"You're crazy because you've, got yourself involved. The Jason was bound for England. Very well, her captain is mad and opens fire on you - but without doing much damage and not killing or wounding anyone. If you had any sense you'd have sheered off, left her alone to carry on to England. All right, you didn't know she was bound for England, but she obviously wasn't coming to reinforce you. At that point you'd have been simply (in lay terms) the injured party, and when you got to England you'd have reported to the Admiralty all you knew - that the Jason had raked you without cause and then sailed off over the horizon.

"That is what a sensible man would have done. But what did you do? Since you obviously haven't noticed yet, I'll tell you what you've done - and remember I speak as a layman: I know nothing of Admiralty rules and regulations. You have in effect captured one of the King's ships, removed the captain from his command and put one of your officers in his place, and discovered that not a man on board the Jason will back up your story that she opened fire on you - oh yes, yes, I believe you, but I am trying to see it through the eyes of the president of the court of inquiry, or court-martial, or whatever it is.

"The masters in the convoy would back you if they knew what had happened. Both Alexis and I will -  if our word matters a damn. But why did you get involved with the damned ship?"

Alexis, now in tears and trembling from her brother's harsh words, stood up and without realizing what she was doing put her hands on Ramage's shoulders in a gesture partly to protect, partly to comfort him.

"Sidney's wrong, oh so wrong," she said, the words tumbling over each other, tripped by sobs. "You had to take command, otherwise who knows what other mischief that madman will do. He's terrified his officers. He's a mad dog!" she exclaimed, turning to her brother. "Don't you realize that? You shoot mad dogs, you don't let them run off to attack the neighbour's children!"

Yorke held out both hands despairingly. "I'm sorry, Nicholas, you seem to have run into more trouble on board the Emerald than you had in the Calypso."

Ramage reached up and held Alexis's hands. "No, I wanted to hear what both of you thought. You've put your finger on it, Sidney: you've seen the choice I had, and you think I made the wrong one. You, Alexis, think I made the right one. But so far you're the only people who see clearly that there were only two choices. The rest of them - Aitken, Southwick and probably Bowen, although I haven't seen his report yet - are too close to the problem and," he gave a grim laugh, "too loyal to me to consider that I might be wrong."

Yorke held up a warning hand. "No, both you and Alexis have misunderstood me. I say you made the wrong choice in getting involved. I repeat, you made the wrong choice. But knowing you and considering what's at stake, the choice you made is the only honourable one for a naval officer. It's just not the sensible one. But if I'd been in your place I hope I'd have done the same thing, although I'm a coward and doubt it. But it frightens me to think of the trouble this man Shirley could cause you in England if he can convince people he is sane."

"I'm not so much bothered by that as wondering what patronage he has," Ramage said. "His patrons can cause the trouble. A court of inquiry might clear him and then pressure on the Admiralty from his patrons could get me brought to trial on some trumped-up charge."

"Why don't you send him off to England?" Alexis said impetuously. "Let him go on and say nothing more about it. Don't report to the Admiralty or anything. Just act as though it never happened."

"There are about two hundred men on board the Calypso and two hundred more in the Jason. All of them know what happened, even if Shirley has cast a spell on his men. There are seventy or so ships in the convoy and two other frigates, L'Espoir and La Robuste. Up to a couple of thousand men, in other words, who will gossip. Oh yes, I'm sure if I asked them the Calypsos would keep their mouths shut, but is it a thing that a captain should - or can - ask of his men? No. Apart from anything Shirley might do, there will be gossip and rumour and speculation and exaggeration ... the story will be around Plymouth within hours of our arrival; the Admiralty will soon know about it."

Yorke poured himself more lemonade with sufficient deliberation to make Ramage watch him.

"When you chased after the Jason and went alongside her," Yorke asked, "you had guns run out, and all that sort of thing?"

"Yes, in fact we boarded her. Just managed to stop the men firing in time. As I told you, we thought she had been captured by the French."

"Yes, I just wanted you to repeat all that. You don't see what a madman (with all his witnesses terrorized, somehow or other) can make of that?" Ramage shook his head, puzzled at the tone in Yorke's voice.

"No - it seems natural enough that the Calypso should assume that any ship that fired a broadside at her must be enemy."

"That's not what I mean. A madman (or anyone trying to hide a mistake for that matter) could claim that you were attacking one of the King's ships. Deny the broadside and accuse you: any sane man covering up a mistake would say that. I hate to think what embellishments a madman could add."

Ramage offered Alexis a handkerchief but she shook her head, gathered up her skirts and left the cabin.

"I'm sorry," Ramage said lamely. "I've wrecked your day with my problems."

"On the contrary, I'm glad we were here to listen to them. You know that anything ..."

"Yes, I know," Ramage said humbly, almost resenting that for the first time that he could remember he was in this position. "I'm sorry that Alexis had to be involved - and I've just upset her by offering a handkerchief. I was trying to help."

Yorke laughed unexpectedly, and it sounded to Ramage like a conspiratorial laugh; everyone in the room laughing at a family joke. "My dear Nicholas, there speaks an only child. Indeed, there speaks a man without a sister. So help me, there speaks a man who must have been spending his life with some very unusual women. Alexis, bless her heart, is not upset with you!"

"Then why ... ?"

"She was so completely engrossed in your story that she forgot she had been crying. When you offered her a handkerchief she suddenly realized her face was tearstained and that she probably looked more like an upset schoolgirl than the grande dame she would rather Captain Lord Ramage saw."

"Grandes dames frighten me. Anyway, Alexis would stop all the conversation in any salon merely by walking through the door."

"I know that because she's been on my arm so many times when it's happened. But you can't convince her. She thinks the conversation stops because her dress is unsuitable, or she is wearing too many or too few jewels, or her hair is in the wrong style. . . there's always some damned thing!"

"I may have no sisters, but you sound like the eternal brother!"

"When you have a sister as beautiful and vulnerable as she is, and both parents are dead, believe me, you are mother, father, chaperone, brother and trustee, with a few other roles thrown in from time to time."

"Like matchmaker!" Ramage said lightly.

"I wouldn't mind that," Yorke said. "Unfortunately, I have to be just the opposite. When Alexis complains that someone's attentions are becoming 'tedious' - the ultimate sin in her calendar - I have to warn him off."

"I can just imagine you being stern!"

"Stern be damned. One young buck, a captain in a fashionable regiment and the heir to a barony and a fortune, wanted to call me out! Swore that it was lies, and I had Alexis locked up so that she could not see him. Gave me a choice of pistols or swords!"

Intrigued at the picture Yorke had drawn, Ramage asked: "How did you get out of all that?"