“Be quiet, fathead! I can see your knees buckling. Good Lord, you’ve had malaria, Richard. My medicine has burned it out of you, but you require time to regain your health. For once in your life, stop trying to be a hero. Rest!”

They halted. Burton fumed. A minute ticked by.

“Can we please scale the remaining heights?” the explorer growled. “What is it? Six or seven blessed steps? I give you my solemn word they’ll not have me succumbing to a heart attack.”

They continued, and at the top of the stairs entered a smartly decorated corridor leading to double doors of frosted glass. Burton pushed them open and ushered Raghavendra through into the airship’s sumptuous though modestly sized ballroom. Most of the crew was gathered inside. Nathaniel Lawless, standing with the tall and bony meteorologist, Christopher Spoolwinder, waved Burton and Raghavendra over. As they drew near, they noticed Spoolwinder’s hands were bandaged.

“What happened?” Burton asked.

“The blithering telegraph has gone barmy!” Spoolwinder said in a plaintive tone. “Absolutely gaga! It’s been throwing out sparks, setting fire to paper, then—pow!—it sent such a shock through me I practically somersaulted across the bridge!”

“We disconnected it from the ship’s batteries,” Lawless added, “but it’s still operating.”

“Eh? How?” Burton asked.

“We don’t know!” Spoolwinder exclaimed. His naturally glum face lengthened into an expression of deep misery. “I mean to say—crikey!—it’s just not possible. The machine should be dead as a doornail. Instead, it’s churning out messages like there’s no tomorrow. Messages sent from nobody and nowhere!”

Sister Raghavendra stifled a giggle. She’d often told Burton that she found Spoolwinder’s exaggerated mournfulness highly comical, especially when he was overwrought. “Nobody and nowhere?” she asked.

Captain Lawless shrugged. “There’s no point of origin, Sister. No source. We don’t know who—or where—the messages are coming from.”

Spoolwinder added, “But it’s always exactly the same gobbledegook. Have a gander at this.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to Burton. The explorer read:

THE BEAST . . . THE BEAST . . . THE BEAST . . . YOU SHALL BOW DOWN FOR . . . OL SONF VORSG . . . BORN FROM THE WRECK OF SS BRITANNIA AND . . . LONSH CALZ VONPHO SOBRA ZOL ROR I TA NAZPSAD . . . TO REND THE VEIL . . . FROM THE FALLEN EMPIRE . . . NOW . . . FARZM ZVRZA ADNA GONO IADPIL DS HOM TOH . . . FOR THE ROYAL CHARTER . . . WILL DELIVER HE . . . BALTOH IPAM VL IPAMIS . . .

“English mixed with random letters,” Burton murmured. “SS Britannia? Is there such a ship, Captain?”

“There was an RMS Britannia. An ocean liner. We sold her to the Prussians some ten years ago. They renamed her SMS Barbarossa. There’s no Steamship Britannia. Never has been.”

“And you say this message has been repeated over and over?”

“Countless times and without variation,” Spoolwinder said. “It used up nearly all our paper supply, and the telegraph burned the rest.”

“May I keep this copy?”

Lawless said, “By all means,” and straightened as the boatswain’s whistle suddenly sounded. He muttered, “Look out, here we go,” then yelled, “ship’s company, attention!”

The crew fell silent, stood with stomachs in, shoulders back, and chins up, and all eyes turned to the second set of double doors at the far end of the chamber. They swung open and Doctor Quaint stepped in, moved aside, and bowed two men through. On the left, Lord Stanley, the secretary of state for foreign affairs—short, stocky, and with a permanently aggressive expression—and on the right, His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, widower of the late Queen Victoria, overweight, his long sideburns ill-concealing his developing jowls and thickening neck, and appearing to bear the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

“He looks ill,” Sister Raghavendra whispered.

Burton gave a quiet grunt of agreement.

Quaint guided the new arrivals across the ballroom and introduced them to Captain Lawless.

“An incredible ship, Kapitän!” Prince Albert declared. He spoke with a heavy German accent. “Mein Gott, gigantisch, no? How many crew?”

“Thirty-five, Your Royal Highness. We were thirty-six but lost a man in Central Africa.”

“Ach! Unfortunate! I understand you haff quite the adventure. Most successful. You solve the mystery of the Nile.”

“Not I, sir. May I present the expedition’s leader, Captain Richard Burton, and his medical officer, Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra?”

The prince smiled at Burton, who noticed lines of pain around the man’s eyes. “Oh dear. Your reputation goes before you, Burton. I am afraid almost to meet you.”

Burton bowed. “I give you my solemn assurance, Your Royal Highness, that whatever calumnies you have heard about me are probably entirely true.”

“Ja! I expected no less! You are a warrior! A man who must cut his own path through life. We are similar, you and I.”

“Similar, sir?”

“It is so! For just as you haff chopped your way through the jungles of Africa, so I haff chopped through the jungles of German Politik. We are relentless, no?”

“Then I take it your endeavours have met with success?”

“It is correct. Just as yours. I tell you this, Burton: the union of Hanover, the Saxon Duchies, unt Bavaria—the new Central German Confederation—through the middle of Prussia it will slice, so we weaken our opponents, you see? Bismarck is now nothing but bluster unt hot air. He haff no power remaining unt can offer no opposition to the forthcoming British–German Alliance. We deny him his Deutsches Reich. It is sehr gut for our countries. Sehr gut! Unt now the question of Italian independence haff been settled with Austria, I am confident there will be no more wars in Europe.”

The prince turned to Sister Raghavendra. “But forgive me, Fräulein, this is disgraceful! I do not wish to bore you with such matters. Europe is a game of chess. One concentrates unt concentrates on the next move until one’s good manners, they are forgotten completely. For far too long I haff been dealing with the devious men.”

He raised Raghavendra’s hand to his lips and continued, “I am—what is the word, Kapitän Burton: überwältigt?”

“Overwhelmed, sir.”

“Ach! Indeed. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to meet such a courageous young lady. It is true, ja, that you accompanied the Kapitän around the great lake in the middle of Africa?”

Raghavendra smiled and curtseyed. “Yes, Your Highness, it’s true, though the lake is not quite in the middle.”

“Remarkable! Remarkable!” Prince Albert released her hand and stepped a pace backward. He pulled at his cuffs, winced, and flinched, as if pain had lanced through him, then said, “Well, to get home you are both eager, no? As am I. Let us delay no longer. Kapitän Lawless, will you please haff the ship depart? Unt Doctor Quaint, if you would to my chamber now show me? I was up half the night watching the lights in the sky—Ach! Strange, no?—and am in need of sleep. We will meet again at the palace, Burton. I look forward to it.”

Burton opened his mouth to ask, “The palace?” but before he could utter the question, the prince turned away and said to Sister Raghavendra, “Excuse my rudeness, I beg of you. The life I chose after the death of my dear wife haff of me made a monster where the women are concerned. No manners, Sister Raghavendra! No manners at all!”

“Not a bit of it, sir,” she responded. “You have thoroughly charmed me.”

He smiled, flinched again, and followed Doctor Quaint from the room.

Everyone relaxed.

Burton turned to Lord Stanley, who regarded him with hooded eyes and a stony expression.