had been none other than Peter Elkington, father of George Elkington, Chief Merchant on this voyage. Like his son, Peter Elkington was a swearing, drinking, whoring merchant, a big-bellied giant of a man who many people claimed looked more and more like King Harry the older and fatter he got. It was Peter Elkington's original idea those many years back to send Englishmen to India. The time was before England met and obliterated the Armada of Spain, and long before she could hope to challenge the oceanic trade networks of the Catholic countries--Spain to the New World, Portugal to the East. In those days the only possible road to India for England and the rest of Europe still was overland, the centuries-old caravan trail that long preceded Portugal's secret new sea route around the Cape. The idea of an English mission overland to India had grown out of Peter Elkington's Levant Company, franchised by Queen Elizabeth to exploit her new treaty with the Ottoman Turks, controllers of the caravan trade between India and the Mediterranean. Through the Levant Company, English traders could at last buy spices directly at Tripoli from overland caravans traveling the Persian Gulf and across Arabia, thereby circumventing the greedy Venetian brokers who for centuries had served as middlemen for Europe's pepper and spices. But Peter Elkington wanted more. Why buy expensive spices at the shores of the Mediterranean? Why not extend England's own trade lines all the way to India and buy directly? To gain intelligence for this daring trade expansion, he decided to finance a secret expedition to scout the road to India, to send a party of English traders through the Mediterranean to Tripoli, and on from there in disguise across Arabia to the Persian Gulf, where they would hire passage on a native trader all the way to the western shore of India. Their ultimate destination was the Great MoghuFs court, deep in India, and hidden in their bags would be a letter from Queen Elizabeth, proposing direct trade. Eventually three adventurous traders were recruited to go, led by Roger Symmes of the Levant Company. But Peter Elkington wanted a fourth, for protection, and he eventually persuaded a young army captain of some reputation to join the party. The captain--originally a painter, who had later turned soldier after the death of his wife--was vigorous, spirited, and a deadly marksman. Peter Elkington promised him a nobleman's fortune if they succeeded. And he promised to take responsibility for Captain Hawksworth's eight-year-old son, Brian, if they failed.