"Good, I have three letters for you." Juan held the letters in his hand and placed one on the desk. "This one is for Señor Obregon upon his return, and you will give him my personal thanks for making his home available to me." He placed the second letter in Diego's hand. "This one is to be hand delivered by you to Monsieur Hazard in Versailles." Juan held the last letter in front of his servant. "And this, this letter is for you, dearest Diego. You will open this letter tomorrow at first light. Do you understand?"

"Yes maestro," said Diego, a slight tremor in his voice. "Will you come back?"

A smile opened in his thick black goatee. "I always come back."

The Maria de la Luz wasn't much of a ship but it was the only one leaving the port of Cadiz for New Spain in the next month. She was loaded with barrels of pickles and wine, bibles, rosaries, mail and a crew of twelve. It departed the next morning for Veracruz, and Juan was leaving with her. He had reluctantly been granted passage from the ship's Captain, Miguel de la Garza.

De la Garza looked to be in his mid-twenties like Juan. He had a full black beard cropped neatly, as was the fashion of His Majesty's naval officers. The wrinkled skin around the corners of his eyes reported to his years aboard ship, squinting against unfettered sunrise and sunset. His fine black hair was shoulder length in the back and began in a widow’s peak in the front. He had granted Juan passage because of the letter but had done so nonchalantly as though he saw them every day. Juan may have been under the commission of a viceroy, but it was understood from the beginning that they were going there on the Captain's boat.

The weather worsened on the fourth day out of Cadiz and it was on that day that Juan saw him for the first time. He first noticed him behind a pickle barrel at the front of the hold. The belly of the ship held the crew’s quarters along with leftover barrels and crates that wouldn't fit in the forecastle and main hold. Juan's bunk was at the rear of the crew's quarters and across the stairwell from the first mates. The hold had a single oil lamp suspended from a crossbeam above the nailed down table and chairs in the center of the compartment. The lamp swayed wildly and sent light chasing shadow around table, chair, bunk, and barrel as the ship groaned through twenty foot swells.

Juan placed a folded pillow under his head allowing him to see over the foot of the bunk. "I can see you quite clearly," he said. They were alone.

The figure retreated from Juan's words, scampering farther behind the pickle barrel.

There was no response.