Hungry as he was, however, Desmond would not eat while he was, so to
speak, still in touch with Gheria. He ran up the sail on the mizzen, and
the grab was soon cutting her way through the water at a spanking rate.
He had closely studied the chart on board the Good Intent when that
vessel was approaching the Indian coast--not with any fixed purpose, but
in the curiosity which invested all things Indian with interest for him.
From his recollection he believed that Gheria was somewhat more than a
hundred miles from Bombay. If the grab continued to make such good
sailing she might hope to cover this distance by midnight. But she could
hardly run into harbor until the following day. There was, of course, no
chart, not even a compass, on board; the only apparatus he possessed was
a water clock; naturally he could not venture far out to sea, but neither
dared he hug the shore too closely. He knew not what reefs there might be
lying in wait for his untaught keel. Besides, he might be sighted from
one or other of the coast strongholds still remaining in Angria's hands,
and it was not impossible that swift messengers had already been sent
along the shore from Gheria, prescribing a keen lookout and the chase of
any solitary grab making northward.
But if he kept too far out he might run past Bombay, though when he
mentioned this to his fellow fugitives he was assured by the Biluchis and
Fuzl Khan that they would unfailingly recognize the landmarks, having
more than once in the course of their trading and pirate voyages touched
at that port.
On the whole he thought it best to keep the largest possible offing that
would still leave the coast within sight. Putting the helm down he ran
out some eight or ten miles, until the coast was visible only from the
masthead as a purple line on the horizon, with occasional glimpses of
high ghats {mountains} behind.
Meanwhile the Gujarati and some of the others had breakfasted from their
bundles. Leaving the former in charge of the wheel, Desmond took his
well-earned meal of rice and chapatis, stale, but sweet with the
sweetness of freedom.
In his ignorance of the coast he felt that he must not venture to run
into Bombay in the darkness, and resolved to heave-to during the night.
At the dawn he would creep in towards the shore without anxiety, for
there was little chance of falling in with hostile vessels in the
immediate neighborhood of Bombay. Knowing that a considerable British
fleet lay there, the Pirate would not allow his vessels to cruise far
from his own strongholds. But as there was a prospect of spending at
least one night at sea, it was necessary to establish some system of
watches. The task of steering had to be shared between Desmond and Fuzl
Khan; and the majority of the men being wholly inexperienced, it was not
safe to leave fewer than six of them on duty at a time. The only danger
likely to arise was from the weather. So far it was good; the sea was
calm, the sky was clear; but Desmond was enough of a seaman to know that,
being near the coast, the grab might at any moment, almost without
warning, be struck by a squall. He had to consider how best to divide up
his crew.
Including himself there were eleven men on board. Four of them were
strangers of whom he knew nothing; the six who had escaped with him were
known only as fellow prisoners.
To minimize any risk, he divided the crew into three watches. One
consisted of the Babu, the serang, and one of the Marathas from the
gallivat. Each of the others comprised a Mysorean, a Biluchi, and a
Maratha. Thus the strangers were separated as much as possible, and the
number of Marathas on duty was never in excess of the number of
fugitives; the steersman, Desmond or the Gujarati, as the case might be,
turned the balance.
The watch was set by means of the water clock found in the cabin. Desmond
arranged that he and Fuzl Khan should take alternate periods of eight
hours on and four off. The two matchlocks taken from the sentinels of the
fort and brought on board were loaded and placed on deck near the wheel.
None of the crew was armed save the Biluchis, who retained their knives.
Towards midday the wind dropped almost to a dead calm. This was
disappointing, for Desmond suspected that he was still within the area of
Angria's piratical operations--if not from Gheria, at any rate from some
of the more northerly strongholds not yet captured by the East India
Company or the Peshwa. But he had a good offing: scanning the horizon all
around he failed to sight a single sail; and he hoped that the breeze
would freshen as suddenly as it had dropped.
Now that excitement and suspense were over, and there was nothing that
called for activity, Desmond felt the natural reaction from the strain he
had undergone. By midday he was so tired and sleepy that he found himself
beginning to doze at the wheel. The Gujarati had been sleeping for some
hours, and, as the vessel now required scarcely any attention Desmond
thought it a good opportunity for snatching a rest. Calling to Fuzl Khan
to take his place and bidding him keep the vessel's head, as far as he
could, due north, he went below. About six bells, as time would have been
reckoned on the Good Intent, he was wakened by the Babu, with a message
from the Gujarati desiring him to come on deck.
"Is anything wrong, Babu?" he asked, springing up.
"Not so far as I am aware, sahib. Only it is much hotter since I began my
watch."
Desmond had hardly stepped on deck before he understood the reason for
the summons. Overhead all was clear; but towards the land a dense bank of
black cloud was rising, and approaching the vessel with great rapidity.
It was as though some vast blanket were being thrown seawards. The air
was oppressively hot, and the sea lay like lead. Desmond knew the signs;
the Gujarati knew them too; and they set to work with a will to meet the
storm.
Fortunately Desmond, recognizing the unhandiness of his crew, had taken
care to set no more sail than could be shortened at the briefest notice.
He had not been called a moment too soon. A flash lit the black sky; a
peal of thunder rattled like artillery far off; and then a squall struck
the grab with terrific force, and the sea, suddenly lashed into fury,
advanced like a cluster of green liquid mountains to overwhelm the
vessel. She heeled bulwarks under, and was instantly wrapped in a dense
mist, rain pouring in blinding sheets. The main topsail was blown away
with a report like a gun shot; and then, under a reefed foresail, the
grab ran before the wind, which was apparently blowing from the
southeast.
Furious seas broke over the deck; the wind bellowed through the rigging;
the vessel staggered and plunged under the shocks of sea and wind. Fuzl
Khan clung to the helm with all his strength, but his arms were almost
torn from their sockets, and he called aloud for Desmond to come to his
assistance.
It was fortunate that little was required of the crew, for in a few
minutes all of them save the four Marathas from the gallivat were
prostrated with seasickness. The Babu had run below, and occasionally,
between two gusts, Desmond could hear the shrieks and groans of the
terrified man. But he had no time to sympathize; his whole energies were
bent on preventing the grab from being pooped. He felt no alarm; indeed,
the storm exhilarated him; danger is bracing to a courageous spirit, and
his blood leaped to this contest with the elements. He thrilled with a
sense of personal triumph as he realized that the grab was a magnificent
sea boat. There was no fear but that the hull would stand the strain;
Desmond knew the pains that had been expended in her building: the
careful selection of the timbers, the niceness with which the planks had
been fitted. No European vessel could have proved her superior in
seaworthiness.
But she was fast drifting out into the Indian Ocean, far away from the
haven Desmond desired to make. How long was this going to last? Whither
was he being carried? Without chart or compass he could take no bearings,
set no true course. It was a dismal prospect, and Desmond, glowing as he
was with the excitement of the fight, yet felt some anxiety. Luckily,
besides the provisions brought in their bundles by the fugitives, there
was a fair supply of food and water on board; for although every portable
article of value had been taken on shore when the grab anchored in
Gheria, it had not been thought necessary to remove the bulkier articles.
Thus, if at the worst the vessel were driven far out to sea, there was no
danger of starvation, even if she could not make port for several days.
But Desmond hoped that things would not come to this pass. Towards
nightfall, surely, the squall would blow itself out. Yet the wind
appeared to be gaining rather than losing strength; hour after hour
passed, and he still could not venture to quit the wheel. He was drenched
through and through with the rain; his muscles ached with the stress; and
he could barely manage to eat the food and water brought him staggeringly
by the serang in the intervals of the wilder gusts.
The storm had lasted for nearly ten hours before it showed signs of
abatement. Another two hours passed before it was safe to leave the helm.
The wind had by this time fallen to a steady breeze; the rain had ceased;
the sky was clear and starlit; but the sea was still running high. At
length the serang offered to steer while the others got a little rest;
and intrusting the wheel to him Desmond and Fuzl Khan threw themselves
down as they were, on the deck near the wheel, and were soon fast asleep.
At dawn Desmond awoke to find the grab laboring in a heavy sea, with just
steering way on. The wind had dropped to a light breeze. The Gujarati was
soon up and relieved the serang at the wheel; the rest of the crew,
haggard melancholy objects, were set to work to make things shipshape.
Only the Babu remained below; he lay huddled in the cabin, bruised,
prostrate, unable to realize that the bitterness of death was past,
unable to believe that life had any further interest for him.
Desmond's position was perplexing. Where was he? Perforce he had lost his
bearings. He scanned the whole circumference of the horizon, and saw
nothing but the vast dark ocean plain and its immense blue dome--never a
yard of land, never a stitch of canvas. He had no means of ascertaining
his latitude. During the twelve hours of the storm the grab had been
driven at a furious rate; if the wind had blown all the time from the
southeast, the quarter from which it had struck the vessel, she must now
be at least fifty miles from the coast, possibly more, and north of
Bombay. In the inky blackness of the night, amid the blinding rain, it
had been impossible to read anything from the stars. All was uncertain,
save the golden sheen of sunlight in the east.
Desmond's only course was to put the vessel about and steer by the sun.
She must thus come sooner or later in sight of the coast, and then one or
the other of the men on board might recognize a landmark--a hill, a
promontory, a town. The danger was that they might make the coast in the
neighborhood of one of the Pirate's strongholds; but that must be risked.
For the rest of the day there were light variable winds, such as,
according to Fuzl Khan, might be expected at that season of the year. The
northeast monsoon was already overdue. Its coming was usually heralded by
fitful and uncertain winds, varied by such squalls or storms as they had
just experienced.
The sea moderated early in the morning, and became continually smoother
until, as the sun went down, there was scarce a ripple on the surface.
The wind meanwhile had gradually veered to the southwest, and later to
the west, and the grab began to make more headway. But with the fall of
night it dropped to a dead calm, a circumstance from which the Gujarati
inferred that they were still a long way from the coast. When the stars
appeared, however, and Desmond was able to get a better idea of the
course to set, a slight breeze sprang up again from the west, and the
grab crept along at a speed of perhaps four knots.
It had been a lazy day on board. The crew had recovered from their
sickness, but there was nothing for them to do, and as orientals they
were quite content to do nothing. Only the Babu remained off duty, in
addition to the watch below. Desmond visited him, and persuaded him to
take some food; but nothing would induce him to come on deck; the mere
sight of the sea, he said, would externalize his interior.
It was Desmond's trick at the wheel between eight and midnight. Gulam
Abdullah was on the lookout; the rest of the crew were forward squatting
on the deck in a circle around Fuzl Khan. Desmond, thinking of other
things, heard dully, as from a great distance, the drone of the
Gujarati's voice. He was talking more freely and continuously than was
usual with him; ordinarily his manner was morose; he was a man of few
words, and those not too carefully chosen. So prolonged was the
monotonous murmur, however, that Desmond by and by found himself
wondering what was the subject of his lengthy discourse; he even strained
his ears to catch, if it might be, some fragments of it; but nothing came
into distinctness out of the low-pitched tone.
Occasionally it was broken by the voice of one of the others; now and
again there was a brief interval of silence; then the Gujarati began
again. Desmond's thoughts were once more diverted to his own strange
fate. Little more than a year before, he had been a boy, with no more
experience than was to be gained within the narrow circuit of a country
farm. What a gamut of adventure he had run through since then! He smiled
as he thought that none of the folks at Market Drayton would recognize,
in the muscular, strapping, suntanned seaman, the slim boy of Wilcote
Grange. His imagination had woven many a chain of incident, and set him
in many a strange place; but never had it presented a picture of himself
in command of as mixed a crew as was ever thrown together, navigating
unknown waters without chart or compass, a fugitive from the chains of an
Eastern despot.
His quick fancy was busy even now. He felt that it was not for nothing he
had been brought into his present plight; and at the back of his mind was
the belief, founded on his strong wish and hope, that the magnetism of
Clive's personality, which he had felt so strongly at Market Drayton, was
still influencing his career.
At midnight Fuzl Khan relieved him at the wheel, and he turned in. His
sleep was troubled. It was a warm night--unusually warm for the time of
year. There were swarms of cockroaches and rats on board; the cockroaches
huge beasts, three times the size of those that overran the kitchen at
home; the rats seeming as large as the rabbits he had been wont to shoot
on the farm. They scurried about with their little restless noises, which
usually would have had no power to break his sleep; but now they worried
him. He scared them into silence for a moment by striking upon the floor;
but the rustle and clipper clapper immediately began again.
After vain efforts to regain his sleep, he at length rose and went on
deck. He did not move with intentional quietness, but he was barefoot,
and his steps made no sound. It was a black night, a warm haze almost
shutting out the stars. As he reached the deck he heard low murmurs from
a point somewhere aft. He had no idea what the time was: Shaik Mahomet
had the water clock, with which he timed the watches; and Desmond's could
not yet be due. Avoiding the spot where the conversation was in progress,
he leaned over the bulwarks, and gazed idly at the phosphorescent glow
upon the water.
Then he suddenly became aware that the sounds of talking came from near
the wheel, and Fuzl Khan was among the talkers. What made the man so
uncommonly talkative? Seemingly he was taking up the thread where it had
been dropped earlier in the night; what was it about?
Desmond asked himself the question without much interest, and was again
allowing his thoughts to rove when he caught the word "sahib," and then
the word "Firangi" somewhat loudly spoken. Immediately afterwards there
was a low hiss from the Gujarati, as of one warning another to speak
lower. The experiences of the past year had quickened Desmond's wits;
with reason he had become more suspicious than of yore, and the necessity
to be constantly on his guard had made him alert, alive to the least
suggestion.
Why had the speaker been hushed--and by Fuzl Khan? He remembered the ugly
rumors--the veiled hints he had heard about the man in Gheria. If they
were true, he had sold his comrades who trusted him. They might not be
true; the man himself had always indignantly denied them. Desmond had
nothing against him. So far he had acted loyally enough; but then he had
nothing to gain by playing his fellow fugitives false, and it was with
this knowledge that Desmond had decided to make him privy to the escape.
But now they were clear of Gheria. Fuzl Khan was free like the rest; he
had no longer the same inducement to play straight if his interest seemed
to him to clash with the general. Yet it was not easy to see how such a
clashing could occur. Like the others he was lost at sea; until land was
reached, at any rate, he could have no motive for opposition or mutiny.
While these, thoughts were passing through Desmond's mind he heard a man
rise from the group aft and come forward. Instinctively he moved from the
side of the vessel towards the mainmast, and as the man drew near Desmond
stood so that the stout tree trunk was between them. The man went rapidly
towards the bows, and in a low tone hailed the lookout, whispering him a
summons to join the Gujarati at the helm. The lookout, one of the
Marathas, left his post; he came aft with the messenger, and both passing
on the same side of the vessel, Desmond by dodging round the mast escaped
their notice.
At the best, the action of Fuzl Khan was a dereliction of duty; at the
worst!--Desmond could not put his suspicions into words. It was clear
that something was afoot, and he resolved to find out what it was. Very
cautiously he followed the two men. Bending low, and keeping under the
shadow of the bulwarks, he crept to within a few feet of the almost
invisible group. A friendly coil of rope near the taffrail gave him
additional cover; but the night was so dark that he ran little risk of
being perceived so long as the men remained stationary. He himself could
barely see the tall form of the Gujarati dimly outlined against the sky.