How long he lay there he did not know, supremely confident, joy-filled and in ecstasy, his arms around her, loving her, breathing her breath, more happy than he had ever been, could ever be, his lips telling her he loved her, his mind easing him into sleep in blissful warmth and away from the memory of that awesome, marvelous, agonizing, writhing, ultimate burst of immortality that had seemed to him to tear him apart.

Wednesday, 10th December

Wednesday, 10th December: In the grey dawn Jamie McFay hurried up from the Drunk Town jetty and turned the corner. Around it he saw Norbert and Gornt in No Man's Land, waiting where they should be waiting, noticing without interest the small bag in Gornt's hand that would contain the duelling pistols they had agreed on. Apart from the three of them--and acres of flies--the foul, weed-covered dump was desolate. He had passed no one except drunks huddled and snoring in the corners of shacks, sprawled on benches or in the dirt.

He had not seen them.

"Sorry," Jamie said, out of breath. Like them he wore a topcoat and hat against the morning air, heavy and damp. "Sorry I'm late, I ha--"

"Where's the tai-pan of the Bloody House?"

Norbert asked rudely, shoving his chin out. "Is he yellow or what?"

"Go fuck yourself," Jamie snarled, his face as grey as the dirty sky. "Malcolm's dead, the tai-pan's dead." He saw them gaping at him and he still could not believe it either. "I've just come back from the ship. Went to fetch him before dawn and, well they, he'd spent the night aboard Prancing Cloud. He was..." Words failed him. His tears welled and again he relived the going there and seeing Strongbow at the gangway, pale and frightened, yelling out long before he had come alongside that young Malcolm was dead, that he'd sent their cutter for a doctor but for Christ's sake he's dead.

Then charging up the steps. Noticing Angelique huddled in the corner of the quarterdeck, wrapped in blankets, the First Mate nearby but rushing past them, praying it was not true or nightmare, then going below.

The stateroom was bathed in light. Malcolm lay in the bunk on his back. Eyes closed, calm in death, no cares, sheets drawn up to his chin, hitting Jamie that his friend was as he had never seen him, exquisitely at peace.

"It were... it were Chen," Strongbow was saying in a flood, distraught, "his servant Chen, Jamie, he'd come to wake him ten fifteen minutes ago, he's the one that found him, Jamie, he found him--you can unbolt the door from the outside like most sea cabins--and he did and they were sleeping, he thought. She was but Malcolm weren't and he shook him and saw and near died himself and ran out and fetched me and by that time, she was awake. She was awake and shrieking, poor thing, desperate, shrieking enough to put your teeth on edge so I took her out and told the first Mate to look after her and came back but there were no mistake, poor laddie, he's just as you see him 'cepting I closed his eyes but look... look here..."

Trembling, Strongbow pulled the sheet away.

Malcolm was naked. The lower part of his body rested in a pool of blood. The blood was dried and caked now, the mattress soaked. "He .... he must have hemorrhaged, only God knows why but I suppose..."

"Christ Jesus," Jamie had said and lurched for a chair and cursed and cursed and cursed again, numb. Malcolm? "What the hell do I do now?"' he asked himself helplessly.

The voice of God ricocheted around the cabin answering him: "You pack it in ice and send it home!"

Frightened, he leapt to his feet. Strongbow was staring at him perplexed and, all at once, Jamie realized it was the Captain who had answered him, unaware that he himself had spoken the question aloud. "Is that all you can bloody say for Christ's sake?"' he shouted.

"Sorry, Jamie, didn't mean... I didn't mean to be..." Strongbow wiped his forehead. "What do you want me to do?"' After another age, ears still pounding, head scourged, he muttered, "I don't know."

"Normally we, we would bury him at sea, can't keep... you could bury him ashore... what do you want me to do?"' Jamie's mind seemed to be in slow motion.

Then he noticed Ah Tok squatting near the bunk, tiny, now an old crone, rocking on her heels, mouth moving but no sound coming out. "Ah Tok, you go up side, nothing here, heya?"' She paid no heed. Just rocked back and forth, mouthing and did not answer. He tried again but it was no use. To Strongbow he said, "You'd just better wait. You wait for Babcott or Hoag."

Aloft again to kneel beside Angelique, in the still dark, not yet dawn. But she would not answer him, however tenderly he talked to her, saying how sorry he was, how very sorry, trying to succor her. Momentarily she looked up, without recognition, great blue eyes in the whiteness of her face, then huddled back in the blankets, staring sightlessly at the deck.

"I'm going ashore, Angelique, ashore. You understand? It's... it's best to tell Sir William, you understand?"' He saw her nod dully and touched her as a father would. At the gangway he said to Strongbow, "Put the flag at half mast, all hands to stay aboard, your sailing orders are cancelled.

I'll be back as soon as I can. Best, best not to touch anything till Babcott or Hoag arrive."

Going back to the shore he had been violently sick and now he saw Norbert and Gornt in front of him. Gornt was shocked, Norbert's eyes glittered and, through his misery, he heard him say, "Malcolm's dead? How dead for Christ's sake?"

"I don't know," he said, choked. "We, we, we've sent for Babcott but it looks like he hemorrhaged, I've got to tell Sir William." He turned to leave but Norbert's jeering laughter stopped him.

"You mean the young bugger died fucking? Died on the job? I come to kill the bugger but he's done fucked his way through the Pearly Gates? Old Man Brock will laugh fit to b--"

Blind with rage McFay lashed out, his right fist smashing into Norbert's face, sending him reeling, and missed with a violent left uppercut, overbalanced, and fell to his knees. Norbert had twisted like a cat and leapt to his feet, bellowing with fury, face bloody, nose ugly, and kicked violently for Jamie's head. The toe of his boot caught Jamie's collar and that deflected and deadened the impact slightly or it would have broken his neck instead of sending him tumbling. Norbert wiped the blood off his face as he rushed forward and again kicked savagely. But this time Jamie was ready and he twisted aside before Norbert could reach him and scrambled to his feet, his fists bunched, his left arm momentarily useless.

For a second they squared off, pain obliterated by hatred, Gornt trying to stop them but at the same instant the two men charged, amok, brushing him aside like a leaf. Fists, feet, gouging, street fighting, knees into the groin, nails clawing, tearing cloth or hair anything to crush the other--the enmity of years exploding with surpassing ferocity. They were the same height but Jamie was thirty pounds lighter, Norbert tougher and more vicious. His knife appeared in his hand. Both Jamie and Gornt called out as he lunged, missed, recovered, slashed again and drew blood this time, Jamie awkward and losing and tortured by the damaged shoulder. With a victorious battle cry Norbert thrust forward, to maim but not to kill, but the same moment Jamie's fist crashed into the bridge of his nose, smashing it this time, and Norbert went down whimpering and stayed down, on his hands and knees, sightless with pain, beaten.

Jamie stood over him panting, Gornt expecting him to finish the other man with a kick to the groin and another to the head, then perhaps to use the heel of his boot to mash his face forever. That's what he would have done--not gentlemanly to pull a knife or jeer at the death of another man, even an enemy, he thought with satisfaction at McFay's victory.