Ewell turned, he would reach his cabin, deny the French that leather, wax-sealed pouch but an arrow caught him full in his exposed throat and he crashed to the deck. He thought he could still move but the blood pumped through his mouth, he saw the blurred faces of his wife, his eldest child and the darkness came crashing down about him. Within an hour the Saint Christopher was blazing from the prow to stern. The French ships stood off, their crews watching the bowsprit dip into the waves, its grim burden, the body of the bo'sun, still jerking and twisting. Stephen Appleby died slowly. The noose around his neck strangling off his breath but, just before he died, even in his death agonies, he wondered,

once again, how the French had known and found his ship.

In the rue Barbette in Paris, Nicholas Poer hunched over his bowl of rancid meat, leeks and onions, slurping from the horn spoon he always carried with him. He stared round the dirty tavern, slyly studying the other customers sitting on up-turned barrels of broken stools. The place was poorly lighted by thick tallow candles which gave off a putrid smell. Poer did not like it, he heard a rat rustle the dirty straw which covered the earth-packed floor and turned back to his food, wondering what he was really eating. He raised the battered pewter tankard and drained its contents, the raw beer stinging the sores in his mouth. He felt frightened, almost shaking with panic though he tried to conceal it, drawing comfort from the long dagger he clutched under his cloak.

Of Gascon parents, Poer spoke fluent French and knew Paris well.