The Moghul

This tribe claims descent from the solar dynasty, which also began in the north. I think their genealogy goes back to the god Indra, who they claim brought them into being with the aid of the sun."
    Vasant Rao turned and continued reciting in Sanskrit. His face again became a mask.
    Hawksworth rubbed his head in confusion and suddenly felt a hard lump where the club had dropped. The fear began to well up in his stomach as he remembered the stony-faced riders who had surrounded him in the river. But he pushed aside thoughts of death.
    Dharma be damned. What did he mean, they're members of a clan descended from the "solar dynasty"? They're killers, looking for an excuse to plunder.
    I'm not planning to die like a Rajput just yet. Or be reborn as one. Life is too sweet just as it is. I'm beginning to feel alive here, for the first time ever. Shirin is free. I've got a feeling I'll be seeing her again. Whatever happens, I don't care to die in this piss hole, with empty talk about honor. Think.
    He remembered the river again, and quickly felt in his boot. The other pistol was still there.
    We'll find a way to get out. Somehow. We may just lose a few days' time, that's all. We made good time so far. Six days. We left on Sunday, and we've been here two days. So today is probably Monday.
    He suddenly froze.
    "Where are the carts?"
    "At the south end of the village. Where they have the chans , the cattle sheds. The drivers are there too."
    "Is my chest there?"
    "No. It's right there. Behind you." Vasant Rao pointed into the dark. "I told them it belonged to the Moghul, and they brought it here. I guess the Moghul still counts for something here. Maybe they're superstitious about him."
    Hawksworth pulled himself up and reached behind him. The chest was there. He fingered the cool metal of the lock and his mind began to clear even more. Quickly he began to search his jerkin for the key. Its pockets were empty.
    Of course. If I was tied over a horse it . . .
    Then he remembered. For safety he had transferred it to the pocket of his breeches the second day out. He felt down his leg, fighting the ache in his arm.
    Miraculously the key was still there.
    He tried to hold his excitement as he twisted it into the lock on the chest. Once, twice, and it clicked.
    He quickly checked the contents. Lute on top. Letter, still wrapped. Clothes. Then he felt deeper and touched the metal. Slowly he drew it out, holding his breath. It was still intact.
    The light from the lamp glanced off the burnished brass of the Persian astrolabe from the observatory. It had been Mukarrab Khan's parting gift.
    He carried it to the slatted window and carefully twisted each slat until the sun began to stream through.
    Thank God it's late in the year, when the sun's already lower at midday.
    He took a quick reading of the sun's elevation. It had not yet reached its zenith. He made a mental note of the reading and began to wait. Five minutes passed—they seemed hours—and he checked the elevation again. The sun was still climbing, but he knew it would soon reach its highest point.
    Vasant Rao continued to chant verses from the Bhagavad Gita in terse, toneless Sanskrit.
    He probably thinks I'm praying too, Hawksworth smiled to himself.
    The reading increased, then stayed the same, then began to decrease. The sun had passed its zenith, and he had the exact reading of its elevation.
    He mentally recorded the reading, then began to rummage in the bottom of the chest for the seaman's book he always carried with him.
    We left Surat on October twenty-fourth. So October twenty-fifth was Karod, the twenty-sixth was Viara, the twenty-seventh was Corka, the twenty-eighth was Narayanpur, the twenty-ninth was the river. Today has to be October thirty-first.
    The book was there, its pages still musty from the moist air at sea. He reached the page he wanted and ran his finger down a column of figures until he reached the one he had read off the astrolabe.
    From the reading the latitude here is 21 degrees and 20 minutes north.
    Then he began to search the chest for a sheaf of papers and finally his fingers closed around them, buried beneath his spare jerkin. He squinted in the half light as he went through the pages, the handwriting hurried from hasty work in the observatory. Finally he found what he wanted. He had copied it directly from the old Samarkand astronomer's calculations. The numerals were as bold as the day he had written them. The latitude was there, and the