On May 22, 1724, the first plague ships arrive in London. The plague supposedly originates in Chandernagore, a French colony in Bengal, India. Aurie, Jack, Bess, and Jenny are all in the Black Lion when the ships arrive. They learn the news from a broadside that recounts a tale about eight women stealing flour from a bakery and threatening the police with plague should they arrest them. The broadside goes on to detail the pandemonium in the Levant, where the plague deprives workers of their jobs and forces them into criminality. The broadside urges the London magistrates to increase police presence in the impoverished districts, as the upper classes believe the plague exclusively affects the lower classes. The broadside also insinuates that lascar (southern/south-east Asian) sailors are to blame for the disease. Bess is also of south-Asian descent, making her a prime target for discrimination. Jack begins to worry about his own role in spreading the plague as goods transfer from ship to port to warehouse to him via thieving and then on to buyers of stolen goods and so forth. Bess is convinced that the plague is a fear tactic used by those in power to crack down on impoverished people.