"And why should I not?" she said, rummaging on the shelves.
"Aaow," he yawned. "Being a Crown Princess and all that nonsense…"
"Canst keep a royal secret?"
"Uh-huh."
"My lady mother, mindful of the revolutions that have most piteously overthrown the ancient order in Zamba and elsewhere, has compelled me to learn the arts of common housewifery, so that come what may, I shall never be utterly at a loss for such elements as feeding and clothing myself. Would you like some of these dried fruits? Meseems the worms have not yet made them their domicile."
"Fine. Let's have that loaf of badr and the knife."
"Heavenly hierarchy!" she exclaimed when she saw what he proposed to tuck away. "But then, I ween, heroic deeds go with a heroic appetite. All my life I've read legends of Qarar and his ilk, though knowing none besides our fragile local popinjays, I had, until I met you, come to think such men of hardihood existed nowhere but in song and story."
Barnevelt shot a suspicious look at Zei. Although he liked her the best of any Krishnan he knew, he thought he had made up his mind against any serious entanglement with the lady.
He said, "You don't look forward, then, to being queen with a freshly painted Qiribu each year for a husband?"
"Not I. Though even misliking it, I lack the force or subtlety to swerve events from their appointed course. 'Tis one thing to talk big, like the heroine in Harian's The Conspirators, of casting aside the comforts and prerogatives of rank for love, and quite another so to do in very fact. Yet some-times do I envy common wenches in barbarous lands, wed to great brutes like yourself who rule 'em as my mother does her consorts. For while female domination is the law and custom of Qirib, I fear by nature I'm no dominator."
Barnevelt thought vaguely of suggesting a revolution in Qirib, with Zei in the role of Shaw's Bolshevik Empress. But he was too tired to pursue the matter.
"Ao," he said, "only my fair share of the water!"
"But you're captain…"
"Only my fair share."
"Such scrupulosity! One would think you, too, had dwelt among the republicans of Katai-Jhogorai."
"Not exactly, though I sympathize with their ideas." He patted a yawn and sprawled out on the bench while she cleared the table.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next he knew, Chask was shaking him.
"Sir," said the boatswain, "the wind drops and the galleys press upon our wake!"
Barnevelt sat up, blinking. Now that he noticed, the motion of the ship did seem less and the noise of wind and wave lower.
He went out. Although they were still bucking a swell from the north, the swells were smooth from lack of wind to ruffle them. There was just enough breeze to keep the sail filled. Chask had already put a full crew back on the oars.
Behind them, the galley loomed about as distant as when Barnevelt had gone into the cabin. No doubt the Shambor had drawn farther ahead after he went in and then lost some of her advantage with the dying of the wind. Moreover the second galley, which they had seen the previous day, was now in sight again, te masts alone visible save when a wave lifted the Shambor to an unusual height.
Without wind, the galleys would soon catch them. Ahead, no sign of the northern shores of the Banjao Sea appeared. Yet the sun was high; it must be around noon.
"Tell 'em to put their backs into it," said Barnevelt.
Chask replied, 'They do what they can, sir—but lack of water robs their sinews of their accustomed strength."
The reckoning indicated that, though Palindos Strait was not yet in sight, it must lie not far below the horizon. Careful estimates showed that they could just nip through the strait ahead of the following ship.
Chask said, "Then we shall be in the Sadabao Sea, but what will that avail us? For yon cut-throats will follow us even to the harbor of Damovang."
"True," said Barnevelt, frowning over his chart. "How about running ashore and taking to the woods?"
"Then they'll put ashore, too, to hunt us down, and with hundreds to carry on the search there's little doubt in my mind of its outcome. What else would ye?"
"How about doubling around one of the headlands of the Strait and hiding in a cove while we're out of sight?"
"Let's see, sir." Chask pointed a stubby finger at the chart. "The easterly shore of the Sadabao Sea, along here, is rocky and hard to draw nigh to without staving your bottom. The westerly has some rock, much open beach, and few places to hide. Fossanderan may have such coves upon its northern flank, but never will ye persuade ordinary seamen to go ashore on that accursed isle."
"Oh, foof! Are they afraid of the mythical beast-men?"
"No myth, Captain. At least I've heard the sound they say is the drums of these demons. And myth or no, the men would not obey."
Barnevelt went out again, to be greeted by a chorus of hoarse cries: "Water!"
"Water, Captain!"
"Water, we pray!"
"We demand water!"
The galley was crawling up once more. The wind had now ceased entirely save for an occasional light puff. The sail flapped limply, reminding Barnevelt of Chask's prediction of a week's calm.
He gave orders to ration out the men's noon sip of water, which he hoped would quiet them. Instead, they only grumbled the more for its paucity.
The galley was now all visible again, her oars rising and falling with mechanical precision now that the sea was comparatively smooth. The second galley, too, was closer.
A sailor in the bow called, "Land ho!"
There is was: a cluster of wooded peaks—the hills of Fos-sanderan. Barnevelt went back into the cabin to correct his reckoning and lay his course for the eastern channel. Zei watched him wordlessly with large dark eyes.
He ran over his jestimates again. This time it looked as though the galley would overhaul them in the throat of the eastern channel of the Strait. Then why keep trying? The usual hope for a miracle. The galley just might spring a seam or have a mutiny at the last minute…
Too bad the western channel wasn't deep enough to float the Shambor, so that he could lure the galley on to the bottom.
Well, wasn't it? With three moons in conjunction at full, Krishna would have record tides. And, while the tides in these seas were usually nothing much, because of the limited size of the seas and the complicated tidal patterns engendered by Roqir and the three moons, on this one occasion the tidal waves should all be in phase, producing a tide of Earthly dimensions.
Barnevelt got out the handbook he had bought in Novo-recife. The sight reminded him of Vizqash bad-Murani, the Krishnan clerk who had sold him the book. Vizqash had then tried to betray him into the hands of a gang of kidnappers or slayers on a picnic; had later, in the guise of a masked gentleman, started a riot in the tavern at Jazmurian; and finally had turned up as a pirate of the Sunqar, to ruin Barnevelt's neat getaway with Zei and Shtain.
Barnevelt had no doubt, now, that all these events were connected. The Morya Sunqaruma, he was sure, had had their eye on him ever since the Amazonas had landed him at Novorecife. He grinned at the thought that the very book that Vizqash had sold him might be the means of frustrating the fellow's knavish tricks.
The book, along with the rest of Barnevelt's gear, had been soaked when the Earthman had fallen through a hole in the terpahla during his flight. He found that he had to pry the pages—actually one long strip of paper folded zigzag—apart with care to avoid tearing them. Once opened up, however, the book was found to include not only tables for computing the revolutions of the moons, but also a table showing how much time the tidal waves caused by each luminary led or followed the movement of that moon in various places.