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years. She’s the toast of Macao. She runs the Sinclair house impeccably and treats Horatio as a prince. The food’s the best in town and she rules the servants beautifully. Plays the harpsichord like a dream and sings like an angel, by jove. She obviously likes you—why else would you have an open invitation to dine whenever you and Horatio are in Macao? So why not as wife, eh? But she’s never been home. She’s spent all her life among heathens. She has no income. Parents are dead. But what does that matter, eh? The Reverend Sinclair was respected throughout Asia when he was alive, and Mary’s beautiful and just twenty. My prospects are excellent. I’ve five hundred a year and I’ll inherit the manor house and the lands eventually. By gad, she could be the one for me. We could get married in Macao at the English church and rent a house until this commission’s up and then we’ll go home. When the time’s ripe I’ll say to Horatio, “Horatio, old boy, there’s something I want to talk to . . .”
    “Wot be all the delay, Cap’n Glessing?” Brock’s rough voice shattered his reverie. “Eight bells were time to raise the flag and it be an hour past.”
    Glessing whirled around. He was not used to a belligerent tone of voice from anyone less than a vice-admiral. “The flag gets raised, Mr. Brock, when one of two things happen. Either when His Excellency comes ashore or when there’s a signal cannon from the flagship.”
    “An’ when be that?”
    “I notice that you’re not fully represented yet.”
    “You mean Struan?”
    “Of course. Isn’t he Tai-Pan of The Noble House?” Glessing said it deliberately, knowing it would irritate Brock. Then he added, “I suggest you possess yourself with patience. No one ordered any of you tradesmen ashore.”
    Brock reddened. “You’d better be learning difference twixt merchants an’ tradesmen.” He moved his tobacco quid in his cheek and spat on the stones beside Glessing’s feet. A few flecks of spittle marred the polish of the silver-buckled shoes. “Beg pardon,” Brock said with mock humility and strode away.
    Glessing’s face froze. But for the “Beg pardon” he would have challenged him to a duel. Rotten low-class sod, he thought, filled with contempt.
    “Beggin’ yor pardon, sorr,” the master-at-arms said, saluting, “signal from the flagship.”
    Glessing squinted his eyes against the sharpening wind. The signal flags read: “All captains to report aboard at four bells.” Glessing had been present last night at a private meeting of the admiral and Longstaff. The admiral had said that opium smuggling was the cause of all the trouble in Asia. “Goddamme, sir, they’ve no sense of decency,” he had exploded. “All they think of is money. Abolish opium and we’ll have no more damned trouble with the damned heathen or with the damned tradesmen. The Royal Navy will enforce your order, by God!” And Longstaff had agreed, rightly. I suppose the order will be announced today, Glessing thought, hard put to contain his delight. Good. And about time. I wonder if Longstaff has just told Struan that he’s issuing the order.
    He glanced back at the longboat which was approaching leisurely. Struan fascinated him. He admired him and loathed him—the master mariner who had conned ships on every ocean in the world, who wrecked men and companies and ships to the glory of The Noble House. So different from Robb, Glessing thought; I like Robb.
    He shuddered in spite of himself. Perhaps there was truth in the tales whispered by sailormen the China seas over, tales that Struan worshiped the Devil in secret, and that in return the Devil had given him power on earth. How else could a man of his age look so young and be so strong, with white teeth and all his hair and the reflexes of a youth, when most men would be infirm and used up and near death? Certainly the Chinese were terrified of Struan. “Old Green-eyed Rat Devil” they had nicknamed him, and