The astonishment that seized Parthibendran upon seeing the prince in the boat is beyond words. It was as if the very deity he had gone to worship had suddenly appeared before him, not only granting him darshan but also saying, “Ask for whatever boon you desire!” Yet, what could be the reason for the prince’s solitary arrival in this boat? What had become of the ships of the Pazhuvettaraiyars?… Not recognizing this as his own ship, could the prince perhaps have thought that this was the vessel sent to capture him?

Soon enough, it became clear that he had not come with such mistaken suspicions. As soon as the prince boarded the ship from the boat, he did not wait for Parthibendran to ask but briefly recounted the events that had transpired.

“Vandiyathevan is on the ship that fell into the hands of the Arabs. We must somehow rescue him,” he said.

The news brought by the prince filled Parthibendran with immense excitement.

“Everything has turned out well. If only that reckless youth had not acted with such haste, it would have been even better. Still, we must not let him fall into the hands of foreigners. That ship cannot have gone far; we can surely pursue and capture it,” he said. Then, calling Kalapathi, he explained the situation.

“What is there to worry about? If the wind continues to favor us like this, we can catch up by evening! Where can that ship go, escaping us? It must head to Kodikkarai and then follow the coastline, mustn’t it?” said Kalapathi.

But the will of the Wind God was otherwise. Gradually, the speed of the wind began to diminish. By midday, the wind had ceased altogether. The sea was utterly calm, without even the semblance of a wave. An indescribable sultriness enveloped everything. The Sun God blazed in the sky like a torch, pouring fire upon the sea! If one touched the seawater, it would not burn; yet, to the eye, it did not appear as a sea of water, but rather as a boiling, steaming sea of oil. Where the sun’s rays struck directly, it looked like a molten sea of fire.

The ship did not move; all the sails had been unfurled from the masts. What was the use? Just as the sound of the waves had ceased, so too had the flapping of the sails against the masts. The sails and the masts stood still, crossing— There was not even the faintest creak that arises when the planks of a ship shift. There was no sound of the vessel slicing through the sea. In truth, that silence inflicted an unbearable agony.

Added to this was the prince’s deep anguish over Vandiyathevan.

“The wind has died, and the ship has come to a complete standstill! How long will this last? When will the wind rise again? Won’t that ship escape and get away?” he asked anxiously.

Parthibendran looked at the lord of the navy.

At that moment, Kalapathi