Birds of Prey

But the Governor's words meant more to Sir Francis Courtney, who stood now in the entrance to the cabin with Aboli at his back.

"Please calm yourself, Governor. You and your wife are in safe hands. I will make the arrangements for your ransom with all despatch." He swept off his plumed cavalier Hat, and bent his knee towards Katinka. Even he was not entirely proof against her beauty. "May I introduce myself, madam? Captain Francis Courtney, at your command. Please take a while to compose yourself. At four bells that is in an hour's time I would be obliged if you would join me on the quarterdeck. I intend to hold a muster of the ship's company." the ships were under sail, the little caravel under studding-sails and top sails only, the great galleon with her mainsail set. They sailed in close company on a north-easterly heading, away from the Cape and on a closing course with the eastern reaches of the African mainland. Sir Francis looked down paternally upon his crew in the galleon's waist.

"I promised you fifty guineas the man as your prize," he said, and they cheered him wildly. Some were stiff and crippled with their wounds. Five were laid on pallets against the rail, too weak from loss of blood to stand but determined not to miss a word of this ceremony. The dead were already stitched in their canvas shrouds, each with a Dutch ca

Sir Francis held up one hand. They fell silent and crowded forward so as not to miss his next words.

"I lied to you," he told them. There was a moment of stu

The silence persisted as they stared incredulously at him, and then they went mad with joy. They capered and howled, and whirled each other around in a delirious jig. Even the wounded sat up and crowed.

Sir Francis smiled down on them benignly for a while as he let them give vent to their joy. Then he waved a sheaf of manuscript pages over his head and they fell silent again. "This is the extract I have made of the ship's manifest!" "Read it!" they pleaded.

The recital went on for almost half an hour, for they cheered each item of the bill of lading that he translated from the Dutch as he read aloud. Cochineal and pepper, vanilla and saffron, cloves and cardamom with a total weight of forty-two tons. The crew knew that, weight for weight and pound for pound, those spices were as precious as bars of silver. They were hoarse with shouting, and Sir Francis held up his hand again. "Do I weary you with this endless list? Have you had enough?"

"No!" they roared. "Read on!"

"Well, then, there are a few sticks of timber in her holds.

Balu and teak and other strange wood that has never been seen north of the equator. Over three hundred tons." They feasted on his words with shining eyes. "There is still more, but I see that I weary you. You want no more?"

"Read it to us!" they pleaded.

"Finest Chinese blue and white ceramic ware, and silk in bolts. That will please the ladies!" They bellowed like a herd of bull elephants in musth at the mention of women. When they reached the next port, with two hundred pounds in each purse, they could have as many women, of whatever quality and comeliness their fancies ordered.

"There is also gold and silver, but that is boarded over in sealed steel chests in the bottom of the main hold, with three hundred tons of timber on top of it. We will not get our hands on it until we reach port and unload the main cargo."

"How much gold?" they pleaded. "Tell us how much silver."

"Silver in coin to the value of fifty thousand guilders. That's over ten thousand good English pounds. Three hundred ingots of gold from the mines of Kollur on the Krishna river in Kandy, and the Good Lord alone knows what those will bring in when we sell them in London."

Hal hung in the mainmast shrouds, a vantage point from which he could look down on his father on the quarterdeck. Hardly a word of what he was saying made sense to Hal, but he realized dimly that this must be one of the greatest prizes ever taken by English sailors during the course of this war with the Dutch. He felt dazed and lightheaded, unable to concentrate on anything but the greater treasure he had captured with his own sword, and which now sat demurely behind his father, attended by her maid. Chivalrously Sir Francis had placed one of the carved, cushioned chairs from the captain's cabin on the quarterdeck for the Dutch governor's wife. Now Petrus van de Velde stood behind her, splendidly dressed, wearing high rhine graves of soft Spanish leather that reached to his thighs, bewigged and beribboned, his corpulence covered with the medallions and silken sashes of his office.

To his surprise Hal found that he hated the man bitterly, and lamented that he had not skewered him as he crawled from under the bed, and so made the angel who was his wife into a tragic widow.

He imagined devoting his life to playing Lancelot to her Guinevere. He saw himself humble and submissive to her every whim but inspired to deeds of outstanding valour by his pure love for her. At her behest, he might even undertake a knightly errand to search for the Holy Grail and place the sacred relic in her beautiful white hands. He shuddered with pleasure at the thought, and stared down longingly at her.

While Hal daydreamed in the rigging, the ceremony on the deck below him drew to its conclusion. Behind the Governor were ranked the Dutch captain and the other captured officers. Colonel Cornelius Schreuder was the only one without a Hat, for a bandage swathed his head. Despite the blow Aboli, had dealt him his eye was still keen and unclouded and his expression fierce as he listened to Sir Francis list the spoils.

"But that is not all, lads!" Sir Francis assured his crew. "We are fortunate enough to have aboard, as our honoured guest, the new Governor of the Dutch settlement of the Cape of Good Hope." With an ironic flourish he bowed to van de Velde, who glowered at him: now that his captors had realized his value and position, he felt more secure.