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himself had to be put aside for it would do no good. It was a solution he required, not self-castigation.
    ‘Am I allowed on deck, John?’
    That had Pearce turn to face one of his major concerns: what to do if it looked as if they were about to be boarded, for he would never just strike his flag and let
Larcher
be taken. That meant Barbary and slavery for any man taken; for a woman what would happen to her did not bear thinking about.
    ‘Best stay in my cabin for the moment.’
    A swift nod saw her retreat, leaving Pearce to return to his thoughts; given there was nothing to report for what seemed an age, the sandglass needed to be turned and it ran again till half full, they went deep. Yet the silence from aloftcontinued, allowing him to begin to see that as a positive: those ships could not be gaining on them at any great pace, which had him register once again the lack of a strong breeze, further evidenced by the slack and near to drooping flags aloft. Dorling called finally and looking to where he was perched and seeing, even at a distance, his unsmiling face, Pearce knew the news was not good.
    ‘If you have something to report, Mr Dorling, I would rather it was imparted with a degree of discretion.’
    If the master’s broad face had looked unsmiling aloft, it was positively doom laden on deck and there was good reason that it was so. Astern of them, and they could not have avoided being likewise spotted and maybe even identified, were, he was sure, the very vessels that had inflicted the previous damage. He had stayed up there longer than necessary to be absolute certain, worse than that they seemed to be, as far as Dorling could tell, in a state of good repair, with all their masts and a full top hamper of sails.
    ‘Where in God’s name could that have been refitted so quickly?’ Pearce demanded, invoking in his case, a rare reference to the Almighty.
    ‘How many ports are there on the coast of Sicily?’
    ‘Any number, but not open to the Saracen!’
    That archaic description got a raised eyebrow, as if Dorling did not know that was how the folk of Sicily still referred to an ancient enemy. ‘Money talks, Capt’n, even to a papist and how ever it were done, we are as like as not going to have to pay for it.’

CHAPTER THREE
    John Pearce was disconcerted by the attitude of his master, whom he had always thought to have an optimistic streak, more so now than he had been in Palermo. British tars were, as a breed, a confident lot, often too much so for their own good, sure in their boastful way that they were worth ten times any Johnny foreigner when it came to a fight, be it on land or at sea. Against that he had never met a bunch of people more prone to superstition and he guessed it was that which was afflicting Dorling now, the feeling that somehow the fates had decided on retribution for some perceived sin and that it was imminent.
    ‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘we are required to examine the charts, Mr Dorling, don’t you?’
    ‘Sir.’
    ‘And a good pair of eyes aloft, I would suggest.’
    The time it took the man to react and move to comply was annoying; some kind of torpor was now upon him making the reply was both slow and low. Yet the needwas obvious; over that gimcrack bowsprit lay Italy and a coastline full of ports, one to two large and well-defended, with fortresses and cannon to protect their harbours, which surely represented the only means by which they could escape. What was their position now and where lay the best chance of a safe berth?
    They must establish the relative speed of the pursuit against their own so as to make some calculation of the odds of successfully evading capture based on the distance to shore, both factors Pearce felt he should not have any need to emphasise. Having told Dorling to join him in his cabin he went there to ask Emily if she could vacate it for the time being.
    ‘Are we are in danger, John?’ Getting in response a raised eyebrow she added, ‘I