"Headlands!" Ramage exclaimed. "Quick, let's look at the chart!"
They went into the house and Ramage unrolled the chart, but it was too small in scale to be of much use.
"A local fisherman?" Yorke suggested.
There was a chance. He called for his steward and sent him to find the slave Roberto. He would know the most reliable fisherman.
Half an hour later a thin, middle-aged and frightened fisherman stood before Ramage, wide-brimmed straw hat in his hand. The man's skin was the colour of mahogany, the result of a coloured forebear and a life spent under a tropical sun.
"Please be seated," Ramage said quietly, indicating a canvas-backed chair.
The man sidled towards the chair, as if fearing some trap, and finally sat down.
"I wish for your help," Ramage said in Spanish. "A small matter concerning the island."
The fisherman stared at him.
"The names of the bays and headlands," Ramage said. "You know them all?"
The fisherman nodded.
"That's all I want to know," Ramage said. "Just the names."
"Where do I start?"
"The entrance of this bay. Imagine we are sailing out of it and round the island with the sun. Round by the west."
"Dakity," the man said. "Ensenada Dakity, that's the first, it's a bay. Then Malena next to it. Then Punta del Soldado - that's the tip of the island. There are no more names until you get to Punta de Maguey, and Punta Tampico, with Bahia Linda in between."
As the fisherman paused to think, Ramage knew he was wasting his time; but since the fisherman was now reassured it was easier to let him go on than to shut him up.
"Punta Melones, that's next. No, Bahia de Sardinas first, then Melones. Then Bahia Tarja - that's a long bay, all the way between Punta Melones and Punta Tamarindo Chico.
"It's very rocky off Tamarindo Chico, but it has lobsters. Then comes Bahia Tamarindo, Punta Tamarindo - that's the other end of the bay - and then Punta Tamarindo Grande. There are no more names for a long distance, until you get to Punta Noroeste -"
Yorke interrupted to ask Ramage: "Didn't he just give three or four places with the -"
"I'm letting him go on so he doesn't guess we attach importance to them."
Yorke nodded, and Ramage waved for the fisherman to continue. Name after name followed - Molinos ... Flamenco ... Manchita ... Playa Larga ... Perro ... Manzanilla ... Vaca ... Mosquito.
Finally the fisherman intoned, "Punta Carenero, Punta Padilla, Punta Cabras - and then you are back here."
"Thank you," Ramage said. "They have interesting names. Why do you suppose Punta del Soldado was so named? A garrison perhaps?"
"Yes, long ago," the fisherman said. "My grandfather mentioned it."
"And Bahia de Sardinas - good for sardines, no doubt?"
The fisherman snorted. "Never one in that bay!"
"No more than there are tamarinds in Bahia Tamarindo!"
"Ah," the fisherman said knowingly, "plenty of tamarinds there, just at the back of the beach. Beads," he said. "I collect the pods and we empty out the seeds. Then I soak the seeds in boiling water until they get soft and I can stitch them. Make necklaces for the lady?" he asked, looking at Maxine. "Would she like to buy them? I can make to whatever pattern she wishes."
Quickly Ramage seized the chance, speaking to Maxine in French as though asking her a question. Then he said to the fisherman: "The señora would like to buy. She wishes me to go to the bay tomorrow to select the seeds."
"Certainly," the fisherman said, "I have no seeds in stock. How many necklaces does the lady require?"
"Many," Ramage said. "For herself and her mother."
"Ah," said the fisherman, "it will be a pleasure."
Ramage told him to report next morning at dawn, and the man left after bowing to Maxine with the natural manners of an honest man.
Yorke raised his eyebrows. "Reveal to us the secrets of the Tropics, O Governor with the Spanish tongue."
Maxine laughed when Ramage drew himself up and took a deep breath, like a politician about to harangue a crowd.
"Tamarind," he said gravely. "Vote for the tamarind, known to our Spanish brothers as the tamarindo, and our French sister as the tamarin."
"It has our vote," Yorke said equally gravely. "But what we want to know now is, will it win the election; will it reduce taxes and bring us peace and prosperity at no effort?"
"We'll know by tomorrow," Ramage said, and explained what the fisherman had told him. "There are three 'Tamarind Points' - and that's unusual anywhere - with a 'Tamarind Bay' for good measure."
"Why three points?" Yorke asked.
"Well, the one in the middle is plain Punta Tamarindo, with Bahia Tamarindo to the south down to Punta Tamarindo Chico. Chico can mean 'small' or 'short'. The one to the north, Punta Tamarindo Grande, is just the big one."
"And now..." Yorke asked.
"We sleep, and at dawn the fisherman takes us there to gather tamarind seeds."
"Oh good, I must admit I was running short of them," Yorke said.
"I guessed that," Ramage said. "By the way, the trees are the wild tamarind. The seeds can be strung together as beads, or shaken as a musical instrument."
Next morning Ramage, Yorke, Jackson and Stafford stood on Punta Tamarindo while the sun rose behind them. The air was dry and aromatic and already the heat had set the shrubs buzzing with insects, while humming birds inspected the blossom. The fisherman tapped Ramage's arm.
"It is beautiful, eh?"
Ramage nodded, and the man pointed to a cone-shaped island in front of them.
"Cayo de Luis Peña," he said. "Just goats there now. Good fishing - grouper, snapper, lobster ... And the little cays beyond - Las Hermanas. And beyond them, towards Puerto Rico, I don't know their names. There" - he pointed to the long, low island to the south-west - "that is Vieques. The priest lives there," he added. "He visits us twice a year."
Ramage nodded, wondering when to steer the conversation back to where they stood, but the fisherman needed no prompting. He pointed southwards, to their left.
"There, Bahia Tamarindo. The water - have you ever seen it so blue? Then Tamarindo Chico at the end."
"The point beyond Chico?"
"Ah," the Spaniard said, with the pride of a shopkeeper displaying an item he knows a wealthy customer will not only admire but buy at the right price. "That is Punta Melones and in line beyond it, the most distant of all, Punta del Soldado."
"Beautiful," Ramage said.
The fisherman turned to the north, pointing to his right. "Tamarindo Grande," he announced. Ramage nodded appreciatively and, turning to Yorke, said in English: "Any comments on the scenery?"
"Yes. For what it's worth, Tamarindo Grande, the Melon - or whatever it was the fellow called it - and Punto del Soldado are in line. Two miles from each other and a geometrically precise straight line passes through the western tip of each one."
"And that," Ramage said, "seems to put paid to our 'three by three'."
Yorke shrugged his shoulders.
The fisherman had walked fifty yards away and was beginning to pull the long, flat pods from the tamarinds, crack them open and shake the seeds into his sack.
Ramage and Yorke looked around the short headland. There was a scattering of trees, the most prominent being a tall, lacy-leaved casuarina, and they strolled towards it.
"Seven trees," Yorke said. "The significant thing is that seven has no possible connection with three, or three times three!"
"I know," Ramage said. "I'm getting to the point where things only exist for me if they're in multiples of three."
Yorke laughed and bent down to pick up a large sea shell. It was sun-bleached and worn by the sea and the sand.