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e minutes, during which the old man carefully weighed the complex problems raised by this inquiry. Two nights after they departed, Johanna sat with Adriaan again and said, 'Take the brown horse and be going. When Willem loaded provisions aboard the Princesse Royale he was appalled to find that more than ninety passengers lay in their filthy beds, too weak to walk ashore. “I noticed you didn’t have much luggage,” she said, her tone hinting that she wanted to know why.

But before these good Samaritans sailed, Willem was given a task which he would often recall. And one tribe from the east sent men who were conspicuously taller than the others, but all seemed capable. It was he who had listened most intently to what the old man had said about the siege of Malacca and his voyages to Japan. He didn’t mean anything.