'Yours, Captain Drinkwater,' Solomon said, bowing slightly and regarding Drinkwater with an appraising eye.

'You will not refuse a slice or two of cold mutton, Isaac?' Wielding his crutch, Dungarth led them into an adjacent room and they settled before the earl resumed. 'What we propose,' Dungarth said, drawing Drinkwater into the web of intrigue and indicating that the mysterious Jew was party to the plot, 'is to send you to Russia.'

'To Russia!' Drinkwater frowned. ' 'Tis late in the year, my Lord ...' He began to protest but Dungarth leaned forward, his knife pointedly silencing the criticism.

'A single cargo, Nathaniel,' he began, then threw himself back in his creaking chair, 'but Isaac, you elucidate the matter.'

'I have no need to extol the effects of the blockade of the European coastline by our naval forces, Captain,' Solomon said in a low, cultured voice, 'it is our chief weapon. But to oppose it the Emperor Napoleon has proclaimed a "Continental System", an economic interdiction of any British imports upon the mainland of Europe and Russia. Such a declaration was first thought to have been the phantasm of a disordered mind; alas it has proved remarkably successful.'

Drinkwater watched the eloquent gestures of the Jew's hands, accurately guessing the man belonged to that international mercantile confraternity that overcame political boundaries and evaded belligerent obstacles whenever possible.

'Two years ago we took Helgoland, both as a listening post with its ear close to the old independent Hanse city of Hamburg, and as an entrepot for our trade ...'

'But a wider breach must be cut in Napoleon's wall of douaniers, Nathaniel,' Dungarth broke in suddenly, 'something that does more than merely discredit his policy but destroys it! A cargo to Russia, a cargo to Russia as one of many cargoes! Such a cargo, widely advertised in Paris, could not fail to sow seeds of mistrust between Napoleon and his vacillating ally, Tsar Alexander.'