The Moghul

to a set of games. Only an adventurous few in the crowd would straddle their wagers and accept the long odds that the English captain would, or could, be so impractical as to defeat the man who must value and apply duty to his goods.
    "Did I tell you, Captain Hawksworth, that chaupar was favored by the Great Moghul, Akman?" The Shahbandar rattled the dice in the cup for a long moment. "There's a story, hundreds of years old, that once a ruler of India sent the game of chess, what we call chaturanga in India, to Persia as a challenge to their court. They in return sent chaupar to India." He paused dramatically. "It's a lie invented by a Persian."
    He led the explosion of laughter and threw the dice. A servant called the numbers and the laughter died as suddenly as it had come.
    "The Merciful Prophet's wives were serpent-tongued Bengalis."
    He had thrown three ones.
    A terrified servant moved the pieces while Mirza Nuruddin took a betel leaf from a tray and munched it sullenly. The crowd's tension was almost palpable.
    Hawksworth took the cup and swirled it again. He absently noted that the moon had emerged from the trees and was now directly overhead. The Shahbandar seemed to notice it as well.

    *
    Mackintosh watched as the last grains of red marble sand slipped through the two-foot-high hourglass by the binnacle and then he mechanically flipped it over. The moon now cast the shadow of the mainmast yard precisely across the waist of the ship, and the tide had begun to flow in rapidly. The men of the new watch were silently working their way up the shrouds.
    "Midnight. The tide's up. There's nae need to wait more." He turned to Captain Kerridge, who stood beside him on the quarterdeck of the Resolve . George Elkington stood directly behind Kerridge.
    "Let's get under sail." Elkington tapped out his pipe on the railing. Then he turned to Kerridge. "Did you remember to douse the stern lantern?"
    "I give the orders, Mr. Elkington. And you can save your questions for the pilot." Captain Jonathan Kerridge was a small, weasel-faced man with no chin and large bulging eyes. He signaled the Resolve ’s quartermaster and the anchor chain began to rattle slowly up the side. Then the mainsail dropped, hung slack for a moment, and bellied against the wind, sending a groan through the mast. They were underway. The only light on board was a small, shielded lantern by the binnacle, for reading the large boxed compass.
    The needle showed their course to be almost due south, toward the bar at the mouth of the Tapti. On their right was the empty bay and on their left the glimmer of occasional fires from the shoreline. The whipstaff had been taken by the Indian pilot, a wrinkled nut-brown man the Shahbandar had introduced as Ahmet. He spoke a smattering of Portuguese and had succeeded in explaining that he could reliably cover the eight-mile stretch south from Swalley to the unloading bar at the Tapti river mouth in one turn of the hourglass, if Allah willed. With high tide, he had also managed to explain, there were only two sandbars they would have to avoid.
    And there would be no hostiles abroad this night. Even the Portuguese trading frigates were safely at anchor off the river mouth, for this evening their captains had been honored by an invitation to attend the gathering at Mirza Nuruddin's estate.

    *
    "Your beginning has been impressive, Captain Hawksworth. But now you must still maintain your advantage." Mirza Nuruddin watched as Hawksworth threw a double five and a two, advancing two of his four pieces into the central square. The crowd groaned, coins began to change hands. "You have gained rasida for two pieces. I'll save time and concede this game. But we have six more to play. Chaupar is a bit like life. It favors those with endurance."
    As the board was cleared for the next game, Mirza Nuruddin rose and strode to the end of the court. The wind was coming up now, as it always did on this monthly night of full moon and tide, sweeping up the river bringing the fresh salt air of the sea. And the currents would be shifting along the coast, as sandbars one by one were submerged by the incoming tide. He barked an inconsequential order to a hovering servant and then made his way back to the board, his guests parting automatically before him. The drinking crowd had already begun to turn boisterous, impatient for the appearance of the women. As always, the nautch girls would remain for additional entertainment after their dance, in