AND SO THEY WENT and rounded up all their buried pigs and loaded them on board Minerva, and stowed them alongside silver from Peru and gold from Brazil. Of course van Hoek's books were loaded aboard first of all. He complained of the miserable job Jack had done re-caulking the lid, and threatened to make him pay the devil, but when the box was set down on the deck of his cabin the Dutchman looked as close to happy as Jack had seen him in years.
There was no time even to pry the lid off, though. Getting the pigs and loading them aboard only took four days, but it seemed longer to Jack than all the time he'd spent in New Spain before. He avoided going ashore, and could not set foot on dry land without entertaining a moment's phant'sy that Minerva would sail away and leave him stranded in that town, where anything that moved was pursued by a cloud of mosquitoes, and anything that didn't was shortly buried in wind-blown sand.
THEY DID NOT OPEN the crate and read the letter until they had cleared Bermuda, a month after departing Vera Cruz. Dappa passed it around the table first so that Jack, Vrej, and van Hoek could inspect the seal. Pressed into a daub of red wax was a coat of arms too detailed to be made out: Jack imagined he saw a fragment of fleur-de-lis in one corner and a seagull in another. But the other men were all smirking.
"Who the hell is it from?" he demanded.
"It claims to be from the Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm," said Dappa.
This bit of news hit Jack like a yard-arm across the brow, and shut him up long enough for Dappa to break the seal and smooth the page out on the table. "It is in English," he announced, and took a swallow of chocolate to whet his whistle. " ‘To Jack Shaftoe, esq. The inexorable tides ebb and flow 'neath the battlements of the Castle as I pen these lines, reminding me that what is submerged and seemingly drown'd forever in fatal Seas may yet rise forth from Neptune's wat'ry Dungeon if one hath only Patience to await the natural Wheeling of the Heavens. I am put in mind of a certain Man who when I last spied him seem'd to've been dragged down by the Moral Undertow which sweepeth away even strong souls who stand long in it, and to have fallen into a condition of Degradation worse than Death; and whose Body was scarcely more fit than his Spirit, as he was far gone with the French Pox and afflicted with divers Wounds and Amputations to boot—' "
"The most of notable of which was inflicted by her," Jack said with a gigantic wink, "but she omits that—she's too much the Lady now."
"She writes like one," van Hoek said, none too admiringly.
Dappa cleared his throat irritably and continued, " ‘thus did this Man, whom many styl'd a Vagabond, vanish from Christendom's ken, swamped by Mortality's Tide; and if rumors echoed up from Barbary, years later, to the effect that a Man answering to his Description had been witness'd there, it signified Nothing more than when a Sparend or Mast-head breaketh the Surface of some stagnant Cove at low Tide and reminds us that, once, a Ship was wrack'd in that Place. But all that was rumor'd concerning this Man was in an Instant over-turn'd when tidings were delivered to France of a bataille rangée in the streets of Grand Caire, whose Reverberations seem'd to echo back and forth 'tween the rugged Pyramids and the Barock Monuments of Versailles, as when a Thunderbolt splits the Air 'tween two very Mountains. For the Tides of Fortune had turn'd, even as those of us, who should've known better, had turn'd our backs to advert on inward and inland Matters. Nor was this the only such occasion, for in later Years came news of a Battle won through Alchemical cozening in Hindoostan, and other Ebbings and Flowings I'll not tediously enumerate, as you are their Author.' "
"Thank God, I was afraid she was going to relate the whole story again," Jack said.
" ‘In recent years, Tidings of your Adventures have, from time to time, stirr'd Admiration and Envy in the Courts of Europe. Tho' my Situation in this Castle is exceeding remote from such grand Places, yet it has been my Privilege to conduct a frequent Correspondence with certain rare Persons who inhabit them, and they have not been slow to inform me of all that is claimed, or rumored, concerning your Asiatick wand'rings. Indeed, my icy Castle hath proved a better Vantage than Versailles itself, for some of the Letters that come to me here originate in Hanover, and were written by a certain Lady whom you, sir, and I once looked upon there, from a respectful Distance. And lest these words seem to demean that same Lady by implying too great familiarity with me, who am so mean by comparison, I say to you, sir, that as a Paragon of Wisdom and Beauty she is as distant and remote to me, as she was on that Day we spied 'pon her from a Germanick church.' "
This paragraph was enough to make Jack's eyes cross, and van Hoek knead his temples, but after Dappa had read it a second time, Jack attempted the following translation: "All right, she's cozy with Sophie, who provided us with our cannons and owns part of this ship, and Sophie knows where we are better than the gossips of Versailles."
"We sent Sophie a letter from Rio de Janeiro," van Hoek said.
Dappa continued, " ‘That incomparable Lady hath given me to believe that you may be in New Spain. I pray that this Letter hath found you in good Health there, and that you have found a trustworthy person to read it to you. If it is your Intention to sail for Europe with metal goods, then I wish you Godspeed, and I beg you to consider making land-fall at Qwghlm; for all your Sins have long since been forgiven.' " Dappa slowed as he read this, and there was much awkward shifting about as heads turned toward the poleaxed Jack. Seeing that he was no longer really a part of the conversation, Dappa rushed through the last bit: " ‘I pray you will take this as a fair Prospect, but I know it is of no especial Value to your Partners. To them I say that, if Britain is one day to be the realm of the Lady before mentioned, that the first speck of it to owe its love and loyalty to her will be Qwghlm; and if it is to be overwhelm'd by the Popish legions, the last bit of soil to surrender her colors will be that on which this Castle is pil'd. London may sway to and fro 'tween Whigs and Torys, Jacobites and Hanoverians, but Qwghlm is a rock, ever loyal, and nowhere in the World will Minerva find a safer harbor.' What the hell is she on about there?"
Vrej said, "If the last news we had from London is true, Queen Anne will never produce an heir to the throne, which means that the next Queen of England will be our co-owner, the Electress Sophie of Hanover—who has apparently become some sort of patroness to Jack's fair Eliza."
Van Hoek said, "The harbor beneath her castle may be safe. The approach is anything but—we've no way of actually getting there."
"Eliza—or I should say, the Duchess—addresses that matter in a final paragraph, here," Dappa said. "She instructs us to make for Derry, or as she styles it, Londonderry, on the north of Ireland, and there to find a certain pilot, name of James Hh. He'll bring us safely into the harbor beneath Qwghlm Castle."
"As Captain of this vessel, I see no commanding reason to do this when perfectly safe and well-known harbors are available at London and Amsterdam," van Hoek said, "but as a share-holder in our Enterprise I am obligated to entertain discussions."
"Sophie is a greater share-holder than any of us, and Eliza would appear to speak for her," Jack said.
"But she did not say so explicitly. Until we see a letter with the arms of Hanover on it, we can't know Sophie's mind," said Vrej.
"So you vote for London?" Dappa asked.
Vrej shrugged. "That would bring us directly to the Mint at the Tower of London. We could hardly improve on that. What is your vote, Dappa?"
Dappa's eyes strayed momentarily toward his cabin. "I vote for Qwghlm."
"Are you voting as a share-holder in this venture, or a chronicler of the slave-trade?" van Hoek asked. For as Minerva had worked her way up the long coast of Brazil, Dappa had patiently collected and written down the personal accounts of numerous African slaves, and it was no secret that he would see them in print.