'I heard of no untoward effects in my inquiries among medical men,' said Stephen, 'though it is known, esteemed, and very generally used throughout Peru. So long as man is man, there is always the possibility of abuse, sure, just as there is with tea, coffee, tobacco, wine and of course ardent spirits among us: but I never heard of an instance in some weeks' or indeed months' residence among the Peruvians.'
'Is it prescribed as a specific for some Peruvian disorder, as a tonic, or as an alterative?' asked Macaulay.
'It is certainly used as a febrifuge and as a remedy for most ills,' said Stephen, 'but it is primarily taken as an enhancer of daily life, particularly by the labouring classes of men; for as well as the euphory I have spoken of, the coca also provides or perhaps I should say liberates great stores of energy, at the same time doing away with hunger for days on end. I have known thin spare men, no larger than myself, walk across mountainy country in piercing weather at a great altitude from sunrise to sunset, carrying burdens without fatigue, and without food. Yet although the uses of the coca-leaf are most evident among the poor, the field-labourers, the miners and the porters, they are even more striking among those who work with their heads. I have written all night, covering forty-three octavo pages, without mental exhaustion or even weariness, after a very hard day's journey; and I have heard well authenticated reports of surgeons operating for twenty-four hours on end after a very shocking battle - operating with their abilities undiminished. But from the purely medical point of view, it seems to me that the most evident and immediate application is in everyday mental disturbance. I had great hopes of proving its value in my most recent voyage, but unhappily - I should not say unhappily, of course - all our people, officers, petty officers and seamen, were resolutely cheerful. Some frostbites off the Horn, the first hints of scurvy north of the Island, but no real depression, no moping, no sadness, no peevish quarrelling, rarely a cross word. It is true that they were buoyed up with thoughts of home, and we had been very fortunate in the matter of prizes; but their memment among the ice-floes of the south, their merriment in the heaving, sticky sea of the doldrums with the sails hanging loose day after day, would have vexed a saint. Have we any case even approaching melancholia at present?'
'Well, sir,' said Smith doubtfully, 'a good many of the pressed men are low in their spirits, of course; but as for downright, clinical melancholia... I am sorry to disappoint you, sir.'
The young men, who had been bent over the leaves, sprung upright, and Stephen, turning, saw Captain Aubrey walk into the berth. 'Here's glory, upon my word,' cried he. 'Light and air in God's plenty. It would be a pleasure to be sick in such a place. But come,' - sniffing right and left - 'has something died here?'
'It has not,' said Stephen. 'The odour is that of the Smyrna asafetida, the most fetid of them all. In former times it was carried hung from the loftiest mast. Perhaps I might be indulged in some oiled silk, and a box lapped with lead, in which the bulk may be struck into the orlop, while I keep just a little small jar on this floor for our daily use.'
'By all means, Doctor,' said Jack. 'If you will come with me we can speak to Chips directly. There is a gentleman from the Sick and Hurt Board to see you in the cabin.'
The gentleman was not in fact from the Sick and Hurt Board, though he carried some of their official papers, but from the Admiralty itself, one of the more rarely seen officials in the department of naval intelligence, a gentleman often entrusted by its chief, Sir Joseph Blaine, with the most delicate missions. Neither acknowledged any former acquaintance even when Jack had left them alone. Mr Judd spoke firmly and authoritatively on some obscure points of medical administration, handed over the relevant documents with only the very slightest emphasis, and took his civil but distant leave.
Stephen walked straight into the quarter-gallery, and there, poised upon the seat of ease, he opened the packet. The papers were straightforward, devoid of interest, their only function being to contain the note that asked him to be in the beetle wood that afternoon if he possibly could, or to catch the bearer, who would stay at the Cock for half an hour, and appoint a very early meeting.
At this stage in the Bellona's preparations Stephen was virtually a free agent. He looked in at the Cock, spoke to his man, took a chaise back to Ashgrove, saddled his mare and rode some miles towards Lisa before branching off into a series of lanes, one of which would have brought him to a farm belonging to Sir Joseph if, before reaching it, he had not turned along a path leading to the roughest of rough and sandy pasture to a neglected wood, one of the few in England where an entomologist had a reasonable chance of finding that brilliant creature Calosoma sycophanta, as well as no less than three of the tiger beetles.
'I am so glad you were able to come,' cried Blaine, reaching up and shaking his hand. He led horse and rider down to a shaded bank, where Stephen dismounted, tethered Lalla by a long symbolic cord and sat down, contemplating his friend's pale and anxious face.
'I am so full of matter and so disturbed that I hardly know how to begin,' said Sir Joseph. 'The last time we met I told you that Habachtsthal was continuing Ledward's work in sending information to the French; that a threat of retribution was conveyed to him, a threat that checked his activity until he realized how hollow it was. I also told you that he was an exceptionally revengeful man and that I had reasons for suspecting that he saw me as the ultimate source of the threat. These suspicions were justified, and it grieves me beyond measure, Stephen, to say that he has also identified you as the destroyer of his friends Ledward and Wray, and Clarissa as the source of your information about him and therefore of mine.'
'Do you know how he did so?'
'The first was clear enough, from Wray's known hatred of you and Jack Aubrey and your presence in Pulo Prabang when they were killed. The second was more obscure... but here I must branch off and hark back to that ugly, that very ugly affair which led to Captain Aubrey's being charged with rigging the Stock Exchange. It was engineered by criminals, of course: the swell mob, as they say, the same criminals as those who at one or two removes brought about the murder and the disfigurement of the witness whose testimony would have dismissed the accusation. You might think it a far cry from the Solicitor-General and a long-established, eminently respectable firm of lawyers to a band of criminals; but the eminently respectable know the less respectable and so down to the very dregs; and where raison d'etat or what can be disguised as raison d'etat is concerned I believe that even you would be astonished at what can happen. And I must tell you that by the same long and dirty road Habachtsthal's attorneys had brought him into more or less direct contact with a set of the same kind of fellows, if not the very same. Pratt, who is very well acquainted with that world, asserts that at least three belonged to the former group; and that one of them, a man called Bellerophon, murdered the accomplice who killed and mutilated the unhappy Palmer, in case your wealth might induce him to peach.'
'Pratt?' said Stephen.
'Yes. His acumen, honesty, and very particular qualifications impressed me deeply when you and I employed him, and I have entrusted him with several other inquiries since then, always to the department's satisfaction. He has associates now, all like himself, children of the gaol and often former Bow Street runners.'
'So he told me. He is working for me at present: or more probably two or three of his partners. It is a family investigation: I will tell you about it when we have finished with this.'
Sir Joseph bowed and said 'He did not mention this to me, of course; but we did talk about you and Captain Aubrey. He has a great respect and liking for you: I might indeed say an affection. However...' He paused,
