Chapter 10
Best to spend a couple hours down in the bilges afore we drop anchor in the pool of the Thames,” Darby explained as he guided Duncan and Ishmael toward Fleet Street. The bosun had been loaned by the captain as an escort for their first few hours in London. He gestured at Ishmael, who had been holding his hand over his nose and mouth. “Sort of seasons the nostrils, ye might say.”
“If I had known, I would have begged Duncan to sew my nose closed,” Ishmael growled. His excitement about arriving in the city had been overwhelmed by its stench. Except along the widest, most heavily used thoroughfares, piles of rotten refuse appeared at regular intervals. The gutters along both sides of the streets held sluggish streams of the excretions of London’s residents, both two-legged and fou
