"And the coconuts eventually float out to sea?"
"A few, yes. But mostly they are stolen by wicked boys, who swim after them. These few perhaps their gods saved for themselves."
Hawksworth examined the bobbing balls anew. The coconut was yet another legend of the Indies. Stories passed that a man could live for days on the liquor sealed within its straw-matted shell.
The moon chased random clouds, but still the riverbank was illuminated like day. The damp air was still, amplifying the music of the night—the buzz of gnats, the call of night birds, even the occasional trumpet of a distant elephant, pierced the solid wood line on either side of the narrowing river. Hawksworth tasted the dark, alert, troubled. Where are the human sounds? Where are the barges I saw plying the river mouth during the day? I sense an uneasiness in the pilot, an alarm he does not wish me to see. Damn the moon. If only we had dark.
"Karim." Hawksworth spoke softly, his eyes never long from the dense rampart of trees along the riverbank.
"What do you wish, Captain?"
"Have you ever traveled up the river before by moonlight?"
"Once, yes, many years ago. When I was young and burning for a woman after our ship had dropped anchor in the bay. I was only a karwa then, a common seaman, and I thought I would not be missed. I was wrong. The nakuda discovered me in Surat and reclaimed my wage for the entire voyage. It was a very hungry time."
"Was the river quiet then, as it is now?"
"Yes, Captain, just the same." Though Karim looked at him directly, the darkness still guarded his eyes.