As he sang, Elvira chanted in praise to the orisha of the ocean depths, the spirit that had kept her ancestors alive on their voyages enchained to the New World, and she called upon it now to safeguard Will on his journey:

Olokun, Olokun,
Baba Baba Olokun …

So they continued, singing against each other to Christian deity and African spirit:

Who bade the mighty ocean deep …
       Olokun, Olokun …
Its own appointed limits keep …
       Baba Baba Olokun …
O hear us when we cry to Thee …
       Olokun, Olokun …
       Baba Baba Olokun … 
For those in peril on the sea …
       Moyuba Baba Olokun.

Nathaniel and Luis rolled the body overboard and watched it float briefly before the stone pulled it down.

Luis crossed himself again, and then, pulling out the linings of his pockets, pointing at the sails, the ropes, the water into which Will had sunk, made it known that he was a poor man and that it would be fitting to compensate him for the sailcloth and the bowline. Nathaniel gave him the shotgun, figuring he could pawn it for a fair price.

The consul turned to his secretary. “Did you get the gist of all that?”

“I did,” Joseph answered. “May I add, Mr. Carrington, that, judging from the description of the coastline—the cliffs—the victim was buried at sea at a point west of Veradaro, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Rio Camarico. His family might like to know the location.”

“Thanks, Joseph. Joseph was raised in Cuba. Parents Protestant missionaries,” Carrington informed the Braithwaites. “Pretty thankless task in a country full of papists, when they aren’t beating voodoo drums. That will be all, Joseph, unless you boys have something to add?”

They said they did not and Joseph left, flicking a finger across his brow and remarking again that it sure was a scorcher.

Carrington opened a drawer and produced a squat cigar, which he clipped at the end with a device that looked like a miniature brass guillotine.

“There isn’t much done right in this country,” he said, striking a long match, “but these Cubans sure know how to make a see-gar.” He exhaled slowly a plume of smoke that twirled lazily in the ribbed light. “Now I’m going to tell you boys about the birds and the bees. Without a single witness and without a body, I am afraid that nothing can be done.”

“Nothing?” asked Eliot, with an indignation all three shared. “What do you mean, Mr. Carrington, nothing can be done? We’re witnesses, sort of. Don’t you believe us?”