Hawksworth groped blindly for his sword and watched as the third soldier poised for a mortal sweep. Where is it?
Suddenly he felt a cold metal object pressed against his hand, and above the din he caught Humphrey Spencer's high-pitched voice, urging. It was a pocket pistol.
As the Portuguese soldier began his swing, Hawksworth raised the pistol and squeezed. There was a dull snap, a hiss, and then a blaze that melted the soldier's face into red.
He flung the pistol aside and seized the dying Portuguese's sword. He was armed again, but there was little advantage left. Slowly the English were crowded into a huddle of the stern. Cornered, abaft the mast, they no longer had room to parry. Hawksworth watched in horror as a burly Portuguese, his silver helmet askew, braced himself against the mast and drew back his sword to send a swath through the English. Hawksworth tried to set a parry, but his arms were pinned.
He'll kill half the men. The bastard will . . .
A bemused expression unexpectedly illuminated the soldier's face, a smile with no mirth. In an instant it transmuted to disbelief, while his raised sword clattered to the planking. As Hawksworth watched, the Portuguese's hand began to work mechanically at his chest. Then his helmet tumbled away, and he slumped forward, motionless but still erect. He stood limp, head cocked sideways, as though distracted during prayer.
Why doesn't he move? Was this all some bizarre, senseless jest?
Then Hawksworth saw the arrows. A neat row of thin bamboo shafts had pierced the soldier's Portuguese armor, riveting him to the mast.
A low-pitched hum swallowed the sudden silence, as volleys of bamboo arrows sang from the darkness of the shore. Measured, deadly. Hawksworth watched in disbelief as one by one the Portuguese soldiers around them crumpled, a few firing wildly into the night. In what seemed only moments it was over, the air a cacophony of screams and moaning death.
Hawksworth turned to Karim, noting fright in the pilot's eyes for the very first time.
"The arrows." He finally found his voice. "Whose are they?"
"I can probably tell you." The pilot stepped forward and deftly broke away the feathered tip on one of the shafts still holding the Portuguese to the mast. As he did so, the other arrows snapped and the Portuguese slumped against the gunwale, then slipped over the side and into the dark water. Karim watched him disappear, then raised the arrow to the moonlight. For an instant Hawksworth thought he saw a quizzical look enter the pilot's eyes.