"The battle's just begun. Boarding parties are at the Resolve, and there are two more galleons." Hawksworth reached for the glass by the binnacle.
"No, Captain, I doubt very much the Portuguese will trouble you further. Your luck has been too exceptional. But they will return another day." The pilot squinted toward the shore, as though confirming something he knew should be there.
Hawksworth trained his glass on the two galleons that still held the Resolve pinned in the shallows. They were heeling about, preparing to run southward on the wind under full press of sail. He also realized their longboats had been abandoned. Some were following futilely after the retreating galleons, while others were already rowing toward the river mouth. The English frigate had been forgotten. Then he noted that although pennants no longer flew from the yardarms of the galleons, the large, unnamed vessel had run out a brilliant red ensign on her poop staff. He studied it carefully, then turned to the pilot, extending the glass.
"Take a look and tell me what the colors are on the large man-of-war. I've never seen them before."
The pilot waved away the telescope with a smile. "I need no Christian device to tell you that. We all know it. With all your fortune, you have failed to understand the most important thing that happened today."
"And what is that?"
"Those are the colors of the Viceroy of Goa, flown only when he is aboard his flagship. You have humiliated him today. The colors speak his defiance. His promise to you."
As the pilot spoke, Mackintosh came bounding up the companionway to the quarterdeck, his soot-covered face beaming. "What a bleedin' day! What a bleedin' day!" Then his eyes dimmed for an instant. "But a man'd be called a liar who told the story."
"How many dead and wounded, Mackintosh?"
"Two maintopmen killed by musket fire. And a bosun's mate took a splinter in the side, very bad, when the bastards laid us wi' the first bowchasers. A few other lads took musket fire, but the surgeon'll sew 'em up fine."