They came from the canyons of Manhattan, the sparkling waters of Sydney Harbour and the sweeping plains of Africa ? an attractive New York lawyer, an Australian journalist, a boat builder, a chef, an accountant and an orphaned African goatherd. Ordinary people whose very different talents, courage and determination make possible an extraordinary adventure, brought together aboard a schooner built when Queen Victoria ruled an empire.
Their mission: sail halfway around the world to an isolated African delta and rescue the only man known to have visited the wreck of a long lost World War 1 bullion ship believed to have carried eight tons of gold. He is imprisoned within a fortress from which no one has escaped in four hundred years.
For some, the bullion ship may be no more than a legend.
What none of them realise is that the wreck contains something far more valuable than gold - a secret so dangerous that powerful people will kill to ensure it is never revealed.
John Quirk has spent more than fifty years drawing and writing about the world of boats and the sea and has earned a reputation as one of Australia's best loved nautical humourists. He has lived in the UK, East Africa, the U.S. and is now an Australian. He draws upon years of travel adventure and a lifelong passion for messing about in boats in telling a classic adventure tale, in his own style, where few things are as they appear and history, mystery and danger collide.