Behind them one of the blazing hulls must have been loaded with several hundred tons of black powder for El Grang's artillery. It went up in a vast tower of black smoke, shot through with flaring red flames as though the devil had flung open the doors of hell. The rolling column of smoke went on mounting into the night sky until its top was no longer visible and seemed to have reached into the heavens. The blast swept through the fleet striking down those vessels closest to it and shattering their timbers or rolling them over on their backs.
The wind from the explosion roared over the frigate and, for a moment, her sails were taken aback and she began to lose steerage way. Then the offshore night breeze took over and filled them once more. She bore onwards, deeper into the bay and into the heart of the enemy fleet.
Hal nodded with grim satisfaction each time one of the Golden Bough's salvoes crashed out. They were one sudden shock of thunder and a single flare of red flame as every gun fired at the same instant. Even Aboli's Arnadoda launched their flights of arrows in a single flaming cloud. In contrast, there was never such a wild discordant banging of uncontrolled shot as stuttered from the enemy ships.
El Grang's shore batteries began to open up as their sleep-groggy gunners stumbled to their colossal siege guns. Each discharge was like a separate clap of thunder, belittling even the roar of the frigate's massed volleys. Hal smiled each time one of their mighty muzzle flashes tore out from the rock-walled redoubts across the bay. The shore gunners could not possibly pick out the black sails of the Golden Bough in the confusion and smoke. They fired into their own fleet and Hal saw at least one enemy ship smashed to planks by a single ball from the shore.
"Stand by to go about!" Hal gave the order in one of the fleeting moments of quiet. The shore was coming up fast, and they would soon be landlocked in the depths of the bay. The topmast men handled the sails with perfect timing, and the bows swung through a wide. arc then steadied as they pointed back towards the open sea.
Hal walked forward in the brilliant light of the burning ships and raised his voice so that the men could hear him. "I doubt not that El Grang will long remember this night." They cheered him even as they heaved on the gun tackles and nocked their arrows. "The Bough and Sir Hal!"
Then a single voice sang out, "El Tazar!" and they all took up the cry so heartily that El Grang and the Prince must have heard them as they stood before the silken tent on the knoll above the bay and looked down upon their shattered fleet.
"El Tazar! El Tazar!"
Hal nodded at the helm. "Take us out, please, Mister Tyler." As they wove their way through the burning hulks and floating wreckage, and drew slowly out towards the entrance a single shot fired from one of the drifting dhows smashed in through the gunwale, and tore across the open deck. Miraculously it passed between one of the gun crews and a group of the half-naked archers without touching them. But Stan Sparrow was standing at the far rail, commanding a gun battery, and the hot iron ball took off both his legs neatly, just above the knees.
Instinctively Hal started forward to succour him, but then he checked himself. As captain, the dead and wounded were not his concern, but he felt the agony of loss. Stan Sparrow had been with him from the beginning. He was a good man and a shipmate.
When they carried Stan away, they passed close by where Hal stood.
He saw that Stan's face was ivory pale, and that he was drained of blood. He was sinking fast but he saw Hal and, with a great effort, lifted his hand to touch his forehead. "They was good times, Captain," he said, and his hand dropped.
"God speed, Master Stan," Hal said, and while they carried him below, he turned to look back into the bay, so that in the light of the burning ships no man might see his distress.
Long after they had run out of the bay and turned away northwards towards Mitsiwa, the night skies behind them glowed with the inferno they had created. The captains of divisions came one at a time to make their battle reports. Though Stan Sparrow was the only man killed, three others had been wounded by musket fire from the dhows as they sailed past, and another man's leg had been crushed in the recoil of an overshot ted culverin. It was a small price to pay, Hal supposed, and yet, though he knew it to be weakness, he mourned Stan Sparrow.
Although he was exhausted and his head ached from the din of battle and the powder smoke, Hal was too wrought-up for sleep and his mind was in a turmoil of emotion and racing thoughts. He left the helm to Ned Tyler and went to stand alone in the bows to let the cool night air soothe him.
He was still alone there as the dawn began to break and the GoLden Bough headed in towards Mitsiwa roads, and the first to see the three red Chinese rockets soar up into the sky from the heights of the cliffs above the bay.
It was a signal from Judith Nazet, an urgent recall. He felt his pulse quicken with dread as he turned and bellowed to Aboli, who had the watch, "Hoist three red lanterns to the masthead!"
Three red lights was an acknowledgement of her signal. She has heard the guns and seen the flames, he thought. She wishes to have my report of the battle. Somehow he knew that it was not so but he hoped to quieten the sudden sense of dread that assailed him.
It was fully light as they nosed in towards the shore. Hal was still in the bows and the first to spot the boat that darted out from the beach to meet them. From two cables' length away he recognized the slim figure standing beside the single mast. He felt his heart leap and his sadness fall away, replaced by a sense of eager anticipation.
Judith Nazet's head was bare and the dark halo of her hair framed her face. She wore armour and a sword was buckled at her side, a steel helmet under her arm.
Hal strode back to the quarterdeck and gave his order to the helm. "Round her up and heave to! Let the boat come alongside."
Judith Nazet came through the entry port with a lithe and graceful urgency, and Hal saw that her marvelous features were stricken. "I give thanks to God for bringing you back so swiftly," she said, in a voice that trembled with some strong emotion. "A terrible catastrophe has overtaken us. I can hardly find words to describe it to you."
They had muffled the horses" hoofs with leather boots so they made little sound on the rocky earth. The priest rode close beside him, but Cornelius Schreuder had taken the precaution of securing a light steel chain around the man's waist and the other end around his own wrist. The priest had a shifty eye and a ferrety face that Schreuder trusted not at all.
They rode in double file along the narrow valley, and although the moon had risen an hour before the rocky sides still threw the sun's heat into their faces. Schreuder had selected the fifteen most trustworthy men from his regiment, and all were mounted on fast horses.
The tack had been carefully muffled and their weapons wrapped in cloth so they made no sound in the night.
The priest held up his hand suddenly. "Stop here!" Schreuder repeated the order in a whisper.
"I must go forward to see if the way is clear," said the priest.
"I will go with you." Schreuder dismounted and shortened his grip on the chain. They left the rest of the band in the bottom of the wadi and crawled up the steep side.