The Moghul

the time he reached the gallery, the ladder had already been dropped into the longboat.
    And five seamen were waiting with half-pikes.
    "I'll send you to hell if you try loadin' that chest." Bosun's mate John Garway held his pike in Elkington's face. "We'll all not make it as 'tis."
    Then Thomas Davies, acting on the thought in every man's mind, thrust his pike through the lock hinge on the chest and wrenched it off with a single powerful twist. "Who needs the money more, say I, the bleedin' Worshipful Company, or a man who knows how to spend it?"
    In moments a dozen hands had ripped away the lid of the chest, and seamen began shoveling coins into their pockets. Elkington was pushed sprawling into the companionway. Other seamen ran to begin rifling the second chest. Silver spilled from their pockets as the men poured down the swaying ladder into the longboat. As Elkington fought his way back toward the stem, he took a long last look at the half-empty chests, then began stuffing the pockets of his own doublet.
    Mackintosh emerged from the Great Cabin holding the ship's log. As he waited for the last seaman to board the longboat, he too lightened the Resolve of a pocketful of silver.
    With all men on board the longboat's gunwales rode a scant three inches above waterline. Bailing began after the first wave washed over her. Then they hoisted sail and began to row for the dark shore.

    *
    "Tonight you may have been luckier than you suppose, Captain Hawksworth." The Shahbandar's fingers deftly counted the five sovereigns through the leather pouch Hawksworth had handed him. Around them the final side bets were being placed against the Portuguese captain who would play Mirza Nuruddin next.
    "It's hard to see how."
    "For the price of a mere five sovereigns, Captain, you've learned a truth some men fail to master in a lifetime." Mirza Nuruddin motioned away the Portuguese captain, his doublet stained with wine, who waited to take his place at the board. "I really must call the dancers now, lest some of my old friends lose regard for our hospitality. I hope you'll find them entertaining, Captain Hawksworth. If you've never seen the nautch , you've yet to call yourself a man."
    Hawksworth pulled himself up and thought about the river and slowly worked his way through the crowd to the edge of the marble court. The damp, chill air purged the torch smoke from his lungs and began to sweep away the haze of brandy from his brain. He stared into the dark and asked the winds if they knew of the Resolve .
    Could it all have been a trap? What if he'd told the Portugals, and they had warships waiting?
    Without warning, the slow, almost reverent strains of a sarangi, the Indian violin, stirred from the corner of the courtyard, and the crowd shifted expectantly. Hawksworth turned to notice that a carpeted platform had been erected directly in the center of the court, and as he watched, a group of women, perhaps twenty, slowly began to mount steps along its side. The torches had grown dim, but he could still see enough to tell they all wore the veil of purdah and long skirts over their trousers. As they moved chastely toward the center of the platform he thought they looked remarkably like village women going to a well, save they wore rows of tiny bells around their ankles and heavy bangles on their wrists.
    The air was rent by a burst of drumming, and the courtyard suddenly flared as servants threw oil on the smoldering torches around the balcony. At that instant, in a gesture of high drama, the women ripped away their turquoise veils and flung them skyward. The crowd erupted in a roar.
    Hawksworth stared at the women in astonishment.
    Their skirts, the skintight trousers beneath, and their short halters—were all gossamer, completely transparent.
    The dance was underway. Hips jerked spasmodically, in perfect time with the drummer's accelerating, hypnotic rhythms—arching now to the side, now suggestively forward. Hawksworth found himself exploring the dancers' mask-like faces, all heavily painted and expressionless. Then he watched their hands, which moved in sculptural arcs through a kind of sign language certain Indians in the crowd seemed to know. Other hand messages were understood by all, as the women stroked themselves intimately, in what seemed almost a parody of sensuality. As the rhythm continued to intensify, they begap to rip away their garments one by one, beginning with their parted waist wraps. Next their halters were