"Have you eaten rice today?"

"Thank you." Through the glasses Malcolm saw an officer get out of the flagship cutter and go up the gangway. Nothing to indicate one way or another. Damn!

He accepted the cup. "Thanks." At the moment he had no special pain, just the normal bearable ache, he had already taken his morning dose. For the last week he had managed to cut back on the amount. Now he had one in the morning, one in the evening, and had sworn, in future, it would be one a day if this day went well.

The tea was good. It was mixed with real milk, thick with sugar and as it was the first of the day, it was laced with a small tot of rum, a tradition started by Dirk Struan, his father had told him.

"Chen, put out my heavy breeches and jersey and I'll wear a topcoat."

Chen was startled. "I heard the voyage was off, Tai-pan."

"In the name of all gods when did you hear that?"

"Last night, Tai-pan. Fifth Cousin in the House of Chief Foreign Devil heard him talking with Big Ship Squashed Toadstool Nose who said No voyage."

Malcolm's stomach sank and he groped to the window. To his shock he saw the cutter was wallowing two hundred metres offshore. No bow wave. He began to curse violently and then he saw funnel smoke begin and the bow wave appear as the cutter picked up speed. His binoculars raked the deck but all he could see was the Bosun shouting, with oars on deck in case of a further breakdown. At that speed the cutter would be at their dock in under ten minutes.

With Chen's help he dressed. A quick check showed that the cutter was almost ashore. He opened the window and craned out as the Bosun climbed on to the jetty and began running as fast as his big belly would allow.

"Ho there, Bosun!"

The grizzled man was panting by the time he was near enough to the window. "Cap'n Marlowe's compliments," he gasped, "will you and the, and the Lady please step aboard."

Struan let out a whoop of joy.

He sent for Ah Soh, told her to wake and dress Angelique quickly. Then, quietly, he said, "Listen, Chen, and don't interrupt or I shall be like a firecracker..." and gave him instructions what to pack, and what to order Ah Soh to pack and to bring the trunks aboard Prancing Cloud at sunset. "Missy and I will dine aboard and sleep aboard and you two will stay aboard also, and return to Hong Kong with us ..."

Chen was overjoyed. "Hong Kong! Ayeeyah Tai-pa--"

"... And both of you will keep your mouths shut tighter than a fly's anus or I will ask Noble House Chen to remove your names from the family book." He saw Chen go grey. He had never used the threat before. The family book was every Chinese male's connection to immortality, to their ancestors in the mystic past and to far-off descendants, when he himself would be considered a distant ancestor, and beyond. Wherever a Chinese was born in the world, he was written into his ancestral village records. Without that he did not exist.

"Yes, Master. But Ah Tok?"

"I'll deal with her. Fetch her."

Chen went for the door. She was outside it. He fled. She strode in. Struan said that he had decided she would follow in the next boat and that was that.

"Oh ko, my son," she said, her voice honeyed. "What you decide for your old Mother is not what your old Mother decides is best for herself and her son. We will go home. We will be silent.

No stinky foreign devils will know. Of course all civilized persons will be interested in the plot. We will go home together. Do you take your whore with you?" She stood under his tongue-lashing, ordering her never ever to use that word again--or else.

"Ayeeyah," she muttered as she left, her words dying away gradually, "your old Mother won't call that whore your whore again but all gods bear witness, if not whore what do I call her, whore is the correct name? Is my son daft..."

When he saw Angelique his anger evaporated. "My word!"

She was wearing riding clothes, boots, long skirt, tight at the waist, waistcoat and cravat and coat and hat with a green feather, gloves but no riding crop. "I thought this best, darling, for boating," she said, smiling gloriously.

"Welcome aboard." Marlowe was at the head of the gangway, looking splendid in uniform.

Before stepping onto the deck, Malcolm awkwardly hung on with his left hand, Angelique holding his sticks, raised his top hat formally, "Permission to come aboard?"

Marlowe saluted and grinned. "Welcome, you are both most welcome aboard. May I?" he took Angelique's arm, weak from the intensity of her smile and the cut of her jacket that dramatized her figure, and led the way to the bridge, forward of the funnel. He waited until Malcolm was settled in a sea chair.

"Cast off, Mister Lloyd," he said to his Number One, Davyd Lloyd. "Quarter ahead and steady as she goes."

Pearl eased off her moorings under power.

"Soon as we're clear we'll up speed," he said. "Admiral's ordered us to conduct steam trials in sight of the flagship."

Struan's happiness vanished. "In sight of him? We're not going out to sea, out of sight of land?"

Marlowe laughed. "I suppose he likes his "children" on a short leash. It'll be fun, I promise."

Then we're aboard, but not aboard for the right reason, Struan was thinking, the bastard's a sadist! And if the Admiral had been aboard he felt sure he would have killed him quite happily. Well, not really, but I'd like the bugger dealt with. He'll wish he had helped me. When I get back I'll reverse everything and be a thorn in his nose he won't forget.

Meanwhile what do I do now?

There was so much going on that Marlowe and Angelique did not notice the despair he strove to conceal. The frigate was making way through the fleet, not a few sailors and officers from the other ships noticing Angelique, and, some of them, the fine way Pearl was being conned.

Aboard the French flagship, the twenty-gun paddle steamer they passed close to, sailors whistled and waved, appalling the British officers.

Good God, Marlowe thought, what bloody bad manners and awful discipline! All the same he watched benignly as Angelique waved back, to a chorus of whistles and catcalls.

To distract her, Marlowe said, "We're going to make speed trials, Angelique, under steam first and then sail. Have to strain the new mast, test her, you won't remember but we lost our mainmast in the storm. You see..." He chatted away, explaining this and that, answering every question she felt obliged to ask.

For herself she feigned interest, really wanting just to be quiet, to feel the sea wind ruffle her hair now that she had taken off her hat and was basking in the new freedom, wanting the wind to broom away the ever-present stench of Yokohama that was so much a way of life here, and in Hong Kong, as to be hardly noticed now, to gaze ahead and dream of the Channel and blue seas and the fine coast of home, going home. We French desire our land so much, whereas the English seem to be able to make themselves at home anywhere and really don't need England, not like we need France ...

"We'll hove to at noon," Marlowe was saying, so content to be Captain of Pearl, "and I've arranged tiffin in my cabin and there's a bunk if you wish to siesta..."

The morning passed nicely. Every half hour the ship's bell rang the changes and even Malcolm was dragged out of his despair as the ship went from one end of the bay to the other, twisted and turned and rushed ahead and went into reverse. "In a moment, we'll stop steaming and it will be, All sails ho!" Marlowe said.

"I do so prefer sail," she said, "the engine noise is really so distracting. Sailing is so much more pleasant, don't you agree, Malcolm, cheri?"

"Yes indeed," Malcolm said contentedly, his arm around her waist, holding her against the tilt of the deck.

Marlowe said, "I agree too, so does almost every man in the British Navy. Of course we still have to sail most of the time--can't carry enough fuel and coal's so filthy! But on a dirty night when safe harbor's just ahead in the teeth of the gale, or the enemy twice your size with twice the cannon but he's sail and you not, you bless old Stephenson and British engineers for giving you the blessing of going against the wind. I'd take you below but as I said, there's coal dust everywhere and noise."