Ambrose Nast

"'That I accept,' he replied.

"'I pointed to the west, along the coast road, "'and instructed him to walk over the rise to the village, "'a journey of only a mile.

"'Colonel Morrow's house was the second he would meet on the road.

"'He pressed the coins forcefully into my open palm.

"'His hand was dry but cold to the extreme, unnatural.

"'It sickened me to take those coins.'

Into the name of your vessel, I asked the man as he turned away without either one of us thanking the other, for the customs log.

De lagoon Norden, he responded, and began to walk with a very slight limp into the dark.

He was not more than twenty paces away when I began to hurry in the opposite direction, toward the harbor office.

I shoved the coins into my coat and tried to forget them.

It was now 8.25 p.m.

by my pocket watch.

I detoured only briefly, because I could not bear to let Florence's fire burn, even if it was now not much more than a lonesome trifle.

I wanted there to be no signal of any kind offered that ship in the distance.

It remained perfectly still on the water.

That strange haze remained around it, spreading gently outwards in all directions over the ripples.

When the fire was nothing but ashes, I faced the ship and made the sign of the Holy Cross.

time i believed was of the essence and i hastened to the harbor office i was greatly relieved to see a lamp burning within rankins so dedicated with hands so full recording the transactions of four ports had again stayed very late something has happened i told him brusquely upon entering after formalities had been exchanged

There's a ship well off Galway Rock.

We need to find records of when it may have last docked, either here or anywhere on the Cape the records may mention, and we need to sit quick about it.