Nevertheless discipline was somewhat relaxed for a time. The pets and children were allowed to come up, and meals were prepared by the women. Even when the swifter craft came close enough so that the color of the sails was seen to be scarlet, thereby confirming their suspicions of the strangers' identity, battle stations weren't recalled. Miran estimated that by the time the Vings were within cannon range night would fall.
"That is what they hate and what we love," he said, pacing back and forth, fingering his nose ring and blinking nervously his one good eye. "It'll be an hour before the big moon comes up. Not only that, it looks as though clouds may arise. See!" he cried to the first mate. "By Mennirox, is that not a wisp I detect in the northeast quarter?"
"By all the gods, I believe it is!" said the mate, peering upward, seeing nothing but clear sky, but hoping that wishing would make the clouds come true.
"Ah, Mennirox is good to his favorite worshiper!" said Miran. "He that loves thee shall profit, Book of the True Gods, Chapter Ten, Verse Eight. And Mennirox knows I love him with compound interest!"
"Yes, that he does," said the mate. "But what is your plan?"
"As soon as the last glow of the sun disappears completely from the horizon, so our silhouette won't be revealed, we'll swing and cut across their direct path of advance. We know that they'll be traveling fairly close together, hoping to catch up with us and blast us with cross-fire. Well, we'll give them a chance, but we'll be gone before they can seize it. We'll go right between them in the dark and fire on both. By the time they're ready to reply we'll have slipped on by.
"And then," he whooped, slapping his fat thigh, "they'll probably cannonade each other to flinders, each thinking the other is us! Hoo, hoo, hoo!"
"Mennirox had better be with us," said the mate, paling. "It'll take damn tight calculating and more than a bit of luck. We'll be going by dead reckoning; not until we're almost on them will we see them; and if we're headed straight at them it'll be too late to avoid a collision. Wharoom! Smash! Boom! We're done for!"
"That's very true, but we're done for if we don't pull some trick like that. They'll have caught us by dawn—they can outmaneuver us—and they've more combined gunfire. And though we'll fight like grass cats we'll go down, and you know what'll happen then. The Vings don't take prisoners unless they're at the end of a cruise and going into port."
"We should have accepted the Duke's offer of a convoy of frigates," muttered the mate. "Even one would have been enough to make the odds favor us."