On Leyton's flagship, Stephen and Jack encounter Captain Randolph Miller, Leyton's nephew and Aubrey's neighbour at Woolcombe, who has a reputation as a ladies' man and as an excellent pistol shot, earning him the nickname "Hair-Trigger Miller". In England, Miller had been paying court to Christine Wood. After hosting Aubrey and Maturin at a dinner, Admiral Leyton orders Aubrey to take "Suffolk" to Saint Helena, to wait there for Leyton's squadron, and then to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope, carrying Miller to Cape Town aboard "Suffolk".