to sea eventually

Doctor Drew did bring a man with him....a Mister Batt, who Warrant Officer Frank quickly sized up as being "slicker than a greased weasel, and smells about the same."  So the Baron and Herat, and the Doctor and the weasel, and Chef Barrel and Jimmy, and Frank and the four stout lads and the quartermaster himself did make an even dozen as they boarded the Fortunate one warm Summer evening....they were shown their quarters, and their gear was stowed away in good fashion.....as the tide turned before dawn, and as a favorable wind came up, the little fleet of five merchantmen crossed the bar and cracked on canvas to head out into deep water, on a bearing for the Western channel.  The savvy merchant masters knew the proper time to sail from long experience.....the winds would be good in this season, and would act with the currents to carry them easily to the Three Kingdoms, the Gods willing.....and day followed night and week followed week, and they weathered some troublesome storms but suffered not much damage.....and they spied some sails which might be pirates, but were not approached after all, and the sailors showed the adventurers dolphin and albatross and mermaid and narwhal and flying fish and other wonders of the deep, and the leagues passed beneath the keels.  The Baron would spread his maps and scrolls in the great cabin, and the Doctor and Mister Batt and the good Herat would look on and listen as he explained his plans for after they had reached the far shores.....Captain DeKline contributed items of interest from his own knowledge of the customs of the Three Kingdoms.....and when Chef Barrel allowed as how he had spent some years in these lands as a youth, he also joined their consuls.   They all grew lean and tan, and soon appeared as very seamen themselves.....Jimmy quickly learned to dance through the rigging with the ship's boys, Chef Barrel was welcome in the galley, and the stout lads regaled the sailors with war stories, as they learned something of the sailor craft, hauling with a will on lines as needed, and such.  And one mid-morning, the look-out at the masthead cried the land....they were come to the Western shore.....