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Updated: June 20, 2025
"Come aboard at once." The rowers at a word from Fuzl Khan shipped their oars, and the two vessels came together with a sharp thud. The serang in charge of the grab vaulted across the bulwarks and fell into the waiting arms of Fuzl Khan, who squeezed his throat, muttered a few fierce words in his ear, and handed him over to Gulam, who bundled him below.
"We are all brothers in misfortune; we ought to be as close knit as the strands of a rope. Here is our brother Fuzl Khan, the only man of his gang who did not try to escape, and see how he is treated! Could he be worse misused? Would not death be a boon? "Is it not so, Fuzl Khan?" The Gujarati assented with a passionate cry. "As for the rest of us, it is only a matter of time.
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?
At this rate they would be half an hour or more in reaching the three grabs anchored nearer the mouth of the harbor. The willing rowers on their benches could not know how slowly the vessel was moving, but it was painfully clear to Desmond at the helm; relative to the lights on shore the gallivat seemed scarcely to move at all. He called to Fuzl Khan, who left his oar and hurried aft.
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!
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.
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.
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.
When he came to the helm Fuzl Khan was alone: there was nothing to betray the fact that the plotters had, but little before, been gathered around him. The lookout, who had left his post to join the group, had returned forward, and was now being relieved, like the Gujarati himself. Desmond exchanged a word or two with the man, and was left alone at the wheel.
To locate a sound is always difficult; but, as far as Desmond could judge, the snores came from the neighborhood of the lantern and as from the floor. He stepped back again into complete darkness. The Gujarati was at his elbow. "Wait, Fuzl Khan," said Desmond in the lowest of whispers. "I must go in and see where the man is and how the cabin is arranged."
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