"Give the Portugals time, Mackintosh, and you'll see their second fatal mistake. The first was overheating the cannon on their upper decks. The second will be to short-hand their crews. They're out of cannon range now, so they'll launch longboats, and assign half the watch as oarsmen. Here, take the glass. Tell me what you see." Mackintosh studied the shallows with the telescope, while a smile slowly grew on his hard face. "I'm a motherless Dutchman. An' there's a king's guard o' Portugal musketmen loadin' in. Wearin' their damn'd silver helmets." They haven't changed in thirty years, Hawksworth smiled to himself. The Portugals still think their infantry is too dignified to row, so they assign their crews to the oars and leave their warships shorthanded. But they won't find it easy to board the _Resolve_ from longboats. Not with English musketmen in her maintop. And that should give us just enough time. . . . "Are all the longboats out yet, Mackintosh?" "Aye, sir." The quartermaster steadied the glass against the roll of the ship. "And making for the _Resolve _like they was runnin' from hell itself." "Then bear full sail. Two points to windward of the bastard on the left. Full press, and hoist the spritsail. Keep the wind and pay her room till we're in range." With an exultant whoop Mackintosh jabbed the sweat-soaked telescope toward Hawksworth, and began bellowing orders to the mates. Within moments sails unfurled and snapped in the wind, sending the _Discovery_'s bow biting into the chop and hurtling spray over the bulwarks. Hawksworth kept to the quarterdeck, studying the nearest warship with the glass. The galleon's forecastle towered above the horizon now like some Gothic fortress, and with the glass he could make out pennants blazoned from all her yardarms. Then he turned toward the Indian pilot, whose gaze was riveted on the Portuguese warships. "What's the name of the galleon on the left, the large one?" Hawksworth pointed toward the vessel he had been observing with the glass. "I can't read it from this distance." "That one is the _Bon Ventura_. We know her to be heavily armed." "I'd say she's over a thousand tons burden. I wonder how handy she'll be with her best men out in the longboats?" "She'll meet you soon enough, with her full bounty. It is said that last year she caught and sank a twenty-gun Dutch frigate trading in the Moluccas." "She'll still have to come about into the wind." Hawksworth seemed not to hear the pilot now, so absorbed was he in the looming battle.