We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Less than a week after her husband shipped out with the Commodore and the Deadly Earnest, Elizabeth Turner locked her bedroom doors and drew the shutters. She took out a small chest and set it respectfully on the bureau, then opened the top drawer of the bureau and slid her hand into the space behind the drawer where a hook in a recess held a key. She withdrew the key and unlocked the chest.

Inside the chest, gold gleamed, even in the dim light. She fingered the exquisite pieces of jewelry, thinking of the man who had given them to her - shoved them at her, really - Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate. "Hide these in your drawers, Missy," he had ordered impertinently as the rowboat carrying the three of them, Elizabeth, Sparrow, and Will, left the treasure cave of the Isle de Muerte. "It may be I'll require them back of you one day." Then, with a casual aplomb Elizabeth still found shocking, he had pitched the priceless gold crown he had been wearing over the side of the rowboat , to be lost forever in the dark of the sea.

While Elizabeth still gaped at the loss of the crown, Will had spoken urgently. "Jack, we can go back," he said. "We can leave you here at Isle de Muerte. Norrington is bound to arrest you."

Faced with the desertion of his crew and loss of his precious ship, Jack had shaken his head sadly. "No, mate; no food or water here. And no one would ever find me." The gold of his teeth had glinted in the gloom. "Sort of by definition, savvy?"

So Jack had joined the newly-mortal, former crew of the Black Pearl, under sentence of death for piracy.

The days that followed had been the bleakest of Elizabeth's life. Her wedding to Commodore Norrington was to be Port Royal's social event of the year. She had tried to smile and laugh and plan what any other of the town's young ladies would have seen as a glorious triumph, all while she felt her world crumbling beneath her feet. For, while the other ladies also smiled and laughed, behind their elegant fans they talked about how the Commodore was wedding a tainted woman.

From the moment Elizabeth had been taken offshore by pirates, she could no longer be considered a respectable maid by the socialites of her class. She not only had spent a number of days and nights in their company, unchaperoned, but the story had got around that she had spent a night with Jack Sparrow alone on a deserted island! This might be the heart of high romance for many a silly young girl, but for their mothers, the women who mattered, it was the heart of high scandal. Elizabeth pretended not to notice as the cauldron of gossip bubbled, and she told herself she did not care what people thought, but the truth was, Port Royal was a small community, and Elizabeth had lost all her friends.

Nor was that the worst. Her husband-to-be and her father both knew she had bought Will Turner's safety with her promise of marriage. Her father had granted Will clemency before she could even ask him for it, bless him. But to seek out Will then, even to inquire about him, could only be a gross betrayal of her fiancé and a further scandal, bordering on the adulterous. Even before her kidnapping, her chambermaid had known of her interest in Turner, and, if the servants knew of it, everyone did. Will himself might have arranged a brief, secret meeting, but he, too, stayed away. Elizabeth had felt sick at the realization that Will had no reason to believe her acceptance of Norrington had been compelled by anything other than her affections. And, so long as his own damnable sense of propriety kept him away, she simply had no way of talking to him.

Elizabeth had not cried since she had lost her mother as a child, but she wept every night during that time.

And every dawn brought the sound of drums followed by the horrible whump as the gallows door dropped and another pirate's neck was snapped. She cared nothing for the others, but each dawn brought closer the day when Captain Jack Sparrow's neck would be the one.

Sparrow.

The pirate had threatened her life - but with a pistol he would not have fired. He could have threatened her virtue - but he had chosen drink, instead. He had tried to barter with the life of the man she loved - but then had saved it. And, at their first meeting he had saved her own life, at no profit to himself.

Whatever his crimes, he was no blackguard. Elizabeth had been convinced of it.

A child's cry in the distance brought her thoughts from the past back to the unfortunates across the way.

How could Sparrow have done this?

II

Sighing, she selected a gold peacock-shaped brooch, inlaid with emeralds and sapphires in the tail, locked the chest, and returned it and the key to their hiding places. Since Will had left with the Deadly Earnest, she had sold much of Sparrow's gold to help the refugees from the Black Pearl's depredations. Fortunately, no one had questioned where she had acquired the wealth to be so much assistance. She might be a humble blacksmith's wife, but the townsfolk took it for granted that the rich would always have resources.

She opened the shutters, picked up a basket of food, and left the cottage, crossing the road that separated her from her father's grounds - now a refugee camp. The expansive lawn was cluttered with wooden shacks built out of lumber from a wrecked ship. Smoke from open cook fires wafted heavenward, waving above the camp like reeds in a pond. Most of the victims would only live there until they could find passage to England. As Norrington had feared, more refugees had arrived from other settlements - poor ones - the Black Pearl had ravaged. It was as if the pirates cared more for the suffering they could cause than for the treasure they could loot.

Ten minutes later, Elizabeth was talking to a sad-eyed woman who had lost her own children in the George Town attack, but who had adopted a tow-headed orphan boy whose parents had been her neighbors. They stood in the bright sunlight outside the woman's tiny wooden hut. Nearby, the boy sketched on paper Elizabeth had brought.

"I thank you, Mrs. Turner, for your gifts. The paper is a godsend for Matthew; he only draws, now."

"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth.

"He hasn't spoken since he saw his parents spitted on the pirates' scimitars. Poor child, he hid himself at the docks, where so many people were killed. He must have seen terrible carnage. Some of his pictures are ... horrible."

Morbidly curious, Elizabeth drifted near to the boy, studying his drawing. This drawing had no carnage in it - Elizabeth caught her breath when she recognized what the child drew. A three-masted square-rigger, flying a black flag with a skull and crossed scimitars. The boy's work was good. The figurehead was recognizable - an angel with hands outstretched, gripping a dove.

Elizabeth seated herself on a tree stump next to the crate the boy used as a table.

"That's very good, Matthew," she said.

The boy did not respond. He added a shore and burning fires on it.

Elizabeth tipped her head, noticing the ship again. "What color are those sails, Matthew?" she asked.

The boy's response was to take his charcoal back to the sails, and color them more darkly.

"Black?" Elizabeth glanced at the woman.

"I didn't see the ship," the woman said. "But they said it had the black sails of the Black Pearl."

Elizabeth nodded, thoughtfully, and looked back at the drawing. "That's the Black Pearl, all right."

She watched as the boy drew detail in on the afterdeck. A cabin at the stern, and on top of it, three leaping dolphins.

Elizabeth leaned forward, "Matthew, those are good dolphins. You draw very well. You must have had a good look at this ship."

The boy glanced shyly at her and returned to his work.

"Matthew, are you very sure about the dolphins?" Elizabeth tried to keep her tone casual.

In response, Matthew returned to the dolphins, pressing the lines hard, making their shape more emphatic.

Elizabeth left more paper and the basket of food. She abandoned her plan to visit the other refugees, and hurried back across the road, missing Will more than ever. Even her father was temporarily away. Whom could she share her news with?

She had spent days on the Black Pearl. The real Black Pearl had mermen on the afterdeck.

III

To her surprise, as she approached her cottage, Elizabeth heard voices and the sounds of a struggle inside. She circled to the back window, which was next to the shelf where Will kept a loaded pistol. A huge crash brought her to the window in time to see three men, all in sea-faring, buccaneer garb, one of whom had overturned her kitchen table. All three men held swords, and one man held in his other hand, a fistful of her gold.

Deftly, Elizabeth knocked open her window, reached in for the pistol, cocked it, and pointed.

"The next man who moves, I shoot!" she yelled into the fray.

Three shocked faces, two light and one dark, turned to face her. Elizabeth saw the confusion and indecision of men who have been fighting and are interrupted. She also saw that the man holding the gold was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow!

"Elizabeth!" cried Sparrow, with an ingenuous grin as if they'd just met at a party.

"Don't move!" she repeated, pointing the pistol directly at him. His grin vanished. "Everyone drop your swords," she ordered.

With reluctance, the two men Elizabeth did not know complied. Sparrow dropped his promptly, but then, he had seen Elizabeth shoot before.

"Madam," said the black man, as he caught his breath. "We caught this thief robbing your house."

Elizabeth considered that. Without doubt, Sparrow had returned for the gold. But would two roguish-looking marines really have stopped him on her behalf?

She looked at Sparrow.

He flicked his sword hand at the men with one of his absurd gestures, and swayed slightly. "Elizabeth, these men are here to kidnap Will." He placed his hand on his chest. "I was going to prevent them."

"That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it, Jack? Can't you do any better than that? Why are you holding my gold?"

"Your gold!" he sputtered. "It's my gold. I trusted you to keep it for me. And I notice a goodly chunk of it is gone."

"Mrs. Turner, is it?" asked the white man. "If I may ..."

She swung the pistol on him. "I'll shoot you if you move," she repeated. "I don't know you." She glanced around outside the house, relieved to see that the proceedings there had not been unwitnessed. Two children were watching her with wide eyes.

"Elizabeth," begged Sparrow, "please don't do anything ..."

"John, Eleanor, run and get the guards. Go now!"

"... stupid," Sparrow finished despondently.

The children fled.

The two strange men exchanged nervous glances.

"Mrs. Turner, if you'll put down the pistol, I'm sure we can explain everything in a civil manner."

Elizabeth kept the pistol steady. "I'll be very curious to hear what you're doing in my home." She nodded toward Sparrow. "It's obvious why he's here."

Sparrow fidgeted, his kohl-rimmed eyes glancing at the doors and windows. "Elizabeth, love, you know your business. You keep them here. But, ah, I really need to be going."

"No, Jack, don't move. Except to put down my gold."

Sparrow gave her an indignant look, and stuffed the gold in a coat pocket. "Just shoot me then, Missy."

"Jack?" asked the black man. "Jack Sparrow?"

Sparrow sighed. "Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please."

While Elizabeth was still trying to decide what to do about Sparrow's defiance, the other two men exploded into action. They shoved the kitchen table at her window, and then raced out the open door.

Furious, Elizabeth came around the side of the house, pistol at the ready, as the men sprinted across the road and into the refugee camp, where the crowd of innocents protected them from her. But there was still one use for her shot. She whirled around and ran in the door, just as Sparrow made for the open window.

"Avast!" she ordered. It was seamen's language for "stop" but it carried with it the warning of immediate danger to the hearer or to the ship if the command were not obeyed.

It worked. Perched ludicrously on the window ledge, one leg still dangling inside the cottage, Sparrow jerked up short, swayed and then toppled back inside. He peered up at her with a wounded look from his disarray on the floor.

"What the blazes is going on, Jack?" she demanded, as he picked himself up, found his sword and sheathed it. She heard voices and tramping feet at the bottom of the street.

"Would you put the pistol down, lass?" he asked wearily.

"No! Then you'll run."

"Are you really going to give me to the town guards?" he asked, his gold-capped teeth flashing as he attempted a smile.

Elizabeth hesitated as the sound of footsteps grew closer.

"Did you sack George Town?" she hissed.

"Not lately, love."

She dropped her pistol arm, and Sparrow bounded out the window. Ten feet beyond was thick jungle.

Elizabeth glanced toward her door, catching the flash of uniforms approaching, but the sound of Sparrow's voice drew her attention back to the window.

"Meet me at Pirate's Cove at midnight. Bring Will. And bring some food. I'm famished."

Then Sparrow was gone, and the guards were there.

Elizabeth spent the rest of the day in a highly nervous state. The guards were unable to find and question the two men who had been in her house, and Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to mention Sparrow to them. There were many ships in port, and no hint as to which one had brought the men. An afternoon squall hampered the search, and Elizabeth sensed that the Captain of the Guard had only a lackluster interest in the invasion of the house of a woman of somewhat dubious reputation, Governor's daughter or not. But it was not the violation of her home that unnerved Elizabeth; it was the not knowing why.

Or, that's what she told herself. She stared disconsolately out her window at the sheets of rain. Scarcely four days could go by in Jamaica's rainy season without such a squall, and woe betide the creature that had no shelter from it. What shelter had Jack Sparrow? Elizabeth thought of him, unprotected and hungry, and was angry with herself for wanting to shelter him.

Behind her she heard a crack and sizzle. She returned to the hearth to find that the pot she had been boiling chicken eggs in had gone stone dry and cracked. The eggs had fallen into the ashes among the shards of the pot. She sighed and fished the cracked eggs out from the embers. Cooking was one of the many woman's skills she had had to learn when she had left the privilege of her father's household, and she had far from mastered it. Poor Will had taken many of his meals at the tavern, before he had left, and Elizabeth had never blamed him. Fortunately, she did seem to have the knack for gardening, so she and Will had some fresh vegetables.

She put the blackened eggs in a basket, and added the burned scones from breakfast and a few other items.

The squall passed at sunset, leaving a world shiny and clean and glowing umber. Elizabeth watched the sun set, alone in her cottage, as Port Royal dried off and settled down for the night, as she had seen it do countless times. She knew she should be spinning - another endless woman's task - but she couldn't bring herself to go near the spinning wheel. She viewed it rather like a prisoner viewed a ball and chain.

Suddenly, she knew what she wanted. She rose from her stool and packed a bag with the peacock brooch, a few changes of clothes - including trousers - and the pistol. As the clock tower rang eleven times, she took the bag and the basket of food, placed a note on the kitchen table, and left her cottage home for the jungle.

The jungle at night could have been terrifying, and would have been to most of the friends Elizabeth had grown up with. To her, it was only otherworldly. This had been her backyard playground for most of her life, and nighttime was merely another of the jungle's moods. She picked her way with confidence through vegetation still dripping from the squall, unconcerned by the ghostly land crabs, translucent and ankle-high, that drifted across her path like specters seeking salvation.

Pirate's Cove was, she had always assumed, misnamed. The approach was too shallow for even a schooner, let alone the deeper draft ships such as the Black Pearl. Mostly it was used by lovers, for the broad, soft beach. Elizabeth approached from the jungle, but she studied the moonlit strand before she emerged. She saw no one.

She stepped out and let the moonlight show her. She stood still for a moment, listening to the soft lapping of the ocean as it kissed the shore. Then came a whistle from her left - a sound no night bird made. In fact, it sounded a bit impertinent, more like a catcall.

She turned and walked slowly toward the sound, trying to see into the shadows. The bright moon had impaired the night vision that had led her so well through the jungle.

"Jack?" she called softly.

"Here, Lass," replied a deep voice.

IV

She found him a few feet inside the thickest part of the verge, perched snugly on a hammock at about the height of her head, beneath a solid canopy of trees. She forced her way into the overgrowth, so as not to be visible on the beach.

"Where's Will?" he asked. He was only a solid silhouette masking the vines and leaves, but even had Elizabeth not recognized his peculiarly slurred voice, she would have known it was Sparrow. There was something about the pirate that turned the normal, solid world on its ear, and Elizabeth felt the tilt begin.

And she welcomed it.

"Aboard the Deadly Earnest, looking for you."

Elizabeth wasn't sure she'd ever heard Jack Sparrow's laugh, but she heard it now.

"Deadly Earnest? Did the good Commodore choose that name?"

"Jack, they're hunting you. Everyone is. What's going on?"

"So, Mrs. Turner, with her husband away at sea, is meeting midnight assignations at Pirate's Cove. Tsk," he teased. "People will talk."

"That ship's already sailed," she said, failing to keep the bitterness from her voice.

"Ah," he replied. Then, "Is that my food?"

"I want answers first."

"Good lass. Never give what you can leverage. All right. Someone has a ship fitted out like the Pearl and is slaughtering poorly defended settlements all over the Spanish Main without hardly bothering to loot. Over half the British and Spanish navies are hunting for us, which is a bloody nuisance, because we can't go anywhere near port and we need provisions and repairs badly. Even open water is dangerous with this much naval activity, so we haven't been able to pillage any ships. I don't know who he is, and I don't know how he avoids being caught, but I have an idea of what he's up to. Now, give us the food, there's a good girl."

"Tell me your idea."

"No, now, that's not right. I paid in information, now you have to come up with the goods."

"You didn't tell me everything."

"So you don't give me everything."

"Ah," said Elizabeth, considering her basket. "Do I give you the good food as incentive, or the not so good food?"

"The not so good, but let me believe there's better to come."

Elizabeth smiled in the darkness, and handed the scones up.

Sparrow made no attempt to see what he was eating. He bit into a scone and coughed.

"Drink!" he demanded.

She gave him a flask and he drank deeply.

"Water?" he complained. "No rum?"

"So where is the Black Pearl?"

Sparrow choked down the scones, washing them down with the water.

"Far from here, I'll tell you. Hidden nowhere near civilization. And we're getting very tired of fish. I came by boat."

"By yourself?"

"Aye. What's the next course?"

If he'd truly come that far in an open boat, by himself, it was an impressive feat of navigation, but Elizabeth decided she had no reason to doubt him. She was also impressed that he made no complaint about the rock hard, burned scones. Her conscience twinged. When had he last eaten?

She handed him the onions.

These he did not bite into right away.

"More water?" he asked.

Elizabeth took the empty flask from him and stepped away a few feet. Her jungle playground provided water reservoirs in the broad, flat leaves of palms and other plants. These were still full of rainwater, and she drained a few large ones into the flask. When she returned to him, he was halfway through one onion.

He accepted the water and drank deeply. Elizabeth struggled to hold her questions while he worked his way through the onions. She refilled the flask twice.

When he was done, he took a deep breath and smiled. Elizabeth could see him better, now. He held out his arms.

"You want to come up, love? Your skirts must be soaked."

He lifted her easily, and placed her next to him in the hammock.

Elizabeth had to admire the hiding spot. She could see the entire cove, but felt completely invisible, and was even well sheltered from rain. Sitting this close to Sparrow, she could tell he was relatively dry. She needn't have worried about him.

The impropriety of her position occurred to her, but she had to push the thought away. If she got what she wanted, propriety would be left behind her in Jamaica, shrinking into the distance. She pulled the food basket close on her lap.

"What is your idea, Jack?"

V

"Someone wants to find the Isle de Muerte," he said, simply. "He knows the Black Pearl amassed beaucoup treasure there - not only the cursed coins. He has to keep us away from it, so we don't carry off the gold. So he combines slaughter with his hunt for the island."

Elizabeth found herself nodding. "He knows the Navy will scour the waters for you and you won't dare come near. But how does he avoid the Navy?"

Jack's hand crept into her basket. Elizabeth slapped it away.

"And, isn't that island supposed to be impossible to find?"

"Not everyone believes that, love."

Elizabeth remembered her own skepticism about "ghost stories" and had to agree.

"But I think he's come to believe it now," Sparrow went on.

"Why?"

"It's time for another course, my dear. What else have you got?"

Reluctantly, Elizabeth handed over the eggs. She was running out of things to buy his information with.

Sparrow shelled and devoured the eggs in a twinkling.

"Those men in your house. I hid when I heard them coming, and I heard them say they were there to kidnap Will."

"I thought you made that up."

"As you said, love, I could make up something better than that. I was as surprised as you. But I think I know why. The Isle de Muerte can only be found by someone who already knows where it is. I think my evil twin is looking to capture someone who knows where it is."

"Will! Jack, I've got to warn him!"

"Now don't get your garments all wadded up, Missy. Young Mr. Turner should be quite safe with the King's Navy. And there are others who know where it is, now."

"The entire crew of the Dauntless!"

"Not the entire crew. Most sailors have no head for navigation. Even the officers are not all advised on every course change. I'd say the pilot, the navigator, Norrington and his chief mate. Beyond that, there's myself, most of my crew, Will and maybe your father."

"Jack, Will and my father couldn't find the Isle de Muerte if their salvation depended on it."

"But you could, couldn't you, Missy?"

Elizabeth didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

Sparrow chuckled. "They came for the wrong Turner," he said, leaning greedily over her basket.

Elizabeth took out the last of the food. A big, green apple. "We've had that problem before, haven't we, Jack?"

Sparrow laughed as he took the apple, and Elizabeth couldn't help but grin at him.

VI

As he finished the apple, Sparrow stiffened, then went very still. Startled, Elizabeth took in a breath, but held it rather than speak. She had heard something, too. She leaned forward to look back toward the curve of the cove where she had originally emerged.

"Can it be the Coast Guard?" she whispered.

The hammock tilted as Sparrow dropped almost soundlessly to the ground. Then he had his hands at her waist, lowering her. Before she could protest Sparrow put one dirty hand across her mouth, but released her when she recoiled. Sparrow took down the hammock so quickly Elizabeth wondered how it had been suspended. "Come on," he whispered in her ear, before sidling through the bushes and branches away from the beach, angling toward the opposite arm of the cove.

Peering out, Elizabeth saw a soldier, red-uniformed and musket toting, appear on the beach before being pulled back into the jungle by an unseen hand. For one agonized moment she paused, torn. She could show herself - concoct some story to explain why she was there and stall the soldiers . . . Sparrow would escape but she would lose her chance.

She caught him up, and followed, trying to judge where he thought he was going. Sparrow made no acknowledgement when she joined him. He moved quietly, but, smaller, lighter, and more familiar with the terrain, Elizabeth crept all but silently behind, her skirts bundled and draped over one arm.

When he slowed to spy out the best passage over the slight rise above the cove, Elizabeth whispered, "Left." Sparrow obeyed, and soon they crossed the sand dune crest still hidden from the moonlight in the only narrow band of vegetation that snaked over to the other side.

With the rise behind them, Elizabeth risked speaking. "There's nowhere to hide over here," she whispered urgently. She spoke from childhood experience of hide-and-seek games. The best cover was behind them, between Pirate's Cove and Port Royal. For miles this stretch of Jamaica's shoreline was only waist-high bracken. Even now, if a soldier crested the rise behind them, they would be seen.

Sparrow glanced back at her, then looked beyond, to the rise, and at her, again. "Then no one would come this way to hide, would they?" he said, his tone mild and cheery as if they still sat in the hammock.

He quickened his pace and Elizabeth struggled to keep up, shaking her head. As a tactic, it seemed lacking, to her. If there were enough soldiers they could sweep the area, and hiding beneath a thorny bush wouldn't serve them long. She eyed the bright moon, and was encouraged to see the outlines of clouds near it.

Sparrow slowed, stopped, bent down, and, to Elizabeth's surprise, lifted a huge piece of the earth, bracken and all. She blinked as the beach in his hands resolved into a large canvas, sand and bushes spilling off of it. Elizabeth hurried to help.

In less than a minute they had uncovered and turned upright, a twenty foot pinnace. Elizabeth watched the terrain behind them - flat and unobstructed all the way back to the rise - nervously, as Sparrow hauled out casks and gear from their hiding places, and tossed them into the boat. She pushed the opposite side as he slid the boat the few yards to the water.

The sound of a shot, muffled by wind and distance, reached her and Elizabeth looked back to see what she had been dreading. A silhouetted soldier on the small sand dune. The two of them were out of range of his musket shot, but the sound would bring others. "Jack?" she said, her heart pounding.

Sparrow walked calmly back to the dislodged sand, and dug once again with his hands. "Decide now, Missy," he said, his low voice sounding like a growl. "If you're coming, get in and get down." He began hauling something long and heavy out of the sand.

Elizabeth gasped, but didn't hesitate. Could it really be this easy? She tossed her bag of belongings and the food basket into the boat, followed them in, and crouched down as much as she could. Grunting, Sparrow wrestled what turned out to be a mast, into the boat. Elizabeth took a painful smack on one shoulder from it, before she managed to twist out of the way. She held herself still as Sparrow threw himself against the now much heavier boat, inching it into the water. Spying an oar, Elizabeth gripped it in order to be ready. She heard another shot, closer.

The boat swayed as water slid beneath it, and then swayed more severely as Sparrow leaped in. Elizabeth sat up, took her place, positioned her oar, and waited for the panting Sparrow to position his. He gave her one appraising look, then committed to his single oar. They began rowing for their lives. Elizabeth realized, belatedly, that Sparrow had chosen the top of the tide as the time of their meeting; it was now ebbing and aiding their escape.

Her rhythm in no way matched his, and their first hundred feet straight out from land was gained only in desperate spurts. On shore, a dozen soldiers clambered to the water and leveled their muskets.

"I'll row," Sparrow gasped. "Stay down." Sweat poured down his face, glistening in the moonlight, and his chest heaved.

"No," cried Elizabeth. The disparity in their strengths was part of the cause of their uneven strokes, but he was tiring more quickly than she, and they had now found a matching rhythm. Fear and determination flooded her, giving her strength. "Row," she ordered, her voice strong.

Exhausted he might be, but he grinned almost carelessly at her, and pulled his oar. He continued to grin as the soldiers shot at them, their shots falling short, for their pinnace sped away now, like a racing boat taking the lead. Elizabeth tried not to think, for she knew that as soon as her fear left her, she wouldn't be able to row another stroke.

Eventually it happened. Jamaica dwindled in the distance, and Elizabeth began to believe she would live. At that moment, she faltered on the oar, and it flew wildly from her hand. Sparrow grunted and dragged his own to lessen the force levering Elizabeth's free oar. Somehow, her every muscle protesting and her arms shaking with fatigue, Elizabeth managed to catch hold of it before it slid completely into the water.

Then she collapsed.