A Hero for Leanda

keep close in. And when you’re ready to come back, use the rudder. It’s the only way to climb up.”
    She still looked disappointed, but she didn’t say anything more. Conway watched them dive in. Then he fetched the shotgun from the forecabin and mounted guard on the coach roof, his eyes alert for the first sign of a black fin. But nothing appeared. For ten minutes the swimmers circled the ship, laughing and splashing and calling to Conway that he was missing the swim of his life. Then he helped to haul them aboard and they went below to change. Conway sat down under the awning. He could still hear them talking and laughing. Suddenly, music filled the ship, as someone switched on the radio. Conway stirred restlessly. The music continued. After it had been going for some time, he called out, “Leanda!”
    She came to the cabin door.
    “Better switch that thing off,” he said.
    She nodded, and went back into the saloon. In a moment, Kastella’s head appeared. “Surely we can have a little music?” he said.
    “I’m afraid not. I don’t want to run the battery down .“
    “It seems well charged,” Kastella said.
    “It needs to be. If that battery goes flat I shan’t be able to check the chronometer. If I can’t check the chronometer I shan’t be able to fix our position.”
    “All right—I’ll turn it off when the program stops.” Conway scrambled to his feet. “You’ll turn it off now!” he said. For a moment, the two men faced each other. Kastella, three stone heavier and two inches taller, was arrogantly calm. Conway ’s fists were clenched in the recklessness of pent-up anger. Then the music stopped, as Leanda turned the switch.
    Kastella said, “Aren’t you rather forgetting yourself, Conway?”
    “What the hell do you mean by that?”
    “May I remind you that you’re a hired man—and that you’re being paid to take me to Africa , not to give me orders. I don’t take orders from anyone—least of all from you.”
    Leanda, pale and distressed, said, “Alex— please !”
    Conway took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “I guess this is the showdown. Now let me tell you something, Kastella. You may be an emperor in your own estimation, but you’re not in mine. To me, you’re just a fugitive, and a pretty useless one. I’m the master of this ship, and in everything that concerns the ship you will take my orders. What’s more, you’ll jump to it. Otherwise...”
    Kastella said softly, “Otherwise what, Mr. Conway?”
    “Otherwise you can bloody well sail yourself to Africa,” Conway said. “And that I mean.”

    It was Leanda who acted as peacemaker. For an hour she was with Kastella in the forecabin. Then, just before dusk, she came out to Conway in the cockpit and sat down beside him.
    “Mike, I want to talk to you.”
    “That’s a nice change,” he said.
    “Mike, please don’t be silly. Kastella’s sorry about—all that.”
    “So he damn well should be.”
    “I dare say, but you must try to understand him. He isn’t used to taking orders, he’s used to giving them. I know he seems interfering and overbearing, but you’ve got to make some allowances. He’s not an ordinary man—he’s really a very great man.”
    “You don’t have to interpret him to me,” Conway said. “I can see very well what he is—and he doesn’t seem great to me.... Damn it, Leanda, any fool should know that you can’t have divided command in a ship.”
    “Of course you can’t, and he admits it.”
    “Naturally he admits it now—because he knows he can’t get to Africa without me.”
    “It’s not only that—he really does admit it. But you made him angry, because of the way you spoke to him. You have been short-tempered, you know, ever since we started this trip back. You must agree that most of the disputes have been over very trifling things.”
    “Okay,” Conway said, “I’m bad-tempered.”
    “You’re not, really, but it’s hot, and Kastella’s difficult, and you don’t like three in a ship.”
    “I don’t when you concentrate on one to the exclusion of the other.”
    “Oh, Mike, I try not to—honestly, I do. But Kastella and I have so much in common—so many things to talk about. He’s been telling me all about his plans for Spyros—he talks wonderfully—it’s tremendously exciting for me. It’s just as though everything I’ve worked for was going to come true. You can’t imagine what it’s like....”
    “If you talked in English,” Conway