Disclaimer: And Disney claimed what belonged to Disney, and poor ol' Delfe was left with naught but Gwen and a few other coarse bits.

Chapter 17: So Where Be the Treasure, Mate?

Deep, ringing laughter filled the air. "I take it that whatever it is you were expecting to find here, I'm not it. Come on inside, lad, and the lady there as well. And put away your weapon. I'm scarcely a threat to you."

Jack's posture didn't relax any, but upon hearing the man's clear voice and jovial tone, Gwen stepped out from behind her protector to get a better look at their eager host.

A peculiar old man, bearded but bald, stood in the doorway of his small, coarsely-built home, beckoning them forward.

"I've not had visitors in ages," the man was saying, as though oblivious to the fact that his "visitors" still weren't coming any closer to his house. "Not since… oh, I can't keep track of time so well now. Forget to mark off the days sometimes, and then where do I get? Behind, off-track, that's what I get."

He waved his arm in a broad summons over his head as he turned to go back inside. "Come on, come on in!" he urged as he disappeared inside.

Jack glanced down at Gwen then, as she stepped forward to stand beside him. He silently released the flintlock and lowered his gun to his side, though he kept it in hand. His stance altered just perceptibly as he regained his casual demeanor and tried to pretend he hadn't just reflexively tried to shelter her from possible danger.

Gwen. Which reminded him... During the survey he and his crew had made of the island the night before, he had thought he caught sight of a dim light deep in the trees at just the part of the island they were now standing at. At the time, his mind had been admittedly somewhat preoccupied with other thoughts, and when the light had winked out of its own accord, whether it had been snuffed out or simply blocked from view, it had been enough for him simply that it wasn't there anymore and he hadn't worried about it. He had forgotten about it, actually.

Now, not for the first time, he silently cursed Gwen for something he perceived to be somehow her fault- this time, his overlooking a hint that someone might be living on the island. He didn't bother to consider whether or not he actually would have surmised the truth of it even if he had been thinking clearly. Irrelevant. Still her fault.

Gwen started to move past him toward the house. Jack pulled the corners of his mouth into a frown and followed, his pistol still in his hand.

Gwen had scarcely stepped into the doorway before the man urged, "Come in, come in. You probably want to know about me as much as I want to know about you. Come now," he insisted, waving them in enthusiastically.

The inside of the house was surprisingly well-furnished for a shack in the middle of a forested, lonely island. A blockish trunk and a chest of drawers hugged against the wall to the left, and against the opposite wall was a bed of sorts, more accurately a heap of cushions and blankets. A stocky table and a single chair stood in the center of the room. Gwen wondered for a moment at the furnishings, but then realized that the white sheets on the bed looked suspiciously like ship's sails.

The old man himself wore a curious, coarsely-made white shirt as well as trousers which seemed to have similar dubious origins, somewhat stained and worn at the knees, but still very white nonetheless. Beneath his snowy-hued garb, his feet were bare. He smiled warmly but excitedly at his guests, the welcoming expression somehow emphasized by the silver-shot white beard decking his chin. Gwen thought vaguely of how people had "entertained angels unawares," and wondered if perhaps angels sometimes entertained their unsuspecting subjects themselves.

"Miss," the man said kindly, indicating that she should take his chair while he and Jack stood.

Gwen took the seat, deciding it was best not to argue, since she wanted to observe before reacting, as she tended to do in new situations. She silently crushed her admittedly naïve comparisons of the man to an angelic being. He and his possessions were apparently all merely salvaged from some ship, right down to the sails in which he was clad, and it was all nothing more special than that.

"Whose colors do you sail under? I didn't see your ship, but perhaps you've anchored somewhere on the lower end of the island? I was in the garden a couple of hours ago, and there was nothing in the sea there. I looked, I always look. Bit of a habit, I suppose, one doesn't notice one does it. I would have noticed a ship, though, I'm sure. Imagine that. What's brought you here, though, I wonder? Not lost, are you?"

The man paused then, finally, and began to laugh again, the same deep bell-tones of before.

"Listen to me. Although I suppose you cannot do anything but listen to me. Finally have someone to speak back and then don't give them the chance to try."

He fell silent again, still grinning expectantly.

"I sail under me own colors," Jack answered unabashedly but didn't respond to any of the man's other comments or questions.

"Ah," the old man said, his tone an almost comic mix of gravity and enlightenment. "I did, once. It's been some time, some time. Had my own lovely ship too. There she sits, you see?"

Jack only frowned and furrowed his brow. People tended to blame all of his own idiosyncrasies on his time spent on an island alone himself (which particular version of the tale each individual tended to believe was irrelevant to this claim). On "his" island, he most certainly would have starved, as scarce as the resources were there. The rum could only last so long. For him, not so long. But this chattering man represented a somewhat disturbing alternate outcome. He was clearly mad. Jack willingly claimed both insanity and genius. But never one without the other. He only stared, fascinated, at the man.

"There," the man said at Jack's expression, pointing more clearly and vehemently, and then stepping over to smack his hand down on the table. "All that's left of her. Here. And there," he waved toward his chest of drawers and his trunk. "And my home. She still serves me well, bless her timbers. Ah, I've forgotten to let you speak again. Your names, that's what I had intended to ask before I lost myself, Mr…"

"Sparrow," Jack said, immediately adding, "Captain Jack Sparrow."

"And your wife?" The man turned his benevolent gaze on her.

"No," Jack answered for her abruptly. "That's Gwen. She's none of mine though, merely an… associate."

Gwen managed a polite smile for the man at Jack's curt introduction, but she was unaccountably stung by his refusal to claim her. She suddenly wanted to assure the old man that her involvement with Jack was purely innocent and perfectly appropriate, but she held her tongue, knowing how unpolished she looked in her braids and how the situation must seem. Heavens, how the situation was.

She bit her lower lip, forcing down those doubts. She held her head higher, allowing a mischievous glint to appear in her eyes, determined to stop allowing herself to forget about her decisions. Her conscience would just have to get used to them.

But neither of the two men seemed to notice her silent struggle with herself, or her change in posture.

"Jacobs," the man was saying. "They used to call me Black Bill many years ago."

Gwen let a little gasp inadvertently and looked toward Jack automatically. He didn't seem quite as shocked as she was. Rather, he had an oddly grim expression in his eyes.

"And you're not dead," Jack stated quietly, as though he didn't realize he was merely pointing out the obvious. He ran his hand over his scruffy jaw thoughtfully. "That's interesting."

"So you have heard of me, then. Did you come looking for me? Why so long, anyway?"

"I've heard of ye," Jack said slowly. "There are tales of the fate of Black Bill Jacobs and his graceful Neptune's Lady." He paused to survey the man and his home again- the white-bearded, white-clad "Black Bill" and the clumsy, crudely-built walls and furniture made from the scavenged remains from his own ship.

Jacobs took advantage of the pause, prattling on into the lapse. Clearly, he was accustomed to talking to himself nonstop.

"They tell tales? What exactly do they tell? I never really credited bar-legends too much. Used to spin a yarn wilder than a pair of Amazons myself. Did-"

"There are tales," Jack interrupted, "of a cursed treasure." Seeing he had Jacobs' attention, he relaxed his posture, taking his time before he went on. He raised the hand which still gripped his gun, as though just remembering he was holding the weapon. Caressing it idly, he picked up where he had left off, deliberately drawing out his syllables, "A curse which killed off his crew, and drove ol' Black Bill off in fear to secrete the hoard with its black sorcery before it claimed any more lives. Black Bill-" Jack inspected his fingernails casually- "was seen last in Tortuga forty years ago, leaving out in 'is ship alone. Never seen or heard from again. Most assumed that the curse claimed him."

Jacobs didn't immediately spring in with something to say now. He looked thoughtful. "Ah, yes, the curse," he said slowly after a long moment. "The treasure. Yes, the cursed treasure."

Jack eyed him doubtfully, but he didn't seem to notice.

"How did you discover the truth, to come back for me?"

Jack grinned almost maliciously as he ambled over to the table and perched on the edge of it. Gwen purposefully averted her gaze from his bum, which was now directly in front of her.

"I didn't come back for ye, mate," Jack told Jacobs bluntly. "I come for the treasure, cursed or no. And as for you… I can't say it's a truth that ye are who you say ye be."

"There is no treasure. It's gone," Jacobs insisted quickly. "Rid myself of it before it consumed me too. Rid myself of the greed, too, that drives you to take whatever you want. You know it well, I know you do. It's all gone. I assure you, I am ol' 'Black Bill' Jacobs himself, here in the flesh, perfectly alive. But you see, I'm an honest man now, scratched my own life out for years here under the sun. I've got the garden and I fish-"

"What did you do with the treasure?" Jack interrupted again.

"It was lost to Davy Jones' Locker along with most of the remains the Lady, bless her," Jacobs answered after another brief pause. "With just myself, I couldn't manage her against the winds and she gave. I was lucky to find myself and parts of my ship washed ashore here."

Jack casually glanced around the hut then. "I suppose," he said offhandedly after a moment, "we can leave now, aye, Gwen?"

She raised her gaze from watching his dangling beard-braids to meet his eyes. "I-"

"You'll not leave me here," Jacobs exclaimed, the imperative sounding more like a plea. "I might still remember my way around a ship. It's been many years, but not too long to forget. The sea's in the heart. I can serve the ship for my keep."

"I was going to suggest the very thing," Jack replied obligingly, though Gwen wasn't sure Jack was going to do any such thing. "Take whatever ye want with ye." He gestured around the little house, an expression on his face which said clearly that he didn't expect an exaggerated packing process.

Gwen had to tear her gaze away from Jack's posterior, wondering why she couldn't seem to find anything else to stare at. This time she dropped her eyes to her lap. It was then that she remembered the compass, when she realized she had been clutching it against her palm, with her other hand wrapped around it.

Jacobs hesitated, looking as though there might be some article or scrap of his life there that he wanted to fetch to take with him if he could remember where it was, but at last, he shook his head. "I've got nothing," he said blandly, but his endless stream of nattering quickly resurfaced as the frown-lines disappeared from his bald pate. "We can go immediately, really. Back to your ship, then? What is she called?"

Jack sighed, not sure whether he preferred the oddities of the long-winded Jacobs over the more silent, morose Jacobs. He slid off the table and began to leave with the older man. Jacobs threw a last glance around his home, but left without complaint.

"Gwen, luv," Jack called simply as he followed Jacobs through the doorway.

Gwen didn't acknowledge that she realized they were departing. She stood, but didn't move toward the door. The compass wasn't pointing at Jacobs, as she assumed it must have been. He was outside in front of the house, but the needle was pointing toward the left wall. Gwen crossed to the chest of drawers and dragged open the top drawer. Inside rested several tools and utensils of various sorts, many of them crudely fashioned of bits of stick and twig and scarcely identifiable as to their purpose. In the back right corner, though, her gaze alighted on an insignificant little scrap of paper. Intrigued, she picked it up.

The compass, held flat in her other hand, immediately spun off to point at some new direction of interest. Gwen dropped the slip of paper onto the top of the bureau, and the compass spun about to point directly at it. She experimented once more, quickly, dropping the bit on the opposite corner of the bureau's surface. The compass still pointed at it.

Gwen inspected the slip of paper as she went toward the door. It contained only a few lines in a scrawled, cramped handwriting. She didn't have time to consider it further, however, as she quickly tucked it away before she stepped outside.

Jack was immediately outside and had apparently been coming back in to get her. He caught her just shy of actually colliding with him.

"What took ye, lass?" he said, sounding just a touch irritated. No doubt he probably was indeed somewhat upset with her over the way this trip was turning out nothing like he had expected or hoped.

"I was just thinking," Gwen said, not entirely truthfully. She'd actually caught nearly every word said inside the house, even if she didn't know the legends about Jacobs and his treasure well enough for all of them to make sense to her. And obviously, she hadn't been "just thinking" specifically then either. But Jack accepted the excuse of her being lost in thought easily enough and released her.

"Here's your compass, Jack," Gwen said then, holding it up for him.

"I had a compass like that once," Jacobs said, startling Gwen just a bit. Wherever he had been moments earlier she hadn't noticed him, but he appeared beside them then. "May I?"

He didn't wait for a response before picking up the compass.

Jack and Gwen exchanged a look as Jacobs weighed the compass in one hand and then bent over it, scrutinizing it, jabbering stray facts at them about the compass he had had once had. Suddenly he looked up at them.

"Where did you get this?"

Jack snatched it back from him, not answering the question.

"That compass was once mine," Jacobs went on, pointing to a tiny scratched inscription on its side.

Jack didn't have to look. He knew well what was there. The letters W and J had been etched into the case of the compass, had been there ever since he'd first laid claim to it. William Jacobs. Black Bill Jacobs.

Cursed treasure. Cursed compass. Babbling old man. Jack narrowed his eyes at the man, frowning deeply. There was something more going on here. He glanced over at Gwen. Something very strange. And he would get to the bottom of it.