"Explain what you mean about the women."
"Let me give you an example from Goa." Mukarjee squatted again. "The Portuguese soldiers arriving from Lisbon each year tumble from their ships more dead than alive, weak from months at sea and the inevitable scurvy. They are in need of proper food, but they pay no attention to this, for they are even more starved for the company of women. . . . By the way, how is your wound?" Mukarjee made no attempt to suppress a smile at Hawksworth's astonished testing of his leg.
"The pain seems to be gone." He tried squatted in Indian style, like Mukarjee, and found that this posture, too, brought no discomfort.
"Well, these scurvy-weakened soldiers immediately avail themselves of Goa's many well-staffed brothels—which, I note, Christians seem to frequent with greater devotion than their fine churches. What uneven test of skill and vigor transpires I would not speculate, but many of these feringhis soon find the only beds suited for them are in the Jesuit's Kings Hospital, where few ever leave. I watched some five hundred Portuguese a year tread this path of folly." Mukarjee's lips were now the hue of the rose.
"And what happens to those who do live?"
"They eventually wed one of our women, or one of their own, and embrace the life of sensuality that marks the Portuguese in Goa. With twenty, sometimes even thirty slaves to supply their wants and pleasure. And after a time they develop stones in the kidney, or gout, or some other affliction of excess."
"What do their wives die of? The same thing?"
"Some, yes, but I have also seen many charged with adultery by their fat Portuguese husbands—a suspicion rarely without grounds, for they really have nothing more to do on hot afternoons than chew betel and intrigue with the lusty young soldiers—and executed. The women are said to deem it an honorable martyrdom, vowing they die for love."
Mukarjee rose and began meticulously replacing the vials in his cloth bag. "I may be allowed to visit you again if you wish, but I think there's no need. Only forgo the company of our women for a time, my friend. Practice prudence before pleasure."
A shaft of light from the hallway cut across the room, as the door opened without warning. A guard stood in the passageway, wearing a uniform Hawksworth had not seen before.