Merlin Herne immediately ordered his carriage brought around, this meant a delay that did not sit well with me in the least. "We can saddle our horses quicker and push each steed to hurry more safely than a set of teamsters!" Herne ignored my request, trying to get more details form the messenger lad.

"My uncle does not ride, especially at night," Jarod said diplomatically off to the side, "His distance vision is not what it used to be."

I nodded, realizing that to push the issue would be to call for my host to reveal a weakness he was not prepared to or perhaps, force himself to ignore his limitations and gamble that his horse would keep him safe.

It seemed, too, that my impatience was for nothing for almost instantly a two horse carriage pulled to the main entrance. When one is wealthy enough, one can afford to have a team of horses ready at one's whim all hours of the night apparently.

They were fine steeds with sculpted muscles and sleek dark coats, from what I could see in the moonlight. They protested suddenly when they heard their master's voice call back to house staff to keep the porch light lit until he returned home. The footman calmed them with a few words and then we climbed into a very modern, black-lacquered coach, tossing the boy up to the coachman where the land would be out of the way. His horse would be returned the next day but it was too hot and bothered to force it back to lad's home that night. In the meantime, Herne promised the lad that his horse would be as well treated and rewarded in the meantime, just as the lad, in appreciation of the fleet service he had done them. With that, he pressed a full pound note into the boy's pocket, promising another if his report proved accurate.

We speculated uselessly on what these so called bones might be as the carriage drove on. Quite near to an hour later, we entered the empty village square. At two hours past sunset, there was not a single soul about save us. This struck me as only passing odd; most villages kept the same hours but I was under the impression a seaport, even a minor one such as Calders Bay had a more active nocturnal element.

"Indeed," my host informed me, "but the fear of the mysterious flux is likely keeping them shuttered and sheltered safely within their homes for a change."

"Flux?" I had never heard that word used that way before.

"Any unnamed illness," Jared translated for me. "Uncle Merle spends so much time with his dusty tomes he sometimes slips into archaic phrases."

His uncle harrumphed. "It is not so archaic, Nephew, the word is used quite often in my collection of log books and rutters."

"Uncle, sir... those logs are almost two hundred years old," Jared said, reasonably. "From a day when mortal fraility was less well understood."

The senior Herne glanced at me as if searching for a bit of aid. While word games were a popular parlour game, I, myself, had never been very good at them. Then he smiled with wicked delight and said, "Point taken, but I would forward that mortal frailty was much better understood two hundred years ago."

Jared gracefully conceded that his uncle might be correct, at that, just as the carriage came to a stop at the dockyards and we climbed out of the carriage to meet Gherbod Fleming, a Hun whose boots ended just inches from his crotch. "I've not seen a thing like it before Herr Herne," he said, by way of greeting, and waved us all to follow him.

I saw then, for the first time, the remains of The White Lady in moonlight. Both the main mast and the fore mast still stood tall, although each were canted slighted at different angles. Topsails and jibs were tattered, defeated things that hung lifelessly like the leaves of a weeping willow tree. I assumed, correctly, that the main and fore sails had burned away completely. The quarter deck was missing completely, as if the fire had started in the Captain's cabin.

To my surprise, there were a number of men with lanterns crawling on her corpse. Once again, Jared stepped in to answer my unvoiced questions. "At low tide, the water's a mere ten feet deep. My uncle's not one to waste time, not when the moon is full."

Fleming took us to a warehouse where there were three skeletons laid out neatly. Proudly, the huge foreman showed us one of the skulls in his giant paw. "Das devil," Fleming spat out.

There was certainly no mistaking the fangs growing out of the skull's upper row of teeth. Merlin Herne brought a white handkerchief up to his mouth as he studied the gruesome thing. Neither Jared nor Merlin seemed inclined to take a closer look, so I accepted the skull as it seemed someone with half a brain ought.

"This skull is much too old to be the missing Captain, or any of the crew, in fact. Certainly, something so macabre could not have been part of our cargo. I would think several skeletons would have stood out on a cargo of sundry merchant items and tea."

I tried to pass the skull back to the overseer of the salvage project, but he refused it. "I want rid of this, Herr Herne. These demonic remains are cursed and no doubt the source of your plague ship. I've called Father Adams to come exorcise these... abominations!"

Both Hernes did not like that wrinkle at all. In fact, Merlin was angry enough to put some color back in his cheeks. "Father Adams is quite busy enough administering to the dying crewmen." He growled, seeming to swell in size as he did so. "Isn't it obvious that this is nothing more than an artifact created by some witty taxidermist? No doubt Captain Dean came across these oddities and recalled my interest in legends, myths, and hoaxes, Fleming."

The Kraut's eyes nearly bugged completely out of his own skull. "Obvious? Nien!

"Seems rather redundant, doesn't it?" Jared spoke thoughtfully, as if unaware of their man's agitation. "Cursing demonic remains, I mean."

The German sputtered incoherently, his own words strangled in his throat in their rush to be spoken all at once. I, also was taken aback by these words, if not so extremely. It was one thing to dabble in the myths of legend, but it was quite another to be connected in any way to pagan atrocities. In cities, such as London or Philadelphia, such accusations could be laughed off. Elsewhere, hobgoblins are taken much more seriously.

"Nephew," the elder Herne growled, warningly, and Jared seemed instantly contrite, the smile gone from his face as if it never existed. The merchant turned his attention fully on the salvage overseer then. "Who knows about it, besides you and the boy?"

Fleming's face relaxed, as if relieved that his concern was finally being addressed. "All the workers, milord."

Herne cursed softly in a language we did not share. Then he straightened up, standing even taller than before, if that was possible. "Then fetch me all the workers, I would have words with them."

The huge man grunted and left the warehouse.

"Jared, if you would take stock of what was salvaged against The White Lady's manifest, I would appreciate it greatly."

The nephew nodded and stalked off, an expression of dark seriousness on his face. Still holding the unwholesome skull, I met my partner's eyes.

"What does this all mean?" I asked.

"That is what I am trying to determine, Penrod." His eyes glared angrily at the skull in my hands. "I must admit I find this turn of events distressing. Very distressing. If I may, I should like to impose you to return to my home with these... things. This is apt to take us all night to straighten out and one of us should be fresh in the morning to make our case before our guarantor's agent."

His eyes were kind and gentle, to the point where I could not help but trust the man. I agreed, because it just made so much sense to do as he asked. Indeed, it seemed like the only sensible thing to do.

***