Scott grinned crookedly. "And his friends."
"Tell us what you want us to do, cap'n!" called a sailor. "I got a wife in Charleston."
Scott held up a hand for silence. "The first thing we're going to do is, seize every boat belonging to the people of the town. Then we're going to search the town to make certain more of our shipmates aren't held prisoner."
"Let's burn the damn' town, cap'n," another seaman suggested.
Scott shook his head. "Not unless we run into fighting. We're not going to look for more trouble than we've got already."
Once the boats were seized and placed under guard, Scott set about making a thorough search of every house. Bryant insisted on helping, despite his weakened condition. The job was done in the face of resentment, but no resistance was encountered. Nor were any other prisoners found.
"Now what?" Bryant asked, breathing hard.
"The forts," Scott said. "In one of them we may find the loot from the Sally Culbreath. Fox and Pa' Mahmud aren't waiting around just to fight with us."
Bryant mopped his face, which was drawn with weariness and pain. "That makes sense. Lead on."
Audacity opened wide the gates of four forts, but at the fifth shouted commands elicited no response; the gate remained shut.
"This is Chedula's place," Scott reminded Bryant. "He's Fox's friend."
"I don't think there's anybody to home, cap'n," Hurst said. "But th' wall ain't high."
The captain didn't need the hint. "Follow me!"
He went over the wall first, followed by a dozen men. They found no one within the compound. They opened the gate from the inside for their less agile fellows, including Bryant and Russell. Spreading his force out into a long line of skirmishers, Scott encircled the rajah's residence even as he himself entered it with Hurst, Bryant and Russell at his heels. The place seemed deserted; but the air was strong with the pungent odor of pepper. Nostrils flaring, Scott hurried eagerly through the building, coming at last to a great heap of bagged pepper in the comer of a room. On the floor in front of the pile lay a chronometer, a ship's compass and a sextant.
"My pepper!" Bryant shouted, forgetting for the moment his weariness and pain. "And my sextant!" He snatched up the brass instrument, fondling it almost lovingly. "I'd damn the day I ever returned to this benighted coast, Scott, if it weren't for Dorcas. The thing that worries me most is the danger to her."
Eying the plunder heaped before them, Scott rubbed his chin with the back of the hand that gripped his cutlass. "We must have surprised Chedula by returning from inland. He hasn't been gone long."
"To hell with Chedula, Scott. Fox is the man we want."
"Agreed. That bastard must have planned all this from long before he first boarded my ship."
"Damn it all," Bryant fumed, "let's get on with the business of rescuing Dorcas. I'm worried about her."
"Don't you think I am?" Scott demanded sharply.
"Of course, of course. But with me it's different. I'm in love with her, man; and she's at the mercy of that renegade."
"Well, maybe I'm in love with her, too," Scott said, nettled.
"You?"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Russell said agitatedly.
Hurst suddenly hissed and stiffened into an attitude of listening. The others looked at him with mingled curiosity and alarm. He turned to Scott, speaking so softly that the latter had to read his lips. "There's somebody behind that pile of pepper."
Scott moved quickly to look, Hurst at his shoulder. The muezzin Osman heard the warning and he heard them moving toward his hiding place. The smoldering fire in his brain leaped high. The depression that had gripped his mind for days, twisting and tormenting it, filling it with hatred so malignant that he determined to remain behind when Chedula fled during the search of the town, flared into murderous madness. He was driven by the urge to kill the white captain who had slain his half-brother... to slay him and anybody else who got in the way that he must run to his own destruction. Gripping a razor-edged creese, he burst out of hiding with a maniacal scream. The high sound of his frenzy sent a chill through every man who heard it.
He attacked Scott so swiftly that the captain could not use his cutlass. The wavy-bladed dagger glinted as it descended. Twisting his body desperately, Scott avoided the point, which ripped his shirt. In a reflex action he struck Osman in the face with the hilt of his weapon, but the man seemed not to feel the blow that gashed his cheek.
"Amok!" Bryant shouted, raising his pistol. "He's running amok!"
Osman, now past recognizing anybody, leaped next on Russell, who stood dazedly in his path. He drove the creese deep into the man's shoulder. Russell reeled under the shock. White-faced, Bryant thrust the muzzle of his pistol against Osman's chest and pulled the trigger. The ball tore a great hole in the muezzin's body; but the madman turned on the New Englander even as the sound of the explosion filled the room. The dripping dagger rose again. It was then that Hurst shot Osman through the back of the head, spattering his brains in Bryant's face. The creese dropped from nerveless fingers and Osman crumpled on top of it.
" 'E took a lot of killin'!" Hurst said.
The room now was filled with armed men attracted by the furor. Scott and Bryant both turned to Russell, who was lying on his back, grasping his right shoulder with his left hand. Blood oozed through his fingers. Scott moved the hand and quickly examined the wound, causing Russell to groan in pain.
"Lift your arm," Scott ordered.
Russell complied with another groan.
"Move your fingers."
The wounded man complied.
"You'll be all right, I think," Scott told him. He tore a wide strip of cloth from his own sweat-soaked shirt. "I'll bind up the wound."
Russell lay quietly while he worked. His face was pale and he gritted his teeth against pain. Behind his glasses his eyes were wide.
"Thank you," he said when Scott finished. "I think I'm going to die."
"You'll be all right, sir," Bryant assured him hastily. "I've seen far worse wounds than that healed."
Russell rolled his head from side to side negatively. "I've got a good many years behind me. But—but I do want to be sure—Dorcas—is—safe—before I—die!"
"Don't think about dying," Scott told him roughly. "Think about livlng... about being reunited with Dorcas today."
"Time is—on their—side, Captain—Rogers."
"Rest," Scott said. "And don't think about dying."
Russell tried to smile, then closed his eyes.
Bryant turned his eyes on the dead Malay who lay in a welter of blood. Scott looked at him, too. Hurst spoke. "Know who 'e is, cap'n?"
"No."
"Osman."
"Who's Osman?" Bryant asked.
Scott answered that. "Suran's half-brother."
"Now it makes sense," Bryant said. "But where'd he come from? How did you know about him?"
Scott explained briefly. Then he added dryly, "We can't blame Fox for Osman's actions."
"No; but what are we going to do about Fox?" He nodded toward Russell, who was breathing heavily. "As he said, time's on Fox's side, not ours. He may sail at any time."
"I don't think he will without trying to recover this pepper. Likely enough, Chedula was supposed to boat it out to the Caroline today."
"You aren't going to wait for them to come ashore, are you?"
"No. But first, I'd like to try for help from Darus... get him to let some of his men serve as boatmen. Think he might agree, Hurst?"
Hurst finished reloading his rifle before answering. "I'll see what I can do. Darus don't really want to get into a brawl with th' townspeople, you know. An' I don't blame 'im, sir; our troubles ain't 'is, an' 'e's got to live here after we're gone." "I know. But if his people will serve us as boatmen, we'll be free to use firearms."