Summary

At the Masonic Lodge and dressed in his formal reading clothes, Captain Kidd greets the crowd and listens as their coins clink into the paint can. First, he reads the “hard news” (59) about the Franco-Prussian War. Then he reads his audience more mythical, whimsical stories about telegraph wires to India and the Hansa sinking in the North Pole, which is fast becoming his most popular story.

After the reading, he learns from a distraught Simon that Johanna has run off with the doll. Together, Simon and the Captain track her footprints along the road leading out of Spanish Fort towards the flooded river. Finally, they find Johanna at the waterfront, where she is staring across at a group of Indians on the move towards higher ground. Although she calls out to them that she has been “taken prisoner, rescue me, take me back” (64), they...