Chapter Nine
A ship from Valparaiso – a sailor and a wherryman – the Astronomer Royal – a long delayed meeting – Bats! – anagnorisis and peripeteia – Mr Rufus
In the late morning sunlight, a wherryman rowed past a Chilean clipper that glided up the Thames under topsails. A sailor slipped over the ship’s gunwales. He was a lean, middle-aged man with a sandy beard and a weathered face, yet he made his way down the chains with less agility than one might expect from such an old salt.
Seeing his wherry, the sailor called out, “You! A shilling to take me to Greenwich!”
The wherryman examined the sailor. The fellow spoke English with an accent that was equal parts Edinburgh and Cape Town. Not a Chilean, clearly, but a ship’s flag and a ship’s crew seldom correspond. Still, there was somethin
