"Vaijantes had them torture my father?"
"Aye. Think's he'll squeeze a confession and be a hero. But ol' Hawksworth ne'er said a word. All day. By nightfall Vaijantes has pull'd his arms right out. They carried him out of the room a dead man."
Hawksworth still remembered how his stomach turned at that moment, with the final knowledge that his father was not merely missing, or away—as he had told himself, and others—but had been coldly murdered. He had checked his tears, lest Symmes see, and pressed on.
"What happened to you, and to the others? Did he torture you next?"
"Would have, not a doubt on't. We all wonder'd who'd be the next one. Then that night they post a Jesuit down to our cell, a turncoat Dutchman by the name of Huyghen, who spoke perfect English, thinkin' he'd cozen us into confessin'. But he hates the Portugals e'en more'n we do. An' he tells us we'd most likely go free if we'd pretend to turn Papist. So the next day we blurt out we're actually a band o' wealthy adventurers in disguise, rich lads out to taste the world, but we've seen the error o' our ways an' we've decided to foreswear the flesh and turn Jesuits ourselves. Thinkin' of donatin' everything we own to their holy order." Symmes paused and nervously drew a small sip from his tankard of spiced ale. "Vicious Papist bastards."
"Did they really believe you?"
"Guess the Dutchman must've convinc'd 'em somehow. Anyway, our story look'd square enough to get us out on bail, there bein' no evidence for the charge o' spyin' in any case. But we'd hardly took a breath of air before our old friend the Hollander comes runnin' with news the Viceroy's council just voted to ship us back to Lisbon for trial. That happens and we're dead men. No question. We had to look to it."
Symmes seemed to find concentration increasingly difficult, but he extracted a long-stemmed pipe and began stuffing black strands into it with a trembling hand while he composed himself. Finally he continued. "Had to leave Goa that very night. What else could we do? So we traded what little we had for diamonds, sew'd 'em up in our clothes, and waded the river into India. By dawn we're beyond reach o' the Portugals. In India. An' then, lad, is when it began."
"What happened?"
"T’would take a year to tell it all. Somehow we eventually got to the Great Moghul’s court. I think he was named Akman. An' we start livin' like I never thought I'd see. Should've seen his city, lad, made London look like a Shropshire village. He had a big red marble palace called Fatehpur Sekri, with jewels common as rocks, an’ gold e'erywhere, an' gardens filled with fountains, an' mystical music like I'd ne'er heard, an' dancin' women that look'd like angels . . ."