Sea Of Poppies Part 23

The wind had fallen off, so there was not a fleck of white visible on the surface, and with the afternoon sun glaring down, the water was as dark and still as the cloak of shadows that covers the opening of an abyss. Like the others around her, Deeti stared in stupefaction: it was impossible to think of this as water at all - for water surely needed a boundary, a rim, a sh.o.r.e, to give it shape and hold it in place? This was a firmament, like the night sky, holding the vessel aloft as if it were a planet or a star. When she was back on her mat, Deeti's hand rose of itself and drew the figure she had drawn for Kabutri, many months ago - of a winged vessel flying over the water. Thus it happened that the Ibis became the second figure to enter Deeti's seaborne shrine.

Eighteen.

At sundown, the Ibis cast anchor at the last place from which the migrants would be able to view their native sh.o.r.e: this was Saugor Roads, a much-trafficked anchorage in the lee of Ganga-Sagar, the island that stands between the sea and the holy river. Except for some mudbanks and the pennants of a few temples, there was little to be seen of the island from the Ibis, and none of it was visible in the unlit gloom of the dabusa: yet the very name Ganga-Sagar, joining, as it did, river and sea, clear and dark, known and hidden, served to remind the migrants of the yawning chasm ahead; it was as if they were sitting balanced on the edge of a precipice, and the island were an outstretched limb of sacred Jambudvipa, their homeland, reaching out to keep them from tumbling into the void.

The maistries too were jitterily aware of the proximity of this last spit of land, and that evening they were even more vigilant than usual when the migrants came on deck for their meal; lathis in hand, they positioned themselves warily around the bulwarks and any migrant who looked too closely at the distant lights was hustled quickly below: What're you staring at, sala? Get back down there, where you belong ...

But even when removed from view, the island could not be put out of mind: although none of them had set eyes on it before, it was still intimately familiar to most - was it not, after all, the spot where the Ganga rested her feet? Like many other parts of Jambudvipa, it was a place they had visited and revisited time and again, through the epics and Puranas, through myth, song and legend. The knowledge that this was the last they would see of their homeland, created an atmosphere of truculence and uncertainty in which no provocation seemed too slight for a quarrel. Once fights broke out, they escalated at a pace that was bewildering to everyone, including the partic.i.p.ants: in their villages they would have had relatives, friends, and neighbours to step between them, but here there were no elders to settle disputes, and no tribes of kinsfolk to hold a man back from going for another's throat. Instead, there were trouble-makers like Jhugroo, always eager to set one man against another, friend against friend, caste against caste.

Among the women, the talk was of the past, and the little things that they would never see, nor hear, nor smell again: the colour of poppies, spilling across the fields like abir on a rain-drenched Holi; the haunting smell of cooking-fires drifting across the river, bearing news of a wedding in a distant village; the sunset sounds of temple bells and the evening azan; late nights in the courtyard, listening to the tales of the elderly. No matter how hard the times at home may have been, in the ashes of every past there were a few cinders of memory that glowed with warmth - and now, those embers of recollection took on a new life, in the light of which their presence here, in the belly of a s.h.i.+p that was about to be cast into an abyss, seemed incomprehensible, a thing that could not be explained except as a lapse from sanity.

Deeti fell silent as the other women spoke, for the recollections of the others served only to remind her of Kabutri and the memories from which she would be forever excluded: the years of growing she would not see; the secrets she would never share; the bridegroom she would not receive. How was it possible that she would not be present at her child's wedding to sing the laments that mothers sang when the palanquins came to carry their daughters away?

Talwa jharaile Kwal k.u.mhlaile Hanse roye Biraha biyog The pond is dry The lotus withered The swan weeps For its absent love In the escalating din, Deeti's song was almost inaudible at first, but when the other women grew aware of it they joined their voices to hers, one by one, all except Paulette, who held back shyly, until Deeti whispered: It doesn't matter whether you know the words. Sing anyway - or the night will be unbearable.

Slowly, as the women's voices grew in strength and confidence, the men forgot their quarrels: at home too, during village weddings, it was always the women who sang when the bride was torn from her parents' embrace - it was as if they were acknowledging, through their silence, that they, as men, had no words to describe the pain of the child who is exiled from home.

Kaise kate ab Biraha ki ratiy?

How will it pa.s.s This night of parting?

Through the opening of the air duct, Neel too was listening to the women's songs, and neither then nor afterwards was he able to explain why it happened that the language he had been surrounded by for the last two days, now poured suddenly into his head, like flood water cascading over a breached bund. It was either Deeti's voice, or some fragment of her songs, that made him remember that hers was the language, Bhojpuri, in which Parimal had been accustomed to speak to him, in his infancy and childhood - until the day when his father put a stop to it. The fortunes of the Halders were built, the old Raja had said, on their ability to communicate with those who held the reins of power; Parimal's rustic tongue was the speech of those who bore the yoke, and Neel ought never to use it again for it would ruin his accent when it came time for him to learn Hindusthani and Persian, as was necessary for the heir to a zemindary.

Neel, ever the obedient son, had allowed the language to wither in his head, yet, unbeknownst to him, it had been kept alive - and it was only now, in listening to Deeti's songs, that he recognized that the secret source of its nourishment was music: he had always had a great love of dadras, chaitis, barahmasas, horis, kajris - songs such as Deeti was singing. Listening to her now, he knew why Bhojpuri was the language of this music: because of all the tongues spoken between the Ganges and the Indus, there was none that was its equal in the expression of the nuances of love, longing and separation - of the plight of those who leave and those who stay at home.

How had it happened that when choosing the men and women who were to be torn from this subjugated plain, the hand of destiny had strayed so far inland, away from the busy coastlines, to alight on the people who were, of all, the most stubbornly rooted in the silt of the Ganga, in a soil that had to be sown with suffering to yield its crop of story and song? It was as if fate had thrust its fist through the living flesh of the land in order to tear away a piece of its stricken heart.

The urge to use his remembered words was strong upon Neel that night and he could not sleep. Much later, after the women had sung themselves hoa.r.s.e, and a fitful quiet had descended upon the dabusa, he heard a few of the migrants trying to recall the story of Ganga-Sagar Island. He could not keep himself from telling the tale: speaking through the air duct, he reminded his listeners that if not for this island neither the Ganga nor the sea would exist; for according to the myths, it was here that Lord Vishnu, in his avatar as the sage Kapila, was sitting in meditation, when he was disturbed by the sixty thousand sons of King Sagar who were marching through the land to claim it for the Ikshvaku dynasty. It was here too, exactly where they were now, that those sixty thousand princes were punished for their impudence, being incinerated by a single glance from one of the sage's burning eyes; it was here that their unhallowed ashes had lain until another scion of their dynasty, the good king Bhagiratha, was able to persuade the Ganga to pour down from the heavens and fill the seas: this was how the ashes of the sixty thousand Ikshvaku princes were redeemed from the underworld.

The listeners were dumbfounded - not by the tale so much as by Neel himself. Who would have thought that this filthy qaidi would show himself to be possessed of so much telling and so many tongues? To think that he could even speak an approximation of their own Bhojpuri! Why, if a crow had begun to sing a kajri they could not have been more amazed.

Deeti too was awake and listening, but she found little a.s.surance in the story. I'll be glad when we're gone from this place, she whispered to Kalua. There's nothing worse than to sit here and feel the land pulling us back.

At dawn, with much greater regret than he had antic.i.p.ated, Zachary said goodbye to Mr Doughty, who was now headed back to sh.o.r.e with his team. Once the pilot was gone it remained only to refresh a few supplies before weighing anchor and standing out to sea. The re-provisioning was quickly done, for the schooner was soon beseiged by a flotilla of b.u.mboats: cabbage-carrying coracles, fruit-laden dhonies, and machhwas that were filled with goats, chickens and ducks. In this floating bazar there was everything a s.h.i.+p or a lascar might need: canvas by the gudge, spare jugboolaks and zambooras, coils of istingis and rup-yan, stacks of seetulpatty mats, tobacco by the batti, rolls of neem-twigs for the teeth, martabans of isabgol for constipation, and jars of columbo-root for dysentery: one ungainly gordower even had a choola going with a halwai frying up fresh jalebis. With so many vendors to set against each other, it took Steward Pinto and the mess-boys very little time to acquire everything that was needed by way of provisions.

By noon the schooner's anchors were a-trip and the trikat-wale were ready to haul on her hanjes - but the wind, which had been faltering all morning, chose just this time, or so the tindals said, to trap the vessel in a kalmariya. With her rigging taut, and her crew set to make sail, the Ibis lay becalmed in a looking-gla.s.s sea. At every change of watch, a man was sent aloft with instructions to sound the alert if any breath of wind should be felt to stir. But hour after hour went by, and the serang's shouted queries -Hawa? - met with nothing but denial: Kuchho nahi.

Sitting in the full glare of the sun, without a breeze to cool her, the schooner's hull trapped the heat so that down below, in the dabusa, it was as if the migrants' flesh were melting on their bones. To let in some air, the maistries removed the wooden hatch, leaving only the grating in place. But it was so still outside that scarcely a breath of air trickled through: instead, the perforations of the iron screen allowed the stench of the hold to rise slowly into the sky, summoning kites, vultures and sea-mews. Some circled lazily above, as if waiting for carrion, while others settled on the yards and shrouds, screeching like witches and peppering the decks with their droppings.

The rules for the rationing of drinking water were still new and unfamiliar to the girmitiyas: the system had not been put to any kind of test before, and now, as it began to break down, the patterns of order that had ruled the dabusa thus far broke down with it. By early afternoon, the day's allowance of drinking water had dwindled to a point where men were fighting for possession of those gharas that still contained a few sips. Egged on by Jhugroo, some half-dozen migrants climbed the ladder and began to beat on the gratings of the hatch: Water! Listen, up there! Our gharas need to be filled.

When the maistries came to remove the gratings there was a near riot: dozens of men scrambled up the ladder in a desperate effort to force their way out on deck. But the hatch was only wide enough for a single man to pa.s.s through at a time and every head that was thrust out of it presented an easy target to the maistries. Their lathis came cras.h.i.+ng down on the girmitiyas' skulls and shoulders, knocking them back inside, one after another. Within minutes both the grating and the hatch were slammed shut again.

Haramzadas! - the voice belonged to Bhyro Singh - I swear I'm going to straighten you out; you're the unruliest mob of coolies I've ever seen ...

The disturbance, however, was not entirely unexpected, for it was rare for a contingent of girmitiyas to adapt themselves to the s.h.i.+pboard regimen without some resistance. The overseers had dealt with this kind of trouble before and knew exactly what to do: they shouted through the gratings to let the girmitiyas know that the Kaptan had ordered them to muster on the main deck; they were to come up the ladder in orderly fas.h.i.+on, one by one.

The maistries directed the women to come out of the hold first, but some of them were in such a bad way that they couldn't climb the ladder and had to be carried up. Paulette was the last woman to leave the hold and she did not realize how unsteady she was till she stepped on deck. Her knees shook, as if about to buckle, and she had to hold on to the deck rail to keep her balance.

A pipa of fresh water had been placed in the shade of the deckhouse and a mess-boy was dipping into it to pour a couple of ladlefuls into each woman's lota. The jamna longboat was hanging a few steps aft of it and Paulette saw that several women had taken shelter beneath it, some squatting on their haunches and some lying prostrate: she pulled herself along the rails and squatted beside them, in the last remaining patch of shade. Like the others, Paulette drank deeply from her vessel before pouring the last trickle of moisture on her head, allowing it to seep slowly down the sweat-drenched ghungta that was draped over her face. With the water percolating through her parched innards, she began to feel the first tremors of life returning, not just to her body but also to her mind, which seemed to wake to consciousness after having lain long-dormant beneath her thirst.

Till this moment, defiance and determination had made Paulette wilfully blind to the possible privations of the voyage: she had told herself that she was younger and stronger than many of the others and had nothing to fear. But it was clear now that the weeks ahead would be hard beyond anything she had imagined; it was even possible that she would not live to see the journey's end. As the awareness of this took hold of her, she turned to look over her shoulder, at Ganga-Sagar Island, and found herself almost unconsciously trying to gauge the distance.

Then Bhyro Singh's voice rang out, signalling the completion of the muster: Sab hazir hai! All present!

Turning aft, Paulette saw that Captain Chillingworth had appeared on the quarterdeck and was standing like a statue behind its bal.u.s.trade of fife-rails. On the main deck, a ring of lascars, maistries and silahdars had been posted around the schooner's bulwarks to keep watch over the a.s.sembled girmitiyas.

Facing the a.s.sembly, lathi in hand, Bhyro Singh shouted: Khamos.h.!.+ Silence! The Kaptan is going to speak and you will listen; the first to make a sound will feel my lathi on his head.

Up on the quarterdeck, the Captain was still motionless, with his hands clasped behind his back, calmly surveying the crowd on the deck. Although a light breeze had begun to blow now, it had little or no cooling effect, for the air seemed only to grow hotter under the Captain's gaze: when at last he spoke, his voice carried to the bows with the crackle of a leaping flame: 'Listen carefully to what I say, for none of it will be said again.'

The Captain paused to allow Baboo n.o.b Kissin to translate, and then, for the first time since he had appeared on the quarterdeck, his right hand came into view and was seen to be holding a tightly coiled whip. Without turning his head, he gestured towards Ganga-Sagar Island, pointing with the weapon's tip.

... In that direction lies the coast from which you came. In the other lies the sea, known to you as the Black Water. You may think that the difference between the one and the other can be seen clearly with the naked eye. But that is not so. The greatest and most important difference between land and sea is not visible to the eye. It is this - and note it well ...

Now, as Baboo n.o.b Kissin was translating, the Captain leant forward and put his whip and his white-knuckled hands on the fife-rails.

... The difference is that the laws of the land have no hold on the water. At sea there is another law, and you should know that on this vessel I am its sole maker. While you are on the Ibis and while she is at sea, I am your fate, your providence, your lawgiver. This chabuk you see in my hands is just one of the keepers of my law. But it is not the only one - there is another ...

Here, the Captain held up his whip and curled the lash around the handle to form a noose.

... This is the other keeper of the law, and do not doubt for a moment that I will use it without hesitation if it should prove necessary. But remember, always, there is no better keeper of the law than submission and obedience. In that respect, this s.h.i.+p is no different from your own homes and villages. While you are on her, you must obey Subedar Bhyro Singh as you would your own zemindars, and as he obeys me. It is he who knows your ways and traditions, and while we are at sea he will be your mai-bap, just as I am his. You should know that it is because of his intercession that no one is being punished today; he has pleaded for mercy on your behalf, since you are new to this s.h.i.+p and her rules. But you should know also that the next time there is any disorder on board, the consequences will be severe, and they will be visited upon everyone who plays a part in it; anyone who thinks to make trouble should know that this is what awaits them ...

Now the lash of the whip coiled out to make a crack that split the overheated air like a bolt of lightning.

Despite the heat of the sun the Captain's words had chilled Paulette to the marrow. As she looked around her now, she could see that many of the girmitiyas were in a trance of fear: it was as if they had just woken to the realization that they were not only leaving home and braving the Black Water - they were entering a state of existence in which their waking hours would be ruled by the noose and the whip. She could see their eyes straying to the island nearby; it was so close that its attraction was almost irresistible. When a grizzled, middle-aged man began to babble, she knew by instinct that he was losing his struggle against the pull of land. Although forewarned, she was still among the first to scream when this man made a sudden turn, shoved a lascar aside, and vaulted over the deck rail.

The silahdars raised the alarm by shouting - Admi girah! Man overboard! - and the girimitiyas - most of whom had no idea what was happening - began to mill about in panic. Under cover of the commotion, two more migrants broke through and made the leap, hurling themselves over the bulwark.

This sent the guards into a frenzy and they started to flail their lathis in an effort to herd the men back into the dabusa. To add to the confusion, the lascars were busy ripping the covers off the jamna longboat; when they tilted it sideways a flock of squawking hens and roosters descended upon the deck. The malums too had converged upon the boat, shouting hook.u.ms and pulling at the devis, raising clouds of chicken-muck that plastered them in feathers, s.h.i.+t and feed.

Temporarily forgotten, the women were left to huddle around the jamna devis. Craning over the deck rail, Paulette saw that one of the three swimmers had already disappeared below water; the other two were thras.h.i.+ng against a current that was sweeping them towards the open sea. Then a great flock of birds appeared above the swimmers, swooping down from time to time, as if to check whether they were still alive. Within a few minutes the swimmers' heads vanished, but still the birds remained, wheeling patiently above, as they waited for the corpses to float back to the surface. Although the bodies were not seen again, it was clear, from the way the birds were circling in the sky, that the corpses had been seized by the outgoing tide and were being swept towards the horizon.

This was why, when at last the long-awaited wind began to blow, the crew was exceptionally slow in making sail: because, after everything that had happened already, the prospect of crossing wakes with the three mutilated corpses had filled the lascars with an unspeakable dread.

Nineteen.

Next morning, under a lamb's-wool sky, the Ibis ran into swells and gusts that set her to a frolicsome pitching. Many of the girmitiyas had begun to experience stirrings of discomfort while the Ibis was still on the Hooghly, for even at her most placid the schooner was a great deal livelier than the slow riverboats to which they were accustomed. Now, with the Ibis tipping all nines in a jabble-sea, many were reduced to a state of infantile helplessness.

Some half-dozen pails and wooden buckets had been distributed through the 'tween-deck, in preparation for the onset of seasickness. For a while, these were put to good use, with the steadier of the migrants helping the others to reach the balties before they spewed. But soon the containers were filled to overflowing, and their contents began to slop over the sides. As the vessel plunged and climbed, more and more of the migrants lost the use of their legs, emptying their stomachs where they lay. The smell of vomit added to the already noxious odours of the enclosed s.p.a.ce, multiplying the effects of the vessel's motion. Soon it seemed as if the hold would be swamped by a rising tide of nausea. One night a man drowned in a pool of his own vomit, and such were the conditions that his death went unremarked for the better part of a day. By the time it was noticed, so few migrants could stand upright that the consigning of the corpse to the water was not witnessed by any of them.

Deeti, like many of the others, was oblivious to the fatality that had occurred nearby: even if she had known, she would not have had the strength to look in the dead man's direction. For several days she could not rise to her feet, far less leave the dabusa; it was a near-intolerable effort even to roll off her mat when Kalua wanted to wipe it clean. As for food and water, the very thought of them were enough to bring her gorge rus.h.i.+ng to her lips: Ham nahin tal sakelan - I can't bear it, I can't ...

Yes you can; you will.

As Deeti began to recover, Sarju grew steadily worse. One night her moaning became so piteous that Deeti, who was feeling none too spry herself, took her head into her own lap, and covered her forehead with a piece of moistened cloth. Suddenly she felt Sarju's body growing tense under her fingers. Sarju? she cried: Are you all right?

Yes, whispered Sarju. Hold still for a moment ...

Alerted by Deeti's cry, some of the others turned to ask: What's happened to her? What's the matter?

Sarju raised a wavering finger to silence them, and then lowered her ear to Deeti's belly. The women held their breath until Sarju opened her eyes.

What? said Deeti. What's happened?

G.o.d has filled your lap, Sarju whispered. You are with child!

The one time when Captain Chillingworth was unfailingly present on deck was at noon, when he was joined by the two mates in shooting the sun. This was the part of the day that Zachary most looked forward to, and not even Mr Crowle's presence could diminish his pleasure in the ritual. It wasn't just that he enjoyed using his s.e.xtant, though that was no small part of it; for him this moment was a reward for the unceasing tedium of watch-on-watch and the constant aggravation of having to be at close quarters with the first mate: to see the schooner changing position on the charts was a reminder that this was not a journey without end. Every day, when Captain Chillingworth produced the schooner's chronometer, Zachary would go to great pains to synchronize his watch with it: the moving of the minute hand was evidence, too, that despite the unchanging horizon ahead, the schooner was steadily altering her place in the universe of time and s.p.a.ce.

Mr Crowle did not possess a watch, and it irked him that Zachary had one. Every noon there was some new jibe: 'There he goes again, like a monkey with a nut ...' Captain Chillingworth, on the other hand, was impressed by Zachary's exact.i.tude: 'Always good to know where you stand in the world: never does a man any harm to know his place.'

One day, as Zachary was tweaking his watch, the Captain said: 'That's a pretty little gewgaw you've got there, Reid: would you mind if I took a look?'

'No, sir - not in the least.' Zachary snapped the cover shut and handed over his watch.

The Captain's eyebrows rose as he examined the filigreed designs. 'Fine little piece, Reid; Chinese craftsmans.h.i.+p I should think: probably made in Macao.'

'Do they make watches there?'

'Oh yes,' said the Captain. 'Some very good ones too.' He flipped the lid open, and his eye went immediately to the lettering on the inside cover. 'What's this now?' He read the name out loud - Adam T. Danby - and repeated it, as if in disbelief: 'Adam Danby?' He turned to Zachary with a frown. 'May I ask how this came into your possession, Reid?'

'Why, sir ...'

Had they been alone, Zachary would have had no hesitation in telling the Captain that Serang Ali had given him the watch: but with Mr Crowle within earshot, Zachary could not bring himself to hand over a fresh load of ammunition to be added to the first mate's armoury of jibes. 'Why, sir,' he said, with a shrug, 'I got it at a p.a.w.nshop, in Cape Town.'

'Did you now?' said the Captain. 'Well, that's very interesting. Very interesting indeed.'

'Really, sir? How so?'

The Captain looked up at the sun and mopped his face. 'The tale's a bit of a breezo and will take some telling,' he said. 'Let's go below where we can sit down.'

Leaving the deck to the first mate, Zachary and the Captain went down to the cuddy and seated themselves at the table.

'Did you know this Adam Danby, sir?' said Zachary.

'No,' said the Captain. 'Never met him in person. But there was a time when he was well known in these parts. Long before your day, of course.'

'Who was he, sir, if I might ask?'

'Danby?' the Captain gave Zachary a half-smile. 'Why he was none other than "the White Ladrone".'

' "Ladrone", sir ... ?'

'Ladrones are the pirates of the South China Sea, Reid; named after a group of islands off the Bocca Tigris. Not much left of them now, but there was a time when they were the most fearsome band of cutthroats on the high seas. When I was a younker they were skippered by a man called Cheng-I - savage brute he was too. Up and down the coast he'd go, as far as Cochin-China, pillaging villages, taking captives, putting people to the sword. Had a wife too - a bit of bobtail from a Canton fancy-house. Madame Cheng we used to call her. But the woman wasn't enough for Mr Cheng-I. Captured a young fisherman on one of his raids and made a mate of him too! Enough to put Madame Cheng's nose out of joint, you'd think? Not a bit of it. When old Cheng-I died, she actually married her rival! Two of them set themselves up as the King and Queen of the Ladrones!'

The Captain shook his head slowly, as if at the memory of an ancient and long-lingering bemus.e.m.e.nt. 'You might think this pair would be strung up by their own crew, wouldn't you? But no: in China nothing is ever as you expect; just when you think you've made sense of them, they'll send you up Tom c.o.x's traverse.'

'How do you mean, sir?'

'Well just think of it: not only were Madame Cheng and her rival-turned-husband accepted as the cutthroats' leaders - they went on to build themselves a pirate empire. Ten thousand junks under their command at one time, with over a hundred thousand men! Caused so much trouble the Emperor had to send an army against her. Her fleet was broken up and she surrendered, with her husband.'

'And what became of them?' said Zachary.

The Captain gave a snort of laughter. 'You'd think they'd get the hempen habeas, wouldn't you? But no - that would be too straight a course for the Celestials. They put a mandarin's hat on the boy's head and as for Madame Cheng, she was let off with an earwigging and a fine. Still at large in Canton. Runs a snuggery, I'm told.'

'And Danby, sir?' said Zachary. 'Was he mixed up with Madame Cheng and her crew?'

'No,' said the Captain. 'She'd been beached by the time he came into these waters. Her followers, or what was left of them, had broken up into small bands. You wouldn't know their junks from any other country boat - little floating kampungs they were, with pigs and chickens, fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Had their women and children with them too. Some of their junks were really no better than the usual Canton flower-boat, part gambling-den and part knockingshop. They'd hide in the coves and inlets, raiding coastal vessels and preying on s.h.i.+pwrecks. That's how Danby fell into their hands.'

's.h.i.+pwrecked was he, sir?'

'That's right,' said the Captain, scratching his chin. 'Let me see: when did the Lady Duncannon run aground? Must have been '12 or '13 - about twenty-five years ago I'd say. Foundered off Hainan Island. Most of her crew managed to get back to Macao. But one of the s.h.i.+p's boats was lost, with some ten or fifteen hands, Danby among them. What happened to the others I can't say, but this much is for sure, that Danby ended up with a band of Ladrones.'

'Did they capture him?'

'Either that, or found him washed ash.o.r.e. Probably the latter, if you think about the course he took afterwards.'

'Which was ... ?'

'Turned into a catspaw for the Ladrones.'

'A catspaw, sir?'

'Yes,' said the Captain. 'Went native, did Danby. Married one of their women. Togged himself up in sheets and dishcloths. Learnt the lingo. Ate snakes with sticks. The lot. Can't blame him in a way. He was just a joskin of a cabin-boy, from Sh.o.r.editch or some other London rookery. Packed off to sea as soon as he could walk. No easy thing to be a drudge, you know. Pulley-hauley all day and fighting off the old cadgers all night. Not much to eat but lobscouse and old horse; Gunner's Daughter the only woman in sight. Between the bawdy-baskets and the food, a Ladrone junk must have been a taste of paradise. Shouldn't think it took too much for them to bring him sharp about - probably had him horizontalized under a staff-climber as soon as he was strong enough to stand. But he was no pawk, Danby, had a good head on him. Invented a devilish clever bit of flummery. He'd get togged out in his best go-ash.o.r.es and hie off to some port like Manila or Anjer. The Ladrones would slip in after him and they'd pick a vessel that was shorthanded. Danby'd sign on as a mate, and the Ladrones as lascars. No one'd suspect a thing, of course. White man playing catskin for a kippage of Long-tails? Last thought to enter any s.h.i.+pmaster's head. And Danby was a fine old glib-gabbet too. Bought himself the best clothes and gewgaws to be found in the East. Wouldn't show his hand till the vessel was safe out at sea - and then suddenly there they were, flying their colours, boarding her in the smoke. Danby would disarm the officers and the Ladrones would deal with the rest. They'd pack their captives into the s.h.i.+p's boats and cut them adrift. Then away they'd go, galing off with their prize. It was the most fiendishly clever ruse. Their luck ran out somewhere off Java Head as I remember. Intercepted by an English s.h.i.+p-o'-the-line while trying to sail off with a prize. Danby was killed, along with most of the gang. But a few of the Ladrones got away. I imagine it was one of them who p.a.w.ned this watch of yours.'

'Do you really think so, sir?'

'Why yes, of course,' said the Captain. 'Do you think you might remember where you got it?'

Zachary began to stutter. 'I think ... I think I might, sir.'

'Well,' said the Captain, 'when we get to Port Louis, you must be sure to take your tale to the authorities.'

'Really, sir? Why?'

'Oh I should think they'd be very interested in tracing your watch to its last owner.'