He waited for her to say yes. Montoya could sense that she would, but the situation was precariously balanced. He may have pushed too early. Her général was still in prison, he’d heard the story; and yet, how many times had he seen her sitting alone, her blue eyes sad and vacant? It had been a long time since her French général.

Jealousy spiked in him; Montoya frowned. Enough, he told himself. Best to keep quiet and add no more, let the scales settle with their weights in silence. But he drank her in with his eyes and knew there could never be any sating, that she would forever compel his desire and need, never fulfil it.

Elisabeth smiled, still gazing out the window. Then she turned to look at Montoya.

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I have never before met a hairless visionary who offends God with electricity. Maybe I should?’

HEATWAVE

Fifty-three days after sailing out of London, the Guildford dropped anchor in Rio de Janeiro and took on provisions. She remained in port for another six days, waiting for the arrival of the General Graham, in whose company she’d sail on to Cape Town.

It was tremendously hot, but Captain Johnson decided to keep the prisoners below decks.

‘Better not to encourage them with views of land,’ he said, eyes on the lush mountains that encircled the harbour. ‘We’ll give them a walk on deck once we’re out to sea again.’

The sun was the whole sky. Intense tropical heat poured down onto the ship, enough to spoil the beef in the brine barrels, melt the pitch in the deck timbers. It dripped down, hot and scalding, onto the prisoners below.

‘How it rains in hell!’ the man shackled to Johannes Meyer said.

The prisoners rattled their irons in protest, called out profanities, but were ignored.

By the third day, to placate them, Captain Johnson had extra water rations and fresh fruit distributed (‘I am not a cruel man,’ he said).

The soldiers guarding the hatchways were overwhelmed with the incredible stench as the rations were handed out. Soon it was discovered that one of the prisoners was dead and had been for some time.

Nobody had noticed. The generally putrid, stifling atmosphere had shielded the corpse’s singular contribution. Nobody knew the man was dead except his partner, shackled in the berth with him, who’d said nothing because he’d been collecting the dead man’s rations for himself.

‘You arsehole,’ the soldiers said. ‘You stinking bloody bastard!’

Claudio de Pisera (a London felon with seven to serve) was shunned for the remainder of the journey, particularly by those fellow prisoners who knew in their hearts they would have done exactly the same.

THE WHITE MAN