The black sea rises and its horizon line devours the matchstick skeleton of Charles Town and all the smoke which hangs over it. It takes Peter Ashe and the threadbare dream of what people in an empire can be; it buries Miranda. It swallows the L'Urca gold in the fort on Nassau. Flung far enough in the days that follow, one might be forgiven for fantasizing about the possibility of the water climbing high enough to swallow every piece of land on the globe leaving only doomed ships floating on the surface.

The Walrus wallows down into the trough of the shifting sea; in the great cabin, fresh water in a pan sloshes far enough to splash over the side to soak into the dry cloth beside it on the table. Flint hisses - a sound that might be Shit if it were more enunciated - and hooks the razor on the edge of the pan, trading it for the cloth. Folds it over twice and then presses it to the sting he can feel there at the crown of his skull. A minor nick from the lurch of his hand at the wrong moment, he thinks, then he draws back the cloth and swears over the dark spot there. Takes a moment to examine the cut in the small hand mirror laid a moment ago beside small scissors, a comb-- "For fuck's sake." He soaks the cloth's edge more completely, pressing it back in place with one hand and cleaning the goddamned razor in the shallow water with the other.

It's such a minor form of idiocy that he doesn't bother disguising it when there's a knock at the door, when it opens.