While there was still day enough he took Stephen over them again and again, and then he said, ‘It would be a pity to call for a lamp. I have all the plans and drawings clear in my head, and I could follow you pace by pace if you would be so very kind as to describe everything you saw.’
‘That would take us well into next year, but I will try to give some general impression. Will I begin with the nectarincas, which take the place of humming-birds here?
Do nectarincas interest you?’
‘Only
moderately.’
‘Orang-utangs,
then?’
‘To tell you the truth, Maturin, there are already so many orang-utangs among my acquaintance that I would not cross the street to see another.’
‘Well, well: perhaps I had better start with the Hindu temple, and confine myself to holy things and their surroundings.’ This he did, and as his tale rose up the Thousand Steps, shrine by shrine, so the sun sank to the western sea; and by the time he was describing his first sight of the temple, its former immensity and the disposition of its parts, Jupiter had appeared.
Stephen reached the narthex, the opening of the temple door, the sunlight showing him the figure within, and Fox said, ‘Oh, I quite agree. I have had a greater sense of holiness
– sanctity – detachment – unworldliness in the severer Buddhist temples of the ancient rite than in any but the most austere Christian monasteries.’
Fox was making a long parenthetical remark about his travels on the border of Tibet and in Ceylon when there was a clash of discordant drums and cymbals from the palace, a volley of musket-fire, the sound of trumpets and of a great long roaring horn.
This was followed by a more regular beating of drums, and the innermost courtyard was lit with great lanterns by the score. Then came the wavering orange glare of a fire, a fire that rose and rose so that sometimes its flames showed high above the outer wall. Its smoke drifted straight over them as they sat there silent on the balcony. The hoarse roaring horn again and the firelight turned blood-red as a powder was thrown on the blaze.
‘Someone is going to catch it,’ said Fox. ‘I hope to God it is Ledward. I hope to God the sack is tying round his neck this moment.’
Now there was shouting from the palace, loud shouting and laughter, perhaps some muffled screams. The fire leapt higher still, flame-coloured once more; the lights increased and the shouting – it was very like the sound of a rising or a hysterical mob. How long it went on there was no telling: once or twice Stephen saw great bats pass between him and the glare: and all the time Fox stood gripping the rail, dead still, hardly breathing.
At length the mob-noise diminished; the fire died down so that its flames could no longer be seen; the drums fell silent and the lanterns moved off, leaving no more than a ruddy glow behind the walls.
‘What happened? What happened?’ cried Fox. ‘What happened exactly? I have no one inside the palace: I cannot make my visit until his fasting for an heir is over. I cannot even see the council straight away. To act on mere gossip or an inaccurate account would be disastrous; yet I must act. Can you help me, Maturin?’
‘I know a person who will have the details within the hour,’ said Stephen coldly. ‘I shall call on him tomorrow morning.’
‘Could you not go now?’
‘No,
sir.’
Stephen had in fact no need to call on van Buren; they met in the buffalo-market. For a while they talked about the animals’ wild relations, the banteng and the gaur, either of which might have breathed upon Stephen by night at Kumai – creatures of enormous size
– and then Stephen said, ‘My colleague is importunate to know what happened last night.
Did Abdul’s pretty face and gazelle-like eyes save him?’
‘By the time Hafsa had finished he had no pretty face and no gazelle-like eyes, either. No. The sack was tied over his head and he was beaten round and round the fire until the pepper and the beating killed him.’
‘Ledward and Wray?’
‘Untouched. Some people thought they were going to be seized, immunity or no; but I believe the Sultan had a sickening of it all – Abdul’s body was given to his family for burial rather than being thrown into the street – and they are only forbidden the court.’
It had always appeared to Jack Aubrey, ever since he was a little boy, that one of the purest joys in the world was sailing a small, well-conceived, weatherly boat: the purest form of sailing too, with the sheet alive in one’s hand, the tiller quivering under the crook of one’s knee and the boat’s instant response to the movement of either, and to the roll and the breeze. A more stirring, obvious joy, of course, in a moderate gale and a lively sea, but there was also a subtle delight in gliding over smooth water, coaxing every ounce of thrust from what light air there was: an infinitely varied joy. Yet since he had left the midshipmen’s berth he had done very little sailing in this sense, and almost none for pure pleasure; and as a post-captain,
usually wafted to and fro in the glory of his barge, he could scarcely remember half a dozen occasions. Apart from anything else, the life of a captain, even with such a conscientious, intelligent first lieutenant as Fielding, was an uncommonly busy one: at least as Jack Aubrey led it.
He was fond of the Diane, that honest, stout-hearted though unexciting ship, but he was thoroughly enjoying his holiday from her. The survey of the coast of Pulo Prabang with Mr Warren, an able hydrographer, was a lively pleasure in itself, but the great charm of these days was the sailing, as varied as could be wished, the swimming, the fishing, and the hauling up on a lonely strand at sunset to eat their catch, grilled on driftwood embers, and to sleep in tents or in hammocks slung between two palms. They had sailed east, following the curve of the island, the almost round island, to its northernmost point,
passing several villages on the way, including Ambelan, the little port to which the French frigate Cornélie and her over-enterprising crew had been exiled. Now they were on their way back, checking their recorded bearings and soundings and carrying on with Humboldt’s programme of measuring temperatures at various depths, salinity, atmospheric pressure and the like, but none of this was very arduous and at present Jack was directing the Diane’s smaller cutter at the narrow pass between the cape right ahead and a small island just beyond it. He was sailing as close to the brisk west-southwesterly breeze as he could; the good clinker-built boat made little leeway and he thought he could run through the gap on the present tack.
Bonden, who though by right captain’s coxswain had not had his hand on the tiller since the boat left Prabang, was sure he could. Warren, the master, who was unable to swim, thought he possibly could, but wished he would not attempt it; Yusuf, who had been brought along for the language and because he knew the difference between right and wrong, at least where fish and fruit were concerned, was convinced that it was impossible; but being a Muslim he took it in good part, since what was written was written and there was no arguing with
fate, and in any case he was a sea Malay, as much at home in the water as out of it. There should have been a fifth opinion, that of Bampfylde Elliott. Jack had meant to bring him, because although young Elliott was no seaman and never would be, Jack liked him. As the Diane’s commander he had had to address harsh words to her second lieutenant oftener than was either usual or pleasant and he had hoped that this break would bring back kinder relations. It was not that Elliott had grown dogged, sullen or resentful; it was rather that his mind seemed oppressed by a sense of guilt and inadequacy and by the little esteem in which he was held aboard the Diane. But the day before they set out, when Fielding was having the frigate’s yards reblacked, a hand busy high aloft dropped his bucket. It might perfectly well have fallen safely, there being very few people on deck – a hundred to one it would have done no more harm than a black stain to be scrubbed out by the afterguard – but in fact it struck Elliott on his wounded shoulder, he being unlucky as well as inept.
The headland, the gap and the island were coming closer, much closer. Jack, bending and peering forward, saw that the high land was deflecting the breeze so that it would head him in mid-passage: there was a slight cross-ruffle on the ebbing tide. His mind at once began computing speed, inertia, distance, most desirable course, and presented him with the answer in something less than a second, a hundred yards short of the rock. A few moments more and he bore up, gathered way, and with the greater impetus shot through the gap right in the wind’s eye, his mainsail shivering, rounded the cape and ran down its farther side. The saving of five insignificant minutes was no very great triumph; indeed the caper had a faint, very faint air of showing away; but it was pleasant to feel the old skills unimpaired.