Raphael Sabatini

Benvenuto Gismondi is sitting on his horse, breathing hard and grinning, while looking at Messer Crespi. Crespi is also grinning while laying in the snow with his arms flung wide. The only problem is that the man is not breathing. Gismondi is a murderer and thief, who plans to assassinate his next target - the Duke Cesare Borgia.

Forty-year-old Professor Kauffmann is awakened by the loud, insistent trilling of the electric bell. He slides his hand, holding a weapon, into his gown’s pocket and goes downstairs to open the door. To his relief, it is Elphinstone who is ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night. The young man enters Kauffmann’s house without being invite, saying that he is in a great danger, and that so is the professor as well.

Dr. Peter Blood is an Irish physician who served in the Dutch and French navies. He now works as a doctor in the city of Bridgwater in southwestern England. During the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, Blood is captured after saving a man’s life. Unfortunately, the man turns out to be a rebel. Therefore, the doctor is sentenced to ten years as an indentured slave in the Caribbean colonies.