It was to this diminutive merchant that Morgan turned. Capitano Jorge Rossi had repeated the one phrase he could say in English, Russian, French, Chinese, Spanish, and even Arabic. Beyond his statement of arrest he could converse only in Portuguese and French. Rossi would have cut a dashing figure with his narrow face and heavy black eyebrows except for the look of resignation in his red-rimmed eyes. Lamplight did little to hide the veins that crisscrossed his prominent cheekbones and the unhealthy pallor of a man given to excess drink. Morgan had heard rumors that the capitano was the errant offspring of nobility, banished to a posting in Macao as punishment for bedding his own sister. Morgan didn’t relish the idea of placing himself in the custody of a man totally without scruples. A streak of larceny was one thing, total decadence quite another. The polizia had arranged themselves into a single rank, a couple of feet apart. To Morgan’s right stood the Hotspur’s three remaining crewmen, watching first their captain then the polizia.
