Drinkwater tossed off the last of the gin and water, shuddered again and contemplated the pistol. He picked it up, his thumb drawing back each of the two hammers to half cock. The click echoed in the bare room, a small but deliberately malevolent sound. He swung the barrels round towards him and stared at the twin muzzles. The dark orifices seemed like close-set and accusing eyes. His hand shook and the heavy, blued steel jarred against his lower teeth. He jerked his thumb, drawing back the right hammer to full cock. Its frizzen lifted in mechanical response. It would be so easy, so very easy, a gentle squeezing of the trigger, perhaps a momentary sensation, then the repose of eternal oblivion.

He sat thus for a long time. His hand no longer shook and the twin muzzles warmed in his breath. He could taste the vestiges of gunpowder on his tongue. But he did not squeeze the trigger, and would ever afterwards debate with himself if it was cowardice or courage that made him desist, for he had become a man who could not live with himself.

In the months since the terrible events in the rain forest of Borneo, his duty had kept him busy. The passage home from Penang had been happily uneventful, blessed with fair winds and something of a sense of purpose, for Lord Dungarth had written especially to Admiral Pellew — then commanding the East Indies station — that Captain Drinkwater and his frigate were to be sent home the moment they made their appearance in the China Sea. The importance of such an instruction seemed impressive at a distance. His Britannic Majesty's frigate Patrician had arrived at Plymouth ten days earlier and Drinkwater had been met with an order to turn his ship over to a stranger and come ashore at once. Taking post, he had reported to the Admiralty. Lord Dungarth, head of the Secret Department, had not been available and Drinkwater's reception had been disappointingly frosty. The urgency and importance with which his imagination had invested his return to England proved mistaken. Captain Drinkwater's report and books were received, he was given receipts and told to wait upon their Lordships 'on a more convenient occasion'.