He’d slipped away from the ship that morning. All he needed to do was to avoid the waterfront for a few days until his present ship and her drunken master had gone. He might be a Negro, but he was a free man, after all.

It had been mid-afternoon when he went to the baker’s. The baker’s son, a boy of about his own age, had been there. For some reason, the boy had given him an awkward look. He’d asked for the baker, but the boy had shaken his head.

“He’s been dead a month. Mother’s running the business.”

Hudson expressed his sorrow, and explained that he had come for his chest. But when he said that, the boy just shrugged. “Don’t know anything about a chest.” It seemed to Hudson that the boy was lying. He asked where the baker’s widow was. Away until the next day. Could he look for the chest? No. And then the strangest thing had happened. He’d never been particular friends with the baker’s son, but they’d known each other most of their lives. Yet now the boy had suddenly turned on him as if the past had never been.

“You’d better be careful, nigger,” he said viciously, “if I were you.” Then he waved him away. Hudson had still been in a state of astonishment when he went into the tavern, and met the slave who explained what was going on.

The best thing might have been to go back to the waterside, but he didn’t want to encounter the captain, who’d be looking for him by now. In the worst case, he could head out of the town, and sleep in the open. But he didn’t want to do that. The thought that the baker’s family might have stolen his money worried him considerably.

He was moving cautiously, therefore, as he made his way through the streets.

The trouble had started on March 18. A mysterious fire broke out in the governor’s house, and the fort had been burned down. Nobody knew who’d done it. Exactly a week later, another fire had started. Seven days after that, van Zant’s warehouse had burst into flames.

It was arson, clearly. But what was its purpose? Thefts had also taken place. Were the gangs of burglars in the town starting the fires as diversions for their activities? Or could the papists be behind it? The British were at war with Catholic Spain again, and most of the garrison at the fort had been sent to attack Spanish Cuba. Were Spanish Jesuits organizing mayhem in the British colonies? The fires multiplied.

And then a black slave named Cuffee was caught, running from one of them.