The cry came drifting down from the maintop, almost like a leaf falling from a canvas tree. I lifted my head from the coil of rope where I lay dozing. The air felt hot and heavy, as it had for more than a week. What breeze there was barely served to move the frigate Aurora forward. It was the summer of 1688 and the Caribbees simmered like a buccaneer’s barbeque. “On deck, there! A ship!” The cry came again and I squinted up the tall stepped lines of the mainmast to where wiry old Abel Tate stood watch in the maintop. Around me I could hear other members of the Aurora’s crew bestirring themselves, struggling up from where they had lain languid in the heat. It was all I could do to haul myself to my feet, but the idea of anything that might offer escape from the usual dreaded doldrums finally got me out of my comfortable coil. I staggered over to where my friend Mr. Jeffers, the gunner, stood, shading his single good eye from the sun with one callused hand. “Devil can I see a thing,”
