As the _Discovery_ lay hove to, biding time, the _Resolve_ cut directly down the leeward side of the galleons, laboring under full press of sail, masts straining against the load. The Indian pilot watched the frigate in growing astonishment, then turned to Hawksworth. "Your English frigates may be swift, but your English strategy is unworthy of a common _mahout_, who commands an old she-elephant with greater cunning. Your sister frigate has now forfeited the windward position. Why give over your only advantage?" Even as he spoke the four Portuguese warships, caught beating to windward, began to shorten sail and pay off to leeward to intercept the _Resolve_, their bows slowly crossing the wind as they turned. "I've made a gamble, something a Portugal would never do," Hawksworth replied. "And now I have to do something no Englishman would ever do. Unless outgunned and forced to." Before the pilot could respond, Hawksworth was gone, heading for the gun deck. The ring of his boots on the oak ladder leading to the lower deck was lost in the grind of wooden trucks, as seamen threw their weight against the heavy ropes and tackles, slowly hauling out the guns. The _Discovery_ was armed with two rows of truck-mounted cast-iron culverin, and she had sailed with twenty-two barrels of powder and almost four hundred round shot. Hawksworth had also stowed a supply of crossbar shot and deadly langrel--thin casings filled with iron fragments--for use against enemy rigging and sail at close quarters. Shafts of dusty light from the gunports and overhead scuttles relieved the lantern-lit gloom, illuminating the massive beams supporting the decks above. Sleeping hammocks were lashed away, but the space was airless, already sultry from the morning sun, and the rancid tang of sweat mixed with fresh saltpeter from the gunpowder caught in Hawksworth's mouth, bittersweet. He walked down the deck, alert to the details that could spell victory or loss. First he checked the wooden tubs of vinegared urine and the long swabs stationed between the cannon, used for cleaning burning fragments of metal from the smoking barrels after each round. Fail to swab a barrel and there could be an unplanned detonation when the next powder charge was tamped into place. Then he counted the budge-barrels of powder, now swathed in water-soaked blankets to fend off sparks, and watched as Edward Malloyre, the man some called the best master gunner in England, inspected each cannon's touchhole as its lead plate was removed, assuring himself it had not corroded from the gases expelled during their last gunnery practice, in the Mozambique Channel. "Master Malloyre."