What a hypocrite I am, thought Cristoforo. To pretend that my motives are pure. I laid my purse from Chios into the bishop's own hands -- but then used it to advance my cause with Nicolo Spinola. And even then, it wasn't the whole purse. I'm wearing a good part of it; a gentleman has to have the right clothes or people don't call him Signor. And much more of it went to Father, to buy houses and dress Mother like a lady. Hardly the perfect offering of faith. Do I want to become rich and influential in order to serve God? Or do I serve God in hopes that it will make me rich and influential?

Such were the doubts that plagued him, between his dreams and plans. Most of the time, though, he spent pumping the captain and the navigator or studying the charts or staring at the coasts they passed, making his own maps and calculations, as if he were the first ever to see this place.

"There are plenty of charts of the Andalusian coast," said the navigator.

"I know," said Cristoforo. "But I learn more by charting them myself than I ever would by studying them. And I have the charts to check against my own maps."

The truth was that the charts were full of errors. Either that or some supernatural power had moved the capes and bays, the beaches and promontories of the Iberian coast, so that now and then there was an inlet that wasn't shown on any chart. "Were these charts made by pirates?" he asked the captain one day. "They seem designed to make sure that a corsair can dodge out to engage us in battle without any warning."

The captain laughed. "They are Moorish charts, or so I've heard. And the copyists aren't always perfect. They miss a feature now and then. What do they know, sitting at their tables, far from any sea? We follow the charts generally and learn where the mistakes are. If we sailed these coasts all the time, as the Spanish sailors do, then we'd rarely need these charts at all. And they aren't about to issue corrected charts, because they have no wish to help the ships of other nations to sail safely here. Every nation guards its charts. So keep to your mapmaking, Signor Colombo. Someday your charts may have value to Genova. If this voyage is a success, there'll be others."

There was no reason to think it would not be a success, until two days after they passed through the straits of Gibraltar, when a cry went up: "Sails! Corsairs!"

Cristoforo rushed to the gunwale, where shortly the sails became visible. The pirates were not Moorish, by the look of them. And they had not been daunted by the five merchant ships sailing together. Why should they? The pirates had five corsairs of their own.

"I don't like this," said the captain.

"We're evenly matched, aren't we?" asked Cristoforo.

"Hardly," said the captain. "We're loaded with cargo; they're not. They know these waters; we don't. And they're used to bloody-handed fighting. What do we have? Sword-bearing gentlemen and sailors who are terrified of battle on the open sea."

"Nevertheless," said Cristoforo, "God will fight on the side of just men."

The captain gave him a withering look. "I don't know that we're any more righteous than others who've had their throats slit. No, we'll outrun them if we can, or if we can't, we'll make them pay so dear that they'll give up and leave us. What are you good for, in a battle?"

"Not much," said Cristoforo. It would do no good to promise more than he could deliver. The captain deserved to know whom he could and could not count on. "I carry the sword for the respect of it."

"Well, these pirates will respect the blade only if it's well blooded. Have you an arm for throwing?"

"Rocks, as a boy," said Cristoforo.

"Good enough for me. If things look bad, then this is our last hope -- we'll have pots filled with oil. We set them afire and hurl them onto the pirate ships. They can't very well fight us if their decks are afire."

"They have to be awfully close, then, don't they?"

"As I said -- we only use these pots if things look bad."

"What's to keep the flames from spreading to our own ships, if theirs are in flames?"

The captain looked coldly at him. "As I said -- we want to make our fleet a worthless conquest for them." He looked again at the corsairs' sails, which were well behind them and farther off the coast. "They want to pinch us against the shore," he said. "If we can make it to Cape St. Vincent, where we can turn north, then we'll lose them. Till then they'll try to intercept us as we tack outward, or run us aground on the shoreward tack."

"Then let's tack outward now," said Cristoforo. "Let's establish ourselves as far from shore as possible."

The captain sighed. "The wisest course, my friend, but the sailors won't stand for it. They don't like being out of sight of land if there's a fight."

"Why not?"

"Because they can't swim. Their best hope is to ride some flotsam in, if we do badly."

"But if we don't sail out of sight of shore, how can we do well?"

"This isn't a good time to expect sailors to be rational," said the captain. "And one thing's sure -- you can't lead sailors where they don't want to go."

"They wouldn't mutiny."

"If they thought I was leading them to drown, they'd put this ship to shore and leave the cargo for the pirates. Better than drowning, or being sold into slavery."

Cristoforo had not realized this. It hadn't come up on any of his voyages before, and the sailors didn't speak of this when they were ashore in Genova. No, then they were all courage, fun of fight. And the idea that the captain couldn't lead wherever he might wish to command ... Cristoforo brooded about that idea for days, as the corsairs paced them, squeezing them ever closer to the shore.

"French," said the navigator.

As soon as he said the word, a sailor near him said, "Coullon."

Cristoforo started at the name. In Genova he had heard enough French, despite the hostility of the Genovese for a nation that had more than once raided their docks and tried to burn the city, to know that coullon was the French version of his own family's name: Colombo, or, in Latin, Columbus.

But the sailor who said it was not French, and seemed to have no idea that the name would mean anything to Cristoforo.

"Might be Coullon," said the navigator. "Bold as he is, it's more likely to be the devil -- but then they say that Coullon is the devil."

"And everyone knows the devil is French!" said a sailor.

They laughed, all who could hear, but there was little real mirth in it. And the captain made a point of showing Cristoforo where the firepots were, once the ship's boy had filled them. "Make sure you keep fire in your hands," he said to Cristoforo. "That is your blade, Signor Colombo, and they'll respect you."

Was the pirate Coullon toying with them? Was that why he let them stay just out of reach until Cape St. Vincent was tantalizingly in view? Certainly Coullon had no trouble then, closing the gap, cutting them off before they could break to the north, around the cape, into the open Atlantic.

There was no hope of coordinating the defense of the fleet now. Each captain had to find his own way to victory. The captain of Cristoforo's ship realized at once that if he kept his current course he'd be run aground or boarded almost at once. "Come around!" he cried. "Get the wind behind us!"

It was a bold strategy, but the sailors understood it, and the other ships, seeing what Cristoforo's old whaler was doing, followed suit. They'd have to pass among the corsairs, but if they did it right, they'd end up with the open sea ahead of them, the corsairs behind them, and the wind with them. But Coullon was no fool, and brought his corsairs around in time to throw grappling hooks at the passing Genovese merchantmen.

As the pirates pulled the ropes hand over hand, forcing the boats together, Cristoforo could see that the captain had been right: Their own crew would have little hope in a fight. Oh, they'd give such a battle as they could, knowing that it was their lives at stake. But there was despair in all their eyes, and they visibly shrank from the bloodshed that was coming. He heard one burly sailor saying to the ship's boy, "Pray that you'll die." It wasn't encouraging; nor was the obvious eagerness on the part of the pirates.