Nothing to Declare

Declaration of goods, Karamja to Port Sarim. Name of traveller: the Chronicler. Purpose of journey: rum. This line has been crossed out. Purpose of journey: bananas.

Redbeard Frank of Port Sarim would not tell a secret to a sober man. He did not ask to be made sober. He asked for a bottle of Karamjan rum, which the customs men forbid, because rum is the only thing on Karamja anyone would bother to take home. I allowed three hours. I bought a white apron from Thessalia before I had a job that needed one. That is called planning.

On Karamja I paid thirty coins to land, took work on Luthas's banana plantation, and bought the rum from Zambo, who did not ask what it was for. I put it at the bottom of a crate and ten bananas on top. Luthas paid me thirty coins for the bananas. The rum travelled free. Then the customs officer searched me, and found nothing but innocence of about the size and shape of bananas. I have been searched before and been guilty of less. I am told this is the first time I have been searched while guilty of more. I stood very still.

In Port Sarim, Wydin the grocer refused me a job. In the same minute he hired me. He asked whether I had my own white apron. I had. Few men have ever been so ready for a grocer. In his back room, among his bananas, was my rum. Frank drank to One-Eyed Hector and handed over the key to Hector's chest. The chest, in the Blue Moon Inn, held a message and nothing else. Pirates write the way cows think.

The message sent me to Falador park, where Saradomin points. I picked up a spade somebody had left lying about and dug. I found nothing. I dug again, because a chronicler does not leave a hole half finished. Under the flowers: 450 coins, a gold ring and an emerald.

Time allowed: three hours. Time taken: about fifteen minutes. Deaths: none, which the Draynor road will take as an insult. I take the title Smuggler of Rum, and I enter it here once. Under goods to declare I have written nothing, which is now true.