you will say nothing to my husband, about my little indiscretions with Colonel Schreuder, will you?"

"I love you much too much ever to do you harm, and my heart will break on the day that I have to leave you."

Slow John knelt in the flower bed at the end of the terrace, his pruning knife in his powerful hands. As a shadow fell over him, he looked up and rose to his feet. "He lifted his Hat and held it across his chest respectfully. "Good morrow, mistress," he said, in his deep melodious voice.

"Pray continue with your task. I love to watch you work."

He sank to his knees again and the blade of the sharp little knife flickered in his hands. Katinka sat on a bench close at hand and watched him in silence for a while.

"I admire your skills," she said at last, and though he did not raise his head he knew that she referred not only to his dexterity with the pruning knife. "I have dire need of those skills, Slow John. There would be a purse of a hundred guilders as your reward. Will you do something for me?"

"Mevrouw, there is nothing I would not do for you." He lifted his head at last and stared at her with those pale yellow eyes. "I would not flinch from laying down my life if you asked it of me. I do not ask for payment. The knowledge that I do your bidding is all the reward I could ever want."

The winter nights had turned cold and squalls of rain roared down off the mountain to *-batter the panes of the windows and howl like jackals around the eaves of the thatched roof.

Zelda pulled her nightdress over her ample frame. All the weight she had lost on the voyage from the east had come back to settle on her paunch and thighs. Since moving into the residence she had fed well at her corner in the kitchen, wolfing down the luscious scraps as they were carried through from the high table in the main dining hall, washing them down from her tankard filled with the dregs from the wine glasses of the gentry, Rhine and red wine mixed with gin and schnapps.

Her belly filled with good food and drink, she made ready for bed.

First, she checked that the window casements in her small room were sealed against the draught. She stuffed wads of rags into the cracks and drew the curtains across them. She slid the copper warming pan under the covers of her bed and held it there until she smelt the linen begin to singe. Then she blew out the candle and crept under the thick woollen blankets.

Snuffling and sighing, she settled into the softness and warmth, and her last thoughts were of the purse of golden coins tucked under her mattress. She fell asleep, smiling.

An hour after midnight, when all the house was silent and sleeping, Slow John listened at the door of Zelda's room. When he heard her snores rattling louder than the wind at the casement, he eased open the door noiselessly and slipped through it with the brazier of glowing charcoal.. He listened for a minute, but the rhythm of the old \ woman's breathing was regular and unbroken. He closed the door softly and moved silently down the passage to the door at the end.

In the dawn Sukeena came to wake Katinka an hour before her appointed time. When she had helped her dress in a warm robe, she led her to the servants" quarters where a silent, frightened knot of slaves was gathered outside Zelda's door. They stood aside for Katinka to enter and Sukeena whispered, "I know how much she meant to you, mistress. My heart breaks for you."

"Thank you, Sukeena, Katinka answered sadly, and glanced quickly around the tiny room. The brazier had been removed. Slow John had been thorough and reliable.

"She looks so peaceful and what a lovely colour she has." Sukeena stood beside the bed. "Almost as if she were alive still."

Katinka came to stand beside her. The noxious fumes from the brazier had rouged the old woman's cheeks. In death she was more handsome than she had ever been in life. "Leave me alone with her for a while, please, Sukeena," she said quietly. "I wish to say a prayer for her. She was so dear to me."

As she knelt beside the bed Sukeena closed the door softly behind her. Katinka slid her hand under the mattress and drew out the purse. She could tell by its weight that none of the coins was missing. She slipped the purse into the pocket of her gown, clasped her hands in front of her and closed her eyes so tightly that the long golden lashes intermeshed.

"Go to hell, you old bitch she murmured.

Slow John came at last. Many long days and tormented nights they had waited for him, so long that Sir Francis Courtney had begun to imagine that he would never come.

Each evening, when darkness brought an end to the work on the castle walls, the prisoner teams came shuffling in, out of the night. Winter was tightening its grip on the Cape and they were often soaked by the driving rain and chilled to the bone.

Every evening, as he passed the iron-studded door of his father's cell, Hal called, "What cheer, Father?"

The reply, in a voice hoarse and choked with the phlegm of his illness, was always the same. "Better today, Hal. And with you?"

"The work was easy. We are all in good heart."

Then Althuda would call from the next-door cell, "The surgeon came this morning. He says that Sir Francis is well enough to be questioned by Slow John." Or on another occasion, "The fever is worse, Sir Francis has been coughing all day."

As soon as the prisoners were locked into the lower dungeon they would gulp down their one meal of the day, scraping out the bowls with their fingers, and then drop like dead men on the damp straw.

In the darkness before dawn Manseet would rattle on the bars of the cell. "Up! Up, you lazy bastards, before Barnard sends in his dogs to rouse you."

They would struggle to their feet, and file out again into the rain and the wind. There, Barnard waited to greet them, with his two huge black boar hounds growling and lunging against the leashes. Some of the seamen had found pieces of sacking or canvas with which to wrap their bare feet or cover their heads, but even these rags were still wet from the previous day. Most, though, were bare foot and half-naked in the winter gales.

Then Slow John came. He came at midday. The men on the high scaffolding fell silent and all work stopped. Even Hugo Barnard stood aside as he passed through the gates of the castle. In his sombre clothing, and with the wide-brimmed Hat pulled low over his eyes, he looked like a preacher on his way to the pulpit.

Slow John stopped at the entrance to the dungeons, and Sergeant Manseer came running across the yard, jangling his keys. He opened the low door, stood aside for Slow John, then followed him through. The door closed behind the pair and the watchers roused themselves, as though they had awakened from a nightmare and resumed their tasks. But while Slow John was within a deep, brooding silence hung over the walls. No man cursed or spoke, even Hugo Barnard was subdued, and at every chance their heads turned to look down at the closed iron door. low John went down the staircase, Manseer lighting the treads with a lantern, and stopped outside the door of Sir Francis's cell. The sergeant drew back the latch on the peephole and Slow John stepped up to it. There was a beam of light from the high window of the cell. Sir Francis sat on the stone shelf that served as his bunk, lifted his head and stared back into Slow John's yellow eyes.

Sir Francis's face was that of a sun-bleached skull, so pale as to seem luminous in the poor light, the long tresses of his hair dead black and his eyes dark cavities. "I have been expecting you," he said, and coughed until his mouth filled with phlegm. He spat it into the straw that covered the floor.

Slow John made no reply. His eyes, gleaming through the peep-hole, were fastened on Sir Francis's face. The minutes dragged by. Sir Francis was overwhelmed with a wild desire to scream at him, "Do what you have to do. Say what you have to say. I am ready for you." But he forced himself to remain silent and stared back at Slow John.

At last Slow John stepped away from the peep-hole and nodded at Manseer. He slammed the shutter closed and scurried back up the staircase to open the iron door for the executioner. Slow John crossed the courtyard with every eye upon him. When he went out through the gate men breathed again and there was" once more the shouting of orders and the answering murmur of curse and complaint from the walls.

"Was that Slow John?" Althuda called softly from the cell alongside that of Sir Francis.

"He said nothing. He did nothing," Sir Francis whispered hoarsely.

"It is the way he has," Althuda said. "I have been here long enough to see him play the same game many times. He will wear you down so that in the end you will want to tell him all he wants to know before he even touches you. That is why they named him Slow John."

"Sweet Jesus, it half unmans me. Has he ever come to stare at you, Althuda?"

"Not yet."

"How have you been so fortunate?"

"I know not. I know only that one day he will come for me also. Like you, I know how it feels to wait."

Three days before the Standvastigheid was due to sail for Holland, Sukeena left the kitchens IT of the residence with her conical sun hat of woven grass on her dainty little head and her bag on her arm. Her departure caused no surprise among the other members of the household for it was her custom to go out several times a week along the slopes of the mountain to collect herbs and roots. Her skills and knowledge of the healing plants were famous throughout the colony.

From the veranda of the residence Kleinhans watched her and the knife blade of agony twisted in his guts. It felt as if an open wound were bleeding deep within him and often his stools were black with clotted blood. How, ever, it was not only the dyspepsia that was devouring him. He knew that once the galleon sailed, with him aboard her, he would never again look upon Sukeena's beauty. Now that the time for this parting drew near he could not sleep at night, and even milk and bland boiled rice turned to acid in his stomach.

Mevrouw van de Velde, his hostess since she had taken over the residence, had been kind to him. She had even sent Sukeena out this morning to gather the special herbs that, when seeped and distilled with the slave girl's skillsi were the only medicine that could alleviate his agony for even a short while long enough at least to allow him to catch a few hours of fitful sleep. At Katinka's orders Sukeena would prepare enough of this brew to tide him over the long voyage northwards. He prayed that, once he reached Holland, the physicians there would be able to cure this dreadful affliction.

Sukeena moved quietly through the scrub that covered the slopes of the mountain. Once or twice she looked back but nobody had followed her. She went on, stopping only to cut a green twig from one of the flowering bushes. As she walked she stripped the leaves from it and, with her knife, trimmed the end into a fork.

All around her the wild blossom grew in splendid profusion, even now that winter was upon them, a hundred different species were on show. Some were as large as ripe artichoke heads, some as tiny as her little fingernail, all of them lovely beyond an artist's imagination or the powers of his palette to depict. She knew them all.

Meandering seemingly without direction, in reality she was moving gradually and circuitously towards a deep ravine that split the face of the table-topped mountain.

With one more careful look around she darted suddenly down the steep, heavily bushed slope. There was a stream at the bottom, tumbling through a series of merry waterfalls and dreaming pools. As she approached one, she moved more slowly and softly. Tucked into a rocky crevice beside the dark waters was a small clay bowl. She had placed it there on her last visit. From the ledge above she looked down and saw that the milky white fluid, with which she had filled it, had been drunk. Only a few opalescent drops remained in the bottom.

Daintily she climbed cautiously into a position from which she could look deeper into the crack in the rock. Her breath caught as she saw in the shadows the soft gleam of ophidian scales. She opened the lid of the basket, took the forked stick in her right hand and moved closer. The serpent was coiled beside the bowl. It was not large, as slender as her forefinger. Its colour was a deep glowing bronze, each scale a tiny marvel. As she drew closer it raised its head an inch and watched her with black beady eyes. But it made no attempt to escape, sliding back into the depths of the crevice, as it had the first time she had discovered it.

It was lazy and somnolent, lulled by the milky concoction she had fed it. After a moment it lowered its head again and seemed to sleep. Sukeena was not tempted into any sudden or rash move. Well she knew that, from the bony needles in its upper jaw, the little reptile could dispense death in one of its most horrible and agonizing manifestations. She reached out gently with the twig and again the snake raised its head. She froze, the fork held only inches above its slim neck. Slowly the little reptile drooped back to earth and, as its head stretched out, Sukeena pinned it to the rock. It hissed softly and its body coiled and recoiled around the stick that held it.

Sukeena reached down and gripped it behind the head, with two fingers locked against the hard bones of the skull.

It wrapped its long sinuous body around her wrist. She took hold of the tail and unwound it, then dropped the serpent into her basket. In the same movement she closed the lid upon it. iring Governor Kleinhans went aboard the galleon on the evening before she sailed. Before the carriage took him down to the foreshore, all the household assembled on the front terrace of the residence to bid farewell to their former master. He moved slowly along the line with a word for each. When he reached Sukeena she made that graceful gesture, her fingertips together touching her lips, which made his heart ache with love and longing for her.

"Aboli has taken your luggage aboard the ship and placed all of it in your cabin," she said softly. "Your medicine chest is packed at the bottom of the largest trunk, but there is a full bottle in your small travelling case, which should last you several days."

"I shall never forget you, Sukeena,"he said.

"And I shall never forget you, master," she answered. For one mad moment he almost lost control of his emotions. He was on the point of embracing the slave girl, but then she looked up and he recoiled as he saw the undying hatred in her eyes.

When the galleon sailed in the morning with the dawn tide, Fredricus came to wake him and help him from his bunk. He wrapped the thick fur coat around his master's shoulders and Kleinhans went up on deck and stood at the stern rail as the ship caught the north-west wind and stood out into the Atlantic. He waited there until the great flat mountain sank away below the horizon and his vision was dimmed with tears.

Over the next four days the pain in his stomach was worse than he had ever known it. On the fifth night he woke after midnight, the acid scalding his intestines. He lit the lantern and reached for the brown bottle that would give him relief. When he shook it, it was already empty.

Doubled over with pain, he carried the lantern across the cabin and knelt before the largest of his trunks. He lifted the lid, and found the teak medicine chest where Sukeena had told him it was. He lifted it out and carried it to the table top against the further bulkhead, placing the lantern to light it so that he could fit the brass key into the lock.

He lifted the wooden lid and started. Laid carefully over the contents of the chest was a sheet of paper. He read the black print and, with amazement, realized that it was an ancient copy of the Company gazette. He read down the page and, as he recognized it, his stomach heaved with nausea. The proclamation was signed by himself It was a death warrant. The warrant for the questioning and execution of one Robert David Renshaw. The Englishman who had been Sukeena's father.

"What devilry is this? "he blurted aloud. "The little witch has placed it here to remind me of a deed committed long ago. Will she never relent? I thought she was out of my life for ever, but she makes me suffer still."

He reached down to seize the paper and rip it to shreds but before his fingers touched it there was a soft, rustling sound beneath the sheet, and then a blur of movement.

Something struck him a light blow upon the wrist and a gleaming, sinuous body slid over the edge of the chest and dropped to the deck. He leapt back in alarm but the thing disappeared into the shadows and he stared after it in bewilderment. Slowly he became aware of a slight burning on his wrist and lifted it into the lamplight.

The veins on the inside of his wrist stood out like blue ropes under the pale skin blotched with old man's freckles. He looked closer at the seat of the burning sensation, and saw two tiny drops of blood gleaming in the lantern light like gemstones as they welled up from twin punctures. He tottered backwards and sat on the edge of his bunk, gripping his wrist and staring at the ruby droplets.

Slowly. an image from long ago formed before his eyes. He saw two solemn little orphans standing hand in hand before the smoking ashes of a funeral pyre. Then the pain swelled within him until it filled his mind and his whole body.

There was only the pain now. It flowed through his veins like liquid fire and burrowed deep into his bones. It tore apart every ligament, sinew and nerve in his body. He began to scream and went on screaming until the end.

Sometimes twice a day Slow John came to the castle dungeon and stood at the peep-hole in the door of Sir Francis's cell. He never spoke. He stood there silently, with a reptilian stillness, sometimes for a few minutes and at others for an hour. In the end Sir Francis could not look at him. He turned his face to the stone wall, but still he could feel the yellow eyes boring into his back.

It was a Sunday, the Lord's day, when Manseer and four green-jacketed soldiers came for Sir Francis. They said nothing, but he could tell by their faces where they were taking him. They could not look into his eyes, and they wore the doleful expressions of a party of pall-bearers.

It was a cold, gusty day as Sir Francis stepped out into the courtyard. Although it was no longer raining, the clouds that hung low across the face of the mountain were an ominous blue grey, the colour of an old bruise. The cobbles beneath his feet were shining wetly with the rain squall that had just passed. He tried to stop himself shivering in the raw wind, lest his guards think it was for fear.

"God keep you safe!" A young clear voice carried to him above the wild wind, and he stopped and looked up. Hal stood high on the scaffold, his dark hair ruffled by the wind and his bare chest wet and shining with raindrops.

Sir Francis lifted his bound hands before him, and shouted back, "In Arcadia habito! Remember the oath!" Even from so far off, he could see his son's stricken face. Then his guards urged him on towards the low door that led down into the basement below the castle armoury. Manseer led him through the door and down the staircase. At the bottom he paused and knocked diffidently on the iron-bound door. Without waiting for a reply he pushed it open and led Sir Francis through.

The room beyond was well lit, a dozen wax candles flickering in their holders in the draught from the open door. To one side Jacobus Hop sat at a writing table. There was parchment and an ink pot in front of him, and a quill in his right hand. He looked up at Sir Francis with a pale terrified expression. An angry red carbuncle glowed on his cheek. Quickly he dropped his eyes, unable to look at the prisoner.

Along the far wall stood the rack. Its frame was of massive teak, the bed long enough to accommodate the tallest man with his limbs stretched out to their full extent. There were sturdy wheels at each end, with iron ratchets and slots into which the levers could be fitted. On the side wall opposite the recording clerk's desk, a brazier smouldered. On hooks set into the wall above it hung an array of strange and terrible tools. The fire radiated a soothing, welcoming warmth.

Slow John stood beside the rack. His coat and his Hal hung from a peg behind him. He wore a leather blacksmith's apron.

A pulley wheel was bolted into the ceiling and a rope dangled from it with an iron hook at its end. Slow John said nothing while his guards led Sir Francis to the centre of the stone floor and passed the hook through the bonds that secured his wrists. Manseer tightened the rope through the sheave until Sir Francis's arms were drawn at full stretch above his head. Although both his feet were firmly on the floor he was helpless. Manseer saluted Slow John, then he and his men backed out of the room and closed the door behind them. The panels were of solid teak, thick enough to prevent any sound passing through.

In the silence, Hop cleared his throat noisily and read from the transcript of the judgement passed upon Sir Francis by the Company court. His stutter was painful, but at the end he laid down the document and burst out clearly, "As God is my witness, Captain Courtney, I wish I were a hundred leagues from this place. This is not a duty I enjoy. I beg of you to co-operate with this inquiry."

Sir Francis did not reply but looked back steadily into Slow John's yellow eyes. Hop took up the parchment once more, and his voice quavered and broke as he read from it. "Question the first. is the prisoner, Francis Courtney, aware of the whereabouts of the cargo missing from the manifest of the Company ship, the Standvastigheid?"

"No," replied Sir Francis, still looking into the yellow eyes before him. "The prisoner has no knowledge of the cargo of which you speak."

"I beg you to reconsider, sir," Hop whispered hoarsely. "I have a delicate disposition. I suffer with my stomach."

For the men on the windswept scaffolding the hours passed with agonizing slowness. Their -eyes kept turning back towards the small, insignificant door below the armoury steps. There was no sound or movement from there, until suddenly, in the middle of the cold rainswept morning, the door burst open and Jacobus Hop scuttled out into the courtyard. He tottered to the officers" hitching rail and hung onto one of the iron rings as though his legs could no longer support him. He seemed oblivious to everything around him as he stood gasping for breath like a man freshly rescued from drowning.

All work on the walls came to a halt. Even Hugo Barnard and his overseers stood silent and subdued, gazing down at the miserable little clerk. With every eye upon him, Hop suddenly doubled over and vomited over the cobbles. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked around him wildly as though seeking an avenue of escape.

He lurched away from the hitching rail and set off at a run, across the yard and up the staircase into the Governor's quarters. One of the sentries at the top of the stairs tried to restrain him but Hop shouted, "I have to speak to his excellency," and brushed past him.

He burst unannounced into the Governor's audience chamber. Van de Velde sat at the head of the long, polished table. Four burghers from the town were seated below him, and he was laughing at something that had just been said.

The laughter died on his fat lips as Hop stood trembling at the threshold, his face deathly pale, his eyes filled with tears. His boots were flecked with vomit.

"How dare you, Hop?" van de Velde thundered, as he dragged his bulk out of the chair. "How dare you burst in here like this?"

"Your excellency," Hop stammered, "I cannot do it. I cannot go back into that room. Please don't insist that I do it. Send somebody else."

"Get back there immediately," van de Velde ordered. "This is your last chance, Hop. I warn you, you will do your duty like a man or suffer for it."

"You don't understand." Hop was blubbering openly now. "I can't do it. You have no idea what is happening in there. I can't-" "Go! Go immediately, or you will receive the same treatment."

Hop backed out slowly and van de Velde shouted after him, "Shut those doors behind you, worm."

Hop staggered back across the silent courtyard like a blind man, his eyes filled again with tears. At the little door he stood and visibly braced himself. Then he flung himself through it and disappeared from the view of the silent watchers.

In the middle of the afternoon the door opened again and Slow John came out into the courtyard. As always he was dressed in the dark suit and tall Hat. His face was serene and his gait slow and stately as he passed out through the castle gates and took the avenue up through his gardens towards the residence.

Minutes after he had gone, Hop rushed out of the armoury and across to the main block. He came back leading the Company surgeon, who carried his leather bag, and disappeared down the armoury stairs. A long time afterwards the surgeon emerged and spoke briefly to Manseer and his men, who were hovering at the door.

The sergeant saluted and he and his men went down the stairs. When they came out again Sir Francis was with them. He could not walk unaided, and his hands and feet were swaddled in bandages. Red stains had already soaked through the cloth.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, they have killed him," Hal whispered as they dragged his father, legs dangling and head hanging, across the yard.

Almost as if he had heard the words, Sir Francis lifted his head and looked up at him. Then he called in a clear, high voice, "Hal, remember your oath!"

"I love you, Father!" Hal shouted back, choking on the words with sorrow, and Barnard slashed his whip across his back.

"Get back to work, you bastard."

That evening as the file of convicts shuffled down the staircase past the door of his father's cell, Hal paused and called softly, "I pray God and all his saints to protect you, Father."

He heard his father move on the rustling mattress of straw, and then, after a long moment, his voice. "Thank you, my son. God grant us both the strength to endure the days ahead." from behind the shutters of her bedroom Katinka watched the tall figure of Slow John &-Fcoming up the avenue from the Parade. He passed out of her sight behind the stone wall at the bottom of the lawns and she knew he was going directly to his cottage. She had been waiting half the day for his return, and she was impatient. She placed the bonnet on her head, inspected her image in the mirror and was not satisfied. She looped a coil of her hair, arranged it carefully over her shoulder, then smiled at her reflection and left the room through the small door out to the back veranda. She followed the paved path under the naked black vines that covered the pergola, stripped of their last russet leaves by the onset of the winter gales.

Slow John's cottage stood alone at the edge of the forest. There was no person in the colony, no matter how lowly his station, who would live with him as a neighbour. When she reached it Katinka found the front door open and she went in without a knock or hesitation. The single room was bare as a hermit's cell. The floors were coated with cow dung, and the air smelled of stale smoke and the cold ashes on the open hearth. A simple bed, a single table and chair were the only furniture.

As she paused in the centre of the room she heard water splashing in the back yard and she followed the sound.

Slow John stood beside the water trough. He was naked to the waist, and he was scooping water from the trough with a leather bucket and pouring it over his head.

He looked up at her, with the water trickling from his sodden hair down his chest and arms. His limbs were covered with the hard flat muscle of a professional wrestler or, she thought whimsically, of a Roman gladiator.

"You are not surprised to see me here," Katinka stated. It was not a question for she could see the answer in his flat gaze.

"I was expecting you. I was expecting the Goddess Kali. Nobody else would dare come here," he said, and Katinka blinked at this unusual form of address.

She sat down on the low stone wall beside the pump, and was silent for a while. Then she asked, "Why do you call me that?" The death of Zelda had forged a strange, mystic bond between them.

"In Trincomalee, on the beautiful island of Ceylon beside the sacred Elephant Pool, stands the temple of Kali. I went there every day that I was in the colony. Kali is the Hindu Goddess of death and destruction. I worship her." She knew then that he was mad. The knowledge intrigued her, and made the fine, colourless hairs on her forearms stand erect.

She sat for a long time in silence and watched him complete his toilet. He squeezed the water from his hair with both hands, and then wiped down those lean, hard limbs with a square of cloth. He pulled on his undershirt, then picked up the dark coat from where it hung over the wall, shrugged into it and buttoned it to his chin.

At last he looked at her. "You have come to hear about my little sparrow." With that fine melodious voice he should have been a preacher or an operatic tenor, she thought.

"Yes,"she said. "That is why I have come."

It was as though he had read her thoughts. He knew exactly what she wanted and he began to speak without hesitation. He told her what had taken place that day in the room below the armoury. He omitted no detail. He almost sang the words, making the terrible acts he was describing sound as noble and inevitable as the lyrics from some Greek tragedy. He transported her, so that she hugged her own arms and began to rock slowly back and forth on the wall as she listened.

When he had finished speaking she sat for a long while with a rapturous expression on her lovely face. At last she shuddered softly and said, "You may continue to call me Kali. But only when we are alone. No one else must ever hear you speak the name."

"Thank you, Goddess." His pale eyes glowed with an almost religious fervour as he watched her go to the gate in the wall.

There she paused and, without looking round at him, she asked, "Why do you call him your little sparrow?"

Slow John shrugged. "Because from this day onwards he belongs to me. They all belong to me and to the Goddess Kali, for ever." Katinka gave a small ecstatic shiver at those words, then walked on down the path through the gardens towards the residence. Every step of the way she could feel his gaze upon her.

Sukeena was waiting for her when she returned to the residence. "You sent for me, mistress."

"Come with me, Sukeena."

She led the girl to her closet, and seated herself on the chaise-longue in front of the shuttered window. She gestured for Sukeena to stand before her. "Governor Kleinhans often discussed your skills as a physician," Katinka said. "Who taught you?"

"My mother was an adept. At a very young age I would go out with her to gather the plants and herbs. After her death I studied with my uncle."

"Do you know the plants here? Are they not different from those of the land where you were born?"

"There are some that are the same, and the others I have taught myself."

Katinka already knew all this from Kleinhans, but she enjoyed the music of the slave girl's voice. "Sukeena, yesterday my mare stumbled and almost threw me. My leg was caught on the saddle horn, and I have an ugly mark. My skin bruises easily. Do you have in your chest of medicines one that will heal it for me?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Here!" Katinka leaned back on the sofa, and drew her skirts high above her knees. Slowly and sensually she rolled down one of the white stockings. "Look!" she ordered, and Sukeena sank gracefully to the silk carpet in front of her. Her touch was as soft upon the skin as a butterfly alighting on a flower, and Katinka sighed. "I can feel that you have healing hands."

Sukeena did not reply and a wave of her dark hair hid her eyes.

"How old are you?" Katinka asked.

Sukeena's fingers stopped for an instant and then moved on to explore the bruise that spread around the back of her mistress's knee. "I was born in the year of the Tiger," she said, "so on my next birthday I will be eighteen years of age.-) "You are very beautiful, Sukeena. But, then, you know that, don't you?"

"I do not feel beautiful, mistress. I do not think a slave can ever feel beautiful."

"What a droll notion." Katinka did not hide her annoyance at this turn in the conversation. "Tell me, is your brother as beautiful as you are?"

Again Sukeena's fingers trembled on her skin. Ah! That shaft went home. Katinka smiled softly in the silence, and then asked, "Did you hear my question, Sukeena?"

"To me Althuda is the most beautiful man who has ever lived upon this earth," Sukeena replied softly, and then regretted having said it.

She knew instinctively that it was dangerous to allow this woman to discover those areas where she was most vulnerable, but she could not recall the words.

"How old is Althuda?"

"He is three years older than I am." Sukeena kept her eyes downcast. "I need to fetch my medicines, mistress."

"I shall wait for you to return," Katinka replied. "Be quick."

Katinka lay back against the cushions and smiled or frowned at the vivid procession of images and words that ran through her mind. She felt expectant and elated, and at the same time restless and dissatisfied. Slow John's words sounded in her head like cathedral bells. They disturbed her. She could not remain still a moment longer. She sprang to her feet and prowled around the closet like a hunting leopard. "Where is that girl?" she demanded, and then she glimpsed her own reflection in the long mirror and turned back to consider it.

"Kali!" she whispered, and smiled. "What a marvelous name. What a secret and splendid name."

She saw Sukeena's image appear in the mirror behind her but she did not turn immediately. The girl's dark beauty was a perfect foil for her own. She considered their two faces together, and felt the excitement charge her nerves and sing through her veins.

"I have the salve for your injury, mistress." Sukeena stood close behind her, but her eyes were fathomless.

"Thank you, my little sparrow," Katinka whispered. I want you to belong to me for ever, she thought. I want you to belong to Kali.

She turned back to the sofa and Sukeena knelt before her again. At first the salve was cool on the skin of her leg, and then a warm glow spread from it. Sukeena's fingers were cunning and skilful.

"I hate to see something beautiful destroyed needlessly," Katinka whispered. "You say your brother is beautiful. Do you love him very much, Sukeena?"

When there was no reply Katinka reached down and cupped her hand under Sukeena's chin. She lifted her face so that she could look into her eyes. The agony she saw there made her pulse race.

"My poor little sparrow," she said. I have touched the deepest place in her soul, she exulted. As she removed her hand she let her fingers trail across the girl's cheek.

"This hour I have come from Slow John," she said, "but you saw me on the path. You were watching me, were you not?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Shall I repeat to you what Slow John told me? Shall I tell you about his special room at the castle, and what happens there?" Katinka" did not wait for the girl to reply but went on speaking quietly. When Sukeena's fingers stilled she broke off her narrative to order, "Do not stop what you are doing, Sukeena You have a magical touch."

When at last she finished speaking, Sukeena was weeping without a sound. Her tears were slow and viscous as drops of oil squeezed from the olive press. They glistened against the red gold of her cheeks. After a while Katinka asked, "How long has your brother been in the castle? I have heard that it is four months since he came back from the mountains to fetch you. Such a long time, and he has not been tried, no sentence passed upon him."

Katinka waited, letting the moments fall, a slow drop at a time, slow as the girl's tears. "Governor Kleinhans was remiss, or was he persuaded by somebody, I wonder. But my husband is an energetic and dedicated man. He will not let justice be denied. No renegade can escape him long."

Now Sukeena was no longer making any pretence, she stared at Katinka with stricken eyes as she went on, "He will send Althuda to the secret room with Slow John. Althuda will be beautiful no longer. What a dreadful pity. What can we do to prevent that happening?"

"Mistress," Sukeena whispered, "your husband, he has the power. It is in his hands."

"My husband is a servant of the Company, a loyal and unbending servant. He will not flinch from his duty." "Mistress, you are so beautiful. No man can deny you.

You can persuade him." Sukeena slowly lowered her head and placed it on Katinka's bare knee. "With all my heart, with all my soul, I beg you, mistress."

"What would you do to save your brother's life?" Katinka asked. "What price would you pay, my little sparrow?" "There is no price too high, no sacrifice from which I would turn aside. Everything and anything you ask of me, mistress."

"We could never hope to set him free, Sukeena You understand that, don't you?" Katinka asked gently. Nor would I ever wish that, she thought, for while the brother is in the castle the little sparrow is safely in my cage.

"I will not even let myself hope for that."

Sukeena lifted her head and again Katinka cupped her chin, this time with both her hands, and she leaned forward slowly. "Althuda shall not die. We will save him from Slow John, you and I," she promised, and kissed Sukeena full on the mouth. The girl's lips were wet with her tears. They tasted hot and salty, almost like blood. Slowly Sukeena opened her lips, like the petals of an orchid opening to the sunbird's beak as it quests for nectar.

Althuda. Sukeena steeled herself with the thought of her brother, as without breaking the kiss Katinka took her hand and moved it slowly up under her skirts until it lay on her smooth white belly. Althuda, this is for you, and for you alone, Sukeena told herself silently, as she closed her eyes and her fingers crept timorously over the satiny belly, down into the nest of fine dense golden curls at the base.

The next day dawned in a cloudless sky. Although the air was chill the sun was IT brilliant and the wind had dropped. From the scaffold Hal watched the closed door to the dungeons. Daniel stayed close by his side, in taking Hal's share of the work on his broad shoulders he was shielding him from Barnard's lash.

When Slow John came through the gates and crossed the courtyard to the armoury, with his measured undertaker's tread, Hal stared down at him with stricken eyes. Suddenly, as he passed below the scaffold, Hal snatched up the heavy mason's hammer that lay on the planking at his feet and lifted it to hurl. it down and crush the executioner's skull.

But Daniel's great fist closed around his wrist. He eased the hammer from Hal's grip, as though he were taking a toy from a child, and placed it on top of the wall beyond his reach.

"Why did you do that?" Hal protested. "I could have killed the swine."

"To no purpose," Daniel told him, with compassion. "You cannot save Sir Francis by killing an underling, You would sacrifice your own life and achieve nothing by it. They would simply send another to your father."

Manseer brought Sir Francis up from the dungeons. He could not walk unaided on his broken bandaged feet, but his head was high as they dragged him across the courtyard.

"Father!" Hal screamed, in torment. "I cannot let this happen."

Sir Francis looked up at him, and called in a voice just loud enough to reach him on the high wall, "Be strong, my son. For my sake, be strong." Manseer forced him down the steps below the armoury.

The day was long, longer than any that Hal had ever lived through, and the north side of the courtyard was in deep shadow when at last Slow John re-emerged from below the armoury.

"This time I will kill the poisonous swine," Hal blurted, but again Daniel held him in a grip that he could not shake off as the executioner walked slowly beneath the scaffold and out through the castle gates.

Hop came scampering into the courtyard, his face ghastly. He summoned the Company surgeon and the two men disappeared once more down the stairs. This time the soldiers brought out Sir Francis on a litter.

"Father!" Hal shouted down to him, but there was neither reply nor sign of life in response.

"I have warned you often enough," Hugo Barnard bellowed at him. He strode out onto the boards and laid half a dozen whip strokes across his back. Hal made no attempt to avoid the blows, and Barnard stepped back astonished that he showed no pain. "Any more of your imbecile chattering, and I will put the dogs onto you," he promised, as he turned away. Meanwhile, in the courtyard, the Company surgeon watched gravely as the soldiers carried Sir Francis's unconscious form down to his cell. Then, accompanied by Hop, he set off for the Governor's suite on the south side of the courtyard.

Van de Velde looked up in irritation from the papers that littered his desk. "Yes? What is it, Doctor Soar? I am a busy man. I hope you have not come here to waste my time." "it is the prisoner, your excellency." The surgeon looked flustered and apologetic at the same time. Van de Velde did not allow him to continue but turned on Hop, who stood nervously behind the doctor, twisting his Hat in his fingers.

"Well, Hop, has the pirate succumbed yet? Has he told us what we want to know?" he shouted, and Hop retreated a pace.

"He is so stubborn. I would never have believed it possible, that any human being-" He broke off in a long, tormented stammer.

"I hold you responsible, Hop." Van de Velde came menacingly from behind his desk. He was warming to this sport of baiting the miserable little clerk, but the surgeon intervened.

"Your excellency, I fear for the prisoner's life. Another day of questioning he may not survive it."

Van de Velde rounded on him now. "That, doctor, is the main object of this whole business. Courtney is a man condemned to death. He will die, and you have my solemn word on that." He went back to his desk and lowered himself into the soft chair. "Don't come here to give me news of his imminent decease. All I want to know from you is whether or not he is still capable of feeling pain, and if he is capable of speaking or at least giving some sign of understanding the question. Well, is he, doctor?" Van de Velde glared.

"Your excellency," the doctor removed his eye-glasses and polished the lenses vigorously as he composed a reply. He knew what van de Velde wanted to hear, and he knew also that it was not politic to deny him. "At the moment the prisoner is not cmnpos mentis."

Van de Velde scowled and cut in, "What of the executioner's vaunted skills? I thought he never lost a prisoner, not unintentionally anyway."

"Sir, I am not disparaging the skills of the state executioner. I am sure that by tomorrow the prisoner will have recovered consciousness."

"You mean that tomorrow he will be healthy enough to continue questioning?"

"Yes, your excellency. That is my opinion."

"Well, Mijnheer, I will hold you to that. If the pirate dies before he can be formally executed in accordance with the judgement of the court, you will answer to me. The populace must see justice performed. It is no good the man passing peacefully away in a closed room below the walls. We want him out there on the Parade for all to see. I want an example made of him, do you understand?"

"Yes, your excellency." The doctor backed towards the door.

"You too, Hop. Do you understand, dolt? I want to know where he has hidden the galleon's cargo, and then I want a good rousing execution. For your own good, you had better deliver both those things."

"Yes, your excellency."

"I want to speak to Slow John. Send him to me before he starts work tomorrow morning. I want to make certain that he fully understands his responsibilities."

"I will bring the executioner to you myself," Hop promised. it was dark when Hugo Barnard stopped work on the walls and ordered the lines of exhausted prisoners down into the courtyard. As Hal passed his father's cell on the way down the staircase, he called desperately to him, "Father, can you hear me?"

When there was no reply, he hammered on the door with both his fists. "Father, speak to me. In the name of God, speak to me!" For once Manseer was indulgent. He made no attempt to force Hal to move on down the staircase and Hal pleaded again, "Please, Father. It's Hal, your son. Do you not know me?"

"Hal," croaked a voice he did not recognize. "Is that you, my boy?"

"Oh, God!" Hal sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the panel. "Yes, Father. It is me."

"Be strong, my son. It will not be for much longer, but I charge you, if you love me, then keep the oath."

"I cannot let you suffer. I cannot let this go on."

"Hal!" His father's voice was suddenly powerful again. "There is no more suffering. I have passed that point. They cannot hurt me now, except through you."

"What can I do to ease you? Tell me, what can I do?" Hal pleaded.

"There is only one thing you can do now. Let me take with me the knowledge of your strength and your fortitude. If you fail me now, it will all have been in vain."

Hal bit into the knuckles of his own clenched fist, drawing blood in the vain attempt to stifle his sobs. His father's voice came again.

"Daniel, are you there?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Help him. Help my son to be a man." "I give you my promise, Captain."

Hal raised his head, and his voice was stronger. "I do not need anybody to help me. I will keep my faith with you, Father. I will not betray your trust."

"Farewell, Hal." Sir Francis's voice began to fade, as though he were falling into an infinite pit. "You are my blood and my promise of eternal life. Goodbye, my life."

The following morning when they carried Sir Francis up from the dungeon Hop and Doctor AT Soar walked on either side of the litter. They were both worried men, for there was no sign of life in the broken figure that lay between them. Even when Hal defied Barnard's whip, and called down to him from the walls, Sir Francis did not raise his head. They took him down the stairs to where Slow John already waited, but within a few minutes all three came out into the sunlight, Soar, Hop and Slow John, and stood talking quietly for a short while. Then they walked together across to the Governor's suite and mounted the stairs.

Van de Velde was standing by the stained-glass window, peering out at the shipping that lay anchored off the foreshore. Late the previous evening, another Company galleon had come into Table Bay and he was expecting the ship's captain to call upon him to pay his respects and to present an order for provisions and stores. Van de Velde turned impatiently from the window to face the three men as they filed into his chamber.

"Ja, Hop?" He looked at his favourite victim. "You have remembered my orders, for once, hey? You have brought the state executioner to speak to me." He turned to Slow John. "So, has the pirate told you where he has hidden the treasure? Come on, fellow, speak up."

Slow John's expression did not change as he said softly, "I have worked carefully not to damage the respondent beyond usefulness. But I am nearing the end. Soon he will no longer hear my voice, nor be sensible to any further persuasion."

"You have failed?" van de Velde's voice trembled with anger.

"No, not yet," said Slow John. "He is strong. I would never have believed how strong. But there is still the rack. I do not believe that he will be able to withstand the rack. No man can weather the rack."

"You have not used it yet?" van de Velde demanded. "Why not?"

"To me it is the last resort. Once they have been racked, there is nothing left. It is the end."

"Will it work with this one?" van de Velde wanted to know. "What happens if he still resists?"

"Then there is only the scaffold and the gibbet," said Slow John.

Slowly van de Velde turned to Doctor Soar. "What is your opinion, doctor?"

"Your excellency, if you require an execution then it should be carried out very soon after the man is racked." "How soon? "van de Velde demanded.

"Today. Before nightfall. After racking, he will not last the night."

Van de Velde turned back to Slow John. "You have disappointed me.

I am displeased." Slow John did not seem to hear the rebuke. His eyes did not even flicker as he stared back at van de Velde. "However, we must do what we can to make the best of this whole sorry business. I will order the execution for three o'clock this afternoon. In the meantime you are to go back and place the pirate on the rack."

"I understand, your excellency," said Slow John.

"You have failed me once. Do not do so again. He must be alive when he goes to the scaffold." Van de Velde turned to the clerk. "Hop, send messengers through the town. I am declaring the rest of today to be a holiday throughout the colony, except for the work on the castle walls, of course. Francis Courtney will be executed at three o'clock this afternoon. Every burgher in the colony must be there. I want all to see how we deal with a pirate. Oh, and by the way, make certain that Mevrouw van de Velde is informed. She will be very angry if she misses the sport." two o'clock they brought Sir Francis Courtney on a litter from the cell below the A-Aarmoury. They had not bothered to cover his naked body. Even from high up on the south wall of the castle, and with his vision blurred by his tears, Hal could see that his father's body had been grotesquely deformed by the rack. Every one of the great joints in his limbs and at his shoulders and pelvis were dislocated, swollen and bruised purple black.

An execution detail of green-jackets was drawn up in the courtyard. Led by an officer with a drawn sword, they fell in around the litter. Twenty men marched in front, and twenty followed behind, their muskets at the slope. The tap-tap tap-tap of the death drum set the pace. The procession snaked through the castle gates, out onto the Parade.

Daniel placed his arm around Hal's shoulder, as the boy watched, white-faced and shivering, in the icy wind. Hal made no move to pull away from him. Those seamen who had coverings for their heads removed them, unwinding the filthy rags and standing grim and silent as the bier passed beneath them.

"God bless you, Captain," Ned Tyler called out. "You were as good a man as ever hoisted sail!" There was a hoarse and ragged cheer from the others, and one of Hugo Barnard's huge black hounds bayed mournfully, a strangely harrowing sound.

Out on the Parade the crowd waited around the gibbet in tense and expectant silence. Every living soul in the colony seemed to have answered the summons. Above their heads Slow John waited high on the platform. He wore his leather apron, and his head was covered with the mask of his office, the mask of death. His eyes and his mouth were all that showed through the slits in the black cloth.

Led by the drummer the procession marched with slow and measured tread towards him, and Slow John waited with his arms folded over his chest. Even he turned his head as the Governor's carriage came down the avenue through the gardens, and crossed the Parade. Slow John bowed to the Governor and his wife as Aboli guided the six grey horses to the foot of the scaffold and brought the vehicle to a halt.

Slow John's yellow eyes met those of Katinka through the slits in his black head cloth He bowed again, this time to her directly. She knew, without words being spoken, that he was dedicating the sacrifice to her, to his Goddess Kali.

"He has no reason to act so grand. The oaf has made a botch of the job so far," van de Velde said grumpily. "He has killed the man without getting a word out of him. I don't know what your father and the other members of the Seventeen are going to say when they hear that the cargo is lost. They are going to blame me, of course. They always do."

"As always you will have me to protect you, my darling husband" she said, and stood up in the carriage to have a better view. The escort stopped at the foot of the gallows and the litter with the still figure upon it was lifted high and placed at Slow John's feet. A low growl went up from the watchers as the executioner knelt beside it to begin his grisly task.

A little later when the crowd gave forth a lusty roar, made up of excitement and horror and obscene glee, the grey horses shied and fidgeted nervously in the traces at the sound and smell of fresh human blood. With an impassive face and gentle hands on the reins Aboli checked them and brought them back under control. Slowly he turned away his head from the dreadful spectacle taking place before his eyes and looked towards the unfinished walls of the castle.

He recognized the figure of Hal among the other convicts. He stood almost as tall as Big Daniel now, and he had the shape and set of a fully mature man. But he has a boy's heart still. He should not look upon this thing. No man or boy should ever have to watch his father die. Aboli's own great heart felt that it might burst in the barrel of his chest, but his face was still impassive beneath the cicatrice of tattoos. He looked back at the scaffold as Sir Francis Courtney's body rose slowly in the air and the crowd bellowed again. Slow John's pressure on the rope was gentle and sure as he lifted Sir Francis from the litter by his neck. It required a delicate touch not to snap the vertebrae, and end" it all too soon. It was a matter of pride to him that the last spark of life must not be snuffed out of that broken husk until after the drawing out of the viscera.

Firmly Aboli turned away his eyes and looked again to the bereft and tragic figure of Hal Courtney on the castle walls. We should not mourn for him, Gundwane. He was a man and he lived the life of a man. He sailed every ocean, and fought as a warrior must fight. He knew the stars and the ways of men. He called no man master, and turned aside from no enemy. No, Gundwane, we should not mourn him, you and I. He will never die while he lives on in our hearts.

For four days Sir Francis Courtney's dismembered body remained on public display. Every morning as the light strengthened, Hal looked down from the walls and saw it still hanging there. The gulls came from the beach in a shrieking cloud of black and white wings and squabbled raucously over the feast. When they had gorged, they perched on the railing of the gibbet and whitewashed the planks with their liquid dung.

For once Hal hated the clarity of his own eyesight, that spared him no detail of the terrible transformation that was taking place as he watched. By the third day the birds had picked the flesh from his father's skull so that it grinned at the sky with empty eye-sockets. The burghers crossing the open Parade on their way to the castle walked well downwind of the scaffold on which he hung, and the ladies held sachets of dried herbs to their faces as they passed.

However, on the dawning of the fifth day when Hal looked down upon it, the gibbet was empty. His father's pathetic remains no longer hung there, and the seagulls had gone back to the beach.

"Thank the merciful Lord," Ned Tyler whispered to Daniel. "Now young Hal can begin to heal."

"Yet it is passing strange that they have taken the corpse away so soon." Daniel was puzzled. "I would not have thought that van de Velde could be so compassionate."

Sukeena had shown him how to slip the grating on one of the small back windows of the slave'S quarters and squeeze his great body through. The night guard at the residence had become lax over the years, and Aboli had little difficulty in evading the watch. For three consecutive nights he escaped from the slave quarters. Sukeena had warned him that he must return at least two hours before dawn for at that hour the watch would rouse themselves and put on a show of vigilance to impress the awakening household.

Once he had escaped over the walls it took Aboli less than an hour to run through the darkness to the boundary of the colony, marked by a hedge of bitter almond bushes planted at the order of the Governor. Although the hedge was still scraggy and there were more gaps than barriers in its length, it was the line over which no burgher might pass without the Governor's permission. On the other hand, none of the scattered Hottentot tribes that inhabited the limitless wilderness of plain, mountain and forest beyond were allowed to cross the hedge and enter the colony. On the orders of the Company, they were to be shot or hanged if they transgressed the boundary. The VOC was no longer prepared to tolerate the savages" treachery, their sly thieving ways or their drunkenness when they were able to get their hands on spirits. The wanton whoring of their women, who would lift their short leather skirts for a handful of beads or a trifling trinket, was a threat to the morals of the God-fearing burghers of the colony. Selected tribesmen, who might be useful as soldiers and servants, were allowed to remain in the colony but the rest had been driven out into the wilderness where they belonged.

Each night Aboli crossed this makeshift boundary and ranged like a silent black ghost across the flat plain whose wide expanses cut off Table Mountain and its bastion of lesser hills from the main ranges of the African hinterland. The wild animals had not been driven off these plains, for few white hunters had been allowed to leave the confines of the colony to pursue them. Here, Aboli heard again the wild, heart-stopping chorus of a pride of hunting lions that he remembered from his childhood. The leopards sawed and coughed in the thickets, and often he startled unseen herds of antelope, whose hoofs drummed through the night.

Aboli needed a black bull. Twice he had been so close as to smell the buffalo herd in the thickets. The scent reminded him of his father's herds of cattle, which he had tended in his childhood, before his circumcision. He had heard the grunting of the great beasts and the lowing of the weaning calves, he had followed their deeply ploughed hoof marks and seen splashes of their wet dung still steaming in the moonlight. But each time as he closed with the herd, the wind had tricked him. They had sensed him and gone crashing away through the brush, galloping on until the sound of their flight dwindled into silence. Aboli could not pursue them further, for it was past midnight and he was still hours away from the bitter almond hedge and from his cell in the slave quarters.

On the third night he took the chance of creeping out of the window of the slave quarters an hour earlier than Sukeena had warned him was wise. One of the hounds rushed at him, but before it could alarm the watch, Aboli calmed it with a soft whistle. The hound recognized him and snuffled his hand. He stroked its head and whispered softly to it in the language of the forests and left it whining softly and wagging its tail as he slipped over the wall like a dark moon shadow.

During his previous hunts, he had discovered that each night the buffalo herd left the vastness of the dense forest to drink at a waterhole a mile or so beyond the boundary hedge. He knew that if he crossed it before midnight he might be able to catch them while they were still at the water. It was his best chance of being able to pick out a bull and make his stalk.

From the hollow tree at the edge of the forest he retrieved the bow that he had cut and carved from a branch of wild olive. Sukeena had stolen the single iron arrowhead from the collection of weapons that Governor Kleinhans had assembled during his service in the Indies, which now hung on the walls of the residence. It was unlikely that it would be missed from among the dozens of swords, shields and knives that made up the display.

"I will return it to you," he promised Sukeena "I would not have you suffer if it should be missed."

"Your need of it is great than my risk," she told him as she slipped the arrowhead, wrapped in a scrap of cloth, beneath the seat of the carriage. "I also had a father who was denied a decent burial."

Aboli had fitted the arrowhead to a reed shaft and bound it in place with twine and pitch. He had fl etched it with the moulted feathers from the hunting falcons housed in the mews behind the stables. However, he did not have time to search for the insect grubs from which to brew poison for the barbs, and so he must rely on this single shaft flying true to the mark.

Now as Aboli hunted in the shadows, himself another silent gliding shadow, he found old forgotten skills returning to him, and recalled the instruction that he had undergone as a young boy from the elders of his tribe. He felt the night wind softly caress his bare chest and flanks and was aware of its direction at all times as he circled the waterhole until it blew straight into his face. It brought down to him the rich bovine stench of the prey he sought.

The wind was strong enough to shake the tall reeds and cover any sound he might make so he could move in swiftly over the last hundred paces. Above the soughing of the north wind and the rustle of the reeds he heard a coughing grunt. He froze and nocked his single arrow.

Had the lions come to the water ahead of the herd, he wondered, for that had been a leonine sound. He stared ahead, and heard the sound of great hoofs plodding and sucking in the mud of the waterhole. Above the rippling heads of the reeds a dark shape moved, mountainous in the moonlight.

"A bull," he breathed. "A bull of a bull!"

The bull had finished drinking. The crafty old beast had come ahead of the cows and calves of the breeding herd. His back was coated with glistening wet mud from the wallow, and he plodded towards where Aboli crouched, his hoofs squelching in the mud.

Aboli lost sight of the prey as he sank down among the swaying stems and let him come on. But he could mark him by the sound of his heavy breathing, and by the rasping of the reeds dragging down his flanks. The bull was very close, but still out of Aboli's sight, when suddenly he shook his head as the reed stems tangled in his horns, and his ears flapped against his cheeks. If I reach out now I could touch his snout, Aboli thought. Every nerve in his body was drawn as tight as the bowstring in his fingers.

The reed bank parted in front of Aboli, and the massive head came through, the moonlight gleaming on the curved bosses of the horns. Abruptly the bull became aware of something amiss, of danger lurking close at hand, and he stopped and raised his huge black head. As he lifted his muzzle to test the air, his nose was wet and shining and water drooled from his mouth. He flared his nostrils into -dark pits and snuffled the air. Aboli could feel his breath hot upon his naked chest and his face.

The bull turned his head, questing for the scent of man or cat, for the hidden hunter. Aboli stayed still as a tree stump He was holding the heavy bow at full draw. The power of the olive branch and the gut bowstring were so fierce that even the granite muscles in his arms and shoulder bulged and trembled with the effort. As the bull turned his head he revealed the notch behind his ear where the neck fused with the bone of his skull and the massive boss of his horns. Aboli held his aim for one heartbeat longer, then loosed the arrow. It flashed and whirred in the moonlight, leaping from his hand and burying half its length in the massive black neck.

The bull reeled back. If the arrowhead had found the gap between the vertebrae of the spine, as Aboli had hoped, he would have dropped where he stood but the iron point struck the spine and was deflected by bone. It glanced aside but sliced through the great artery behind the jawbone. As the bull bucked and kicked to the stinging impact of the steel, the severed artery erupted and a spout of blood flew high in the air, black as an ostrich feather in the light of the moon..

The bull dashed past Aboli, hooking wildly with those wide curved horns. If Aboli had not dropped his bow and hurled himself aside, the burnished point that hissed by, a finger's width from his navel, would have skewered him and ripped open his bowels.

The bull charged on and reached the hard dry ground. On his knees Aboli strained his ears to follow his quarry's crashing rush through the scrub. Abruptly it came up short. There was a long, fraught pause, in which he could hear the animal's laboured breathing and the patter of streaming blood falling on the leaves of the low bushes around it. Then he heard the bull stagger and stumble backwards, trying to remain on his feet while the strength flowed out of his huge body on that tide of dark blood. The beast fell heavily so that the earth trembled under Aboli's bare feet.

A moment later came the rasping death bellow, and thereafter an aching quietness. Even the night birds and the bullfrogs of the swamp had been silenced by that dreadful sound. It was as though all the forest held its breath at the passing of such a mighty creature. Then) slowly, the night came alive once again, the frogs piped and croaked from the reed beds a nightjar screeched and from afar an eagle owl hooted mournfully.

Aboli skinned the bull with the knife that Sukeena had stolen for him from the residence kitchens. He folded the green skin and tied it with bark rope. It was heavy enough to tax even his strength. He staggered with the bundle until he could get under it and balance it on his head. He left the naked carcass for the packs of night-prowling hyena and the flocks of vultures, carnivorous storks, kites and crows that would find it with the first light of morning, and set off back towards the colony and the table-topped mountain, silhouetted against the stars. Even under his burden he moved at the ground-eating trot of the warriors of his tribe that was becoming so natural to him again after his confinement for two decades in a small ship upon the seas. He was remembering so much long-forgotten tribal lore and wisdom, relearning old skills, becoming once more a true son of this baked African earth.

He climbed to the lower slopes of the mountain and left the bundled skin in a narrow crevice in the rock cliff. He covered it with large boulders, for the hyenas roamed here also, attracted by the rubbish and wastes and sewage generated by the human settlement of the colony.

When he had placed the last boulder he looked up at the sky and saw that the curling scorpion was falling fast towards the dark horizon. Only then he realized how swiftly the night had sped, and went bounding back down the slope. He reached the edge of the Company gardens just as the first rooster crowed in the darkness.

Later that morning, as he waited on the bench with the other slaves outside the kitchens for his breakfast bowl of gruel and thick, curdled sour milk, Sukeena passed on her way to tend the affairs of the household. "I heard you return last night. You were out too late," she whispered, without turning her head on the orchid stem of her neck.

"If you are discovered, you will bring great hardship on all of us, and our plans will come to naught."

"My task is almost finished," he rumbled softly. "Tonight will be the last time I need to go out."

"Have a care, Aboli. There is much at risk," she said and glided away. Despite her warning she had given him any help he had asked for, and without watching her go Aboli whispered to himself, "That little one has the heart of a lioness."

That night, when the house had settled down for the night, he slipped through the grating. Again the dogs were stilled by his quiet whistle, and he had lumps of dried sausage for each of them. When he reached the wall below, the lawns, he looked to the stars and saw in the eastern sky the first soft luminescence of the moonrise. He vaulted over it and, keeping well clear of the road, guided himself by touch along the outside of the wall, towards the settlement.

No more than three or four dim lights were showing from the cottages and buildings of the village. The four ships at anchor in the bay were all burning lanterns at their mastheads. The castle was a dark brooding shape against the starlight.

He waited at the edge of the Parade and tuned his ears to the sounds of the night. Once, as he was about to set out across the open ground, he heard drunken laughter and snatches of singing as a party of soldiers from the castle returned from an evening of debauchery among the rude hovels on the waterfront, which passed as taverns in this remote station, selling the rough raw spirit the Hottentots called dop.

One of the revellers carried a tar-dipped torch.

The flames wove uncertainly as the man stopped before the gibbet in the middle of the Parade, and shouted an insult at the corpse that still hung upon it. His companions bellowed with drunken laughter at his humour, and then reeled on, supporting each other, towards the castle.

When they had disappeared through the gates, and when silence and darkness fell, Aboli moved out swiftly across the Parade. Though he could not see more than a few paces ahead, the smell of corruption guided him, only a dead lion smells as strongly as a rotting human corpse.

Sir Francis Courtney's body had been beheaded and neatly quartered. Slow John had used a butcher's cleaver to hack through the larger bones. Aboli brought down the head from the spike on which it had been impaled. He wrapped it in a clean white cloth and placed it in the saddle-bag he carried. Then he retrieved the other parts of the corpse. The dogs from the village had carried off some of the smaller bones, but even working in darkness Aboli was able to recover what remained. He closed and buckled the leather flap of the bag, slung it over his shoulder and set off again at a run towards the mountain.

Sukeena knew the mountain intimately, every ravine, cliff and crag. She had explained to him how to find the narrow concealed entrance to the cavern where, the previous night, he had left the raw buffalo skin. In the light of the rising moon, he returned unerringly to it. When he reached the entrance he stooped and swiftly removed the boulders that covered the buffalo skin. Then he crawled further into the crevice and drew aside the bushes that hung down from the cliff above to conceal the dark throat of the cavern.

He worked deftly, with flint and steel, to light one of the candles Sukeena had provided. Shielding the flame with cupped hands from any watcher below the mountain he went forward and crawled into the low natural tunnel on hands and knees, dragging the saddle-bag behind him.

As Sukeena had told him, the tunnel opened suddenly into a cavern high enough for him to stand. He held the candle above his head and saw that the cavern would make a fitting burial place for a great chief. There was even a natural rock shelf at the far end. He left the saddle bag upon it and crawled back to retrieve the buffalo skin. Before he entered the tunnel again he looked back over his shoulder and reoriented himself in the direction of the moonrise.

"I shall turn his face to greet ten thousand moons and all the sunrises of eternity!" he said softly, and dragged the heavy skin into the cavern and spread it on the rock floor.

He placed the candle on the rock shelf and began to unpack the bag. First he set aside those small offerings and ceremonial items he had brought with him. Then he lifted out Sir Francis's covered head and laid it in the centre of the buffalo hide. He unwrapped it reverently, and showed no repugnance for the thick cloying odour of decay that slowly filled the cavern. He assembled all the other dismembered parts of the body and arranged them in their natural order, binding them in place with slim strands of bark rope, until Sir Francis lay on his side, his knees drawn up beneath his chin and his arms hugging his legs, the foetal position of the womb and of sleep. Then he folded the wet buffalo hide tightly around him so that only his ravaged face was still exposed. He stitched the folds of the hide around him so they would dry into an iron-hard sarcophagus. It was a long and meticulous task, and when the candle burnt down and guttered in a pool of its own liquid wax he lit another from the stump and worked on.

When he had finished, he took up the turtle shell comb, another of Sukeena's gifts, and combed out the tangled tresses that still adhered to Sir Francis's skull, and braided them neatly. At last he lifted the seated body and placed it on the stone shelf. He turned it carefully to face the east, to gaze for ever towards the moonrise and the dawn.

For a long while he squatted below the ledge and looked upon the ravaged head, seeing it in his mind's eye as it once was. The face of the vigorous young mariner who had rescued him from the slavers" hold two decades before.

At last he rose and began to gather up the grave-goods he had brought with him. He laid them one at a time on the ledge before the body of Sir Francis. The tiny model of a ship he had carved with his own hands. There had not been time to lavish care upon its construction, and it was crude and childlike. However, the three masts had sails set upon them, and the name carved into the stern was Lady Edwina.

"May this ship carry you over the dark oceans to the landfall where the woman whose name she bears awaits you,"Aboli whispered.

Next he placed the knife and the bow of olive wood beside the ship. "I have no sword with which to arm you, but may these weapons be your defence in the dark places."

Then he offered the food bowl and the water bottle. "May you never again hunger or thirst."

Lastly, the cross of wood that Aboli had fashioned and decorated with green abalone shell, white-carved bone and small bright stones from the river-bed. "May the cross of your God which guided you in life, guide you still in death," he said as he placed the cross before Sir Francis's empty eyes.

Kneeling on the cavern floor he built a small fire and lit it from the candle. "May this fire warm you in the darkness of your long night. "Then, in his own language, he sang the funeral chant and the song of the traveller on a long journey, clapping his hands softly to keep the time, and to show respect. When the flames of the fire burned low he stood and moved to the entrance of the cavern.

"Farewell, my friend," he said. "Goodbye, MY father."

Governor van de Velde was a cautious man. At first, he had not allowed Aboli to drive him in the carriage. "This is a whim of yours that I will not deny, my dear," he told his wife, "but the fellow is a black savage. What does he know of horses?"

"He is really very good, better by far than old Fredricus." Katinka laughed. "And he looks so splendid in the new livery I have designed for him."

"His fancy maroon coat and breeches will be of little interest to me when he breaks my neck," van de Velde said, but despite his misgivings he watched the way Aboli handled the team of greys.

The first morning that Aboli drove the Governor down from the residence to his suite in the castle, there was a stir and a murmur among the convicts working on the walls as the carriage crossed the Parade and approached the castle gates. They had recognized Aboli sitting high on the coachman's seat with the long whip in his white-gloved hands.

Hal was on the point of shouting a greeting to him, but checked himself in time. It was not the sting of Barnard's whip that dissuaded him, but he realized that it would be unwise to remind his captors that Aboli had been his shipmate. The Dutch would expect him to regard a black man as a slave and not as a companion.

"Nobody to greet Aboli," he whispered urgently to Daniel, sweating beside him. "Ignore him. Pass it on." The order went swiftly down the ranks of men on the scaffold and then to those labouring in the courtyard. When the carriage came in through the gates to a turnout of the honour guard and the salutes of the garrison's officers, none of the convicts paid any attention. They devoted them, selves to the heavy work with block and tackle and iron bar.

Aboli sat like a carved figurehead on the coachman's seat, staring directly ahead. His dark eyes did not even flicker in Hal's direction. He drew the team of greys to a halt at the foot of the staircase and sprang down to lower the folding steps and hand out the Governor. Once van de Velde had waddled up the stairs and disappeared into his suite, Aboli returned to his seat and sat upon it, unmoving, facing straight ahead. In a short time the gaolers and guards forgot his silent presence, turned their attention to their duties and the castle fell into its routine.

An hour passed and one of the horses threw its head and fidgeted. From the corner of his eye Hal had noticed Aboli touch the reins to agitate the animal slightly. Now he climbed unhurriedly down and went to its head. He held its leather cheek-strap and stroked its head and murmured endearments to it. The grey quietened immediately under his touch, and Aboli went down on one knee and lifted first one front foot and then the other, examining the hoofs for any injury.

Still on one knee and screened by the horse's body from the view of any of the guards or overseers, he looked up for the first time at Hal. Their gaze touched for an instant. Aboli nodded almost imperceptibly and opened his right fist to give Hal a glimpse of the tiny curl of white paper he had in his palm, then closed his fist and stood up. He walked down the team of horses examining each animal and making minute adjustments to the harness. At last he turned aside and leaned against the stone wall beside him, stooping to wipe the fine flouring of dust from his boots, Hal watched him take the quill of paper and surreptitiously stuff it into a joint in the stonework of the wall. He straightened and returned to the coachman's seat to await the Governor's pleasure. Van de Velde never showed consideration for servant, slave or animal. All that morning the team of greys stood patiently in the traces with Aboli soothing them at intervals. A little before noon the Governor re-emerged from the Company offices and had himself driven back to the residence for the midday meal.

In the dusk, as the convicts wearily climbed down into the courtyard, Hal stumbled as he reached the ground and put out his hand to steady himself. Neatly he picked the scrap of folded paper from the joint in the stonework where Aboli had left it.

Once in the dungeon there was just sufficient light filtering down from the torch in its bracket at the top of the staircase for Hal to read the message. It was written in a fine neat hand that he did not recognize. Despite all his father's and Hal's own instruction, Aboli's handwriting had never been better than large, sprawling and malformed. It seemed that another scribe had framed these words. A tiny nub of charcoal was wrapped in the paper, placed there for Hal to write his reply on the reverse of the scrap.

"The Captain buried with honour." Hal's heart leapt as he read that. So it was Aboli who had taken down his father's mutilated corpse from the gibbet. I should have known he would give my father that respect.

There was only one more word. "Althuda?" Hal puzzled over this until he understood that Aboli, or the writer, must be asking after the welfare of the other prisoner.

"Althuda!" he called softly. "Are you awake?" "Greetings, Hal. What cheer?"

"Somebody outside asks after you."

There was a long silence as Althuda. considered this. "Who asks?"

"I know not." Hal could not explain for he was certain that the gaolers eavesdropped on these exchanges.

Another long silence. "I can guess," Althuda called. "And so can you. We have discussed her before. Can you send a reply? Tell her I am alive."

Hal rubbed the charcoal on the wall to sharpen a point on it and wrote, "Althuda well." Even though his letters were small and cramped, there was space for no more on the paper.

The following morning, as they were led out to begin the day's w "ark on the scaffold, Daniel screened Hal for the moment he needed to push the scrap of paper into the same crack from which he had retrieved it.

In the middle of the morning Aboli drove the Governor down from the residence and parked once more beneath the staircase. Long after van de Velde had disappeared into his sanctum, Aboli remained on the coachman's seat. At last he looked up casually at a flock of red-winged starlings that had come down from the cliffs to perch on the walls of the eastern bastion and give vent to their low, mournful whistles. From the birds his eye passed over Hal, who nodded. Once again Aboli dismounted and tended his horses, pausing beside the wall to adjust the straps on his boots and, with a magician's sleight-of hand to recover the message from the crack in the wall. Hal breathed easier when he saw it, for they had established their letterbox.

They did not make the mistake of trying to exchange messages every day. Sometimes a week or more might pass before Aboli nodded at Hal, and placed a note in the wall. If Hal had a message, he would give the same signal and Aboli would leave paper and charcoal for him.

The second message Hal received was in that artistic and delicate script. "A. is safe. Orchid sends her heart."

"Is the orchid the one we spoke of?" Hal called to Althuda that night. "She sends you her heart, and says you are safe."

"I do not know how she has achieved that, but I must believe it and be thankful to her in this as in so many things." There was a lift of relief in Althuda's tone. Hal held the scrap of paper to his nose, and fancied that he detected the faintest perfume upon it. He huddled on his damp straw in a corner of the cell. He thought about Sukeena until sleep overcame him. The memory of her beauty was like a candle flame in the winter darkness of the dungeon.

Governor van de Velde was passing drunk. He had swilled the Rhenish with the soup and t-GMadeira with the fish and the lobster. The red wines of Burgundy had accompanied the mutton stew and the pigeon pie. He had quaffed the claret with the beef, and interspersed each with draughts of good Dutch gin. When at last he rose from the board, he steadied himself as he wove to his seat by the fire with a hand on his wife's arm. She was not usually so attentive, but all this evening she had been in an affectionate and merry mood, laughing at his sallies which on other occasions she would have ignored, and refilling his glass with her own gracious hand before it was half emptied. Come to think of it, he could not remember when last they had dined alone, just the two of them, like a pair of lovers.

For once, he had not been forced to put up with the company of the rustic yokels from the settlement, or with the obsequious flattery of ambitious Company servants or, greatest blessing of all, without the posturing and boasting of that amorous prig Schreuder.

He fell back in the deep leather chair beside the fire and Sukeena brought him a box of good Dutch cigars to choose from. As she held the burning taper for him, he peered with a lascivious eye down the front of her costume. The soft swell of girlish breasts, between which nestled the exotic jade brooch, moved him so that he felt his groin swell and engorge pleasantly.

Katinka was kneeling at the open hearth, but she regarded him so slyly that he worried for a moment that she had seen him ogle the slave girl's bosom. But then she smiled and took up the poker that was heating in the fire and plunged its glowing tip into the stone jug of scented wine. It boiled and fumed, and she filled a bowl with it and brought it to him before it had time to cool.

"My beautiful wife!" He slurred a little. "My little darling." He toasted her with the steaming bowl. He was not yet so intoxicated or gullible that he did not realize there would be some price to pay for this unusual kindness. There always was.

Kneeling in front of him, Katinka looked up at Sukeena, who hovered close at hand. "That is all for tonight, Sukeena You may go." She gave the slave girl a knowing smile.

"I wish you sweet sleep and dreams of paradise, master and mistress." Sukeena gave that graceful genuflection, and glided from the room. She slid the carved oriental screen door closed behind her, and knelt there quietly with her face close to the panel. These were her mistress's orders. Katinka wanted Sukeena to witness what transpired between her and her husband. She knew that it would tighten the knot that bound the slave girl to her.

Now Katinka moved behind her husband's chair. "You have had such a difficult week," she said softly, "what with the affair of the pirate's body being stolen from the scaffold, and now the new census and taxation ordinances from the Seventeen. My poor darling husband, let me massage your shoulders for you."

She removed his wig and kissed the top of his head. The stubble prickled her lips, and she stood back and dug her thumbs into his heavy shoulders. Van de Velde sighed with pleasure, not only with the sensation of the knots being eased from his muscles but because he recognized this as the prelude to the infrequent dispensation of her sexual favours.

"How much do you love me?" she asked, and leaned over him to nibble at his ear.

"I adore you," he blurted out. "I worship you "You are always so kind to me." Her voice took on that husky quality that made his skin tingle. "I want to be kind to you. I have written to my father. I have explained to him the circumstances of the pirate's demise and how it was not your fault that it happened. I shall give the letter to the captain of the homewar&bound galleon, which is anchored in the bay at the moment, to hand to Papa in person."

"May I see the letter before you dispatch it?" he asked warily. "It would carry much weight if it could accompany my own report to the Seventeen, which I shall send on the same ship."

"Of course you may. I shall bring it to you before you leave for the castle in the morning." She brushed the top of his head with her lips again, and slid her fingers from his shoulders down over his chest. She unhooked the buttons of his doublet and slipped both hands into the opening. She took a handful of each of his pendulous dugs and kneaded them as though they were lumps of soft bread dough.

"You are such a good little wife," he said. "I would like to give you a sign of my love. What do you lack? A jewel? A pet? A new slave? Tell your old Petrus."

"I do have a little whimsy," she admitted coyly. "There is a man in the dungeons" "One of the pirates? "he hazarded. "No, a slave named Althuda."

"Ah, yes! I know about him. The rebel and runaway! I shall deal with him this coming week. His death warrant is already on my desk waiting for my signature. Shall I give him to Slow John? Would you like to watch? Is that it? You want to enjoy the sport? How can I deny you?"

She reached down and began to unlace the fastening of his breeches. He spread his legs and lay back comfortably in the chair to make the task easier for her.

"I want you to grant Althuda a reprieve," she whispered in his ear.

He sat bolt upright. "You are mad," he gasped. "You are so cruel to call me mad." She pouted.

"But but he is a runaway. He and his gang of thugs murdered twenty of the soldiers who were sent to recapture him. I could never free him."

"I know you cannot release him. But I want you to keep him alive.

You could set him to work on the walls of your castle."

"I cannot do it." He shook his shaven head. "Not even for you."

She came round from behind his chair and knelt in front of him. Her fingers began work again on the lacing of his breeches. He tried to sit up but she pushed him back and reached inside.

All the saints bear witness, the old sodomite makes it difficult for me. He is as soft and white as un risen dough, she thought as she grasped him. "Not even for your own loving wife?" she whispered, and looked up with swimming violet eyes, as she thought, That's a little better, I felt the drooping lily twitch.

"I mean, rather, that it would be difficult." He was in a quandary.

"I understand," she murmured. "It was just as difficult for me to compose my letter to my father. I would hate to be forced to burn it." She stood up and lifted her skirts as though she were about to climb over a stile. She was naked from the waist down and his eyes bulged like those of a cod hauled up abruptly from deep water. He struggled to sit up and at the same time tried to reach for her.

I'll not have you on top of me again, you great tub of pork lard, she thought as she smiled lovingly at him and held him down with both hands on his shoulders. Last time you nearly squashed the life out of me.

She straddled him as though she were mounting the mare. "Oh, sweet Jesus, what a mighty man you are!" she cried, as she took him in. The only pleasure she received from it was the thought of Sukeena listening at the screen door. She closed her eyes and summoned up the image of the slave girl's slim thighs and the treasure that lay between them. The thought inflamed her, and she knew that her husband would feel her flowing response and think it was for him alone.

"Katinka," he gurgled and snorted as though he was drowning, "I love you."