by M. M. Kaye
The Virago should have reached the Seychelles by now, and The Dolphins’ House would be empty except for the caretaker and a handful of elderly servants who had been there too long to wish to leave, and who would wait hopefully for his return. Perhaps some day Amrah would come back and take possession of it Unless Batty took her to England with him, and they settled there in some grey and grimy house near the Pool of London, where the sight of ships would remind the old man of other days, and Amrah would forget Zorah and Zanzibar, and the renegade slave trader who had been her father.
A week of clear skies and fierce sunlight was succeeded by five days in which the Trade Wind drove belt after belt of rain clouds across the Island, and the courtyard of the Fort became a muddy lake in which frogs croaked and the refuse of the choked gutters drifted as flotsam. The walls and the floor of Rory’s cell ran with moisture, but there was little change in the temperature, and the humidity of the rains was less bearable than the dry heat of the sun-scorched days had been. The food turned mouldy and toadstools and fungus flourished in the cracks between the stones, and the mosquitoes were reinforced by fluttering, crawling hordes of flying ants.
Two more days, thought Rory; staring out at the driving torrent that obscured what little he could see of the courtyard. If the Cormorant was on time she should reach the Island on the seventeenth, and this, unless he had miscalculated, was the fifteenth. But the date of her arrival was an arbitrary one and a dozen things might delay her; wind and weather, the capture or pursuit of a slaver, the necessity of embarking rescued slaves and convoying captured dhows, accidents in the engine room or sickness among the crew. The Cormorant might arrive a week or a month late, and unless the situation in the city was causing anxiety, Colonel Edwards could hardly expect to keep the Daffodil hanging about at Zanzibar and neglecting her patrolling duties for much longer. Dan would have to take himself off soon, and he would presumably toke Rory with him. Cormorant or Daffodil, it could not be long now. Two days—three-four?
But the seventeenth came and went And the nineteenth and the twentieth. And still there was no sign from Dan or Colonel Edwards.
The rain ceased and the sun blazed down from a sky temporarily free of clouds, drying out the mud and the moisture and drawing an abominable stench from the steaming city. But in the reek that filled Rory’s cell the evil odours of the city went unnoticed, for the half-wit youth had not been near him for three days and no one else had taken over the boy’s duties. Limbili, appealed to on this score, showed his teeth in an unpleasant grin and made an obscene and impractical suggestion, and for a moment Rory was sorely tempted to smash his fist into the grinning face. But behind Limbili stood the Nubian mute; vast, unwinking and watchful, one finger crooked about the trigger of the ugly old-fashioned blunderbuss with which, at that range, he could not have missed.
The Nubian’s unnaturally small head might betoken a certain lack of intelligence, but once he had accepted an idea he would retain it; and although he had been told that the prisoner was merely serving a temporary sentence and must eventually be handed over alive and in good health to his own people, Limbili had taken pains to impress upon him that should the white man show any signs of violence or make the smallest move to escape, he was to be shot without mercy; though not through the head or the heart, for that was too good and quick a death: besides, he might miss. The stomach was a better target.
It was a pleasing prospect, but the white man had been disappointingly passive, and even Limbili’s cleverest insults had so far failed to rouse him to anger. And now, yet again, it seemed that he was either too poor-spirited or too cunning to display resentment, though the present provocation should surely have been sufficient to goad any right-thinking man into hitting out blindly and without regard to the consequences.
Rory saw the man’s thoughts reflected clearly on his sneering face and was glad that he had not given way to that sudden savage impulse, for he had long been aware that Limbili resented the fact that his stay in the Fort was not likely to be prolonged, and would welcome an excuse to ensure that he did not leave it alive.
He let his hands relax, and because he knew that to pretend not to understand the insult would only lead to its repetition, forced himself to smile broadly as though in appreciation of a coarse jest. It was a response that Limbili found difficult to deal with and that usually drove him to glowering silence. But today the prisoner’s refusal to rise to the bait had file unexpected effect of sending him into a sudden and entirely im-expected rage, and he began to shout abuse and obscenities in a hoarse, cracked voice, his lean body shaking with fury and his yellow eyeballs starting from his head.
Rory backed away against the far wall out of reach of the clawing, threatening hands, wondering if the man was going to have a fit and what he could do if he were attacked. Even the Nubian, who had begun by grinning in appreciation of Limbili’s picturesque lewdness, grew apprehensive at the spectacle of that frenzied rage, and fearing that the noise would attract the attention of the Baluchi guard, plucked at the negro’s arm and made soothing croaking sounds.
Limbili turned on him and struck his hand away, and taken by surprise the Nubian took a quick step backwards, stumbled, and dropped the blunderbuss, which flew out of his hand and fell with a clatter onto the flags of the verandah. A look of ludicrous dismay contorted his ebony face, and for a moment he hesitated, torn between retrieving the weapon and leaving Limbili alone and undefended with the white man. Then he lunged forward, and gripping the raging negro about the body, dragged him out backwards in one violent heave and slammed the cell door shut behind him.
Rory heard the sound of a brief, panting struggle and a stream of invective, and when at last their footsteps retreated he sat down on the narrow bed feeling oddly unnerved. After a moment or two he reached for the mug of tepid water that Limbili had brought, and drank deeply—and unwisely, for the day had been dry and cruelly hot and the night promised to be no cooler, and he knew that he would get nothing more to drink until the morning. That meagre mug of water which he had all but drained must be made to last through the night, for the liquid in the grimy earthenware bowl that served him as a wash-basin had been foul enough when the boy had brought it three days ago, and by now evaporation had reduced it to a few inches of evil-smelling slime.
But it seemed that Limbili intended to teach him a lesson, because the next day no one came near the cell, and neither food nor drink was brought to him. By the time the last gleam of sunlight left the battlements and the courtyard began to fill with shadows, he realized that he was to be given nothing that day, and his thirst having grown to a raging torment, he assuaged it, nauseously, with the soap-slimed dregs in the wash-bowl. But the relief it brought to his parched throat was only temporary, and when night fell his thirst kept him from sleep, and he leant against the door with his face pressed to the grille in an attempt to breathe fresher air, and in the hope—only a very faint one now—of seeing Limbili approach with the water jar.
The air outside was as foul as that within, and no cooler; and for once there was no sound of voices from the courtyard or the guardrooms, and the Fort seemed strangely silent. So silent that Rory caught himself listening for the familiar asthmatic breathing of the Nubian, who should have been on guard outside his door. But tonight the man had not come and there was no one on guard: and no loiterers in the courtyard.
The starlight appeared very bright in comparison with the pitch-dark cell and the dense shadows under the arches of the verandah, and staring out into it Rory’s attention was caught by a slight movement at the far edge of the small grey strip that was all he could see of the courtyard. A moment later something flitted across the strip and vanished out of his range of vision.
It had been too large for a cat, and must be some hungry pariah dog, scavenging for scraps. The city was full of masterless dogs; half-starved, cringing, flea-ridden creatures who slunk hopefully from rubbish heap to rubbish heap, feeding on refuse and quarrelling noisily over a bone or
the corpse of a dead kitten. But they had learned not to approach the gates of the Fort too closely, because the garrison would often fire at them for sport or to test their marksmanship, and it was surprising to see one inside the courtyard.
Rory supposed that the sentry on duty that night must have fallen asleep at his post, and that a venturesome pariah, lured by the smell of garbage, had slunk past him in search of food: and not only one pariah, but several, for once again his eye caught a flicker of movement across the starlit strip of open ground. Listening, he could hear the light patter of paws on the hot stone of the verandahs, and a soft chorus of snuffling, panting sounds. There must, he thought, be at least a dozen dogs in the courtyard, and that meant that the gate was open and unguarded.
Somewhere on the far side of the courtyard a dog growled and was answered by a snarl and a snap, and there followed a short, savage scuffle that terminated in an anguished yelping that awoke the echoes under the dark arches. Rory waited for the crash of a musket and voices shouting curses at the dogs and calling on the sentry to turn them out. But they did not come, and in the silence that followed the brief explosion of animal sounds the furtive pattering began again: only now it was less furtive, and soon it became quicker and bolder. He could hear impatient claws scratching at closed doors and eager noses snuffling hungrily under thresholds, and presently the growling started again and the darkness at the far side of the courtyard was filled with scuffling shadows and the snarling and worrying of dogs who fought over food.
The ugly sounds went on and on, but no one heeded them and no one woke. And quite suddenly Rory knew that there was no one left to—
He should have realized it before. Long before, if heat and thirst and hunger and the foul state of his cell had not numbed him to anything but physical discomfort. And now if he needed further confirmation, he got it, for a breath of the night wind, blowing in unchecked through the open gate, swung wide the heavy iron-bound outer door and brought with it a whiff of something oily, loathsome and unmistakable. A smell that had permeated the city for over a week and would soon permeate the Fort, and that he would have noticed and recognized long ago had it not been effectively hidden from him by the stench of his own cell.
There were dead men in the city. Too many to allow for the bodies to be properly buried; and the night wind that so often carried the scent of cloves and spices to approaching ships was carrying the scent of those bodies out to sea: a warning to all humans to keep their distance, and an invitation to all eaters of carrion to gather for the feast.
So the cholera had not been checked! thought Rory: it had taken hold as he had warned Dan and the Colonel that it would. Perhaps they had even taken advantage of his offer and shipped Mrs Hollis and her niece and daughter on board the Virago while there was still time—though recalling Dan’s scathing comments on the subject he doubted it! But then Dan was in love with Cressida Hollis, and so he might well have thought better of it once his rage had cooled and he had had time to discover the truth of that “cock-and-bull story about cholera’. But there would have been very little time, for Ralub would not have delayed. He would have taken the Virago out within a matter of hours, and there was no other ship on which it would have been safe to send the women away, for the crews of the Sultan’s own ships lived with their families in the town, and the chances of the cholera breaking out among them would be too great. Perhaps Dan himself had taken them off on the Daffodil? He might well have done so, since once the deadliness of the outbreak was realized, the men from die consulates and the European trading firms would have taken prompt measures to get their families out of the Island, and the Daffodil would have been the only ship in harbour that could be trusted to transport them in safety. They had probably all left long ago…
The thought brought a grim flicker of amusement to Rory’s haggard, unshaven face. How Dan must have hated leaving without him! But there was little enough space to spare on the Daffodil, and they could hardly ship a dangerous prisoner along with a crowd of agitated women and squalling children, and the mounds of baggage, extra stores and personal attendants they would require to take with them. Dan would have had to deny himself the pleasure of handing Captain Emory Frost over to justice with his own hands, and content himself with the knowledge that the Commander of the Cormorant would do so in his stead. Unless the Cormorant had been warned to steer clear of Zanzibar until the epidemic had burned itself out; which might take months.
Now that the cholera had taken firm hold, there would be no way of controlling it. And no way of avoiding it: not even, at this date, by flight It would board every dhow that put out from the Island, and travel with the panic-stricken passengers, striking them down at sea with the same speed and ferocity as it struck others in the crowded hovels of the Black Town—or in the cells and guardrooms of Zanzibar Fort! For the cholera was here too, and Rory wondered tiredly why it should have taken a pack of scavenging dogs to tell him what should have been plain to him for the last three days at least This, of course, explained why his cell had been left uncleaned and why there had been no food or water that day. The boy whose task it was to empty that noisome bucket had probably died on the day that he first failed to appear, and now Limbili too was dead—unless he had taken flight and run away.
The night wind and the pariah dogs made it plain that there were dead men inside the Fort as well as in the city, and the silence and the im-guarded gate meant that the living had abandoned their posts and fled in panic. But there would be other prisoners. They could not all be dead! Or had the frightened garrison released them before they fled, expecting that Limbili or the Nubian would do the same for him? This last was somehow more unpleasant to contemplate than the thought that they might all be dead, and Rory did not want to believe it. But an ice-cold and entirely unfamiliar shiver crawled down his spine, and he knew that for the first time in years he was afraid—coldly and terribly afraid—and gripping the bars of the grille he shouted aloud.
His voice echoed eerily round the starlit courtyard and startled the quarrelling dogs into sudden silence. But no voice answered him, and something in the quality of that echo rather than in the silence that followed it, spoke of emptiness, and confirmed his first swift conviction that there was no one in the Fort. No one but the pariah dogs and the dead—and Emory Tyson Frost, slave trader, black sheep and blackguard, who would soon be dead too: if not from the cholera, then less mercifully from thirst and starvation, for he was locked in and alone and there was neither food nor water in the narrow, stifling cell. And no one left alive to bring him either.
For a timeless interval the fear that gripped him gave place to a crippling panic that made him fling himself at the door, bruising himself against the unyielding wood with the blind frenzy of a trapped animal attacking the bars of its cage. It passed, and sanity returned to him, and he groped in the darkness for the edge of the hard plank bed, and subsiding on it, put his head in his hands and forced himself to face the situation calmly…
There was no reason to suppose that morning would not bring some of the garrison back to the Fort. If not to bury their dead, at least to remove such property as they might have left behind them when they fled. And even if the garrison did not return there would be looters, for death and disaster bred looters as surely as carrion bred maggots, and the deserted Fort with its gate swinging open on the wind would be an invitation to more than the pariah dogs of the city. Sooner or later someone would come: and even if they did not, it might only mean the difference between a slow death in the next day or two, and a quick one later on at the hands of a public hangman. The best he could hope for was a long term of imprisonment in some jail that could turn out to be a deal worse than this one, and after a few years of that he might well find himself regretting that he had not drawn the harsher sentence.
It was a reflection that consoled him, because even now, when his parched throat and swollen tongue were already providing an ugly foretaste of the torment that lay ahead, the immediate prospect o
f dying from thirst seemed preferable to spending the next twenty years, or possibly the rest of his life, locked in a cell. Given the choice he would still probably settle for the former—if there was such a thing as choice, which according to Hajji Ralub’s philosophy, there was not Ralub and the majority of the Virago’s crew believed implicitly that a man’s fate was tied about his neck and that he could not avoid it: ‘What is written, is written.’ It was in many ways a comfortable philosophy, and there were times when Rory regretted that he could not subscribe to it. But in general he regretted very little.
Against the background of the dark a score of disconnected incidents from his past life rose up before him, and it was as though, standing on the crest of a ridge, he turned to look back at a road he had travelled along. A long road that dipped into dark valleys and climbed out again on plateaus and hill crests, but that seen from this vantage point gave the appearance of being a joyous and unbroken line.
He knew that the continuity of that line was an illusion, and that the valleys were there, for he had plodded through them. But now they lay below the level of his vision and were unimportant, and it was only the mountain tops that he saw, joined together by distance and bathed in retrospective sunlight. Life might have dealt him an indifferent hand but he had played it recklessly and to his own advantage, and enjoyed every move in the game!…The successes and the failures, the bad times and the good…Excitement and danger and the sights and sounds and fights in strange ports and forgotten cities…The late great Sultan, and his amiable weakling son, Majid. Batty and Ralub. Dan Larrimore and Clayton Mayo. Jumah and Hadir, Zorah—
Rory lifted his head and stared into the darkness trying to picture Zorah’s face, and found that he could not do so. All that he could recall was a catalogue of features and colouring, but they would not come alive. Yet she had lived in his house for years, loved him and been his mistress, and borne him a child: Amrah. He straightened his shoulders, and leaning back until his head rested against the wall, shut his eyes and thought about his daughter.