Whatever else you could say about Grazoot, you could not deny that he had a fine baritone. Green, listening to his voice rise from the deck far below, could vision the rise and fall and rise again of these people and could appreciate why they were so arrogant and close-fisted and suspicious and brave. Indeed, if he had been born on this planet, he could have wanted no finer, more romantic, gypsyish life than that of a sailor on a windroller. Provided, that is, that he could get plenty of sleep.

The boom of a cannon disturbed his reverie. He looked up just in time to see the ball appear at the end of its arc and flash by him, It was not enough to scare him, but watching it plow into the ground about twenty feet away from the starboard steering wheel made him realize what damage one lucky shot could do.

However, the Ving did not try again. He was a canny pirate who knew better than to throw away ammunition. Doubtless he was hoping to panic the merchantman into a frenzy of replies, powder-wasting and useless. Useless because the sun set just then and in a few minutes dusk was gone and darkness was all around them. Miran didn't even bother to tell his men to hold their fire, since they wouldn't have dreamed of touching off the cannon until he gave the word. Instead he repeated that no light should be shown and that the children must go below decks and must be kept quiet. No one was to make a noise. Then, casting one last glance at the positions of the pursuing craft, now rapidly dissolving into the night, he estimated the direction and strength of the wind. It was as it had been the day they set sail, an east wind dead astern, a good wind, pushing them along at eighteen miles an hour. Miran spoke in a soft voice to the first mate and the other officers, and they disappeared into the darkness shrouding the decks. They were giving prearranged orders, not by the customary bellowing through a megaphone but by low voices and touches. While they directed the crew, Miran stood with bare feet upon the foredeck. He held a half-crouching posture, and acted as if he were detecting the moves of the invisible sailors by the vibrations of their activities running through the wood of the decks and the spars and the masts and up to his feet. Miran was a fat nerve center that gathered in all the unspoken messages scattered everywhere through the body of the Bird. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and if he hesitated or doubted because of the solid blackness around him, he gave the helmsmen no sign. His voice was firm. «Hold it steady.»

«…six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Now! Swing her hard aport! Hold her, hold her!»

To Green, high up on the topmost spar of the foremast, the turning about seemed an awful and unnatural deed. He could feel the hull, and with it his mast, of course, leaning over and over, until his senses told him that they must inevitably capsize and send him crashing to the ground. But his senses lied, for though he seemed to fall forever, the time came when the journey back toward an upright position began. Then he was sure he would keep falling the other way, forever.

Suddenly the sails fluttered. The vessel had come into the dead spot where there was no wind acting upon her canvas. Then, as her original impetus kept her going, the canvas boomed, seeming to his straining and oversensitive ears like cannon firing. This time the wind was catching her from what was for her a completely unnatural direction, from dead ahead. As a result, the sails filled out backwards, and their middle portions pressed against the masts.

The 'roller came almost to a stop at once. The rigging groaned, and the masts themselves creaked loudly. Then they were bending backwards, while the sailors clinging to them in the darkness swore under their breaths and clamped down desperately on their handholds.

«Gods!» said Green. «What is he doing?»

«Quiet!» said a nearby man, the foretop-captain. «Miran is going to run her backwards.»

Green gasped. But he made no further comment, trying to visualize what a strange sight the Bird of Fortune must be, and wishing it were daylight so he could see her. He sympathized with the helmsmen, who had to act against their entire training. It was a bad enough strain for them to try to sail blindly between two vessels. But to roll in reverse! They would have to put the helm to port when their reflexes cried out to them to put it to starboard, and vice versa! And no doubt Miran was aware of this and was warning them about it every few seconds.

Green began to see what was happening. By now the Bird was rolling on her former course, but at a reduced rate because the sails, bellying against their masts, would not offer as much surface to the wind. Therefore, the Ving vessels would by now be almost upon them, since the merchant ship had also lost much ground in her maneuver. In one or two minutes the Ving would overtake them, would for a short while ride side by side with them, then would pass.

Provided, of course, that Miran had estimated correctly his speed and rate of curve in turning. Otherwise they might even now expect a crash from the foredeck as the bow of the Ving caught them.

«Oh, Booxotr,» prayed the foretop-captain. «Steer us right, else you lose your most devout worshiper, Miran.»

Booxotr, Green recalled, was the God of Madness.

Suddenly a hand gripped Green's shoulder. It was the captain of the foretop.

«Don't you see them!» he said softly. «They're a blacker black than the night.»

Green strained his eyes. Was it his imagination, or did he actually see something moving to his right? And another something, the hint of a hint, moving to his left?

Whatever it was, 'roller or illusion, Miran must have seen it also. His voice shattered the night into a thousand pieces, and it was never again the same.

«Cannoneers, fire!»

Suddenly it was as if fireflies had been in hiding and had swarmed out at his command. All along the rails little lights appeared. Green was startled, even though he knew that the punks had been concealed beneath baskets so that the Vings would have no warning at all.

Then the fireflies became long glowing worms, as the fuses took flame.

There was a great roar, and the ship rocked. Iron demons belched flame.

No sooner done than musketry broke out like a hot rash all over the ship. Green himself was part of this, blazing away at the vessel momentarily and dimly revealed by the light of the cannon fire.

Darkness fell, but silence was gone. The men cheered; the decks trembled as the big wooden trains holding the cannon were run back to the ports from which they'd recoiled. As for the pirates, there was no answering fire. Not at first. They must have been taken completely by surprise.

Miran shouted again; again the big guns roared.

Green, reloading his musket, found that he was bracing himself against a tendency to lean to the right. It was a few seconds before he could comprehend that the Bird was turning in that direction even though it was still going backwards.

«Why is he doing that?» he shouted.

«Fool, we can't roll up the sails, stop, then set sail again. We'd be right where we started, sailing backwards. We have to turn while we have momentum, and how better to do that than reverse our maneuver? We'll swing around until we're headed in our original direction.»

Green understood now. The Vings had passed them, therefore they were in no danger of collision with them. And they couldn't continue sailing backwards all night. The thing to do now would be to cut off at an angle so that at daybreak they'd be far from the pirates.

At that moment cannonfire broke out to their left. The men aboard the Bird refrained from cheering only because of Miran's threats to maroon them on the plain if they did anything to reveal their position. Nevertheless they all bared their teeth in silent laughter. Crafty old Miran had sprung his best trap. As he'd hoped, the two pirates, unaware that their attacker was now behind them, were shooting each other.