"We'll have muskets, Mackintosh. And the cover of dark. Now load the pinnace and let's be on with it." Mackintosh stared at the boards, shifting and tightening his belt. He started to argue more, but Hawksworth's voice stopped him. "And, Mackintosh, order the muskets primed with pistol shot." Hawksworth recalled a trick his father had once told him about, many long years past. "If anybody ventures to surprise us, we'll hand them a surprise in turn. A musket ball's useless in the dark of night, clump of pistol shot at close quarters is another story." The prospect of a fight seemed to transform Mackintosh. With a grin he snapped alert, whirled, and stalked down the companionway toward the main deck. Moments later the balding purser appeared, a lifelong seaman with an unctuous smile and rapacious eyes who had dispensed stores on many a prosperous merchantman, and grown rich on a career of bribes. He mechanically logged Hawksworth's chest in his account book and then signaled the bosun to stow the heavy wooden trunk into the pinnace. Hawksworth watched the proceedings absently as he checked the edge on his sword. Then he slipped the belt over his shoulder and secured its large brass buckle. Finally he locked the stern windows and surveyed the darkened cabin one last time. The _Discovery_. May God defend her and see us all home safe. Every man. Then without looking back he firmly closed the heavy oak door, latched it, and headed down the companionway toward the main deck. Rolls of broadcloth lay stacked along the waist of the ship, and beside them were muskets and a keg of powder. George Elkington was checking off samples of cloth as they were loaded irto the pinnace, noting his selection in a book of accounts. Standing next to him, watching idly, was Humphrey Spencer, youngest son of Sir Randolph Spencer. He had shipped the voyage as the assistant to Elkington, but his real motivation was not commerce but adventure, and a stock of tales to spin out in taverns when he returned. His face of twenty had suffered little from the voyage, for a stream of bribes to the knowing purser had reserved for him the choice provisions, including virtually all the honey and raisins. Humphrey Spencer had donned a tall, brimmed hat, a feather protruding from its beaver band, and his fresh doublet of green taffeta fairly glowed in the lantern's rays. His new thigh-length hose were an immaculate tan and his ruff collar pure silk. A bouquet of perfume hovered about him like an invisible cloud. Spencer turned and began to pace the deck in distraught agitation, oblivious to his interference as weary seamen worked around him to drag rolls of broadcloth next to the gunwales, stacking them for others to hoist and stow in the pinnace. Then he spotted Hawksworth, and his eyes brightened. "Captain, at last you're here. Your bosun is an arrant knave, my life on't. He'll not have these rogues stow my chest." "There's no room in the pinnace for your chest, Spencer."