Ferriera laughed contemptuously. "We've twenty cannon aboard! They've none! You think that filthy heathen pig boat would dare to try to attack us? You're simple in the head!"
"Yes, Captain-General, that's why I've still got one. The Santa Theresa's ordered to sea!"
The sails were crackling out of their ropes and the wind took them, the spars grinding. Both watches were on deck at battle stations. The frigate began to make way but her going was slow. "Come on, you bitch," Rodrigues urged.
"We're ready, Don Ferriera," the chief gunner said. "I've got her in my sights. I can't hold her for long. Which is this Toranaga? Point him out!"
There were no flares aboard the galley; the only illumination came from the moonlight. The galley was still astern, a hundred yards off, but turned to port now and headed for the far shore, the oars dipping and falling in unbroken rhythm. "Is that the pilot? The tall man on the quarterdeck?"
"Yes," Rodrigues said.
"Manuel and Perdito! Take him and the quarterdeck!" The cannon nearest made slight adjustments. "Which is this Toranaga? Quickly! Helmsmen, two points to starboard!"
"Two points to starboard it is, Gunner!"
Conscious of the sanding bottom and the shoals nearby, Rodrigues was watching the shrouds, ready at any second to override the chief gunner, who by custom had the con on a stern cannonade. "Ho, port maindeck cannon!" the gunner shouted. "Once we've fired we'll let her fall off the wind. Drop all gun ports, prepare for a. broadside!" The gun crews obeyed, their eyes going to the officers on the quarterdeck. And the priests. "For the love of God, Don Ferriera, which is this Toranaga?"
"Which is he, Father?" Ferriera had never seen him before.
Rodrigues had recognized Toranaga clearly on the foredeck in a ring of samurai, but he did not want to be the one to put the mark on him. Let the priests do that, he thought. Go on, Father, play the Judas. Why should we always do all the pox-foul work, not that I care a chipped doubloon for that heathen son of a whore.
Both priests were silent.
"Quick, which would Toranaga be?" the gunner asked again.
Impatiently Rodrigues pointed him out. "There, on the poop. The short, thickset bastard in the middle of those other heathen bastards."
"I see him, Senhor Pilot."
The gun crews made last slight adjustments.
Ferriera took the taper out of the gunner's mate's hand.
"Are you trained on the heretic?"
"Yes, Captain-General, are you ready? I'll drop my hand. That's the signal!"
"Good."
"Thou shalt not kill!" It was dell'Aqua.
Ferriera whirled on him. "They're heathens and heretics!"
"There are Christians among them and even if there weren't-"
"Pay no attention to him, Gunner!" the Captain-General snarled. "We fire when you're ready!"
Dell'Aqua went forward to the muzzle of the cannon and stood in the way. His bulk dominated the quarterdeck and the armed sailors that lay in ambush. His hand was on the crucifix. "I say, Thou shalt not kill!"
"We kill all the time, Father," Ferriera said.
"I know, and I'm ashamed of it and I beg God's forgiveness for it." Dell'Aqua had never before been on the quarterdeck of a fighting ship with primed guns, and muskets, and fingers on triggers, readying for death. "While I'm here there'll be no killing and I'll not condone killing from ambush!"
"And if they attack us? Try to take the ship?"
"I will beg God to assist us against them!"
"What's the difference, now or later?"
Dell'Aqua did not answer. Thou shalt not kill, he thought, and Toranaga has promised everything, Ishido nothing.
"What's it to be, Captain-General? Now's the time!" the master gunner cried. "Now!"
Ferriera bitterly turned his back on the priests, threw down the taper and went to the rail. "Get ready to repel an attack," he shouted. "If she comes within fifty yards uninvited, you're all ordered to blow her to hell whatever the priests say!"
Rodrigues was equally enraged but he knew that he was as helpless as the Captain-General against the priest. Thou shalt not kill? By the blessed Lord Jesus, what about you? he wanted to shout. What about the auto da fe? What about the Inquisition? What about you priests who pronounce the sentence "guilty" or "witch" or "satanist" or "heretic"? Remember the two thousand witches burned in Portugal alone, the year I sailed for Asia? What about almost every village and town in Portugal and Spain, and the dominions visited and investigated by the Scourges of God, as the cowled Inquisitors proudly called themselves, the smell of burning flesh in their wake? Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, protect us!
