Chapter 10: Sail Ho! Choice Number 3; Cat Fight! Revenge of the Thunder Mug; Blow Hard.

"I feel guilty about leaving the ladies behind, sir," said Mr. Gibbs as he climbed up the ladder to the deck of the Black Pearl. Dawn was breaking, giving him ample of light to climb by.

"Had to," replied Jack, who was coming up right behind him. "They chose to waste time by putting their clothes back on. We didn't have time to wait."

A slender hand came down and helped Mr. Gibbs aboard. Tia Dalma smiled her black-teeth smile at him. "Thank you for thinking of us, Mr. Gibbs. You are a true gentleman." He found himself between Tia Dalma and Anamaria.

"How in the world did you get here before us?"

Jack looked equally confused as his head came up over the side.

"Have you forgotten who I am?" Tia Dalma asked. "Or merely forgotten what I can do?"

"Sail ho!" came a cry from up in the crow's nest.

Jack scrambled aboard. "Wither away?"

The lookout pointed, "The Last Trump is coming up off our stern. The Spectre is off our larboard quarter!"

Jack spun and began dragging his men up over the side as fast as he could. "Up anchor! Make all sail!"

The men ran to their stations.

Anamaria grinned at the captain. "Two British men-of-war. What do you intend to do?"

"What do I intend? Run away, of course, just as fast and as far as I can!"

She moistened her finger and held it up to test the wind. "But poor Jack, you are in the lee of those palisades and have no wind. They, on the other hand, are scooting passed the lowlands with their sails full. So again I ask: what do you intend to do?"

Jack looked up at his sails as they unfurled and hung limp as a dead goose. He compared them with the billowing sails of the approaching warships. He was outmaneuvered, outgunned, and outmanned. He couldn't run, he dare not trade broadsides, and to board or to be boarded was suicide.

"Rum!" he declared. "I need rum!"

"Rum will not help."

"Rum always helps!"

"You have two choices, Captain Jack Sparrow," Anamaria gloated. "You can fight and be killed, or surrender and be hanged. The choice is yours."

"Then I choose Number 3."

"And what is that?"

"It's a detail I'm working on, luv."

"There is no Choice Number 3, Captain. You are doomed."

"You forget two things, luv. First, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. And second, for Captain Jack Sparrow, there is always a Choice Number 3."

Gibbs interrupted. "Then the men will be thrice glad to be hearin' it, Captain."

Jacks hands flew to his bandana. "My doubloon! Tia Dalma, I'll trade you my doubloon if you save us!"

"No! You cannot!" shrieked Anamaria. "You know why she wants it!"

Tia Dalma roared. "Shut up!"

"I'll give you my jar of air!" Anamaria continued. "It can save you!"

"Silly girl!" snapped Tia Dalma. "I gave that jar of air to you! And you would give it away?"

"Rather than see Calypso take one step towards freedom? Oh yes I would!" She held out the jar of air to Jack.

Tia Dalma leaped for it. The two women grappled over the jar, spitting and hissing like alley cats. They each had their arms around it and were yanking and pulling.

Suddenly, it squirted free.

Jack leaped for it. He got one hand on it, but that just gave it a slow end-over-end spin. The jar hit the deck and shattered.

۞

Dorée lay in a hospital bed, her leg cast hoisted and tied high in the air. The rum was helping to kill her pain.

A monkey holding an eyeball confidently strolled into the room. It spotted her and chittered. They eyeball somehow looked familiar.

"Ah! There you are!" exclaimed Ragetti, who had appeared outside her glassless window. "Give me back my eye!" He began climbing in through the window.

The monkey shrieked and fled up Dorée's hospital gown.

She yelped.

The monkey's head appeared out of the top of the gown, as Ragetti dove into the bottom of the gown after it.

"You again!" shrieked Dorée. She grabbed her thunder mug and bashed the bulge in her gown which was his head. Ragetti staggered out backwards.

The monkey chittered, scampered out of the gown and over her shoulder, jumped down from the bed and raced out the door.

"Hey! What'd you do with me bloody eyeball?" Ragetti raced over to Dorée, pulled open the top of her gown, and espied the eyeball resting comfortably between her breasts. With a broad grinned, he pulled it out.

Dorée belted him again with her thunder mug. "Stay out from underneath my clothing!" She hit him three more times.

۞

The wind yowled out of the shattered jar of air. It shouldered its way into the ship's sails, which billowed out nicely. The Black Pearl shot ahead like a startled greyhound.

The wind grew, swirling. It charged off across the sea, striking full on to the Last Trump, turning her to starboard. The Spectre listed to larboard, twisting aside under the force of the howling wind. The two men-of-war bobbed like bathtub toys in the face of the unexpected onslaught. Sailors scurried aloft to reef the sails before spars and perhaps even masts began to snap.

Anamaria was at the wheel of the Pearl. She'd turned the heading over and was heading out to sea, faster than the Black Pearl had ever sailed before.

Mr. Gibbs and the others were making signs to ward off evil, spinning around and trembling.

Jack came up beside her. "What was in that jar?"

Anamaria shrugged. "Just air. But if I were you, I'd reef your sails before it comes back."

Once glance at what was happening to the British told Jack that Anamaria's concerns were well founded. "Topmen!" he bellowed. "Reef those sails! Reef them, I say, or lose them!"

A crashed echoed over the waves.

Jack looked back to see the Last Trump keeling over. She'd been driven onto unseen reefs, and now her masts had snapped, much of her rigging had tumbled to the decks, and many hands had been thrown into the choppy sea. She was a magnificent ship who was dying.

Tia Dalma hissed at Anamaria, "Silly girl, see what you have loosed upon the world!"