Chapter 2

As the pain and loss I imagined extinguished continued to smolder within me, I fixed my thoughts evermore on my quest to find Sparrow. My mission became an obsession, and I began to eat and sleep less and less, shrouding my mania in the enthusiastic performance of my duty. Days turned to weeks, and weeks into months as we chased the Pearl, whose charismatic captain held fast to the Sea's good opinion and kept his ship out of my reach.

I did everything I could to win the Sea back again. I bent to her will day after day, certain that in just one more day she would be mine. At night during my sleepless walks around deck, I even started talking to Her, hunched over the railing in a desperate prayer. I asked her to help me find Sparrow. Again and again I promised her my fealty. I offered anything if she would only free me from the darkness of loss and uncertainty that was devouring my life. If she could not do that I begged her to somehow bring me the one who could--to bring me Elizabeth. In my darkest hours I offered her my life.

Why I didn't throw myself into Her emerald depths I don't know. Somehow I felt that if my life was going to be Hers, she must take it, not I. I don't know how many nights I spent staring into the water, sinking into waking nightmares; nightmares that always ended with the coffee skin, the low whining laugh, and a blackened, mocking grin on a an old and chillingly familiar face.

In one such dream I stood in the graveyard at Port Royal, my topcoat heavy with rain. I waited desperately for something, but it seemed that it would never come. I began to search for it, running through the cemetery, bigger and more tangled than it had ever been before. I tripped and fell on a particularly large headstone, and when I looked up I saw her standing a few feet in front of me.

I recognized her at once. The same witchdoctor who had saved Elizabeth's life during the epidemic. The same dark figure that I had seen over and over again, laughing at me, mocking me. She stretched out a strong and nimble hand and beckoned, while with the other hand she held out a vial that looked just like the one I had taken to Elizabeth that night so many years ago. I knew at once I must have its contents. I stretched out a hand, but I couldn't quite reach, and the vial dropped to the ground and shattered. In horror I realized that it had been full of blood, which now covered me, and even as the rain beat angrily against my skin, it did not wash away. I looked up into her eyes, to find them, not laughing, but filled with an icy warning. I tried to ask her what it all meant, when I was awakened by the sounding of the bell, telling me it was two o'clock.

The next morning, it seemed the Sea had decided to give in to my pleas. Buoyed by a strong and persistent current, and indefatigable winds, we sped North along the African coast. Continuing at a fine rate, we trailed Sparrow and the Pearl to the Mediterranean Sea. When we reached the Gulf of Gabes we hit heavy rain, and the crew spent several hours pumping out the bilges. We continued East, and the rain gave way to two days of peaceful calm. Then finally, the Sea revealed to me all of Her vicious, bloodthirsty plans.

That morning Gilette marched into my cabin with a determined look on his face.

"Excuse me, sir," he erupted in his controlled, barely obedient manner.

I was in no humor to put up with my first mate at the moment, but I had no choice.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"We've nearly reached Tripoli, sir," he remarked gravely.

I raised my eyebrows sarcastically and looked down at the map on my desk with which I had just been calculating our coordinates.

"So we have, Lieutenant. What of it?" I replied dryly.

He grimaced at my tone and continued.

"Well, that means corsairs, sir."

I sighed heavily. In retrospect I have to admit that Gilette's instincts, however annoying and self-gratifying, were spot-on. We were sailing in dangerous waters, favored by the legendary Barbary Corsairs. But just then I had no concern for anything except Sparrow. Early that morning a lookout had sighted the Pearl. Which meant we were only hours behind its captain.

"Indeed, Lieutenant. And we are a ship of His Majesty's Navy bearing 32 guns. We will manage somehow."

He stood there, wanting to say more, but when I continued to work as though he were not there, he merely sighed smugly, turned on his heel, and exited the cabin.

Little did I know how right Gilette's instincts were. Later that day, when the skies began to crowd with ominous clouds, a Corsair ship was sighted not a league away. Instead of pursuing us, as her Turkish captain usually would have done to such English 'infidels' (especially the British Navy), the ship slipped past in the opposite direction, evidently in a hurry to escape from something further East. This once again roused Gillette's--and even my--suspicions, but I ignored both, doing my best to urge the Dauntless to more speed, knowing Sparrow to be just beyond the horizon.

We sailed further East, and by sundown the clouds had opened into a soft but steady rain. I was on the bridge now, guiding the Dauntless with my own hands through the angry waters. And then I saw her. The Black Pearl. I began to bellows order to the crew, adjusting course and saying a silent prayer of thanks to my beloved Sea.

In answer she ripped the sky with a menacing flash of lighting, followed by a deafening thunder. The rain increased into a torrential downpour, and I lost sight of the Pearl.

The winds rose, and the sea with them. The rain continued, flooding the ship from every angle, propelled by the ruthless gusts. Soon the rain and wind were accompanied by hail, which cracked angrily against the deck. The ship began to pitch and tumble, defying any effort at control.

I clung to the railing, thrown to my knees as I watched my ship fall to the brutality of my fickle mistress.

And soon I could not bear to watch, and closed my eyes. I felt nothing but wet and cold, my head reeling as the ship tossed to and fro. I became sick and vomited. I heard the shush and roar of the pounding water, the whistle and howl of the raging winds, the crack of the heavy timbers of His Majesty's Ship, the thud as the mast fell against the deck, and the bloodcurdling screams, sobs and curses of dying men. I pinched my eyes tighter and hugged the railing, clenching my jaw and waiting for the inevitable.

And then, from somewhere beyond the storm, above the sounds of devastation and death, came a voice, harsh and accusatory:

"Fahr what we want most, der is a terrible price must be paid in de end."

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A/N: You know, from what I can find about Tripoli's climate, it doesn't seem that they have many hurricanes, but…? Angst and death seem to be James's lot. Poor James.

Just wanted to say that despite the negative light of the Turks in this chapter, I really do have great respect for Turkish culture, and bow to their wonderful contributions to the theatrical tradition.