Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy - and a treacherous disease which decimates the crew. Descriptive writing of rare quality heightens the ingredients of a wonderfully powerful and dramatic O’Brian novel. Nowhere in contemporary prose has the majesty and terror of the sea been more effectively rendered than in the thrilling chase through an Antarctic storm in which Jacks ship, under-manned and out-gunned, is the quarry not the hunter.