For this kind of exercise, where the new flint-lock might fail, Jack always preferred the old-fashioned slow-match; and now its smoke eddied along the deck, awaking countless memories.
The frigate was almost abreast of the first target, the water rippling along her side.
‘She bears,’ murmured Bonden. ‘Fire!’ cried Fielding and the whole broadside went off in an immense long-thundering crash, eleven jets of flame with wadding dark in the brilliance; and before the smoke-bank rose to veil the sea those on the quarterdeck saw the target leap in an eruption of white water, with a few plumes beyond it and one shot that went skipping over the sea in great bounds until it hit the rocky shore. The Sultan’s face was suffused with fierce delight; he pounded his right fist into his left palm in a European or
perhaps a universal gesture and called out to the Vizier, his eyes sparkling with a most unusual animation. Meanwhile the teams were holding their guns inboard, sponging, reloading, ramming home the wad and running the piece up with a fine satisfying thump.
The Diane approached the second target in dead silence. The gunners glared out of their gunports with total concentration, making minute changes of bearing and elevation; the Sultan and his men lined the rail, motionless, wholly absorbed.
‘She bears,’ murmured Bonden again, and again Fielding, peering along the barrel behind him cried ‘Fire!’ This time there were no visible misses, and the Sultan laughed aloud.
‘Hands about ship,’ said Jack, and the frigate stayed in little more than her own length; the gun crews straightened for a moment, hoisting their trousers and spitting on their hands. They were now in perfect form, and bending to the guns again they destroyed the two remaining rafts with a deliberate certainty. The Diane picked up her moorings once again, by the two-hulled proa, twelve minutes after she had left them.
Jack and the returning first lieutenant exchanged private glances of relief. It had been a somewhat perilous caper, but they knew that the ship had performed it well, even by the most professional standards. ‘Upon my word, sir,’ said Fox at his elbow, ‘that was a most impressive sight. The Sultan wishes you to know that he has seen nothing to equal it.’
Jack and the Sultan bowed and smiled to one another and Jack, glancing at the setting sun, said, ‘Pray tell His Highness that in a few minutes I hope to show him something that may perhaps go beyond it, at least as an expression of loyalty. At one bell in the last dog-watch we are to fire a salute in honour of Princess Sophia’s birthday.’
By one bell the tropical dusk had become tropical darkness, and Mr White stalked forth in his best uniform, a red-hot poker in his hand and a mate with a brazier behind him, and while the officers and Marines stood to attention and the hands to something faintly resembling it, he put the poker to the
touch-hole of the first quarterdeck nine-pounder, which instantly shot out a vast tongue of crimson fire and a strangely shrill explosion. ‘Oh!’ cried the Sultan, in spite of himself; and repeating ‘If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here’ Mr White paced on to the next: a jet of more than sapphire blue, and the whole court uttered a great ‘Ah!’ The brilliant white of camphor, the green of brass filings, a rosy pink, a most uncommon violet derived from orpiment, and so it went at perfectly regular intervals, timed by the gunner’s ritual words, to the final prodigious blast from the aftermost carronade, crammed with a deafening, blinding mixture of pedok, datang and colophony.
Stephen saw the welcome light in van Buren’s window, and stepping over the python that was travelling along the outer path he walked in by the garden gate.
‘How pleasant to see you again,’ they said almost simultaneously; and when van Buren had described his journey, safely performed but slow, tedious and unrewarding from the point of view of natural philosophy, and his treatment of the patient, Stephen said, ‘By the way, there was a python in your lane.’
‘Reticulatus, I suppose?’
‘I imagine so. There was neither time nor light to examine his labial scales, but I imagine so. Twenty-five feet long, perhaps, and reasonably stout for a serpent of that length.’
‘Yes. I see him from time to time. Pythons are said to be ill-tempered, but he has never proved objectionable; though perhaps it might not be wise to linger underneath his tree. Now tell me, how have matters come along?’
‘As far as the official negotiations are concerned, they began well; but now they tend to become difficult, with endless restatements of the case.’
‘Of course they will drag on for a great while; in these parts a rapid conclusion would be a loss of consequence. I put Cuvier’s bones for the very small, very delicate red ants to clean, a long task for them, considering the tapir’s bulk; but I am sure the hones will be perfectly white long before you carry them off to be sent to France.’
‘Oh, I should be happy to stay. I have scarcely begun on the coleoptera, and I have never caught so much as a glimpse of an orang-utang, even in the summit of a very distant tree. But what distresses me is that although with your invaluable advice and the help of the amiable Wan Da I have won the good-will of the Vizier and the greater part of the council, particularly the Sultana Hafsa’s relations, every time Fox makes real headway, the Sultan imposes his veto and the Vizier is obliged to overthrow everything, sometimes on pretexts that can hardly be attempted to be believed. And both Fox and I are convinced that this is because of Abdul. The Sultan has a strong, dominant character – his council is afraid of him – but as you said yourself some time ago, never was a man so besotted. It was embarrassingly obvious at the otherwise very successful reception aboard the frigate.’
‘But what interest can Abdul have in the matter?’
‘Have you met Ledward, the negotiator on the French side?’
‘I have seen him two or three times, a fine upstanding figure of a man, though no doubt carrion.’
‘He is not only a very able, persuasive negotiator, capable of out-talking Fox before the council and making him lose his temper, but he is also Abdul’s lover.’
‘Oh, oh,’ said Van Buren. ‘That young man is playing with fire. Hafsa hates him, and her family is powerful. She is a determined woman herself. And the Sultan is of an extremely jealous disposition.’
‘It is my belief,’ said Stephen, after a pause, ‘that Ledward has made Abdul suppose that if they are put to their last shifts the French will give their frigate as well as the guns, the subsidy and the shipwrights they offered in the first place – they have nothing else left. Their money is all gone. They had no great matter to begin with, and Ledward lost much of it in play. He is a furious and uniformly unfortunate gambler; so is his companion Wray. Will I tell you the reason for my belief?’
I should be very happy to learn it. But first let us drnk a pot of coffee.’
‘Do you remember how I exulted over the rough draughts of Duplessis’ journal?’
asked Stephen, putting down his cup and wiping his lips. ‘It was the unwisest thing I ever did. Well, almost the unwisest. After a week however I did begin to feel that this was too easy entirely, too handsome to be honest. Now I did tell you, before you left, that I intended to arrange for your gardener’s half-brother to bring me the waste paper from Duplessis’ house?’
‘Certainly.’
‘The arrangement took some time, and the accumulation that eventually reached me when a discreet means of delivery had been contrived made a forbidding great heap.
Still, I did flatten and class it all in time; and in time I came across some rough draughts of the mission’s journal. Doubt had been growing in my mind and I was not altogether astonished to find that they were not the same as my alleged rough draughts of the same date; but I will confess that it vexed me extremely. Ledward is in charge of all the mission’s intelligence, and I could see him laughing with Wray at my simplicity.’
‘Galling. Oh very galling, I am sure.’
‘So galling that I did not trust myself to act for some little while. Fortunately Wu Han, to whom I confessed some part of my disappointment, felt himself- I will not say responsible, but to some extent concerned, or engaged. I should add that he thinks of moving to Java, a more fruitful field for his talents, and he is very willing to be well-seen by Shao Yen and of course by Raffles. He questioned his clerk, whose good faith seems entire, bought his debt on my behalf, and made him invite Lesueur that evening. Lesueur came – I am not the only simpleton in Prabang – and he was summoned to pay. Of course he could not produce the money and so he was seized as a debtor – Wu Hao has powerful porters for this kind of thing – and brought to me by night. He has no immunity of any kind.