Bahram’s instinctive suspicion of abstractions was now aroused. ‘But Lancelot, what would you do about the present situation? Are you having any definite plan?’

‘My plan,’ said Dent, ‘is to trust in the Almighty and leave the rest to the laws of Nature. It will not be long before mankind’s natural cupidity reasserts itself. I hold this to be Man’s most powerful and most noble instinct: nothing can withstand it. It is only a matter of time before it overwhelms the proud ambitions of those who seek to govern from on high.’

Bahram began to fidget with the hem of his angarkha. ‘But Lancelot … see, I am an ordinary man of business; can you please explain what you are trying to say in a simple way?’

‘All right,’ said Dent. ‘Let me put it like this. Do you think the demand for opium in China has abated merely because of an edict from Peking?’

‘No,’ said Bahram. ‘That I doubt.’

‘And you are right to doubt it, for I assure you it has not. The absence of food does not make a man forsake hunger – it only makes him hungrier. The same is true of opium. I am told that the price being offered for a chest of opium in the city is now in the region of three thousand dollars – five times what it was a year ago.’

‘Is it really?’

‘Yes. Can you imagine what that means, Barry? The cumshaws that every mandarin, guard and bannerman received a year ago are now also potentially many times higher.’

‘That is true,’ said Bahram. ‘You have a point.’

‘How long before the mandarins see reason? If the Emperor’s edicts and prohibitions are not rescinded, what is to hold them back from fomenting rebellion? If he does not disavow his whim, what is to prevent lesser men from rising up against the power-maddened Manchu, who is not even of their own race? How long can it be before they see where their own interests lie?’

‘But that is the problem, Lancelot,’ said Bahram. ‘Time. Let me be frank with you. I have a shipful of opium anchored off Hong Kong and I need to dispose of it quickly. I do not have much time.’

‘Oh I understand very well,’ said Dent with a smile. ‘Believe me I am in exactly the same position – even more so because I have more than one shipload to dispose of. But ask yourself this: what is the alternative? If the Olyphants have their way then we will lose our cargoes in their entirety; if Jardine and his people win out what will it profit us, you and me? It will be a year, or perhaps two, before an expeditionary force arrives. Do you think the investors who have entrusted us with their capital will wait quietly while an English fleet sails halfway around the world?’

‘No, it is true; they would not wait that long,’ said Bahram. ‘But tell me, Lancelot, what is your solution? What would you do about this problem?’