And then, as though in answer to a prayer, the rain thinned. It almost stopped. Suddenly, ahead of him, he could see the centre of the channel where the gravel banks were and even further. He could make out the faint white shape of the island's cliffs, over a mile away opposite. He stared at the gravel banks. The galleass wasn't there.

Without even waiting to explain, he started running across the spit, to the seaward side. The curtain of rain was drawing back. By the time he had covered the few hundred yards to the beach looking out to the English Channel, he could see right out to the tip of the island. He saw the galley then.

At the westernmost tip of the Isle of Wight, where the old chalk cliffs had collapsed at some time, long ago, into the sea, there remained four spikes of chalk, like teeth, just off the white cliff's high edge, as an indicator that the spine of land did not, in fact, end with the island but continued for some way, under the water. These sturdy outcrops, rising over fifty feet above the water, were known as the Needles. They were chalk, but they were hard and sharp.

The galley had listed badly. One of its masts had broken and was hanging over the side. The oars on the upturned side were either drooping or pointing erratically at the stormy sky. Even as he watched, she spun round helplessly. Then he saw her crash into one of the Needles. She drew back, after which, as if she meant to, the galley thumped into the rock once more.

A renewed cascade of rain interrupted his view. At first he could still see the nearer cliffs, but in a while they also vanished. And though he remained there on watch until it grew dark, he did not see the galleass again.

That night was not a comfortable one for Jonathan. Fortunately there were some blankets stored under the deck. The two boys, at least, were able to get tolerably dry and shelter in the hold during the night. The men pulled sailcloth out from the side of the boat and remained under that. Alan Seagull stayed out on the beach. He didn't care.

It was somewhere in the early hours of the morning that the storm began to abate. By first light Seagull was waking them.

There was no sign of the galley as they rowed round the spit into the sea in the grey dawn. The sky was still overcast, the water choppy. It was not long, however, before Seagull called out and pointed to something floating in the water. It was a long oar. A few minutes later he steered the boat towards something else. A small cask this time. They hauled it aboard.

'Cinnamon,' the mariner announced. And it was not long before they found more. 'Cloves,' said Alan Seagull this time.