He knows! Then all is lost. It was a game tohim, just another chance to excel. There is a strange vessel in theoffing, and it is behaving suspiciously. Today the paintings could hold his interest for only a moment, for thebed of grass that he had laid on the floor against the wall was empty.
One of the captured Dutch officers will be despatchedto the Cape of Good Hope with the ransom demand to be transmitted bythe next Company ship to the Council in Amsterdam. He tapped a swift reply on the woodwork, thenfumbled in the darkness to find the stopper of his peep-hole. Most were simply dressed in the cast-off clothing of their owners,although some of the prettier women wore the flamboyant finery thatmarked them as the favourite playthings of their masters. They were not the first men to have passed this way.
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