Birds of Prey

"The day will come when you will have to kill both of them," said a deep voice beside him, and he glanced at Aboli.

"I dream of that day."

Beneath his feet he felt the first thrust of the sea coming in through the heads. The flames had destroyed his night vision, and ahead lay utter darkness. He must grope his way through the treacherous channel like a blind man.

"Douse the lanterns!" he ordered. Their feeble light would not penetrate the darkness ahead and would serve only to dazzle him.

"Bring her up a point to larboard," he ordered Ned Tyler quietly.

"A point to larboard!" "Meet her!"

He felt rather than saw the loom of the cliff ahead, and heard the surge and break of the waves on the reef at the entrance. He judged his turn by the sounds of the sea, the feel of the wind on his chest and the deck beneath his feet.

After all the shouting and pistol fire, the ship was deathly quiet. Every seaman aboard her knew that Hal was leading them against an ancient enemy far more dangerous than the Buzzard or any man alive.

"Harden up your main and mizzen courses," he called to the men on the sheets. "Stand ready to let your topgallants fly."

An almost palpable fear lay upon the Golden Bough for the ebb had her by the throat and there was no manner in which the crew could slow the ship's headlong rush towards the unseen cliffs in the aching blackness.

The moment came. Hal felt the back surge from the breaking reef push across the bows, and the puff of wind on his cheek coming from a new direction as the ship ran on into the maw of rock.

"Starboard your helm!" he said sharply. "Hard over. Let your topgallants fly."

The Golden Bough spun on her heel and her top sails flapped in the wind, like the wings of a vulture scenting death. The ship rushed on into the darkness and every man on the deck braced himself for the terrible crash as the belly was ripped out of her by the fangs of the reef.

Hal stepped to the rail and peered up into the sky. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He saw the line, high above, where the stars were extinguished by the loom of the rocky head.

"Midship your helm, Mister Tyler. Hold her at that."

The ship steadied on her new course into the night, and Hal's heart beat fast to the echo of booming surf from the cliff close at hand. He clenched his fists at his sides in anticipation of the strike into the reef. Instead he felt the scend of the open sea hump up under her, and the Golden Bough meet it with the passion thrust of a lover.

"Harden up your topgallants." He raised his voice to carry on high. The flapping of sails ceased and he heard once again the thrumming of tight canvas.

The Golden Bough threw up her bows as the first ocean roller slid under her and for a moment no man dared believe that Hal had led them through the maelstrom to safety.

"Light the lanterns," Hal said quietly. "Mister Tyler, come around to due south. We will make a good offing."

The silence persisted, then a voice from the main yard yelled down, "Lord love you, Captain! We're through." Then the cheering swept down the deck.

"For Sir Hal and the Golden Bough." They cheered him until their throats ached, and Hal heard strange voices calling his name. The seamen he had released from the hold were cheering him as loudly as the others.

He felt a small warm hand creep into his and looked down to see Sukeena's sweet face glow in the lantern light beside the binnacle.

"Already they love you almost as much as I do." She tugged softly on his hand. "Will you not come away to where I can see to your wounds?"

But he did not want to leave his quarterdeck. He wanted to revel longer in the sounds and the feel of his new ship and the sea under her. So he kept Sukeena close beside him as the Golden Bough ran on into the night and the stars blazed down from above.

Big Daniel came to them at last, dragging with him an abject figure. For a moment Hal did not recognize the creature but then the whining voice made his skin crawl with loathing and the fine hairs at the back of his neck rise.

"Sweet Sir Henry, I pray you to have mercy on an old shipmate."

"Sam Bowles." Hal tried to keep his voice level. "You have enough innocent blood on your conscience to float a frigate."

"You do me injustice, good Sir Henry. I am a poor wretch driven by the storms and gales of life, noble Sir Henry. I never wanted to do no man harm."

"I will deal with him in the morning. Chain him to the mainmast and put two good men to guard him," Hal ordered Big Daniel. "Make sure that this time he does not eel his way out of our hands and cheat us once again of the vengeance that we so richly deserve."

He watched in the lantern light as they shackled Sam Bowles to the foot of the mainmast and two of the crew stood over him with drawn cutlasses.

"My little brother Peter was one of those you drowned," the older of the two guards told Sam Bowles. "I beg you for any excuse to stick this blade through your belly."

Hal left Daniel in charge of the deck and, taking Sukeena with him, went below to the main cabin. She would not rest until she had bathed and bandaged his cuts and wounds, although none were serious enough to cause her alarm. When she had finished, Hal led her through into the small cabin next door. "You will be able to rest here undisturbed," he told her, lifted her onto the bunk and, though she protested, covered her with a woollen blanket.

"There are wounded men that need my help, "she said. "Your unborn son and I need you more," he told her finfily, and pushed her head down gently. She sighed and was almost immediately asleep.

He returned to the main cabin and sat down at Llewellyn's desk. In the centre of the mahogany top lay a great black leather-covered Bible. During all his captivity Hal had been denied access to the book. He opened the front cover, and read the inscription, written in a bold sloping hand. "Christopher Llewellyn esq, Born 16th October in the year of grace 1621."

Below it was another, fresher inscription. "Consecrated as a Nautonnier Knight of the Temple of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail 2nd August 1643."

Knowing that the man who had captained this ship before him was a brother Knight gave Hal a deep purpose and pleasure. For an hour he turned the pages of the Bible and reread the familiar and inspiring passages by which his father had taught him to steer his course through life. At last he closed it, stood up and began to search the cabin for the ship's books and documents. He soon discovered the iron strong-box below the bunk. When he could not find the key he called Aboli to help him. They forced open the lid and Hal sent Aboli away. He sat the rest of the night at Llewellyn's desk, studying the ship's books and papers in the lantern light. He was so absorbed by his reading that when Aboli came down to fetch him, an hour after the sun had risen, he looked up in surprise. "What time is it, Aboli?"

"Two bells in the morning watch. The men are asking to see you, Captain."

Hal stood up from the desk, stretching and rubbing his eyes, then crossed to the door of the cabin where Sukeena still slept.

"It would be best if you spoke to the new men as soon as you can, Gundwane,"Aboli said, behind him.

"Yes, you are right." Hal turned back to him.

"Daniel and I have already told them who you are, but you must convince them now to sail under your command. If they refuse to accept you as their new captain, there is little we can do. There are thirty-four of them, and only six of us."

Hal went to the small mirror on the bulkhead above the jug and basin of the toilet stand. When he saw his reflection he started with amazement. "Sweet heavens, Aboli, I look such a pirate that I do not even trust myself."

Sukeena must have been listening, for she appeared suddenly in the doorway with the blanket draped over her shoulders.

"Tell them we will come in a minute, Aboli, when I have made the best of his appearance," she said.

When Hal and Sukeena stepped out onto the deck together, the men gathered in the ship's waist stared at them with astonishment. The transformation was extraordinary. Hal was freshly shaved and dressed in simple but clean clothing from Llewellyn's locker. Sukeena's hair was combed, oiled and plaited and she had fashioned a long skirt from one of the cabin's velvet drapes and wrapped it around her girlish waist and hips. They made an extraordinary couple, the tall young Englishman and the oriental beauty.

Hal left Sukeena at the companionway and strode out in front of the men. "I am Henry Courtney. I am an Englishman, as you are. I am a sailor, as you are."

"Aye, that you are, Captain," one said loudly. "We watched you take a strange ship out through the heads in darkness. You're enough sailor to fill my tankard and give me a warm feel in the guts."

Another called out, "I sailed with your father, Sir Francis, on the old Lady Edwina. He was a seaman and fighter, and an honest man to boot."

Then another cried, "Last night, by my count, you took down seven of the Buzzard's scum with your own blade. The pup is well bred from the old dog."

They all began to cheer him so he could not speak for a long while, but at last he held up his hand. "I tell you straight that I have read Captain Llewellyn's log. I have read the charter he had with the ship's owner, and I know whither the Golden Bough was bound and what was her purpose." He paused, and looked at their honest, weatherbeaten faces. "We have a choice, you and I. We can say we were beaten by the Buzzard before we began and sail back home to England."

They groaned and shouted protests until he held up his hand again.

"Or I can take over Captain Llewellyn's charter and his agreement with the owners of the Golden Bough. On your side, you can sign on with me on the same terms and with the same share of the prize you agreed before. Before you answer me, remember that if you come with me the chances are strong that we will run in with the Buzzard again, and you will have to fight him once more."

"Lead us to him now, Captain," one yelled. "We'll fight him this very day."

"Nay, lad. We're short-handed and I need to learn to con this ship before we meet the Buzzard again. We will fight the Gull on the day and at the place of my own choosing," Hal told them grimly. "On that day we will hoist the Buzzard's head to our masthead and divide up his booty."

"I'm with you, Captain," shouted a lanky fair-headed sailor. "I cannot write my name, but bring me the book and I'll mark a cross so big and black it will fright the devil himself. "They all roared with fierce laughter.

"Bring the book and let us sign."

"We're with you. My oath and my mark on it."

Hal stopped them again. "You will come one at a time to my cabin, so that I can learn each of your names and shake you by the hand."

He turned to the rail and pointed back over their stern. "We have made good our offing." The African coast lay low and blue along the horizon. "Get aloft now to make sail and bring the ship around onto her true course for the Great Horn of Africa."

They swarmed up the shrouds and out along the yards and the canvas billowed out until it shone in the sunlight like a soaring thunderhead.

"What course, Captain?" Ned Tyler called from the helm.

"East by north, Mister Tyler," Hal replied, and felt the ship surge forward under him, as he turned to watch the wake furrow the blue rollers with a line of flashing foam. he never one of the crew passed the foot of the mainmast where Sam Bowles AW crouched, shackled at hand and foot like a captive ape, they paused to gather saliva and spit at him. Aboli came to Hal in the forenoon watch. "You must deal with Sam Bowles now. The men are becoming impatient. One of them is going to cheat the rope and stick a knife between his ribs."

"That will save me a deal of bother." Hal looked up from the bundle of charts and the book of sailing directions that he had found in Christopher Llewellyn's chest. He knew that his crew would demand a savage revenge on Sam Bowles, and he did not relish what had to be done.

"I will come on deck at once." He sighed, surrendering at last to Aboli's ruthless persuasion. "Have the men assembled in the waist."

He had thought that Sukeena was still in the small cabin that adjoined the powder magazine, which she had turned into a sickbay and in which two of the wounded men still teetered on the edge of life. He hoped that she would stay there, but as he stepped out onto the deck she came to meet him.

"You should go below, Princess," he told her softly. "It will not be a sight fitting to your eyes."

"What concerns you is my concern also. Your father was part of you, so his death touches upon me. I lost my own father in terrible circumstances, but I avenged him. I will stay to see that you avenge your father's death."

"Very well." Hal nodded, and called across the deck. "Bring the prisoner!"

They were forced to drag Sam Bowles to face his accusers, for his legs could barely support him and his tears ran down to mingle with the spittle that the men had ejected into his face.

"I meant no ill," he pleaded. "Hear me, shipmates. "Twos that devil Cumbrae that drove me to it."

"You laughed as you held my brother's head under the waters of the lagoon, shouted one of the seamen.

As they dragged him past where Aboli stood with his arms folded across his chest, he stared at Sam with eyes that glittered strangely.

"Remember Francis Courtney!" Aboli rumbled. "Remember what you did to the finest man who ever sailed the oceans."

Hal had prepared a list of the crimes for which Sam Bowles must answer. As he read aloud each charge, the men howled for vengeance.

Finally Hal came to the last item of the dreadful recital. "That you, Samuel Bowles, in the sight of their comrades and shipmates, did murder the wounded seamen from the Golden Bough, who had survived your treacherous ambush, by causing them to be drowned."

He folded the document, and demanded sternly, "You have heard the charges against you, Samuel Bowles. What have you to say in your defence?"

"It was not my own fault! I swear I would not have done it but I was in terror of my life."

The crew shouted him down, and it was some minutes until Hal could quieten them. Then he asked, "So you do not deny the charges against you?"

"What use denying it?" one of the men shouted. "We all saw it with our own eyes."

Sam Bowles was weeping loudly now. "For the love of sweet Jesus have mercy, Sir Henry. I know I have erred, but give me a chance and you will find no more trusty and loving creature to serve you all the days of your life."

The sight of Bowles disgusted Hal so deeply that he wanted to wash the foul taste of it from his mouth. Suddenly an image appeared in the eye of his mind. It was of his father lying on the litter, being borne away to the scaffold, his body broken and twisted from the rack. He began to tremble.

Beside him, Sukeena sensed his distress. She laid her hand softly on his arm to steady him. He drew a deep, slow breath and fought back the black waves of sorrow that threatened to overwhelm him. "Samuel Bowles, you have admitted your guilt to all the charges brought against you. Is there anything that you wish to say before I pronounce sentence upon you?" Grimly he stared into Sam's flooded eyes, and watched a strange transformation take place. He realized that the tears were a device that Sam could call upon at will. Something else burned out from a deep and hidden part of his soul, a nimbus so feral and evil that he doubted he still looked into the eyes of a human being and not those of a wild beast standing at bay.

"You think you hate me, Henry Courtney? You do not know what hatred truly is. I glory in the thought of your father screaming on the rack. Sam Bowles did that. Remember it every day you live. Sam Bowles might be dead but Sam Bowles did that!" His voice rose to a scream, and spittle foamed on his lips. His own evil overwhelmed him and his shrieks were barely coherent. "This is my ship, my own ship. I would have been Captain Samuel Bowles, and you took it from me. May the devil drink your blood in hell. May he dance on your father's twisted and rotting corpse, Henry Courtney."

Hal turned away from the revolting spectacle, trying to close his ears to the stream of invective.

"Mister Tyler." He spoke loudly enough for all the crew to hear above Sam Bowles's screams. "We will waste no more of the ship's time with this matter. The prisoner is to be hanged immediately. Reeve a rope to the main yard. -" "Gundwane!" Aboli roared a warning. "Behind you!" And he started forward too late to intervene. Sam Bowles had reached under his petticoats. Strapped to the inside of his thigh was a leather sheath. He was as swift as a striking adder. In his hand the blade of the stiletto sparkled like a sliver of crystal, pretty as a maiden's bauble. He threw it with a snap of his wrist.

Hal had begun to turn to Aboli's warning, but Sam was swifter. The dagger flitted across the space that separated them, and Hal winced in anticipation of the sting of the razor-edged blade burying itself in his flesh. For an instant he doubted his own senses, for he felt no blow.

He looked down and saw that Sukeena had flung out one slim bare arm to block the throw. The silver blade had struck an inch below her elbow and buried itself to the haft.

"Sweet Jesus, shield her!" Hal blurted, seized her in his arms and hugged her to him. Both of them stared down at the hilt of the dagger protruding from her flesh.

Aboli reached Sam Bowles the instant after the stiletto had flown from his fingers and sent him crashing to the deck with a blow of his bunched fist. Ned Tyler and a dozen men leapt forward to seize him, and drag him to his feet. Sam shook his head blearily for Aboli's fist had stunned him. Blood dribbled from the side of his mouth.

"Reeve a rope through the main yard block," Ned Tyler shouted, and a man raced up the shrouds to obey. He ran out along the main yard, and a minute later the rope fell down through the sheave and its tail flopped onto the deck.

"The blade has gone deep," Hal whispered, as he held Sukeena against his chest and tenderly lifted her wounded arm.

"It is thin and sharp." Sukeena smiled bravely up at him. "So sharp I hardly felt it. Draw the blade swiftly, my darling, and it will heal cleanly."

"Help me here! Hold her arm," Hal called to Aboli, who sprang to his side, grasped the slim engraved hilt and, with one swift motion, plucked the blade from Sukeena's flesh. It came away with surprising ease.

She said softly, "There is little harm done," but her cheeks had paled and tears trembled on her lower eyelids. Hal lifted her in his arms and started towards the companionway of the stern. A wild scream stopped him.

Sam Bowles stood beneath the dangling rope. Ned Tyler was snugging the noose down under his ear. Four men waited ready with the tail of the rope in their hands.

"Your bitch is dead, Henry Courtney. She is dead just like your bastard sire. Sam Bowles killed both of them. Glory be, Captain Bloody Courtney, remember me in your prayers. I am the man you will never forget." "Tis a little cut. The Princess is a strong, brave girl.

She will live on," Ned muttered grimly in Sam Bowles's ear. "You are the one who is dead, Sam Bowles." He stepped back and nodded to the men on the rope's end, who walked away with it, slapping their bare feet on the deck timbers in unison.

The instant before the rope came up tight and stopped his breath, Sam screamed again, "Look well at the blade that cut your whore, Captain. Think on Sam Bowles when you try the point." The rope bit into his throat and yanked him off his feet, throttling the next word before it reached his lips.

The crew howled with wolflike glee as Sam Bowles rose spiralling in the air, swinging on the rope's end as the Golden Bough rotted under him. His legs kicked and danced so that the chains on his ankles tinkled like sleigh bells.

He was still twitching and gurgling when his neck jammed up tight against the sheave block at the end of the main yard high above the deck.

"Let him hang there all night, "Ned Tyler ordered. "We'll cut him down in the morning and throw him to the sharks." Then he stooped and picked up the stiletto from the deck where Hal had flung it. He studied the blood-smeared blade and his tanned face turned yellow grey.

"Sweet Mary, let it not be so!" He looked up again at Sam Bowles's corpse swaying to the ship's motion high above him.

"Your death was too easy. If it were in my power, I would kill you a hundred times over, and each time more painfully than the last." al laid Sukeena on the bunk in the main cabin. "I should cauterize the wound but tH the hot iron would leave a scar." He knelt beside the bunk and examined it closely. "It is deep but there is almost no bleeding." He wrapped her arm in a fold of white linen that Aboli brought him from the sea-chest at the foot of the bunk.

"Bring me my bag," Sukeena ordered, and Aboli went immediately.

As soon as they were alone, Hal bent over her and kissed her pale cheek. "You took Sam's throw to save me," he murmured, his face pressed to hers. "You risked your own life and the life of the child in your womb for me. It was a bad bargain, my love."

"I would strike the same bargain-" She broke off and he felt her stiffen in his arms and gasp.

"What is it that ails you, my sweetheart?" He drew back and stared into her face. Before his eyes, tiny beads of perspiration welled up out of the pores of her skin, like the dew on the petals of a yellow rose. "You are in pain?"

"It burns," she whispered. "It burns worse than the hot iron you spoke of."

Swiftly he unwrapped her arm and stared at the change in the wound that had taken place as they embraced. The arm was swelling before his eyes, like one of the Toby fish of the coral reef that could puff itself up to many times its original size when threatened by a predator.

Sukeena lifted the arm and nursed it to her bosom. She whimpered involuntarily as the pain flowed up from the wound to fill her chest like glowing molten lead.

"I do not understand what is happening." She began to writhe upon the bunk. "This is not natural. Look how it changes colour."

Hal stared helplessly as the lovely limb slowly bloated and discoloured with lines of crimson and vivid purple, that ran up from the elbow to her shoulder. The wound began to weep a viscous yellow fluid.

"What can I do?" he blurted.

"I do not know," she said desperately. "This is something beyond my understanding." A spasm of agony seized her in a vice, and her back arched. Then it passed and she pleaded, "I must have my bag. I cannot endure this pain. I have a powder made from the opium poppy."

Hal sprang to his feet and bounded across the cabin. "Aboli, where are you?" he bellowed. "Bring the bag, and Swiftly!"

Ned Tyler stood upon the threshold of the door. He held something in his hand and there was a strange expression on his face. "Captain, there is something I must show you."

"Not now, man, not now." Hal raised his voice again. "Aboli, come quickly."

Aboli came down the companionway in a rush, carrying the saddle-bags. "What is it, Gundwane?"

"Sukeena! There is something happening to her. She needs the medicine-" "Captain!" Ned Tyler forced his way past Aboli's bulk into the cabin and seized Hal's arm urgently. "This cannot wait. Look at the dagger. Look at the poi nd He held up the stiletto, and the others stared at it.

"In God's name!" Hal whispered. "Let it not be so."

A narrow groove down the length of the blade was filled with a black, tarry paste that had dried hard and shiny.

"It is an assassin's blade," Ned said quietly. "The groove is filled with poison."

Hal felt the deck sway under his feet as though the Golden Bough had been struck by a tall wave. His vision went dark. "It cannot be," he said. "Aboli, tell me it cannot be."

"Be strong," Aboli muttered. "Be strong for her, Gundwane." He gripped Hal's arm.

The hand steadied Hal and his vision brightened, but when he tried to draw breath the leaden hand of dread crushed in his ribs. "I cannot live without her," he said, like a confused child.

"Do not let her know," Aboli said. "Do not make the parting harder for her than it need be."

Hal stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then he began to understand the finality, the significance of that tiny groove in the steel blade, and of the fatal threats that Sam Bowles had shouted at him with the hangman's noose around his neck.

"Sukeena is going to die," he said, in a tone of bewilderment.

"This will be harder for you than any fight you have ever fought before, Gundwane."

With an enormous effort Hal fought to regain control of himself. "Do not show her the dagger," he said to Ned Tyler. "Go! Hurl the cursed thing overboard."

When he got back to Sukeena he tried to conceal the black despair in his heart. "Aboli has brought your bags." He knelt beside her again. "Tell me how to prepare the potion."

"Oh, do it swiftly," she pleaded as another spasm gripped her. "The blue flask. Two measures in a mug of hot water. No more than that, for it is powerful."

Her hand shook violently as she tried to take the mug from him. She had only the use of the one hand now. her wounded arm was swollen and purpled, the once dainty fingers so bloated that the skin threatened to burst open. She had difficulty holding the mug and Hal lifted it to her lips while she gulped down the potion with pathetic urgency.

She fell back with the effort and writhed on the bunk, drenching the bedclothes with the sweat of agony. Hal lay beside her and held her to his chest, trying to comfort her but knowing too well how futile were his efforts.

After a while the poppy flower seemed to have its effect. She clung to him and pressed her face into his neck. "I am dying, Gundwane."

"Do not say so," he begged her.

"I have known it these many months. I saw it in the stars. That was why I could not answer your question." "Sukeena, my love, I will die with you."

"No." Her voice was a little stronger. "You will go on. I have travelled with you as far as I am. permitted. But for you the Fates have reserved a special destiny." She rested a while, and he thought that she had fallen into a coma, but then she spoke again. "You will live on. You will have many strong sons and their descendants will flourish in this land of Africa, and make it their own."

"I want no son but yours," he said. "You promised me a son.

"Hush, my love, for the son I give you will break your heart." Another terrible convulsion took her, and she screamed in the agony of it. At last, when it seemed she could bear no more, she fell back trembling and wept. He held her and could find no words to tell her of his grief.

The hours passed, and twice he heard the ship's bell announce the watch changes. He felt her grow weaker and sink away from him. Then a series of powerful convulsions racked her body. When she fell back in his arms, she whispered, "Your son, the son I promised you, has been born." Her eyes were tightly closed, tears squeezing out between the lids.

For a long minute he did not understand her words. Then, fearfully, he drew back the blanket.

Between her bloody thighs lay a tiny pink mannikin, glistening wet and bound to her still by a tangle of fleshy cord. The little head was only half formed, the eyes would never open and the mouth would never take suck, nor cry, nor laugh. But he saw that it was, indeed, a boy.

He took her again in his arms and she opened her eyes and smiled softly. "I am sorry, my love. I have to go now. If you forget all else, remember only this, that I loved you as no other woman will ever be able to love you."

She closed her eyes and he felt the life go out of her, the great stillness descend.

He waited with them, his woman and his son, until midnight. Then Althuda brought down a bolt of canvas and sail maker needle, thread and palm. Hal placed the stillborn child in Sukeena's arms and bound him there with a linen winding sheet. Then he and Althuda sewed them into a shroud of bright new canvas, a cannonball at Sukeena's feet.

At midnight Hal carried the woman and child in his arms up onto the open deck. Under the bright African moon he gave them both up to the sea. They went below the dark surface and left barely a ripple in the ship's wake at their passing.

"Goodbye, my love," he whispered. "Goodbye, my two darlings."

Then he went down to the cabin in the stern. He opened Llewellyn's Bible and looked for comfort and solace between its black-leather covers, but found none. or six long days he sat alone by his cabin window. He ate none of the food that Aboli -&-Fbrought him. Sometimes he read from the Bible, but mostly he stared back along the ship's wake. He came up on deck at noon each day, gaunt and haggard, and sighted the sun. He made his calculations of the ship's position and gave his orders to the helm. Then he went back to be alone with his grief.

At dawn on the seventh day Aboli came to him. "Grief is natural, Gundwane, but this is indulgence. You forsake your duty and those of us who have placed our trust in you. It is enough."

"It will never be enough." Hal looked at him. "I will mourn her all the days of my life." He stood up and the cabin swam around him, for he was weak with grief and lack of food. He waited for his head to steady and clear. "You are right, Aboli. Bring me a bowl of food and a mug of small beer."

After he had eaten, he felt stronger. He washed and shaved, changed his shirt and combed his hair back into a thick plait down his back. He saw that there were strands of pure white in the sable locks.

When he looked in the mirror, he barely recognized the darkly tanned face that stared back at him, the nose as beaky as that of an eagle, and there was no spare flesh to cover the high-ridged cheek-bones or the unforgiving line of the jaw. His eyes were green as emeralds, and with that stone's adamantine glitter.

I am barely twenty years of age, he thought, with amazement, and yet I look twice that already.

He picked up his sword from the desk top and slipped it into the scabbard. "Very well, Aboli. I am ready to take up my duty again," he said, and Aboli followed him up onto the deck.

The boatswain at the helm knuckled his forehead, and the watch on deck nudged each other. Every man was intensely aware of his presence, but none looked in his direction. Hal stood for a while at the rail, his eyes darting keenly about the deck and rigging.

"Boatswain, hold your luff, damn your eyes!" he snapped at the helmsman.

The leech of the main sail was barely trembling as it spilled the wind, but Hal had noticed it and the watch, squatting at the foot of the mainmast, grinned at each other surreptitiously. The captain was in command again.

At first they did not understand what this presaged. However, they were soon to team the breadth and extent of it. Hal started by speaking to every man of the crew alone in his cabin. After he had asked their names and the village or town of their birth, he questioned them shrewdly as to their service. Meanwhile he was studying each and assessing his worth.

Three stood out above the others, they had all been watch keepers under Llewellyn's command. The boatswain, John Lovell, was the man who had served under Hal's father.

"You'll keep your old rating, boatswain," Hal told him, and John grinned.

"It will be a pleasure to serve under you, Captain."

"I hope you feel the same way in a month from now," Hal replied grimly.

The other two were William Stanley and Robert Moone, both coxswains. Hal liked the look of them. Llewellyn had a good eye for judging men, he thought, and shook their hands.

Big Daniel was his other boatswain, and Ned Tyler, who could both read and write, was mate. Althuda, one of the few other literates aboard, became the ship's writer, in charge of all the documents and keeping them up to date. He was Hal's closest remaining link with Sukeena, and Hal felt the greatest affection for him and wished to keep him near at hand. They could share each other's grief.

John Lovell and Ned Tyler went through the ship's roster with Hal and helped him draw up the watch-bill, the nominal list by which every man knew to which watch he was quartered and his station for every purpose.

As soon as this was done Hal inspected the ship. He started on the main deck and then, with his two boatswains, opened every hatch. He climbed and sometimes crawled into every part of the hull, from her bilges to her maintop. In her magazine he opened three kegs, chosen at random, and assessed the quality of her gunpowder and slow-match.

He checked off her cargo against the manifest, and was surprised and pleased to find the amount of muskets and lead shot she carried, together with great quantities of trade goods.

Then he ordered the ship hove to, and a longboat lowered. He had himself rowed around the ship so he could judge her trim. He moved some of the culver ins to gun ports further aft, and ordered the cargo swung out on deck and repacked to establish the trim he favoured. Then he exercised the ship's company in sail setting and altering, sailing the Golden Bough through every point of the compass and at every attitude to the wind. This went on for almost a week, as he called out the watch below at noon or in the middle of the night to shorten or increase sail and push the ship to the limits of her speed.

Soon he knew the Golden Bough as intimately as a lover. He found out how close he could take her to the wind, and how she loved to run before it with all her canvas spread. He had a bucket crew wet down her sails so they would better hold the wind, and then, when she was in full flight, took her speed through the water with glass and log timed from bow to stern. He found out how to coax the last yard of speed out of her, and how to have her respond to the helm like a fine hunter to the reins.

The crew worked without complaint, and Aboli heard them talking among themselves in the forecastle. Far from complaining, they seemed to be enjoying the change from Llewellyn's more complacent command.

"The young "un is a sailor. The ship loves him. He can drive the Bough to her limit, and make her fly through the water, he can."

"He's happy to drive us to the limit, also," another opined.

"Cheer up, all you lazy layabouts, I reckon there'll be prize money galore at the end of this voyage."

Then Hal worked them at the guns, running them out then in again, until the men sweated, strained and grinned as they cursed him for a tyrant. Then he had the gun crews fire at a floating keg, and cheered with the best of them as the target shattered to the shot.

In between times, he exercised them with the cutlass and the pike, and he fought alongside them, stripped to the waist and matching himself against Aboli, Big Daniel or John Lovell, who was the best swordsman of the new crew.

The Golden Bough sailed on around the bulge of the southern African continent and Hal headed her up into the north. Now with every league they sailed the sea changed its character. The waters took on a vivid indigo hue that stained the sky the same colour. They were so clear that, leaning over the bows, Hal could see the pods of porpoises four fathoms down, racing ahead of the bows and frolicking like a pack of boisterous spaniels, until they arched up to the surface. As they broke through it he could see the nostril on top of their head open to breathe, and they looked up at him with a merry eye and a knowing grin.

The flying fish were their outriders, sailing ahead of them on flashing silver wings, and the mountains of towering cumulus clouds were the beacons that beckoned them ever northwards.

When they sailed into the great calms he would not let his crew rest, but lowered the boats and raced watch against watch, the oars churning the water white. Then at the end of the course he had them board the Golden Bough as though she were an enemy, while he and Aboli and Big Daniel opposed them and made them fight for a footing on the deck.

In the windless heat of the tropics, while the Bough rolled gently on the sluggish swells and the empty sails slatted and lolled, he raced the hands in relay teams to the top of the mainmast and down, with an extra tot of rum as the prize.

Within weeks the men were fit and lean and bursting with high spirits, spoiling for a fight. Hal, however, was plagued by a nagging worry that he shared with nobody, not even Aboli. Night after night he sat at his desk in the main cabin, not daring to sleep, for he knew that the grief and the memories of the woman and the child he had lost would haunt his dreams, and he studied, the charts and tried to puzzle out a solution.

He had barely forty men under his command, only just sufficient to work the ship, but too few by far to fight her. If they met again, the Buzzard would be able to send a hundred men onto the Golden Bough's deck. If they were to be able to defend themselves, let alone seek employment in the service of the Prester, then Hal must find seamen.

When he perused the charts he could find few ports where he might enlist trained seamen. Most were under the control of the Portuguese and the Dutch, and they would not welcome an English frigate, especially one whose captain was intent on seducing their sailors into his service.

The English had not penetrated this far ocean in any force. A few traders had factories on the Indian continent, but they were under the thrall of the Great Mogul, and, besides, to reach them would mean a voyage of several thousand miles out of his intended course.

Hal knew that on the south-east shore of the long island of St. Lawrence, which was also called Madagascar, the French Knights of the Order of the Holy Grail had a safe harbour which they called Fort Dauphin. If he called in there, as an English Knight of the Order he could expect a welcome but little else for his comfort, unless some rare circumstance such as a cyclone had caused a wreck and left sailors in the port without ship. However, he decided that he must take that chance and make Fort Dauphin his first call, and laid his course for the island.

As he sailed on northwards, with Madagascar as his goal, Africa was always there off the larboard beam. At times the land dreamed in the blue distance, and at other times it was so close that they could smell its peculiar aroma. It was the peppery scent of spice and the rich dark odour of the earth, like new-baked biscuit hot from the oven.

Often Jiri, Matesi and Kimatti clustered at the rail, pointing at the green hills and the lacy lines of surf, and talking together quietly in the language of the forests. When there was a quiet hour, Aboli would climb to the masthead and stare across at the land. When he descended his expression was sad and lonely.

Day after day they saw no sign of other men. There were no towns or ports along the shore that they could spy out, and no sail upon the sea, not even a canoe or coasting dhow.

It was not until they were less than a hundred leagues south of Cap St. Marie, the southernmost point of the island, that they raised another sail. Hal stood the ship to quarters and had the culverin loaded with grape and the slow-match lit, for out here beyond the Line he dared take no ship on trust.

When they were almost within hail of the other ship, it broke out its colours. Hal was delighted to see the Union flag and the croix pott6e of the Order streaming from her masthead. He replied with the same show of cloth and both ships hove to within hail of each other.

"What ship?" Hal asked, and the reply came back across the blue swells, "The Rose of Durham. Captain Welles." She was an an ned trader, a caravel with twelve guns a side.

Hal lowered a longboat and had himself rowed across. He was greeted at the entry port by a spry, elfin captain of middle years. "In Arcadia habito."

"Flurrien sac rum bene cognosco," Hal replied, and they clasped hands in the recognition grip of the Temple.. Captain Welles invited Hal down to his cabin where they drank a tankard of cider together and exchanged news avidly. Welles had sailed four weeks previously from the English factory of St. George near Madras on the east coast of Further India with a cargo of trade cloth. He intended to exchange this for slaves on the Gambian coast of West Africa, and then sail on across the Atlantic to the Caribbean where he would barter his slaves for sugar, and so back home to England.

Hal questioned him on the availability of seamen from the English factories on the Carnatic, that stretch of the shore of Further India from East Ghats down to the Coromandel coast, but Welles shook his head. "You'll be wanting to give the whole of that coast a wide berth.

When I left the cholera was raging in every village and factory. Any man you take aboard might bring death with him as a companion."

Hal chilled at the thought of the havoc that this plague would wreak among his already depleted crew, should it take hold on the Golden Bough. He dared not risk a visit to those fever ports.

Over a second mug of cider, Welles gave Hal his first reliable account of the conflict raging in the Great Horn of Africa. "The younger brother of the Great Mogul, Sadiq Khan Jahan, has arrived off the coast of the Horn with a great fleet. He has joined forces with Ahmed El Grang, who they call the Left-handed, the king of the Omani Arabs who holds sway over the lands bordering the Prester's empire. These two have declared jihad, holy war, and together they have swept down like a raging gale upon the Christians. They have taken by storm and sacked the ports and towns of the coast, burning the churches and despoiling the monasteries, massacring the monks and the holy men."

"I intend sailing to offer my services to the Prester to help him resist the pagan," Hal told him.

"It is another crusade, and yours is a noble inspiration," Welles applauded him. "Many of the most sacred relics of Christendom are held by the holy fathers in the Ethiopian city of Aksum and in the monasteries in secret places in the mountains. If they were to fall into the hands of the pagIan, it would be a sad day for all Christendom."

"If you cannot yourself go upon this sacred venture, will you not spare me a dozen of your men, for I am sore pressed for the lack of good sailors?" Hal asked.

Welles looked away. "I have a long voyage ahead of me, and there are bound to be heavy losses among my crew when we visit the fever coast of the Gambia and make the middle passage of the Atlantic,"he mumbled.

"Think on your vows," Hal urged him.

Welles hesitated, then shrugged. "I will muster my crew, and you may appeal to them and call for volunteers to join your venture."

Hal thanked him, knowing that Welles was on a certain wager. Few seamen at the end of a two-year voyage would forgo their share of profits and the prospect of a swift return home, in favour of a call to arms to aid a foreign potentate, even if he were a Christian. Only two men responded to Hal's appeal, and Welles looked relieved to be shot of them. Hal guessed that they were troublemakers and malcontents, but he could not afford to be finicky.

Before they parted, Hal handed over to Welles two packets of letters, stitched in canvas covers with the address boldly written on each. One was addressed to Viscount Winterton, and in the long letter Hal had penned to him he set out the circumstances of Captain Llewellyn's murder, and his own acquisition of the Golden Bough. He gave an undertaking to sail the ship in accordance with the original charter.

The second letter was addressed to his uncle, Thomas Courtney, at High Weald, to inform him of the death of his father and his own inheritance of the title. He asked his uncle to continue to run the estate on his behalf.

When at last he took leave of Welles, the two seamen he had acquired went with him back to the Golden Bough. From his quarterdeck Hal watched the top sails of the Rose of Durham drop below the southern horizon, and days afterwards the hills of Madagascar rise before him out of the north.

That night Hal, as had become his wont, came up on deck at the end of the second dog watch to read the traverse board and speak to the helmsman. Three dark shadows waited for him at the foot of the mainmast.

"Jiri and the others wish to speak to you, Gundwane," Aboli told him.

They clustered about him as he stood by the windward rail. jiri spoke first in the language of the forests. "I was a man when the slavers took me from my home," he told Hal quietly. "I was old enough to remember much more of the land of my birth than these others." He indicated Aboli, Kimatti and Matesi, and all three nodded agreement.

"We were children, "said Aboli.

"In these last days," jiri went on, "when I smelled the land and saw again the green hills, old memories long forgotten came back to me.

I am sure now, in my deepest heart, that I can find my way back to the great river along the banks of which my tribe lived when I was a child."

Hal was silent for a while, and then he asked, "Why do you tell me these things, jiri? Do you wish to return to your own people?"

Jiri hesitated. "It was so long ago. My father and my mother are dead, killed by the slavers. My brothers and the friends of my childhood are gone also, taken away in the chains of the slavers." He was silent awhile, but then he went on, "No, Captain, I cannot return, for you are now my chief as your father was before you, and these are my brothers." He indicated Aboli and the others who stood around him.

Aboli took up the tale. "If Jiri can lead us back to the great river, if we can find our lost tribe, it may well be that we can find also a hundred warriors among them to fill the watch-bill of this ship."

Hal stared at him in astonishment. "A hundred men? Men who can fight like you four rascals? Then, indeed, the stars are smiling upon me again."

He took all four down to the stern cabin, lit the lanterns and spread his charts upon the deck. They squatted around them in a circle, and the black men prodded the parchment sheets with their forefingers and argued softly in their sonorous voices, while Hal explained the lines on the charts to the three who, unlike Aboli, could not read.

When the ship's bell tolled the beginning of the morning watch, Hal went on deck and called Ned Tyler to him. "New course, Mister Tyler. Due south. Mark it on the traverse board."

Ned was clearly astounded at the order to turn back, but he asked no question. "Due south it is."

Hal took pity on him, for it was evident that curiosity itched him like a burr in his breeches. "We're closing the African mainland again."

They crossed the broad channel that separated Madagascar from the African continent. The mainland came up as a low blue smudge on the horizon and, at a good offing, they turned and sailed southwards once more along the coast.

Aboli and jiri spent most of the hours of daylight at the masthead, peering at the land. Twice Jiri came down and asked Hal to stand inshore to investigate what appeared to be the mouth of a large river. Once it turned out to be a false channel and the second time Jiri did not recognize it when they anchored off the mouth. "It is too small. The river I seek has four mouths."

They weighed anchor and worked out to sea again, then went on southwards. Hal was beginning to doubt Jiri's memory but he persevered. Several days later he noticed the patent excitement of the two men at the masthead as they stared at the land and gesticulated to each other. Matesi and Kimatti, who as part of the off-duty watch had been lazing on the forecastle, scrambled to their feet and flew up the shrouds to hang in the rigging and stare avidly at the land.

Hal strode to the rail and raised Llewellyn's brass-bound telescope to his eye. He saw the delta of a great river spread before them. The waters that spilled out from the multiple mouths were discoloured and carried with them the detritus of the swamps and the unknown lands that must lie at the source of this mighty river. Squadrons of sharks were feeding on this waste, and their tall, triangular fins zigzagged across the current.

Hal called Jiri down to him and asked, "What do your tribe call this river?"

"There are many names for it, for the one river comes to the sea as many rivers. They are called Muselo and Inharnessingo and Chinde. But the chief of them is Zambere."

"They all have a noble ring to them," Hal conceded. "But are you certain this is the river serpent with four mouths?" "On the head of my dead father I swear it is."

Hal had two men in the bows taking soundings as he crept inshore, and as soon as the bottom began to shelve steeply he dropped anchor in twelve fathoms. He would not risk the ship in the narrow inland waters and the convoluted channels of the delta. But there was another risk he was unwilling to face.

He knew from his father that these tropical deltas were dangerous to the health of his crew. If they breathed the night airs of the swamp, they would soon fall prey to the deadly fevers that were borne upon them, aptly named the malaria, the bad airs.

Sukeena's saddle-bags, which with her mother's jade brooch were her only legacy to Hal, contained a goodly store of the Jesuit's powder, the extract of the bark of the Cinchona tree. He had also discovered a large jar of the same precious substance among Llewellyn's stores. It was the only remedy against the malaria, a disease that mariners encountered in every known area of the oceans, from the jungles of Batavia and Further India to the canals of Venice, the swamps of Virginia and the Caribbean in the New World.

Hal would not risk his entire crew to its ravages. He ordered the two pinnaces swung up from the hold and assembled. Then he chose the crews for these vessels, which naturally included the four Africans and Big Daniel. He placed a falconer in the bows of each and had a pair of murderers mounted in the stems.

All the men in the expedition were heavily armed, and Hal placed three heavy chests of trade goods in each boat, knives and scissors and small hand mirrors, rolls of copper wire and Venetian glass beads.

He left Ned Tyler in charge of the Golden Bough with Althuda, and ordered them to remain anchored well offshore, and await his return, The distress signal would be a red Chinese rocket. only if he saw it was Ned to send the longboats in to find them.

"We may be many days, weeks even," Hal warned. "Do not lose patience. Stay on your station as long as you do not have word of us."

Hal took command of the leading boat. He had Aboli and the other Africans in his crew. Big Daniel followed in the second.

Hal explored each of the four mouths. The water levels seemed low, and some of the entrances were almost sealed by their sand bars. He knew of the danger of crocodiles and would not risk sending men over the side to drag the boats over the bar. In the end he chose the river mouth with the greatest volume of water pouring through it. With the onshore morning breeze filling the lug sail and all hands at the oars they forced their way over the bar into the hot, hushed world of the swamps.

Tall papyrus plants and stands of mangroves formed a high wall down each side of the channel so that their vision was limited and the wind was blanketed from them. They rowed on steadily, following the twists of the channel. Each turn opened the same dreary view. Hal realized almost at once how easy it would be to lose his way in this maze and he marked each branch of the channel with strips of canvas tied to the top branches of mangrove.

For two days they groped their way westwards, guided only by the compass and the flow of the waters. In the pools wallowed herds of the great grey river-cows which opened cavernous pink jaws and honked at them with wild laughter as they approached. At first they steered well clear of them, but once they became more familiar with them Hal began to ignore their warning cries and displays of rage, and pushed on recklessly.

His bravado at first seemed justified and the animals submerged when he drove straight at them. Then they came round another bend into a large green pool. In the centre was a mud-bank, and on it stood a huge female hippopotamus and at her flank a new-born calf not much bigger than a pig. The cow bellowed at them threateningly as they rowed towards her, but the men laughed with derision and Hal shouted from the bows, "Stand aside, old lady, we mean you no harm, but we intend to pass."

The great beast lowered her head and, grunting belligerently, charged across the mud in a wild, ungainly gallop that hurled up clods of mud. As soon as he realized that the brute was in earnest Hal snatched up the slow-match from the tub at his feet. "By heavens, she means to attack US."

He grabbed the iron handle of the falconet and swung it to aim ahead, but the hippopotamus reached the water and plunged into it at full tilt, sending up a sheet of spray and disappearing beneath the surface. Hal swung the barrel of the falconer from side to side, seeking a chance to fire, but he saw only a ripple on the surface as the animal swam deep below it.

"It is coming straight for us!" Aboli shouted. "Wait until you get a clear shot, Gundwane!"

Hal peered down, the burning match held ready, and through the clear green water he saw a remarkable sight. The hippo was moving along the bottom in a slow dreamlike gallop, clouds of mud boiling up under her hoofs with each stride. But she was still a fathom deep and his shot could never reach her.

"She has gone beneath us!" he shouted at Aboli.

"Get ready!" Aboli warned. This is how they destroy the canoes of my people." The words had barely left his lips when beneath their feet came a resounding crack as the beast reared up under them, and the heavy boat with its full complement of ten rowers was lifted high out of the water.

They were hurled from their benches, and Hal might have been thrown overboard if he had not grabbed the thwart. The boat crashed back to the surface and Hal again seized the tail of the falconer.

The animal's charge would have stove in the hull of any lesser craft, and would certainly have splintered a native dugout canoe, but the pinnace was robustly constructed to withstand the ravages of the North Sea.

Close alongside, the huge grey head burst through the surface, and the mouth opened like a pink cavern lined with fangs of yellow ivory as long as a man's forearm. With a bellow that shocked the crew with its ferocity the hippopotamus rushed at them with gaping jaws to tear the timbers out of the boat's side.

Hal swung the falconer until it was almost touching the onrushing head. He fired. Smoke and flame shot straight down the gaping throat and the jaws clashed shut. The beast disappeared in a swirl, to surface seconds later halfway back to the mud-bank on which her calf stood, forlorn and bewildered.

The huge rotund body reared half out of the water in a gargantuan convulsion then collapsed back and sank away in death, leaving a long wake of crimson to mark the green waters with its passing.

The rowers wielded their oars with renewed vigour and the boat shot round the next bend, with Big Daniel's boat close astern. The hull of Hal's vessel was leaking fairly heavily, but with one man bailing they could keep her dry until they had an opportunity to beach her and turn her over to repair the damage. They pressed on up the channel.

Clouds of waterfowl rose from the dense stands of papyrus around them or perched in the branches of the mangroves. There were herons, duck and geese that they recognized, together with dozens of other birds that they had never seen before. Several times they caught glimpses of a strange antelope with a shaggy brown coat and spiral horns with pale tips, which seemed to make the deep swamps its home. At dusk they surprised one as it stood on the edge of the papyrus. With a long and lucky musket shot, Hal brought it down. They were astonished to find that its hoofs were deformed, enormously elongated. Such feet would act like the fins of a fish in the water, Hal reasoned, and give it purchase on the soft footing of mud and reeds. The antelope's flesh was sweet and tender and the men, long starved of fresh food, ate it with relish.

The nights, when they slept on the bare deck, were murmurous, troubled by great clouds of stinging insects, and in the dawn their faces were swollen and bloated with red lumps.

On the third day the papyrus began to give way to open flood plains. The breeze could reach them now, and blew away the clouds of insects and filled the lug sail they set. They went on at better speed and came to where the other branches of the river all joined up to form one great flow almost three cables" length in width.

The flood plains on each bank of this mighty river were verdant with a knee-high growth of rich grasses, grazed by huge herds of buffalo. Their numbers were uncountable, and they formed a moving carpet as far as Hal could see, even when he shinned up the pinnace's mast. They stood so densely upon the plain that large areas of the grasslands were obscured by their multitudes. They were tarry lakes and running rivers of bovine flesh.

The outer fringes of these herds lined the banks of the river and stared across the water at them, their drooling muzzles lifted high and their bossed heads heavy with drooping horns. Hal steered the boat in closer and fired the falconet into the thick of them. With that single discharge he brought down two young cows. That night, for the first time, they camped ashore and feasted on buffalo steaks roasted on the coals.

For many days, they went on following the stately green flow, and the flood plains on either hand gradually gave way to forests and glades. The river narrowed, became deeper and stronger and their progress was slower against the current. On the eighth evening after leaving the ship, they went ashore to camp in a grove of tall wild fig trees.

Almost immediately they came upon signs of human habitation. It was a decaying stockade, built of heavy logs. Within its wooden walls were pens that Hal thought must have been for enclosing cattle or other beasts.

"Slavers!" said Aboli bitterly. "This is where they have chained my people like animals. In one of these bomas, perhaps this very one, my mother died under the weight of her sorrow."

The stockade had been long abandoned but Hal could not bring himself to camp on the site of so much human misery. They moved a league upstream and found a small island on which to bivouac. The next morning they went on along the river through forest and grassland innocent of any further evidence of man. "The slavers have swept the wilderness with their net," Aboli said sorrowfully. "That is why they have abandoned their factory and sailed away. It seems that there are no men or women of our tribe who have survived their ravages. We must abandon the search, Gundwane, and turn back."

"No, Aboli. We go on."

"All around us is the ancient memory of despair and death," Aboli pleaded. "These forests are inhabited only by the ghosts of my people."

"I will decide when we turn back, and that time is not yet come," Hal told him, for in truth he was becoming fascinated by this strange new land and the plethora of wild creatures with which it abounded. He felt a powerful urge to travel on and on, to follow the great river to its source.

The next day, from the bows, Hal spied a range of low hillocks a short distance north of the river. He ordered them to beach the boats and left Big Daniel and his seamen to repair the leaks in the hull of the first caused by the hippopotamus attack. He took Aboli with him and they set off to climb the hills for a better view of the country ahead. They were further off than they had appeared to be, for distances are deceptive in the clear air and under the bright light of the African sun. It was late afternoon when they stepped out onto the crest and gazed down upon the limitless distances where forests and hills replicated themselves, rank upon rank and range upon range, like images of infinity in mirrors of shaded blue.

They sat in silence, awed by the immensity of this wild land. At last Hal stood up reluctantly. "You are right, Aboli. There are no men here. We must return to the ship."

Yet he felt deep within him a strange reluctance to turn his back upon this tremendous land. More than ever, he felt drawn to its mystery and the romance of its vast spaces.

"You will have many strong sons," Sukeena had prophesied. "Their descendants will flourish in this land of Africa and make it their own."

He did not yet love this land. It was too strange and barbaric, too alien from all he had known in the gentler climes of the north, but deeply he felt the magic of it in his blood. The silence of dusk fell upon the hills, that moment when all creation held its breath before the insidious advance of the night. He took one last look, sweeping the horizon where, like monstrous chameleons, the hills changed colour.

Before his eyes they turned sapphire, azure, and the blue of a kingfisher's back. Suddenly he stiffened.

He grasped Aboli's arm and pointed. look!" he said softly. From the foot of the next range a single thin plume of smoke rose out of the forest and climbed up into the violet evening air.

"Men!" Aboli whispered. "You were right not to turn back so soon, Gundwane."

They went down the hill in darkness and moved through the forest like shadows. Hal AT guided them by the stars, fixing his eye upon the great shining Southern Cross that hung above the hill at the foot of which they had marked the column of smoke. After midnight, as they crept forward with increasing caution, Aboli stopped so abruptly that Hal almost ran into him in the darkness.

"Listen!" he said. They stood in silence for minute after minute.

Then Hal said, "I hear nothing."

"Wait!" Aboli insisted, and then Hal heard it. It was a sound once so commonplace, but one that he had not heard since he had left Good Hope. It was the mournful lowing of a cow.

"My people are herders," Aboli whispered. "Their cattle are their most treasured possessions." He led Hal forward cautiously until they could smell the woodsmoke and the familiar bovine odour of the cattle pen. Hal picked out the puddle of faintly glowing ash that marked the campfire.

Silhouetted against it was the outline of a sitting man, wrapped in a kaross.

They lay and waited for the dawn. However, long before first light the camp began to stir. The watchman stood up, stretched, coughed and spat in the dead coals. Then he threw fresh wood upon the fire, and knelt to blow it. The flames flared and, by their light, Hal saw that he was but a boy. Naked except for a loincloth, the lad left the fire and came close to where they were hidden. He lifted his loincloth and peed into the grass, playing games with his urine stream, aiming at fallen leaves and twigs and chuckling as he tried to drown a scurrying scarab beetle.

Then he went back to the fire and called out towards the lean-to of branches and thatch, "The dawn comes. It is time to let out the herd."

His voice was high and unbroken, but Hal was delighted to find that he understood every word the boy had said. It was the language of the forests that Aboli had taught him.

Two other lads of the same age crawled out of the hut, shivering, muttering and scratching, and all three went to the cattle pen. They spoke to the beasts as though they, too, were children, rubbed their heads and patted their flanks.

As the light strengthened Hal saw that these cattle were far different from those he had known on High Weald. They were taller and rangier, with huge humps over their shoulders, and the span of their horns was so wide as to appear grotesque, the weight almost too much for even their heavy frames to support.

The boys picked out a cow and pushed her calf away from the udder.

Then one knelt under her belly and milked her, sending purring jets into a calabash gourd. Meanwhile, the other two seized a young bullock and passed a leather thong around its neck. They drew this tight and when the restricted blood vessels stood proud beneath the black skin, one pricked a vein with the sharp point of an arrow head.

The first child came running with the gourd half-filled with milk and held the mouth of it under the stream of bright red blood that spurted from the punctured vein.

When the gourd was full, one staunched the small wound in the bullock's neck with a handful of dust, and turned it loose. The beast wandered away, none the worse for the bleeding. The boys shook the gourd vigorously, then passed it from one to the other, each drinking deeply from the mixture of milk and blood as his turn came, smacking his lips and sighing with pleasure.

So engrossed were they with their breakfast that none noticed Aboli or Hal until they were grabbed from behind and hoisted kicking and shrieking in the air.

"Be quiet, you little baboon, Aboli ordered.

"Slavers!" wailed the eldest child, as he saw Hal's white face. "We are taken by slavers!"

"They will eat us," squeaked the youngest.

"We are not slavers!" Hal told them. "And we will not harm you."

This assurance merely sent' the the trio into fresh paroxysms of terror. "He is a devil who can speak the language of heaven."

"He understands all we say. He is an albino devil." "He will surely eat us as my mother warned me."

Aboli held the eldest at arm's length and glared at him. "What is your name, little monkey?"

"See his tattoos." The boy howled in dread and confusion. "He is tattooed like the Monomatapa, the chosen of heaven."

"He is a great Mambo!"

"Or the ghost of the Monomatapa who died long ago."

"I am indeed a great chief," Aboli agreed. "And you will tell me your name."

"My name is Tweti oh, Monomatapa, spare me for I am but little. I will be only a single mouthful for your mighty jaws."

"Take me to your village, Tweti, and I will spare you and your brothers."

After a while the children began to believe that they would neither be eaten nor turned into slaves, and they started to smile shyly at Hal's overtures. From there it was not long before they were giggling delightedly to have been chosen by the great tattooed chief and the strange albino to lead them to the village.

Driving the cattle herd before them, they took a track through the hills and came out suddenly in a small village surrounded by rudimentary fields of cultivation, in which a few straggling millet plants grew. The huts were shaped like bee-hives and beautifully thatched, but they were deserted. Clay pots stood on the cooking fires before each hut and there were calves in the pens and woven baskets, weapons and accoutrements scattered where they had been dropped when the villagers fled.

The three boys squeaked reassurances into the surrounding bush. "Come out! Come. and see! It is a great Mambo of our tribe come back from death to visit us!"

An old crone was the first to emerge timidly from a thicket of elephant grass. She wore only a greasy leather skirt, and her one eye socket was empty. She had but a single yellow tooth in the front of her mouth. Her dangling dugs flapped against her wrinkled belly, which was scarified with ritual tattoos.

She took one look at Aboli's face, then ran to prostrate herself before him. She lifted one of his feet and placed it on her head. "Mighty Monomatapa," she keened, "you are the chosen of heaven. I am a useless insect, a dung beetle, before your glory."

In singles and pairs, and then in greater numbers, the other villagers emerged from their hiding places and gathered before Aboli to kneel in obeisance and pour dust and ashes on their heads in reverence.

"Do not let this adulation turn your head, oh Chosen One," Hal told him sourly in English.

"I give you royal dispensation," Aboli replied, without smiling. "You need not kneel in my presence, nor pour dust on your head."

The villagers brought Aboli and Hal carved wooden stools to sit upon, and offered them gourds of soured milk mixed with fresh blood, porridge of millet, grilled wild birds, roasted termites and caterpillars seared on the coals so that their hairy coverings were burnt off.

"You must eat a little of everything they offer you," Aboli warned Hal, "or else you will give great offence."

Hal gagged down a few mouthfuls of the blood and milk mixture, while Aboli swigged back a full gourd. Hal found the other delicacies a little more palatable, the caterpillars tasted like fresh grass juice and the termites were crisp and delicious as roasted chestnuts.

When they had eaten, the village headman came forward on hands and knees to answer Aboli's questions. "Where is the town of the Monomatapa?"

It is two days" march in the direction of the setting sun.

"I need ten good men to guide me." "As you command, O Mambo."

The ten men were ready within the hour, and little Tweti and his companions wept bitterly that they were not chosen for this honour but were instead sent back to the lowly task of cattle-herding.

The trail they followed towards the west led through open forests of tall, graceful trees interspersed with wide expanses of savannah grasslands. They began to encounter more herds of the humped cattle herded by small naked boys. The cattle grazed in close and unlikely truce with herds of wild antelope. Some of the game were almost equine, but with coats of strawberry roan or midnight sable, and horns that swept back like Oriental scimitars to touch their flanks.

Several times in the forests they saw elephants, small breeding herds of cows and calves. Once they passed within a cable's length of a gaunt bull standing under a flat-topped Thorn tree in the middle of the open savannah. This patriarch showed little fear of them but spread his tattered ears like battle standards and raised his curved tusks high to peer at them with small eyes.

"It would take two strong men to carry one of those tusks," Aboli said, "and in the markets of Zanzibar they would fetch thirty English pounds apiece."

They passed many small villages of thatched bee-hive huts, similar to the one in which Tweti lived. Obviously, the news of their arrival had gone ahead of them for the inhabitants came out to stare in awe at Aboli's tattoos and then to prostrate themselves before him and cover themselves with dust.

Each of the local chieftains pleaded with Aboli to honour his village by spending the night in the new hut his people had built especially for him as soon as they had heard of his coming. They offered food and drink, calabashes of the blood and milk mixture and bubbling clay pots of millet beer.

They presented gifts, iron spear- and axe-heads, a small elephant tusk, tanned leather cloaks and bags. Aboli touched each of these to signal his acceptance then returned them to the giver.

They brought him girls to choose from, pretty little nymphs with copper-wire bangles on their wrists and ankles, and tiny aprons of coloured trade beads that barely concealed their pudenda. The girls giggled and covered their mouths with dainty pink-palmed hands and ogled Aboli with huge dark eyes, liquid with awe. Their plump pubescent breasts were shining with cow fat and red clay, and their buttocks were bare and round and joggled with each disappointed pace as Aboli sent them away. They looked back at him over a bare shoulder with longing and reverence. What prestige they would have enjoyed if they had been chosen by the Monomatapa.

On the second day they approached another range of hills, but these were more rugged and their sides were sheer granite. As they drew closer they saw that the summit of each hill was fortified with stone walls.

"Yonder is the great town of the Monomatapa. It is built upon the hill tops to resist the attacks of the slavers, and his regiments of warriors are always at the ready to repel them."

A throng of people came down to welcome them, hundreds of men and women wearing all their finery of beads and carved ivory jewellery. The elders wore headdresses of ostrich feathers and skirts of cow tails. All the men were armed with spears, and war bows were slung upon their backs. They groaned with awe as they saw Aboli's face and flung themselves down before him so that he could tread upon their quivering bodies.

Borne along by this throng, they slowly ascended the pathway to the summit of the highest hill, passing through a series of gateways. At each gate part of the crowd about them fell back until, as they approached the final glacis before the fortress that crowned the summit, they were accompanied only by a handful of chieftains, warriors and councillors of the highest rank, wearing all the regalia and finery of their office.

Even these paused at the final gateway, and one noble ancient with silver hair and aquiline eye took Aboli by the hand and led him into the inner courtyard. Hal shrugged off the councillors who sought to restrain him and strode into the inner courtyard at Aboli's side.

The floor was of clay that had been mixed with blood and cow dung and then screeded until it dried like polished red marble. Huts surrounded this courtyard, but many times larger than Hal had seen before, and the thatching was of new golden grass, intricate and splendid. the doorway of each hut was decorated by what seemed, at first glance, to be orbs of ivory, and it was only when they were half-way across the courtyard that Hal realized they were human skulls, and that tall pyramids formed of hundreds stood at spaced intervals around the perimeter.

Beside each skull pyramid was planted a tall pole and on the sharpened point of these stakes a man or woman had been impaled through the anus. Most of these victims were long dead and stank, but one or two still twitched or groaned pitifully.

The old man stopped them in the centre of the courtyard. Hal and Aboli stood in silence for a while, until a weird cacophony of primitive musical instruments and discordant human voices issued from the largest and most imposing hut facing them. A procession of creatures came forth into the sunlight. They crawled and wriggled like insects on the polished clay surface, and their bodies and faces were daubed with coloured clay and painted in fantastic patterns. They were hung with charms, amulets and magical fetishes, skins of reptiles, bones and skulls of man and animal, and all the gruesome paraphernalia of the wizard and the witch. They whined and howled and gibbered, and rolled their eyes and chattered their teeth, and beat on drums and twanged single-stringed harps.

Two women followed them. Both were stark naked, the first a mature female with full and bountiful breast, her belly marked with the stria of childbearing. The other was a girl, slim and graceful with a sweet moon face and startlingly white teeth behind full lips. She was the loveliest of any that Hal had laid eyes upon since they had entered the land of the Monomatapa. Her waist was narrow and her hips full and her skin was like black satin. She knelt on hands and knees with her buttocks turned towards them. Hal shifted uneasily as the deepest folds of her privy parts were exposed to his gaze. Even in these circumstances of danger and uncertainty he found himself aroused by her nubility.

"Show no emotion," Aboli warned him softly, without moving his lips. "As you love life, remain unmoved."

The wizards fell silent and for a space everyone was still. Then, out of the hut stooped a massively corpulent figure clad in a leopards king cloak. Upon his head was a tall Hat of the same dappled fur, which exaggerated his already magisterial height.

He paused in the doorway and glared at them. All the company of wizards and witches crouching at his feet moaned with amazement and covered their eyes, as if his beauty and majesty had blinded them.

Hal stared back at him. It was difficult to follow Aboli's advice to remain expressionless, for the features of the Monomatapa were tattooed in exactly the same pattern and style as the face he had known from childhood, the great round face of Aboli.

Aboli broke the silence. "I see you, great Mambo. I see you, my brother. I see you, N'Poffio, son of my father."

The Monomatapa's eyes narrowed slightly, but his patterned features remained as if carved in ebony. With slow and stately stride he crossed to where the naked girl knelt and seated himself upon her arched back as though she were a stool. He continued to glare at Aboli and Hal, and the silence drew out.

Suddenly he made an impatient gesture to the woman who stood beside him. She took one of her own breasts in her hand and, placing the engorged nipple between his thick lips, gave him suck. He drank from her, his throat bobbing, then pushed her away and wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand. Refreshed by this warm draught, he looked to his principal soothsayer. "Speak to me of these strangers, Sweswe!" he commanded. "Make me a prophecy, O beloved of the dark spirits!"

The oldest and ugliest of the wizards sprang to his feet and began a wild gyrating, whirling dance. He shrieked and leaped high in the air, shaking the rattle in his hand. "Treason!" he screamed, and frothy spittle splattered from his lips. "Sacrilege! Who dares claim blood ties with the Son of the Heavens?" He pranced in front of Aboli like a wizened ape on skinny shanks. "I smell the stink of treachery!"

He hurled his rattle at Aboli's feet and snatched a cows-tail whisk from his belt. "I smell sedition!" He brandished the whisk, and began to tremble in every muscle. "What devil is this who dares to imitate the sacred Tattoo?" His eyes rolled back in his skull until only the whites showed. "Beware! For the ghost of your father, the great Holomima, demands the blood sacrifice!" he shrieked, and gathered himself to spring full at Aboli's face to strike him with the magician's whisk.

Aboli was faster. The cutlass sprang from the scabbard on his belt as though it were a living thing. It flashed in the sunlight as he cut back-handed. The wizard's head was severed cleanly from his trunk and rolled down his back. It lay on the polished clay gazing with wide astonished eyes at the sky, and the lips writhing and twitching as they tried to utter the next wild denunciation.

The headless body stood, for a moment, on trembling legs. A fountain of blood from the severed neck spouted high in the air, the whisk fell from the hand and the body collapsed slowly on top of its own head.

"The ghost of our father Holomima demands the blood sacrifice," said Aboli softly. "And lo! Aboli his son, have given it to him."

No person in the royal enclosure spoke or moved for what seemed half a lifetime to Hal. Then the Monomatapa began to shake all over. His belly began to wobble and his tattooed jowls danced and shook. His face contorted in what seemed a berserker's fury.

Hal placed his hand on the hilt of his cutlass. "If he is truly your brother, then I will kill him for you," he whispered to Aboli. "You cover my back and we will fight our way out of here."

But the Monomatapa opened his mouth wide and let fly a huge shout of laughter. "The tattooed one has made the blood sacrifice that Sweswe demanded! "he bellowed. Then mirth overcame him and for a long while he could not speak again. He shook with laughter, gasped for breath, hugged himself then hooted again.

"Did you see him stand there with no head while his mouth tried still to speak?" he roared, and tears of laughter rolled down his cheeks.

The grovelling band of magicians burst out in squeaks and shrieks of sympathetic glee. "The heavens laugh!" they whined. "And all men are happy."

Suddenly the Monomatapa stopped laughing. "Bring me Sweswe's stupid head!" he commanded, and the councillor who had led them here bounded forward to obey. He retrieved it and knelt before the king to hand it to him.

The Monomatapa held the head by its matted plaits of kinky hair and stared into the wide blank eyes. He began to laugh again. "What stupidity not to recognize the blood of kings. How could you not know my brother Aboli by his majestic bearing and the fury of his temper?"

He flung the dripping head at the other magicians, who scattered. "Learn from the stupidity of Sweswel" he admonished them. "Make no more false prophecy! Tell me no more falsehoods! Begone, all of you! Or I will ask my brother to make another blood sacrifice."

They fled in pandemonium, and the Monomatapa rose from his live throne and advanced upon Aboli, a huge and happy grin splitting his fat, tattooed face. "Aboli," he said, "my brother who was long dead and who now lives!" and he embraced him.

One of the elaborately thatched huts on the perimeter of the courtyard was placed at their disposal, and a procession of maidens was sent to them, bearing clay pots of hot water balanced upon their heads for the two men to bathe. Still other girls carried trays on which was piled fine raiment to replace their travel-stained clothing, beaded loincloths of tanned leather and cloaks of fur and feathers.

When they had washed and changed into this finery, another file of girls came bearing gourds of beer, a type of mead fermented from wild honey, and the blended blood and milk. Others brought platters of hot food.

When they had eaten, the silver-headed councillor who had taken them into the presence of the Monomatapa came to them. With great civility and every mark of respect he squatted at Aboli's feet. "Though you were far too young when last you saw me to remember me now, my name is Zama. I was the Induna of your father, the great Monomatapa Holomima."

"It grieves me, Zama, but I remember almost nothing of those days.

I remember my brother N'Pofho. I remember the pain of the tattoo knife and the cut of our circumcision that we underwent together. I remember that he squealed louder than U Zama looked worried and shook his head as if to warn Aboli against such levity when speaking of the King, but his voice was level and calm. "All this is true, except only that the Monomatapa never squealed. I was present at the ceremony of the knife, and it was I who held your head while the hot iron seared your cheeks and trimmed the hood from your penis."

"Dimly now I think that I can remember your hands and your words of comfort. I thank you for them, Zama."

"You and N'Pofho were twins, born in the same hour. Thus it was that your father commanded that both of you were to bear the royal tattoo. It was new to custom. Never before had two royal sons been tattooed in the same ceremony."

"I remember little of my father, except how tall he was and strong. I remember how afraid I was at first of the tattoos on his face."

"He was a mighty man and fearsome," Zama agreed.

"I remember the night he died. I remember the shouting and the firing of muskets and the terrible flames in the night."

"I was there when the slavemasters came with their chains of sorrow. "Tears filled the old man's eyes. "You were so young, Aboli. I marvel that you remember these things." "Tell me about that night."

"As was my custom and my duty, I slept at the portal of your father's hut. I was at his side when he was struck by a ball from the slavers" muskets." Zama fell silent at the memory, and then he looked up again'. "As he lay dying he said to me, "Zama, leave me. Save my sons. Save the Monomatapa!" and I hurried to obey."

"You came to save me?" Aboli asked.

"I ran to the hut where you and your brother slept with your mother. I tried to take you from her, but your mother would not hand you to me. "Take N'Pofho!". she commanded me, for you were always her favourite. So I seized your brother and we ran together into the night. Your mother and I were separated in the darkness. I heard her screams but I had the other child in my arms, and to turn back would have meant slavery for all of us and the extinction of the royal line. Forgive me. now, Aboli, but I left you and your mother and I ran on, and with N'Pofho escaped into the hills."

"There is no blame in what you did," Aboli absolved him.

Zama looked around the hut carefully, and then his lips moved but he uttered no sound. "It was the wrong choice. I should have taken you." His expression changed, and he leaned close rto Aboli as if to say something more. Then he drew back reluctantly, as though he had not the courage to make some dangerous gamble.

He rose slowly to his feet. "Forgive me, Aboli, son of Holomimal but I must leave you now."

"I forgive you everything," Aboli said softly. "I know what is in your heart. Think on this, Zama. Another lion roars on the hill top that once might have been mine. My life now is linked to a new destiny."

"You are right, Aboli, and I am an old man. I no longer have the strength or the desire to change what cannot be changed." He drew himself up. "The Monomatapa will grant you another audience tomorrow morning. I will come for you." He lowered his voice slightly. "Please do not try to leave the royal enclosure without the permission of the King."

When he was gone, Aboli smiled. "Zama has asked us not to leave. It would be difficult to do so. Have you seen the guards that have been placed at every entrance?"

"Yes, they are not easy to overlook." Hal stood up from the carved ebony stool and crossed to the low doorway of the hut. He counted twenty men at the gate. They were all magnificent warriors, tall and well muscled, and each was armed with spear and war axe. They carried tall shields of dappled black and white ox hide, and their head-dresses were of cranes" feathers.

"It will be more difficult to leave this place than it was to enter," Aboli said grimly.

At sunset there came another procession of young girls bearing the evening meal. "I can see why your royal brother carries such a goodly cargo of fat," Hal remarked, as he surveyed this superabundance of food.

Once they declared their hunger satisfied, the girls retired with the platters and pots, and Zama came back. This time he led two maidens, one by each hand. The girls knelt before Hal and Aboli. Hal recognized the prettiest and pertest of the two as the girl who had been the live throne of the Monomatapa.

"The Monomatapa sends these females to you to sweeten your dreams with the honey of their loins," said Zama and retired.

In consternation Hal watched the pretty one raise her head and smile at him shyly. She had a calm sweet face with full lips and huge dark eyes. Her hair had been twisted and braided with beads so that the tresses hung to her shoulders. Her body was plump and glossy. Her breasts and buttocks were naked, only now she wore a tiny beaded apron in front.

"I see you, Great Lord," she whispered, "and my eyes are dimmed by the splendour of your presence." She crept forward like a kitten and laid her head upon his lap.

"You cannot stay here." Hal sprang to his feet. "You must go away at once."

The girl stared up at him in dismay, and tears filled her dark eyes. "Do I not please you, Great One?" she murmured. "You are very pretty," Hal blurted, "but-" How could he tell her that he was married to a golden memory?

"Let me stay with you, lord," the girl pleaded pathetically. "If you reject me, I will be sent to the executioner. I will die with the sharp stake thrust up through the secret opening of my body to pierce my bowels. Please let me live, O Great One. Have mercy on this unworthy female, O Glorious White Face."

Hal turned to Aboli. "What can I do?"

"Send her away." Aboli shrugged. "As she says, she is worthless.

You can stop up your ears so that you do not have to listen to her screaming on the stake."

"Do not mock me, Aboli. You know I cannot betray the memory of the woman I love."

"Sukeena is dead, Gundwane. I also loved her, as a brother, but she is dead. This child is alive, but she will not be so by sunset tomorrow unless you take pity upon her. Your voW was not anything that Sukeena demanded of you."

Aboli stooped over the other girl, took her hand and lifted her to her feet.

"I cannot give you any further help, Gundwane. You are a man and Sukeena knew that. Now that she has gone, she might deem it fitting that you live the rest of your life like one."

He led his own girl to the rear of the hut, where a pile of soft karosses was laid and a pair of carved wooden head rests stood side by side. He laid her down and dropped the leather curtain that screened them.

"What is your name?" Hal asked the girl who crouched at his feet.

"My name is Inyosi, Honey-bee," she answered. "Please do not send me to die." She crawled to him, clasped his legs and pressed her face to his lower body.

"I cannot," he mumbled. "I belong to another." But he wore only the beaded loincloth and her breath was warm and soft on his belly and her hands stroked the backs of his legs.

"I cannot," he repeated desperately, but one of Inyosi's little hands crept up under his loincloth.

"Your mouth tells me one thing, Mighty Lord," she puffed, "but the great spear of your manhood tells me another."

Hal let out a smothered groan, picked her up in his arms and ran with her across the floor to where his own pallet of furs had been laid out.

At first Inyosi was startled by the fury of his passion, but then she let out a joyous cry and matched him kiss for kiss and thrust for thrust.

In the dawn, as she prepared to leave him, she whispered, "You have saved my worthless life. In return I must attempt to save your illustrious one." She kissed him one last time, then murmured with her lips against his, "I heard the Monomatapa speak to Zama while he bestrode my back. He believes that Aboli has returned to claim the Seat of Heaven from him. Tomorrow, during the audience to which he has commanded you and Aboli, he will give the order for his bodyguard to seize you and hurl you from the cliff top onto the rocks below, where the hyenas and the vultures wait to devour your corpses." Inyosi snuggled against his chest. "I do not want you to die, my lord. You are too beautiful."

Then she rose from the pallet and slipped away silently into the darkness. Hal crossed to the hearth and threw a faggot of firewood upon it. The smoke rose up through the hole in the centre of the domed roof and the flames lit the interior with flickering yellow light.

"Aboli? Are you alone? We must talk at once," he called! and Aboli came out from behind the curtain.

"The girl is asleep, but speak in English."

"Your brother intends to have both of us killed during the audience."

"The girl told you this?" Aboli asked, and Hal nodded guiltily at the mention of his infidelity.

Aboli smiled in sympathy. "So the little Honey-bee saves your life. Sukeena would rejoice for that. You need feel no guilt."

"If we attempt to escape, your brother would send an army to pursue us. We would never reach the river again." "So do you have a plan, Gundwane?"

Zama came to lead them to the royal audience. They stepped out of the gloom of the great &Zhut into the brilliant African sunlight, and Hal paused to gaze around the concourse of the Monomatapa.

He could only estimate their numbers, but a full regiment of the royal bodyguard ringed the open space, perhaps a thousand tall warriors with the high head-dresses of cranes" feathers turning each into a giant. The light morning breeze tossed and tumbled the feathers, and the sunlight glinted on their broad-bladed spears.

Beyond them the nobles of the tribe filled every space and lined the top of the wall of granite blocks that surrounded the citadel. A hundred royal wives clustered about the door to the King's hut. Some were so fat and loaded with bangles and ornaments that they could not walk unaided and leant heavily on their handmaidens. When they waddled along their buttocks rolled and undulated like soft bladders filled with lard.

Zama led Hal and Aboli to the centre of the courtyard and left them there. A heavy silence fell on the throng and no one moved, until suddenly the captain of the bodyguard blew a blast on a spiral kudu horn and the Monomatapa loomed in the doorway of his hut.

A moaning sigh swept through the gathering and, as one, they threw themselves full length to the earth and covered their faces. Only Hal and Aboli remained standing upright.

The Monomatapa strode to his living throne and sat upon Inyosi's naked back.

"Speak first!" Hal breathed from the side of his mouth. "Don't let him give the order for our execution."

"I see you, my brother!" Aboli greeted him, and the courtiers moaned with horror at this breach of protocol. "I see you, Great Lord of the Heavens!"

The Monomatapa showed no sign of having heard.

"I bring you greetings from the ghost of our father, Holomima, who was the Monomatapa before you."

Aboli's brother recoiled visibly, as though a cobra had reared up before his face. "You speak with ghosts?" His voice trembled slightly.

"Our father came to me in the night. He was as tall as a great baobab tree, and his face was terrible with eyes of fire.

His voice was as the thunder of the heavens. He came to me to issue a dire warning." The congregation moaned with superstitious dread.

"What was this warning?" croaked the Monomatapa staring at his brother with awe.

"Our father fears for our lives, yours and mine. Great danger threatens us both." Some of the fat wives screamed, and one fell to the ground in a fit, frothing at the mouth.

"What danger is this, Aboli?" The King glanced around him fearfully, as if seeking an assassin among his courtiers. "Our father warned me that you and I are joined in life as we were in birth. If one of us prospers, then so does the other."

The Monomatapa nodded. "What else did our father say?"

"He said that as we are joined in life, so we will be joined in death. He prophesied that we will die upon the very same day, but that that day is of our own choosing."

The King's face turned a strange greyish tone and glistened with sweat. The elders shrieked and those nearest to where he sat drew small iron knives and slashed their own chests and arms, sprinkling their blood on the earth to protect him from witchcraft.

"I am deeply troubled by these words that our father uttered," Aboli went on. "I wish that I were able to abide with you here in the Land of Heaven, to protect you from this fate. But, alas, my father's shade warned me further that should I stay here another day then I will die and the Monomatapa with me. I must leave at once and never return.

That is the only way in which we can both survive the curse."

"So let it be." The Monomatapa rose to his feet and pointed with a trembling finger. "This very day you must be gone."

"Alas, my beloved brother, I cannot leave here without that boon I came to seek from you."

"Speak, Aboli! What is it that you lack?"

"I must have one hundred and fifty of your finest warriors to protect me, for a dreadful enemy lies in wait for me. Without these soldiers, then I go to certain death, and my death must portend the death of the Monomatapa."

"Choose!" bellowed the Monomatapa. "Choose of my finest Amadoda, and take them with you. They are your slaves, do with them as you wish. But then get you gone this very day, before the setting of the sun. Leave my land for ever."

In the leading pinnace Hal shot the bar and rowed out through the Musela mouth of the delta into the open sea. Big Daniel followed closely, and there lay the Golden Bough at her anchor on the ten fathom shoal where they had left her. Ned Tyler stood the ship to quarters and ran out his guns when he saw them approaching. The pinnaces were so packed with men that they had only an inch or two of freeboard. Riding so low in the water, from afar they resembled war canoes. The glinting spears and waving head-dresses of the Amadoda strengthened this impression and Ned gave the order to fire a warning shot across their bows. As the cannon boomed out and a tall plume of spray erupted from the water half a cable's length ahead of the leading boat, Hal stood up in the bows and waved the croix pott6e.

"Lord love us!" Ned gasped. "Tis the Captain we're shooting at."

"I'll not be in a hurry to forget that greeting you gave me, Mister Tyler," Hal told him sternly, as he came in through the entry port "I rate a four-gun salute, not a single gun."

"Bless you, Captain, I had no idea. I thought you was a bunch of heathen savages, begging your pardon, sir."

"That we are, Mister Tyler. That we are!" And Hal grinned at Ned's confusion as a horde of magnificent warriors swarmed onto the Golden Bough's deck. "Think you'll be able to make seamen of them, Mister Tyler?" soon as he had made his offing, Hal turned the bows into the north once more and sailed up the inland channel between Madagascar and the mainland. He was heading for Zanzibar, the centre of all trade on this coast. There he hoped to have further news of the progress of the Holy War on the Horn and, if he were fortunate, to learn something of the movements of the Gull of Moray.

This was a settling-in time for the Amadoda. Everything aboard the Golden Bough was strange to them. None had ever seen the sea. They had believed the pinnaces to be the largest canoes ever conceived by man, and were overawed by the size of the ship, the height of her masts and the spread of her sails.

Most were immediately smitten by seasickness, and it took many days for them to find their sea-legs. Their bowels were in a turmoil induced by the diet of biscuit and pickled meat. They hungered for their pots of millet porridge and their gourds of blood and milk. They had never been confined in such a small space and they pined for the wide savannah.

They suffered from the cold, for even in this tropical sea the trade winds were cool and the warm Mozambique current many degrees below the temperature of the sun-scorched plains of the savannah. Hal ordered Althuda, who was in charge of the ship's stores, to issue bolts of sail canvas to them and Aboli showed them how to stitch petticoats and tarpaulin jackets for themselves.

They soon forgot these tribulations when Aboli ordered a platoon of men to follow Jiri and Matesi and Kimatti aloft to set and reef sail. A hundred dizzy feet above the deck and the rushing sea, swinging on the great pendulum of the mainmast, for the first time in their lives these warriors who had each killed their lion were overcome by terror.

Aboli climbed up to where they clung helplessly to the shrouds and mocked them. "Look at these pretty virgins. I thought at first there might be a man among them, but I see they should all squat when they piss." Then he stood upright on the swaying yard and laughed at them. He ran out to the end of it and there performed a stamping, leaping war dance. One of the Amadoda could abide his mockery no longer. he loosed his death grip on the rigging and shuffled out along the yard to where Aboli stood with hands on hips.

"One man among them!" Aboli laughed and embraced him. During the next week three of the Amadoda fell from the rigging while trying to emulate this feat. Two dropped into the sea but before Hal could wear the ship around and go back to pick them up the sharks had taken them. The third man struck the deck and his was the most merciful end. After that there were no more casualties, and the Amadoda, each one accustomed since boyhood to climbing the highest trees for honey and birds" eggs, swiftly became adept top-mast men

When Hal ordered bundles of pikes to be brought up from the hold and issued to the Amadoda they howled and danced with delight, for they were spearmen born. They delighted in the heavy-shafted pikes with their deadly iron heads. Aboli adapted their tactics and fighting formation to the Golden Bough's cramped deck spaces. He showed them how to form the classical Roman Testudo, their shields overlapping and locked like the scales of an armadillo. With this formation they could sweep the deck of an enemy ship irresistibly.

Hal ordered them to set up a heavy mat of oakum under the forecastle break to act as a butt. Once the Amadoda had learned the weight and balance of the heavy pikes they could hurl them the length of the ship to bury the iron heads full length in the mat of coarse fibres. They plunged into these exercises with such gusto that two of their number were speared to death before Aboli could impress upon them that these were mock battles and should not be fought to the death.

Then it was time to introduce them to the English longbow. Their own bows were short and puny in comparison and they looked askance at this six-foot weapon, dubiously tried the massive draw weight and shook their heads. Hal took the bow out of their hands and nocked an arrow. He looked up at the single black and white gull that floated high above the mainmast. "If I bring down one of those birds will you eat it raw?" he asked, and they roared with laughter at the joke.

"I will eat the feathers as wellP shouted a big cocky one named Ingwe, the Leopard. In a fluid motion Hal drew and loosed. The arrow arced up, its flight curving across the wind, and they shouted with amazement as it pierced the gull's snowy bosom and the wide pinions folded. The bird tumbled down in a tangle of wings and webbed feet, and struck the deck at Hal's feet. An Amadoda snatched it up, and the transfixed carcass was passed from hand to hand amid astonished jabbering.

"Do not ruffle the feathers," Hal cautioned them. "You will spoil Ingwe's dinner for him."

From that moment their love of the longbow was passionate and within days they had developed into archers of the first water. When Hal towed an empty water keg at a full cable's length behind the ship, the Amadoda. shot at it, first individually then in massed divisions like English archers. When the keg was heaved back on deck it was bristling like a porcupine's back, and they retrieved seven out of every ten arrows that had been shot.

In one area alone the Amadoda. showed no aptitude. at serving the great bronze culver ins Despite all the threats and mockery that Aboli heaped upon them, he could not get them to approach one with anything less than superstitious awe. Each time a broadside boomed they howled, "It is witchcraft. It is the thunder of the heavens."

Hal drew up a new watch-bill, in which the battle stations of the crew were rearranged to have the white seamen serving the batteries and the Amadoda handling the sails and making up the boarding-party.

A standing bank of high clouds twenty leagues ahead of their bows marked the island of Zanzibar. A fringe of coconut palms ringed the white beach of the bay, but the massive walls of the fortress were even whiter, dazzling as the ice slopes of a glacier in the sunlight. The citadel had been built a century before by the Portuguese and until only a decade previously it had assured that nation's domination of the trade routes of the entire eastern shores of the African continent.

Later the Omani Arabs, under their warrior king Ahmed El Grang the Left-handed, had sailed in with their war dhows, attacked the Portuguese and had driven out their garrison with great slaughter. This loss had signalled the beginning of the decline of Portuguese influence on the coast, and the Omanis had usurped their place as the foremost trading nation.

Hal examined the fort through the lens of his telescope and noted the banner of Islam flying above the tower, and the serried ranks of cannon along the tops of the walls. Those weapons could hurl heated shot onto any hostile vessel that attempted to enter the bay.

He felt a thrill of foreboding along his spine as he contemplated the fact that if he enlisted with the forces of the Prester, he would become the enemy of Ahmed El Grang. One day those huge cannon might be firing upon the Golden Bough. In the meantime he must make the most of this last opportunity to enter the Omani camp as a neutral and to gather all the intelligence that came his way.

The harbour was crowded with small craft, mostly the dhows of the Mussulmen from India, Arabia and Muscat. There were two tall ships among this multitude. one flew a Spanish flag and the other was French, but Hal recognized neither.

All these traders were drawn to Zanzibar by the riches of Africa, the gold of Sofala, the gum arabic, ivory, and the endless flood of humanity into its slave market. This was where seven thousand men, women and children were offered for sale each season when the trade winds brought the barques in from around the Cape of Good Hope and from all the vast basin of the Indian Ocean.

Hal dipped his ensign in courtesy to the fortress, then conned the Golden Bough towards the anchorage under top sails. At his order the anchor splashed into the clear water and the tiny sliver of canvas was whipped off her and furled by Aboli's exuberant Amadoda. Almost immediately the ship was besieged by a fleet of little boats, selling every conceivable commodity from fresh fruit and water to small boys. These last were ordered by their masters to bend over the thwarts, lift their robes and display their small brown buttocks for the delectation of the seamen at the Golden Bough's rail.

"Pretty jig-jig boys," the whore masters crooned in pidgin English.

"Sweet bums like ripe mangoes."

"Mister Tyler, have a boat lowered," Hal ordered. "I'm going ashore. I will take Althuda and Master Daniel with me and ten of your best men."

They rowed across to the stone landing steps below the fortress walls, and Big Daniel went ashore first to plough open a passage through the throng of merchants, who swarmed down to the water's edge to offer their wares. On their last visit he had escorted Sir Francis ashore so he led the way. His seamen formed in a phalanx around Hal and they marched through the narrow streets.

They passed through bazaars and crowded souks where the merchants displayed their stocks. Traders and seamen from the other vessels in the harbour picked over the piles of elephant tusks, and cakes of fragrant golden gum arabic, bunches of ostrich feathers and rhinoceros horns. They haggled over the price of the carpets from Muscat and the stoppered porcupine quills filled with grains of alluvial gold from Sofala and the rivers of the African interior. The slavemasters paraded files of human beings for potential buyers to examine their teeth, and palpate the muscles of the males or lift the aprons of the young females to consider their sweets.

From this area of commerce, Big Daniel led them into a sector of the town where the buildings on each side of the lanes almost touched each other overhead and blocked out the light of day, The stench of human faeces from the open sewers, which ran down to the harbour, almost suffocated them.

Big Daniel stopped abruptly in front of an arched mahogany door, carved with intricate Islamic motifs and studded with iron spikes, and heaved on the dangling bell rope Within minutes they heard the bolts on the far side being pulled back and the huge door creaked open. Half a dozen small brown faces peered out at them, boys and girls of mixed blood and of all ages between five and ten years.

"Welcome! Welcome!" they chirruped in quaintly accented English.

"The blessing of Allah the All Merciful be upon you, English milord. May all your days be golden and scented with wild jasmine."

A little girl seized Hal by the hand and led him through into the interior courtyard. A fountain tinkled in the centre and the air was filled with the scent of frangipani and yellow tamarind flowers. A tall figure, clad in flowing white robes and gold-corded Arabian head-dress, rose from the pile of silk carpets where he had been reclining.

"Indeed, I add a thousand welcomes to those of my children, my good Captain, and may Allah shower you with riches and blessing," he said, in a familiar and comforting Yorkshire accent. "I watched your fine ship anchor in the bay, and I knew you would soon call upon me." He clapped his hands, and from the back of the house emerged a line of slaves each bearing trays that contained coloured glasses of sherbet and coconut milk and little bowls of sweetmeats and roasted nuts.

The consul sent Big Daniel and his seamen through to the servants" quarters at the rear of the house. "They will be given refreshment," he said.

Hal cast Big Daniel a significant look, which the boatswain interpreted accurately. There would be no liquor in this Islamic household, but there would be women and the seamen had to be protected from themselves. Hal kept Althuda beside him. There might be call for him to draw up documents or to take down notes.

The consul led them to a secluded corner of the courtyard. "Now, let me introduce myself, I am William Grey, His Majesty's consul to the Sultanate of Zanzibar."

"Henry Courtney, at your service, sir."

"I knew a Sir Francis Courtney. Are you by chance related?"

"My father, sir."

"Ah! An honourable man. Please give him my respects when next you meet."

"Tragically he was killed in the Dutch war."

"My condolences, Sir Henry. Please be seated." A pile of beautifully patterned silk carpets had been set close at hand for Hal. The consul sat opposite him. Once he was comfortable, a slave brought Grey a water-pipe. "A pipeful of Mang is a sovereign remedy for distempers of the liver and for the malaria which is a plague in these climes. Will you join me, sir?" Hal refused this offer, for he knew of the tricks the Indian hemp flowers played upon the mind, and the dreams and trances with which it could ensnare the smoker.

While he puffed at his pipe, Grey questioned him cunningly as to his recent movements and his future plans, and Hal was polite but evasive. Like a pair of duel lists they sparred and waited for an opening. As the water bubbled in the tall glass bowl of the pipe and the fragrant smoke drifted across the courtyard Grey became more affable and expansive.

"You live in the style of a great sheikh." Hal tried a little flattery and Grey responded with gratification.

"Would you find it difficult to believe that fifteen years ago I was merely a lowly clerk in the employment of the English East India Company? When my ship was wrecked on the corals of Sofala, I came ashore here as a castaway." He shrugged and made a gesture that was more Oriental than English. "As you say, Allah has smiled on me."

"You have embraced Islam?" Hal did not allow his expression to show the repugnance he felt for the apostate. "I am a true believer in the one God, and in Muhammad his Prophet." Grey nodded. Hal wondered how much his decision to convert had rested on political and practical considerations. Grey, the Christian, would not have prospered in Zanzibar as Grey, the Mussulman, so obviously had.

"Most Englishmen who call at Zanzibar have one thing in mind," Grey went on. "They have come here for trade, and usually to acquire a cargo of slaves. I regret that this is not the best season for slaving. The trade winds have brought in the dhows from Further India and beyond. They have already carried away the best specimens, and what is now left in the market is the dregs. However, in my own barracoon I have two hundred prime creatures, the best you will find in a thousand miles of sailing."

"Thank you, sir, but I am not interested in slaving," Hal declined.

"That, sir, is a regrettable decision. I assure you there are great fortunes still to be made in the trade. The Brazilians and the Caribbean sugar planters are crying out for labour to work their fields."

"Thank you again. I am not in the market." Now it was clear to Hal how Grey had made his own fortune. The post of consul was secondary to that of agent and middleman to European traders calling in at Zanzibar.

"Then there is another highly profitable area in which I could be of assistance to you." Grey paused delicately. "I observed your ship from my rooftop when you anchored and could not but notice that she is well armed. One might be forgiven for believing her to be a man-of-war." Hal nodded noncommittally, and Grey continued, "You may not know that the Sultan of Oman, Beloved of Allah, Ahmed El Grang, is at war with the Emperor of Ethiopia."

"I had heard so."

"A war is raging on land and sea. The Sultan has issued Letters of Marque to ships who wish to join his forces. These commissions have been, in the main, restricted to Mussulman captains. However, I have great influence at the Sultan's court. I may be able to obtain a commission for you. Of course, such a boon does not come cheaply. It would cost two hundred pounds for me to obtain an Omani Letter of Marque for you, sir."

Hal was about to refuse with indignation this offer to join the pagan in the war against Christ and his followers, but instinct warned him not to repudiate it out of hand. "There might be profits to be made, then, sir?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Indeed. There are vast riches to be snapped up. The empire of the Prester is one of the most ancient citadels of the Christian faith.

For well over a thousand years the gold and offerings of the pilgrims and worshippers have been piling up in the treasure houses of the churches and monasteries. The Prester himself is as rich as any European sovereign. They say there is over twenty tons of gold in his treasury, at the sum, Grey was breathing heavily with avarice at the picture he had conjured up in his own mind.

"You would be able to obtain a commission for me from the Sultan? "Hal leaned forward with assumed eagerness. indeed, sir. Not a month past I was able to obtain a commission for a Scotsman." A sudden thought occurred to Grey, and his face lit up. "If I did the same for you, perhaps you could join forces with him. With two fighting ships such as yours you would be a squadron powerful enough to take on anything the navy of the Prester could send against you. "The thought excites me." Hal smiled encouragingly, trying not to show too much interest. He had guessed who the Scotsman must be. "But tell me, who is this man of whom you speak?"

"A fine gentleman and a great mariner," Grey replied enthusiastically. "He sailed from Zanzibar not five weeks back, bound for the Horn."

"Then I may be able to come up with him and join my ship to his," Hal mused aloud. "Give me his name and station, sir."

Grey glanced around the courtyard in a conspiratorial fashion, then lowered his voice. "He is a nobleman of high rank, the Earl of Cumbrae." Grey leaned back and slapped his knees to emphasize the enormity of his disclosure. "There, sir! And what do you think of that?"

"I am greatly amazed!" Hal did not have to cover his excitement. "But do you truly believe that you can obtain a commission for me also?

And, if so, how long will the business take?"

"Things are never swiftly done in Arabia." Grey became evasive again. "But they can always be speeded up with a little baksheesh. Say an extra two hundred pounds, that is four hundred in all, and I should be able to place the commission in your hands by tomorrow evening. Naturally, I would need to have your payment in advance."

"It is a great deal of money." Hal frowned. Now that he knew where the Buzzard was headed, he wanted to rush back to the Golden Bough immediately and set off in pursuit. But he restrained the impulse. He must gather every scrap of information from Grey.

"Yes, it is," Grey agreed. "But think on the return it will bring. Twenty tons of pure gold for the man bold enough to seize it from the Prester's treasury. And that's not all. There are also the jewels and other treasures sent in tribute to the empire over a thousand years, the treasures of the Coptic churches the relics of Jesus Christ and the Virgin, of the apostles and the saints. The ransom they could command is without limit." Grey's eyes shone with greed. "They say-" He broke off and lowered his voice again. "They do say, that the Prester John is the guardian of the Holy Grail itself."

"The Holy Grail." Hal went pale with awe, and Grey was delighted to see the reaction he had evoked.

"Yes! Yes! The Holy Grail! The precious cup for which Christians have searched since the Crucifixion." Hal shook his head and stared at Grey in unfeigned amazement. He was moved by a strange sense of dejdvu that rendered him speechless. The prophecies of both his father and Sukeena flashed across his mind. He knew, deep in his heart, that this was part of the destiny they had foretold for him.

Grey took his silence and the shake of his head for scepticism. "I assure you, sir, that the Holy Grail is the most poignant reason that the Great Mogul and Ahmed El Grang have attacked the empire of Ethiopia. I have had this from the Sultan's own lips. He also is convinced that the relic is in the care of the Prester. One of the mightiest ayatollahs of Islam has prophesied this and has given him the word of Allah that if he can wrest the Grail from the Prester his dynasty will be invested with power untold, and will herald the triumph of Islam over all the false religions of the world."

Hal stared at him aghast. His thoughts were in wild confusion and he was no longer certain of himself or of anything around him. It took a vast effort to put aside such a terrible prospect as the subjugation of Christianity and to reassemble his thoughts.

"Where is this relic kept hidden?" he asked huskily. "Nobody but the Prester and his monks know for certain. Some say at Aksum or at Gander, and others say that it is secreted in a monastery in the high mountains."

"Perhaps it has already fallen into the hands of El Grang or the Mogul? Perhaps the war is already lost and won?" Hal suggested.

"No! No!" Grey was vehement. "A dhow arrived from the Gulf of Aden this very morning. The news it brings is less than eight days old. It seems that the victorious armies of Islam have been checked at Mitsiwa. There has arisen within the Christian ranks a mighty general.

They call this warrior Nazet, and though he is but a stripling the armies of Tigre and Galla flock to his standard." It seemed to Hal, from the relish with which Grey recounted these setbacks to the cause of Islam, that the consul was backing both horses. "Nazet has driven back the armies of El Grang and the Mogul. They confront each other before Mitsiwa, gathering themselves for the final battle, which will decide the war. It is far from over yet. I earnestly counsel you, my young friend, that once you have in your hand the Letter of Marque that I shall procure for you, you should make all haste to sail to Mitsiwa in time to share the spoils."

"I must think on all you have told me." Hal rose from the pile of carpets. "If I decide to avail myself of your generous offer, I will return tomorrow with the four hundred pounds to purchase my commission from the Sultan."

"You will always be welcome in my home," Grey assured him.

Let me back to the ship as fast as you like," Hal snapped at Big Daniel, the moment the *-Gtall carved doors closed behind them. "I want to sail on this evening's tide."

They had not reached the first bazaar when Althuda caught at Hal's arm. "I must go back. I have left my journal in the courtyard."

"I am in desperate haste, Althuda. The Buzzard is already more than a month ahead of us, but I know now for certain where I must search for him."

"I must retrieve my journal. Go on ahead to the ship. I will not be long behind you. Send the boat back for me, and have them wait at the harbour steps. I will be there before you sail." 4DO not fail me, Althuda. I cannot delay."

Reluctantly Hal let him go, and hurried on after Big Daniel. As soon as he reached the Golden Bough, he sent the longboat to wait for Althuda at the landing, and gave the orders to ready the ship for sea. Then he went down to his cabin and spread on his desk under the stern windows those charts and sailing directions for the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea that he had inherited from Llewellyn.

He had studied these almost daily ever since he had been aboard the GoLden Bough, so he had no difficulty in placing all the names Grey had mentioned in his discourse. He plotted his course to round the tip of the Great Horn and sail down the Gulf of Aden, through the narrows of the Bah El Mandeb and into the southern reaches of the Red Sea. There were hundreds of tiny islands scattered off the Ethiopian coast, perfect lairs for the privateer and the corsair.

He would have to avoid the fleets of the Mogul and the Omani until he had reached the Christian court of the Prester and obtained his commission from him. He could not attack the Mussulmen before he had that document in his hands or he risked the same fate as his father, of being accused of piracy on the high seas.

Perhaps he would be able to link up with the Christian army commander General Nazet, of whom Grey had spoken, and place the Golden Bough at his disposal. In any event, he reasoned that the transport fleet of the Mussulman army would be gathered in these crowded seas in huge numbers, and they would fall easy prey to a swift frigate boldly handled. Grey was right in one respect. there would be fortune and glory to be won in the days ahead.

He heard the bell sound the end of the watch, left his charts and went up on deck. He saw at a glance, from the ship's changed attitude to the tide, that the ebb had set in.

Then he looked across the harbour and, even at that distance, recognized the figure of Althuda at the head of the landing steps. He was in deep conversation with Stan Sparrow, who had taken the longboat back to wait for him.

"Damn him," Hal muttered. "He is wasting time in idle chatter." He turned all his attention to the affairs of the ship, and watched his topmast men going aloft, quick and surefooted, to set the sails. When he looked back at the shore again he saw that the longboat was coming in against the ship's side below where he stood.

As soon as it touched, Althuda came up the ladder. He stood in front of Hal and said with a serious expression, "I have come to fetch Zwaantie and my son," he said solemnly. "And to bid you farewell."

"I do not understand." Hal was aghast.

"Consul Grey has taken me into his service as a writer. "I intend to remain with my family here in Zanzibar," Althuda replied.

"But why, Althuda? Why?"

"As you know well, both Sukeena and I were raised by our mother as followers of Muhammad, the Prophet of Allah. You are intent on waging war on the armies of Islam in the name of the Christian God. I can no longer follow you." Althuda turned away and went to the forecastle. He returned a few minutes later leading Zwaantie and carrying little Bobby. Zwaantie was weeping silently, but she did not look at Hal. Althuda stopped at the head of the ladder and gazed at him.

"I regret this parting, but I cherish the memory of the love you bore my sister. I call down the blessing of Allah upon you," he said, then followed Zwaantie down into the longboat. Hal watched them row across to the quay and climb the stone steps. Althuda. never looked back, and he and his little family disappeared in the throng of white robed merchants and their slaves.

Hal felt so saddened that he did not realize that the longboat had returned until, with a start, he saw that it had already been hoisted aboard and that Ned Tyler waited by the whipstall for his orders.

"Up anchor, if you please, Mister Tyler. Set the top sails and steer for the channel."

Hal took one last look back at the land. He felt bereaved, for Althuda had severed his last tenuous link to Sukeena "She is gone," he whispered. "Now she is truly gone."

Resolutely he turned his back on the white citadel and looked ahead to where the Usambara mountains on the African mainland lay low and blue upon the horizon.

"Lay the ship on the larboard tack, Mister Tyler. Set all plain sail.

Course is north by east to clear Pemba Island. Mark it on the traverse board." he wind held fair, and twelve days later they cleared Cape Guardafui, at the tip of the IXT great rhino horn of Africa, and before them opened the Gulf of Aden. Hal ordered the change of course and they steered down into the west.

The harsh red rock cliffs and hills of the Gulf of Aden were the jaws of Africa. They sailed into them with the last breezes of the trades filling their canvas. The heat was breathtaking, and without the wind would have been insupportable. The sea was a peculiarly vivid blue, which reflected off the snowy bellies of the terns that wheeled across the wake.

Ahead the rocky shores constricted into the throat of the Bah El Mandeb. In daylight they passed through the rock-bound narrows into the maw of the Red Sea and Hal shortened sail, for these were treacherous waters, dotted with hundreds of islands and sown with reefs of fanged coral. To the east lay the hot lands of Arabia, and to the west the shores of Ethiopia and the empire of the Prester.

They began to encounter other shipping in these congested waters. Each time the lookout hailed the quarterdeck, Hal went aloft himself, longing to see the top sails of a square-rigged ship come up over the horizon, and to recognize the set of the Gull of Moray. But each time he was disappointed. They were all dhows that fled from their tall and ominous profile, seeking shelter in the sanctuary of the shoal waters where the Golden Bough dared not follow.

Swiftly Hal learned how inaccurate were the charts that he had found in Llewellyn's desk. Some of the islands they passed were not shown and others were depicted leagues off their true position. The marked soundings were mere fictions of the cartographer's imagination. The nights were moonless and Hal dared not press on among these reefs and islands in the darkness. At dusk he anchored for the night in the tee of one of the larger islands.

"No lights," he warned Ned Tyler, "and keep the hands quiet."

"There is no keeping Aboli's men quiet, Captain. They gabble like geese being ate by a fox."

Hal grinned. "I will speak to Aboli."

When he came up on deck again at the beginning of the first dog watch, the ship was silent and dark. He made his rounds, stopping for a few minutes to speak to Aboli who was the watch-keeper. Then he went to stand alone by the rail, gazing up at the heavens, lost in wonder at the glory of the stars.

Suddenly he heard an alien sound and, for a moment, thought that it came from the ship. Then he realized that it was human voices speaking a language that he did not know. He moved swiftly to the stern and the sounds were closer and clearer. He heard the creak of rigging and the squeak and splash of oars.

He ran forward again and found Aboli. "Assemble an armed boarding-party. Ten men," he whispered. "No noise. Launch the longboat."

It took only minutes for Aboli to carry out the order. As the boat touched the water they dropped into it and pulled away. Hal was at the tiller and steered into the darkness, groping towards the unseen island.

After several minutes he whispered, "Avast heaving!" and the rowers rested on their oars. The minutes drifted by, then suddenly close at hand they heard something clatter on a wooden deck, and an exclamation of pain or annoyance. Hal strained his eyes in that direction and saw the pale set of a small lateen sail against the starlight.

"All together. Give way!" he whispered, and the boat shot forward. Aboli stood in the bows with a grappling hook and line. The small dhow that emerged abruptly out of the darkness dead ahead was not much taller at the rail than the longboat. Aboli hurled the hook over her side and leaned back on the line.

"Secured!" he grunted. "Away you go, lads."

The crew dropped the oars and, with a bloodcurdling chorus of yells, swarmed up onto the deck of the strange craft. They were met by pathetic cries of dismay and terror. Hal lashed the tiller over, seized the hooded lantern and rushed up after his men to restrain their belligerence. When he opened the shutter of the lantern and flashed it around he found that the crew of the dhow had already been subdued, and were spreadeagled on the deck. There were a dozen or so half-naked dark-skinned sailors, but among them an elderly man dressed in a full-length robe whom Hal at first took to be the captain.

"Bring that one here," he ordered. When they dragged the captive to him, Hal saw that he had a flowing beard, which reached almost to his knees, and a cluster of Coptic crosses and rosaries dangling down onto his chest. The square mitre on his head was embroidered with gold and silver thread.

"All right!" he cautioned the men who held him. "Treat him gently. He's a priest." They released their prisoner with alacrity. The priest rearranged his robes and brushed out his beard with his fingertips, then drew himself up to his full height and regarded Hal with frosty dignity.

"Do you speak English, Father?" Hal asked. The man stared back at him. Even in the uncertain lantern light, his gaze was cold and piercing. He showed no sign of having understood.

Hal switched into Latin. "Who are you, Father?"

"I am Fasilides, Bishop of Aksum, confessor to his Christian Majesty Iyasu, Emperor of Ethiopia," he replied, in fluent, scholarly Latin.

"I humbly beg your forgiveness, your grace. I mistook this ship for an Islamic marauder. I crave your blessing." Hal went down on one knee. Perhaps I am pouring too much oil, he thought, but the Bishop seemed to accept this as his due. He made the sign of the cross over Hal's head, then laid two fingers on his brow.

"In no mine patris, et filii, et spirit us sancti," he intoned and gave Hal his ring to kiss. He seemed sufficiently mollified for Hal to press the advantage.

"This is a most providential encounter, your grace." Hal rose to his feet again, "I am a Knight of the Temple of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail. I am on a voyage to place my ship and its company at the disposal of the Prester John, the Most Christian Emperor of Ethiopia, in his holy war against the forces of Islam. As His Majesty's confessor, perhaps you could lead me to his court."

"It may be possible to arrange an audience," said Fasilides importantly.

However, his aplomb was shaken and his manner much improved when the dawn light revealed the power and magnificence of the Golden Bough, and he became even more amenable when Hal invited him aboard and offered to convey him on the rest of his journey.

Hal could only guess at why the Bishop of Aksum should be creeping around the islands at midnight in a small, smelly fishing dhow, and Fasilides became remote and haughty again when questioned. "I am not at liberty to discuss affairs of state, either temporal or spiritual."

Fasilides brought his two servants aboard with him, and one of the fishermen from the dhow to act as a pilot for Hal. Once on board the Golden Bough, he settled comfortably into the small cabin adjoining Hal's. With a local pilot on board Hal was able to head on towards Mitsiwa with all dispatch, not even deigning to shorten sail when the sun set that evening.

He invited Fasilides to dine with him and the good Bishop showed a deep affinity for Llewellyn's wine and brandy. Hal kept his glass filled to the brim, a feat that called for sleight of hand. Fasilides" dignity lowered in proportion to the level in the brandy decanter, and he answered Hal's questions with less and less reserve. "The Emperor is with General Nazet at the monastery of St. Luke on the hills above Mitsiwa. I go to meet him there," he explained.

"I have heard that the Emperor has won a great victory over the pagan at Mitsiwa?" Hal prompted him.

"A great and wonderful victory!" Fasilides enthused. "In the Easter season, the pagan crossed the narrows of the Bah El Mandeb with a mighty army, then drove northwards up the coast seizing all the ports and forts. Our Emperor Caleb, father of Iyasu, fell in battle and much of our army was scattered and destroyed. The war dhows of El Grang fell upon our fleet in Adulis Bay and captured or burned twenty of our finest ships. Then when the pagan arrayed a hundred thousand men before Mitsiwa it seemed that God had forsaken Ethiopia." Fasilides" eyes filled with tears and he had to take a deep draught of the good brandy to steady himself. "But He is the one God and true to his people, and he sent us a warrior to lead our shattered army. Nazet came down from the mountains, bringing the army of the Amhara to join our forces here on the coast, and bearing in the vanguard the sacred Tabernacle of Mary Mother of God. This talisman is like a thunderbolt in Nazet's hand. Before its advance the pagan was hurled back in confusion."

"What is this talisman of which you speak, your grace? Is it a sacred relic?" Hal asked.

The bishop lowered his voice and reached across the table to grip Hal's hand and stare into his eyes. "It is a relic of Jesus Christ, the most powerful in all Christendom." He stared into Hal's face with a fanatical fervour so intense that Hal felt his skin crawl with religious awe. "The Tabernacle of Mary contains the Cup of Life, the Holy Grail that Christ used at the Last Supper. The same chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood of the Saviour as he hung upon the Cross."

"Where is the Tabernacle now?" Hal's voice was husky, and he returned Fasilides" grip with such strength that the old man winced. "Have you seen it? Does it truly exist?"

"I have prayed over the Tabernacle that contains the sacred chalice, although none may view or lay hands upon the chalice itself."

"Where is this holy thing?" Hal's voice rose with excitement. "I have heard of it all my life. The chivalric order of which I am a Knight is based upon this fabulous cup. Where may I find it and worship before it?"

Fasilides seemed to sober at Hal's excitement, and he drew back, freeing his hand from Hal's grip. "There are things which cannot be disclosed." Once again he became remote and unapproachable. Hal realized that it would be unwise to pursue the subject further, and he sought some other topic to thaw the Bishop's frozen features.

"Tell me of the fleet engagement at Adulis Bay," Hal suggested. "As a sailor, my concerns lie heavily upon the seas. Was there a tall ship similar to this one fighting with the squadrons of Islam?"

The Bishop unbent a little. "There were many ships on both sides.

Great storms of gunfire and terrible slaughter." "A square-rigged ship, flying the red croix pattge?" Hal insisted. "Did you have report of such a one?" But it was cleat that the Bishop did not know a frigate from a quinquereme.

He shrugged. "Perhaps the admirals and the generals will be able to answer these questions when we reach the monastery of St. Luke," he suggested.

The following afternoon they sailed past the entrance to Adulis Bay, steering inshore of the island of Dahlak at the mouth of the bay. In this much Fasilides had been accurate in his report. The roads were crowded with shipping. A forest of mast and rigging was outlined against the brooding red hills that Tinged the bay. From each masthead flew the banners of Islam and the pennants of Omani and the Great Mogul.

Hal ordered the Golden Bough hove to, and he climbed to the main yard and sat there for an hour with the telescope held to his eye. It was not possible to count the number of ships at anchor in the bay, and the waters seethed with small boats ferrying the stores and provisions of a great army to the shore. Of one thing only Hal was certain, when he returned to the deck and ordered sail to be set once more. there was no square-rigged ship in Adulis Bay.

The shattered remnants of the Emperor Iyasu's fleet lay off Mitsiwa. Hal anchored well clear of these burned and battered hulks, and Fasilides sent one of his servants ashore in the longboat. "He must find out if Nazet's headquarters are still at the monastery, and if they are we must arrange horses for us to travel there."

While they waited for the servant to return, Hal made arrangements for his temporary absence from the Golden Bough. He decided to take only Aboli with him, and to leave command of the ship to Ned Tyler.

"Do not remain at anchor, for this is a lee shore, and you will be vulnerable if the Buzzard should find you here," he warned Ned. "Patrol well off the coast, and look upon every sail as that of an enemy. If you should encounter the Gull of Moray you are, under no circumstances, to offer battle. I shall return as swiftly as I am able. My signal will be a red Chinese rocket. When you see that, send a boat to pick me up from the shore."

Hal fretted out the rest of that day and night but at first light the masthead hailed the deck. "Small dhow coming out from the bay. Heading this way."

Hal heard the cry in his cabin and hurried on deck. Even without his telescope he recognized Fasilides" servant standing on the open deck of the small craft. He sent for the Bishop. When Fasilides came on deck he was showing the effects of the previous evening's tippling, but he and the servant spoke rapidly in the Geez language. He turned to Hal. "The Emperor and General Nazet are still at the monastery. Horses are waiting for us on the beach. We can be there by noon. My servant has brought clothing for you and your servant that will make you less conspicuous."

In his cabin Hal donned the breeches of fine cotton that were cut full as petticoats and taken in at the ankles. The boots were of soft leather with pointed upturned toes. Over the cotton shirt he wore an embroidered dolman tunic that reached half-way down his thighs. The Bishop's servant showed him how to wind the long white cloth around his head to form the haik turban. Over the head cloth he fitted the burnished steel onion-shaped helmet, spiked on top and engraved and inlaid with Coptic crosses.

When he and Aboli came back on deck the crew gawked at them, and Fasilides nodded approval. "Now none will recognize you as a Frank."

The longboat deposited them on the beach below the cliffs, where an armed escort was waiting for them. The horses were Arabians with long flowing manes and tails, the large nostrils and fine eyes of the breed. The saddles were carved from a single block of wood and decorated with brass and silver, the saddle-cloths and reins stiff with metal-thread embroidery.

"It is a long ride to the monastery," Fasilides warned them. "We must waste no time."

They climbed the cliff path and came out onto the level ground that lay before Mitsiwa.

"This is the field of our victory!" Fasilides crowed, and stood in his stirrups to make a sweeping gesture that encompassed the grisly plain. Although the battle had taken place weeks before, the carrion birds still hovered over the field like a dark cloud, and the jackals and pariah dogs snarled over piles of bones and chewed at the sun blackened flesh that still clung to them. The flies were blue in the air like swarming bees. They crawled on Hal's face and tried to drink from his eyes and tickled his nostrils. Their white maggots swarmed and wriggled so thickly in the rotting corpses that they appeared to move as though they still lived.

The human scavengers were also at work across the wide battlefield, women and their children in long dusty robes, their mouths and noses covered against the stench. Each carried a basket to hold their gleanings of buttons, small coins, jewellery, daggers and the rings they tore from the skeletal fingers of the corpses.

"Ten thousand enemy dead!" Fasilides said triumphantly, and led them on a track that left the battlefield and skirted the walled town of Mitsiwa. "Nazet is too much a warrior to have our army bottled up behind those walls, he said. "From those heights Nazet commands the terrain." He pointed ahead to the first folds and peaks of the highlands.

Beyond the town on the open ground below the bleak hills the victorious army of Emperor Iyasu was encamped. It was a sprawling city of leather tents and hastily built huts and lean-tos of stone and thatch that stretched five leagues from the sea to the hills. The horses, camels and bullocks stood in great herds amongst the rude dwellings, and a cloud of shifting dust and blue smoke from the fires of dried dung blotted out the blue of the sky. The ammonia cal stink of the animal lines, the smoke and the stench of rubbish dumps rotting in the sun, the dunghills and the latrine pits, the ripe odour of carrion and unwashed humanity under the desert sun rivalled the effusions of the battlefield.

They passed squadrons of cavalry on magnificent chargers with trailing manes and proudly arched tail plumes. The riders were clad in weird armour and fanciful costume of rainbow colours. They were armed with bow and lance and long-barrelled jezails with curved and jewelled butts.

The artillery parks were scattered over a league of sand and rock, and there were hundreds of cannon. Some of the colossal siege guns were shaped like dolphins and dragons on carriages drawn by a hundred bullocks each. The ammunition wagons, loaded with kegs of black powder were drawn up in massed squares.

Regiments of foot-soldiers marched and counter marched They had added to their own diverse and exotic uniforms the plunder of the battlefield so that no two men were dressed alike. Their shields and bucklers, were square, round and oblong, made from brass, wood or rawhide. Their faces were hawklike and dark, and their beards were silver as beach sand, or sable as the wings of the carrion crows that soared above the camp.

"Sixty thousand men," said Fasilides. "With the Tabernacle and Nazet at their head, no enemy can stand before them."

The whores and camp-followers who were not scavenging the battlefield were almost as numerous as the men. They tended the cooking fires or lolled in the sparse shade of the baggage wagons. The Somali women were tall and mysteriously veiled, the Galla girls bare-breasted an, bold-eyed. Some picked out Hal's virile broad-shouldered figure and shouted unintelligible invitations to him, making their meanings plain by the lewd gestures that accompanied them.

"No, Gundwane," Aboli muttered in his ear. "Do not even think about it, for the Galla circumcise their women. Where you might expect a moist and oleaginous welcome, you would find only a dry, scarred pit."

So dense was this array of men, women and beasts that their progress was reduced to a walk. When the faithful recognized the Bishop, they flocked to him and fell to their knees in the path of his horse to beg his blessing.

At last they forged their way out of this morass of humanity, and spurred up the steep track into the hills. Fasilides led them at a gallop, his robes swirling about his wiry figure and his beard streaming out over his shoulder. At the crest he reined in his steed and pointed to the south. "There!" he cried. "There is Adulis Bay, and there before the port of Zulla lies the army of Islam." Hal shaded his eyes against the desert glare, and saw that the dun cloud of smoke and dust was shot through with sparks of reflected sunlight from the artillery trains and the weapons of another vast army.

"How many men does El Grang command in his legions?" "That was my mission when you found me to find the answer to that question from our spies."

"How many, then?" Hal persisted, and Fasilides laughed. "The answer to that question is for the ears of General Nazet alone" he said, and spurred his horse. They climbed higher along the rough track, and came up onto the next ridge.

"There!" Fasilides pointed ahead. "There stands the monastery of St. Luke."

It clung to a rugged hill top. The walls were high and their harsh square outline unrelieved by ornament, column or architrave. One of the Bishop's outriders blew a blast on a ram's horn, and the single massive wooden gate swung open before them. They galloped through into the courtyard, and dismounted before the keep. Grooms ran forward to take their horses and lead them away.

"This way!" Fasilides ordered, and strode through a narrow doorway into the warren of passageways and staircases beyond. Their boots clattered on the stone paving and echoed in the corridors and smoky halls.

Abruptly they found themselves in a dark, cavernous chapel, whose domed ceiling was lost in the gloom high overhead. Hundreds of flickering candles and the glow from suspended incense burners illuminated the hanging tapestries of saints and martyrs, the tattered banners of the monastic orders and the painted and bejewelled icons.

Fasilides knelt at the altar, on which stood a silver Coptic cross, six feet tall. Hal knelt beside him but Aboli stood behind them, his arms folded over his chest.

"God of our fathers, Lord of hosts!" the Bishop prayed, in Latin for Hal's benefit. "We give thanks for your bounty and for the mighty victory over the pagan which you have vouchsafed us. We commend this your servant, Henry Courtney, to your care. May he prosper in the service of the one true God, and may his arms prevail against the unbelievers."

Hal had barely time to complete his genuflections and his amens before the Bishop was up and away again, leading him to a smaller shrine off the nave.

"Wait here!" he said. He went directly to the vividly coloured woollen wall-hanging behind the smaller altar and drew it aside to reveal a low, narrow doorway. Then he stooped through the opening and disappeared.

When Hal looked around the shrine, he saw that it was more richly furnished than the bleak, gloomy chapel. The small altar was covered with foil of yellow metal that might have been brass but which shone like pure gold in the candle-light. The cross was decorated with large coloured stones. Perhaps these were merely glass, but it seemed to Hal that they had the lustre of emerald, ruby and diamond. The shelves that rose to the vaulted roof were loaded with offerings from wealthy and noble penitents and supplicants. Some must have stood untouched for centuries for they were thickly coated with dust and cobwebs so that their true nature was hidden. Five monks in grubby, ragged habits knelt at prayer before the statue of a black-featured Virgin Mary with a little black Jesus in her arms. They did not look up from their devotions at his intrusion.

Hal and Aboli stood together, leaning against a stone column at the back of the shrine, and time stretched out. The air was heavy and oppressive with incense and antiquity. The soft chanting of the monks was hypnotic. Hal felt sleep coming over him in waves and it was an effort to fight it off and keep his eyes from closing.

Suddenly there came the patter of running feet from beyond the wall-hanging. Hal straightened as a small boy appeared from under the curtain and, with all the exuberance of a puppy, rushed into the shrine. He skidded to a halt on the paving. He was four or five years of age, dressed in a plain white cotton shift and his feet were bare. His head was covered with shining black curls that danced as he looked about the shrine eagerly. His eyes were dark, and as large as those of the saints pictured in the stylized portraits that hung on the stone walls behind him.

He saw Hal, ran to where he stood and stopped in front of him. He stared at Hal with such solemnity that Hal was enchanted by the pretty elf, and went down on one knee so that they could study each other at the same level.

The boy said something in the language that Hal could now recognize as Geez. It was obviously a request but Hal could not even guess at the substance of it. "You too!" Hal laughed, but the child was serious and asked the question again. Hal shrugged, and the boy stamped his foot and asked the third time.

"Yes!" Hal nodded vigorously. The boy laughed delightedly and clapped his hands. Hal straightened up but the child opened his arms and gave a command that could mean only one thing. "You want to be picked up?" Hal stooped and gathered him in his arms where the boy stared into his eyes then spoke again, pointing so passionately at Hal's face that he almost impaled one eye with his little finger.

"I cannot understand what you're saying, little one," Hal said gently.

Fasilides had come up silently behind him and now said solemnly, "His Most Christian Majesty, Iyasu, King of Kings, Ruler of Galla and Amhara, Defender of the Faith of Christ Crucified, remarks that your eyes are of a strange green colour unlike any he has seen before."

Hal stared into the angelic features of the imp he held in his arms. "This is the Prester John?" he asked in awe. "Indeed," replied the bishop. "You have also promised to take him for a sail on your tall ship, which I have described to him."

"Would you inform the Emperor that I would be deeply honoured to have him as a guest aboard the Golden Bough?" Suddenly Iyasu wriggled down from Hal's arms, seized his hand and dragged him towards the concealed doorway. Beyond the opening they went down a long passageway lit with torches in iron brackets on the stone walls. At the end of the passage were two armed guards, but the Emperor squeaked an order and they stood aside and saluted His tiny Majesty. Iyasu led Hal into a long chamber.

Narrow embrasures were set high up in the walls, and through these the brilliant desert sunlight beamed down in solid golden shafts. A long table ran the length of the chamber, and seated at it were five men. They stood up and bowed deeply to Iyasu, then looked keenly at Hal.

They were all warriors that much was clear from their bearing and their attire. they wore chain-mail and cuirass, and some had steel helmets on their heads, and tunics over the armour, which were emblazoned with crosses or other heraldic devices.

At the far end of the table stood the youngest and most simply dressed yet the most impressive and commanding of all. Hal's eye was drawn immediately to this slim, graceful figure.

Iyasu drew Hal impatiently towards him, chattering in Geez, and the warrior watched them with a steady, frank gaze. Although he gave the illusion of height, he was in fact a head shorter than Hal. A shaft of sunlight from one of the high embrasures backlit him, surrounding him with a golden aura in which the dust motes danced and swirled.

"Are you "General Nazet?" Hal asked in Latin, and the General nodded. Around his head was a huge bush of crisp curls, like a dark crown or a halo. He wore a white tunic over the shirt of chain-mail, but even under that bulky covering his waist was narrow and his back straight and supple.

"I am indeed General Nazet." His voice was low and husky, yet strangely musical to the ear. Hal realized with a shock how young he was. His skin was flawless, the dark translucent amber of gum arabic. No trace of beard or moustache marred his sleek jawline or the proud curl of his full lips. His nose was straight and narrow, the nostrils finely chiselled.

"I am Henry Courtney," said Hal, "the English Captain of the Golden Bough."

"Bishop Fasilides has told me this," said the General. "Perhaps you would prefer to speak your own language." Nazet switched into English. "I must admit that my Latin is not as fluent as yours, Captain."

Hal gaped at him, for the moment at a loss, and Nazet smiled. "My father was ambassador to the palace of the Doge in Venice. I spent much of my childhood in your northern latitudes and learned the languages of diplomacy, French, Italian and English."

"You astound me, General," Hal admitted, and while he gathered his wits, he noticed that Nazet's eyes were the colour of honey and his lashes long, thick and curled as those of a girl. He had never felt sexually attracted to another male before. Now, however, as he looked on those regal features and fine golden skin, and stared into those lustrous eyes, he became aware of a pressure in his chest that made it difficult for him to draw the next breath.

"Please be seated, Captain." Nazet indicated the stool beside him. They sat so close together that he could smell the odour of the other man's body. Nazet wore no perfume, and it was a natural, warm, musky smell that Hal found himself savouring deeply. Guiltily, he acknowledged how unnatural was this sinful attraction he felt, and drew back from the General as far as the hard, low stool would allow him.

The Emperor scrambled into General Nazet's lap and patted his smooth golden cheek, gabbling something in a high, childish voice at which the General laughed softly and replied in Geez, without taking his eyes off Hal's face.

Tasilides tells me that you have come to Ethiopia to offer your services in the cause of the Most Christian Emperor."

"That is so. I have come to petition His Majesty to grant me a Letter of Marque, so that I may employ my ship against the enemies of Christ."

"You have arrived at a most propitious time." Nazet nodded. "Has Fasilides told you of the defeat that our navy suffered at Adulis Bay?"

"He has also told me of your magnificent victory at Mitsiwa."

Nazet showed no false pride at the compliment. "The one counterbalances the other," he said. "If El Grang commands the sea, he can bring in endless reinforcements and stores from Arabia and the territory of the Mogul to replenish his wasted army. Already he has made good all the losses I inflicted upon him at Mitsiwa. I am waiting for reinforcements to arrive from the mountains, so I am not ready to attack him again where he lies at Zulla. Every day he is fed from the sea and grows stronger."

Hal inclined his head. "I understand your predicament." There was something about the General's voice that troubled him. as Nazet became more agitated its timbre altered. Hal had to make an effort to consider the words and not the speaker.

"A new menace now besets me," Nazet went on. "El Grang has taken into his service a foreign ship of greater force than any we can send out to meet it." Hal felt a prickle of anticipation run down the back of his neck and the hairs rise upon his forearms.

"What manner of ship is this? "he asked softly.

"I am no sailor, but my admirals tell me that it is a square-rigged ship of the frigate class." Nazet looked keenly at Hal. "It must be similar to your own vessel."

"Do you know the name of the captain?" Hal demanded, but Nazet shook his head.

"I know only that he is inflicting terrible losses on our transport dhows that I rely on to bring supplies down from the north."

"What flag does he fly?" Hal persisted.

Nazet spoke rapidly to one of the officers in Geez, then turned back to him. "This ship flies the pennant of Omani, but also a red cross of unusual shape on a white ground."

"I think I know this marauder," said Hal grimly, "and I will pit my own vessel against his at the first opportunity that is, if His Most Christian Majesty will grant me a commission to serve as a privateer in his navy."

"At Fasilides" urging, I have already ordered the court scribes to draft your commission. We need only agree the terms and I shall sign it on the Emperor's behalf." Nazet rose from the stool. "But come, let me show you in detail the position of our forces and those of El Grang." He led the way to the far side of the chamber, and the other senior officers rose with him. They surrounded the circular table on which, Hal saw, had been built a clay model of the Red Sea and the surrounding territories. It was executed in graphic detail, and realistically painted. Each town and port was clearly shown, tiny carved ships sailed upon the blue waters while regiments of cavalry and foot were represented by model figures carved in ivory and painted in splendid uniform.

As they studied this soberly, the Emperor dragged up a stool and climbed onto it so that he could reach the models. With squeals of glee and the childish imitations of neighing horses and firing cannon, he began to move the figures about the board. Nazet reached out to restrain him, and Hal stared at the hand. It was slim and smooth and dainty, with long, tapered fingers, the nails pearly pink. Suddenly the truth dawned on him and, before he could prevent himself, he blurted out in English, "Mother Mary, you're a woman!" Nazet glanced up at him, and her amber cheeks darkened with annoyance. "I advise you not to disparage me on account of my gender, Captain. As an Englishman, you might remember the military lesson a woman handed out to you at OrleansI."

The retort rose to Hal's lips, "Yes, but that was more than two hundred years ago and we burned her for her troubles!" but he managed to stop himself and instead tried to make his tone placatory.

"I meant no offence, General. It only enhances the admiration I had already conceived for your powers of leadership."

Nazet was not so easily mollified and her manner became brisk and businesslike as she explained the tactical and strategic positions of the two armies and pointed out to him where he might best employ the GoLden Bough. She no longer looked at him directly, and the line of those full soft lips had hardened. "I will expect you to place yourself under MY direct command, and to that end I have ordered Admiral Senec to draw up a simple set of signals, rockets and lanterns by night and flags and smoke by day, through which I can pass my orders from the shore to you at sea. Do you have any objection to that?"

No, General, I do not."

"As to your share of the prize money, two-thirds will accrue to the Imperial exchequer, and the balance to you and your crew."

"It is customary for the ship to retain half of the prize, Hal demurred.

"Captain," said Nazet coldly, "in these seas the custom is set by His Most Christian Majesty."

"Then I must concur." Hal smiled ironically, but received no encouragement to further levity from Nazet.

"Any warlike stores or provisions you may capture will be purchased by the exchequer, and likewise any enemy vessels will be purchased by the navy."

She looked away from him as a scribe entered the chamber and bowed before handing her a document written on stiff yellow parchment. Nazet glanced swiftly through it then took up the quill that the scribe handed her, filled in the blanks in the script and signed at the foot, "Judith Nazet', and added a cross behind her name.

As she sanded the wet ink she said, "It is written in Geez, but I will have a translation prepared for you when next we meet. In the meantime, I give you my assurance that this letter sets out exactly the terms we have discussed." She rolled the document, secured it with a ribbon and handed it to Hal.

"Your assurance is sufficient for me." Hal slipped the rolled document into the sleeve of his tunic.

"I am certain you are eager to rejoin your ship, Captain. I will detain you no longer." With that dismissal, she seemed to forget his existence and turned her full attention back to her commanders and the clay panorama of the battlefield on the tabletop in front of her.

"You spoke of a series of signals, General." Despite her Uncompromising manner, Hal found himself strangely reluctant to leave her presence. He was drawn to her in the way a compass needle seeks the north.

She did not look up at him again but said, "Admiral Senec will have a signal book sent out to your ship before you sail. Bishop Fasilides will see you to where your horses are waiting. Farewell, Captain."

As Hal strode down the long stone passageway alongside the Bishop he said quietly, "The Tabernacle of Mary is here in this monastery. Am I right in believing that?"

Fasilides stopped dead in his tracks and stared at him. "How did you know? Who told you?"

"As a devout Christian I should like to look upon such a sacred object, "said Hal. "Can you grant me that wish?" Fasilides tugged nervously at his beard. "Perhaps. We shall see. Come with me." He led Hal to where Aboli still waited and then both of them followed him through another maze of stairways and passages, then stopped before a doorway guarded by four priests in robes and turbans.

"Is this man of yours a Christian?" he asked as he looked at Aboli, and Hal shook his head. "Then he must remain here."

The Bishop took Hal's arm and led him to the door. He spoke softly in Geez to one of the priests, and the old man took a huge black key from under his robe and turned the lock. Fasilides drew Hal into the crypt beyond.

Surrounded by a forest of burning candles in tall, many branched brass holders, the Tabernacle stood in the centre of the paved floor.

Hal felt an overwhelming sense of awe and grace come upon him. He knew that this was one of the supreme moments of his life, perhaps even the reason for his birth and existence.

The Tabernacle was a small chest that stood on four legs, carved like the paws of a lion. There were four carrying handles. Its square body was covered with a tapestry of silver and gold embroidery that had the patina of great age upon it. On each end of the lid knelt a miniature golden statue of an angel, with head bowed and hands clasped in prayer. It was a thing of exquisite beauty.

Hal fell to his knees in the same attitude as the golden angels. "Lord God of Hosts, I have come to do your bidding, as you commanded," he began to pray aloud. After a long while, he crossed himself and rose to his feet.

"May I see the chalice?" he asked deferentially, but Fasilides shook his head.

"Not even I have seen it. It is too holy for the eyes of mortal man. It would blind you."

The Ethiopian pilot guided the Golden Bough southwards in the night under top sails alone. With a leadsman taking soundings they crept up into the lee of Dahlak Island off the mouth of Adulis Bay.

Anxiously Hal listened in the darkness to the chant of the leadsman, "No bottom with this line!" and minutes later, "No bottom with this line!" and then the plop of the lead as it was swung out ahead of the bows and hit the surface. Suddenly the chant altered and the leadsman's voice took on a sharper tone. "By the deep, twenty!"

"Mister Tyler!" Hal barked. "Take another reef in your top sails. Stand by to let the anchor go!"

"By the mark, ten! "The leadsman's next cry was sharper still.

"Furl all your canvas. Let go your anchor!"

The anchor went down and the Golden Bough glided on a short distance before she snubbed up on the cable.

"Take the deck, Mister Tyler," Hal said. "I am going aloft." He went up the shrouds from deck to the top of the mainmast without a pause, and was pleased that his breathing was merely deep and even when he reached the canvas crow's nest.

"I see you, Gundwane!" Aboli greeted him, and made room for him in the canvas nest. Hal settled beside him and looked first to the land. Dahlak Island was a darker mass in the dark night, but they were a full cable's length clear of her rocks. Then he looked to the west and saw the sweep of Adulis Bay, clearly outlined by the fires of El Grang's army encamped along the shoreline around the little port of Zulla. The waters of the bay sparkled with the riding lanterns of the anchored fleet of Islam. He tried to count those lights but gave up when the tally reached sixty-four. He wondered if one of those was the Gull of Moray, and felt his guts contract at the thought.

He turned to look into the east and saw the first pale promise of the dawn silhouette the rugged peaks of Arabia, from which came El Grang's transport dhows laden with men, horses and provisions to swell his legions.

Then, below the dawn on the dark sea, he saw the riding lanterns of other ships winking like fireflies as they sailed in on the night breeze towards Adulis Bay.

"Can you count them, Aboli?" he asked, and Aboli chuckled.

"My eyes are not as sharp as yours, Gundwane. Let us say merely that there are many, and wait for the dawn to disclose their true numbers," he murmured.

They waited in the silence of old companions, and both felt the chill of the coming dawn warmed away by the promise of battle that the day must bring, for this narrow sea swarmed with the ships of the enemy.

The eastern sky began to glow like an ironsmith's forge. The rocks of the island close at hand showed pale through the gloom, painted white by the dung of the sea birds that for centuries had roosted upon them. From their rocky perches the birds launched into flight. In staggered arrowhead formations they flew across the red dawn sky uttering wild, haunting cries. Looking up at them Hal felt the morning wind brush his cheek with cool fingers. It was blowing out of the west as he had relied upon it to do. He had the flotilla of small dhows under his lee, and at his mercy.

The rising sun flared upon the mountain tops and set them aflame. Far out beyond the low rocks of the island a sail glinted on the dark ting waters, and then another and, as the circle of their vision expanded, a dozen more.

Hal slapped Aboli lightly on the shoulder. "It is time to go to work, old friend, "he said, and slid down the shrouds. As his feet hit the deck he called to the helm, "Up anchor, Mister Tyler. All hands aloft to set sail."

Released from restraint the Golden Bough spread her canvas and wheeled away. The waters rustling under her bows and her wake creaming behind her, she sped out from her ambush behind Dahlak Island.

The light was bright enough by now for Hal to make out clearly his quarry scattered across the wind-flecked waters ahead. He looked eagerly for the piled canvas of a tall ship among them, but saw only the single lateen sails of the Arabian dhows.

The closest of these vessels seemed unalarmed by the Golden Bough's appearance, her high pyramid of sails standing right across the entrance to Adulis Bay. They held their course and, as the frigate bore down upon the nearest of them, Hal saw the crew and passengers lining the dhow's side and peering across at them. Some had scampered up the stubby mast and were waving a greeting.

Hal stopped beside the helm and said to Ned Tyler, "Tis likely that they have seen only one other ship like ours in these waters and that's the Gull. They take us for an ally." He looked up to where his topmast men hung in the rigging, ready to handle the great mass of canvas. Then he looked back along the deck, where the gunners were fussing over the culver ins and the powder boys were scurrying up from below decks with their deadly burdens.

"Mister Fisher!" he called. "Load one battery on each side with ball, all the others with chain and grape, if you please." Big Daniel grinned, with black and rotten teeth, and knuckled his brow. Hal wanted simply to disable the enemy vessels, not sink or burn them. Even the smallest and poorest of those craft must be worth a great deal to the exchequer of His Most Christian Majesty, if he could capture them and deliver them to Admiral Senec at Mitsiwa. The battery on each side loaded with ball would be held in reserve.

The first dhow was so close ahead that Hal could see the expressions on the faces of her crew. They were a dozen or so sailors, dressed in ragged and faded robes and haik turbans. Most were still smiling and waving but the old man at the tiller in the stern was looking about wildly, as if to seek some providential escape from the tall hull that was racing down upon his little vessel.

"Break out our colours, if you please, Mister Tyler," Hal ordered, and watched the croix pott6e unfurl alongside the white Coptic cross of the Empire on its royal blue ground. The dismay on the faces of the dhow's crew as they saw the cross of their doom spread before their eyes was pathetic to behold and Hal gave his next order. "Run out your guns, Master Daniel!" The Golden Bough's gun ports crashed back and the hull reverberated to the rumble of the guns as the culver ins poked out their bronze muzzles.

"I'll pass the chase close to starboard. Fire as you bear, Master DanielP Big Daniel raced to the bows and took command of the number-one starboard battery. Hal saw him move swiftly from gun to gun to check their laying, inserting the wedges to lower the aim. They would be firing almost directly down into the dhow as they swept past her.

The Golden Bough rushed down silently upon the little craft, and Hal said quietly to the helm, "Slowly bring her up a point to larboard."

As they realized the menace of the gaping guns, the crew of the dhow fled from the rail and flung themselves down behind the stubby little mast or crouched behind the bales and casks that cluttered her deck.

The first battery fired together in one smoking, thunderous discharge and every shot struck home. The base of the mast was blown away in a storm of white wood splinters and her riggings crashed down to hang over side in an untidy tangle of rope and canvas. The old man at the tiller disappeared, as though turned to air by a wizard's spell. He left only a red smear on the torn planking.

"Avast firing!" Hal bellowed, to make himself heard in the ear-numbing aftermath of the gunfire. The dhow was crippled. her bows were already swinging away before the wind, the tiller shot away and her mast gone overboard. The Golden Bough left her rolling in her wake.

"Hold your course, Mister Tyler." The Golden Bough tore straight at the flotilla of small craft strewn across the blue waters ahead. These had seen the merciless treatment of the first dhow and the Imperial colours flying at the frigate's masthead, and now every one put his helm hard up and came around before the wind. Goose-winged, they fled before the Golden Bough's charge.

"Steer for the vessel dead ahead!" said Hal quietly, and Ned Tyler brought the frigate around a point. The dhow Hal had chosen was one of the largest in sight, and its open deck was crowded with men. There must be at least three hundred packed into her, Hal estimated. It was a short voyage across the narrow sea, and her captain had taken a risk. she was carrying far more troops than was prudent.

A thin shout of defiance reached Hal's ears as they closed the range. "Allah Akbar! God is great!" Steel war helmets glinted on the heads of the Omani troops, and they brandished their long, curved scimitars. There came an untidy volley of musket fire, aimed at the frigate, the popping of the jezails and puffs of gunsmoke along the dhow's side. A lead ball thudded into the mast above Hal's head.

"Every man aboard her is a soldier," Hal said aloud. He did not have to add that if they were allowed to reach the western shore of the sea they would march against Judith Nazet. "Give her a volley of ball.

Sink her, Master Daniel!"

The heavy iron cannonballs raked the troopship from deck to keel and split her like kindling under the axe. The sea rushed in through her torn belly. She capsized and the water was suddenly filled with the bobbing heads of struggling, drowning men.

"Steer for that vessel with the silver pennant." Hal did not look back but tore through the fleet like a barracuda into a shoal of flying fish. Not one could outrun him. With her mountain of white sails driving her, the Golden Bough flew upon them as if they were at anchor, and her guns crashed out in flame and smoke. Some of the little ships burst open and sank, others were left in the frigate's wake with mast snapped away and sails dragging alongside. Some of the sailors threw themselves overboard at the moment that the culver ins came to beat upon them. They preferred the sharks to the blast of guns.

Several ran for the nearest island and tried to anchor in the shoal waters where the Golden Bough could not follow. Others deliberately ran aground, and their crews dived overboard to swim and wade to the beach.

Only those ships furthest to the east and closest to the Arabian coast had the head start to run from the frigate's charge. Hal looked asterric and saw the water behind him dotted with the floundering hulls of those he had overtaken. Every mile he chased the survivors eastwards was a mile further from Mitsiwa.

"None of those will come back in a hurry!" he said grimly, as he watched them fly in confusion. "Mister Tyler, please be good enough to wear the ship around and lay her close hauled on the starboard tack."

This was the Golden Bough's best point of sailing. "There is no dhow built in all Arabia that can point higher into the wind than my darling can," Hal said aloud, as he saw twenty sail to windward trying to escape by beating up into the west. The Golden Bough tore back into the scattered fleet, and now some of the dhows dropped their wide triangular main sail as they saw him coming and screamed to Allah for mercy.

Hal checked the frigate as he came alongside each of these, bringing her head to the wind as he launched a boat and sent a prize crew, comprising one white seaman and six of his Amadoda, to board the surrendered ship. "If there is nothing of value in her cargo, take off her crew and put a torch to her."

By late that afternoon, Hal had five large dhows on tow behind the Golden Bough, and another seven sailing in company with him, under jury-rigging and with his prize crews aboard, as they headed back towards Mitsiwa. Every one of the captured vessels was heavily laden with vital provisions of war. Behind him, the sky was dulled with the smoke of the burning hulls and the sea was littered with the wreckage.

General Nazet sat on her black Arabian stallion and watched from the cliff tops as this untidy flotilla straggled into Mitsiwa Roads. At last she closed her telescope and remarked to Admiral Senec beside her, "I see why you call him El Tazar! This Englishman is a barracuda, indeed." Then she turned away her face so that he could not see the thoughtful smile that softened her handsome features. El Tazar. It is a good name for him, she thought, and then, irrelevantly, another notion occurred to her. I wonder if he is as fierce a lover as he is a warrior. It was the first time since God had chosen her to lead his legions against the pagan that she had looked at any man through a woman's eyes.

Colonel Cornelius Schreuder dismounted in front of the spreading tent of shimmering red &C and yellow silk. A groom took his horse and he paused to look around the encampment. The royal tent stood on a small knoll overlooking Adulis Bay. Up here the sea breeze cooled the air and made it possible to breathe. On the plain below, where the army of Islam was bivouacked around the port of ZuIla, the stones crackled in the heat and shimmered in the mirage.

The bay was crowded with shipping, but the tall masts of the Gull of Moray dominated all others. The Earl of Cumbrae's ship had come in during the night, and now Schreuder heard his voice raised in argument within the silken tent. His lips twitched in a smile that lacked humour, and he adjusted the hang of the golden sword at his side before he strode to the flap of the tent. A tall subahdar bowed to him. All the troops of Islam had come to know him well. in the short time he had served with them, Schreuder's feats of daring had become legend in the Mogul's army. The officer ushered him into the royal presence.

The interior of the tent was commodious and sumptuously furnished.

The entire floor was thickly covered with gorgeously coloured silk carpets and silken draperies formed a double skin that kept out the sun's heat. The low tables were of ivory and rare wood, and the vessels upon them were of solid gold.

The Great Mogul's brother, the Maharajah Sadiq Khan Jahan, sat in the centre on a pile of silk cushions. He wore a tunic of padded yellow silk and striped pantaloons of red and gold. The slippers on his feet were scarlet with long, curling toes and buckles of gold. His turban was yellow and secured above his brow by an emerald the size of a walnut. He was close-shaven, with only a kohl line of fine moustache upon his petulant upper lip. Across his lap was a scimitar in a scabbard so richly encrusted with jewels that the sparkle of them pricked the eye. On one gloved hand he held a falcon, a magnificent Saker of the desert. He lifted the bird and kissed its beak as tenderly as if it had been a beautiful woman or rather, Schreuder thought bleakly, as if it were one of his pretty dancing boys.

A little behind him, on another pile of cushions, sat Ahmed El Grang, the Left Hand of Allah. He was so wide-shouldered as to seem deformed, and his neck was thick and corded with muscle. He wore a steel war helmet and his beard was dyed with henna, red as that of the Prophet. His massive chest was covered with a steel cuirass, and there were bracelets of steel upon his wrists. His brows beetled and his eyes were as cold and implacable as those of an eagle.

Behind this ill-matched pair sat a host of courtiers and officers, all richly dressed. Before the Prince knelt a translator who, his forehead pressed to the ground, was trying to keep up with the Buzzard's flood of invective.

The Buzzard stood before the Prince with his fists bunched on his hips. On his head was his beribboned bonnet, and his beard was more bushy and fiery than the dyed, barbered curls that covered El Grang's chin. He wore half armour above his plaid. He turned with relief when Schreuder entered the tent and made deep and respectful obeisance, first to the Prince and then to El Grang.

"Jesus love you, Colonel. I need you now to talk some sense into these two lovely laddies. This ape." " Curnbrae spurned the grovelling translator with his boot. "This ape is blethering away, and making a nonsense of what I'm telling them." He knew that Schreuder had spent many years in the Orient, and that Arabic was one of the languages in which he was fluent.

"Tell them that I came here to take prizes, not to match my Gull against a ship of equal force and have her shot away beneath my feed" the Buzzard instructed him. "They want me to do battle with the Golden Bough."

"Explain the matter to me more fully," Schreuder invited. "That way I may be able to assist you."

"The Golden Bough has arrived in these waters we must presume under the command of young Courtney," the Buzzard told him.

Schreuder's face darkened at the name. "Will we never be rid of him?"

"It seems not." Cumbrae chuckled. "In any event, he is flying the white cross of the Empire, and whaling into El Grang's transports with a vengeance. He has sunk and captured twenty-three sail in the last week, and no Mussulman captains will put out to sea while he is in the offing. Single-handed he is blockading the entire coast of Ethiopia." He shook his head in reluctant admiration. "From the Cliffs above Tenwera, I watched him fall upon a flotilla of El Grang's war dhows. He cut them to pieces. By Jesus, he handles his ship as well as Franky ever could. He sailed circles around those Mussulmen and shot them out of the water. The entire fleet of Allah the All Merciful is all bottled up in port, and El Grang is starved of reinforcements and stores. The Mussulmen call young Courtney El Tam, the Barracuda, and not one will go out to face him."

Then his grin faded and he looked lugubrious. "The Golden Bough is bright and clean of weed. My Gulf has been at sea for nigh on three years. Her timbers are riddled with shipworm. I would guess that, even on my best point of sailing, the Golden Bough has at least three knots of speed on me."

"What do you want me "to tell his highness!" Schreuder asked scornfully. "That you are afraid to meet young Courtney?" , "I am afraid of no man living or dead, for that matter. But there is no profit in it for me. Hal Courtney has nothing I want, but if it comes to a single-ship fight, he could do me and my Gull fearful damage. If they want me to fight him they will have to sweeten my cup a little."

Schreuder turned back to the Prince and explained this to him in carefully chosen diplomatic terms. Sadiq Khan Jahan stroked his falcon as he listened expressionlessly, and the bird ruffled out its feathers and hooded its yellow eyes. When Schreuder had finished, the Prince turned to El Grang. "What did you say they called this red-bearded braggart?"

"They call him the Buzzard, your highness," El Grang replied hoarsely.

"A name well chosen, for it seems he prefers to pick out the eyes of the weak and the dying and scavenge the leavings of fiercer creatures rather than to kill for himself. He is no falcon."

El Grang nodded agreement, and the Prince turned back to Schreuder. "Ask this noble bird of prey what payment he demands for fighting El Tazar."

"Tell the pretty boy I want a lakh of rupees in gold coin, and I want it in my hands before I leave port," Cumbrae replied, and even Schreuder gasped at the audacity. One lakh was a hundred thousand rupees. The Buzzard went on amiably, "You see, I have got the Prince with his bum in the air and his pantaloons round his ankles. I intend to tup him full length, but not the way he likes it."

Schreuder listened to the Prince's reply, then turned back to Cumbrae. "He says that you could build twenty ships like the Gull for a lakh."

"That may be so, but it won't buy me a pair of balls to replace the ones that Hal Courtney shoots away."

The Prince smiled at this response. "Tell the Buzzard he must have lost them long ago, but he makes a fine eunuch. I could always find a place for him in my harem."

The Buzzard guffawed at the insult, but shook his head. "Tell the pretty pederast, no gold and the Buzzard flies away."

The Prince and El Grang whispered to each other, gesticulating. At last, they seemed to reach a decision.

"I have another proposition that the bold captain might find more to his taste. The risk he takes will not be so great, but he will receive the lakh he demands." The Prince rose to his feet, and all his court fell upon their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground. "I will leave Sultan Ahmed El Grang to explain this to you in secrecy."

He retired through the curtains at the back of the tent, and all his retinue went with him, leaving only the two Europeans and the Sultan in the cavern of silk.

El Grang gestured to both men to come closer and to sit in front of him. "What I have to say is for the ears of no other living soul." While he arranged his thoughts, he fingered the old lance wound that ran in a ridge of raised scar tissue from below his ear, down under the high collar of his tunic. half his vocal cords had been severed by that old injury. He began to speak, in his hoarse, wheezing voice. "The Emperor was slain before Suakin and his infant son Iyasu has inherited the crown of Prester John. His armies were in disarray when there arose a female prophet who proclaimed that she had been chosen by the Christian God to lead his armies. She came down from the mountains leading fifty thousand fighting men and carrying before her a religious talisman that they call the Tabernacle of Mary. Her armies, inspired by religious fanaticism, were able to check us at Mitsiwa."

Both Schreuder and Cochran nodded. This was nothing new. "Now, Allah has given me the opportunity to seize both this talisman and the person of the infant Emperor." El Grang sat back and lapsed into silence, watching the faces of the two white men shrewdly.

"With the Tabernacle and the Emperor in your hands, the armies of Nazet would dissolve like snow in the summer sun," Schreuder said softly.

El Grang nodded. "A renegade monk has come in to us, and offered to lead a small party commanded by a bold man to the place where both the talisman and the Emperor are hidden. Once the child and the Tabernacle have been captured, I will need a fast, powerful ship to carry them to Muscat before Nazet can make an attempt to rescue them from us." He turned to Schreuder and said, "You, Colonel, are the bold man I need. If you succeed your payment will also be a lakh."

Then El Grang looked at Cochran. "Yours is the fast ship to carry them to Muscat. When you deliver them there, there will be another lakh for you." He smiled coldly. "This time I will pay you to fly from El Tazar, rather than confront him. Are your balls big and heavy enough for that task, my brave Buzzard?"

The Golden Bough ran southwards, her sails glowing in the last rays of the sun, like a tower of gold.

"The Gull of Moray lies at anchor in Adulis Bay," Fasilides" spies had brought the report, "and her captain is ashore. They say he sits in council with El Grang." But that intelligence was two days" stale.

"Will the Buzzard still be there?" Hal fretted to himself, and studied his sails. The Golden Bough could carry not another stitch of canvas, and every sail was drawing sweetly. The hull sliced through the water, and the deck vibrated beneath his feet like a living creature. If I find her still at anchor, we can board her even in darkness, Hal thought, and strode down the deck, checking the tackle of his guns. The white seamen knuckled their foreheads and grinned at him, while the squatting ranks of Amadoda grinned and crossed their chests with their open right hand in salute. They were like hunting dogs with the scent of the stag in their nostrils. He knew that they would not flinch when he laid the Golden Bough alongside the Gull and led them onto her deck.

The sun dipped towards the horizon and quenched its flames in the sea. The darkness descended and the outline of the land melted into it.

Moonrise in two hours, Hal thought, as he stopped by the binnacle to check the ship's heading. We will be into Adulis Bay by then. He looked up at Ned Tyler, whose face was lit by the compass lantern.

"Hoist our new canvas," he ordered, and Ned repeated the order through the speaking trumpet. The new canvas was laid out on the deck, the sheets already reeved into the clews and earing cringles, but it took an hour Of hard, dangerous work before her white canvas was brought down and stowed away, and the sails that were daubed with pitch were hoist to the yards and unfurled.

Black was her hull, and black as midnight her canvas. The Golden Bough would show no flash in the moonlight when they sailed into Adulis Bay to take unawares the anchored fleet of Islam.

Let the Buzzard be there, Hal prayed silently. Please, God, let him not have sailed.

Slowly the bay opened to them, and they saw the lanterns of the enemy fleet like the lights of a large town. Beyond them the watch fires of El Grang's host reflected off the belly of the low cloud of dust and smoke.

"Lay the ship on the larboard tack, Mister Tyler. Steer into the bay." The ship came around and bore swiftly towards the anchored fleet.

"Take a reef in your mains. Furl all your top-hamper, please, Mister Tyler." The ship's rush slowed and the rustle of the bow wave dwindled as they went in under fighting canvas.

Hal walked towards the bows and Aboli stood up out of the darkness. "Are your archers ready?" Hal asked.

Aboli's teeth flashed in the gloom. "They are ready, Gundwane."

Hal made them out now, dark shapes crouched along the ship's rail between the culver ins their bundles of arrows laid out on the deck.

"Keep them under your eye!" Hal cautioned him. If the Amadoda had one fault in battle it was that they could be carried away by their blood lust.

As he went on to Big Daniel's station in the waist, he was checking that all the burning slow-match was concealed in the tubs and that the glowing tips would not alert a watchful enemy. "Good evening, Master Daniel. Your men have never been in a night battle. Keep a tight rein. Don't let them start firing wildly."

He went back to the helm, and the ship crept on into the bay, a dark shadow on the dark waters. The moon rose behind them and lit the scene ahead with a silvery radiance, so that Hal could discern the shapes of the enemy fleet. He knew that his own ship was still invisible.

On they glided, and they were close enough now to hear the sounds from the moored vessels ahead, voices singing, praying and arguing. Someone was hammering a wooden mallet, and there was the creak of oars and the slotting of rigging as the dhows rolled gently at anchor.

Hal was straining his eyes to pick out the masts of the Gull of Moray, but he knew that if she were in the bay he would not be able to spot her until the first broadside lit the darkness.

"A large dhow dead ahead," he said quietly to Ned Tyler. "Steer to pass her close to starboard."

"Ready, Master Daniel!" He raised his voice. "On the vessel to starboard, fire as you bead." They crept up to the anchored dhow and, as she came fully abeam, the Golden Bough's full broadside lit the darkness like sheet lightning and the thunder of the guns stunned their ear-drums and echoed off the desert hills. In that brief eye-searing illumination Hal saw the masts and hulls of the entire enemy fleet brightly lit, and he felt the lead of disappointment heavy in his guts.

"The Gull has gone," he said aloud. Once again, the Buzzard had eluded him. There will be another time, he consoled himself. Firmly he put the distracting thought from his mind, and turned his full attention back to the battle that was opening like some hellish pageant before him.

The moment that first broadside tore into the quarry, Aboli did not have to wait for an order. The deck was lit by the flare of many bright flames as the Amadoda lit their fire-arrows. On each cane shaft, tied behind the iron arrowhead, was a tuft of unravelled hemp rope that had been soaked in pitch, which spluttered and then burned fiercely when touched with the slow-match, The archers loosed their arrows, which sailed up in a high, flaming parabola and dropped down to peg into the timbers of an anchored vessel. As the screams of terror and agony rose from the shot-shattered hull, the Golden Bough glided on deeper into the mass of shipping.

"Two vessels a point on either side of your bows," Hal told the helmsman. "Steer between them."