His voice trailed off. "Ah, lad, the women there."
Symmes suddenly remembered himself and turned to examine Hawksworth with his glassy eyes. "But I fancy you're a bit young to appreciate that part o' it, lad." Then his gaze returned to the fire and he rambled on, warming to his own voice. "An' there was poets readin' Persian, and painters drawin' pictures that took days to do one the size of a book page. An' the banquets, feasts you're ne'er like to see this side o' Judgment Day."
Symmes paused to draw on his pipe for a moment, his hand still shaking, and then he plunged ahead. "But it was the Drugs that did it, lad, what they call'd affion and bhang, made out o' poppy flowers and some kind of hemp. Take enough of them and the world around you starts to get lost. After a while you ne'er want to come back. It kill'd the others, lad. God only knows how I escap'd."
Then Symmes took up his well-rehearsed monologue about the wealth he'd witnessed, stories of potential trade that had earned him a place at many a merchant's table. His tale expanded, becoming ever more fantastic, until it was impossible to tell where fact ended and wishful fabrication began.
Although Symmes had never actually met any Indian officials, and though the letter from Queen Elizabeth had been lost en route, his astonishing story of India's riches inspired the greed of all England's merchants. Excitement swelled throughout London's Cheapside, as traders began to clamor for England to challenge Portugal's monopoly of the sea passage around the Cape. Symmes, by his inflated, half-imaginary account, had unwittingly sown the first seeds of the East India Company.
Only young Brian Hawksworth, who nourished no mercantile fantasies, seemed to realize that Roger Symmes had returned from India quite completely mad.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Pinnace is afloat, Cap'n. I'm thinkin' we should stow the goods and be underway. If we're goin'." Mackintosh's silhouette was framed in the doorway of the Great Cabin, his eyes gaunt in the lantern light. Dark had dropped suddenly over the Discovery, bringing with it a cooling respite from the inferno of day.
"We'll cast off before the watch is out. Start loading the cloth and iron-work"—Hawksworth turned and pointed toward his own locked sea chest—"and send for the purser."