It was also a strangely quiet night at the bar in Tortuga. Only a handful of men were there drinking their rum and telling stories of the high seas. I was one of them. Sitting at my little table close to the door, drinking my third glass of rum that night and getting drunk. But I had plenty of money where that came from. I smiled at the thought and patted the small sack in front of me.
Suddenly, lighting flashed in the sky, illuminating a man in the doorway. Then the flash was gone and thunder rumbled through the bar. The man, who was soaking wet from the rain, walked into the room. Well, he kind of swayed while he walked as if he was still on a ship.
He was obviously a captain. He wore a small, black captain's hat on top of his long black hair. He also wore a red bandana under the hat and he had a beaded black beard and dark brown eyes.
Those dark brown eyes instantly lit up when he saw my sack on the table. He walked over to me and pulled up a chair. "Who be ye?" I asked him.
"Not important" the stranger said "who are you?"
"I'm Oliver Hart" I said proudly "first mate of the late Captain Newman".
"Captain Newman is dead then?" the stranger asked, obviously intrigued.
"Why, yes he is." I answered "He died not to long ago. He died trying to get this." I patted the sack in front of me.
"There must be something expensive in the sack" the stranger replied.
"Gold." I said "Gold that's been hidden for years. I would have gotten more but I didn't have the time."
"Tell me how you came across this… gold" the stranger said.
"I'll tell ye" I said. I whistled over to a red haired barmaid at the other end of the room. "Hey, lass! I'd like a couple of glasses of rum. For me and my friend here". The stranger noticed the barmaid I was talking to and pulled his hat down to hide his face.
"I do have a name, ye know" the barmaid said as she brought us some drinks "It's Scarlet".
"Right, Scarlet, of course" I said taking a swig of rum. I set the glass down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Just as Scarlet left the stranger pulled his hat back up. "Ye know her?" I asked.
"Aye" the stranger just said.
"Well, anyway back to what I was doing." I said "I was telling ye the story of how I got this here sack of gold. Well, like many tales of grand adventure and like many long quests it began right here in Tortuga. You see I was but a young man who had wandered into Tortuga".
"I wanted to be a pirate and at that time Captain Newman was looking for new crew members. He had a ship, a beauty of a ship, called the Blood Feather. I know a slightly strange name for a ship but she was defiantly seaworthy. She was the fastest pirate ship in the Caribbean".
"Oh really? I think I know of a ship that is faster" the stranger interrupted.
"Oh, and what is this great ship, eh?" I asked, insulted that he would say the Blood Feather was second rate to another ship.
"The Black Pearl".
"The Black Pearl is just a myth. The Blood Feather is real though. Real and grand. And I got to be on her crew. I signed myself up and that night I helped load up the ship with the rest of the crew and we sailed off. Now, the crew was a pretty interesting bunch".
"First, there was Susan or 'Dark-Eyed Susan' as everyone called her. I was one of the few that called her Susan. Most beautiful pirate woman this side of Hispaniola. Curly, brown hair. Dark, brown eyes. She had spunk though. She wasn't afraid to hit ye one in the noise.
"Then there was Lee. Everyone just called him Lee. I'm not sure if that was his real name or not. He was pretty stocky. A little short too. Great navigator though. And he could always make ye laugh. He loved to tell stories. He woulda loved to tell this one". I sighed and continued on.
"He was Captain Newman's first mate. We ran into a hurricane soon after leaving Tortuga and lost him to it. When he died I was made Captain Newman's first mate." I beamed "I guess he trusted me. But we were pirates on a serious mission. After sacking some colony, I forget the name of it, I came across a treasure map. It turned out to be the long lost treasure buried by Captain Morrison, my great-grandfather. Strange coincidence, huh?"
"So, I'm guessing you went after the treasure" the stranger said.
"Aye. We'd be fools not to. The map said where it was buried on Isle Olivia, named after the woman Captain Morrison fell in love with and stole all the gold for. When Olivia died he put all the gold in a chest and buried the chest somewhere on Isle Olivia. And so our journey began".
"It wasn't easy. We ran into plenty of hurricanes. We lost Marshall and Freeburg to those. Then we were attacked by another ship. The High Wind. We won that battle but lost Sampson and Collette. Then we ran into an East Indian Trading Company ship. That was a fierce battle. Lost almost a dozen men in that one. And we lost Susan. We won though. The foolish sailors never even asked for… oh, what was that word? Starts with P".
"Parsnip?".
"No".
"Parsley?"
"No".
"Parley?"
"That's it! That's the word! Who thought of parley?"
"The French. It's Latin based".
"Anyway" I said trying to take a swig of rum. I realized it was empty but just shrugged and set down. "We finally reached that blasted island after all that. It was a beautiful island. Lot's of sand and trees. Filled with wild life. It also had natives. Who weren't too happy to see us. At first they were friendly and let us stay the night in their tribe. They let us eat some of their food even.After awhile though some blastedidiot mentioned the treasure".
"Turns out they were supposed to be protecting the treasure. Had no idea that Captain Morrison had died at the end of a noose years ago. So they tried to kill us. They succeeded in killing the crew and Captain Newman. Captain Newman didn't go down without a fight. They got him in the end though. Scalped himI believe,I didn't stick around to find out. You see I escaped and started looking for the treasure. After searching and running, almost breaking my neck a few times, and having a run in with some alligators, I found the spot where the treasure was, dug it up, put as much as I could in this here little sack, and left in a lifeboat".
"After a couple of days I reached a fancy littlecolony, got myself a boat, and sailed off to Tortuga were I'm here this rainy night". I took a deep breath once I was done. I had never told the story before. It was a long story to tell. I had to sum it up though. The true adventure had gone on for three years.
"What are you going to do with the treasure?" the stranger asked.
"What I'm doing right now." I said with a grin "Drinking". I whistled and tried to get the barmaids attention again. "I need another drink over here, lass" I called out.
I turned back around to say something to the stranger but he had gotten out of his chair and was walking towards the door. The sack was gone too. I started to panic. Maybe the stranger had it. "Hey stranger!". The man turned around. "Have you seen what happened to my sack?" I asked.
"You mean this?" he asked holding up the sack in his hand. I gawked at him. "You!" I stumbled out of my chair and steadied myself against the table. "You no good double-crossing rat!" I spat at him.
"Pirate" he just said as if I should have expected it.
"Give that back to me!" I shouted. I looked around the room till I found a rum bottle on Scarlet's tray. I picked it up and smashed it over a timber above my head. "You better give that back to me" I growled advancing on him with the broken rum bottle as my weapon.
"Just one thing," the pirate said backing away towards the door "you'll always remember this as the day you lost your money to Captain Jack Sparrow!". Then Captain Sparrow turned around and ran out the door, into the rain.