Then, below the dawn on the dark sea, he saw the riding lanterns of other ships winking like fireflies as they sailed in on the night breeze towards Adulis Bay.
"Can you count them, Aboli?" he asked, and Aboli chuckled.
"My eyes are not as sharp as yours, Gundwane. Let us say merely that there are many, and wait for the dawn to disclose their true numbers," he murmured.
They waited in the silence of old companions, and both felt the chill of the coming dawn warmed away by the promise of battle that the day must bring, for this narrow sea swarmed with the ships of the enemy.
The eastern sky began to glow like an ironsmith's forge. The rocks of the island close at hand showed pale through the gloom, painted white by the dung of the sea birds that for centuries had roosted upon them. From their rocky perches the birds launched into flight. In staggered arrowhead formations they flew across the red dawn sky uttering wild, haunting cries. Looking up at them Hal felt the morning wind brush his cheek with cool fingers. It was blowing out of the west as he had relied upon it to do. He had the flotilla of small dhows under his lee, and at his mercy.
The rising sun flared upon the mountain tops and set them aflame. Far out beyond the low rocks of the island a sail glinted on the dark ting waters, and then another and, as the circle of their vision expanded, a dozen more.
Hal slapped Aboli lightly on the shoulder. "It is time to go to work, old friend, "he said, and slid down the shrouds. As his feet hit the deck he called to the helm, "Up anchor, Mister Tyler. All hands aloft to set sail."
Released from restraint the Golden Bough spread her canvas and wheeled away. The waters rustling under her bows and her wake creaming behind her, she sped out from her ambush behind Dahlak Island.
The light was bright enough by now for Hal to make out clearly his quarry scattered across the wind-flecked waters ahead. He looked eagerly for the piled canvas of a tall ship among them, but saw only the single lateen sails of the Arabian dhows.
The closest of these vessels seemed unalarmed by the Golden Bough's appearance, her high pyramid of sails standing right across the entrance to Adulis Bay. They held their course and, as the frigate bore down upon the nearest of them, Hal saw the crew and passengers lining the dhow's side and peering across at them. Some had scampered up the stubby mast and were waving a greeting.
Hal stopped beside the helm and said to Ned Tyler, "Tis likely that they have seen only one other ship like ours in these waters and that's the Gull. They take us for an ally." He looked up to where his topmast men hung in the rigging, ready to handle the great mass of canvas. Then he looked back along the deck, where the gunners were fussing over the culver ins and the powder boys were scurrying up from below decks with their deadly burdens.
"Mister Fisher!" he called. "Load one battery on each side with ball, all the others with chain and grape, if you please." Big Daniel grinned, with black and rotten teeth, and knuckled his brow. Hal wanted simply to disable the enemy vessels, not sink or burn them. Even the smallest and poorest of those craft must be worth a great deal to the exchequer of His Most Christian Majesty, if he could capture them and deliver them to Admiral Senec at Mitsiwa. The battery on each side loaded with ball would be held in reserve.
The first dhow was so close ahead that Hal could see the expressions on the faces of her crew. They were a dozen or so sailors, dressed in ragged and faded robes and haik turbans. Most were still smiling and waving but the old man at the tiller in the stern was looking about wildly, as if to seek some providential escape from the tall hull that was racing down upon his little vessel.
"Break out our colours, if you please, Mister Tyler," Hal ordered, and watched the croix pott6e unfurl alongside the white Coptic cross of the Empire on its royal blue ground. The dismay on the faces of the dhow's crew as they saw the cross of their doom spread before their eyes was pathetic to behold and Hal gave his next order. "Run out your guns, Master Daniel!" The Golden Bough's gun ports crashed back and the hull reverberated to the rumble of the guns as the culver ins poked out their bronze muzzles.
"I'll pass the chase close to starboard. Fire as you bear, Master DanielP Big Daniel raced to the bows and took command of the number-one starboard battery. Hal saw him move swiftly from gun to gun to check their laying, inserting the wedges to lower the aim. They would be firing almost directly down into the dhow as they swept past her.
The Golden Bough rushed down silently upon the little craft, and Hal said quietly to the helm, "Slowly bring her up a point to larboard."
As they realized the menace of the gaping guns, the crew of the dhow fled from the rail and flung themselves down behind the stubby little mast or crouched behind the bales and casks that cluttered her deck.
The first battery fired together in one smoking, thunderous discharge and every shot struck home. The base of the mast was blown away in a storm of white wood splinters and her riggings crashed down to hang over side in an untidy tangle of rope and canvas. The old man at the tiller disappeared, as though turned to air by a wizard's spell. He left only a red smear on the torn planking.
"Avast firing!" Hal bellowed, to make himself heard in the ear-numbing aftermath of the gunfire. The dhow was crippled. her bows were already swinging away before the wind, the tiller shot away and her mast gone overboard. The Golden Bough left her rolling in her wake.
"Hold your course, Mister Tyler." The Golden Bough tore straight at the flotilla of small craft strewn across the blue waters ahead. These had seen the merciless treatment of the first dhow and the Imperial colours flying at the frigate's masthead, and now every one put his helm hard up and came around before the wind. Goose-winged, they fled before the Golden Bough's charge.
"Steer for the vessel dead ahead!" said Hal quietly, and Ned Tyler brought the frigate around a point. The dhow Hal had chosen was one of the largest in sight, and its open deck was crowded with men. There must be at least three hundred packed into her, Hal estimated. It was a short voyage across the narrow sea, and her captain had taken a risk. she was carrying far more troops than was prudent.