Symmes suddenly remembered himself and turned to examine Hawksworth
with his glassy eyes. "But I fancy you're a bit young to appreciate
that part o' it, lad." Then his gaze returned to the fire and he
rambled on, warming to his own voice. "An' there was poets readin'
Persian, and painters drawin' pictures that took days to do one the
size of a book page. An' the banquets, feasts you're ne'er like to see
this side o' Judgment Day."
Symmes paused to draw on his pipe for a moment, his hand still shaking,
and then he plunged ahead. "But it was the Drugs that did it, lad, what
they call'd affion and bhang, made out o' poppy flowers and some kind
of hemp. Take enough of them and the world around you starts to get
lost. After a while you ne'er want to come back. It kill'd the others,
lad. God only knows how I escap'd."
Then Symmes took up his well-rehearsed monologue about the wealth he'd
witnessed, stories of potential trade that had earned him a place at
many a merchant's table. His tale expanded, becoming ever more
fantastic, until it was impossible to tell where fact ended and wishful
fabrication began.
Although Symmes had never actually met any Indian officials, and though
the letter from Queen Elizabeth had been lost en route, his astonishing
story of India's riches inspired the greed of all England's merchants.
Excitement swelled throughout London's Cheapside, as traders began to
clamor for England to challenge Portugal's monopoly of the sea passage
around the Cape. Symmes, by his inflated, half-imaginary account, had
unwittingly sown the first seeds of the East India Company.
Only young Brian Hawksworth, who nourished no mercantile fantasies,
seemed to realize that Roger Symmes had returned from India quite
completely mad.