Each time Ramage had to thrust aside his training as a naval officer and try to think with the mind of the fictitious Spanish captain that he had become. If anyone boarded them he had to remember that he was ostensibly on passage from Puerto Rico to Havana, Cuba, with provisions for Havana's garrison and seamen intended for a frigate being commissioned there. It sounded likely, and only four ships had inquired - one Spanish and two French privateers, and a French national sloop. Ramage was thankful not to have sighted a British frigate; he was in no mood to be delayed while he tried to persuade some sceptical post captain of the truth of his improbable story.
He had ordered Southwick to reduce sail for the rest of the night to ensure that they arrived off Morant Point, at the eastern end of Jamaica, soon after dawn.
The St Brieucs were on deck at sunrise, eager for their first good look at the island they had many times despaired of ever seeing, and Maxine's excitement was catching. "It is so green - and so mountainous!" she exclaimed to Ramage.
"When Columbus was describing it to Queen Isabella, he crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it on the table."
"Where is Port Royal?" she asked.
"Just to the right of the highest peak. But there's not much of it left after an earthquake and a hurricane. Kingston is the main harbour now."
By nine o'clock, Southwick came down to Ramage's cabin to report that he could just distinguish the eastern end of the Palisadoes, and Ramage went on deck to find Yorke helping Maxine with a telescope and trying to tell her what to look for.
"You see how the land runs east and then curves south?" Ramage said. "Well, Kingston is in the elbow. The Palisadoes is a long spit running parallel with the land like a trigger, with Port Royal and the entrance to Kingston Harbour at the tip."
"Towns!" Maxine said contemptuously. "You talk of towns, with all this to look at? Just look at those mountains! And the mist in the valleys. It's magical!"
Yorke grimaced at Ramage as Maxine moved the telescope to range over the rest of the island.
"Just look!" Maxine said excitedly. "All the little ships - and canoes close to the beach."
"Local fishermen," Yorke murmured.
"All the houses with pointed roofs!"
"Cattle mills," Ramage said. "They use cattle to work the machinery to make sugar."
"And tall chimneys with smoke coming out of them!"
"The chimneys of the boiling houses," Ramage said.
"What are they boiling?"
"The sugar cane. Extracting the molasses."
"Tell me how they make sugar," she demanded.
"I don't know," Ramage said firmly. "All I do know is it makes a terrible smell."
"Excuse me, sir," said Southwick, "but I can't make out the pilot schooner - permission to fire a gun?"
Ramage nodded: both inshore and ahead of La Perla there were now a dozen or more vessels, ranging from small droggers bringing cargoes of sugar, molasses and rum into Kingston from a dozen coves and bays round the coast, to large schooners arriving from many different countries.
As soon as the gun boomed out, they saw a schooner close inshore suddenly making sail and then heading towards them.
"Ha! They take their time," Southwick grumbled.
"Don't forget La Perla isn't one of the King's ships," Ramage said. "As far as they're concerned she's just another little schooner with heavily-patched sails."
"Wait till they see that!" Southwick said, gesturing to the British flag that now streamed out above the Spanish, indicating that she was a prize.
"The pilot won't be impressed," Ramage said. "He'll have seen too many captured ships of the line brought in."
Ten minutes later both La Perla and the pilot schooner were lying hove-to as a small canoe brought the pilot on board. As he watched, Ramage thought for the first time in many hours of the problems that probably awaited him in Kingston.
First, the hunt for the treasure, then the reception of La Perla, and finally the voyage itself, had given him other things to think about. Now he had to face the fact that Rear-Admiral Goddard was probably in Kingston. A ship of the line like the Lion, if properly handled, should survive a hurricane. By now, though, the Admiral might well have given up hope that Ramage had survived to face whatever had been prepared for him.
The pilot scrambling nimbly on board was a muscular young Negro dressed in white canvas trousers, a gaudy blue and yellow shirt and a narrow-brimmed straw hat which many coats of black varnish had made as a rigid as a cast-iron cooking pot.
He stared at the British flag over the Spanish ensign and looked slowly round La Perla.
"Come on, Blackie!" Southwick said impatiently.
"Harry Wilson, if you please, sah."
The Master sniffed. "Very well, Harry Wilson, as soon as your canoe is clear of our bow we're getting under way again."
The man sniffed in turn, implying that his talents were wasted on such a small vessel.
"A nice little ship," he said conversationally to Ramage, who had not yet changed back into uniform. He caught sight of Maxine, raised his hat and gave a deep bow. He then turned back to Southwick. "A sound little ship. You must have a nice captain to send you off in command of the prize crew."
Ramage looked steadily at Southwick, defying him to squash the pilot.
Getting no reaction from Southwick, Wilson turned to Ramage. "Who is she prize to?"
"The Triton brig."
"No trouble finding a buyer here; she's a nice size. A schooner like this sold a month ago for fifteen hundred pounds."
"Good, we can do with the money," Ramage said as Southwick relieved his annoyance by bellowing the orders that got La Perla under way again.
Yorke had been standing by the taffrail. He was no stranger toKingston and was finding it pleasant watching and knowing the navigation of the ship was no responsibility of his.
The pilot glanced at both Ramage and Yorke once or twice, obviously puzzled. He recognized the bearing of an officer, but the only man on deck wearing a uniform was Southwick.
"You know Kingston?" the pilot asked Ramage.
"No."
He had been in and out several times when he was a young midshipman, but did anyone really know Kingston? The life in the big houses was considerably more luxurious than that in the great houses in London, since few people in England could afford such an army of servants. But what was life like in the tiny shacks in the mountains, where the thumping of voodoo drums was as commonplace as the sound of tree frogs?
"These batteries," the pilot said, pointing to the harbour entrance. "Blow you out of the water! Boom boom - then no more of your little ship."
"You're safe enough here," Ramage said in a suitably awed voice.
"We need them!" the pilot said, peering over the side at the shoal only twenty yards to windward. "Privateers ... the Spanish at Cuba ... just pirates. Channel narrow here - you wouldn't get far without a pilot, mister."
He pointed to the land on the starboard side and the dozens of cays and reefs on the larboard bow. Apart from an occasional almost casual direction to Southwick, Wilson then lapsed into a sulky silence and Ramage walked back to join Yorke at the taffrail.
The Palisadoes, with the harbour and town of Kingston behind it, was now abeam as La Perla sailed along parallel with the shore and a mile off. Half an hour later as the pilot gave directions for the schooner to turn north to anchor off Port Royal, Ramage signalled to Southwick that he would take the conn. At the same time, Yorke began to point out various sights to Maxine.