"They done what's right by them. Can't expect more than that."
They've done traditional, Jack thought randomly, staring at the hangman's noose in front of him. He counted eight coils wrapped just above the loop itself. Eight, he thought, is a good, strong number. Too few coils and the nose risked slipping loose. Too few and there was a possibility that it wouldn't tighten properly. Of course, a master hangman's noose was the best kind. It snapped the neck immediately, no noisy strangulation involved. This, perhaps, was a master hangman's noose.
No, he decided morosely, looking at the black-masked ogre lumbering around the wooden platform, that would be entirely out of character for Commodore Norrington -- to use anything but the mediocre for Captain Jack Sparrow. For the mediocre was all he was worth in Norrington's eyes. That was all he... all anyone thought, he amended, looking past the noose briefly until he focused on the gathered crowd, in their bonnets and patched coats and expectant looks. What did they expect ? For him to break into song or rage about how piracy was forever ?
What... was the point ?
"Jack Sparrow, be it known that you have…"
"Captain. Captain Jack Sparrow..." He sighed, knowing that by this point, it was rather futile. If they hadn't acknowledged him by now, they never would. Of course, in a few moments, it wouldn't matter either way.
"…for your willful commission of crimes against the crown. Said crimes being numerous in quantity and sinister in nature, the most egregious of these to be cited herewith – piracy, smuggling…"
He noted Commodore Norrington, Governor Swann, and Elizabeth standing in the shade cast by the battlements. Elizabeth turned and spoke to her father, but he couldn't hear anything other than the press of the crowd as it grew impatient.
Well, he had gotten himself into this.
"I'm sorry, Jack."
Rowing back to the Dauntless... he hadn't made any protest when the soldiers took away all the gold he'd brought, or relieved him of his pistol and sword, or put him in the brig (although, he conceded, both Will and Elizabeth had objected strenuously -- pointlessly -- to his imprisonment, so that felt a little better). Had he expected anything except this ? He was, after all, a pirate. And how many other pirates had hung from these very gallows before him ?
What was one more criminal ?
"…impersonating an officer of the Spanish Royal Navy, impersonating a cleric of the Church of England…"
"Ah yes," he said fondly, which earned him a glare from the executioner.
"We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up me hearties, yo-ho ! Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me ! I love this song, when I get the Pearl back, I'm gonna teach it to the whole crew, and we'll sing it all the time !"
Maybe that's what made this whole thing sting so much. That being a pirate was probably the only thing that mattered. Not because he was good at it -- because he was, he thought, one of the best, drunk or sober -- but because it felt right. It felt right, just like the pitch and roll of the deck beneath his boots, the one that he missed when he was on land. (He also didn't like land because it threw his balance off fiercely, which sometimes made him appear drunk when he wasn't.) It was right like following a broken compass because it pointed at the horizon, and that was the only destination that mattered. Right like knowing how well a ship could ride a storm, and for how long, and laughing into the tempest because for all its bluster, the ship would outlast.
And out past the stone walls of this garrison was the sea.
"…sailing under false colors, arson, kidnapping, looting, poaching, brigandage, pilfering, depravity, depredation, and general lawlessness. And for these crimes you have been sentenced to be, on this day, hung by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul."
The drums started, and the executioner grabbed the noose and tightened it around his neck, but he kept looking at the sea.
Just like the rum, all the ships he had known were gone. (Some rum would be nice right now. Not as nice as a ship, of course, especially his ship, but nice anyway.) He thought he understood why everything was gone, because the Code was just that, the Code. Any man that falls behind… is left behind.
"No heroes amongst thieves, eh?"
The drums stopped.
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- For the scene that inspired this piece, you can see the screen capture here: ww w.potcfandom.c om/capgal1/cap1160b.jpg
- Thanks to Nevoreiel for the dauntless (pun intended) task of typing the script, located: ww w.hostultra.c om/vampfiles/piratesscript2.html
25/06/04