A low-pitched hum swallowed the sudden silence, as volleys of bamboo arrows sang from the darkness of the shore. Measured, deadly. Hawksworth watched in disbelief as one by one the Portuguese soldiers around them crumpled, a few firing wildly into the night. In what seemed only moments it was over, the air a cacophony of screams and moaning death. Hawksworth turned to Karim, noting fright in the pilot's eyes for the very first time. "The arrows." He finally found his voice. "Whose are they?" "I can probably tell you." The pilot stepped forward and deftly broke away the feathered tip on one of the shafts still holding the Portuguese to the mast. As he did so, the other arrows snapped and the Portuguese slumped against the gunwale, then slipped over the side and into the dark water. Karim watched him disappear, then raised the arrow to the moonlight. For an instant Hawksworth thought he saw a quizzical look enter the pilot's eyes. Before he could speak, lines of fire shot across the surface of the water, as fire arrows came, slamming into the longboats as they drifted away on the tide. Streak after streak found the hulls and in moments they were torches. In the flickering light, Hawksworth could make out what seemed to be grapples, flashing from the shore, pulling the floating bodies of the dead and dying to anonymity. He watched spellbound for a moment, then turned again toward the stern. "Karim, I asked whose arrows . . ." The pilot was gone. Only the English seamen remained, dazed and uncomprehending. Then the night fell suddenly silent once more, save for the slap of the running tide against the hull. BOOK TWO SURAT-- THE THRESHOLD CHAPTER FIVE The room was musty and close, as though the rainy season had not passed, and the floor was hard mud. Through crude wooden shutters they could glimpse the early sun stoking anew for the day's inferno, but now it merely washed the earthen walls in stripes of golden light. Hawksworth stood by the window examining the grassy square that spanned out toward the river. The porters, in whose lodge they were confined, milled about the open area, chanting and sweating as they unloaded large bales of cotton from the two-wheeled bullock carts that continually rolled into the square. He steadied himself against the heavy wooden frame of the window and wondered if his land legs would return before the day was out. "God curse all Moors." Mackintosh stooped over the tray resting on the grease-smudged center carpet and pulled a lid from one of the earthen bowls. He stared critically at the dense, milky liquid inside, then gingerly dipped in a finger and took a portion to his lips. He tested the substance--tangy curds smelling faintly of spice--and his face hardened. "Tis damned spoilt milk." He spat fiercely onto the carpet and seized a piece of fried bread to purge the taste. "Fitter for swine than men."