An image of Paulette, dressed in a lungi and turban, flashed before Zachary's eyes – it was so distasteful, so unnatural, that he shook his head to rid himself of it. It was hard enough to reconcile the girl in the sari with the Paulette who had invaded his dreams: the delicate rose he'd first met on the deck of the Ibis, with her face framed in a bonnet, and a spoondrift of lace bubbling at her throat. The sight of her had caught more than his eyes: that he might speak with her, walk out with her – he had wanted nothing more. But to think of that girl dressed in a sarong and headcloth, clinging barefoot to the ratlines, wolfing rice from a tapori and strutting the decks with the smell of garlic on her breath – that would be like imagining himself to be in love with a lascar; he would be like a man who'd gone sweet on an ape.

'Miss Lambert,' said Zachary firmly, 'this notion of yours is just a smoke-sail: it's never going to catch the least breath of wind. To start with, it's our serang who does the 'gagement of the lascars, not us. He procures them through a ghaut-serang… and for all I know, there's not a man among them who's not his cousin or uncle or worse. I have no say in who he signs on: that's for him to decide.'

'But the serang took Jodu, didn't he?'

'Yes, but it wasn't on my say-so – it was because of the accident.'

'But if Jodu spoke for me,' said Paulette, 'he would take me, would he not?'

'Maybe.' Glancing to his side, Zachary saw that Jodu's face was screwed into an angry scowl: there could be no doubt that they were of one mind on this, so there was no reason not to let him speak for himself. 'Have you asked Jodu what he thinks?'

At this, a hissing sound issued from Jodu's mouth and was followed by a succession of words and exclamations that left no doubt about where he stood – 'Avast!… how she live beech-o-beech many mans? Don know hook from hinch… bumkin or wank…' In a final rhetorical flourish, he posed the question: 'Lady lascar?…' – and answered by spitting over the deck rail, with a contemptuous: 'Heave the lead!'

'You must pay the dear little choute no attention,' said Paulette quickly. 'He is blablating because he is jealous and does not wish to admit that I can be just as good a sailor as he can. He likes to believe that I am his helpless little sister. Anyway it does not matter what he thinks, Mr Reid, because he will do as you tell him. It is all up to you, Mr Reid, not Jodu.'

'Miss Lambert,' said Zachary gently, 'it was you as told me that he's like a brother to you. Don't you see you'd be putting him in danger if you went through with this? What'd you think the other lascars would do to him if they knew he'd fooled them into taking a woman into the fo'c'sle? Many a sailor has been killed for less. And think, Miss Lambert, about what would be done to you if you were found out – and you surely would be, no mojo nor conjuration can stop it. When that happens, believe me, Miss, it would not be something that any of us would wish to think about.'

All this while Paulette had been sitting proudly upright, but now her shoulders began to sag. 'So you will not help me then?' she said in a slow, halting voice. 'Even though you gave your word?'

'If I could help in some other way, I would be only too glad,' said Zachary. 'Why, I have some little money saved, Miss Lambert – it might be enough to buy a passage on another ship.'

'It's not your charity I want, Mr Reid,' Paulette said. 'Don't you see that I must give proof of myself? Do you think a few little obstacles would have stopped my grand-aunt from making her voyage?' Paulette's lip trembled and swelled and she had to brush a tear of vexation from her eye. 'I had thought you were a better man, Mr Reid, a man of your word, but I see that you are nothing but a paltry hommelette.'

'An omelette?'

'Yes; your word is not worth a dam.'

'I'm sorry to disappoint you, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary, 'but I do believe it's for the best. A clipper is no place for a girl like yourself.'

'Oh, so that is it – a girl cannot do it?' Paulette's head snapped up and her eyes flashed. 'To listen to you one would think you had invented hot water, Mr Reid. But you are wrong: I can do it and I will.'

'I wish you good luck with that, Miss,' said Zachary.

'Don't you dare sneer at me, Mr Reid,' Paulette cried. 'I may be in difficulties now but I will get to the Mauritius and when I do I will laugh in your face. I will call you names such as you have never heard.'

'Really?' With the end of the battle in sight, Zachary permitted himself a smile. 'And what might they be, Miss?'

'I will call you…' Paulette broke off, searching her memory for an oath that would be insulting enough to express the anger in her heart. Suddenly a word exploded from her lips: 'Cock-swain! That is what you are, Mr Reid – a horrid cock-swain!'

'Cockswain?' said Zachary, in puzzlement, and Jodu, glad to hear a familiar word, translated, as if by habit: Coksen?

'Yes,' said Paulette, in a voice that was tremulous with indignation. 'Mrs Burnham says that it is a most unspeakable thing and should never be in a lady's mouth. You may think the King is your cousin, Mr Reid, but let me tell you what you really are: an unutterable cock-swain.'

Zachary was so taken by the absurdity of this that he burst out laughing and whispered, in an aside to Jodu: 'Is it "dick-swain" she means?'

'Dix?' This exchange had not eluded Paulette. 'A fine pair the two of you, cockson and dixon, neither one man enough to keep his word. But you wait and see – you're not going to leave me behind.'

Fourteen

It was only to the outside world that Alipore Jail presented the semblance of a unitary realm: to its inmates, it appeared rather as an archipelago of fiefdoms, each with its own rules, rulers and ruled. Neel's transition from the outer sphere of the prison, where the British authorities held sway, into the jail's inner domain, took more than a day to complete: he spent his first night in a holding cell and it was not till the evening of the second day that he was assigned to a ward. By this time, he had been seized by a strange sense of dissociation, and even though he knew very little about the internal arrangements of the jail, he betrayed no surprise when his guards delivered him into the custody of another convict, a man who was also dressed in white dungaree cloth, except that his dhoti was of ankle length and his tunic was clean and well-washed. The man had the heavy build of an ageing wrestler and Neel was quick to notice the marks of eminence that he bore on his person: the well-fed surge of his belly, the trimmed grey beard and the massive ring of keys at his waist; when they walked past cells, the prisoners invarably saluted him with deferential greetings, addressing him as Bishu-ji. It was clear that Bishu-ji was one of the prison's jemadars – a convict who, by reason either of seniority, or force of character, or brute strength, had been appointed to a position of authority by the jail's governors.

The ward in which Neel now found himself was laid out around a square courtyard that had a well at one side and a tall neem tree at the other. This courtyard was where the ward's inmates cooked, ate and bathed: at night they slept in shared cells and their mornings were spent working in labour gangs – but the courtyard was otherwise the centre of their lives, the hearth where their days ended and began. Now, the evening meal having been served and consumed, the cooking fires were dying out and the barred gates that ringed the courtyard were clanging loudly as each group of convicts was returned to its cell for the night. Of the men who remained, one lot were clustered around the well, where they were scrubbing cooking pots and other utensils; the others were the ward's jemadars, and they were sitting at leisure under the neem tree, where four charpoys had been arranged in a circle. The jemadars were all attended by a few of their loyalists, for they each headed a band that was part gang and part family. Within these groupings, the jemadars functioned as both bosses and heads of household, and in much the way that zemindars were served by members of their zenanas, they too were waited on by their favourite chokras and followers. Now, at the end of the day, the overseers were taking their ease with their equals, while their attendants busied themselves in lighting their hookahs, preparing chillums of ganja and massaging their masters' feet.