Captain Catspaugh held firm to the shuddering wheel.

"This is all very well, Charles or Cassius, but what are we to do? As you may have observed, I am in another life or death run for the river at this very instant!"

De Mornay put the medallion back into his vest. "'Like as the waves make to the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.' Captain, it is unclear what forces are aligned on what side, and how long we have before all which we inherit shall dissolve in pyrotechnic splendour. To begin with, I defer to whatever might be your relation to Miss Fontaine, whom I have allowed to slander me in the aid of the greater good. She has stumbled into this vast web out of her true faith in her father, and that sudden recognition of her grandfather's phrenology, Matthew's skull; not to mention the pilfering of his medallion by that young red-haired philanderer. The moment that trapper linked the medallion to her, she became a terrible target. That her grandfather was able to enter the cabal, and received his own medallion, for the sole purpose of revealing them to the world, alas prematurely revealed through the machinations of a woman whose name my lips cannot touch. These, I believe, she is unaware of -- though one should beware of the seeming naivete of a Southern woman in full regalia. And I suspect, though am unsure, that your colleague Robert E. Leej is with us." Captain Catspaugh turned back to his wheel. "It is for you or someone to work this out, Cassius, or whomever. I have a boat to steer."

Cassius de Mornay shrugged his shoulders, and prepared to depart, lofting his cloak to his shoulders. "What says the swan: 'A man whom both the waters and the wind, in that vast tennis-court, have made the ball for them to play upon.' I too, am but a sweller of this progress, Captain, CP, but we will see...." And he took his leave.

Captain Catspaugh sternly shook his head, then smiled something that to a neutral observer might be almost his own mysterious smile, and turned his attention fully to the river ahead. The boilers huffed and whined. He was just about to put his mouth to the hailer, when he felt a sting, like a bee sting, upon the back of his neck. He slapped at this early mosquito, early for the time of day; and then his hand seemed to wave of its own accord. Strange that. And then he began to feel a terrible sleepiness come over him, which left him enough awareness to lunge for the whistle, which blew towards all the quarters of the heavens. And then he slumped, insensible, to the floor!! The wheel, freed from his hands, spun uncontrollably!!!! The Albert Hansell was adrift!!!!!!!!