sighting carefully and, after due consultation with the tables, he turned to the chart with Renzi. 'Here, somewhere along this line o' latitude, that's where we are of a surety, Nicholas.'
Cecilia could not contain her curiosity. She crowded into the sternsheets with them, her eyes searching eagerly for meaning in the chart. 'Pray where are we, Tom? You are so clever, it looks a perfect conundrum to me.'
'Well, sis, we are somewhere here,' he said, with a sweep of his hand across the chart along the known line of latitude.
'Oh,' she said.
Kydd added, 'If only we'd a longitude, we c'd tell exactly where we was.'
'Yes we must not be accounted lost,' added Renzi. 'We have but to extend our south-easterly heading and we shall be quite certain to end our voyage on the coast of South America.'
Cecilia looked at him with round eyes. 'Are the natives fierce there?' she asked fearfully.
'I rather think they have been tamed by the Spaniards by now? dear lady,' Renzi replied.
The low, rambling coastline of the continent emerged out of the haze of noon the next day, sending the seamen feverishly to their chart, but it would be no easy fix, and they closed the coastline with some trepidation.
'My lord, you see that we have made landfall at an unknown point,' Renzi explained, 'and, should we be too far east, we will encounter the Dutch ...'
'Wi'out our longitude, sir, we cannot know,' Kydd added.
Cecilia was in no doubt. 'Yes, you can, and very easily!'
The men looked at her incredulously.
'So simple. You go *and ask where we are — from one of your natives.'
It was simple. The boat kissed the sand of the unknown land on a small rock-strewn beach, raw red cliffs leading up to a profusion of greenery alive with the noise of animals and birds. Cecilia and Lord Stanhope were helped out, staggering around at the change of sensation.
'And where, then, will we find an accommodating native of these parts?'
Renzi's answer came.from further up the beach, in the form of a barking dog belonging to a figure standing watching them.
'I shall speak with him,' said Lord Stanhope.
Kydd waved and hailed with a foretopsail-yard-ahoy bellow. 'Hoay — ahoooy there!' The man approached. As he moved a small boy hiding behind him became apparent, dressed almost as a miniature of himself, with a wide straw hat and a gaily coloured poncho.
Cecilia was entranced. 'I do believe he has never seen the English before.' His dark brown weathered features were a mask of uncertainty. The man's black eyes flicked from the boat to the two well-built seamen and then to Cecilia, the little boy clinging fearfully to his cloak.
'Buenos dias, senor.' The eyes swivelled to Lord Stanhope. 'Por favour puede informarnos donde nos encontramos. ..' The others waited impatiently while the exchange continued, at one point the man pointing along the line of foreshore to the right.
'Ah, that settles it,' said Stanhope. 'We are within Spanish territory, and Cuerda Grande lies just four milliaria beyond . . .'
The two sailors dived for the chart. 'There!' exclaimed Kydd, his finger jabbing victoriously at the spot. The others came over, agog to hear the news. 'Hmm, quite a way further east than I thought,' said Kydd. 'See, this is Barranquilla, an' here we have your Hollanders,' he added, indicating islands not so very far away.
'Perhaps this man can say if war is declared,' Cecilia asked.
