He spoke consolingly to Pa'Mahmud, but in almost the same breath reminded him of the blood feud existing between him and the man who had slain his son. The Malay's face hardened, and Fox knew he had scored.
"We'll destroy them easily when they come against us," he went on smoothly. "Only let me handle the cannon. They are strange to your men. Give me obedient loaders, but let me lay the guns and fire them."
Pa' Mahmud agreed without question, and Fox went topside with him. The rajah's followers picked up the explosion victims, both quick and dead, and followed.
In the captain's cabin Dorcas was terrified by the series of ship-shaking explosions and by the howling that followed the third blast. She guessed the ship was under attack; and flinging aside the half-completed silk sarong, she hurried to the cabin windows to peer aft. She could only see the sea, gun-metal blue, quiet, and seemingly without end. Leaning out, she observed that the proa which had been under the stem no longer was there.
She could only hope the assault on the Caroline was by some of the ship's original company, perhaps even by some of the people carried ashore from the Sally Culbreath. It was a wild hope, but enough to steel her. She made up her mind immediately. Having swum out to the ship by night, she reasoned she could swim ashore by day. There were sharks to consider, and possibly other sea creatures equally dreadful; there was the likelihood of drowning from sheer exhaustion; but dangers known and unknown palled when she thought of remaining indefinitely in Fox's hands. Even if she failed to make it to the land, even if she could find no haven there after the risky swim—yes, even, if Scott, Bryant, her father and all the others were dead—the land yet would be preferable to the brig. Where once she had rather liked Fox, she now hated and feared him so intensely that she was filled with quaking revulsion by the mere thought of him. Feverishly determined to escape while the opportunity presented itself, she tore at the fastenings of her clothing with shaking fingers. She had no intention of attempting the dangerous swim in a costume that swept the deck.
She stepped out of her skirt in the moment that Fox, seeking more rum to bolster his courage, appeared in the cabin doorway. Comprehending at once what she was about, he forgot the need for drink; not only was she his personal prize, but she could serve as his shield in the event things took a turn disastrous to him. Stepping hastily over the coaming, he bounded across the cabin and seized her from behind.
" Vast!" he roared furiously, shaking her so violently that her teeth chattered. "I've got trouble enough on my hands without having to fish you out of the ocean."
His touch galvanized her. Despairingly she turned on him with the fury of a tigress cornered, drawing the knife as she twisted free of his bruising grasp. Her breath wheezed sobbingly as she drove the long, slender blade into his chest. A rib deflected the killing thrust, so that the knife went in less than two inches, but the combination of surprise and shock was sufficient to stagger him. He clutched at the haft dazedly before she let go, but his hand did not touch hers.
Dorcas didn't see his white, strained face, with its working blend of shock, surprise and rage, but she did hear the agonized gasp forced from him. Turning back to the nearest open window, she leaped blindly into the sea.
Hurst was the only white man in the proa with Darus. Scott assigned the weakened Bryant to the boat in which Russell lay quietly and gave him Hamzah, the rajah's chief lieutenant, to handle the Malay boatmen and man the steering sweep. Then he divided the men from the two brigs among all three boats and settled down to wait impatiently for the first craft to get to seaward of the Caroline. He knew there could be no retreat; he and his men were too near complete exhaustion to rally from a setback.
The heat grew more intense by the minute. Insects nagged them. And some of the Malays persisted in eating durian, an odorous fruit with a taste both sweet and garlicky. It seemed to Scott that of the evils they had to bear the vile odor of the durian was worst during the dragging minutes of watching and waiting. He squinted against the blinding glare of sunlight on moving sea, eyes taking in both proa and brig.
He saw the flash of the nine-pounder just before he saw the geyser of water spouted upward where the ball fell harmlessly into the sea. A few moments later the sea wind brought them the faint boom of the gun. Then the twelve-pounder spat a tongue of flame that was white in the day's brilliance. The rolling sound followed, almost muffled to nothingness. Still Darus and Hurst continued unharmed. The noise of the third explosion of gunpowder in the Caroline was preceded by no visible flare.
Bryant, the most vulnerable to the bites of mosquitoes and gnats, fidgeted visibly. Scott knew the man's strength was running out; he marveled that the New Englander was still able to move about. He's got courage, all right, he thought.
"Scott!" Bryant called suddenly. "Give me a minute, will you, Scott?"
"What is it?"
"Just something I want you to know... in case I don't weather what's coming up. I told you I wasn't paying attention to the weather the other night. That's been on my conscience since, considering the price exacted for my carelessness. But what I want you to know is that I told Dorcas I wanted to marry her... take her home with me to a peaceful life ashore."
Scott masked a twinge of jealousy. He wasn't really surprised. "And she said..."
"She didn't say. Come to think of it, I didn't ask for a yea or nay; I just told her and asked her to think about it."
Scott looked seaward, seeing Hurst and Darus change course to head outward again. So he didn't say anything to Bryant. He couldn't think of anything to say, anyway. Standing in the stern of his boat, hands on the sweep, he spoke quietly to them all. "You know the prize if we win, the price if we lose. Cast off!"
To a chorus of warlike yells the little flotilla headed for the Caroline, her captain's boat a little ahead of the other two.
29
SCOTT'S palms were greasy with the sweat of excitement and his heart pounded rapidly as he steered into the shallow waters of the bight; but he permitted himself no doubts. He was doing what had to be done, and doing it in the only manner possible under the combination of circumstances. If his boatmen didn't waver—if they would lay the proa against the brig's side, so that he would have the opportunity to fight his way to a foothold on the deck—then he had no doubt of the outcome.
The Caroline opened up with the starboard twelve-pounder long before any of the three boats were within effective range. Scott smiled tightly. They're getting panicky, he thought... Watching grapeshot ricochet off the sea at a safe distance, afraid to hold their fire. He looked down at his own crew, the white sailors now sitting quietly with weapons ready in their hands and the half-naked brown men wielding vigorously narrow-bladed paddles, and then at the other two boats, which were angling slightly to the right and left, and he waved his arm in an overhand gesture urging more speed. He could no longer see the proa bearing Darus and Hurst; the ship blocked his line of vision. She filled his eyes and mind, the brig did, and he recalled his desperate promise to Kimbrell. We'll take you back, Caroline; some of us may die in the doing, but we'll take you.
The first cannon fire didn't bother his men, but they grew noticeably restive when shot spattered down around them a half mile from the brig's side. One or two balls hit the protective bulwark of bagged peppercorns, spilling a small quantity of the black spice. A sailor raised a musket, cocking it.
"Save it, lad," Scott told him confidently. "Hold your fire until we're almost ready to board."