Nathan Fox and his partner, John Pearce, travel to Plymouth to set sail with Sir Francis Drake:

    “People in Plymouth knew a lot about Drake, their local hero, and many of them had spun yarns to Nathan, in the tavern where he and Pearce were staying.
    “He’s a wizard is Drake. A man possessed of the magical arts, when he chooses to use them” said one old man knowingly. When pressed by Nathan he told him the story of Drake’s cannonball. “When Drake was sailing around the world, he told his wife to wait for him for seven years and, if he had not returned, she could marry again. So the poor lady waited, and at the end of the time, she agreed to become another man’s wife. But, as she was standing at the altar, a great cannonball landed between her and her husband-to-be, so she knew that Drake was alive and she called off the wedding.”
    Everyone around them nodded wisely. Nathan was captivated, until Pearce took him to one side. “Don’t believe this nonsense. Drake took only three years to circumnavigate the world. This local legend is the measure of how much they hold the man in awe, nothing else.”