Huyghen's voice trailed off as he morosely inspected the bottom of his tankard. Hawksworth motioned for a third round, and as the old man drew on the ale his eyes mellowed. "Aye, you might make it. There's a look about you tells me you can work a ship. But why would you want to be goin'? T'will swallow you up, lad. I've only been to Goa, mind you, down on India's west coastline, but that was near enough. I ne'er saw a man come back once he went in India proper. Somethin' about it keeps 'em there. Portugals says she always changes a man. He loses touch wi' what he was. Nothin' we know about counts for anything there, lad." "What do you mean? How different could it be? I saw plenty of Moors in Tunis." Huyghen laughed bitterly. "If you're thinkin' 'tis the same as Tunis, then you're e'en a bigger fool than I took you for. Nay, lad, the Moor part's the very least o' it." He drew on his tankard slowly, deliberately. "I've thought on't a considerable time, an' I think I've decipher'd what 'tis. But 'tis not a thing easy to spell out." Huyghen was beginning to drift now, his eyes glazed in warm forgetfulness from the ale. But still he continued. "You know, lad, I actually saw some Englishmen go into India once before. Back in '83. Year I was in Goa. An' they were ne'er heard from since." Hawksworth stared at the old man a moment, and suddenly the name clicked, and the date--1583. Huyghen must have been the Dutch Catholic, the one said to speak fluent English, who'd intervened for the English scouting party imprisoned in Goa that year by the Portuguese. He tried to still his pulse. "Do you remember the Englishmen's names?" "Seem to recall they were led by a man nam'd Symmes. But 'twas a long time past, lad. Aye, Goa was quite the place then. Lucky I escap'd when I did. E'en there, you stay awhile an' somethin' starts to hold you. Too much o' India about the place. After a while all this"--Huyghen gestured fondly about the alehouse, where sweat-soaked laborers and seamen were drinking, quarreling, swearing as they bargained with a scattering of weary prostitutes in dirty, tattered shifts--"all this seems . . ." He took a deep draft of ale, attempting vainly to formulate his thoughts. "I've ne'er been one wi' words. But don't do it, lad. You go in, go all the way in to India, an' I'll wager you'll ne'er be heard from more. I've seen it happen." Hawksworth listened as Huyghen continued, his stories of the Indies a mixture of ale and dreams. After a time he signaled another round for them both. It was many empty tankards later when they parted. But Huyghen's words stayed. And that night Brian Hawksworth walked alone on the quay beside the Thames, bundled against the wet autumn wind, and watched the ferry lanterns ply through the fog and heard the muffled harangues of streetwalkers and cabmen from the muddy street above. He thought about Huyghen, and about the man named Roger Symmes, and about the voyage to India.