The deck rumbled under the feet of the crew, scurrying about and wrestling with the sail. At last they got the yard into vertical position and, by means of a complicated tackle, shifted it around to the other side of the mast, with yelling and grunting and heaving on the lines.
"Tiller up! Take in the sheet! Full and by!"
The yard came down to its normal slanting position, but on the other side of the mast. The mast stays were rerigged, and the sail boomed and cracked as the wind filled it on the new reach. The men went back to their oars. How much simpler, thought Barnevelt, with a plain fore-and-aft rig, when all you had to do was to bring your helm up sharply and remember to duck as the boom swung across the deck. You could sail closer to the wind, too. He doubted they were making closer than six and a half points. Even an Earthly square-rigger (if any still existed)—could do as well as that and could also wear much quicker.
Zei, standing at his side on the poop, said, "O Snyol, wherefore this movement? Will not the Sunqaro ship cut across our path?"
"Not if he uses his sails. He'll have to tack at the same angle we do, and in this chop his oars alone won't be much good…" He frowned at the sky, the sea, and his own rigging. "If we get a real blow, he'll have to run for home, but we shan't be much better off. You can't wear ship with this rig in a gale, and we'd have to run before the wind to stay afloat, which would land us right back in the Sunqar."
"What if the wind drops totally away?"
"Then he's got us too. He has over a hundred men on the oars, compared to our fourteen."
He wondered: If they kept ahead of the galley until night, could they slip away in the darkness? Not with three full moons all shining at once. With rain or fog it would be different, but the present weather did not look much like either. And, from the Shambor's mast, the sail of the second following galley could still be seen.
"Your pardon," said Zei, "but I feel unwell and must needs retire… wup!"
"Use the lee rail!" cried Barnevelt, pointing.
When Zei had gone below to lie down, Chask came up and said, "Captain, there's one more item I'd ask you to consider. Not having taken aboard drinking water at the Sunqar, we run low. Men sweat away their water fast on a long oar-chase like this, ye wite."
"Ration it," said Barnevelt, watching the galley, whose bearing was changing fast as the Shambor cut across her course.
Now men were shinnying up the yards of both the galley's masts and furling the sails with gaskets, like little brown ants crawling up a straw. Although not without experience at the monkey work of sail-handling, Barnevelt was glad he was not up there with them, gripping the swaying yard between his knees like a broncho rider and clawing at the canvas.
Little by little the galley's sails shrank until they were bunched against the yards. Then the yards sank to the deck.
The galley crossed the Slmmbor's wake and continued north. Barnevelt figured that the galley would try to gain the weather gage of her quarry before hoisting sail again, as the difficulties of wearing a lateener would increase progressively with the size of the sail and would be even more onerous for the galley than for the little Shambor.
The long Krishnan day wore on. Barnevelt went into the cabin, slept, and shaved his head with sea water, lest the bronze hair and beard betray his origin. The men grumbled about the lack of water, shutting up when Barnevelt walked past with a hand on his hilt and a hard look on his face.
Evening came. The greenish sky remained clear. To the West, red Roqir set behind the galley, now closer and plowing along, its reset sails silhouetted blackly. The stars came out, shining with a hard brilliance unusual in this hazy latitude. Barnevelt picked Sol out of the unfamiliar heavens; from Star-map Region Eight, in which lay the Cetic planets, Sol was almost in line with Arcturus. The clump of moons came up: Karrim the big, Golnaz the middle-sized, and Sheb the little.
The wind dropped a little. Looking off to the north, Barnevelt visualized a great high-pressure area lying over the Sadabao Sea, sending a sheet of cool dense air flowing southward towards the Sunqar.
"How long should a blow like this last?" he asked Chask.
The boatswain waved a hand in the Krishnan equivalent of a shrug. "Mayhap a day, mayhap four or five. 'Twill die of a sudden, leaving a week's calm on this stinking sea. I shall rejoice when we're back in the belt of steady westerlies."
The men were tiring, despite the fact that the Shambor still carried enough for two complete shifts at the oars. However, the galley drew no closer; her oarsmen must also be tiring.
"Besides," explained Chask, " 'tis unlikely they'd essay to run us down in the dark. A small craft like this can turn and dodge too well. And shooting catapults and crossbows at night, even with the moons, were wanton waste of missiles. Won't ye snatch some slumber, Captain?"
Barnevelt had been wondering whether he shouldn't put in a turn at the oars himself, though he knew Chask would dis-approve. Moreover, he was not sure, now, whether such an act would raise or lower him in the eyes of the crew. His previous attempt to treat them as gentlemen seemed to have miscarried.
Besides, he did not think his muscles would add much to the Shambor's car power. While he was the tallest person aboard, and strong enough by most standards—having the advantage of being brought up on Earth with its slightly greater gravity—he lacked the great bulging shoulders and horny hands of these professionals. In the end he followed Chask's advice, alternating with the boatswain on watch throughout the night.
All night the galley hung off their quarter, a blackness partly outlined by the phosphorescence of her waterline and oar-splashes. Neither ship showed any light.
At the end of his second watch, as the long night drew toward its close, Barnevelt awakened Chask and said, "I've been thinking that with another rig we could outsail those fellows."
"What's this, Captain? Some scheme from the polar regions ye'd broach amongst us? To change a rig in mid-chase like this, be your plan never so good, were to my thinking plain and fancy lunacy, if my frankness ye'll pardon. By the time your new rig were up…"
"I know, but look." Barnevelt pointed to where the galley's sails showed pink in the rising sun. "They're gaining on us, and by my reckoning we shan't reach the Strait before noon. At this rate they're sure to catch us before that."
"Be ye sure of that, sir?"
"Yes. Matter of fact, we're heading too far west and therefore shall have to wear ship again, which'll take us across their bows practically within spitting distance."
"Our situation's hard indeed, sir. What's to do?"
"I'll show you. If we plan our change-over carefully and then hop to it all at once, we may just get our new rig up before they catch us. And we shall have a better chance if we do it now before the wind rises and those guys get closer."
"Desperate conditions dictate desperate remedies, as says Nehavend. What shall be done?"
"Pick a couple of men you can trust and bring 'em into the cabin."
Half an hour later, Barnevelt's plan got under way. He was not himself so sure of it as he tried to sound, but anything was better than watching the galley crawl up with the inevitability of King Canute's tide.
His plan was nothing less than to convert the present lateen rig into a Marconi or Bermuda rig.
First, one of the men went along the foot of the sail, cutting holes in it at intervals, while another cut a coil of light line into short lengths that would go loosely round the yard, which in the new dispensation would become the mast. When everything was ready, Chask put up the tiller and swung the Shambor's bow into the eye of the wind. The sail luffed and the rowers, knowing they had no more help from it, dug in their blades.