Birds of Prey

As they passed them close on either hand, the ship heeled first to one side and then to the other as her broadsides thundered out in quick succession, and a rain of rite-arrows fell from the sky upon the stricken vessels.

Behind them the first dhow was ablaze, and her flames lit the bay, brilliantly illuminating the quarry to the Golden Bough's gunners as she ran on amongst them.

"El Tazar!" As Hal heard the terrified Arab voices screaming his name from ship to ship, he smiled grimly and watched their panic-stricken efforts to cut their anchor cables and escape his terrible approach. Now five dhows were burning, and drifted out of control into the crowded anchorage.

Some enemy vessels were firing wildly, blazing away without making any attempt to lay their aim on the frigate. Stray cannonballs, aimed too high, howled overhead, while others, aimed too low, skipped across the surface of the water and crashed into the friendly ships anchored alongside them.

The flames jumped from ship to ship and the whole sweep of the bay was bright as day. Once again Hal looked for the Gull's tall masts. If she were here, by this time the Buzzard would have set sails and his silhouette would be unmistakable. But he was nowhere in sight, and Hal turned back angrily to the task of wreaking as much destruction as he could upon the fleet of Islam.

Behind them one of the blazing hulls must have been loaded with several hundred tons of black powder for El Grang's artillery. It went up in a vast tower of black smoke, shot through with flaring red flames as though the devil had flung open the doors of hell. The rolling column of smoke went on mounting into the night sky until its top was no longer visible and seemed to have reached into the heavens. The blast swept through the fleet striking down those vessels closest to it and shattering their timbers or rolling them over on their backs.

The wind from the explosion roared over the frigate and, for a moment, her sails were taken aback and she began to lose steerage way. Then the offshore night breeze took over and filled them once more. She bore onwards, deeper into the bay and into the heart of the enemy fleet.

Hal nodded with grim satisfaction each time one of the Golden Bough's salvoes crashed out. They were one sudden shock of thunder and a single flare of red flame as every gun fired at the same instant. Even Aboli's Arnadoda launched their flights of arrows in a single flaming cloud. In contrast, there was never such a wild discordant banging of uncontrolled shot as stuttered from the enemy ships.

El Grang's shore batteries began to open up as their sleep-groggy gunners stumbled to their colossal siege guns. Each discharge was like a separate clap of thunder, belittling even the roar of the frigate's massed volleys. Hal smiled each time one of their mighty muzzle flashes tore out from the rock-walled redoubts across the bay. The shore gunners could not possibly pick out the black sails of the Golden Bough in the confusion and smoke. They fired into their own fleet and Hal saw at least one enemy ship smashed to planks by a single ball from the shore.

"Stand by to go about!" Hal gave the order in one of the fleeting moments of quiet. The shore was coming up fast, and they would soon be landlocked in the depths of the bay. The topmast men handled the sails with perfect timing, and the bows swung through a wide. arc then steadied as they pointed back towards the open sea.

Hal walked forward in the brilliant light of the burning ships and raised his voice so that the men could hear him. "I doubt not that El Grang will long remember this night." They cheered him even as they heaved on the gun tackles and nocked their arrows. "The Bough and Sir Hal!"

Then a single voice sang out, "El Tazar!" and they all took up the cry so heartily that El Grang and the Prince must have heard them as they stood before the silken tent on the knoll above the bay and looked down upon their shattered fleet.

"El Tazar! El Tazar!"

Hal nodded at the helm. "Take us out, please, Mister Tyler." As they wove their way through the burning hulks and floating wreckage, and drew slowly out towards the entrance a single shot fired from one of the drifting dhows smashed in through the gunwale, and tore across the open deck. Miraculously it passed between one of the gun crews and a group of the half-naked archers without touching them. But Stan Sparrow was standing at the far rail, commanding a gun battery, and the hot iron ball took off both his legs neatly, just above the knees.

Instinctively Hal started forward to succour him, but then he checked himself. As captain, the dead and wounded were not his concern, but he felt the agony of loss. Stan Sparrow had been with him from the beginning. He was a good man and a shipmate.

When they carried Stan away, they passed close by where Hal stood.

He saw that Stan's face was ivory pale, and that he was drained of blood. He was sinking fast but he saw Hal and, with a great effort, lifted his hand to touch his forehead. "They was good times, Captain," he said, and his hand dropped.

"God speed, Master Stan," Hal said, and while they carried him below, he turned to look back into the bay, so that in the light of the burning ships no man might see his distress.

Long after they had run out of the bay and turned away northwards towards Mitsiwa, the night skies behind them glowed with the inferno they had created. The captains of divisions came one at a time to make their battle reports. Though Stan Sparrow was the only man killed, three others had been wounded by musket fire from the dhows as they sailed past, and another man's leg had been crushed in the recoil of an overshot ted culverin. It was a small price to pay, Hal supposed, and yet, though he knew it to be weakness, he mourned Stan Sparrow.

Although he was exhausted and his head ached from the din of battle and the powder smoke, Hal was too wrought-up for sleep and his mind was in a turmoil of emotion and racing thoughts. He left the helm to Ned Tyler and went to stand alone in the bows to let the cool night air soothe him.

He was still alone there as the dawn began to break and the GoLden Bough headed in towards Mitsiwa roads, and the first to see the three red Chinese rockets soar up into the sky from the heights of the cliffs above the bay.

It was a signal from Judith Nazet, an urgent recall. He felt his pulse quicken with dread as he turned and bellowed to Aboli, who had the watch, "Hoist three red lanterns to the masthead!"

Three red lights was an acknowledgement of her signal. She has heard the guns and seen the flames, he thought. She wishes to have my report of the battle. Somehow he knew that it was not so but he hoped to quieten the sudden sense of dread that assailed him.

It was fully light as they nosed in towards the shore. Hal was still in the bows and the first to spot the boat that darted out from the beach to meet them. From two cables' length away he recognized the slim figure standing beside the single mast. He felt his heart leap and his sadness fall away, replaced by a sense of eager anticipation.

Judith Nazet's head was bare and the dark halo of her hair framed her face. She wore armour and a sword was buckled at her side, a steel helmet under her arm.

Hal strode back to the quarterdeck and gave his order to the helm. "Round her up and heave to! Let the boat come alongside."

Judith Nazet came through the entry port with a lithe and graceful urgency, and Hal saw that her marvelous features were stricken. "I give thanks to God for bringing you back so swiftly," she said, in a voice that trembled with some strong emotion. "A terrible catastrophe has overtaken us. I can hardly find words to describe it to you."

They had muffled the horses" hoofs with leather boots so they made little sound on the rocky earth. The priest rode close beside him, but Cornelius Schreuder had taken the precaution of securing a light steel chain around the man's waist and the other end around his own wrist. The priest had a shifty eye and a ferrety face that Schreuder trusted not at all.

They rode in double file along the narrow valley, and although the moon had risen an hour before the rocky sides still threw the sun's heat into their faces. Schreuder had selected the fifteen most trustworthy men from his regiment, and all were mounted on fast horses.

The tack had been carefully muffled and their weapons wrapped in cloth so they made no sound in the night.

The priest held up his hand suddenly. "Stop here!" Schreuder repeated the order in a whisper.

"I must go forward to see if the way is clear," said the priest.

"I will go with you." Schreuder dismounted and shortened his grip on the chain. They left the rest of the band in the bottom of the wadi and crawled up the steep side.

"There is the monastery." The priest pointed at the massive square bulk that squatted on the hills above them, blotting out half the stars from the night sky. "Flash twice and then twice again, "he said.

Schreuder aimed the small lantern towards the walls of the monastery and flipped open the shutter that screened the flame. Twice, and then again, he flashed the signal, and they waited. Nothing happened.

"If you are playing with me, I will hack off your head with the back of my sword," Schreuder growled, and felt the little priest shiver beside him.

"Flash again!" he pleaded, and Schreuder repeated the signal. Suddenly a weak speck of light glimmered briefly on the top of the wall. Twice it showed, and then was extinguished.

"We can go on," whispered the priest excitedly, but Schreuder restrained him.

"What have you told those within the monastery who will help us to enter?"

"They have been told that we are spiriting away the Emperor and the Tabernacle to a safe place to save him from an assassination plot by a great noble of the Galla faction who seeks to take the crown of Prester John from him."

"A good plan," Schreuder murmured, and urged the priest down the bank to where the horses waited. Their guide led them onwards, and they climbed another deep ravine until they were beneath the massive, looming walls.

"Leave the horses here," whispered the priest. His voice was tremulous.

Schreuder's men dismounted and handed their reins to two comrades, who had been delegated as horse-holders. Schreuder assembled the raiding party and led them after the priest to the wall. A rope-ladder dangled down from the heights, and in the darkness Schreuder could not see to the top of it.

"I have kept my side of the bargain," muttered the priest. "Another will meet you at the top. Do you have the reward that I was promised?"

"You have done well," Schreuder agreed readily. "It is in my saddle-bags. One of my men will see you back to the horses and give it to you." He passed the end of the chain to his lieutenant. "Look after him well, Ezekiel," he said in Arabic, so the priest could understand. "Give him the reward he has earned."

Ezekiel led the man away, and Schreuder waited a few minutes until there was a grunt of shock and surprise out of the darkness and the soft rush of air escaping through a severed windpipe. Ezekiel returned silently, wiping his dagger on a fold of his turban.

"That was neatly done," said Schreuder.

"My knife is sharp," said Ezekiel, and slid the blade back into its sheath.

Schreuder stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder and began to climb. Fifty feet up he reached a narrow embrasure cut back into the wall. It was just wide enough to squeeze his shoulders through. Another priest waited for him in the tiny stone cell beyond.

One after the other Schreuder's men followed him up and slid over the lintel, until all of them were crowded into the room.

"Lead us to the infant first!" Schreuder ordered the priest, and placed his hand on his bony shoulder. His men followed along the dark, winding passageways, each gripping the shoulder of the man in front.

They twisted and turned through the dark labyrinth, until at last they descended a spiral staircase and saw a glimmer of light ahead. It grew stronger as they crept towards it until they reached a doorway, on either side of which torches guttered in their brackets. Two guards lay huddled on the threshold, with their weapons laid beside them.

"Kill them!" Schreuder whispered to Ezekiel.

"They are dead already," said the priest. Schreuder touched one with his foot. the guard's arm flopped over lifelessly and the empty bowl that had held the poisoned mead rolled from his hand.

The priest tapped a signal on the door, and the locking bar was lifted on the far side. The door swung open and a nursemaid stood on the other side with a child in her arms, her eyes huge with terror in the light of the torches.

"Is this the one?" Schreuder lifted the fold of blanket and peered into the child's sweet brown face. His eyes were closed in sleep, and the dark curls were damp with perspiration.

"This is the one," the priest confirmed.

Schreuder took a firm grip on the nursemaid's arm, and drew her out beside him. "Now lead me to the other thing he said softly.

They went on, deeper into the maze of dark halls and narrow corridors, until they reached another heavy studded door before which lay the bodies of four priests, contorted in the agony of their poisoned deaths. The guide knelt beside one and groped in his robes. When he stood again he had in his hands a massive iron key. He fitted it to the lock and stood back.

Schreuder called Ezekiel to him in a whisper and placed the nursemaid in his hands. "Guard her well!" Then he stepped up to the door and seized the bronze handle. As it swung open, the traitorous priest and even the band of raiders shrank back from the brilliance of the light that flooded out from the stone-walled crypt. After the darkness the glow of a hundred candles was dazzling.

Schreuder stepped over the threshold, then even he faltered and came to an uncertain halt. He gazed upon the Tabernacle in its suit of radiant tapestry. The angels upon the lid seemed to dance in the wavering light, and he was struck with a sense of religious awe. Instinctively he crossed himself. He tried to step forward to lay hold of one of the handles of the chest but it was as though he had encountered an invisible barrier that held him back. His breathing was hoarse and his chest felt constricted. He was filled with an irrational urge to turn and run, and he recoiled a pace before he could check himself. Slowly he backed out of the crypt.

"Ezekiel!"he said hoarsely. "I will take care of the woman and the child. With Mustapha to help you, do you take hold of the chest."

The two Muslims suffered from no religious qualms, they stepped forward eagerly and seized the handles. The Tabernacle was surprisingly light, almost weightless. They bore it effortlessly between them.

"Our horses will be waiting at the main gate," Schreuder told their guide in Arabic. "Take us there!" They moved swiftly through the dark passages. Once they ran "unexpectedly into another white-robed priest, who was shuffling around an angle in the corridor towards them.

In the uncertain light of the torches he saw the Tabernacle in the hands of the two armed soldiers, screamed with horror at the sacrilege and fell to his knees. Schreuder had the woman's arm in his left hand and the naked Neptune sword in his right. He killed the kneeling priest with a single thrust through his ribs.

They all listened quietly for a while, but there was no outcry.

"Lead on!" Schreuder ordered.

Their guide stopped again suddenly. "The gate is only a short distance ahead. There are three men in the guardroom beside it." Schreuder could make out the glow of their lamp falling through the open doorway. "I must leave you here."

"Go with GOd." said Schreuder ironically, and the man darted away.

"Ezekiel, lay down the chest. Go forward and deal with the guards." Three of them crept down the passage, while Schreuder kept the nursemaid in his grasp. Ezekiel slipped into the guardroom. There was silence for a moment and then the clatter of something falling to the stone floor.

Schreuder winced, but all was quiet again, and Ezekiel came back. "It is done!"

"You grow old and clumsy," Schreuder chided him, and led them to the massive door. It took three of them to lift the great wooden beams that locked it, then Ezekiel wound the handle of the primitive winch wheel and the door trundled open.

"Keep close together now!" Schreuder warned, and led them in a running group across the bridge and out onto the rocky track. He paused in the moonlight and whistled once softly. There was the soft thudding of muffled hoofs, as the horse-holders left the rocks where they had been concealed. Ezekiel lifted the Tabernacle onto the pack saddle of the spare horse, and lashed it securely in place. Then each man seized the reins of his own mount and swung up into the saddle. Schreuder reached down and lifted the sleeping child out of the arms of his nursemaid. The boy squawked drowsily but Schreuder hushed him and settled him firmly on the pommel of his saddle.

"GO!" he ordered the nursemaid. "You are no longer needed."

"I cannot leave my baby." The woman's voice was high and agitated.

Schreuder leaned down again and, with a thrust of the Neptune sword, killed the nursemaid cleanly. He left her lying beside the track and led the raiding party away down the mountainside.

"One of the priests from the monastery were able to follow the blasphemers when they fled," Judith Nazet explained to Hal. Even in the face of disaster her lips was firm and her eyes calm and steady.

He admired her fortitude, and saw how she had been able to take command of a broken army and turn it victorious.

"Where are they now?" Hal demanded. He was so shaken by the dreadful news that it was difficult to think clearly and logically.

"They rode directly from the monastery to Tenwera. They reached there just before dawn, three hours ago, and there was a great ship waiting for them, anchored in the bay."

"Did they describe this vessel to you?" Hal demanded. "Yes, it was the privateer that has the commission of the Mogul. The one we spoke of before, at our last meeting. The same one that has caused such havoc among our fleet of transports."

"The Buzzard!" Hal exclaimed.

"Yes, that is what he is called even by his allies." Judith nodded. "While my people watched from the cliffs, a small boat took both the Emperor and the Tabernacle out to where this ship was anchored. As soon as they were aboard the Buzzard weighed anchor and set out to sea."

"Which direction?"

"When he was out of the bay, he turned south."

"Yes, of course." Hal nodded. "He will have been ordered to take Iyasu and the Tabernacle to Muscat, or even to India, to the realm of the Great Mogul."

"I have already sent one of our fastest ships to follow him. It was only an hour or so behind him and the wind is light. It is a small dhow and could never attack such a powerful ship as his. But if God is merciful it should still be shadowing him."

"We must follow at once." He turned away and called urgently to Ned

Tyler. "Bring her around, and lay her on the opposite tack. Set all sail, every yard of canvas you can cram onto her. Course is south-south-east for the Bah El Mandeb."

He took Judith's arm, the first time he had ever touched her, and led her down to his cabin. "You are weary," he said. "I can see it in your eyes," "No, Captain," she replied. "It is not weariness you see, but sorrow. If you cannot save us, then all is lost. A king, a country, a faith."

"Please sir," she insisted. "I will show you what we must do." He opened the chart in front of her. "The Buzzard might sail straight across to the western coast of Arabia. If he does that then we have lost. Even in this ship I cannot hope to catch him before he reaches the other shore."

The early-morning sun shone in through the stern windows, and cruelly showed up the marks of anguish chiselled into her lovely face. It was a terrible thing for Hal to see the pain his words had caused, and he looked down at the chart to spare her.

"However, I do not believe that that is what he will do. If he sails directly to Arabia, the Emperor and the Tabernacle would have a dangerous and difficult overland journey to reach either Muscat or India." He shook his head. "No. He will sail south through the Bah El Mandeb."

Hal placed his finger on the narrow entrance to the Red Sea. "If we can reach there before he does, then he cannot avoid us. The Bah is too narrow. We must be able to catch him there."

"God grant it! "Judith prayed.

"I have a long account to settle with the Buzzard," Hal said grimly. "I ache in every part of my body and soul to have him under my guns."

Judith looked up at him in consternation. "You cannot fire upon his ship."

"What do you mean?" He stared back at her.

"He has the Emperor and the Tabernacle on board with him. You cannot risk destroying either of those."

As he realized the truth of what she had said Hal felt his spirits quail. He would have to run down the Gull of Mora and close with her while the Buzzard fired his broadsides into the Golden Bough and he could make no reply. He could imagine the terrible punishment they would have to endure, the cannonballs ripping through the hull of his ship and the slaughter on her decks, before they could board the Gull.

The Golden Bough ran on into the south. At the end of the forenoon watch Hal assembled all the men in the waist of the ship and told them of the task he demanded of them. "I will not hide it from you, lads. The Buzzard will be able to have his way with us, and we will not be able to fire back." They were silent and sober-faced. "But think how sweet it will be when we go aboard the Gull and take the steel to them."

They cheered him then, but there was fear in their eyes when he sent them back to trim the sails and coax every inch of speed out of the ship in her flight towards the Bah El Mandeb.

"You promise them death, and they cheer you," Judith Nazet said softly, when they were alone. "Yet you call me a leader of men." He thought he heard more than respect in her tone.

Half-way through the first dog watch there was a hail from the masthead. "Sail ho! Full on the bow!"

Hal's pulse raced. Could they have caught the Buzzard so soon? He snatched the speaking trumpet from its bracket. "Masthead! What do you make of her?"

"Lateen rig!" His heart sank. "A small ship. On the same course as we are."

Judith said quietly. "It could be the one I sent to follow the Gull."

Gradually they gained on the other vessel, and within half an hour it was hull up from the deck. Hal handed his telescope to Judith and she studied it carefully. "Yes. It is my scout." She lowered the glass. "Can you fly the white cross to allay their fears, then take me close enough to speak to her?"

They passed her so closely that they could look down onto her single deck. Judith shouted a question in Geez, then listened to the faint reply.

She turned back to Hal, her eyes bright with excitement. "You were right. They have been following the Gull since dawn. Until only a few hours ago they had her top sails in sight but then the wind strengthened and she pulled away from them."

"What course was she on when last they saw her?"

"The same course she has held all this day," Judith told him. "Due south, heading straight for the narrows of the Bah."

Though he entreated her to go down to his cabin and rest, Judith insisted on staying beside him on the quarterdeck. They spoke little, for both were too tense and fearful, but slowly there came over them a feeling of companionship. They took comfort from each other, and drew on a mutual reserve of strength and determination.

Every few minutes Hal looked up at his funereal black sails, then crossed to the binnacle. There was no order he could give the helm, for Ned Tyler was steering her fine as she could sail.

A charged and poignant silence lay heavy on the ship. No man shouted or laughed. The off-duty watch did not doze in the shade of the main sail as was their usual practice but huddled in small silent groups, alert to every move he made and to every word he uttered.

The sun made its majestic circle of the sky and drooped down to touch the far western hills. Night came upon them as stealthily as an assassin, and the horizon blurred and melded with the darkening sky, then was gone.

In the darkness he felt Judith's hand on his arm. It was smooth and warm, yet strong. "We have lost them, but it is not your fault," she said softly. "No man could have done more."

"I have not yet failed," he said. "Have faith in God and trust in me."

"But in darkness? Surely the Buzzard would not show a light, and by dawn tomorrow he will be through the Bah and into the open sea."

He wanted to tell her that all of this had been ordained long ago, that he was sailing south to meet a special destiny. Even though this might seem fanciful to her, he had to tell her. "Judith," he said, then paused as he sought the right words.

"Deck!" Aboli's voice boomed out of the darkness high above. It had a timbre and resonance to it that made Hal's skin prickle and the hairs at the back of his neck stand.

"Masthead!"he bellowed back. "A light dead ahead!"

He placed one arm. around Judith's shoulders and she made no move to pull away from him. Instead, she leaned closer.

"There is the answer to your question," he whispered. "God has provided for us," she replied.

"I must go aloft." Hal dropped his arm from around her shoulders.

"Perhaps we are too hasty, and the devil is playing us tricks." He strode across to Ned. "Dark ship, Mister Tyler. I'll keel haul the man who shows a light. Silent ship, no sound or voice." He went to the mainmast shrouds.

Hal climbed swiftly until he had joined Aboli. "Where is this light?" He scanned the darkness ahead. "I see nothing."

"It has gone, but it was almost dead ahead." "A star in your eye, Aboli?"

"Wait, Gundwane. It was a small light and far away."

The minutes passed slowly, and then suddenly Hal saw it. Not even a glimmer, but a soft luminescence, so nebulous that he doubted his eyes, especially as Aboli beside him had shown no sign of seeing it. Hal looked away to rest his eyes then turned back and saw in the darkness that it was still there, too low for a star, a weird unnatural glow.

"Yes, Aboli. I see it now." As he spoke it became brighter, and Aboli exclaimed also. Then it died away again. "it could be a strange vessel, not the Gull."

"Surely the Buzzard would not be so careless as to show a running light."

"A lantern in the stern cabin? The reflection from his binnacle?"

"Or one of his sailors enjoying a quiet pipe?

"Let us pray that it is one of those. It is where we could expect the Buzzard to be," said Hal. "We will keep after it until moonrise."

They stayed together, peering ahead into the night. Sometimes the strange light showed as a distinct point, at others it was a faint amorphous glow, and often it disappeared. Once it was gone completely for a terrifying half hour, before it shone again perceptibly stronger.

"We are gaining," Hal dared whisper. "How far off now, do you reckon?"

"A league, said Aboli, "maybe less."

"Where is the moon?" Hal looked into the east, "Will it never rise?"

He saw the first iridescence beyond the dark mountains of Arabia and, shyly as a bride, the moon unveiled her face. She laid down a silver path upon the waters, and Hal felt his breath lock in his chest and every sinew of his body drawn tight as a bowstring.

Out of the darkness ahead appeared a lovely apparition, soft as a cloud of op aline mist.

"There she is!" he whispered. He had to draw a deep breath to steady his voice. "The Gull of Moray dead ahead."

He grasped Aboli's arm. "Do you go down and warn Ned Tyler and Big Daniel. Stay there until you can see the Gull from the deck, then come back."

When Aboli was gone he watched the shape of the Gull's sails firm and harden in the moonlight, and he felt fear as he had seldom known it in his life, fear not only for himself but for the men who trusted him and the woman on the deck below and the child aboard the other ship. How could he hope to lay the Golden Bough alongside the Gull while she fired her broadsides into them, and they could make no reply? How many must die in the next hour and who would be among them? He thought of Judith Nazet's proud slim body torn by flying grape. "Do not let it happen, Lord God. You have taken from me already more than I can bear.

How much more? How much more will you ask of me?"

He saw the light again on board the other ship. It glowed from the tall windows in her stern. Were there candles burning in there? He stared until his eyes ached, but there was no single source to the emanation of light.

There was a light touch on his arm. He had not heard Aboli climb back to him. "The Gull is in sight from the deck, "he told Hal softly.

Hal could not leave the masthead yet, for he felt a sense of religious dread as he stared at the strange light in the Gull's stern.

"Tis no lamp or lantern or candle, Aboli," he said. "Tis the Tabernacle of Mary that glows in the darkness. A beacon to guide me to my destiny."

Aboli shivered beside him. "Tis true that it is a light not of this world, a fairy light, such as I have never seen before." His voice shook. "But how do you know, Gundwane? How can you be so sure that it is the talisman that burns so?"

"Because I know," said Hal simply, and as he said it the light died away before their eyes, and the Gull was dark. Only her moonlit sails towered before them.

"It was a sign,"Aboli murmured.

"Yes, it was a sign," said Hal, and his voice was strong and serene once again. "God has given me a sign."

They climbed down to the deck, and Hal went directly to the helm. "There she is, Mister Tyler." They both looked ahead to where the Gull's canvas shone in the moonlight.

"Aye, there she is, Captain."

"Douse the light in the binnacle. Lay me alongside the Gull, if you please. Have four spare helmsmen standing by to take the whipstall when the others are killed."

"Aye, Sir." Hal went forward. Big Daniel's figure emerged out of the darkness. "Grappling irons, Master Daniel?"

"All ready, Captain. Me and ten of my strongest men will heave them."

"Nay, Daniel, leave that to John Lovell. I have better work for you and Aboli. Come with me."

He led Daniel and Aboli back to where Judith Nazet stood at the foot of the mainmast.

"The two of you will go with General Nazet. Take ten of your best seamen. Do not get caught up in the fighting on deck. Swift as you can, get down to the Gull's stern cabin. There you will find the Tabernacle and the child. Bring them out. Nothing must turn you aside from that purpose. Do you understand?"

"How do you know where they are holding the Emperor and the Tabernacle? "Judith Nazet asked quietly.

"I know," Hal said, with such finality that she was silent. He wanted to order her to stay in a safe place until the fight was over, but he knew she would refuse and besides which there was no safe place when two ships of such force were locked in mortal combat.

"Where will you be, Gundwane?"Aboli asked softly.

"I shall be with the Buzzard," Hal said, and left them without another word.

He went towards the bows, pausing as he reached each of the divisions who crouched below the gunwale, and speaking softly to their boatswains. "God love you, Samuel Moone. We might have to take a shot or two before we board her, but think of the pleasure that waits you on the Gull's deck."

To Jiri he said, "This will be such a fight as you will boast of to your grandchildren."

He had a word for each, then stood once more in the bows and looked across at the Gull. She was a cable's length ahead now, sailing on serenely under her moon, radiant canvas.

"Lord, keep us hidden from them," he whispered, and looked up at his own black sails, a tall dark pyramid against the stars.

Slowly, achingly slowly they closed the gap. She cannot elude us now, Hal thought, with grim satisfaction. We are too close.

Suddenly there came a wild scream of terror from the Gull's masthead. "Sail ho! Dead astern! The Golden Bough!" Then all was shouting and confusion on the other ship's deck. There was the savage beat of a drum calling the Buzzard's crew to battle quarters, and the rush of many feet on her planking. A loud series of crashes as her gun ports were flung open, and then the squeal and rumble as the guns were run out. From twenty points along her dark rail came the glow of slow-match burning, and the glint of their reflection from steel.

"Light the battle lamps!" Hal heard the Buzzard's bellows of rage as he drove his panicky crew to their stations, then clearly his order to the helm. "Hard to larboard! Lay the bastards under our broadside!

We'll give them such a good sniff of gunsmoke that they'll fart it in the devil's face when we send them down to hell."

The Gull's battle lanterns flared, as she lit up to give her gunners light to work. In their yellow glow Hal glimpsed the Buzzard's bush of red hair.

Then the silhouette of the Gull altered rapidly as she came around. Hal nodded, the Buzzard had acted instinctively but unwisely. In his position Hal would have stood off and shot the Golden Bough to a wreck while she was unable to reply. Now he would have to be fortunate and quick to get off one steady broadside before the Golden Bough was upon him.

Hal grinned. The Buzzard was the victim of his own iniquity. Probably it had not even entered his calculations that Hal would hold his fire on account of a child and an ancient relic. If he were in the same position as Hal, the Buzzard would have blazed away with all his cannon.

As the Gull came slowly around, the Golden Bough flew at her and, for a moment, Hal thought they might be alongside her before her guns could bear.

They closed the last hundred yards and Ned had already given the order to shorten to fighting sail, when the Gull turned through the last few degrees of arc and all her guns were aimed straight at where Hal stood.

Looking directly into the Gull's battery, Hal's eyeballs were seared by the brilliant crimson glow as she fired her broadside into the Golden Bough at point-blank range.

A tempest of disrupted air struck them so viciously that Hal was hurled backwards and thought that he had been hit by a ball. The deck around him dissolved into a buzzing storm of splinters and the knot of Amadoda nearest him were struck squarely and blown into nothingness. The Golden Bough heeled over sharply to the weight of shot that tore through her, and the choking fog of gunsmoke drifted over her shattered hull.

The terrible silence that followed the thunder of the broadside was marred only by the screams and groans of the wounded and the dying.

Then the wall of gunsmoke was blown aside, and from across the narrow gap of water came the cheering of the other crew. "The Gull and Cumbrae!" and Hal heard the rumble of the gun trains as they were run in-board to be reloaded.

How many of my lads are dead? he wondered. A quarter? Half? He looked back at his own decks, but the darkness hid from his eyes the torn timbers and the heaps of dead and dying.

From across the water he heard the thudding of ramrods forcing powder and shot down the barrels of the guns. "Faster!" he whispered.

"Faster, my darling. Close the gap and do not make us face another such blast."

He heard the squeal of the tackle and the rumble as one of the swiftest gun crews completed loading before the others and ran out its culverin. The two ships were now so close together that Hal saw the monstrous gaping barrel come poking out through its gun port With the muzzle almost touching the Golden Bough's side it roared again, and timbers shattered and men screamed as the heavy ball tore through them.

Then before any more of the Gull's guns could be run out, the two ships came together with a rending, grinding crash. In the light of the Gull's battle lanterns Hal saw the grappling hooks hurled over her side and heard them clatter on her deck. He did not hesitate but sprang to the gunwale and leaped across the narrow strip of water as the two hulls surged alongside each other. He landed lightly as a cat among the nearest of the Buzzard's gun crews and killed two men before they could draw their cutlasses.

Then a wave of his boarders followed him over her side, led by the Amadoda armed with pike and axe. Within seconds the Gull's upper deck was transformed into a battlefield. Men fought chest to chest and hand to hand, shouting and yelling with rage and terror.

"El Tazar!" roared the men of the Golden Bough, to be answered by, "The Gull and Cumbrae!" as they came together.

Hal found himself confronted by four men simultaneously and was driven back to the rail before John Lovell tore into them from behind and killed one with a thrust between the shoulder-blades. Hal killed another as he hesitated and the other two broke and ran. Hal had a moment to look about him. He saw the Buzzard on the far side of the deck, roaring with rage, the great claymore swinging high above his head as he hacked down the men in front of him.

Then from the corner of his eye Hal caught the glint of Judith Nazet's steel helmet and, towering on each side of her, the forms of Aboli and Big Daniel. They drove across the deck and disappeared down the companionway to the stern cabin. That moment of distraction might have cost Hal his life for a man stabbed at him with a pike, and he turned only just in time to avoid the thrust. Then he was in the midst of the fight again as it swayed back and forth across the deck.

He put down another man with a thrust in the belly, then looked about for the Buzzard. He saw him in the waist, and shouted at him, "Cumbrae, I am coming for you!" But in the uproar the Buzzard did not look round at him, and Hal started towards him cutting a path for himself through the mob of fighting men.

At that moment one of the main shrouds was cut loose by a swinging axe that missed the head at which it was aimed, and the battle lantern that was suspended from it came crashing to the deck at Hal's feet. He sprang back from the blaze of burning oil that roared up into his face then gathered himself and leapt through the flames to reach the Buzzard.

He landed on the far side and looked about him swiftly, but the Buzzard had disappeared and instead two of his sailors charged at Hal. He took them on and slashed through the sinews of an extended sword arm as one lunged at him. Then, in the same movement, he changed cut to thrust and drove his point deeply into the second man's throat.

He recovered and glanced back over his shoulder. The flames from the shattered lantern had taken hold and were lighting the deck brightly. Streamers of fire were running up the dangling shroud towards the rigging. Through the dancing flames he saw Judith Nazet leap out of the entrance to the stern companionway. She was followed closely by Big Daniel carrying the Tabernacle of Mary, balanced easily on his shoulder as though it were light as a down filled bolster. The golden angels on its lid sparkled in the light of the flames.

A sailor rushed at Judith with his pike, and Hal shouted with horror as the gleaming spearhead struck her full in the side under her raised arm. It tore through the thin cotton of her tunic, but glanced harmlessly off the shirt of steel chain-mail beneath the cloth. Judith whirled like an angry panther, and her blade flashed as she aimed at his face. Such was the fury of her blow that the point came out of the back of the pirate's skull, and the man dropped at her feet.

Judith's fierce dark eyes met Hal's across the teeming deck.

"Iyasu!" she shouted. "He is gone!" The flames were leaping up between them, and Hal yelled through them, "Go with Daniel! Get off this ship! Take the Tabernacle to safety on the Golden Bough. I will find Iyasu."

She neither argued nor hesitated but ran, with Daniel beside her, to the rail and leaped across onto the Golden Bough's deck. Hal started to fight his way towards the companionway to reach the lower decks where the child must be hidden, but a phalanx of Amadoda led by Jiri swept across the deck and cut him off. The black warriors had locked their shields together into the solid carapace of the testudo and, with their pikes thrust through the gaps, the pirates could not stand before their charge.

In every battle there comes a moment when its outcome is decided and as the Gull's sailors scattered before that rush of howling, prancing warriors it had come. The Buzzard's men were beaten.

"I must find Iyasu and get him off the Gull before the flames reach the powder magazine," Hal told himself, and turned towards the break in the forecastle as his easiest access to the lower decks. At that moment a bellow stopped him dead.

The Buzzard stood on high, lit by the dancing yellow light of the flames. "Courtney!" he roared. "Is this what you are searching for?"

His head was bared and his tangled red locks tumbled about his face. In his right hand he held his claymore, and in his left he carried Iyasu. The child was screaming with terror as the Buzzard lifted him high. He wore only a thin nightshirt, which had tucked up above his waist, and his slender brown legs kicked frantically in the air.

"Is this what you are looking for?" the Buzzard bellowed again, and lifted the child high above his head. "Then come and fetch the brat."

Hal bounded forward, cutting two men out of his way, before he reached the foot of the forecastle ladder. The Buzzard watched him come. He must have known that he was beaten, with his ship in flames and his crew being cut down and hurled overboard by the rush of the pike men but he grinned like a gargoyle. "Let me show you a fine little trick, Sir Henry. It's called catch the hairn on the steel.t With a sweep of his thick hairy arm he threw the child fifteen feet straight up in the air, and then held the point of the claymore beneath him as he dropped.

"No!" Hal screamed wildly.

At the last instant before the child was impaled on the point the Buzzard flicked aside the sword and Iyasu fell back unscathed into his grasp.

"Parley!" Hal shouted. "Give me the child unharmed and you can go free, with all your booty."

"What a bargain! But my ship is burned and my booty with it."

"Listen to me," Hal pleaded. "Let the boy go free."

"How can I refuse a brother Knight?" the Buzzard asked, still spluttering with laughter. "You shall have what you ask. There! I set the little black bastard free. "With another mighty swing of his arm he hurled Iyasu far out over the ship's side. The child's shirt fluttered around his little body as he fell. Then, with only a soft splash, the dark sea swallowed him.

Behind him Hal heard Judith Nazet scream. He dropped his sword to the deck and with three running strides reached the rail and dived head first over the side. He struck the water and knifed deep, then turned for the surface.

Looking up from twenty feet deep, the water was clear as mountain air. He could see the weed-fouled bottom of the Gull drifting past him, and the reflection of the flames from the burning ship dancing on the surface ripple. Then, between him and the firelight, he saw a small dark shape. The tiny limbs were struggling like a fish in a net and silver bubbles streamed from Iyasu's mouth as he turned end over end in the wake of the hull.

Hal struck out with arms and legs and reached him before he was whirled away. Holding him to his chest he shot to the surface, and lifted the child's face clear.

Iyasu struggled feebly, coughing and choking, then he let out a thin, terrified wail. "Blow it all out of you," said Hal, and looked around.

Big Daniel must have recalled his men, then cut the grappling lines to get the Golden Bough away from the burning hull. The two ships were drifting apart. The seamen from the Gull were leaping over her sides as the heat of the flames washed over them and her main sail caught fire. The Gull began to sail with flaming canvas and no hand on her helm. She bore down slowly on where Hal trod water, and he struck out desperately with one hand, dragging Iyasu out of her path.

For a long, dreadful minute it seemed that they would be trodden under, then a fluke of the wind pushed the bows across a point and she passed less than a boat's length from them.

With amazement Hal saw that the Buzzard still stood alone on the break of the forecastle. The flames surrounded him, but he did not seem to feel their heat. His beard began to smoke and blacken, but he looked down at Hal and choked with laughter. He gasped for breath then opened his mouth to shout something to him, but at that moment the Gull's foresail sheets burned clean through and the huge spread of canvas came floating down, covering the Buzzard. From under that burning shroud Hal heard one last terrible shriek and then the flames leapt high, and the stricken Gull bore away her master on the wind.

Hal watched him go until the swells of the ocean intervened and he lost sight of the burning ship. Then a freak wave lifted him and the child high. The Gull was a league off, and at that instant the flames must have reached her powder magazine for she blew up with a devastating roar, and Hal felt the waters constrict his chest as the force of the explosion was transmitted through them. He watched still as burning timbers were hurled high into the night sky then fell to quench in the dark waters. Darkness and silence descended again.

There was neither sight nor sign of the Golden Bough in the night.

The child was weeping piteously, and Hal had no word of Geez to comfort him, so he held his head clear and spoke to him in English. "There's a good strong lad. You have to be brave, for you are born an Emperor, and I know for certain that an Emperor never cries." But Hal's boots and sodden clothing were drawing him down, and he had to swim hard to resist. He kept the two of them afloat for the rest of that long night, but in the dawn he knew that he was near the end of his strength and the child was shivering and whimpering softly in his arms. "Not long now, Iyasu, and it will be bright day," he croaked through his salt-scalded throat, but he knew that neither of them could last that long.

"Gundwane!" He heard a well-beloved voice call to him, but he knew it was delirium and he laughed aloud. "Don't play tricks on me now," he said, "I do not have the stomach for it. Let me be in peace."

Then, out of the darkness, he saw a shape emerge, heard the splash of oars pulling hard towards him, and the voice called again, "Gundwane!"

"Aboli! his voice cracked. "I am here!" Those great black hands reached down and seized him, lifted him and the child over the side of the longboat. As soon as he was aboard Hal looked about him. With all her lanterns lit, the Golden Bough lay hove to half a league across the water but Judith Nazet sat before him in the stern sheets and she took the child from Hal and wrapped him in her cloak. She crooned to Iyasu and spoke soothingly to him in Geez, while the crew pulled back towards the ship. Before they reached the GoLden Bough Iyasu was asleep in her arms.

"The Tabernacle?" Hal asked Aboli hoarsely. "Is it safe?" "It is in your cabin,"Aboli assured him, and then dropped his voice. "All of this is as your father foretold. At last the stars must set you free, for you have fulfilled the prophecy."

Hal felt a deep sense of Mfilment come over him, and the desperate weariness slid from his shoulders like a discarded mantle, He felt light and free as though released from some long, onerous penance. He looked across at Judith, who had been watching him. There was something in her dark gaze that he could not fathom, but she dropped her eyes before he could read it clearly. Hal wanted to move closer to her, to touch her, speak to her and tell her about these strange, powerful feelings that possessed him, but four ranks of rowers separated them in the small, crowded boat.

As they approached the Golden Bough her crew were in the rigging and they cheered him as the longboat latched onto her chains. Aboli offered Hal a hand to help him climb the ladder to the deck but Hal ignored it and went up alone. He paused as he saw the long line of canvas shrouded corpses laid out in the waist, and the terrible damage that the Gull's gunfire had wrought to his ship. But this was not the time to brood on that, he thought. They would send the dead men over side and mourn them later, but now was the hour of victory. Instead he looked around the grinning faces of his crew. "Well, you ruffians paid out the Buzzard and his cutthroats in a heavier coin than they bargained for. Mister Tyler, break out the rum barrel and give a double ration to every hand aboard to toast the Buzzard on his way to hell. Then set a course back to Mitsiwa roads."

He took the child from Judith Nazet's arms and carried him down to the stern cabin. He laid him on the bunk, and turned to Judith who stood close beside him. "He is a sturdy lad, and has come to little harm. We should let him sleep."

"Yes" she said quietly, looking up at him with that same inscrutably dark gaze. Then she took his hand and led him to the curtained alcove where the Tabernacle of Mary stood.

"Will you pray with me, El Tazar?" she asked, and they knelt together.

"We thank you, Lord, for sparing the life of our Emperor, your tiny servant, Iyasu. We thank you for delivering him from the wicked hands of the blasphemer. We ask your blessing upon his arms in the conflict that lies ahead. When the victory is won, we beseech you, Lord, to grant him a long and peaceful reign. Make him a wise and gentle monarch. For thy name's sake, Amen!"

"Amen!" Hal echoed, and made to rise, but she restrained him with a hand on his arm.

"We thank you also, Lord God, for sending to us your good and faithful Henry Courtney, without whose valour and selfless service the godless would have triumphed. May he be fully rewarded by the gratitude of all the people of Ethiopia, and by the love and admiration that your servant, Judith Nazet, has conceived towards him."

Hal felt the shock of her words reverberate through his whole body and turned to look at her, but her eyes were closed. He thought that he had misheard her, but then her grip on his arm tightened. She stood and drew him up with her.

Still without looking at him she led him out of the main cabin to the small adjoining one, closed the door and bolted it.

"Your clothes are wet," she said, and, like a handmaiden, began to undress him. Her movements were calm and slow. She touched his chest when it was bared and ran her long brown fingers down his flanks. She knelt before him to loosen his belt and peel down his breeches. When he was completely naked she stared at his manhood with a dark profound gaze, but without touching him there. She rose to her feet, took his hand and led him to the hard wooden bunk. He tried to pull her down beside him, but she pushed away his hands.

Standing before him she began to undress. She unlaced the chain-mail shirt, which fell to the deck around her feet. Beneath the heavy, masculine, warlike garb, her body was a paradox of femininity. Her skin was a translucent amber. Her breasts were small, but the nipples were hard, round and dark red as ripe berries. Her lean hips were sculpted into the sweet sweep of her waist. The bush of curls that covered her mount of Venus was crisp and a lustrous black.

At last she came to where he lay, and stooped over and kissed deeply into his mouth. Then she gave an urgent little cry and with a lithe movement fell upon him. He was astonished by the strength and suppleness of her body as he reached up and cleaved to her.

In the late afternoon of that hot, dreamlike day, they were aroused by the crying of the child in the cabin next door. Judith sighed but rose immediately. While she dressed she watched him as though she wished to remember every detail of his face and body. Then, as she laced her armour she came to stand over him, "Yes, I do love you. But, in the same fashion as he chose you, God has singled me out for a special task. I must see the boy Emperor safely installed upon the throne of Prester John in Aksurn." She was silent a while longer, then said softly, "If I kiss you again, I may lose my resolve. Goodbye, Henry Courtney. I wish with all my heart that I were a common maid and that it could have been otherwise." She strode to the door and went to wait upon her King.

Hal anchored off the beach in Mitsiwa roads and lowered the longboat. Reverently Daniel Fisher placed the Tabernacle of Mary on its floorboards. Judith Nazet, in full armour and war helmet, stood in the bows holding the hand of the little boy beside her. Hal took the tiller and ten seamen rowed them in through the low surf towards the beach.

Bishop Fasilides and fifty war captains waited for them on the red sands. Ten thousand warriors lined the cliffs above. As they recognized their general and their monarch, they began to cheer and the cheering swept away across the plain, until it was carried by fifty thousand voices to echo along the desert hills.

Those regiments that had lost heart and were already on the road back to the mountains and the far interior, believing themselves deserted by their General and their Emperor, heard the sound and turned back. Rank upon rank, column upon column, a mighty confluence, the hoofs of their horses raising a tall cloud of red dust, their weapons sparkling in the sunlight and their voices swelling the triumphant chorus, they came pouring back out of the hills.

Fasilides came forward to greet lyasu, as he stepped ashore, hand in hand with Judith. The fifty captains knelt in the sand, raised their swords and called down God's blessings upon him. Then they crowded forward and competed fiercely for the honour of bearing the Tabernacle of Mary upon their shoulders. Singing a battle hymn, they wound in procession up the cliff path.

Judith Nazet mounted her black stallion with its golden chest armour and its crest of ostrich feathers. She wheeled the horse and urged him, rearing and prancing, to where Hal stood at the water's edge.

"If the battle goes with us, the pagan will try to escape by sea. Visit the wrath and the vengeance of Almighty God upon him with your fair ship," she ordered. "If the battle goes against us, have the Golden Bough waiting here at this place to take the Emperor to safety."

"I will be here waiting for you, General Nazet." Hal looked up at her and tried to give the words a special emphasis.

She leaned down from the saddle and her eyes were dark and bright behind the steel nose-piece of her helmet, but he could not be sure whether the brightness was warrior ferocity or the tears of the lost lover.

"I will wish all the days of my life that it could have been otherwise, El Tazar." She straightened up, wheeled the stallion away and went up the cliff path. The Emperor Iyasu turned in Bishop Fasilides" arms and waved back at Hal. He called something in Geez, and his high, piping voice carried down faintly to where Hal stood at the water's edge, but he understood not a word of it.

He waved back and shouted, "You too, lad! You too!" The Golden Bough put out to sea and, beyond the fifty-fathom line with their heads bared in the stark African sunlight, they committed their dead to the sea. There were forty-three in those canvas shrouds, men of Wales and Devon and the mysterious lands along the Zambere River, all comrades now for ever.

Then Hal ran the ship back into the shallow protected waters where he put every man to work repairing the battle damage and recharging the powder magazine with the munitions that General Nazet sent out from the shore.

On the third morning he woke in the darkness to the sound of the guns. He went on deck immediately. Aboli was standing by the lee rail. "It has begun, Gundwane. The General has pitted her army against El Grang in the final battle."

They stood together at the rail and looked towards the dark shore, where the far hills were lit by the hellish flashes of the battlefield and a vast pall of dust and smoke climbed slowly into the windless sky and billowed out into the anvil shape of a tall tropical thunderhead.

"If El Grang is beaten, he will try to escape with all his army across the sea to Arabia," Hal told Ned Tyler and Aboli, as they listened to the ceaseless pandemonium of the cannon. "Weigh anchor and put the ship on a southerly course. We will go down to meet the fugitives as they try to escape from Adulis Bay."

It was past noon when the Golden Bough took up her station off the mouth of the bay and shortened sail. The sound of the guns never ceased and Hal climbed to the masthead and focused his telescope on the wide plain beyond Zulla where the two great hosts were locked in the death struggle.

Through the curtains of dust and smoke he could make out the tiny shapes of the horsemen as they charged and counter-charged, wraithlike in the dust of their own hoofs. He saw the long flashes of the great guns, pale red in the sunlight, and the snaking regiments of foot-soldiers winding through the red fog like dying serpents, their spearheads glistening like the reptiles" scales.

Slowly the battle rolled towards the shoreline and Hal saw a charge of cavalry sweep along the top of the cliffs and tear into a loose, untidy formation of infantry. The sabres rose and fell and the foot-soldiers scattered before them. Men began to hurl themselves from the cliffs into the sea below.

"Who are they?" Hal fretted. "Whose horses are those?" And then through the lens he made out the white cross of Ethiopia at the head of the mass of horsemen as they raced on towards Zutla.

"Nazet has beaten them," said Aboli. "El Grang's army is in rout!"

"Put a leadsman to take soundings, Mister Tyler. Take us in closer."

The Golden Bough glided silently into the mouth of the bay, cruising only a cable's length offshore. From the masthead Hal watched the dun clouds of war roll ponderously towards the beach, and the rabble of El Grang's defeated army streaming back before the Ethiopian cavalry squadrons.

They threw down their weapons and stumbled down to the water's edge to find any vessel to take them off, A motley armada of dhows of every size and condition, packed with fugitives, set out from the beaches around the blazing port of Zulla towards the opening of the bay.

"Sweet heavens!" laughed Big Daniel. "They are so thick upon the water that a man might cross from one side of the bay to the other over their crowded hulls without wetting his feet."

"Run out your guns, please, Master Daniel, and let us see if we can wet more than their feet for them," Hal ordered. The Golden Bough ploughed into this vast fleet and the little boats tried to flee, but she overhauled them effortlessly and her guns began to thunder. One after the other they were shattered and capsized, and their cargoes of exhausted, defeated troops hurled into the water. Their armour bore them down swiftly.

It was such a terrible massacre that the gunners no longer cheered as they ran out the guns, but served them in grim silence. Hal walked along the batteries, and spoke to them sternly. "I know how you feel, lads, but if you spare them now, you may have to fight them again tomorrow, and who can say that they will give you quarter if you ask for it then?"

He, also, was sickened by the slaughter, and longed for the setting of the sun, or any other chance to cease the carnage. That opportunity came from an unlooked-for direction.

Aboli left his station at the starboard battery of cannon and ran back to where Hal paced his quarterdeck. Hal looked up at him sharply, but before he could snap a reprimand, Aboli pointed out over the starboard bow.

"That ship with the red sail. The man in the stern. Do you see him, Gundwane?"

Hal felt the prickle of apprehension on his arms and the cold sweat sliding down his back as he recognized the tall figure standing and leaning back against the tiller arm. He was clean-shaven now, the spiked moustaches were gone. He wore a turban of yellow, and the heavily embroidered dolman of an Islamic grandee over baggy white breeches and soft knee-high boots, but his pale face stood out like a mirror among the dark-bearded men around him. There may have been others with the same wide set of shoulders and tall athletic figure, but none with the same sword upon the hip, in its scabbard of embossed gold.

"Bring the ship about, Mister Tyler. Heave to alongside that dhow with the red sail," Hal ordered.

Ned looked where he pointed then swore. "Son of a bawd, that's Schreuder! May the devil damn him to hell." The Arab crew ran to the side of the dhow as the tall frigate bore down upon them. They jumped overboard and tried to swim back towards the beach, choosing the sabres of the Ethiopian cavalry rather than the gaping culver ins of the Golden Bough's broadside. Schreuder stood alone in the stern and looked up at the frigate with his cold, unrelenting expression. As they drew closer, Hal saw that his face was streaked with dust and powder soot, and that his clothing was torn and soiled with the muck of the battlefield.

Hal strode to the rail and returned his stare. They were so close that Hal had hardly to raise his voice to make himself heard. "Colonel Schreuder, sir, you have my sword."

"Then, sir, would you care to come down and take it from me?" Schreuder asked.

"Mister Tyler, you have the con in my absence. Take me closer to the dhow so that I may board her.

"This is madness, Gundwane,"Aboli said softly.

"Make sure neither you nor any man intervenes, Aboli," Hal said, and went to the entry port As the little dhow bobbed close alongside, he slid down the ladder and jumped across the narrow gap of water, landing lightly on her single deck.

He drew his sword and looked to the stern. Schreuder stepped away from the tiller bar and shrugged out of the stiff dolman tunic.

"You are a "romantic fool, Henry Courtney," he murmured, and the blade of the Neptune sword whispered softly from its scabbard.

"To the death?" Hal asked, as he drew his own blade. "Naturally." Schreuder nodded gravely. "For I am going to kill you."

They came together with the slow grace of two lovers beginning a minuet. Their blades met and flirted as they circled, tap and brush and slither of steel on steel, their feet never still, points held high and eyes locked.

Ned Tyler held the frigate fifty yards off, keeping that interval with deft touches of helm and trim of her shortened sails. The men lined the near rail. They were quiet and attentive. Although few understood the finer points of style and technique, they could not but be aware of the grace and beauty of this deadly ritual.

"An eye for his eyes!" Hal seemed to hear his father's voice in his head. "Read in them his soul!"

Schreuder's face remained gravel but Hal saw the first shadow in his cold blue eyes. It was not fear, but it was respect. Even with these light touches of their blades, Schreuder had evaluated his man. Remembering their previous encounters, he had not expected to be met with such strength and skill. As for Hal he knew that, if he lived through this, he would never again dance so close to death and smell its breath as he did now.

Hal saw it in his eyes, the moment before Schreuder opened his attack, stepping in lightly and then driving at him with a rapid series of lunges. He moved back, checking each thrust but feeling the power in it. He hardly heard the excited growl of the watchers on the deck of the frigate above them, but he watched Schreuder's eyes and met him with the high point. The Dutchman drove suddenly for his throat, his first serious stroke, and the moment Hal blocked he disengaged fluidly and dropped on bent right knee and cut for Hal's ankle, the Achilles stroke intended to cripple him.

Hal vaulted lightly over the flashing golden blade but felt it tug at the heel of his boot. With both feet in the air he was momentarily out of balance and Schreuder straightened and like a striking cobra turned the angle of his blade and went for Hal's belly. Hal sprang back but felt it touch him, no pain from that razor edge but just a tiny snick. He bounced back off his left foot, and aimed for one of Schreuder's blue eyes. He saw the surprise in that eye, but then Schreuder rolled his head and the point slit his cheek.

They backed and circled, both men bleeding now. Hal felt the warm wetness soaking through the front of his shirt, and a scarlet snake ran slowly down past the corner of Schreuder's thin lips and dripped from his chin.

"First blood was mine, I think, sir?" Schreuder asked.

"It was, sir." Hal conceded. "But whose will be the last?" And the words were not past his lips before Schreuder attacked in earnest. While the watchers on the Golden Bough howled and danced with excitement, he drove Hal step by step from the stern to the bows of the dhow and pinned him there, with their blades locked, and forced his back against the gunwale. They stood like that with their blades crossed in front of their faces, and their eyes only a hand's span apart. Their breath mingled and Hal watched the drops of sweat form on Schreuder's upper lip as he strained to hold him like that.

Deliberately Hal swayed backwards, and saw the gleam of triumph in the blue eyes so close to his own, but his back was loaded like a longbow taking the weight of the archer's draw. He unleashed and, with the strength of his legs, arms and upper body, hurled Schreuder backwards. With the impetus of that movement Hal went on the attack and, their blades rasping and clashing together, he forced Schreuder back down the open deck to the stern.

With the tiller arm digging into his spine, Schreuder could retreat no further. He caught up Hal's blade and with all the power of his wrist forced him into the prolonged engagement, the ploy with which he had killed Vincent Winterton and a dozen others before him. Their swords swirled and shrilled together, a silver whirlpool of molten sunlight that held them apart yet locked them together.

On it went, and on. The sweat streamed down both their faces, and their breath came in short, urgent grunts. It was death to the first man to break. Their wrists seemed forged from the same steel as their blades, and then Hal saw something in Schreuder's eyes that he had never dreamed of seeing there. Fear, Schreuder tried to break the circle and lock up the blades as he had with Vincent, but Hal refused and forced him on and on. He felt the first weakness in Schreuder's iron sword arm, and saw the despair in his eyes.

Then Schreuder broke, and Hal was on him in the same instant that his point dropped and his guard opened. He hit him hard in the centre of his chest and felt the point go home, strike bone, and the hilt thrill in his hand.

The roar from the men on the deck of the frigate broke over them like a wave of storm-driven surf. In the moment that Hal felt the surge of triumph and the live feeling of his blade buried deep in his opponent's flesh, Schreuder reared back and raised the gold-inlaid blade of the Neptune sword to the level of his eyes in which the sapphire lights were beginning to fade, and lunged.

The forward movement forced Hal's blade deeper into his body, but as the point of the Neptune sword flashed towards his chest Hal had no defence. He released his grip on the hilt of his own sword, and sprang back, but he could not escape the reach of the golden sword or its gimlet sharp point.

Hal felt the hit, high in the left side of his chest, and as he reeled back felt the blade slip out of his flesh. With an effort he kept his feet, and the two men confronted each other, both hard hit but Hal disarmed and Schreuder with the Neptune sword still clutched in his right hand.

"I think I have killed you, sir,"Schreuder whispered. "Perhaps. But I know I have killed you, sir," Hal answered him.

"Then I will make certain of my side of it," Schreuder grunted, and took an unsteady pace towards him, but the strength went out of his legs. He sagged forward and fell to the deck.

Painfully Hal went down on one knee beside his body. With his left hand he clutched his own chest wound, but with his right he prised open Schreuder's dead fingers from the hilt of the Neptune sword and with it in his own hand rose to face the towering deck of the GoLden Bough.

He held the gleaming sword high, and they cheered him wildly. The sound of it echoed weirdly in Hal's ears and he blinked uncertainly as the brilliant African sunlight faded and his eyes were filled with shadows and darkness.

His legs gave way under him and he sat down heavily on the deck of the dhow, bowed forward over the sword in his lap.

He felt but did not see the frigate bump against the dhow as Ned Tyler brought her alongside, and then Aboli's hands were on his shoulders and his voice was deep and close as he lifted Hal in his arms.

"It is over now, Gundwane. All of it is done."

Ned Tyler took the ship deeper into the bay and anchored her in the calm waters off the port of Zulla where now the white cross of Ethiopia flew above the shot-battered walls.

Hal lay for fourteen days on the bunk in the stern cabin, attended only by Aboli. On the fifteenth day Aboli and Big Daniel lifted him into one of the oak chairs and carried him up onto the deck. The men came to him one at a time with a touch of the forehead and a self-consciously muttered greeting.

Under his eye they made the ship ready for sea. The carpenters replaced the timbers that had been shot away, and the sail makers re sewed the torn sails. Big Daniel plunged over side and swam under the hull to check for damage beneath the waterline. "She's tight and sweet as a virgin's slit," he shouted up to the deck as he surfaced on the other side.

There were many visitors from the shore. Governors and nobles and soldiers coming with gifts to thank Hal, and to stare at him in awe. As he grew stronger, Hal was able to greet them standing on his quarterdeck. They brought news as well as gifts.

"General Nazet has borne the Emperor back to Aksum in triumph," they told him.

Then, many days later, they said, "Praise God, the Emperor has been crowned in Aksum. Forty thousand people came to his coronation." Hal stared longingly at the far blue mountains, and that night slept little.

Then in the morning Ned Tyler came to him. "The ship is ready for sea, Captain."

"Thank you, Mister Tyler." Hal turned from him and left him standing without orders.

Before he reached the companionway to the stern cabin, there came a hail from the masthead. "There is a boat putting out from the pard." Eagerly Hal strode back to the rail. He scanned the passengers, searching for a slim figure in armour with a dark halo of curls around a beloved amber face. He felt the lead of disappointment weight his limbs when he recognized only Bishop Fasilides" lanky frame and his white beard blowing over his shoulder.

Fasilides came in through the entry port and made the sign of the Cross. "Bless this fine ship, and all the brave men who sail in her." The rough seamen bared their heads and went down on their knees. When he had blessed each, Fasilides came to Hal. "I come as a messenger from the Emperor."

"God bless him!" Hal answered.

"I bring his greetings and his thanks to you and your men."

He turned to one of the priests who followed him and took from him the heavy gold chain he carried. "On the Emperor's behalf I bestow upon you the order of the Golden Lion of Ethiopia." He placed the chain with its jeivelled medallion around Hal's neck. "I bring with me the prize monies that you have earned from your gallant war upon the pagan, together with the reward that the Emperor personally sends you."

From the dhow they brought up a single small wooden chest. It was too heavy to be carried up the side, and it took four strong seamen on the block and tackle to lift it to the Golden Bough's deck.

Fasilides lifted the lid of the chest and the sparkle of gold within was dazzling in the sunlight.

"Well, my lads!" Hal called to his men. "You will have the price of a flagon of beer in your purse when next we dock in Plymouth harbour."

"When will you sail?" Fasilides wanted to know.

"All is in readiness," Hal replied. "But tell me, what news of General Nazet?"

Fasilides looked at him shrewdly. "No news. After the coronation she disappeared, and the Tabernacle of Mary with her. Some say she has gone back into the mountains, whence she came."

Hal's face darkened. "I will sail on tomorrow morning's tide, Father. And I thank you and the Emperor for your charity and your blessings."

The following morning Hal was on deck two hours before sunrise, and all the ship was awake. The excitement that always attonded departure gripped the Golden Bough. Only Hal was unaffected by it. The sense of loss and betrayal was heavy upon him. Though she had made no promise, he had hoped with all his heart that Judith Nazet might come. Now, as he made his final tour of inspection of the ship, he steadfastly refrained from looking back towards the shore.

Ned came to him. "The tide has turned, Captain! And the wind stands fair to weather Dahlak Island on a single tack."

Hal could delay no longer. "Up anchor, Mister Tyler. Set all plain sail. Take us south to Elephant Lagoon. We have some unfinished business thereabouts."

Ned Tyler and Big Daniel grinned at the prospect of reclaiming their share of the treasure that they knew was hidden there.

The canvas billowed out from her yards and the Golden Bough shook herself and came awake. Her bows swung round and steadied as they pointed at the entrance to the open sea.

Hal stood, his hands clasped behind his back, and stared straight ahead. Aboli came to him then with a cloak over his arm, and when Hal turned to him he shook it out and lifted it high for his appraisal. "The croix pattge, the same as your father wore at the beginning of every voyage."

"Where did you get that, Aboli?"

"I had it made for you in Zulla while you lay wounded. You have earned the right to wear it." He spread it over Hal's shoulders, and stood back to appraise him. "You look like your father did on the first day I saw him." Those words gave Hal such pleasure as to lighten his sombre mood.

"Deck!" The hail from the lookout rang out of the lightening sky.

"Masthead?" Hal threw his head back and looked up. "Signal from the shore!"

Hal turned quickly with the cloak swirling about him.

Above the walls of Zulla three bright red lights hung in the dawn sky, and as he watched they floated gracefully back to earth.

"Three Chinese rockets!" Aboli said. "The recall signal." "Put the ship about, please, Mister Tyler," said Hal, and went to the rail as the ship swung round.

"Boat putting out from the pard" came Aboli's hail.

Hal peered ahead and, out of the gloom, saw the shape of a small dhow coming to meet them. As the range closed and the light strengthened, he felt his heart leap and his breath come shorter.

In the bows stood a figure in unfamiliar garb, a woman who wore a blue caftan and a head cloth of the same colour. As the boat drew alongside she lifted the cloth from her head and Hal saw the glorious dark crown of her hair.

He was waiting for her at the entry port When Judith Nazet stepped onto the deck, he greeted her awkwardly. "Good morrow, General Nazet."

"I am a general no longer. Now I am only a common maid named Judith.".

"You are welcome, Judith."

"I came as soon as I was able." Her voice was husky and uncertain. "Now at last Iyasu is crowned, and the Tabernacle has gone back to its resting place in the mountains."

"I had despaired of you," he said.

"No, El Tazar. Never do that," she answered him.

With surprise, Hal saw that the dhow was already on its way back to the shore. It had unloaded no baggage. "You have brought nothing with you? "he asked.

"Only my heart, "she replied softly. "I am southward bound," he said. "Wherever you go, my lord, I go also."

Hal turned to Ned Tyler. "Bring the ship round. Lay her on the other tack. Course to clear Dahlak Island, and then south for the Bah El Mandeb. Full and by, Mister Tyler."

"Full and by it is, Captain." Ned grinned widely and winked at Big Daniel.

As the Golden Bough ran out to meet the dawn, Hal stood tall on her quarterdeck, his left hand resting lightly on the sapphire in the pommel of the Neptune Sword. With his other arm he reached out and drew Judith Nazet Closer to him. She came willingly.

The End