Coromandel! Read Online Free PDF Page A

galloping over the empty spaces on that part of the map, and waving spears in the air. Devil faces blew wind over the sea. It was a blue and black map on yellow paper, with the bloodstain in a corner.
    Jason said, ‘How can a man travel to Coromandel?’
    Voy said, ‘In a ship from London, Jason. You go south to the Cape of Storms in Africa, and then east. It’s a long, hard voyage, Jason--but think what’s at the end of it, for you!’ Old Voy’s blue eyes gleamed, and his hand squeezed Jason’s shoulder.
    Jason said with a sudden renewal of suspicion, ‘Why don’t you go and get the treasure yourself? It’s marked on the map.’
    ‘Me?’ Voy shook his head so that his grey hair swung out clear from his shoulders. He laughed throatily. ‘I’m too old. This is young man’s work. But you can go. I’ll sell the map cheap to you, because I like you.’
    Jason was thinking--not thinking, but sinking, under a torrent of ideas: Tartary, horses and the sea racing together, snow on mountains--though he’d never seen a mountain--camels. Mary--she wouldn’t want to go to Coromandel. How far? How long to wait? How much? The map might be a fraud. Farm boys were always losing their money to gypsies and chapmen who sold charms and nostrums and curses, none of them ever any good.
    He said cautiously, ‘How much?’ trying to sound uninterested. Voy said, ‘I wouldn’t sell this map to just anyone who wanted to buy it. What’s the use of letting a man have this map who’ll send out an expedition and get the treasure for himself without ever stirring a foot from Wiltshire?’ He busied himself in a careful stowing away of his belongings as he spoke. He squeezed the leather bottle, squirted the last of the beer down his throat, and handed the bottle back.
    Jason waited eagerly. He said, ‘I haven’t got much, mind.’ Voy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Jason, you can have it for forty shillings.’
    Jason hesitated. For all the years he’d been putting a little money aside he had got only forty-six shillings and three pennies and two farthings.
    He said, ‘I’ll buy it.’
    ‘You’ve got a bargain,’ Voy said cheerfully and folded up the map and handed it to him. ‘But mind, don’t you show that map to anyone, and don’t go talking about it, or you’ll find someone else has got there ahead of you and taken the treasure.’
    Jason held the map carefully and said, ‘But I haven’t got the money with me. I keep it in--I haven’t got it here.’
    Old Voy nodded approvingly. ‘That’s a wise man. Don’t you tell anyone where you keep your money. The world’s full of thieves these days. You treat that map as if it was money itself. Take it. Pay me any time. I trust you.’
    Jason’s heart swelled up, with the map inside his jerkin and Voy trusting him for forty shillings. He mumbled, ‘Thank you. Tomorrow night?’
    Voy nodded. ‘Early. At the spinney.’ He jerked his head towards the floor of the vale.
    Jason nodded, stepped back, and again vaulted over the hedge on to his father’s land. He felt inside his jerkin to make sure the map had not fallen out. Then he picked up the bill--hook and began to work. Old Voy waved his hand in a courtly gesture and shuffled away along the line of the hedge, his head downcast and moving from side to side as he peered at the ground. ‘No runs along there--I’ve looked,’ Jason called after him with a grin. Old Voy shook his long hair and shuffled on and at last out of sight.
    Coromandel!
    God’s blood, this hedge never grew right, and every year he was back up here, early spring and end of summer, getting thorns in his hand. The hedge was like a wall, like a prison, only he could look out over the top, and that made it worse. When he’d done here, he had to go down to the orchard. The wasps were thick on the trees now. He’d get stung a couple of times, as usual.
    Coromandel!
    He put down his bill and got out the map. There was the word. He