About this story
Reunited with Jack Martin, the three of you spend two disciplined weeks turning the idea into an actual plan of funds, guides, and a return threshold, before sailing from Liverpool. The chapter ends as your ship puts you ashore with a Portuguese trader's caravan, on ground where nobody has yet seen the animal you came for.
How it opens
Six years after the Coral Island ordeal, work and travel had separated you from both old companions.
LandladyA gentleman downstairs insists he knows you, though he supplied more jokes than references.
Time had changed faces enough that reunion could not safely depend on first recognition.
Ralph Rover, has civilisation polished away the friend who once knew this voice?
Choose
Acknowledge that you failed to write before asking where he has been.
Ask first whether he has current news of Jack Martin.