Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

mixture of mortality …
    In shame he would have torn the letter across but checked himself; it was well that Charles should know the specimens were for his unrestricted use. He would be more cautious in that use since such was his nature; he would continue to collect evidence, make his observations, write notes; but nothing would be published until he was safely dead. Some day these obscure researches that men all over Europe were making would find a synthesis in one brain and then the age of the earth would be stated boldly and it would be shown how the creatures had changed…
    A little later, when it was getting dark, he went out and walked towards the Pier Head. The rain was still falling. He saw a woman lying sodden against a wall in a fume of gin. One or two taphouses showed gleams of light and he saw a farrier hunched at work still inside his shop. But the streets near the waterfront were for the most part deserted.
    Paris stood in the rain looking towards the open sea. Lanterns of ships out in the road winked through the moist air. The Liverpool Merchant was there with the others, riding on the dark water. For some moments, as he stood there, the night was hushed around him, there were only the winking lights across the water and the silent rain. Then he heard the running of the tide, the scream of a late sea-bird, voices raised and lowered again from a tavern further along the quay.
    He tried to think of Africa, tried to imagine the lives of Africans, lives that would be changed, more even than his own, by the ship. But it was too far away. There was only the rain on his face, the sense of solitude. The door of the tavern opened, two men came out and stood talking there. In the yellow light from the open door the rain had become suddenly visible. Paris saw the glint and swarm of it and without warning was transported to summers of his childhood, insects round lamps at night in the garden or over river water in dying sunlight, rising and falling as regular as breathing in the last warmth of the day.
    The door closed, the bright swarm was extinguished.
    But the vision of those lost summers remained with him, like the sum of all loss. Standing there, looking across to the lights of the ships, one of which was to take him to a future of sorts, Paris could think only of the past.

11.
    Seated in his cabin, Thurso listened with satisfaction to the sighing and creaking of his ship as she felt the movement of the tide beneath her. She was a good one, he knew it. The sign had been given, the seal of blood was on her. He looked for some moments without speaking at the faces of the three men he had asked to step up here. Barton he knew of old. His second mate, Simmonds, sat opposite, directly under the lamp. He was younger, with fair hair and calm blue eyes and a nose that had been broken once and mended badly. Haines, the bosun, was brawny and dark-complexioned, with a mass of oiled curls and glittering, close-set eyes.
    ‘Now listen well,” Thurso said at last.
    “It is but a few words I have to say but I want them remembered. As you know, we are all but ready for sailing. We are light of some of our salt beef still and all the fetters have not been taken aboard, but that will be seen to shortly and then we need wait only on the wind. I don’t want any of the crew mistreated in the meanwhile. They cannot be allowed off the ship but they can eat their fill and while we are in harbour they can be served a half pint of grog per day for each man—no more, or they will fall to fighting. Keep ‘em busy as far as possible, but there is to be no use of the rope’s end till we are under way and out past the Black Rock.”
    The harsh whisper of the voice ceased for a little while and Thurso seemed to consider. When he resumed, it was on a note that seemed intended to be more jovial.
    “I don’t want any of the beggars jumping overboard and swimming for it, as I have known happen on other ships. Whether they sink or swim, it is