The Moghul Page 19

  "Fifteen fathom and falling." The bosun leaned back from therailing and shouted toward the quarterdeck. In disbelief he quicklydrew the line in over the gunwale at the waist of the _Resolve_ and fedit out again.

  "Now she reads thirteen fathom."

  Kerridge glanced at the hourglass. The sand was half gone, andthe compass reading still gave their course as due south. Ahead the seawas blind dark but on the left the fires of shore still flickered, nowperhaps even brighter than he had remembered them. Then he realized acloud had drifted momentarily over the moon, and he told himself thiswas why. The pilot held the whipstaff on a steady course.

  "I'd reef the foresail a notch, Cap'n, and ease her two pointsto starboard. I'll lay a hundred sovereigns the current's chang'd onus." Mackintosh ventured to break protocol and speak, his concerngrowing.

  I dinna like the feel of this, he told himself. We're driftin'too fast. I can feel it.

  "Eight fathoms, sir." The bosun's voice again cut the dark.

  "Jesus, Cap'n," Mackintosh erupted. "Take her about. The pox-rotted current's . .."

  "She'll ride in three fathom. I've sailed the James, six hundredton, in less. Let her run." He turned to Elkington. "Ask the Moor howmuch longer to the river mouth."

  George Elkington turned and shot a stream of questions rapidlyat the pilot, whose eyes glazed in his partial comprehension. He shookhis head in a way that seemed to mean both yes and no simultaneouslyand then pointed into the dark and shrugged, emitting fragments ofPortuguese.

  "_Em frente Sahib. Diretamente em frente._"

  Then he gestured toward the waist of the ship and seemed tobe asking the depth reading.

  As though in answer, the bosun's voice came again, trembling.

  "Five fathom, Cap'n, and still dropping."

  "Cinco." Elkington translated, but his concerned tone was

  a question. What does it mean?

  The pilot shouted an alarm in Gujarati and threw his fragile weightagainst the whipstaff. The _Resolve_ pitched and shuddered, groaninglike some mourning animal at tether, but it no longer seemed to respondto the rudder.

  Kerridge glared at the pilot in dismay.

  "Tell the blathering heathen steady as she goes. She'll take--"

  The deck tipped crazily sideways, and a low grind seemed to pass upthrough its timbers. Then the whipstaff kicked to port, strainedagainst its rope, and with a snap from somewhere below, drifted free.The _Resolve _careened dangerously into the wind, while a wave caughtthe waist of the ship and swept the bosun and his sounding line intothe dark.

  "Whorin' Mary, Mother of God, we've lost the rudder." Mackintosh lungeddown the companionway toward the main deck, drawing a heavy knife fromhis belt. As the frightened seamen clung to the tilting deck and bracedthemselves against the shrouds, he began slashing the lines securingthe main sail.

  Another wave seemed to catch the _Resolve_ somewhere beneath her sternquarter gallery and lifted her again. She poised in midair for a longmoment, then groaned farther into the sand. As the frigate tipped,Mackintosh felt a rumble from the deck below and at that instant heknew with perfect certainty the _Resolve _was doomed to go down. Acannon had snapped its securing lines and jumped its blocks. He grabbeda shroud and braced himself.

  Then it came, the muffled sound of splintering as the cannon boredirectly through the hull, well below the waterline of the heelingfrigate.

  "Takin' water in the hold." A frightened shout trailed out through thescuttles.

  The seamen on decks still clung to the shrouds, wedging themselvesagainst the gunwales.

  "Man the pumps in the well, you fatherless pimps." Mackintosh shoutedat the paralyzed seamen, knowing it was already too late, and then hebegan to sever the moorings of the longboat lashed to the mainmast.

  Elkington was clinging to the lateen mast, winding a safety line abouthis waist and bellowing unintelligible instructions into the dark forhoisting the chests of silver bullion from the hold.

  No one on the quarterdeck had noticed when its railing splintered,sending Captain Kerridge and the Indian pilot into the dark sea.