Eraldo stared in disbelief as the bow of their father's ship began to settle and the crew began lowering launches bristling with armed men. Then one more blow and the closest launch was blown to smitheriens.
"Will you look at that! I didn't think they could do it, they took out father's yacht. She's settling on the bottom with her guns out of the water, but the tide is still low, and by morning when the tide returns she'll be swamped, and we will be able to get out of here!"
Alannah stared as well, horrified by the implications of what the others seemed unable or unwilling to comprehend. "Are you blind?" she shouted, unable to contain herself any longer. "Look at the number of launches, and the number of men in them! That is an army of the murderers that our father has let loose on my home! They will slaughter every last man, woman and child on this island! What is the matter with you? Are you stupid as well as blind?"
Something of her desperation seemed to penetrate into Rosemary"s wholly egocentric mind, and she turned to Alannah"s brother uncertainly. "What is she talking about?"
Eraldo made a dismissing gesture. "It"s nothing! She doesn't know what she"s talking about-"
"You"re lying! I can see it in your eyes! Look at the way those men are approaching the docks, the way they are organized in their boats, the way they that they are standing, holding their weapons, they know what they are doing! Father trained them from young boys these men are a well oiled machine and you know it! A killing machine! And those men there, and there, in those two larger boats! Come on Eraldo, you know we are no match for them. Do you see those things that they are holding?"
Alannah noted the guns Rosemary referred to with a sick feeling. "They are light armored field guns," Alannah told her. "They have about three times the range of any rifle, we are all dead if they find us."
Eraldo was silent a long moment, unable to refute her words.
"How does it feel?" Alannah asked him, allowing a little venom into her voice. "You and your guns running! You"re just a pale imitation of what that monster, our father, is about to unleash upon us! For years now you've been nothing more than a little snake living in his father's wake, playing in the kindergarten league of dealing arms to gangs and thugs -"
"Shut up!" Eraldo yelled
"- pretending and play-acting in the house of a man who can topple nations with one word. It would be sweet justice if you managed to slice each other's throats!"