...Listen to me carefully, William. I am about to tell you something no living person on this earth knows. I am not like you; not like any heroic spirit, I dare say. I have my legend and my acts recorded, and yes, I am the one to whom all those acts were credited. I am Francis Drake, and yet...I'm not.

[She sounded calmer now, though her voice was strained by an edge of frustration and hesitation.]

I have been Francis Drake for many years. I am a privateer and a navigator, the best there has ever been. But I...was not born under the name 'Francis Drake'. I was neither born to a farmer and his wife nor was I the eldest of twelve children.

One night, a friend--my only friend--gave me a choice. I could stay in a palace where everything was done for me, or I could jump out the window, run to the shore, get on his ship, and run away to take all the world for my own. Make my own choices, live my own life. And all I had to do in return was take that sailor's name for myself and make it famous.

We switched places that night, he and I. For the rest of our lives, each assumed the other's position and name. The only others that knew were his closest shipmates and my closest servants.