The Devil's Web
Chapter One
The cliffs of the south coast of England were visible to larboard, the morning mists having lifted, though the clouds still hung low and heavy and the sea was slate gray and heaving. The Adeona, one of the ships belonging to the North West Company of Canada, was bringing furs to the auction markets of London.
The cliffs of England. Of home.
A clerk of the company, one of those whose task it was to accompany the furs across the Atlantic and to transact the company's business in London, stood at the rail of the ship, one arm propping him against it, the other hand clinging to a taut rope attached to the rigging, his feet planted firmly apart for better balance, and tested the thought in his mind.
Home.
Soon he would set his feet again on his native soil, the very soil he had shaken from them four years before without a moment's hesitation. As he had once said to someone in England, though he did not care to remember whom, he had liked the sight of the sea because it represented his escape from England. And he had escaped.
But she had said that perhaps it was from himself he wished to escape and that it could not be done. F ...
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