*
Arabella hauled herself down the rail to the after hatch, squeezing past two men armed with cutlasses against an anticipated boarding attempt, belowdecks to the magazine. There she relayed the captain’s order to the wan and trembling men in charge.
“This is the only one left,” said one of them, handing her a ball equipped with a ropy fuse. “Best make good use of it.”
“Aye, aye,” Arabella said, and took the precious, deadly thing, along with a charge of powder.
Recalling the nails and other wreckage in her path, Arabella realized she’d have to return via the upper deck. Tucking the ball under one arm and the charge under the other, she propelled herself with legs alone back up the after companionway and out into the light.
The scene here was little different than before—scrambling airmen below, smoke and wreckage above, the corsair still hidden from sight by the fallen yard—but even as she made her way forward she heard a repeated call of “Hold fast! Hold fast for maneuvers!”
She was just then passing the mainstays, thick diagonal ropes that held the mainmast in position, but with the ball and charge under her arms she had no hands free. At the last moment she reached out one foot, snagging the last stay and bringing herself to a sudden halt. Juggling her deadly cargo under one arm, she twined her legs and the other arm around the tense and heavy cable and held tight.
“Strike all starboard and larboard sails!” came the captain’s next command. “Strike mains’l! Sheet home main royals and t’gallants! Pulsers full ahead!”
All around topmen scrambled to obey. First the main-sail vanished, then with fierce and rapid action the sails far above snapped into position, bellying backward against Diana’s forward motion through the air. A deep thrum sounded through the stay to which Arabella clung, making her whole body vibrate, and the mainmast creaked alarmingly from the great pressure placed upon its upper reaches.
And then, with a mighty groan, the whole ship pivoted around the remaining sails of the upper mainmast.
The clouds above wheeled dizzyingly past. Arabella felt herself slide down the stay until her feet pressed against the deck with a force nearly as great as Earth’s accustomed gravity. The French ship rotated into view above Arabella, the crew staring back, astonished at Diana’s unprecedented maneuver.
In just a moment they would be in Diana’s line of fire. And Arabella held the explosive charge.
*
Arabella released her hold on the stay and began making her way forward. Pressed against the deck as she was by the ship’s rotation, it was almost like walking on a ship at sea—a pitching, yawing ship, under attack, on a heaving sea. Yet she knew she must reach the gun quickly or the whole perilous maneuver would be for naught.
Rushing from mast to rail to hatch, dodging flying spars that clattered against the deck in a flutter of silk, Arabella reached the forward companionway with the corsair not quite yet in the line of fire. She flung herself down the companionway and into the gun deck. “Explosive shot!” she shouted to Gowse, handing him the ball and charge. “Target the enemy’s magazine!”
Grimly he nodded, then began shouting to his crew to load and aim the gun—no easy task with the ship’s rotation still pressing them against the deck. Arabella hauled and sweated along with them, getting the charge well seated and the gun aligned to face the corsair, even now rotating into view.
Gowse peered out the gun-port, eyeballing the distance to the target. “Fifteen hundred feet?” he shouted, to which his second assented with a nod.
Carefully Gowse trimmed off six inches from the shell’s fuse, then lit the end with a slow-match. Even as it began to sputter sparks and smoke, he rammed the ball down the gun barrel, followed by a wad. “Run up, boys!” he called, and Arabella and the rest of the crew hauled on the ropes that snugged the gun tight against its port.
Now Gowse sighted carefully along the gun’s barrel, calling out instructions to haul it right or left, up or down. Exhausted though they were, Arabella and the crew obeyed.
Through the gun-port, they looked down upon the corsair’s deck, the leering upturned faces of her crew peering back with rude malevolence.
“Fire!” cried Gowse. His second brought the slow-match to the touch-hole.
With an almighty bang and a gout of smoke, the gun jerked back against its stays.
This time Arabella remained with the gun. Ears ringing, the tang of burnt powder on her tongue, she peered out the gun-port and through the smoke, hoping against hope.…
Just for a moment the smoke cleared, showing the still-sputtering ball as it crashed through the corsair’s deck, well aft.…