The Thirteen Gun Salute (31 page)

'Let us not say anything of the sort,' said Stephen. 'My very best source tells me that it is the toss of a coin whether Abdul does not turn the scale, with his pretty face and his gazelle-like eyes.'

'Does he go so far? Does he indeed?' cried Fox, disconcerted. He searched Stephen's face. 'I must go.' He rang the bell and ordered a guard. 'I have an appointment with the Vizier. The Sultan comes back late this afternoon: there is to be a full council-meeting and there wilt be a decision tonight. Your balcony at the - at your lodging in the town looks over the palace courtyards. May I call on you this evening? I have not heard a word about your journey to Kumai - you went, of course?'

'I beg your pardon for appearing like this,' said the envoy, who was wearing the Marine officer's uniform and blue spectacles, 'but I thought...'

'A very sensible precaution, sir,' said Stephen. 'Nothing hides a man better than a red coat. Pray come in and sit on the balcony; there is a modest collation laid out. The sea-slugs are a speciality of the house; so alas is the luke-warm Macao wine, but we can always call for tea or coffee. And quite soon, shortly after sunset, you will see a blazing great star rise over there, by the Mosque of Omar. Jack Aubrey tells me it is Jupiter, and if he were here with his telescope he would show you the four little moons.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Stephen's sleeping-partner, opening the door and looking at Fox with intense curiosity, 'I forgot my drawers.'

'Before coming here,' said Stephen as they settled on the balcony, overlooking the busiest street, the open space in front of the Rasul mosque, and the wall and the outer courtyards of the palace beyond, 'I had like everybody else read about Malays running amuck, or amock, as I believe one should say, but never did I expect to see two of them doing so at once - my first sight of the phenomenon, at that. One came down this very street not an hour ago, cleaving his way in the midst of a frantic clamour, slashing right and left, a train of blood behind and a herd of people running away in front until he was brought down and killed by a Dyak with a spear. Then while the crowd was standing round the body, talking and laughing and pushing their krisses into it, another maniac came down that little side-street, screaming shrill and high, and they scattered again. He ran off out of sight right-handed, having wounded two men as he passed, and what happened to him I cannot tell; but five minutes later people were walking about, talking, buying and selling, and fanning themselves as though nothing had happened.'

'It is a strangely cruel and bloody country at times,' said Fox. 'Or perhaps indifferent is the better word.' They ate in silence, wandering among the array of dishes. The shadows lengthened. Fox was searching in a bowl of prawns when he raised his head and stood motionless. 'That must be the Sultan arriving,' he said.

The drums and trumpets grew louder, then suddenly louder by far as the procession turned the corner and filed in through the outer palace gate. More trumpets within and the sound of shouting wafted over on the seaward breeze so that it was almost at hand.

'Before the light fades, I should like to show you the drawings I made of Kumai,' said Stephen. 'They are inept, they suffered much from the rain, particularly the outer leaves, but they may give you some notion of what I saw.'

'Oh please do,' cried Fox, his whole attitude changing. 'I long to see what you have brought down.'

'This is my attempt at the great figure which dominates the temple. The stone is a smooth light-grey fine-grained volcanic rock. The drawing gives no sense of its majestic serenity nor any of that feeling of far greater size than its actual twelve feet which is so strong when you stand before it. Nor can you easily see that the raised right hand has its palm facing outwards.'

'Oh, I can make out the hand very well. A capital drawing, Maturin; I am so grateful to you. This is the Buddha in the abhaya mudra attitude, signifying Fear not, all is well. Oh, such an omen! As far as I know, no other has ever been recorded in these parts.'

'Here are my paced-out plans; and this is what I call the narthex, where I slept. These are the particular carvings of a sculptured frieze where the narthex roof joins the main body. The marks show where the beams have impinged upon the frieze, obscuring it in places: obviously the carvings are earlier than the roof.'

'Oh yes,' said Fox, studying the pages with great attention, 'these are very early indeed. Perhaps earlier than anything I have ever seen in Malay country. Lord, what a discovery!'

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 Corn�e 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.

The coast in this part of Pub Prabang was much indented, and the fjord they were now entering had a companion beyond it. These deep narrow bays were separated by Cape Bughis, and in his chart Jack called this one East Bughis Inlet and the next West Bughis Inlet, although in the Diane it was called Frenchmen's Creek, since Ambelan, with the Corn�e in its harbour, lay on the eastern shore. The road from a number of fishing villages and little towns to Prabang followed the coast wherever it could, and it crossed the bottom of both these inlets: Jack's idea was to land far down in the first, walk along the shore to the road and so round to the western side of the next, from which he could view the Corn�e over the water. In spite of all his swimming he felt in need of a walk, and he was by no means disinclined to see how the French were coming along. He knew they were careening their ship, a perilous business on a coast with such considerable tides, and he wanted to see their progress, if only from a professional point of view. On its outward voyage the boat had crossed the mouth of West Bughis Inlet, but Jack had not sailed down it, though the wind was fair. He wished to avoid any sort of indiscretion that might have a bad effect on Fox's dealings with the Sultan; but it seemed to him that his behaviour could not be thought improper if, in the course of a walk, he looked at the Corn�e from the other side of the bay, particularly as French officers had often brought telescopes to peer at the Diane from Prabang. Then, having gazed his fill and taken a fresh set of bearings, he would walk on, crossing the next promontory to the farther strand, where, touching wood, he would find the boat hauled up and smoke rising from the evening fire.