"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.