Stephen set out from his hut early on Friday morning, dressed in modern clothes - his own clothes were growing threadbare, and were not so sturdy as they once were - with a pack containing provisions, his dinosaur textbook, and ammunition slung over his shoulder. He had his notebook in one pocket and his new pistol in the other, and was very much ( Read more... )

( The first of many times that Diana Villiers broke Stephen Maturin's heart )

( Jack and Stephen's first meeting )

Saturday had come round again, and Stephen made his way to the Secret Beach with his specimen pot and pink fishnet in tow - not only to allay suspicion about his activities, but also in case he found any interesting specimens. He was most interested in investigating sandfleas - a creature he had seen many times before but netver thought to study ( Read more... )

Stephen had scouted out the most remote, uninhabited stretch of beach on the entire island - close to dinosaur territory, guarded by dense jungle and a gravelly slope which - though not dangerous - took enough effort to climb that it seemed to dissuade any casual beachgoers. At least, Stephen never saw any footprints on the sand apart from those ( Read more... )

Stephen was not exactly a tidy person. His hut was strewn with coffee cups, books, notepaper, and sheet music, his bedclothes lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, and in one corner there was a tray stolen from the kitchen containing the dissected corpse of a seagull, which was beginning to smell. Although Stephen had served as a physician to ( Read more... )