'Very well, Captain Ballantyne, the matter is agreed. You will pilot us into the Pearl River and provide me with charts necessary to take me to Penang. I shall take your brig under tow and endeavour to take off as much of your cargo as possible if she shows signs of foundering.'

'Damn it, thank you, sir!' Ballantyne held out his hand, his sudden smile evidence of his relief and the stress under which he had been labouring. Drinkwater wondered how much money rode upon the successful discharge of Musquitd's cargo. 'I will put my second officer aboard you, sir,' Ballantyne went on, 'to act as your pilot. He is as familiar as myself with the navigation of the Pearl River.'

'You have perfect confidence in him?'

'Absolute, Captain Drinkwater, and he may stand surety for my good conduct — he is my son.'

'I had not exactly wanted a hostage,' Drinkwater said wryly. 'Come,' he added, 'let us drink to our resolve.'

He summoned Mullender from the pantry and the two men sipped their wine while the companies of their ships passed a towline.

Drinkwater could only guess at what Ballantyne's son's mother had been. A Begum, perhaps, or a Rani? Or did such noble ladies refuse to cohabit with the likes of Ballantyne? With the low passed, he stood now with the younger man as he had his lather, consulting the charts. Possibly he was merely the bastard offspring of a nautch-girl, for he was clearly a man of colour. Drinkwater had yet to test his abilities, though he hoped he had inherited some of his father's skill, for Ballantyne had saved Musquito after a fight of ten days against the worst weather a mariner could encounter in these seas. Yet was it possible that so prosaic-looking a man could have sired so exotic a son?