Vasant Rao continued to chant verses from the Bhagavad- Gita in terse, toneless Sanskrit.
He probably thinks I'm praying too, Hawksworth smiled to himself.
The reading increased, then stayed the same, then began to decrease. The sun had passed its zenith, and he had the exact reading of its elevation.
He mentally recorded the reading, then began to rummage in the bottom of the chest for the seaman's book he always carried with him.
We left Surat on October twenty-fourth. So October twenty-fifth was Karod, the twenty-sixth was Viara, the twenty-seventh was Corka, the twenty-eighth was Narayanpur, the twenty-ninth was the river. Today has to be October thirty-first.
The book was there, its pages still musty from the moist air at sea. He reached the page he wanted and ran his finger down a column of figures until he reached the one he had read off the astrolabe.
From the reading the latitude here is 21 degrees and 20
minutes north.
Then he began to search the chest for a sheaf of papers and finally his fingers closed around them, buried beneath his spare jerkin. He squinted in the half light as he went through the pages, the handwriting hurried from hasty work in the observatory. Finally he found what he wanted. He had copied it directly from the old Samarkand astronomer's calculations. The numerals were as bold as the day he had written them. The latitude was there, and the date.
With a tight smile that pained his aching face he carefully wrapped the astrolabe and returned it to the bottom of the chest, together with the books. He snapped the lock in place just as the door of the cell swung open.