Blue Horizon

"I shall see what can be done, Captain Cornish."

"You are very kind," he muttered gruffly, clapped his hat back on his head and saluted her. Then he stamped away through the loose black sand.

Dorian did not have to ponder long on the request. As soon as the Arcturus was refitted and floated off the beach, Cornish resumed command of her. Only ten of his seamen refused to come with him. When the little flotilla sailed from Sawda island, it headed south-west to pick up the warm, benign waters of the Mozambique current which, with the monsoon winds, bore them rapidly southwards along the Fever Coast.

Some weeks later, they hailed a large trading dhow on an easterly heading. When Dorian exchanged news with him, her captain explained that he was on a trading expedition to the distant ports of Cathay. He was delighted to add the ten reluctant seamen from the Arcturus to his own crew. Dorian was content with the knowledge that it might take years for their report to filter back to Muscat, or to the English consulate in Bombay.

Then they set all sail that the monsoon winds would allow, and went on southwards, through the channel between the long island of Madagascar and the African mainland. Slowly the wild, unexplored coastline unfolded on their right hand, until at last they raised the high whale backed bluff that guarded Nativity Bay, and sailed in through the narrow entrance.

It was the middle of the day, but there was no evidence of human presence at the fort: no smoke from chimneys, no washing flapping on the lines, no children playing on the beach. Dorian was concerned for the welfare of his family. It was almost three years since they had sailed away and much might have happened in that time. There were many

enemies, and in their absence the fort might have been overwhelmed by man famine or pestilence. Dorian fired a gun as they glided in towards the beach, and was relieved to see the sudden stir of activity around the fort. A row of heads popped up along the parapet, the gates were flung open and a motley crowd of servants and children ran out. Dorian lifted his telescope and trained it on the gates. His heart leaped with joy as he saw the big, bear-like figure of his brother Tom striding through, and heading down the path towards the beach, waving his hat over his head. He had not reached the edge of the water before Sarah followed him, running out of the gates. When she caught up with him, she linked her arm through his. Her happy cries of welcome carried across the water to the ships as they anchored.

"You were right again," Verity told Mansur. "If that is my aunt Sarah, I already like her passing fair."

Can we trust this man?" Zayn al-Din asked, in his high, feminine voice. "Your Majesty, he is one of my best captains. I vouch for him with my own life," Muri Kadem ibn Abubaker replied. Zayn had bestowed upon him the title of Muri, High Admiral, after the capture of Muscat.

"You might have to do just that." Zayn stroked his beard as he studied the man they were discussing. He was prostrated before the throne, his forehead pressed to the stone floor. Zayn made a gesture with his bony forefinger.

Kadem translated it at once. "Lift your head. Let the Caliph see your face," he told his captain, and the man sat back on his heels. However, his eyes were downcast for he dared not look directly into the eyes of Zayn al-Din.

Zayn studied his face carefully. The man was young enough still to have the vigour and dash of a warrior, but old enough to have tempered it with experience and judgement. "What is your name?"

"I am Laleh, Your Majesty."

"Very well, Laleh," Zayn nodded, 'let us hear your report."

"Speak," Kadem ordered.

"Majesty, on the orders of Muri Kadem, six months ago I sailed south along the Africa mainland, until I reached the bay known by the Portuguese as the Nativity. I had been sent by the Muri to ascertain if, as our spies had told us, this was indeed the hiding place of al-Salil, the traitor and enemy of the Caliph and the people of Oman. At all times I

was at great pains to make certain that my dhow should not be seen from the shore. During the day I cruised well below the horizon. Only after nightfall did I approach the entrance to the bay. If it so please Your Majesty." Laleh prostrated himself again, his forehead pressed to the stone floor.

The men seated on cushions facing the throne were all listening intently. Sir Guy Courtney sat closest to the Caliph. Despite the loss of his ship, and the huge fortune in gold it contained, his power and influence were undiminished. He remained the chosen emissary of both the English East India Company and King George of England.

Sir Guy had found a new interpreter to replace Verity, a writer of long employment in the Bombay headquarters of the Company. He was a lanky, balding fellow, his skin pitted with smallpox scars, and his name was Peter Peters. Although his grasp of half a dozen languages was excellent, Sir Guy could not trust him as he had his daughter.

Below Sir Guy sat Pasha Herminius Koots. He also had been promoted after the capture of the city from al-Salil. Koots had accepted Islam, for he knew full well that without Allah and His Prophet he could never be fully inducted into the Caliph's favour. He was now the supreme commander of the Caliph's army. All three men, Kadem, Koots and Sir Guy, had pressing political and personal reasons to be present at this war council.

Zayn al-Din made an impatient gesture, and Muri Kadem stirred Captain Laleh with his toe. "Continue, in the name of the Caliph."

"May Allah always smile upon him, and shower him with good fortune," Laleh intoned, and sat up again. "During the night I went ashore and hid myself in a secret place on the bluff above the bay. I sent my ship away so that it should not be seen by the followers of al-Salil. From this place I watched over the stronghold of the enemy, if it so please you, Your Majesty."

"Continue!" This time Kadem did not wait for the Caliph to give the word, and kicked Laleh in the ribs.

He gasped, and went on hurriedly, "I beheld three ships at anchor in the bay. One of these was the tall ship that was captured from the English effendi." Laleh turned his head to indicate the consul, and Sir Guy frowned darkly to be reminded of his loss. "The other vessels were those in which al-Salil fled after his defeat by the illustrious Caliph Zayn al-Din, beloved of the Prophet." Laleh prostrated himself again, and this time Kadem caught him a full swing of his nailed sandals.

Laleh bounced upright and his voice was wheezy with the pain of his bruised ribcage. "Towards evening I saw a small fishing-boat leave the bay and anchor on the reef outside the mouth. When darkness fell the

three men of the boat-crew began fishing by lantern-light. When I went back on board my dhow I sent my men to capture them. They killed one man when he fought against capture, but they took the two others prisoner. I towed the fishing-boat many leagues offshore before filling it with ballast stones and scuttling it. I did this so that al-Salil would believe it had been overwhelmed by the sea during the night and the men drowned."

"Where are these prisoners?" Zayn demanded. "Bring them before me."

Muri Kadem clapped his hands and the two men were led in by the guards. They were dressed only in filthy loincloths and their emaciated bodies bore the marks of heavy beatings. One had lost an eye. The raw, black-scabbed pit was uncovered, except for the metallic blue flies that swarmed into it. Both shuffled along under the weight of the leg irons that were riveted to their ankles.

The guards threw them full length on the flags at the foot of the throne. "Abase yourselves before the favourite of the Prophet, the ruler of Oman and all the islands of the Ocean of the Indies, Caliph Zayn al Din." The prisoners writhed before him and whined their protestations of fealty and duty.

"Majesty, these are the men I captured," Laleh said. "Unfortunately the one-eyed rogue lost his wits but the other, who is named Omar, is made of stouter stuff and he will be able to answer any questions you may deign to ask him." Laleh unhooked from his belt a long hippopotamus-hide whip and uncoiled it. As soon as he shook out the lash, the idiot prisoner began gibbering and drooling with terror.

"I have learned that both these men were sailors aboard the ship commanded by al-Salil. They have been in his service for many years and know much of that traitor's affairs."

"Where is al-Salil?" Zayn al-Din demanded. Laleh cracked the whiplash, and the one-eyed idiot defecated down his own legs with terror. Zayn turned away his face with disgust and ordered the guards, Take him out and kill him." They dragged him, shrieking, from the throne room and Zayn turned all his attention on Omar, and repeated the question: "Where is al-Salil?"

"Majesty, when last I saw him, al-Salil was at Nativity Bay, in the fort that they call Auspice. He had with him his son, his elder brother and their women."

"What are his intentions? How long will he remain in this place?"

Majesty, I am a humble seaman. Al-Salil did not discuss these matters with me."

Were you with al-Salil when the ship called Arcturus was captured? LHd you see the gold chests that were part of her cargo?"

And as for the swine who has perverted her, I shall make him scream for the mercy of death.

His imaginings were so vivid that he was afraid the men around him must sense them as powerfully as he did. He could stomach no more.

"I have finished with this piece of excrement, Your Majesty." He scrubbed his hands in the bowl of warm water scented with flower petals that stood beside him, as if cleansing himself from the repulsive contact.

Zayn al-Din looked at Pasha Koots. "Is there aught you wish to know from the prisoner?"

"If Your Majesty graciously permits." He bowed. At first the questions he had for Omar were those that would concern a soldier. He wanted to know how many sailors had been on board the three ships, and how many men were in the fort, how loyal they were, and how prepared to fight. He asked about the armaments, the placement of the cannon and the field guns that had been captured from the holds of the Arcturus. How much powder did al-Salil have in his magazine, how many muskets?

Then his questions changed. The one you call Klebe, the Hawk, and whose /erengi name is Tom, you say you know him?"

"Yes, I know him well," Omar agreed.

"He has a son."

"Him I know also. We call him Somoya, for he is like the storm wind," Omar told him.

"Where is he?" Koots asked, with a stony face, although behind the mask his anger burned brightly.

"I have heard it said within the fort that he has gone on a journey into the interior of the country."

"Has he gone to hunt ivory?" Koots asked.

"They say that Somoya is a mighty hunter. He has a great store of ivory in the fort."

"Have you seen this store with your own eyes?"

"I have seen the five capacious storerooms of the fort packed to the rafters with its abundance."

Koots nodded with satisfaction. "That is all I wish to know at present, but there will be many more questions later."

Kadem bowed to his uncle. "Your Majesty, I request that this prisoner be given into my personal charge and custody."

"Take him away. Make sure he does not die, not yet at least. Not until he has served his purpose." The guards hauled Omar to his feet and dragged him out through the great bronze doors. Zayn al-Din looked at Laleh, who had crept away, trying to efface himself among the shadows at the rear of the throne room. "You have done good work. Now go and

prepare your ship for sea. I will need your services as a scout when you lead the fleet to this Nativity Bay."

Laleh retreated backwards, bowing and making obeisance with each few steps towards the doors.

When the guards and all lesser men had gone, a silence fell on the council. All three waited for Zayn's next pronouncement. He seemed sunk in a deep reverie, like that of the bhang smoker. But at last he roused himself, and looked to Kadem ibn Abubaker.

"You are bound by a blood oath to avenge the death of your father at the hands of al-Salil."

Kadem bowed deeply. "That oath is more dear to me than my life."

"Your soul has been desecrated by al-Salil's brother, Tom Courtney. He wrapped you in the skin of a pig, and threatened to bury you alive in the same grave as the obscene animal."

Kadem ground his teeth at the memory. He could not bring himself to admit how he had been defiled and humiliated, but he sank to his knees. "I beg you, my Caliph and brother of my father, to allow me to seek satisfaction for these terrible wrongs that have been perpetrated against me by these two diabolical brothers."

Zayn nodded thoughtfully, and turned to Sir Guy. "Consul General, your daughter has been abducted by the son of al-Salil. Your magnificent ship has been pirated and your great store of wealth stolen from you."

"All this is true, Majesty."

Zayn turned at last to Pasha Herminius Koots. "You have suffered humiliation and your honour has been besmirched at the hands of this same family."

"I have suffered all these afflictions."

"As for me, the list of my own grievances against al-Salil goes back to my childhood," Zayn al-Din said. "It is too long and painful for me to recite here. We have a common purpose, and that is the eradication of this nest of venomous reptiles and pork-eaters. We know that they have accumulated a considerable store of gold and ivory. Let that be only the pepper sauce that piques our appetite for retribution." He paused again, and looked from one to the other of his generals.

"How long will you need to draw up a battle plan?" he asked them.

"Mighty Caliph, before whom all your enemies are turned into dust and ashes, Pasha Koots and I will not sleep or eat until we are able to lay the battle order before you for your approval," Kadem promised.

Zayn smiled. "I would have accepted nothing less from you. We will meet here again after tomorrow's evening prayers to hear your plan."

"We will be ready for you at that hour," Kadem assured him.

The war council continued by the light of five hundred lamps, whose wicks floated in perfumed oils to drive away the clouds of mosquitoes that, as soon as the sun touched the horizon, swarmed from the swamps and cesspools outside the city walls.

Peter Peters fell into his accustomed place behind Sir Guy Courtney as they made their way through the labyrinth of passages towards the royal harem at the rear of the vast sprawling palace. The walls smelt of rot, fungus and two hundred years of neglect. Rats scurried away ahead of the torch-bearers as they escorted the Caliph to his bedchamber, and the tramp of the bodyguard echoed hollowly from the domes and cavernous recesses of the walls.

The Caliph kept up a high-pitched monologue, and Peters translated the words almost as they fell from his lips. When the Caliph paused, Peters translated Sir Guy's response just as swiftly. At last they reached the doors to the harem where a party of armed eunuchs waited to take over the escort duty, for no natural man other than the Caliph was permitted beyond this point.

The aroma of incense floated from behind the ivory screens and mingled with the scent of lusty young womanhood. Listening intently, Peters fancied he heard the whisper of small bare feet on the flags and the sound of girlish laughter tinkling like tiny golden bells. His fatigue fell away as the cat's claws of lust pricked at his manhood. The Caliph could go to his delights and Peters did not envy him: tonight the palace vizier had promised him something special. "She is a daughter of the Saar, the fiercest of all the tribes of Oman. Although she has seen only fifteen summers she is peculiarly gifted. She is a creature of the desert, a gazelle with pubescent breasts and long slim legs. She has the face of a child and the instincts of a harlot. She delights in the wiles and wonders of love. She will open to you all three of her passageways to bliss." The vizier sniggered. It was part of his duty to learn every personal detail of every inhabitant of the palace. He knew full well in which direction lay Peter Peters's tastes. "Even through the forbidden nether passage she will welcome you. She will treat you like the great lord you truly are, effendi." He knew how much this worthless little clerk enjoyed being given that title.

When at last Sir Guy dismissed him, Peters hurried to his own quarters. In Bombay he lived in three tiny cockroach-infested rooms at the back of the Company compound. The only female companions he

could afford on his miserly salary were the women of the night in their cheap, gaudy saris and brass bangles, their lips and gums stained bloody crimson as sword wounds from betel nut, smelling of cardamom, garlic, curry and the musk of their unwashed genitals.

Here in the palace of Muscat he was treated with honour. Men called him effendi. He had two house slaves to wait upon his every whim. His quarters were sumptuous, and the girls the vizier sent to keep him company were young, sweet and compliant. There was always a new one available as soon as he tired of the old.

When he reached his bedchamber Peters felt the chill of disappointment slide down his spine, for the room was empty. Then he caught the smell of her, like the perfume of a citrus orchard in blossom. He stood in the centre of the room and searched it with his eyes, waiting for her to show herself. For a while nothing moved, and there was no sound except the rustle of the leaves of the tamarind tree that stood on the terrace below the balcony.

Softly Peters quoted a stanza of the Persian poet: '"Her bosom shines like the snow fields of Mount Tabora, her buttocks are bright and round as rising moons. The dark eye that nestles between them gazes implacably into the depth of my soul.""

The curtains that screened the balcony stirred and the girl giggled. It was a childlike sound, and he knew even before he set eyes on her that the vizier had not overstated her age. When she stepped out from behind the curtains, the moonlight struck through the flimsy stuff of her robe and the outline of her body was waif like She came to him and rubbed herself against him like a cat. When he stroked her small rounded backside through the thin cloth she purred.

"What is your name, my pretty child?"

"I am called Nazeen, effendi." The vizier had instructed her carefully as to Peters's special tastes, and her skills far surpassed her tender years. Many times during the remainder of that long night she made him bawl and bleat like a weaning calf.

In the dawn Nazeen curled into his lap as he sat in the centre of the mattress of goose down. She selected one of the ripe loquats from the silver dish that stood beside the bed, and bit it in half with her small white teeth. She spat out the glossy brown pip and placed the rest of the sweet fruit between Peters's lips. "You made me wait so long last night before you came to me. I thought my heart would break." She pouted.

"I was with the Caliph and his generals until after midnight." Peters could not resist the urge to impress her.

The Caliph himself?" She stared at him with awe. Her eyes were huge and dark. "Did he speak to you?"

"Of course."

"You must be a great lord in your own country. What did the Caliph want of you?"

"He wanted my opinion and advice on matters of the utmost secrecy and importance." She wriggled excitedly in his naked lap, and giggled as she felt him swell and stiffen under her. She rose on to her knees and reached down behind herself with both hands. She spread her tight brown buttocks, then sank back into his lap.

"I do so love secrets," she whispered, and thrust her pink tongue deep into his ear.

Nazeen spent five more nights with Peters, and when they were not otherwise engaged they talked a great deal or, more accurately, Peters talked and the girl listened.

On the fifth morning when he came to fetch her, while it was still dark, the vizier promised Peters, "She will return to you again tonight," and led her away by the hand to a side gate of the palace, where an old man of the Saar waited, kneeling patiently beside an equally ancient camel. The vizier swathed Nazeen in a dark camel-hair shawl and lifted her on to the dilapidated saddle.

The city gates opened with the sunrise, and there followed the usual exodus and influx of desert folk who had come in to sell their wares, or who were returning into the vast wilderness: pilgrims and petty officials, traders and travellers. Among those leaving were the two riders on the old camel. There was nothing about them to excite interest or envy. Nazeen looked like the old man's grandchild. It was not easy to tell her gender under the shabby robe that covered her head and body. They rode away through the palm groves and none of the guards at the gate bothered to watch them go.

A little before noon the travellers spied a goatherd squatting on a crag of the barren hills. His herd of a dozen motley beasts was spread out among the rocks below him, nibbling at the desiccated twigs of the saltbush. The goatherd was playing a mournful little tune on his reed pipes. The old rider halted his camel and prodded its neck with his goad until it hissed, bellowed a protest and knelt in the sand. Nazeen slipped off its back and ran lightly up the rocky crag, throwing back the hood of her robe as she went towards the goatherd.

She prostrated herself before him and kissed the hem of his robe. "Mighty Sheikh bin-Shibam, father of all my tribe, may Allah sweeten every day of your life with the perfume of jasmine blossom."

"Nazeen! Sit up, child. Even here in the wilderness there may be eyes watching us."

"My lord, I have much to relate," Nazeen babbled. Her dark eyes sparkled with excitement. "Zayn is sending no less than fifteen war dhows!"

"Nazeen, draw a deep breath, then speak slowly but miss nothing, not a word of what the ferengi Peters has told you."

As she prattled away bin-Shibam's face darkened with concern. Little Nazeen had an extraordinary memory, and she had been able to milk the most minute details from Peters. Now she effortlessly recited the numbers of men and the names of the dhow captains whose ships would carry them southwards. She gave him the exact date and state of the tide on which the fleet would sail, and the date on which they expected to arrive at Nativity Bay. When she finished, the sun was half-way down the sky. However bin-Shibam had one last question for her: Tell me, Nazeen, has Zayn al-Din announced who is to command the expedition? Is it to be Kadem ibn Abubaker or the ferengi Koots?"

"Great Sheikh, Kadem ibn Abubaker is to command the ships, and the ferengi Koots the warriors who go ashore. But Zayn al-Din in person will sail with the fleet and take the supreme command."

"Are you sure, child?" he demanded. It seemed too great a stroke of good fortune.

"I am certain. He told his war council, and these are the exact words that Peters repeated to me, "My throne will never be secure as long as al-Salil still lives. I want to be there at the day of his death, and to wash my hands in his heart blood. Only then will I believe that he is dead."

"As your mother has said to me, Nazeen, you are worth a dozen warriors in the battle against the tyrant."

Nazeen hung her head shyly. "How is my mother, great Sheikh?"

"She is well cared-for, as I promised. She asked me to tell you how much she loves you and how proud she is of what you are doing."

Nazeen's dark eyes glowed with pleasure. Tell my mother that I pray for her every day." Nazeen's mother was blind: the flies had laid their eggs under her eyelids, and the maggots had burrowed into her eyeballs. Without Nazeen she would long ago have been abandoned, for the desert life is pitiless. Now, however, she lived under the personal protection of Sheikh bin-Shibam.

Bin-Shibam watched the girl go back down the hill and mount behind the camel rider. They set off again in the direction of the city. He felt no guilt or remorse for what he had required Nazeen to do. When it was over, when al-Salil sat once more upon the Elephant Throne, he would find her a good husband. If that was what she wanted.

Bin-Shibam smiled and shook his head. He sensed that she was one of those born with a natural talent and appetite for her vocation. Deep down, he knew that she would never give up the excitement of the city for the austere, aesthetic life of the tribe. She was not a woman who would place herself willingly under the domination of a husband.

"That little one could take care of a hundred men. Perhaps I could do better for her simply by taking care of her blind mother, and leaving her to work out her own destiny. Go in peace, little Nazeen, and be happy," he whispered after the distant shape of the camel, as it disappeared in the purple haze of fading day. Then he whistled and after a while the true goatherd came out of his hiding-place among the rocks. He knelt before bin-Shibam and kissed his sandal led feet. Bin-Shibam shrugged off the faded robe, and handed it back to him.

"You heard nothing. You saw nothing," he said.

"I am deaf, blind and dumb," the goatherd agreed. Bin-Shibam gave him a coin, and the man wept with gratitude.

Bin-Shibam crossed the ridge and went down to where he had left his own camel knee-haltered. He mounted, turned her head southwards, and rode through the night and the following day without pause. He ate a handful of dates and drank thick curds of camel's milk from the skin bladder that hung behind his saddle. He even prayed on the march.

In the evening he smelt the sea salt. Still without check he rode on through the night. In the dawn the ocean lay spread before him like an infinite shield of silver. From the hills he saw the fast felucca anchored just off the beach. The captain, Tasuz, was a man who had proven himself many times over. He sent a small boat to the beach to fetch bin-Shibam aboard.

Bin-Shibam had brought with him writing materials. He sat cross legged on the deck with the scroll before him and wrote down all that Nazeen had been able to tell him. He ended with the words, "Majesty, may God grant you victory and glory. I shall wait with all the tribes to welcome you when you return to us." By the time he had finished, the day was far spent. He gave the scroll to Tasuz. "Surrender this only into the hands of Caliph al-Salil. Give your own life rather than this scroll to another," he ordered. Tasuz could neither read nor write, so the report was safe with him. He already had detailed sailing directions for Nativity Bay. Like many illiterate people, he had an infallible memory. He would not forget a single detail.

"Go with God, and may He fill your sail with His sacred breath." Bin Shibam dismissed him.

"Stay with God, and may angels spread their wings over you, great sheikh," Tasuz replied.

It was one hundred and three days later that Tasuz picked out the towering whale-backed bluff that his sailing orders had described, and as he steered into the lagoon he recognized the three tall ships that he had last seen anchored in Muscat harbour.

The entire Courtney family were gathered in the refectory, the central room in the main block of Fort Auspice where they spent much of their leisure time. It had taken Sarah four years to furnish it to its present state of homely comfort. The floor and all the furniture had been lovingly made by the carpenters from indigenous timber, stink wood, tam bootie and black wood magnificently grained and polished with beeswax to a warm lustre. The women had embroidered the cushions and stuffed them with wild kapok. The floors were covered with tanned animal skins. The walls were decorated with framed paintings, most of which had been executed by Sarah and Louisa, although Verity, during her short stay at the fort, had made a substantial contribution to the gallery. Sarah's harpsichord had pride of place against the main wall, and now that Dorian and Mansur were back the family choir was at full strength once again.

This evening there was no singing. They were concerned with far more dire affairs. They sat in intent silence and listened to Verity translate into English the long, detailed report that Tasuz had brought them from bin-Shibam in the north. Only one member of the family was less than enthralled by this recital.

George Courtney was now almost three, highly mobile and articulate, harbouring no doubts about his needs and desires and unafraid to make them known. He circled the table with his chubby buttocks showing under the vest that was his only garment. In front his uncircumcised penis waggled like a small white worm. George was accustomed to having the full attention of all, from the lowliest black servant to that godlike being, Grandpa Tom.

"Wepity!" He tugged imperiously at Verity's skirts. He was still having difficulty with the pronunciation of her name. "Talk to me too!"

Verity faltered. George was not easily appeased. She broke off the recital of lists of men, ships and cannon, and looked down at him. He had his mother's golden hair, and his father's green eyes. He looked so angelic that he squeezed her heart and awakened in her instincts so deep-seated that she had only recently become aware of them. "I will tell you a story after," she offered.

"No! Now!" said George.

"Don't be a pest," said Jim.

"Georgie baby, come to Mama," said Louisa.

George ignored both his parents. "Now, Wepity, now!" he said again, his voice rising. Sarah reached into the pocket of her apron and brought out a piece of shortbread. She showed it to him under the table. For the moment George lost all interest in Verity, dropped on to all fours, and shot among their feet to snatch the bribe out of his grandmother's hand.

"You have a wonderful way with children, Sarah Courtney." Tom grinned at her. "Just spoil 'em rotten, an't that so?"

"I learned the art from dealing with you," she answered tartly. "For you are the greatest baby of all."

"Will you two stop squabbling for a moment? You're worse than Georgie by far," Dorian told them. "There's an empire at stake and all our lives at risk, while you are playing at being doting grandparents."

Verity raised her voice and took up from where she had been interrupted, and they all became serious again. At last she read out bin Shibam's final salutation to his Caliph. '"Majesty, may God grant you victory and glory. I shall wait with all the tribes to welcome you when you return to us."

Tom broke the silence at last. "Can we trust this fellow? How did he find out so much?"

"Yes, brother, we can trust him," Dorian replied. "I do not know how he has come by this news, I only know that if bin-Shibam says it is so, then it must be true."

"In that case we cannot remain here to be attacked by an overwhelming fleet of war-dhows crammed with battle-hardened Omani troops. We will have to move on."

"Do not even think it, Tom Courtney," said Sarah. "I have spent my whole married life on the move. This is my home, and this creature Zayn al-Din will not drive me out of it. I am staying here."

"Woman, will you not listen to reason for once in your life?"

"I hate to take sides in such a domestic furore," Dorian took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled at them fondly, 'but Sarah is right. We will never be able to run far enough to escape the wrath of Zayn and the men with him. Their enmity will encompass oceans and continents."

Tom frowned darkly and tugged at one large ear. Then he sighed. "Maybe you're right, Dorry. The hatred they bear this family goes back too far. Sooner or later we must stand and face them."

"We will never have such an opportunity presented to us again," Dorian went on. "Bin-Shibam has given us Zayn al-Din's complete battle plan. Zayn will come to fight us on our own ground. When he disembarks his army it will be at the end of a voyage of two thousand

leagues. He will have only those of his horses that have survived the rig ours of the journey. We, on the other hand, will be prepared, our men rested, armed and well mounted." Dorian laid his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Believe me, Tom, this is our best chance and probably the only one we will get."

"You think like a warrior," Tom conceded, 'while I think like a merchant. I relinquish command to you. The rest of us, Jim and Louisa, Mansur and Verity, will follow your orders. I would like to say the same for my dear wife, but following orders has never been one of her strengths."

"Very well, Tom, I accept the task. We have but a little time to lay our plans," Dorian said, 'and will need to take advantage of every minute of it. My first concern will be to survey the field, to pick out those areas where we are strongest and avoid those where we are weakest."

Tom nodded approval. He liked the way Dorian had so swiftly taken the reins. "Go on, brother. We are all listening."

Dorian spoke through puffs of tobacco smoke. "We know from bin Shibam that when Zayn brings his ships into the lagoon and bombards the fort, it will be a diversion. The main force under Koots's command will land on the coast and march overland to surround us and prevent us breaking out to retreat inland. What we have to do first is find the most likely spot for Koots to land, then survey the route he will be forced to take to reach the fort."

The next day Dorian and Tom went on board the Revenge and sailed in a northerly direction along the coast. They stood together at the chart table, studying the coastline as it passed, refreshing their memories as to all the salient features.

"Koots must try to land as close to the fort as possible. Every mile he is forced to march will compound his difficulties ten times over," Dorian muttered.

This was a dangerous, treacherous coast: the steeply shelving beaches and rocky headlands were exposed to a high surf and open to sudden gales. Nativity Bay was almost the only secure harbour within a hundred miles. The one other possible landing was at the mouth of a large river, which ran into the sea only a few miles north of the entrance to Nativity Bay. The local tribes called this river Umgeni. Large war-dhows would not be able to negotiate the shallow bar at the entrance, but smaller boats could do so with ease.

That is where Koots will land," Dorian told Tom with finality. "In his longboats, he could send five hundred men up the river in a few hours."

Tom nodded. "However, once he got them ashore, they would still race a march of many miles through rugged country to reach the fort."

"We had best find out just how rugged it really is," Dorian said, and he put the Revenge about and they sailed back southwards, keeping as close inshore as the wind and tide would allow. They stood at the starboard rail and studied the shore through their telescopes.

There was a continuous sweep of beach all the way, sugary brown sands pounded by an unremitting surf. "If they stuck to the beach, carrying their own armour, weapons and supplies, they would make heavy weather of marching through that deep sand," Tom opined. "What is more they would be vulnerable for the whole march to the cannonade of our ships."

"Added to which is that, if he is trying to surprise us, Koots would never send them along the open beach. He knows we would spot such a large force at once. He must detour inland," Dorian decided. Tell me, brother, the bush above the beach seems impenetrable. Is it really so?"

"It is very thick, but not impenetrable," Tom told him. "Also there are marshy and swampy areas. The bush is infested with buffalo and rhino, and the swamps are filled with crocodile. However, there are game paths along a ridge of slightly higher ground that runs parallel to the shore, about two cables' length inland from the beach. It remains dry and firm at all seasons and states of the tide."

"Then we must go over the ground carefully and mark that path," Dorian said, and they sailed back into the bay. The following morning, accompanied by Jim and Mansur, they rode along the beach until they reached the mouth of the Umgeni river.

"That was easy going." Mansur checked his pocket watch. "We covered the ground in less than three hours."

"That may be so. But the enemy will be marching on foot, not mounted," Jim pointed out, 'and we will have them in easy grapeshot range from the ships."

"Yes," Dorian acknowledged. "Tom and I have already agreed that they must move inland. We want to scout that route now."

They followed the south bank of the Umgeni river upstream for a mile or so until it entered the hills and the banks became steep and high, making the going difficult even for their small party.

"No, they will not come this far inland. They will be trying to invest the fort with all the speed they can. They must cut through the littoral swamps," Dorian decided.

They returned downstream, and Jim pointed out the beginning of the low causeway through the swamps. The trees along it were taller than the surrounding forest. They left the river, and headed towards it. Almost immediately the horses plunged into the black mud of the mangrove swamps. They were forced to dismount and lead them through

until they reached the ridge of firmer ground. Even here there were potholes of treacherous mud hidden under an innocuous-seeming scum of green slime. The bush grew so densely that the horses were unable to force their way through. The twisted stems of ancient milk wood trees formed serried ranks like armoured warriors and their branches hung down and entwined with the amatimgoola shrub, whose long, sturdy thorns could pierce the leather of their boots and inflict deep, painful wounds.

They were forced to move along the game paths that crisscrossed this jungle, which were nothing more than narrow tunnels of vegetation forged by buffalo and rhinoceros. The thorny roofs were so low that again they were forced to dismount and lead the horses. Even then they had to stoop and the thorns rasped on their empty saddles, scoring the leather. The mosquitoes and biting midges rose in black clouds from the mud holes and swarmed around their sweating faces, crawling into their ears and nostrils.

"When Kadem and Koots drew up their battle plan, neither of them had tried to march through this." Tom lifted his hat and mopped his face and shiny pate.

"We can make him pay for every yard in heavy coin," Jim said. Until now, he had been silent since they left the beach. "In here it will all be close work, hand to hand. Bows and spears will have the advantage over muskets and cannon."

"Bows and spears?" Dorian demanded, with sudden interest. "Who will wield them?"

"My good friend and brother in blood and war, King Beshwayo and his bloodthirsty savages," said Jim proudly.

Tell me about him," Dorian ordered.

"It's a long story, Uncle. It will have to wait until we get back to the fort. That is, if we can ever find our way home through this hellish tangle."

That evening, after dinner, all the family remained in the refectory. Sarah stood behind Tom's chair with one arm draped over his shoulder. At intervals she rubbed the mosquito bites on his bald pate. When she did that, he closed his eyes in quiet enjoyment. At the other end of the table Dorian sat with Mansur on one side of him and his hookah on the other.

Verity had never looked upon herself as a domesticated creature, but since her arrival at Fort Auspice she had found a deep satisfaction in

homemaking and caring for Mansur. She and Louisa, who were so different in nearly every way, had taken to each other from their first meeting. Now they moved quietly around the big room, clearing away the dinner dishes, serving endless cups of coffee to their menfolk, or coming to sit close to them and listen to their talk, from time to time adding their own opinions to the conversation. Louisa was well occupied with Master George. This was the time of the day that they all enjoyed most.

Tell me about Beshwayo," Dorian ordered Jim, and he laughed,

"Ah! You have not forgotten." He picked up his son from the floor and placed him comfortably in his lap. "You have raised enough hell for one day, my boy. Now I am going to tell a story," he said.

"Story!" said George, and subsided at once. He laid his golden curls against Jim's shoulder, and thrust his thumb into his mouth.

"After you and Mansur sailed away in the Revenge and the Sprite, Louisa and I loaded up our wagons and set off into the wilderness to look for elephant and try to make contact with the tribes so that we could open trade with them."

"Jim makes it sound as though I went willingly," Louisa protested.

"Come now, Hedgehog, be honest. You have been bitten by the wander bug as deeply as I have." Jim smiled. "But let me go on. I knew that there were many large war parties of Nguni coming down with their herds from the north."

"How did you discover that?" Dorian demanded.

"Inkunzi told me, and I sent Bakkat out far northwards to read the sign."

"Bakkat I know well, of course. But Inkunzi? I only vaguely remember, the name."

Then let me remind you, Uncle. Inkunzi was Queen Manatasee's chief herdsman. When I captured her cattle, he came with me rather than be parted from his beloved animals."

"Of course! How could I ever forget it, Jim boy. Wonderful story."

"Inkunzi and Bakkat guided us into the hinterland to find the other rampaging tribes of Nguni. Some were hostile and dangerous as nests of poisonous cobras or man-eating lions. We had a few scrapes with them, I can tell you. Then we came across Beshwayo."

"Where did you find him?"

"About two hundred leagues north-west of here," Jim explained. "He was bringing his tribe and all their cattle down the escarpment. Our meeting was most propitious. I had just come upon three big elephant bulls. I did not know that Beshwayo was spying upon us from a nearby hilltop. He had never seen mounted men or a musket before. For me it

was a most fortunate hunt. I was able to drive the elephant out of the thick forest into the open grassland. There, I rode them down one after the other, with Bakkat loading and passing me the guns. I managed to kill all three within a two-mile gallop on Drumfire. From his lookout Beshwayo watched it all. Afterwards he told me that it had been his intention to attack the wagons and massacre us all, but having seen the way I shot and rode he decided against it. He's a forthright rascal, is King Beshwayo."

"He's a terrifying monster of a man," Louisa corrected him. "That is why he and Jim get along so well together."

"Not true." Jim chuckled. "It was not I who won him over. It was Louisa. He had never seen hair like hers, or anything to match this cub to whom she had just given birth. Beshwayo loves cattle and sons." They both looked down fondly at the child in his arms. George had not been able to stay the course. The comforting warmth of his father's body and the sound of his voice was always a powerful soporific and he had fallen into a deep sleep.

"By this time I had learned enough of the Nguni language from Inkunzi, to be able to converse with Beshwayo. Once he had changed his warlike intentions, and prevented his warriors attacking the wagons, he set up his kraal close to us and we camped together for several weeks. I showed him the delights of cloth, glass beads, mirrors and the usual trifles of trade. These he enjoyed, but he was wary of our horses. Try as I might, I could not prevail on him to mount one. Beshwayo is fearless, except when invited to take part in equestrian activity. However, he was fascinated by the power of gunpowder, and I was required to demonstrate it to him at every opportunity, as if he needed further convincing after watching the elephant hunt."

Louisa tried to lift George out of his father's arms and take him to his bed, but as she touched him he came fully awake and let out a bellow of protest. It took some minutes and the reassurances of the entire family to quieten him again to the point where Jim could resume his tale.

"As we came to know each other better, Beshwayo confided in me that he was having his differences with another Nguni tribe called the Amahin. These were a cunning, unscrupulous bunch of rogues who had committed the unforgivable sin of stealing several hundred of Beshwayo's cattle. This sin was compounded by the fact that in the process they had murdered a dozen or so of his herd-boys, of whom two were his sons. Beshwayo had not yet been able to avenge his sons and recover his cattle because the Amahin were ensconced in an impregnable natural fortress, which the erosion of the ages had carved from the sheer

wall of the escarpment face. Beshwayo offered me two hundred head of prime cattle if I would assist him to assault the fortress of the Amahin. I told him that as I now looked upon him as my friend, I would be pleased to fight alongside him without payment."

"No payment, except the exclusive right of trade with his tribe," Louisa smiled softly, 'and the right to hunt ivory through all the king's domain, and a treaty of alliance in perpetuity."

"Perhaps I should have said little payment, rather than none at all," Jim admitted, 'but let us not be pedantic. I took Smallboy and Muntu and the rest of my fellows and we rode with Beshwayo to the lair of the Amahin. I discovered that it was a massif of rock detached from the main escarpment and secured on all sides by sheer cliffs. The only avenue of approach was across a bridge of rock so narrow that it would allow the passage of only four men at a time. It was overlooked by the Amahin from the higher ground on the far side, and they were able to shower rocks, stones and poisoned arrows on any attackers who attempted to force the passage. Some hundred or so of Beshwayo's men had perished already, shot with poisoned arrows or their skulls crushed by rocks. I found a place on the face of the main escarpment from which my fellows were able to fire upon the defenders. The Amahin proved a doughty lot. Our musket balls served to dampen their ardour a little, but did not prevent them sweeping the attackers off the exposed bridge way as soon as they ventured on to it."

"I am certain that at this stage you conceived the solution to the insoluble, great military genius that you are." Mansur laughed, and Jim grinned back at him.

"Not so, coz. I was at my wits' end, so naturally I did what we all do in these cases. I sent for my wife!" All three women applauded this gem of wisdom with such merry laughter that George was startled awake again and added his voice to the uproar. Louisa picked him up, helped him find his thumb and he collapsed back into oblivion.

"I had never heard of a Roman testudo until Louisa explained it. She had read of it in Livy. Although many of Beshwayo's men carried shields of rawhide, their use was frowned upon by the king as unmanly. Each warrior fights as an individual and not as part of a formation, and in the moment of greatest danger he is wont to throw aside his shield and hurl himself unprotected upon his enemy, relying on the fury of his charge and his fearsome aspect to drive his enemy from the field and carry him through unscathed. Beshwayo was at first appalled by such cowardly tactics as we suggested. In his view only women hid behind shields. However, he was desperate to avenge his sons and retrieve his stolen cattle. His men learned swiftly how to overlap their shields and hold

them above their heads to form the tortoiseshell of protection. My men kept up a lively fire on the Amahin, and under their testudo Beshwayo's imp is charged across the bridge. As soon as they had a foothold on the far side, we galloped across on the horses, firing from the saddle. The Amahin had never seen a horse before, nor had they faced cavalry, but by now they had learned of the power of our firearms. They broke at our first charge. Those Amahin warriors who did not leap from the cliffs voluntarily were helped to do so by Beshwayo's."

"You will be pleased to know that the Amahin women did no jumping. They stayed with their children and most found husbands among Beshwayo's men soon after the end of the battle," Louisa assured Sarah and Verity.

"Sensible creatures," said Sarah, and stroked Tom's head. "I would have done the same."

Tom winked at Jim. "Take no notice of your mother. She has a good heart. The only pity is that it does not match her tongue. Go on with the story, lad. I have heard it before, but it's a good one."

"It was a rewarding day for all those who took part," Jim resumed, 'except the Amahin warriors. Apart from a score of cattle that the Amahin had killed and feasted upon, we recovered the rest of the stolen herd and the king was delighted. He and I shared millet beer from the same pot, but only after we had diluted it with our commingled blood. We are now brothers of the warrior blood. My enemies are his enemies."

"Having heard that account, there is no doubt in my mind that I should leave the defence of the swamps between here and the Umgeni river to you and your blood-brother Beshwayo," Dorian told him. "And God help Herminius Koots when he tries to find his way through."

"Just as soon as the wagons are made ready I shall leave to find Beshwayo and enlist his support and that of his spearmen," Jim agreed.

"I hope, husband, that you do not intend to leave me here, while you wander off into the blue yet again?" Louisa asked sweetly.

"How can you think so poorly of me? Besides, I would meet with a cold welcome at the kraal of Beshwayo if I did not have you and Georgie with me."

Bakkat went out into the hills to summon Inkunzi. The chief herder and his helpers wandered at large with the cattle herds, and no one else would have been able to find him as readily as the little Bushman. In the meantime Smallboy greased the wheel hubs of the wagons and brought in the draught oxen. Within five days Inkunzi had come into the fort with two dozen Nguni warriors and they were ready to leave.

Hie rest of the family stood on the palisade and watched the wagon

train head for the hills. Louisa and Jim rode ahead on Trueheart and Drumfire. George was tucked into the leather carrying sling on his father's back. He waved one chubby little arm at them. "Bye-bye, Grandpapa! Bye-bye, Grandmama! "Bye, Uncle Dowy. "Bye, Manic and Wepity!" he sang out, and his curls danced and sparkled to Drumfire's easy canter. "Don't cry, Grandmama. Georgie will come back soon." "You heard your grandson," said Tom gruffly. "Stop blubbering,

woman!

"I am doing no such thing," Sarah snapped. "A midge flew into my eye, that is all."

Bin-Shibam had warned Dorian in his report that it was Zayn's intention to set sail from Muscat as soon as the southeasterly kusi winds swung round the compass and became the kaskari, blowing steadily out of the north-east to wing his fleet down the coast. That time of change was only weeks away. However, there were worrying signs. Already the black-headed gulls had arrived in their dense flocks to set up their nesting colonies on the heights of the bluff. They were the harbingers of an early change in season. For all Dorian knew Zayn's fleet might already be at sea.

Dorian and Mansur sent for their ships' captains. They studied the chart together. Although Tasuz was illiterate he could understand the shapes of islands and mainland and the arrow symbols of winds and currents, for these were the elements that guided his existence.

"At first, when the enemy leave Oman they will keep well offshore, to pick up the kaskazi wind and the main flow of the Mozambique current," Dorian said, with certainty. "It would take a large fleet to find them in that great expanse of water." He spread his hand on the chart. "The only place that you will be able to waylay them is here." He moved his hand southwards on to the fish-shaped island of Madagascar. "Zayn's fleet will be forced through the narrows of the channel between the mainland and the island, like sand through the hourglass. You will guard the narrows. Your three ships can cover the inshore passage, for such an assembly of war-dhows will be spread out over many miles. You will also be able to enlist the help of the local fishermen to help you keep watch."

"When we discover the fleet should we attack them?" Batula asked, and Dorian laughed.

"I know you would enjoy that, you old shaitan, but you must keep your ships well below the horizon and out of sight of the enemy at all times. You must not let Zayn know that his advance has been discovered. As soon as you sight his fleet you will break off all contact and hurry back here as fast as wind and current can bring you."

"What of the Arcturus?" asked Ruby Cornish, with a peeved expression. "Am I also to act as a guard dog?"

"I have not forgotten you, Captain Cornish. Your ship is the most powerful, but not as fast as the Sprite and the Revenge, or even Tasuz's little felucca. I want you here in Nativity Bay and you can be sure that when the time comes I will have much employment for you." Cornish looked suitably mollified, and Dorian went on, "Now, I want to go over the plans to engage the enemy as soon as they show themselves in the offing." They spent the rest of that day and most of the night in conclave, going over every conceivable eventuality.

"Our fleet is so small, and the enemy so numerous, that our success will depend on each ship working in concert with the others. At night I will use signal lanterns and, during the day, smoke and Chinese rockets. I have drawn up a list of the signal codes we will employ, with copies for Batula and Kumrah written out fair in Arabic by Mistress Verity."

In the dawn the three little ships, Sprite, Revenge and Tasuz's felucca, took advantage of the ebb of the tide and the offshore wind and sailed out of the bay, leaving only the Arcturus at anchor under the guns of the fort.

Beshwayo had moved his kraal fifty miles further downriver, but Bakkat had no difficulty in leading them directly to it, for every footpath and all the cattle tracks fanned out from it like the strands of a web, with King Beshwayo, the royal spider, at the centre. The lush and rolling grasslands through which they rode were heavily populated by his herds.

Regiments of the king's warriors were guarding the cattle. Many had fought with Jim against the Amahin. They all knew that Beshwayo had made him his blood-brother, and their greetings were enthusiastic. Each regimental and una detached fifty men to join the escort that led the wagons towards the royal kraal. The swiftest runners raced ahead to alert the king of their imminent arrival.

Thus Jim's entourage was several hundred strong by the time they crossed the last ridge and looked down into the basin of hills where oeshwayo's new kraal stood. It was laid out in an enormous circle, divided internally into rings within rings like an archery target. Jim guessed that it might take even Drumfire almost half an hour to gallop around the outer circumference.

The kraal was surrounded by a high stockade, and at its heart was a vast cattle pen in which all the royal herds could be contained. Beshwayo liked to live close to his beasts, and he had explained to Jim how the inner enclosure also served as a fly trap. The insects laid their eggs in the fresh cattle dung where they were trodden under the hoofs of the milling herd and could not hatch.

The outer circles of the kraal were filled with the closely spaced beehive huts that housed Beshwayo's court. The king's bodyguard lived in the smaller huts. The larger huts of the king's numerous wives stood within an enclosure of woven thorn branches. In a separate smaller enclosure were fifty elaborate structures that housed the indunas, Beshwayo's councillors and senior captains, and their families.

All these were dwarfed by the king's palace. It could not, by any stretch of semantics, be called a hut: it stood as tall as an English country church it did not seem possible that sticks and reeds could have been built up so high without collapsing. Every single reed used in its construction had been selected by the master thatchers. It was a perfect hemisphere.

"It looks like the egg of the roc!" Louisa exclaimed. "See how it catches the sunlight."

"What's a roc, Mama?" demanded George, from the sling on his father's back. "An't that the same as a stone?" He had picked up that form of negative from his grandfather, and clung to it stubbornly despite her protests.

"A roc is a huge and fabulous bird," Louisa answered.

"Can I have one, please?"

"Ask your father." She smiled sweetly at Jim.

He pulled a wry face. "Thank you, Hedgehog. No peace for me for the next month." To distract George he touched Drumfire with his heels and they trotted down the last hill. The escorting warriors burst into a full-throated anthem of praise to their king. Their voices were deep and melodious, stirring the blood with their magnificence. The long column of men, horses and wagons snaked down across the golden grassland, the warriors keeping perfect step. Their headdresses waved and nodded in unison; each regiment had its own totem, heron, vulture, eagle and owl, and they wore the feathers of their clan. Around their upper arms they wore the cow tails of honour, awarded by Beshwayo for killing an enemy in combat. Their shields were matched, some dappled, some black, others red, while a few of the elite regiments carried pure white ones. They beat upon them with their assegais as they approached the kraal across a parade-ground. At the far end of this wide expanse the imposing figure of Beshwayo waited for them, seated on a carved ebony stool. He

was stark naked, displaying to all the world the proof that the dimensions of his manhood exceeded those of any of his subjects. His skin was anointed with beef fat and he shone in the sunlight like a beacon. The captains of his regiments were drawn up behind him, his indunas crowned with the rings of authority on their shaven heads, his witch doctors and his wives.

Jim reined in and fired a musket shot into the air. Beshwayo loved to be saluted thus, and he let forth a bull bellow of laughter. "I see you, Somoya my brother!" he shouted, and his voice carried three hundred yards across the parade-ground.

"I see you, great black bull!" Jim shouted back, and urged Drumfire into a gallop. Louisa pushed Trueheart up alongside him. Beshwayo clapped his hands with delight to see the horses run. In the sling on his father's back George was kicking and struggling with excitement to be free.

"Beshie!" he yelled. "My Beshie!"

"You had best let him down," Louisa called across to Jim, 'before he does you or himself an injury."

Jim hauled the stallion to a skidding halt on his haunches, lifted the child out of the sling with one hand and leaned out of the saddle to lower him to the ground. George took off at a run straight at the Great Bull of Earth and the Black Thunder of the Sky.

King Beshwayo came to meet him half-way, picked him up and hurled him high into the air. Louisa gasped and closed her eyes in trepidation, but George shrieked with delight as the king caught him before he hit the ground, and sat him firmly upon his gleaming muscular shoulder.

That night Beshwayo slaughtered fifty fat oxen and they feasted and drank huge clay pots of frothing beer. Jim and Beshwayo boasted and laughed and told each other amazing tales of their feats and adventures.

"Manatasee!" Beshwayo encouraged Jim. "Tell me again how you killed her. Tell me how her head sailed up into the air like a bird." He demonstrated with an extravagant sweep of his arms.

Louisa had heard the story repeated so often, for it was Beshwayo's favourite, that she pleaded the duties of motherhood as an excuse to leave the royal presence. She carried George, protesting sleepily, to his cot in the wagon.

Beshwayo listened to Jim's account of the battle with even more pleasure than the first time he had heard it. "I wish I had met that mighty black cow," he said, when the tale was told. "I would have put a nne son in her belly. Can you imagine what a mighty warrior he would have been, with such a father and mother?"

"Then you would have been forced to live with Manatasee, the raging lioness."

"No, Somoya. After she had given me my son, I would have made her head fly even higher into the sky than you did." He roared with laughter and thrust the beer pot into Jim's hands.

When at last Jim came to join her in the car dell bed, Louisa had to help him climb over the afterclap. He collapsed on the mattress, and she removed his boots for him. The next morning it required two mugs of strong coffee before Jim announced dubiously that, if she nursed him well, he might just survive the day.

"I hope so, my darling husband, for I am sure you recall that this very day the king has invited you to attend the Festival of the First Flowers," she told him, and Jim groaned.

"Beshwayo drank twice as much of that infernal brew as I did. Do you not think he may have the good sense to cancel the festival?"

"No," said Louisa, with an angelic smile. "I do not think he will for here come his indunas to escort us."

They led Louisa and Jim back to the parade-ground. The open expanse was lined with dense ranks of young warriors dressed in all the finery of feathers and animal-skin kilts. They sat upon their shields, silent and still as statues carved from anthracite. At the entrance to the great kraal, carved stools were set out for Jim and Louisa beside the empty stool of the king. Behind that the king's wives were squatting in double ranks. Many were beautiful young women, and nearly all were in some stage of gravidity, from a gentle swelling to full bloom, breasts bursting with abundance, belly buttons popping out. They exchanged knowing smiles with Louisa, and watched the antics of golden-headed George, their dark eyes swimming with the strength of their maternal feelings.

Louisa sighed and leaned across to Jim on his stool. "Does not a woman have a peculiar type of beauty when she is to have a baby?" she asked ingenuously.

Jim groaned. "You pick the oddest times to become subtly suggestive," he whispered. "Think you not that one George is about all this world can stomach?"

"She might be a girl," Louisa pointed out.

"Would she look like you?" Despite the glare he opened his eyes a little wider.

"As like as not."

"That bears some thought," he conceded, but at that moment there sounded from within the walls of the kraal a shattering fanfare of kudu horn trumpets and a crash of drums. Instantly the warriors sprang to

their feet and their voices echoed against the hills with the royal salute, "Bayetel Bayetel'

The king's musicians came out through the gates, rank upon rank, dipping and swaying, flirting their headdresses like the courtship dancing of crowned cranes, stamping until the dust powdered their legs to the knees. Then they froze in mid-step and the only movement was the ruffle of the feathers in their headdresses.

King Beshwayo paced out through the gates. He wore a simple kilt of white cow tails, and war rattles on his ankles and wrists. His head was shaven and his skin had been polished with a mixture of fat and red ochre clay. His tread was stately. He shimmered like a god as he walked.

He reached his place and looked upon his subjects with such a terrible when that they shrank before his gaze. Then, suddenly, he hurled the spear he carried into the air. Driven by his massive shoulders it rose to an impossible height. It reached its zenith and then, in a graceful parabola, fell back to peg its glittering head into the sun-baked clay of the parade-ground.

Still there was no sound, no man or woman moved. Then a single voice broke the silence: sweetly and softly it rose from the riverbed at the far end of the parade-ground. A sigh went up from the throats of all the assembled warriors and their feathers danced as they turned their heads towards that sound.

A line of young maidens came shuffling up and over the river bank. Each one had her hands on the hips of the girl in front of her and followed her movements with mirror-like precision. They wore very short skirts of combed grass and crowns of wild flowers. Their breasts were bare and shining with oil. They kept snaking out of the riverbed, until it seemed they were not individuals but a single sinuous creature.

These are the first flowers of the tribe," Louisa said softly. "Each one has seen her moon for the first time, and now they are ready for marriage."

The girl who led the line of dancers reached the end of the first verse of the song, and all the others came in together with the chorus. Their voices soared high, then fell and languished, and rose again, achingly pure, cleaving the hearts of their listeners. The line of dancing virgins came to a halt before the ranks of young warriors. They turned to face them, and the song changed. The rhythm became as urgent as the act of love, the words suggestive and lewd.

How sharp are your spears?" they asked the warriors. "How long the shaft? How deep your thrust? Can you stab to the heart? Will blood flow when you pull out your blade from the wound?"

Then they began to dance again, at first swaying like long grass in the wind, then throwing back their heads and laughing with white teeth and flashing eyes. They held out their breasts, one cupped in each hand, and offered them to the young men. Then they retreated and whirled away until their skirts flew waist high. They wore nothing beneath them, and they had plucked their pudenda so that their unmasked clefts were clearly defined. Then they faced away from the men, and bowed over until their foreheads touched their knees, writhing and rolling their hips.

The warriors danced in time to the girls, working themselves into a storm of lust. They stamped until the earth jumped under their feet. They shook their shoulders. Their eyes rolled back in their skulls and froth creamed on their contorted lips. They thrust their hips into the air like mating dogs, and their engorged sexes probed rigidly through the fur strips of their kilts.

Suddenly Beshwayo sprang high from his stool and landed on legs as straight and powerful as the trunks of two lead wood trees. "Enough!" he bellowed.

Warriors and maidens, everyone on the parade, threw themselves to the ground and lay still as death, no sound or movement but the quivering of headdress feathers and grass skirts, the panting of their breath.

Beshwayo strode along the ranks of girls. These are my prime heifers," he roared. "These are the treasures of Beshwayo." He gazed down on them with a fierce, possessive pride.

They are beautiful and strong. They are full women. They are my daughters. From their hot wombs will come forth regiments of my warriors to conquer all the earth, and their sons shall shout my name to the skies. Through them my name will live for ever." He threw back his head and let forth such a volume of sound from the barrel of his chest that it rang and echoed off the hills. "Beshwayo!"

Not another person moved and the echoes faded away into silence. Then Beshwayo turned and strode back along the regiments of prostrated warriors. "Who are these?" The question was filled with contempt. "Are these men who grovel before me in the dust?" he bellowed, with mocking laughter. "No!" he answered himself. Then stand tall and are full of pride. These are little children. Are these warriors?" he demanded of the sky, and laughed at the absurdity of the question. These are not warriors. Warriors have quenched their spears in the blood of the king's enemies. These are but snot-nosed children." He walked down the line and spurned them with his foot.

"Stand up, you small boys!" he cried. They leaped to their feet with

the agility of acrobats, their young bodies forged to perfection by a lifetime of rigorous training. Beshwayo shook his head with contempt. He walked away. Then, suddenly, he leaped high in the air and landed with the elegance of a panther. "Stand up, my daughters," he shouted, and the girls rose and swayed before him like a field of dark lilies.

"See how their beauty outshines the sun. Can the king allow those unweaned calves to mount his beautiful heifers?" he harangued them. "No, for there is nothing between their legs of any account. These magnificent cows need bulls of power. Their wombs crave the seed of great warriors."

He strode back down the alley between them. "The sight of these young calves so displeases me that I am sending them away. They shall not look upon my heifers again until they have become bulls." "Go!" he bellowed at them. "Go! And do not return until you have washed your spears in the blood of the king's enemies. Go! And return only when you have killed your man and wear the cow tail on your right arm." He paused and looked down on them with disdainful hauteur. "The sight of you displeases me. Be gone!"

"Bayetel' they shouted, with a single voice, and again, "Bayetel We have heard the voice of the Black Thunder of the Sky, and we will obey."

In a close column they swung away, keeping perfect step, singing the praises of Beshwayo. Like a dark serpent, they wound up the slope of the hill and disappeared over the crest. Beshwayo strode back and took his seat on the carved stool. He was scowling hideously, but without changing his expression he said softly to Jim, "Did you see them, Somoya? They are young lions and hot for blood. These are the finest fruits of any circumcision year in all my reign. No enemy can stand against them." He turned on his stool towards Louisa. "Did you see them, Welanga? Is there any maiden in all my realm who can resist them?"

They are fine young men," she agreed.

"Now I lack only an enemy to send them against." Beshwayo's scowl became even more terrifying. "I have scoured the land for twenty days' march in every direction, and found no more fodder for my spears."

"I am your brother," said Jim. "I cannot allow you to suffer such lack. I have an enemy. Because you are my brother, I shall share this enemy with you." Beshwayo stared at him for a long moment. Then he let fly such a bellow of laughter that all his indunas and his pregnant wives cachinnated in slavish imitation of him.

Show me our enemy, Somoya. Like a pair of black-maned lions on a gazelle, you and I shall devour him."

Three days later, when the wagons started back for the coast, Beshwayo went with them, singing his war anthems at the head of his new regiments and their battle-hardened indunas.

Faithful to Dorian's orders, once the Sprite and the Revenge entered the Mozambique channel, the two ships separated. Kumrah sailed up the west coast of the island of Madagascar, and Batula along the east coast of the African mainland. They called at each of the fishing villages along the way. From the headmen of these villages they hired, for payment of beads, rolls of copper wire and other stores such as fishing line, rope and bronze nails, a motley flotilla of feluccas and outrigger fishing-dhows. By the time they met again at the rendezvous off the north tip of the long island they were like ducks followed by a straggling line of ducklings. Most of these craft were ancient and decrepit and many could only be kept afloat by constant bailing.

Batula and Kumrah placed them in a thin screen from island to mainland, then took their own ships well to the south so that they were only just able to maintain visual contact with them. In this way they hoped to prevent the desertion of any of the frail vessels, and to receive their signals when Zayn's convoy of war-dhows appeared on the northern horizon, without being forced to reveal their own presence. They hoped that if Zayn's lookouts spotted one or two of these tiny vessels they would think them nothing more than innocent fishing-craft, the likes of which were common in these offshore waters.

The weeks passed slowly in such unrewarding activity. There was constant attrition among the scouting vessels. They were unsuited for such long periods at sea. The crews mutinied against the perils, discomfort and boredom, or their boats fell apart, or the rough weather of the kasha(r) drove them into port. The screen became so perilously thin that in the heavy seas or in darkness even such a large fleet as Zayn's might slip through the holes in it unremarked.

Batula had placed Tasuz in the most likely position, within sight of the low blue outline of the African mainland. He guessed that Zayn would keep well within reach of the Omani trading settlements that for centuries had been sited at every convenient river mouth and sheltered bay and lagoon along this coast. From these bases Zayn would be able to revictual his ships with fresh water and supplies.

Batula fretted away these long, uneventful days. In the first light of each dawn he climbed to the main truck of the Revenge and stared into the dispersing darkness for the first sight of Tasuz's felucca. He was never

disappointed. Even in the worst weather when all the other small craft had been driven to seek shelter, Tasuz was doggedly holding his position. Although his ship seemed at times to be buried under the grey, breaking swells of the Mozambique current, his dirty lateen sail always reappeared out of the gloom.

This morning the wind had dropped to a gentle zephyr. A bank of sea fret covered the horizon, and the current had settled into long swells that marched down from the north. Batula searched anxiously for his first sight of the felucca, but he was unprepared when the ghostly outline of the lateen sail appeared out of the mist less than a sea mile dead ahead. "She is flying the blue!" he exclaimed, with excitement. The long blue banner at her masthead writhed like a flying serpent in the gentle airs. It was the sky blue of al-Salil's colours. "It is the signal. Tasuz has discovered the approach of the enemy fleet."

He was aware at once of the danger. The sea mist would disperse as soon as the sun rose, and it would be a day of bright sunshine with visibility stretching to the horizon. He could not be certain how far behind the felucca was the enemy fleet.

He slid down the shrouds so rapidly that the rope scorched his palms, and as his feet hit the deck he shouted his orders to bring the ship about and head her southwards. Tasuz followed in his wake, but rapidly the speed of the felucca narrowed the gap. Within the hour the two ships were close together, and Tasuz shouted his report across to Batula: "There are at least five large ships coming straight down the channel. There may be others following them. I cannot tell for certain, but I thought I glimpsed beyond them the peaks of other sails just showing over the horizon."

"When did you last have sight of them?" Batula shouted back.

"At last light yesterday evening."

"Did they hail you or try to intercept?"

They paid me no heed. I think they took me for a coastal trader or a fisherman. I did not alter course until darkness hid me from them."

Tasuz was a good man. Without arousing the suspicions of the enemy, he had been able to slip away from them and warn the two larger ships.

"The mist is beginning to lift, effendi," the lookout called down to the deck, and Batula saw that it was thinning and breaking up. He seized his telescope and clambered back to the main truck. He had hardly settled himself there before the mist rolled aside like a translucent curtain and the morning sun burst through.

Swiftly he swept his lens across the northern horizon. Beyond the elucca the channel seemed deserted, a wide blue expanse of water. Madagascar was out of sight to the east. Africa was an ethereal blue

shadow in the west, and outlined against it he picked out the top sails of the Sprite holding her station. They were the only two ships in sight.

"We have run clear away from the enemy during the night." His heart sang with relief. Then he turned his eye northwards again with more attention and studied the sharp line of the horizon.

"Ah!" he grunted, and then, "Ah, yes!" He saw the tiny specks of white flash momentarily in the lens like the wings of a gull, then disappear. The leading ships of Zayn's fleet were there, hull down, showing only the very tops of their sails.

He hailed the felucca again. "Tasuz, go across to the Sprite with all speed and recall her. Fire a gun to catch her attention--' He broke off and stared across at the distant schooner. "No! You need not do it. Kumrah has already seen what we are about. He hastens to join us."

Perhaps Kumrah had already seen the enemy sails to the north or he might have been alerted by the Revenge's unusual behaviour. Whatever the reason, he had come about and was heading southwards with all sail set.

During the rest of that day the kaskazi wind increased in strength until, once more, it was blowing with its customary vigour and the ships were flying on course for Nativity Bay. By noon there was no longer any sight of Zayn's ships on the empty sea they left behind them. By late afternoon Kumrah had steered across on a converging course and the two schooners were in close company, but Tasuz in the felucca was almost out of sight ahead.

Batula watched his lateen sail grow tiny and disappear at last in the dusk. He stooped once more over his chart and made his calculations. "With this wind Tasuz should reach Nativity Bay in seven more days. It will take us ten, and Zayn will be three or four behind us. We will be able to bring al-Salil fair warning."

Zayn al-Din sat cross-legged on a bed of cushions and silk prayer mats, which were piled on the lee deck of his flagship under a canvas screen, spread to shelter him from the sun and from the wind and spray that blew back every time the Sufi thrust her shoulder into the green swells. The name of the flagship signified the mysticism central to fundamental Islamic thought. She was a ship of force, the most formidable in the entire Omani fleet. Rahmad, the captain who commanded her, had been selected by the Caliph himself for this venture.

Rahmad prostrated himself. "Majesty, the whaleback that guards the bay in which lies the stronghold of the traitor is in sight,"

Zayn nodded with satisfaction and dismissed him, then turned to Sir Guy Courtney, who sat opposite. "If Rahmad has brought us directly to our destination without sight of land for twenty days, he has done well. Let us see if it is truly so." The two stood up and crossed to the weather rail. Rahmad and Laleh bowed respectfully as they approached.

"What do you make of the landfall?" Zayn demanded of Laleh. "Is this the same bay in which you discovered the ships of al-Salil?"

"Great one, it is the same. This is indeed the lair of al-Salil. From the height of that very headland I looked down upon the bay where he has built his fort and where he anchors his ships."

With a deep bow, Rahmad handed Zayn his brass telescope. Zayn al Din balanced easily against the ship's motion. Over the past months his sea4 cgs had grown strong. He levelled the telescope and studied the distant shore. Then he closed the glass with a snap and smiled. "We can be certain that our arrival has struck fear into the heart of your traitorous brother and mine. We have not been forced to grope around within sight of the shore to take our bearings. We have given him no warning of our presence and will appear suddenly before him, in all our multitudes and power. By now he must know in his heart that at last retribution has found him out."

"He has had no time to hide his stolen booty," Sir Guy agreed happily. "His ships will still be at anchor in the bay, and this wind will hold them landlocked until we attack."

"What the English effendi says is right. The wind is steady out of the east, mighty Caliph." Rahmad looked up to the huge sail. "It will bear us in on this single tack. We will be able to enter the mouth of the lagoon before noon."

"Where is this river Umgeni in which the main force of Pasha Koots will disembark and go ashore?"

"Majesty, it is not plain to see from this distance. There, slightly to the north of the entrance to the bay." Abruptly Rahmad broke off, and his expression changed. There is a ship!" He pointed. It took Zayn a few moments to pick out the fleck of canvas against the background of the land.

"What ship is it?"

I cannot be certain. A felucca, perhaps. It is small, but that type is fast on the wind. See! It is coming up and escaping out to sea." Can you send one of our ships to capture it?" Zayn asked. Rahmad looked dubious. "Majesty, we have no vessel in the fleet fast

enough to catch her in a stern chase. She has a lead of many miles. She will be over the horizon in an hour."

Zayn thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "It can do us no harm. The lookouts on the bluff must already have given the alarm to the enemy, and the felucca can pose no additional threat even to the smallest of our vessels. Let her go."

Zayn turned away and looked back at his own ships. "Make the signal to Muri Kadem ibn Abubaker," he ordered.

Zayn had divided the fleet into two divisions. He had taken personal command of the first. This comprised the five largest war-dhows, all armed with heavy batteries of cannon.

At every opportunity since leaving Oman, Kadem ibn Abubaker and Koots had come on board the Sufi to attend his war councils. Zayn had been able to adjust his plans to take into account every new detail of intelligence they had gathered at all their ports of call along the way. Now, on the eve of battle, there was no need for Zayn to summon his commanders for another meeting. Every man knew in perfect detail what Zayn required of him. Like most good plans it was simple.

Zayn's first division would sail directly into Nativity Bay, and fall upon the enemy ships they found anchored there. With their superior numbers and firepower, and the advantage of surprise, they would engage them at close range and overpower them swiftly. Then all their guns would be turned upon the fort. In the meantime Kadem would land the infantry in the river mouth and Koots would march them swiftly round to attack the fort from the rear. As soon as Koots launched his attack, Sir Guy would lead a second landing party from the ships in the bay to support him. He had volunteered for this duty: he wanted to be there when the attackers broke into the treasury under the fort where his fifteen chests of gold bars were stored. He wanted to protect his property from looting.

There was one possible flaw in this plan. Would the rebel ships be in the bay? Zayn had not jumped to a hasty conclusion. He had gathered all the intelligence from his spies in every port and harbour in the Ocean of the Indies, including Ceylon and the Red Sea. Not one had been able to report a sighting of al-Salil's ships during the many months since his capture of the Arcturus. It seemed that they had vanished without trace.

They could not have disappeared from the sight of so many eyes, Zayn reasoned. "They are hiding, and there is only one place for them to hide." He wanted to believe this, but doubt itched like a flea in his undershirt. He wanted a final assurance. "Send for the holy mullah. We shall ask him to pray for guidance. Then I will ask Kadem ibn Abubaker

for a sign." Mullah Khaliq was a saint of vast sanctity and power. His prayers had been a shield to Zayn over the years, and his faith had lit the way to victory in some of his darkest hours.

Kadem ibn Abubaker had the gift of prophecy, one of the reasons that Zayn al-Din valued him so highly. He relied on the revelations that sprang from him.

In the great cabin of the Sufi, the three, caliph, mullah and admiral, prayed together through that long night. Khaliq's expression was rapt, his single eye glittering, as he recited the most holy texts in his nasal, singsong voice.

While he listened and made the responses, Kadem ibn Abubaker felt himself falling into that familiar dreamlike state. He knew that the angel of God was near. Just before break of dawn he fell into a sudden, heavy sleep, and the angel came to him. Gabriel lifted him out of his body and bore him up on white, rustling wings to a high place, a mountain shaped like the back of a whale.

The angel pointed down and his voice echoed weirdly in Kadem's head: "Behold, the ships are in the bay!"

They floated on a circle of bright waters, and on the deck of the largest stood a tall, familiar figure. When Kadem recognized al-Salil, the hatred flowed through his veins like poison. Al-Salil raised his bare head and looked up at him; his hair and his beard were red gold.

"I shall destroy you!" Kadem shouted down at him, and as he said the words al-Salil's head burst into flame, and burned like a torch. The flame leaped up into the rigging, and spread swiftly, consuming everything, man and ships. The waters of the bay boiled, the steam rose in a great cloud and blotted out the dream.

Kadem woke with a deep sense of religious joy, and found himself once more in the great cabin with Zayn al-Din and Khaliq watching him for the sign.

"My uncle, I have seen the ships," he told his caliph. The angel has shown them to me. They are in the bay and they shall be destroyed by fire."

After that Zayn had no more doubts. The angel would deliver his enemy to him. Now he looked across the white flecked sea at the distant mountain.

"Al-Salil is here. I can smell him in the wind, and taste him in my mouth," he muttered. "I have waited a lifetime for this moment."

Peter Peters translated his words and Sir Guy agreed at once. "I have the same conviction. I shall stand once more on the deck of my lovely Arcturus before this day is done." While Peters relayed this, Sir Guy had another thought that was almost as poignant. Not only would he recover

his ship but his daughter too. Verity would come back to him. Even if she was no longer virgin, sullied and dirtied, no matter. His breath rasped in his throat as he imagined how she must be punished, and how sweet would be the reconciliation that followed. Their previous close and happy state would be restored. She would love him again, as he still loved her.

"Majesty, Muri Kadem's division is heaving to," Rahmad reported.

Zayn roused himself, and walked back to the stern. This was how he had planned it. Kadem had the five smaller war-dhows under his command and the fifteen troop transports and supply ships. None of the transports was armed: they were merchant vessels Zayn had commandeered for this expedition, crammed with soldiers.

Kadem would lie offshore until the first division entered the bay and attacked the rebel fort. When he heard the guns open up, that would be the signal for him to take in the second division, and to land Koots and his troops in the Umgeni river mouth. When Koots had secured the landing, they could bring in the supply ships that were transporting the horses and land them through the surf. The cavalry would follow the infantry, and mop up any survivors who tried to fly from the doomed fort.

However, the long voyage in the heavy seas of the kaskay, had been terribly hard on the horses. They had already lost almost two in every five, and those that had survived were in poor condition. Weak and emaciated, they could still be used to pursue the fugitives. However, it would take many weeks for them to recover fully.

Many of the infantry were in scarcely better condition. The ships were overcrowded and the troops were ravaged by sea-sickness, the half rotted rations they had to eat, and the water that was thick with green slime. However, Koots would stiffen them up once he had them ashore. Koots could get a corpse to stand up and fight until it was killed again. Zayn smiled wolfishly.

They left the second division hove-to and Zayn's division forged ahead, straight for the entrance to the bay. As they closed in under the brooding height of the bluff, Zayn could pick out the calmer water of the channel. On either side of it the white surf broke, lashed into a fury by the onshore wind.

"They cannot escape us," he gloated. "Even if they spot us now, it will be too late for them."

"I long for sight of my Arcturus." Sir Guy stared ahead eagerly. Verity might still be aboard. He imagined her lying on her bunk in the beautifully decorated cabin, her long hair trailing over her shoulders and her soft white bosom.

"May I beat to quarters, my caliph?" Rahmad asked respectfully.

"Do so!" Zayn nodded. "Run out the guns. By now the enemy must have seen us. They will be waiting for us in their ships and on the parapets of the fort."

With all her great cannon loaded, and the gun crews crouching behind them, the Sufi led the line of warships up the centre of the channel. Laleh was the pilot, for he was the only one aboard who knew the channel well. He stood beside the helmsman at the wheel and listened to the chant of the man in the bows who was calling the soundings. The bulk of the bluff towered at their left hand, and on their right spread the jungle and mangroves of the littoral. Laleh judged the turn in the channel and gave the order to the helm.

The Sufi slatted her canvas, then rilled it again with a subdued thunder, and they were round the rump of the bluff. But their speed through the water was scarcely diminished. Zayn stared ahead eagerly: he seemed to snuffle the air like a hunting dog hard on the heels of his quarry. Before them opened the wide sweep of the inner waters of the bay. Slowly Zayn's warlike glare faded and was replaced by an expression of disbelief. The vision that the angel had shown Kadem could not have been false. "They are gone!" Sir Guy whispered.

The waters of the bay were empty. There was not even a fishing-boat at anchor in its whole wide expanse. The silence was ominous.

Still the line of five ships tore on, straight towards the walls of the fort on which the muzzles of the enemy guns stared at them blankly from a mile away. Zayn fought off the sense of foreboding that threatened to debilitate him. The angel had shown Kadem a vision, yet the ships were gone. He closed his eyes and prayed aloud: "Hear me, Holiest of All. I pray you, great Gabriel, answer me." Both Sir Guy and Rahmad looked at him strangely. "Where are the ships?"

"In the bay!" He heard the voice reverberate in his head, but there was a sly, sardonic tone to it. The ships that shall burn are already in the bay."

Zayn looked back, and saw that the fifth and last of his war-dhows was coming through the deep-water channel into the bay.

"You are not Gabriel," Zayn blurted. "You are the shaitan Iblis, the Fallen One. You have lied to us." Rahmad stared at him in astonishment. You showed us our own fleet," Zayn cried out. "You have led us into a trap. You are not Gabriel. You are the Black Angel."

"Nay, great caliph," Rahmad protested. "I am the most loyal of all your subjects. I would never think to lead you into a trap."

Zayn stared at him. Rahmad's consternation was so comical that he

was forced to laugh, but it was a bitter sound. "Not you, you poor fool. Another more cunning than you."

A single cannon shot boomed out across the waters of the bay, and forced Zayn's attention back to the present. Powder smoke rolled from the parapet of the fort and the ball struck the water and ricocheted across the surface of the bay. It crashed into the hull of the Sufi and there was a scream of agony from the lower decks.

"Anchor the fleet in line and open fire on the fort," Zayn ordered. He felt a sense of relief that at last the battle had begun.

As each of the war-dhows dropped anchor and took in its canvas, it rounded up to the wind, and turned its starboard battery on the fort. One after another they opened the bombardment and the heavy stone balls kicked showers of dust and loose earth from the glacis, or smashed into the log walls. It was immediately obvious that the fortifications could not withstand such furious fire for long. The timbers shattered and burst open to each massive impact.

"I had been made to believe that it was an impregnable fortress," Sir Guy watched the effects of the bombardment with grim satisfaction, 'but those walls will be down before nightfall. Peters, tell the Caliph that I must assemble the assault party at once to be ready to go ashore as soon as the fort is breached."

"The traitor's defence is pathetically inadequate." Zayn had to shout above the crash and thunder of the guns. "I can see only two cannon returning our fire."

There!" Sir Guy shouted back. "One of their guns has been hit." Both men focused their glasses on the gaping hole that had been blown in the parapet of log poles. They could see that the gun carriage had been overturned, and the broken body of one of the enemy gunners was hanging like beef on a butcher's hook from the splintered stumps.

"Sweet Name of Allah!" Rahmad shouted. "They are deserting the fort. They have given up. They are running for their very lives."

The gates of the fort were dragged open and out rushed a panic stricken mob. They scattered into the jungle, leaving the gates wide, the parapet deserted. The enemy guns fell silent as the last gunner fled his post.

"At once!" Zayn turned to Sir Guy. "Take your battalion ashore and storm the fort."

The enemy's capitulation had taken them all by surprise. Zayn had expected them to put up a more determined resistance. Valuable time was wasted while the boats were launched, and the assault party scrambled down into them.

Guy stood impatiently at the head of the gangway, shouting orders at the detachment of men he had chosen as his own. They were all hard men: he had seen them at work and they were like a pack of hunting dogs. Added to that, many of them understood and even spoke a little English. "Come, waste no more time! Your enemy is getting clean away from you. Every minute and your booty is being taken."

They understood that, and for those who did not Peters repeated it in Arabic. From somewhere Peters had found a sword and pistol and they were belted around his skinny waist, sagging so that the point of the scabbard dragged on the deck, and his jacket was pulled out of shape. He cut an absurd figure.

The bombardment raged on without pause, and the great stone balls crashed mercilessly into the ruined walls of the fort. The last few defenders fled back into the forest, and the building was deserted. But at last all the boats were loaded and Guy and Peters scrambled down into the largest.

"Pull!" Guy shouted. "Straight for the beach." He was desperate to reach the treasury, and his gold chests. As soon as they were halfway across, the ships ceased firing for fear of hitting them. A heavy silence fell over the bay, while the small boats streamed towards the beach. Guy's longboat was first to reach it. As the bows touched the sand he leaped out and waded ashore.

"Come on!" he yelled. "Follow me!" With the information they had wrung out of Omar, the prisoner captured by Laleh, he had been able to draw up a detailed map of the interior of the fort. He knew exactly where he was going.

As soon as they were through the open gates, he sent men up to the parapets to secure the walls, and others to search the buildings to make sure none of the enemy remained. Then he hurried to the powder magazine. The defenders might have placed a time fuse to blow it up. Four of the men with him carried heavy crow-bars and prised the door on its hinges. The magazine was empty. This should have been a warning to Guy, but he could think of nothing but the gold. He ran to the main building. The staircase that led down to the strongrooms was concealed behind the fireplace in the kitchens. It was cunningly built and even though he knew it was there it took him some time to find it. Then he kicked open the door and went down the circular staircase. An iron grating set in the arched ceiling let in a little light, and he stopped

in astonishment at the foot of the stairs. The long low room ahead of him was filled to the roof with neatly stacked ivory.

The devil take me, but Koots was right! There's tons of the stuff here. If they abandoned such a wealth of ivory, then did they also leave my gold?"

Omar had explained how Tom Courtney had used the ivory to conceal the door to the inner strongroom. But Guy would not rush ahead blindly: before going further he waited for one of his captains to come down the stairwell and report to him. The man was panting with exertion and excitement, but there was no blood on his clothing or the blade of his weapon. "Ask him if they have secured the fort," Guy ordered, but the man knew enough English to understand the question.

"All gone, effendi. Nothing! No man or dog left inside the walls."

"Good!" Guy nodded. "Now get twenty of the men down here to clear the ivory from the right-hand wall of this chamber."

The most massive tusks had been used to cover the entrance to the inner strongroom and it took almost two hours of hard work to reveal the small iron door, and another hour to batter it open.

As the door toppled out of its frame and crashed to the stone floor in a dense cloud of dust, Guy stepped forward and peered into the room. As the dust settled the interior was revealed. With a stab of angry disappointment he saw that the room was bare.

No, not quite bare. A sheet of parchment was nailed to the far wall. The writing on it was in a distinctive bold hand, which he recognized immediately, even after nearly two decades. Guy tore down the sheet and scanned it swiftly. His face darkened and twisted with fury.

RECEIPT FOR GOODS

I, the undersigned, gratefully acknowledge fair receipt of the following goods from Sir Guy Courtney:

15 Chests of Fine Gold bars.

Signed on behalf of Courtney Brothers Trading Company at Nativity Bay this 15th day of November in the year 1738,

Thomas Courtney esq

Guy crumpled the sheet in his fist and hurled it at the wall. "God rot your thieving soul, Tom Courtney," he said, quivering with fury. "You dare to mock me? You shall find the interest that I will collect from you to be far from any joke."

He stormed back up the stairs and climbed to the parapet overlooking

the bay.

The flotilla of dhows still rode at anchor. He saw that they were unloading the horses, lifting them out of the holds, swinging them over side then lowering them to the water and turning them loose to swim to the beach. A considerable herd was already ashore, and the grooms were tending them.

He saw Zayn al-Din standing by the rail of the Sufi. Guy knew he should go back aboard to report to him, but first he had to control his anger and frustration. "No Arcturus, no Verity and, more important still, no gold. Where have you hidden with my gold, Tom Courtney, you bitch-born lecher? Was it not enough that you rutted on the belly of my wife, and saddled me with your bastard? Now you rob me of what is rightfully mine."

He looked down from the parapet and his eyes followed the wagon track that ran out through the open gates of the fort and immediately forked. One track ran down to the beach, the other turned inland. It wound its way through patches of denser forest and swamp and, convoluted as a scotched serpent, climbed the far hills to vanish over the crest.

"Wagons!" Guy whispered. "You would need wagons to carry away fifteen lakhs of gold." He rounded on Peters. "Tell these men to follow me." He led them at a run through the gates of the fort, and down to the head of the landing where the horses stood. The grooms were unloading the saddlery from the boats.

Tell them I will need twenty horses," he told Peters, 'and I will pick the men I want to go with me." He hurried among them and slapped each of those he chose on the shoulder. They were all heavily armed and carried extra powder flasks. "Tell them to fetch saddles from the boats."

When the head groom realized that Sir Guy intended to take the best of his horses, he shouted a protest into his face. Guy tried to push him away, shouting back at him in English, but the man grabbed his arm and shook it violently, still protesting. "I've no time to argue," Guy said, drew the pistol from his belt and cocked the hammer. He thrust the muzzle into the groom's startled face and fired into his open mouth. The man collapsed. Guy stepped over his twitching corpse and ran to the horse that one of his men was holding ready for him.

Mount!" he shouted, and Peters and twenty Arabs followed his example. He led them off the beach, along the wagon trail, heading into the hills and the hinterland. "Hear me, Tom Courtney," he said, 'and

hear me well! I am coming to retrieve my stolen gold. Nothing that you or anyone else can do will stop me."

From the quarter-deck of the Sufi, Zayn al-Din watched with anticipation as Sir Guy led his men into the deserted fort. There was no sound of fighting, and no further sight of the fugitives who had escaped from the fort. He waited impatiently for a report from Sir Guy as to what was taking place within the walls. After an hour he had to send a man ashore to enquire. He returned with a message. "Mighty Caliph, the English effendi has discovered that the fort has been stripped of all furniture and stores except much ivory. There is a hidden door in the cellars below the building. His men are forcing it open, but it is of iron and very strong."

An hour passed during which Zayn ordered the horses to be sent ashore. Then, suddenly, Sir Guy appeared on the parapet of the fort. Zayn could tell at once from his demeanour that he had been unsuccessful. Then, abruptly, Sir Guy seemed to become galvanized. He rushed out of the fort followed by most of his detachment. Zayn expected him to come back to report to him and was puzzled when he did not, but then Sir Guy's men began to saddle most of the horses. There was a scuffle on the beach and a pistol shot rang out. Zayn saw a body lying on the sand. To his astonishment, Sir Guy and most of his men mounted and rode up from the water's edge then out along the wagon road.

"Stop them!" he snapped at Rahmad. "Send a messenger ashore immediately to order those men to return." Rahmad shouted to his ; boatswain, but before he could give the man his instructions Sir Guy's i desertion became irrelevant. ;

A cannon shot startled them all. The echoes duplicated themselves.j along the cliffs of the bluff. Zayn jerked round and stared across the waters of the bay to where smoke still hung in the air. A hidden cannon had fired upon them from the tangle of dense vegetation that covered the slope of the bluff. He could not see the weapon, even though he searched through the lens of his spyglass. It was too cunningly concealed, probably in some deep emplacement dug into the hillside.

Then, suddenly, his view through the glass was momentarily obscured by a tall spout of water that leaped up directly in front of him. He dropped the glass to see that a cannon-ball had struck close alongside the anchored Sufi. As he stared, a strange phenomenon took place before his eyes. In the centre of the spreading ripples where the enemy cannon-ball had sunk, the shallow water began to seethe and boil, like

564 i a kettle, and steam rose in a dense cloud from the surface. For a long moment Zayn was at a loss to explain it. Then it came to him in a dread flash. "Red-hot shot! The pork-eaters are firing heated shot!1 He trained his glass on the hillside where the smoke still drifted. Now that he was searching for it, he saw a shimmering column of heated air rising into the sky, like a desert mirage. There was no visible smoke. He knew what that meant.

"Charcoal furnaces!" he exclaimed. "Rahmad, we must get our ships out to sea at once. This is a terrible trap we are in. The entire flotilla will be in flames within the hour unless we can clear the bay at once."

In a wooden ship, fire was the most terrifying hazard. Rahmad shouted his orders, but before they could get the anchor aboard, another red-hot iron ball hurtled down towards them from the heights of the bluff. It left a trail of sizzling sparks behind it and struck the last dhow in the line of anchored ships. It plunged through her maindeck deep into her hull, shedding splinters of red-hot iron in its path which buried themselves deep in the dry planking. Almost immediately they began to smoulder. Then the air reached them. With miraculous rapidity dozens of fires blossomed in the hull, and spread swiftly.

On board the Sufi all was pandemonium as men rushed to the pumps and the anchor capstan, and still others clambered aloft to set the sails. The anchor broke out of the sandy bottom, Rahmad set his lateen sail and the ship came round slowly towards the exit from the bay. Then a hail rang out from the lookout at the Sufi's masthead. It was wild and incoherent. "Deck below! In the Name of Allah! Beware, it is the curse of shaitan."

Zayn looked up, and his voice was shrill with anger as he shouted, "What have you seen? Make your report clear, you imbecile." But the man was still jabbering, and pointing over the bows towards the exit channel from the bay.

Every man on deck followed the direction of his out-thrust arm. A groan of superstitious terror went up from them. "A sea monster! The great snake from the depths that devours ships and men!" screamed a voice, and men dropped to their knees to pray, or simply stared in mute terror at the ophidian creature that uncoiled from one side of the channel. Its massive body seemed to undulate in endless humps as it swam through the water towards the far bank.

"It will attack us!" Rahmad shouted in terror. "Kill it! Shoot it! Open fire!"

The gun-crews scrambled to their cannons, and the guns roared out from every ship in the squadron. Smoke and flame flew in sheets. Tall columns of seawater sprang up in a forest around the swimming monster.

In such a storm of shot some of the balls struck home. Clearly they heard the crack of impact. However, the creature swam on without any sign that it was injured. The head reached the far shore but the long serpentine body stretched from one bank of the channel to the other and bobbed and rolled in the flow and push of the current. The cannonballs fell about it like hail. Some glanced off the surface and ricocheted out to sea.

Zayn was the first man aboard to recover his wits. He ran to the near rail and stared at the thing through the lens of his telescope. Then he shrieked, in his high, penetrating voice, "Cease fire! Stop this madness!" The bombardment petered out.

Rahmad ran to his caliph's side. "What is it, Majesty?"

"The enemy have drawn a boom across the mouth of the bay. We are bottled in here like pickled fish in a tub."

As he spoke another heated shot came flying from high on the slope of the bluff, glowing sparks snapping and popping in the air behind it. It plunged into the water only feet from their stern. Zayn looked about him. The first ship that had been hit was burning furiously. Even as he watched its great lateen sail caught fire and the flames engulfed it swiftly. The canvas collapsed over the deck trapping shrieking men under its weight, and incinerating them like insects in the flue of an oil lamp. Without the push of its sail, the vessel started a slow and aimless turn across the bay until it struck the beach and heeled over steeply. The surviving men of the crew sprang over the side and splashed and crawled ashore.

Yet another heated shot came swooping towards the Sufi in a smoking parabola. It passed only feet from their mainmast, then flew on to smash into the other war-dhow that sailed beside them. Almost at once her deck split open and tall flames burst out through her timbers. Her crew were already at the pumps, but the streams of water they aimed at the fire had no effect. The flames jumped higher.

"Steer closer to that ship. I will speak to her captain," Zayn ordered Rahmad. The Sufi veered across to her, and as they drew alongside the burning ship Zayn called to the captain, "Your ship is stricken and doomed. You must use it to clear an avenue of escape for the other ships of the squadron. Ram the enemy boom. Break it open."

"As you command, Majesty!" The captain ran to the wheel and pushed aside the helmsman. While the other three ships backed their sails and let him forge ahead of them, he steered straight at the line of massive logs attached to a heavy ship's cable that sealed off the channel. Smoke and flame streamed back from the burning hull.

The officers on the deck of the Sufi cheered aloud as it struck, and the heavy log boom was plucked below the surface. The dhow heeled over. The top of her mast snapped off and her flaming sail ballooned down over the deck. She had stopped dead in the water, but even though her sail and rigging were in a shambles, she came slowly back on an even keel. Then the line of heavy logs that made up the boom surfaced again. They were intact. They had resisted the dhow's charge. The ship itself swung round aimlessly. She no longer had steerage way. She was not answering her rudder.

"She is mortally damaged below the waterline," Rahmad said softly. "See? She is already sinking by the bows. The boom has torn the guts clean out of her. The flames will devour the hull to the waterline."

The crew of the doomed vessel had managed to launch two of their boats. They clambered down into them, and rowed for the shore. Zayn looked back at the rest of his squadron. Another of his ships was in flames. It headed towards the shore and piled on to the sand with its sails and rigging burning like a funeral pyre. Then another dhow was hit, and black smoke billowed into the sky above her. The blaze drove most of her crew into the bows. A few were overpowered by the smoke, collapsed on the deck and fire swept over them. The rest leaped over the side. Those who were able to swim struck out for the beach, but the others drowned almost at once.

There was a shout of fear from the officers clustered around Zayn and they all looked up towards the heights of the bluff. Another red hot ball came sparkling in a meteoric arc towards them. This one could not miss them.

The thunder of the cannon echoed from the cliffs of the tall bluff, and rolled out across the waters to where Kadem ibn Abubaker lay have to a mile off the mouth of the Umgeni river. The Caliph has begun his attack on the fort. Good! Now you must land your battalions," Kadem told Koots, then turned to shout an order to the helm: "Bring her back on the wind." Obediently the dhow came round to the thrust of the big lateen, and they headed in towards the beach. The rest of the convoy followed his lead.

The transports were towing their boats, which were already packed with armed men. Others were waiting on the decks of the ships for their turn to embark in the boats as they returned empty from the beach. They sailed into the stain of yellow-brown effluent that poured from the

mouth of the river and sullied the blue sea for miles along the coast. Both Kadem and Koots studied the beach through their glasses as they approached,

"Deserted!" Koots grunted.

There is no reason for it to be otherwise," Kadem told him. "You will meet no opposition until you reach the fort. According to Laleh, the enemy guns are all aimed to fire out across the bay to cover the entrance channel. They are not sited to meet any attack from the landward side."

"One quick rush while the enemy is busy with the attacking dhows and we will be over the walls and into the fort."

"Inshallahl' Kadem agreed. "But you must move swiftly. My uncle, the Caliph, is already engaged. You must drive your men hard to encircle the fort before any of the defenders can escape with the booty."

The crew took in the sail, and the anchor went over side A cable's length beyond the first line of breakers the dhow settled quietly to ride the long swells running into the beach.

"And now, my old comrade in arms, it is time for us to part," Kadem said, 'but always remember your promise to me, if you should be so fortunate as to capture al-Salil or his puppy."

"Yes, I shall remember it well." Koots smiled like a cobra. "You want them for yourself. I swear, if it is within my power, I shall deliver them to you. For myself I want only Jim Courtney and his pretty wench."

"Go with God!" Kadem said, and watched Koots go down into the crowded boat and head for the shore. A swarm of small craft followed him. As they approached the river mouth, the swells sent them swooping in over the sandbar that guarded it. As soon as they were into the protected water, the boats turned into the bank. From each one twenty men jumped over side into the waist-deep water and waded ashore, their weapons and packs held high.

They assembled in their platoons above the high-water mark and squatted in patient ranks. The empty boats returned to the anchored ships, the oarsmen driving them through the lines of waves at the river mouth. As soon as they were alongside the transports the next wave of men swarmed down into them from the high deck. As the boats ferried back and forth, and more and more men went ashore, the stretch of beach grew more crowded, but still none ventured into the thick jungle beyond.

Kadem watched through his telescope and began to fret. What is Koots doing? he wondered. Every minute now, the enemy will be rallying. He is throwing away his chances. Then he turned his head and listened. The distant sound of the bombardment had ceased and there was silence from the direction of the bay. What has happened to the

Caliph's attack? Surely he could not have overpowered the fort so swiftly- He looked back at the men on the beach. As for Koots, Kadem thought, he must move now. He cannot afford to waste more time.

Since he had landed, Koots had been able to form a better estimate of the kind of terrain that lay ahead of him, and had been most unpleasantly surprised. He had sent scouting parties into the bush to find the easiest way through, but they had still not returned. Now he was waiting anxiously at the edge of the jungle, thumping a clenched fist into the palm of the other hand with frustration. He understood as well as Kadem how dangerous it was to allow the momentum of his attack to dissipate, but on the other hand he dared not rush into the unknown.

Would it be better to take them along the beach? he wondered, and looked along the sweep of honey-brown sand. Then he glanced at his own feet. He was ankle-deep in it and the effort of walking even a few paces was demanding. Such a march under heavy packs would exhaust even the hardest of his men.

An hour past low tide, he estimated. Soon the tide will be in full flow. It will flood the sand and force us off it and into the bush.

While he still hesitated, one of the scouting parties pushed their way through the thick wall of vegetation and into the open. "Where have you been?" Koots bellowed at the leader. "Is there a way through?"

"It is very bad for three hundred yards. There is a deep swamp directly ahead. One of my men was taken by a crocodile. We tried to save him."

"You idiot." With his scabbard Koots struck the man across the side of the head, and he dropped to his knees in the sand. "Is that what you have been doing all this time, trying to save another useless bastard like yourself? You should have let the crocodile have him. Did you find a path?"

The man came to his feet, swaying slightly and holding his injured face. "Have no fear, Pasha effendi," he mumbled. "After the swamp there is a spur of dry ground that leads towards the south. There is an open path running along it, but it is narrow. It will take only three men abreast."

"Any sign of the enemy?"

None, great Pasha, but there are many wild beasts."

Lead us to the path at once, or I will find a crocodile for you also."

' " " f we attack them now, we will sweep them with a single charge

I back into the sea whence they came," said Beshwayo, fiercely. JL "No, great king, that is not our purpose. There are still many more of them coming ashore. We want all of them," said Jim, in a reasonable tone. "Why kill a few of them when, if we wait awhile, we will kill them all?"

Beshwayo chuckled and shook his head so that the earrings Louisa had given him jangled. "You are right, Somoya. I have many young warriors seeking the right to wed and I do not want to deprive them of that honour."

Jim and Beshwayo had waited on the hills above the coast from where they had an uninterrupted view out to sea. They watched Zayn's fleet sail in and separate into two divisions. The five largest ships sailed into the bay, and the gunsmoke billowed up as they began to bombard the fort. It seemed that this was the signal for which the second, larger division had been waiting out at sea, for they immediately came directly in towards the mouth of the Umgeni river. Jim waited until they anchored close inshore. He watched them launch their boats, filled with men, and send them in towards the beach.

"Here is the meat I promised you, mighty black lion," Jim told Beshwayo.

"Then let us go down to the feast, Somoya, for my belly growls with hunger."

The imp is of young warriors poured down on to the flat lands of the littoral strip. Silently as a pride of panthers they moved into their forward positions. Jim and Beshwayo ran ahead of the leading impi to the lookout position. They climbed high into the branches of the tall wild fig tree they had chosen days before. Its twisted serpentine air-roots and branches formed a natural ladder, and the bunches of yellow fruit and dense foliage sprouted directly from the trunk to screen them effectively. From their perch in one of the main forks they had a view through the foliage along the entire sweep of the beach south of the river mouth.

Jim had his eye to his spyglass. Suddenly he exclaimed in astonishment, "Sweet Mother Mary, if it's not Koots himself, all dressed up like a Mussulman grandee. No matter what his disguise, I would know that evil jib anywhere."

He spoke in English, and Beshwayo scowled. "Somoya, I do not understand what you say," he rebuked Jim. "Now that I have taught you

to speak the language of heaven, there is no reason for you still to jabber like a monkey in that strange tongue of yours."

"Do you see that man on the beach down there in the headdress with the bright and shining band, the one closest to us? He is speaking to the other two. There! He has just struck one in the face."

"I see him," Beshwayo said. "Not a good blow, for his victim is standing up again. Who is he, Somoya?"

"His name is Koots," Jim answered grimly, 'my enemy to the death."

Then I will leave him for you," Beshwayo promised.

"Ah, it seems as though at last they have all their troops ashore, and that Koots has made up his mind to move."

Even above the sound of the surf breaking on the sandbar, they could hear the Arab captains shouting their orders. The squatting ranks rose to their feet, hefting their weapons and packs. Quickly they formed up into columns and began to move into the bush and swamp. Jim tried to count them, but could not do so accurately. "Over two hundred," he decided.

Beshwayo whistled and two of his indunas climbed up to him swiftly. They wore the head-rings of their rank, their short beards were grizzled and their bare chests and arms carried the scars of many battles. Beshwayo gave them a rapid string of orders. To each they replied in unison, "Yehbo, Nkosi Nkulul Yes, great king!"

"You have heard me," Beshwayo told them. "Now obey!"

Beshwayo dismissed them, and they slid down the trunk of the wild fig and disappeared into the undergrowth. Minutes later, Jim saw the surreptitious movements in the bush below as the regiments of Beshwayo warriors began to creep forward. They were well spread out, and even from above there was only the brief flash of oiled dark skin, or the glint of bare steel as they closed in quietly on each flank of the marching Omani columns.

A detachment of Turks in their bronze bowl-shaped helmets passed almost directly under the fig tree in which they sat, but they were so intent on finding their way through the matted bush that none looked up. Suddenly there was a commotion of grunts, breaking branches and splashing mud. A small herd of buffalo, disturbed in their mud wallows, burst out of the swamp and thundered away in a solid mass of black, mud-caked bodies and curved, gleaming horns, smashing a road through the forest. There was a scream and Jim saw the body of one of the Arabs tossed high as he was gored by the old cow buffalo that led the herd. Then they were gone.

A few of his companions gathered about the man's crushed body, but the captains yelled at them angrily. They left him lying where he had

fallen and went on. By this time the leading platoons had disappeared into the jungle, while the rear echelons were only just leaving the open beach and starting into the swamp.

Once they were into the bush, none of them was able to see further ahead than the man in front of him, and they followed each other blindly. Already they were falling into mud holes in the swamp, and losing any but the most general sense of direction as they were forced to skirt the densest patches of thorny scrub. The insects swarmed off the algae-green puddles that steamed in the heat. The Turks sweated under their steel mail. The bronze helmets reflected arrows of light. The officers had to raise their voices to keep contact with their platoons, and any attempt at stealth was abandoned.

On the other hand, this was the kind of terrain in which the Beshwayo hunted and fought best. They were invisible to the columns of Koots's men. They shadowed them on each flank. The indunas never uttered a word of command. To guide their imp is in for the kill, they used only birdcalls or the piping of tree frogs, which sounded so natural that it was difficult to believe they issued from a human throat.

Beshwayo listened to these sounds intently. Cocking his huge shaven head first on one side then the other, he understood what they were telling him as if they spoke in plain language. "It is time, Somoya," he said at last. He threw back his head and filled his lungs; his barrel chest swelled, then contracted at the force with which he uttered the high, chanting cry of a fish-eagle. Almost immediately, from far out and much closer at hand, his cry was repeated from a dozen places in the thick jungle below where they sat. His indunas were acknowledging the king's order to attack.

"Come, Somoya!" said Beshwayo softly. "Unless we are quick we will miss the sport." When Jim reached the ground he found Bakkat squatting beside the trunk of the fig tree.

He greeted Jim with a sparkling grin. "I heard the fish eagle cry. So, now there is work to do, Somoya." He handed Jim his sword belt. Jim buckled it about his waist, then thrust the pair of double-barrelled pistols through the leather loops. Like a dark shadow Beshwayo had already disappeared into a dense stand of reeds. Jim turned back to Bakkat. "Koots is here. He leads the enemy brigade," he told him. "Find him for me, Bakkat."

"He will be at the head of his troops," Bakkat said. "We must circle out around the main fighting so that we are not trapped in it, like a bull elephant in quicksand."

Suddenly the jungle around them echoed and resonated with the clamour of fighting men: the thudding reports of musket and pistol, the

thunder of assegai and kerrie drumming on rawhide shield, wild splashing in the swamps, and the crackle of breaking brush as men charged through it. Then the war chant of Beshwayo's men was answered by shouted challenges in Arabic and Turkish.

Bakkat darted away, avoiding the sounds of battle, circling out towards the river to get ahead of the Omani brigades. Jim ran hard to keep up with him. Once or twice he lost sight of him in the denser patches of jungle, but Bakkat whistled softly to lead him on. They reached the spur of dry ground at the far side of the swamp. Bakkat found a narrow game path and ran back along it. After a few hundred paces he stopped again, and they both stood listening. Jim was panting like a dog, and his shirt was dark with sweat, plastered to his body like a second skin. The battle was so close that, underlying the uproar, they could clearly make out the more intimate sounds of death, the crunch of a skull splitting at the blow from a kerrie, the grunt as a spearman thrust home, the hiss of a scimitar blade through the air, the gush of blood spilling upon the earth, the thud of a falling body, the groans and laboured breath of the maimed and dying.

Bakkat looked at Jim, and made a gesture of closing in upon the battle, but Jim raised a hand to restrain him and cocked his head. His breath was returning swiftly. He loosed his pistols in their loops, and drew his sword.

Suddenly there was a bull-like bellow from the thickets close at hand. "Come, my sons! Come, the children of heaven! Let us devour them!"

Jim grinned, it could be none other than Beshwayo. He was answered by another voice, crying out in heavily accented Arabic: "Steady! Steady! Hold your fire! Let them come in close!"

That's him!" Jim nodded at Bakkat. "Koots!"

They left the game path and plunged into the undergrowth. Jim forced his way through a wall of thorns, and before him stretched an opening of bright green swamp grass. In its centre there was a tiny island not more than twenty paces across. On this last refuge Koots was making his stand with a dozen of his men, Arabs in mud-soaked robes and Turks in splattered half-armour. They had formed a ragged line, some kneeling, others standing with their muskets at high port. Koots was striding up and down behind the second rank, carrying his musket at the trail. A bloody cloth was wrapped round his forehead, but he was grinning like a skull, a fearsome rictus that exposed his clenched teeth.

Across the narrow neck of swamp they were confronted by a mass of Beshwayo's warriors, with the Great Bull at their head. Beshwayo threw back his head and gave one last bellow: "Come, my children. This way goes the road to glory!" He bounded forward into the pools, scum med

with thick clumps of stinking green algae. His warriors raced after him and the swamp exploded into spray under their charge. "Steady!" Koots shouted. "One shot and they will be on us."

Beshwayo never faltered: he galloped forward, straight into the levelled muskets like a charging buffalo.

"The mad fool," Jim lamented. "He knows the power of the gun."

"Wait!" Koots called, quite softly. "Wait for it!" Jim saw that he had chosen the king, and was aiming at his chest. He snatched one of his pistols from the loop on his belt and fired instinctively, without seeing the iron sights. It was a forlorn effort. Koots did not even flinch as the ball flew past his head. Instead, his voice rang out harshly, "Fire!" The volley crashed out, and in the smoke Jim saw at least four of the charging warriors go down, two killed outright, the others thrashing around in the mud. Their companions ran over the top of them. Jim searched desperately for a glimpse of Beshwayo. Then as the smoke cleared he saw him untouched and undaunted still in the front of the charge, bawling lustily as he came: "I am the Black Death. Look upon me, and know fear!" He hurled himself into the front rank of Arabs, and knocked two flat on to the earth with a sweep of his shield. He stood over them and stabbed down so swiftly that his blade blurred. Each time he drew it out again a bright crimson tide followed the steel.

Koots threw aside his empty musket, and whirled round. He crossed the island with long, loping strides and plunged into the swamp, heading straight back towards where Jim stood. Jim stepped out from the thicket of thorns. He drew his sword, and waited for him at the edge of marshy ground. Koots recognized him and stopped ankle deep in the mud.

"The Courtney puppy!" He was still smiling. "I have waited long for this moment. Keyset will still pay good gold guilders for your head."

"You'll have to reap it first."

"Where is your blonde whore? I have something for her also." Koots took a handful of his crotch and shook it lewdly.

"I will hack it off and take it to her," Jim promised him grimly.

Koots glanced over his shoulder. His men were all dead. With slashes of the assegai, the Beshwayo were disembowelling their corpses, allowing their spirits to escape: a last tribute to men who had fought well. But some had already started in pursuit of Koots, splashing towards him through the swamp.

Koots hesitated no longer. He came straight at Jim, stepping high through the mud, still smiling, those pale eyes staring into Jim's face to read his intentions. His first thrust came with no warning, straight at Jim's throat. Jim touched his blade, just enough to turn it off line so that the point flew over his shoulder. In the moment that Koots was at

full extension, he shot his own blade forward, steel rasped on steel, and guided Jim's point home. He felt the hit, cloth and flesh splitting, then the shock of bone. Koots leaped back.

"Liefde tot God!" His smile had given way to a startled expression. Fresh blood spread on his muddy shirt-front. The puppy has become a dog."

Surprise gave way to anger and he rushed at Jim again. Their blades clashed and scraped as he tried to drive Jim back, so that he could find firm footing. But Jim stood solid, and kept him pinned in the soft mud. It clung to Koots's boots and hampered each step he took.

"I am coming, Somoya," shouted Beshwayo, as he bounded across the narrow neck of swamp.

"I do not take the food from your mouth," Jim shouted back. "Leave me this morsel."

Beshwayo stopped and held up his hand, to restrain his men who swarmed eagerly after him.

"Somoya is hungry," he said. "Let him eat in peace." And he laughed.

Koots dropped back a pace, trying to draw Jim forward into the mud. Jim smiled into his pale eyes and, with a scornful flick of his head, declined the invitation. Koots circled left and as soon as Jim turned to meet him he broke the other way, but he was slow in the mud. Jim hit him again, raking his flank. Beshwayo's men roared approval.

"You bleed as freely as the great pig you are," Jim taunted him. The blood was sliding down Koots's leg and dripping into the mud. He glanced down at it and his expression was grim. Both wounds were shallow and light, but together they would drain him swiftly. Jim lunged at him.

When Koots jumped back he felt the weakness in his legs. He knew he must try for a quick decision. He looked at the man who confronted him, and for one of the few times in his life he felt a twinge of fear. This was no longer the stripling he had chased across half of Africa. This was a man, tall and broad-shouldered, forged like steel in the furnace of life.

Koots gathered his courage and the last of his strength and rushed at Jim, trying by sheer weight and strength to drive him back. Jim stood to meet him. It seemed that only an evanescent barrier of darting metal separated them. The clash and scrape of the blades rose to a dreadful crescendo. Beshwayo's warriors were enthralled by this novel form of combat. They recognized the skill and strength it demanded, and they chanted encouragement, drumming their assegais upon their shields, dancing and swaying with excitement.

It could not last much longer. Koots's pale eyes were covered by the

sheen of despair. Sweat diluted the blood that streamed down his side. He felt the slackness in his wrist, and the give of his muscles when he tried to press Jim harder. Jim blocked his next desperate thrust high in the natural line of attack, and locked their blades in front of their eyes. They stared at each other through the cross of silver formed by the quivering steel. They formed a statue group that seemed carved from marble. The Beshwayo sensed the high drama of the moment and fell silent.

Koots and Jim both knew that whichever one tried to break away would expose himself to the killing stroke. Then Jim felt Koots break. Koots shifted his feet and, with a heave of both shoulders, tried to throw Jim back and disengage. Jim was ready for it, and as Koots released, Jim shot forward like the strike of an adder. Koots's eyes flew wide, but they were colourless and blind. His fingers opened, and he let his sword drop into the mud.

Jim stood with his wrist locked and the point of his own steel buried deep in Koots's chest. He felt the hilt thump softly in his hand, and thought for an instant that it was his own pulse. Then he realized that his blade had transfixed Koots's heart, and it was the pumping of his opponent's lifeblood that he could feel transmitted up the blade.

Koots's expression was puzzled. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Slowly his knees buckled and, as he sagged, Jim all owe3 him to slip off the blade. He fell face down in the mud, and Beshwayo's men roared like a pride of lions at the kill.

Weeks before, the three ships, Revenge, Sprite and Arcturus, had sailed out of Nativity Bay on the dawn tide. They left Tasuz in his little felucca within sight of the bluff to watch for the arrival of Zayn's fleet while they went on to lie in ambush out of sight of land below the eastern horizon. The endless days that followed were of unrelieved monotony and uncertainty, patrolling back and forth along the edge of the oceanic shelf, watching for Tasuz to summon them to battle.

Ruby Cornish in the Arcturus made his sun shot at noon each day, but the instincts of Kumrah in the Sprite and Batula in the Revenge were almost as accurate as his navigational instruments at keeping them on their station.

Mansur spent almost all the hours of daylight high in Arcturus's main top, watching the horizon through the lens of his telescope until his right eye was bloodshot with the strain and the glare of the sun off the

water. Each evening, after an early dinner with Cornish, he went to Verity's cabin. He sat late at her writing bureau. She had given him the key to the drawers when they parted on the beach of Nativity Bay. "No one else has ever read my journals. I wrote them in Arabic, so that neither my father nor my mother could decipher them. You see, my darling, I never trusted either of them very far." She laughed as she said it. "I want you to be the first to read them. Through them you will be able to share my life and my innermost thoughts and secrets."

"I feel humble that you should do me such great honour." His voice choked as he said it.

"It is not about honour, it is about love," she replied. "From now onwards, I shall never keep a secret from you."

Mansur found that the journals spanned the last ten years of her life, since she had turned nine. They were a monumental record of a young girl's emotions as she groped her way towards womanhood. He sat late each night, and by the light of the oil lamp he shared her yearnings and her bewilderment at life, her girlish disasters and petty triumphs. There were outpourings of joy, and others of such poignancy that his heart ached for her. There were dark, enigmatic passages when she pondered her relationship with her parents. He felt his flesh creep when she hinted fearfully at the unspeakable as she wrote of her father. She spared no detail when she described the punishments he had inflicted on her, and his hands shook with anger as he turned the perfumed pages. There were other passages that brought him up short with their brilliant revelations. Always her fresh, inspired use of words amazed him. At times she made him laugh aloud, and at others his vision blurred with tears.

The last pages of the penultimate volume covered the period from their first meeting on the deck of the Arcturus in Muscat harbour until their parting on the road back from Isakanderbad. At one point she had written of him, Though he does not yet know it, already he owns a part of me. From this time onwards our footsteps will be printed side by side in the sands of time."

When at last she had burnt out his emotions with her words, he blew out the lamp and went dazed with emotional exhaustion to her bunk. The rich fragrance of her hair still lingered on her pillow and the sheets were perfumed by her skin. In the night he woke and reached for her, and when he realized that she was not there the agony made him groan, Then he hated his own father for not allowing her to stay with him, and sending her away in the wagons with Sarah, Louisa and little George into the wild hills of the hinterland.

No matter how little he had slept he was always on Arcturws's deck

when eight bells sounded in the middle watch, and before the first blush of dawn he was at the masthead, watching and waiting.

As the most powerful but slowest ship in the squadron, the Arcturus kept the windward station, and Mansur had the sharpest pair of eyes on board. It was he who spotted the tiny fleck of the felucca's sail as she came up over the horizon. The moment that they were certain of her identity Ruby Cornish brought the Arcturus about and they ran down to intercept her. Tasuz answered his hail: "Zayn al-Din is here, with twenty-five great dhows." Then he turned and led the squadron back towards the African mainland, which now lay low on the horizon, dark blue and as menacing as some monster of the deep. Again it was Mansur who first picked out the shapes of the enemy flotilla anchored off the mouth of the Umgeni river. Their sails were furled and their dark hulls blended with the background of hills and forest.

"They are lying exactly where your father expected them." Cornish studied them carefully as they raced down upon them. "They are already sending their boats in to the beach. The attack has begun."

Swiftly they closed the gap, and it seemed that the enemy were so intent on their landing that they were neglecting the watch they should have kept on the open sea behind them.

"Those are the five war-dhows of the escort." Mansur pointed them out. "The others are transports."

"We have the weather gauge." Cornish smiled comfortably and his face glowed with satisfaction. "The same wind that blows to our advantage has them pinned against the lee shore. If they hoist their anchors they will go aground almost immediately. We have Kadem ibn Abubaker at our mercy. How should we proceed, Your Highness?" Cornish looked at Mansur. Dorian had given his son the overall command of the squadron: Mansur's royal rank dictated that. The Arab captains would not have understood or accepted any other in place of him.

"My instinct is to go straight at the war-dhows while we have them at our mercy. If we can destroy them, the transports will fall into our laps like overripe fruit. Would you agree, Captain Cornish?"

"With all my heart, Your Highness." Cornish showed his appreciation of Mansur's tact by touching the brim of his hat.

"Then, if you please, let us close with the other ships so that I may pass the order to them. I shall allot an enemy ship to each. We in the Arcturus will engage the largest of them," Mansur pointed to the dhow in the centre of the line of anchored ships, 'for that is almost certainly

commanded by Kadem ibn Abubaker. I shall board immediately and capture it, while you sail on and do the same to the next in line."

The Sprite and the Revenge were sailing a little ahead, backing their sails slightly so as not to head-reach too far on the Arcturus. Mansur hailed them, and pointed out which of the dhows were their separate targets. As soon as they understood what he wanted of them they barged ahead, charging at the line of anchored ships.

At last the enemy saw them coming, and confusion spread swiftly through their fleet. Three of the transports were occupied with landing the horses they were carrying. They were winching them out of the holds with slings passed under their bellies, then lowering them over the side into the water. When they reached it, they turned them loose to swim unaided. The sailors waiting for them in the small boats drove them into the breaking surf to fight their way to the beach as best they were able. Already more than a hundred of the sick, exhausted animals were in the water, struggling to keep afloat.

When they saw the tall ships bearing down on them with all their guns run out, the captains of the horse transports panicked. With a few axe strokes they severed their anchor cables, and tried to bear away. Two collided, and in the confusion they drifted into the line of heaving white surf. Still locked together, the waves broke over their decks. One capsized and took the other with it. The surface of the water was covered with wreckage, struggling men and horses. One or two of the other troop ships managed to cut their cables and hoist their sails. It was close work but they cleared the lee shore and made good their offing.

They are unarmed and no danger to us," Mansur told Cornish. "Let them go. We can run them down later. First we must deal with the war dhows." He left Cornish, and went forward to take command of the boarding party. The five war-dhows had kept their positions at anchor. They were too large and ungainly to risk the dangerous manoeuvre of trying to clear the lee shore in the face of such a powerful enemy. They had no option but to stay and fight.

The Arcturus ran straight at the largest. Mansur stood in the bows and surveyed the deck of the other ship as the gap between them closed. There he is!" he shouted suddenly, and pointed with his sword. "I knew he must be here!"

The ships were so close that Kadem heard his voice and glared back at him. The shaft of pure hatred that passed between them was almost tangible.

"One broadside, Captain Cornish," Mansur looked back at the quarter579

deck, 'and we will board her over her bows through the smoke." Cornish waved acknowledgement and steered his ship in.

The direction of the wind held Kadem's dhow with her bows pointing out to sea, her stern towards the beach. Although the Omani crew ran out their guns defiantly, they could not bring them to bear. Cornish crossed the bows of Kadem's dhow to rake her at point-blank range. The Arcturus stood higher out of the water than the dhow, and her guns were able to fire down on her. Cornish had loaded with grape-shot, and the broadside crashed out. A thick bank of grey gunsmoke shot through with lumps of burning wadding billowed out and obscured her open deck. The wind blew it aside and revealed a scene of utter devastation. The timbers of the dhow's deck had been ripped as though by the claws of a monstrous cat. The gunners were piled in bloody heaps upon their unfired weapons. The splintered scuppers ran crimson with their blood.

Mansur looked for Kadem in the carnage. With a small jolt of disbelief he saw that he was unharmed and still on his feet, trying to muster the stunned survivors of that terrible blast of iron balls. Skilfully Cornish let the hulls of the two ships kiss, then held them together with a delicate play on the helm. Mansur led his boarders across in a rush, and Cornish toyed with the wheel and disengaged. Leaving Mansur and his men to seize the dhow, he sailed on down the line of anchored ships to attack the next war-dhow before it could escape out to sea. He had a respite of a few minutes to look round and see how the other two ships were faring.

After battering them with unrelenting broadsides at close range, the crews of the Revenge and the Sprite had boarded their chosen adversaries. Three more of the troop transports had drifted into the surf and capsized; some of the others were still at anchor. Cornish counted six more who had avoided the attackers and were clawing desperately out to sea. Then ; he looked back over his stern and saw the bitter fighting that surged over the deck of Kadem's anchored dhow. He thought he saw Mansur in the front of the battle, but it was so fluid and confused that he could ' not be sure. The prince might have done better to let me give them a few more doses of grape, before he boarded, he thought, and then with admiration, but he is a hot blood Kadem ibn Abubaker murdered his mother. Honour allows him no other course than to go after him, man to man.

The Arcturus was coming down fast on the next war-dhow in the line, and Cornish gave her all his attention. "The same medicine, lads, he called to his gunners. "A goodly draught of the grape, and then we will board her."

Ariough the grape-shot had killed or wounded half of the men on the deck of Kadem ibn Abubaker's ship, the moment Mansur's boarding party swung across from the Arcturus, Kadem shouted the order and the rest of his crew came pouring out of the hatchways from the lower decks and launched themselves into the fight.

In numbers boarders and defenders were almost evenly matched. They were so closely packed that there was scarce enough space in which to swing the sword or thrust with the pike. They surged back and forth, slipping on the bloody decks, shouting and hacking at each other.

Mansur looked for Kadem in the ruck, but almost immediately lie was confronted by three men. They came at him in a rush. Mansur hit one low in the chest, driving his point up under the ribs. He heard the air hiss from the man's punctured lungs before he toppled to the deck. Mansur only just had time to recover his blood-smeared blade and come back on guard before the other two were upon him.

One of these was a wiry fellow whose long arms were roped with stringy muscle. His naked chest was tattooed with a sura from the Qur'an. Mansur recognized him: he had fought beside him on the ramparts of Muscat. He feinted, then cut overhand at Mansur's head. Mansur blocked him and locked his blade. He swung him round like a shield to hold off his comrade, who was trying to intervene.

"So, Zaufar! You could not wait for the return of al-Salil, your true caliph," Mansur snarled into his face. "Last time we met I saved your life. This time I shall take it from you."

Zaufar leaped back in consternation. "Prince Mansur, is it you?" In reply Mansur pulled off his turban and shook out his copper golden hair.

"It is the prince," Zaufar screamed. His comrades paused and drew back. They stared at Mansur.

"It is the son of al-Salil," one cried. "Yield to him!"

"He is the spawn of the traitor! Kill him!" a pot-bellied rogue bellowed, and forced his way through their ranks. Zaufar turned and sent a thrust deeply into his bulging gut. In a moment the enemy was divided against each other. Mansur's men rushed forward to take advantage of the confusion.

"Al-Salil!" they shouted, and some of the dhow's crew took up the cry, while the others yelled back defiantly, "Zayn al-Din!"

With so many of Kadem's men changing sides, those still loyal to him were outnumbered and they were swept back down the deck. Mansur led the charge, his face and robe splattered by the blood of his victims,

his eyes ferocious. He searched for Kadem in the rabble. As he fought his way forward more of the enemy recognized him. They threw down their weapons and grovelled on the deck.

"Mercy in the name of al-Salil!" they screamed.

At last Kadem ibn Abubaker stood alone at the stern rail of the dhow. He stared across at Mansur.

"I have come for retribution," Mansur called to him. "I have come to purge your evil soul with steel." He started forward again and the men between them shrank out of his way. "Come, Kadem ibn Abubaker, meet me now."

Kadem reared back, then swung forward and hurled his scimitar at Mansur's head. The curved blade, clotted with the blood of his victims, cartwheeled through the air with a vicious whirring sound. Mansur ducked under it and it went on to thud into the base of the mast.

"Not now, puppy. First I will kill your dog-sire, then only will I have time to deal with you."

Before Mansur realized what he was about, Kadem pulled his robe over his head and threw it to the deck. He wore only a loincloth round his waist. His torso was lean and hard. Under his arm was the raised purple scar of the sword-thrust that Mansur had inflicted on him on the quay at Muscat harbour. Kadem turned to the rail and leaped far out. He hit the water, went under, then surfaced and struck out strongly for the beach.

Mansur ran down the deck to the stern, stripping off his own clothing as he went. He dropped his sword, but thrust the curved dagger still in its gold and silver sheath into the back of his loincloth where it would not hamper his swimming stroke. He knotted it there securely. Then, with hardly a check, he dived head first over the rail. Both Mansur and Jim had learned to swim in the turbulent waters of the Benguela current that sweep the shores of Good Hope. As mere lads the two had kept the household of High Weald supplied with abalone and giant crayfish. They took these not by pot or net, but dived for them in the deep waters of the reef. At the end of many hours spent in the icy waters they would race each other back to the shore dragging the bulging sacks of their catch through the water with them.

Mansur came to the surface and, with a shake of his head, flicked his sodden mane out of his eyes. He saw Kadem fifty yards ahead of him. From experience, he knew that, even though they were accomplished seamen, few Arabs learned to swim, so he was surprised by how strongly Kadem forged through the water. Mansur struck out after him, swinging into a powerful overhead rhythm.

He heard the cries of encouragement from his men on the dhow, but

he ignored them and put all his heart, sinew and muscle into the effort. Every dozen strokes he snatched a glance ahead and saw that he was slowly closing in on Kadem.

As they drew nearer to the beach the swells started to hump under them. Kadem reached the break-line first. The tumbling white surf caught and smothered him, then threw him up again, coughing and disoriented. Now, instead of going with the current, he fought against it.

Mansur looked behind him, and saw the next set of waves rearing their backs against the blue of the sky. He stopped swimming and hung in the water, treading gently and paddling with his hands. He watched the first wave come down to him, then let it pass under him. It lifted him so that he had a clear view of Kadem only thirty yards ahead. The wave went on and dropped Mansur into its trough. The next wave came at him, taller and more powerful.

The first a piddle, the second a fountain, the third will wash you up the mountain." He almost heard Jim call the doggerel to him as he had so often before while they played together in the surf. "Wait for the third wave!"

Mansur let the second lift him even higher than the first. From the top he saw Kadem tumble end over end in the boil of the leading wave, his legs and then his flailing arms flashing out of the creaming surf. The wave sped on and left him struggling in its wake. Mansur looked back and saw the third wave bearing down on him. It arched up like the portals of the sky, its crest trembled, translucent green.

He turned with it and began to swim again, kicking hard and tearing at the water with both hands, building up his momentum. The wave picked him up and he found himself caught in its high frontal wall, racing onwards with his head and the top half of his body free.

Kadem was still floundering in the break and Mansur steered towards him with arms and legs, cutting across the face of the wave. At the last moment Kadem saw him and his eyes flew wide with astonishment. Mansur filled his own lungs with air and crashed into him. He locked his arms and legs around Kadem's body, as both of them were swallowed by the wave and carried deep beneath the surface.

Mansur felt his eardrums creak with the pressure and the pain was like a skewer being driven through his skull. He did not release his grip on Kadem, but he swallowed extravagantly and his eardrums made a popping sound as the pressure released. They were driven still deeper and he touched the bottom with one foot. All the time he was tightening his grip around Kadem's chest like the coils of a python.

They sank to the bottom and rolled together along the sandy floor.

Mansur opened his eyes and looked upwards. His vision was blurred, and the surface seemed as remote as the stars. He gathered all his strength and squeezed again. He felt Kadem's ribs creaking and bending in the circle of his arms. Then suddenly Kadem opened his mouth wide with the agony of it, and there was an explosive rush of air out of his throat.

Drown, you swine! Mansur thought, as he watched the silver bubbles of expelled wind racing up towards the surface. But he should have been ready for the last extremes of a dying animal. Somehow Kadem planted both feet on the sandy bottom, and thrust with all the strength of his legs. Still locked together they shot upwards, and the speed of their ascent increased as they approached the surface.

They broke out, and Kadem sucked in air. It gave him new strength, and he twisted in Mansur's arms and reached for his face with hooked fingers. His nails were sharp as augers and they raked Mansur's forehead and cheeks, groping for his eyes.

Mansur felt one hard fingertip force aside his tightly closed eyelid, and slip deeply into the socket. The pain was beyond belief as the nail scored his eyeball and Kadem began to prise it out of Mansur's skull. Mansur released his grip and jerked his head away just before the eyeball popped clean out. He was half blinded by the blood that welled up out of the wound. He emptied his lungs in a scream of agony. With renewed strength Kadem heaved himself on top of Mansur. He locked one arm around his throat in a strangler's grip and forced him under. He was kicking and driving his knees into Mansur's lower body, smothering him with blows and holding his head below the surface. Mansur's lungs were empty, and the urge to breathe was as powerful as the will for.|j life. Kadem's arm was an iron band around his neck. He knew that he would waste the last of his strength if he continued to grapple with him.

He reached behind his back with one hand and drew his dagger from its scabbard. With his left hand he groped under the edge of Kadem's ribcage seeking the lethal point. With all his remaining strength he drove the dagger into the indentation below the sternum. The knife maker had curved the steel to facilitate just this kind of disembowelling stroke, and the edge was so sharp that Kadem's tensed stomach muscles could offer little resistance to it. The steel ran into its full length, until Mansur felt the hilt strike against Kadem's lowest rib. Then he drew the razor edge down and like a purse opened Kadem's belly from his ribs to his pelvic bone.

With a massive convulsion of his whole body Kadem released his strangling grip, and broke away, rolling on to his back. He floundered

on the surface and with both hands tried to stuff his bulging entrails back into the gaping wound. In blue and slippery ropes they kept pouring out and unwinding, until they tangled in his legs as he kicked to stay afloat. His face pointed to the sky and his mouth gaped in a silent cry of anger and despair.

Mansur looked around for him, but his injured eye was blurred and the image of Kadem's face was faceted, like the multiple reflections in a cracked mirror. Pain filled Mansur's skull so that it felt as though it was about to burst. With dread of what he might find, he touched his face. His relief was immense when he found that his eye was still in its socket, not hanging out on his cheek.

Another wave broke over Mansur's head and when he surfaced again he had lost sight of Kadem. He saw something more horrifying. The mouths of these African rivers that poured effluent and offal into the sea were the natural feeding grounds of the Zambezi shark. Mansur knew them well, and instantly recognized the distinctive blunt dorsal fin that sliced towards him, drawn by the taint of blood and split intestines. The next wave lifted the beast high, and for a moment Mansur saw its shape clearly outlined in the window of green water. It seemed to stare at him with an implacable dark eye. There was a kind of obscene beauty in the hard, sculpted lines of its body, and the sleek coppery hide. Its tail and fins were shaped like giant blades, and its mouth seemed set in a cruel, calculating sneer.

With a flick of its tail it shot past Mansur, brushing lightly against his legs. Then it was gone. Its disappearance was even more terrifying than its presence. He knew it was circling under him. This was the prelude to an attack. He had spoken to a few survivors of encounters with these ferocious animals, all missing limbs or bearing other hideous mutilations, and they had all told the same tale. "They touch you first, and then they hit you."

Mansur rolled on to his belly, ignoring the pain in his eye socket. Fortuitously another wave rolled down upon him and he swam with it until he felt it lift him, carry him in its arms like an infant, and bear him swiftly in towards the beach. He felt the sand under his feet and staggered up the slope with successive waves crashing into him.

He was cupping one hand over his eye, grunting with the pain, and as soon as he was above the high-water line he dropped to his knees. He ripped a strip from his loincloth and wrapped it round his head, knotting it tightly over the eye to try to ease the agony.

Then he peered back into the churning surf. Fifty yards out, he saw something pale break through the surface and realized it was an arm. There was a disturbance under it, a ponderous, weighty movement in

the discoloured waters. The arm vanished again, seeming to be plucked under.

Mansur stood up unsteadily and saw that there were now two sharks feeding on Kadem's corpse. They fought over it like a pair of dogs with a bone. As they worried it, they drove themselves with thrashing tails into the shallow water. At last a larger wave threw the lump of tattered flesh that was all that remained of Kadem Abubaker high up the beach, and left it stranded. The sharks prowled along the edge of the surf for a while then dived and vanished again.

Mansur went down to gaze upon the remains of his enemy. Great half-moons of flesh had been bitten out of his body. The seawater had washed away the blood, so that his stomach cavity was a clean pink pit, his dangling entrails pale and shining. Even in death his eyes were fixed in a malevolent stare, and his mouth in a snarl of hatred.

"I have fulfilled my duty," Mansur whispered. "Perhaps now my mother's shade can find peace." He prodded the mutilated corpse with his foot. "As for you, Kadem ibn Abubaker, half your flesh is in the belly of the beast. You can never find peace. May your suffering last through all eternity."

He turned away and looked out to sea. The battle was almost over. Three of the war-dhows had been captured, and the blue banners of al Salil flew at their mastheads. The wreckage of one more was mingled with that of the transports, being battered to kindling in the surf. Arcturus was pursuing the remaining war-dhow out to sea, and her.J cannons boomed out as she overtook it. The Revenge was following the fleeing transports, but they were already scattered over a wide swathe of , ocean.

Then he saw the Sprite hovering off the mouth of the river, and | waved to it. He knew good, faithful Kumrah was searching for him, and J that even from this distance he would recognize the colour of his hair. Almost at once he was proved right as he saw the Sprite lower a boat and send it in through the surf to pick him up. His vision was still blurred, but he thought he recognized Kumrah himself in the bows.

Mansur looked from the approaching boat back along the beach. Thrown upon the sands, scattered over a mile at the water's edge, were the carcasses of drowned men and horses from the destroyed dhows. Some of the enemy had survived. Men squatted singly or stood in small; disconsolate groups along the shore, but it was clear that there was no fight left in them. Stray horses wandered about at the edge of the jungle. |j

He had lost his dagger in the surf. He felt utterly vulnerable, half blind, naked and unarmed. Trying to ignore the pain in his eye, Mansur ran to one of the nearest corpses. It still wore a short robe and a weapon

was strapped around its waist. Mansur stripped off these pathetic relics and pulled the robe over his head. Then he drew the scimitar from its sheath and tested the blade. It was of fine Damascus steel. To test the edge he shaved a few hairs from his wrist before he ran the blade back into its scabbard. For the first time he became aware of a distant hubbub of voices. These came from the depths of the vegetation above the beach.

It's not over yet! he realized. Just then a rabble of running men burst out of the jungle. They were almost a furlong further up the beach, between him and the river mouth, but he saw that they were a mixed bunch of Arabs and Turks. They were being driven down towards the water's edge by a pack of Beshwayo's warriors. The stabbing spears flashed, then were buried in living flesh, and the triumphant shouts of the warriors mingled with the screams and desperate cries of the enemy.

"Ngi dhla\ I have eaten!"

Mansur realized the fresh danger he was in. Beshwayo's forces were in a killing frenzy. None would recognize him as friendly: he was just another pale, bearded face and they would stab him with as much glee as they would any one of the Omani.

The wet sand along the edge of the water was hard and compacted. He ran along it towards the river mouth. The Arab survivors of the battle realized they were being driven into the sea and they turned at bay. In a last bitter stand they faced Beshwayo's men. There was only a narrow gap behind them but Mansur raced through it, although the pain in his eye made him grunt at each pace. He was almost clear, and the boat from the Sprite was through the surf and into the calm water. It would be on the beach before he reached it.

Then there was a shout behind him and he glanced back. Three of the black warriors had spotted him. They had left the surrounded Arabs to their comrades, and they were racing after him, yelping with excitement, hounds on the scent of the hare.

From ahead there were shouts of encouragement: "We are here, Highness. Run, in the Name of God!" He recognized the voice and saw Kumrah in the bows of the boat.

Mansur ran, but his ordeal in the surf and the agony in his eye weakened him, and he could hear bare feet slapping on the wet sand close behind him. He could almost feel the glide of the steel through his flesh as an assegai stabbed between his shoulder-blades. Kumrah, in the boat, was thirty paces ahead, but that might just as well have been thirty leagues. He could hear the hoarse breathing of one man close behind his shoulder. He had to turn to face them and defend himself. He drew the scimitar from its scabbard and spun round.

The leading warrior was so close that he had already drawn back his assegai, low underhand, for the killing stroke. But with Mansur at bay he checked his rush, and called softly to his two companions, "The horns of the bull!" This was their favourite tactic. They fanned out on each side of him, and in that instant Mansur was surrounded. Whichever way he turned his back would be exposed to a long blade. He knew he was a dead man, but he rushed at the man before him. Before he could cross blades with him he heard Kumrah shout behind him: "Down, Highness!" Mansur did not hesitate but threw himself flat on the sand.

His adversary stood over him and lifted the assegai high. "Ngi dhlal' he screamed.

Beshwayo's men had not yet realized the effects of close-range musketry. Before the warrior could make the stroke, a volley of musket fire swept over where Mansur lay. A ball hit the warrior in his elbow and his arm broke like a green twig. The assegai flew from his grip and he reeled back as another ball slapped into his chest. Mansur rolled over swiftly to face the other two warriors but one was on his knees clutching his belly and the other was on his back, kicking convulsively, half his head shot away.

"Come, Prince Mansur!" Kumrah called, through the veil of gunsmoke that had enveloped the boat. It blew aside, and Mansur saw that every man of the crew had fired the volley that had saved him. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered to the boat. Now that mortal danger was past he lacked the strength to pull himself over the gunwale, but many strong hands reached out for him.

Tom and Dorian had knelt side by side in the gun emplacement and rested their telescopes on the parapet. They studied Zayn's squadron of ships, which were anchored in a group below the walls of the fort on the far side of the bay and bombarding the walls.

Dorian had sited the long nine-pounder cannons with great care. From this height they could bring every part of the bay under fire. Once'; it came through the entrance no ship was safe from them. It had been a'; Herculean task to get the guns up to this eyrie. The sides of the bluff I were too high and steep, and the guns too heavy, to lift them straighti up from the shore.

Tom had cut a track through the thick forest along the rising spine of the ridge and, using this as a ramp, he had dragged the guns up with teams of oxen until they were directly above the chosen site. Then, on heavy anchor cable, he lowered them down into the concealed emplacements Once the guns were sited they ranged them on targets set up around the shore of the bay. Their first shots had flown far over and crashed into the forest beyond.

Once they were satisfied with the position of the guns, they built the charcoal furnace fifty paces from the powder magazine to reduce the danger of sparks flying from one to the other. They plastered the furnace with river clay. They made the bellows with fifty tanned ox hides, sealing the seams with tar. A gang of cooks, labourers and riffraff worked the handles to force air into the furnace. Once it reached full blast, it was not possible to look with the naked eye into the white-hot glare of the interior so Dorian had smoked a sheet of glass with the flame of an oil lamp: peering through this, they could judge when the shot was hot enough. Then they manhandled each cannon ball out of the furnace with long-handled tongs. The men doing the job wore thick leather mittens and aprons to protect them from the heat. They dropped each glowing ball into a specially prepared cradle, with long handles. These were carried by two men across to the gun, which was waiting with its barrel raised to the maximum possible elevation.

Once the ball was dropped down the muzzle, it was not long before it burned away the wet wads and spontaneously ignited the powder charge behind them. A premature discharge while the barrel was pointed skywards would tear it off its carriage, wreck the gun emplacement and kill or maim the gun-crews. This allowed only the briefest respite to lay the gun on its target and fire it. Then the whole dangerous, lengthy process had to be repeated. After a few shots the barrel overheated until it was on the point of bursting and the recoil was monstrous; it had to be sponged out and buckets of seawater poured down the sizzling muzzle before they dared ram a fresh charge of powder into it.

Over the previous weeks, while they awaited the arrival of Zayn al Din's fleet, Dorian had instructed and exercised the gunners in handling hot shot. They had encountered all these complications for themselves and learned by hard experience, which culminated with the explosion of one of the guns. Two men had been killed by flying fragments of the bronze barrel. All of the crews now had a deep respect for the glowing cannon-balls, and none was looking forward to firing the remaining three weapons in earnest.

The foreman had come from the furnace to report to Dorian with an expression of awe and dread: "We have twelve balls ready, mighty Caliph."

"You have done well, Farmat, but I am not yet ready to open fire. Keep the furnaces hot." He and Tom turned back to continue their surveillance of the action taking place below them. The bombardment

from Zayrv's ships covered the whole bay and the edges of the forest with smoke, but through it they saw the defenders abandon the fort and run out through the gates.

"Good!" said Dorian, with satisfaction. "They have remembered their orders," He had ordered a token defence of the fort merely to lure Zayn's fleet deep into the bay.

"I hope they remembered to spike the guns on the parapets before they left," Tom growled. "I do not fancy them being turned on us."

The bombardment died away, and they watched the boats filled with the assault party leave the war-dhows and head in for the beach, to occupy the deserted fort. Both Tom and Dorian recognized Guy Courtney in the bows of the leading boat.

"His Britannic Majesty's honourable consul general in the flesh!" Dorian exclaimed. "The scent of the gold was too strong for him to ignore. He has come in person to retrieve it."

"My beloved twin brother!" Tom agreed. "It does my heart good to see him again after all these years. When we last parted he was trying to kill me. It seems that things have changed not at all since then."

"It will not take him long to find that the cupboard is bare,1 Dorian said, 'so now it is time to slam the door shut behind them." He called to the runner who waited eagerly at the back of the redoubt for just this summons. He was one of Sarah's orphans, and he rushed forward grinning widely and trembling with eagerness to please. "Go down to Smallboy, and tell him it is time to close the gate." Dorian had barely \ finished speaking before the boy had jumped over the wall and was racing down the steep pathway. Dorian had to shout after him, "Don't| let them see you!"

Smallboy and Muntu waited with the teams of oxen already hitche to the heavy anchor cable. This was strung out across the entranc of the bay to the heavy piles of logs on the far bank. The slac cable was weighted to lie on the bottom of the channel until pulle taut. The war-dhows had sailed in over it without being aware of it! presence under their keels.

The boom was made up off seventy huge logs. Many had been felle the previous year and stacked in the sawmill yard at the back of fort, ready to be sawn into planks. Even with this stockpile, they we still short of twenty logs to span the channel.

Jim and Mansur had taken every available man into the forest to c\i down more of the giant trees, and Smallboy's ox teams had drag

them to the beach. There, they had bolted them lengthwise to the spare anchor cable that they had lifted out of Arcturus's orlop. The cable was almost twenty inches in diameter and had a test strain of over thirty tons. The logs, some of them three feet in diameter and forty feet in length, were strung along this massive hemp rope like pearls on a necklace. They would form a barricade that Tom and Dorian calculated would resist the onslaught of even the largest of Zayn's dhows. The heavy line of logs would tear out a ship's bottom before it could break through.

As soon as Zayn's fleet was sighted from the top of the bluff Smallboy and Muntu in spanned the ox teams and led them round to the south bank of the entrance channel. They kept the teams hidden in the dense bush, and watched the five big dhows sail past within easy pistol shot of where they lay. When the messenger lad had come racing down from the gun emplacements with the order from Dorian, he was so out of breath and wild with excitement that he was incoherent. Smallboy had to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. "Master Klebe says to close the gate!" the child had squeaked.

Smallboy fired his long whiplash and the ox teams took the strain, then plodded away with the end of the boom cable. As it came up taut, the cable rose to the surface of the channel and the oxen had to lean into the traces. The line of logs answered the pull. They slithered down the far bank from where they had been stacked, and snaked across the channel. The head of the boom reached the north side of the channel, and Smallboy chained it fast to the trunk of a huge tam bootie hardwood. The mouth of the bay was corked up tightly.

Tom and Dorian had watched as Guy led his shore party at a rush through the gates of the captured fort and disappeared from their view. Then they turned their telescopes on the entrance to the bay and saw the massive cable rise to the surface of the channel as the oxen drew it tight.

We can load the first gun," Dorian told his gunners, who responded without marked enthusiasm. The gun captain relayed the order to the foreman in charge of the furnace. It was a lengthy business to fish the mst shot from the furnace, and while they waited Tom kept a watch on the enemy.

Suddenly he called to Dorian. "Guy is back on the parapet of the fort, He must have discovered the epistle I left for him in the treasury." He chuckled aloud. "Even from this distance I can see he's fit to burst with

rage." Then his expression changed. "Now what's the crafty swine up to? He is heading back to the beach. He is saddling up the horses that have come ashore. There is some kind of fracas. By God! You will not believe this, Dorry. Guy has shot one of his own men." The distant pop of the pistol shot carried to them on the heights, and Dorian left the cannon to join Tom.

"He has mounted."

"He is taking at least twenty men with him."

"Where in the name of the devil is he going?"

They watched the troop of horsemen, with Guy at the head, set out along the wagon road. It dawned on both Tom and Dorian at the same moment.

"He has seen the wagon tracks."

"He is going after the wagons and the gold."

The women and little George! They are with the wagons. If Guy catches them--' Tom broke off. The thought was too painful to express. Then he went on bitterly, "I blame myself. I should have considered this possibility. Guy does not give up readily."

"The wagons have had a start of many days. They will be leagues away by now."

"Only twenty miles," Tom said bitterly. "I told them to go as far as the river gorge, and make laager there."

"It's my fault more than yours," said Dorian. The safety of the women should have been my first concern. What a fool I am."

"I must go after them." Tom jumped to his feet. "I must stop them falling into Guy's clutches."

"I will ride with you." Dorian stood up beside him.

"No, no!" Tom shoved him back. The battle is in your hands. Without 1 you all is lost. You cannot desert your command. That goes for Jim and] Mansur too. They must not come rushing after me. I can take care of j brother Guy without their help. You must keep the lads here with you| until the job is done. Give me your word on it, Dorry."

"Very well. But you must take Smallboy and his musketeers with you;| By the time you reach them, their job with the boom will be done." He slapped Tom on the shoulder. "Ride for all you are worth, and God gc with you every step of the way." Tom sprang over the bank of the emplacement and ran to where the horses were tethered.

A Tom galloped away down the track, two men came staggering from the furnace. They carried between them by its long handles the cradle on which lay the cannon-ball red as a ripe apple. Dorian could spare only one more quick glance after his elder brother, then hurried to supervise the gunners as they began the dangerous task of coaxing the ball into the muzzle of the gun. As it rolled down the smooth bore, two gunners rodded it up hard against the wet wadding and it sizzled and hissed. Clouds of steam poured out of the muzzle as they lowered the barrel.

Dorian wound down the elevation screw himself, trusting no other with this precise adjustment. Two other men with crowbars levered the barrel, traversing it as Dorian called to them, "Left, and a hair more left!" Then, satisfied that the largest enemy dhow lay exactly in his sights, Dorian yelled, "Stand clear!" and seized the lanyard. The gun-crew responded to his command with alacrity. Dorian yanked the lanyard, and the huge gun leaped like a wild animal charging the bars of its cage.

They could all follow the flight of the sparkling ball as it arced out across the waters of the bay, then fell towards the anchored dhow. A ragged cheer went up as they thought it must strike, then turned into a groan of disappointment as a tall white fountain jumped up close alongside the dhow's hull.

"Wet her down well!" Dorian had ordered. "You have seen what will happen if you do not."

He scrambled out of the emplacement and ran to the second gun. Already the next ball was being carried from the furnace and the crew was waiting for him. Before they could load and lay the gun, the five vessels had fled their moorings and were headed back across the bay towards the channel. Dorian peered over the sights. He had marked the angles of elevation in white paint on the gauge, and the men on the crow-bars nudged the long barrel round. He fired.

This time there was a roar of triumph from every man on the hill as, pounds en from this range, they saw the shower of bright sparks as the ball struck the hull of one of the dhows and the shot ripped through her timbers. Dorian ran to the third gun, leaving the crews of the other two sponging out. By the time they had loaded again, the stricken dhow was blazing like a bonfire on Guy Fawkes night.

They are trying to break through the boom!" one of the men shouted, s they saw the burning ship steer into the entrance channel and, without checking its speed, bear down on the line of floating logs. They

cheered again as it struck the boom, the mast tumbled down and the fire spread through her. Her crew leaped over the sides.

Dorian was bathed in sweat as he worked over the guns, loading and laying. Even though the crews doused them with buckets of water, the metal still crackled like a frying pan, and at each successive shot the guns leaped more violently on their carriages. However, within the next hour they fired another twenty hot balls, and four of the dhows were ablaze. The vessel that had struck the boom had burned down to the waterline, another drifted aimlessly across the bay, abandoned by her crew, who had rowed ashore in the boats. Two more had been beached and the crews had abandoned them to burn while they escaped into the forest, all too aware that the ships' magazines were crammed with kegs of black powder. Only the largest dhow had so far escaped the fire Dorian aimed at it. But it was locked into the bay, and could only tack back and forth across the open water.

"You can't dodge me for ever," Dorian muttered. As the next ball was carried from the furnace, he spat on it for luck. The globule of saliva hit the heated metal and disappeared in a puff of steam, and at the same moment a huge shock-wave of hot air blew across the hillside. It thumped painfully into their eardrums, and every man stared down into the bay in awe.

The drifting dhow had blown up as the powder in her magazine ignited. A tall mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke boiled up into the sky until it reached higher than the hilltop. Then, as if in sympathy, one of the beached dhows blew up with even greater force. The blast tore across the bay and lifted creaming waves from the surface. It raced through the forest above the beach, flattening the smaller trees, tearing off branches from the larger trees, raising a storm of dust, leaves and twigs. The men who watched it were struck dumb by the extent of the damage they had created. They did not cheer again but stood and gaped.

"One more left." Dorian broke the spell. "There she is, pretty as a bride on her wedding day." He pointed down at the big dhow as she came about and started back towards the beach below the fort.

The cradle men lifted the ball, smoking and crackling, to roll it into the muzzle of the gun. Before they could do so another shout went up from every man: "She is scuttling herself. Praise God and his angels, the enemy has had enough."

The captain of the remaining dhow had seen the fate of the rest of the squadron. He made no effort to tack again but bore straight down on the sloping beach. At the last moment the dhow dropped her sail and went aground with such force that they heard her belly timbers snapping. She canted over heavily and lay quiescent, transformed in the

instant from a thing of grace to a broken hulk. Her crew swarmed out of her, and left her lying abandoned at the water's edge.

"Enough!" Dorian called to his men. "We have no more need of that." With obvious relief they tipped the hot ball out on to the earth. Dorian scooped a ladleful from one of the buckets of drinking water and poured it over his head, then wiped his streaming face in the crook of his arm.

"Behold!" screamed the foreman of the furnace and pointed down. Immediately there was an excited clamour from the gun-crews, as they recognized the tall figure in cloud' white robes who clambered down from the stranded dhow and, with his distinctive limp, led his men along the beach towards the fort.

"Zayn al-Din!" they shouted.

"Death and damnation to the tyrant!"

Tower and glory to al-Salil."

"God has given us the victory. God is great."

"No." Dorian jumped to the top of the emplacement wall where they could all see him. "The victory is not ours yet. Like a wounded jackal into his hole, Zayn al-Din has taken refuge in the fort."

They saw the enemy seamen who had escaped from the other ships creep out of the forest, then hurry more boldly after Zayn al-Din. They streamed into the deserted fort after him.

"We must smoke him out," Dorian told them, and jumped down from the wall. He called his gun captains to him and gave them swift orders. "No more need for heated shot. Use only cold balls, but keep up a lively fire on the walls of the fort. Give them no rest. I am going down to round up all our men and lay siege to the fort. They have no food or water. We left no powder in the magazine, and the guns on the parapets have been spiked. Zayn cannot hold out for more than a day or two."

A groom had already saddled his horse and Dorian rode down with every man who could be spared from the guns trooping after him. The men who had put up the token defence of the fort were waiting at the bottom of the hill to swell his ranks. He sent them to surround the building and make certain that none of the enemy could escape.

He saw Muntu coming through the forest from the direction of the entrance channel, and rode to meet him. "Where is Smallboy?"

"He has taken ten men and gone with Klebe to follow the wagons."

"Have you opened the boom, so that our ships can re-enter the bay?"

"Yes, master. The channel is clear." Dorian lifted his telescope and checked the entrance. He saw that Muntu had severed the cable and the current had pushed the boom aside.

"Well done, Muntu. Now take your oxen." He pointed down the shore to where Zayn's dhow lay stranded. "Get the cannon out of that ship,

and drag them round to cover the fort. We will pound the enemy from all sides. Knock a breach through the walls, so that when Jim arrives with Beshwayo's imp is they can storm in and finish the business."

By late afternoon the captured cannons from the stranded dhow had been towed by the oxen into position and the first shots knocked clods of earth and shattered timbers from the walls of the fort. They kept up the bombardment all night, giving the besieged enemy no rest.

In the dawn the Sprite sailed into the bay through the channel. She was followed by the Arcturus and the Revenge, shepherding all the captured Omani dhows and transports ahead of them. The warships anchored, and immediately turned all their guns on the fort. The three long nine pounders on the heights of the bluff and the captured carronades from Zayn's own ships were already hammering away. Between them they directed a withering fire on the fort.

No sooner had the Revenge dropped her anchor than Mansur came ashore. Dorian was waiting to greet him on the beach, and ran forward when he saw his son's head swathed in the bandage. He embraced him and asked anxiously, "You are hurt. How badly?"

"A scratch on my eyeball." Mansur shrugged it off. "It is almost healed. But Kadem, who inflicted the injury, is dead."

"How did he die?" Dorian demanded, holding him at arm's length and staring into his face.

"By the knife. The same way that he murdered my mother."

"You killed him?"

"Yes, Father. I killed him, and he did not die an easy death. My mother is avenged."

"No, my son. There is still another. Zayn al-Din is holding out within the fort."

"Can we be certain he is in there? Have you seen him with your own eyes?" They both stared along the shore at the battered palisades of the building. They could make out the heads of a few doughty defenders behind the parapets. However, Zayn had no artillery and most of his'j men were crouching behind the walls. The thudding of their muskets | was a feeble response to the thunder of the cannon.

"Yes, Mansur. I have seen him. I will not leave this place until he also has paid the price in full, and gone to join his minion Kadem ibnt Abubaker in hell."

They both became aware of a new sound, faint at first but growing! louder with every minute. Half a mile down the shores of the bay a! dense column of men trotted out of the forest. They ran in a precis el military formation. Like the foam on the crest of a dark wave, their"! feather headdresses danced in rhythm to their step. The early sunlight|

sparkled on their assegais, and on their oiled torsos. They were singing, a deep warlike chant that thrilled the blood and rumbled across the top of the forest. A lone horseman rode at the head of the leading column. He was mounted on a dark stallion whose long mane and tail streamed back in the wind of his canter.

"Jim on Drumfire." Mansur laughed. Thank God he's safe." A dimuv uti ve figure ran beside one of Jim's stirrups, and beside the other a giant of a man.

"Bakkat and Beshwayo," said Dorian. Mansur ran to meet Jim, who swung down from the saddle and took him in a bear-hug.

"What is this rag you wear, coz? Is it some new fashion you have struck upon? It suits you not at all, you should take my word on it." Then he turned to Dorian with his arm still around Mansur's shoulder.

"Uncle Dorry, where is my father?" His expression changed to dread. "He is not hurt or killed? Tell me, I beg of you."

"Nay, Jim lad. Breathe easy. Our Tom is impervious to shot and steel. As soon as his work here was done, he went to take care of the women and little Georgie."

Dorian knew that if he told them the full truth about Guy's intervention, he would not be able to fulfill his promise to Tom and keep the boys with him. They would rush off immediately to defend their womenfolk. Quickly he glossed over his deception. "But what of your side of the battle?"

"It is over, Uncle Dorry. Herminius Koots, who commanded the enemy, is dead. I saw to that myself. Beshwayo's men have cleared the forests of the rest of them. The pursuit took all of yesterday and most of the night. They chased some of the Turks a league up the beach and over the hills before they caught up with them."

"Where are the prisoners?" Dorian demanded.

"Beshwayo does not understand the meaning of that word, and I was unable to educate him." Jim laughed. But Dorian did not laugh with him: he could imagine the slaughter that had taken place in the forest, and his conscience troubled him. Those Omani who had perished under the assegais were his own subjects. He could not rejoice in their deaths. His anger towards Zayn al-Din flared even higher. Here was more blood for which he must pay.

Jim did not notice his uncle's expression. He was still buoyed up by the wild excitement of battle and intoxicated with the taste of victory. Look at him now." He pointed to where Beshwayo was already parading his imp is before the walls of the fort.

The guns had knocked a wide breach through them and Beshwayo strode down the ranks, stabbing his assegai towards the breach and

haranguing his warriors: "My children, some of you have not yet earned the right of marriage. Did I not give you opportunity enough? Were you slow? Were you unlucky?" He paused and glared at them. "Or were you afraid? Did you piss down your own legs when you saw the feast I laid for you?"

His imp is shouted an angry denial. "We are thirsty still. We hunger still."

"Give us to eat and drink again, Great Black Bull."

"We are your faithful hunting dogs. Let us slip, great king. Let us run!" they pleaded.

' i "A before Beshwayo can send in an impi through the breach," Jim said

I""to Dorian, 'you must order the batteries to cease firing so as not 1 J to endanger his men."

Dorian sent his runners out to the gun captains with the order. One after the other the batteries ceased firing. It took the message longer to reach the three guns on the heights of the bluff, but at last a tense, heavy silence fell over the bay. The only movement was the waving of the feather headdresses of the Beshwayo. The Arab defenders on the parapets looked down on this array, poised so menacingly before their walls, and their desultory! musket-fire dried up. They stared bleakly upon implacable death.

Then, abruptly, a ram's-horn trumpet blared out from the walls of the| fort. The ranks of black warriors stirred restlessly. Dorian turned hisj telescope to see a flag waved from the parapets.

"Surrender?" Jim smiled. "Beshwayo does not understand that word either. A white flag will not save one of the men inside those walls."

"Not a surrender." Dorian shut his telescope. "I know the man waving that flag. His name is Rahmad. He is one of the Omani admirals, a gc sailor and a brave man. He was not able to choose the master he serve He will not cravenly surrender. He wants to parley."

Jim shook his head impatiently. "I cannot keep Beshwayo in checf much longer. What is there to speak about?"

"I intend to find out," Dorian said.

"By God, Uncle! You cannot trust Zayn al-Din. This might be a trap

"Jim is right, Father," cried Mansur. "Don't give yourself into Zaynjj power."