Chapter V-
"The Black Pearl"
"Want a nice juicy bone?"
"Come here. Come on!"
Jack sat in his cell on a bench, leaning against the wall with his hat tilted over his eyes. He was resting and thinking at the same time. The kid with whom he had fought had worn him out amazingly so he decided to recover his strength while trying to think of a plan to get out of this mess. The four men in the next cell, however, had already thought up their plan of escape and were busy trying to lure a dog that had the keys to every cell in its mouth. They tried calling it, waggling a bone as a temptation, and even forcing it to come by trying to toss a roped tied into a noose around the mutt's neck.
The prison was inside of Fort Charles, so it was therefore made almost completely out of stone, and, unusually enough, it was stuffy. The jail cells had dirt laid on the ground to soften it up just a tad. The windows had no glass but were barred and in the dimly lit depths of the gloom, you could hear the occasional drip, drip, dripping of water leaking from the waves that splashed on the walls.
The men continued to call and whistle at the dog who just sat and stared back, a good distance away.
"You can keep doing that forever, the dog is never going to move," Jack spoke out of his hat after he was sure the men would give up.
"Oh," a nervous and twitchy prisoner replied, turning back to face Jack, his hands still clutching a bone outside the cell door, "excuse us if we haven't resigned ourselves to the gallows just yet."
There was an awkward silence and then the prisoner returned to trying to call the dog. Jack peeked out from his hat and grinned. So confident, and yet so stupid. He hid back under his cave-like covering again, returning to his hat with a chuckle. They'd be giving up soon.
Elizabeth's maid filled a bedpan with warm coals and set it beneath her mattress. Not ferociously hot coals, as that would be uncomfortable. They were warm. Just perfectly and snugly warm. "There you go, Miss. It was a difficult day for you, I'm sure."
"Yes," Elizabeth sighed, not looking up from her book (which, whether you find it coincidental or not, was about the deeds of the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow). "I suspected Commodore Norrington would propose but I must admit I wasn't entirely prepared for it."
Her maid paused. "Well, I meant you being threatened by that pirate, sounds terrifying."
Elizabeth waited for a moment, and then looked up and smiled slightly, partially from embarrassment and partially from agreement. "Oh, yes, it was terrifying."
"But the Commodore proposed? Fancy that! Now, that's a smart match, Miss, if it's not too bold to say."
"It is a smart match," Elizabeth agreed. After all, isn't that what society agreed to? "He's a fine man; he's what any woman should dream of marrying...."
Her maid twitched a smile, catching that Elizabeth didn't say 'would' but 'should.' As in she should dream of marrying Norrington, but, oddly enough, didn't. Maybe she needed reassurance? "Well, that Will Turner," she began, "he's a fine man, too."
Elizabeth looked at her maid in a strict fashion. "That is too bold," she scolded sternly. "Will Turner is a blacksmith- no, a blacksmith's boy apprentice."
"Well, begging your pardon, Miss, it was not my place," her maid apologized with a reassuring nod and left the room with a soft snap of the door.
Elizabeth turned back in her book and tried to read. However, he attempts were futile as set her book down and was swept away in her thoughts again. Perhaps what she had said was too bold? No. No, for her reason was good one, a noble one. She couldn't let anyone know about her infatuation toward Will. Such a thing was unheard of. Completely wrong and immoral. And with the way that gossip sped, her father and he, Will himself, might catch word of it and it would be severely frowned upon. Hence, she had a good reason.
Nonetheless, she bit her lip as she began to feel ashamed. The situation had become so difficult and complicated that she found herself lying to even her closest friends. She knew she could trust Estella (it had just been made obvious that she already knew but was keeping silent), and yet she found herself telling her the exact opposite of her thoughts and innermost feelings.
But her purpose was just, wasn't it? If her father found out, he'd be gobsmacked. She couldn't be in love with Will, that wasn't supposed to happen. She was the governor's daughter and he was a, well, a blacksmith's apprentice. A poor, dirty, low-class, run-down, no-good blacksmith's apprentice who couldn't do anything more than assist his master in his work. That was it. Thus, she was denying it and it was amongst the biggest lies she had ever told. Because with the way he made her feel when he visited, when he smiled, when he spoke to her; it was actual, true, perfect, undeniable fact: she was hopelessly in love.
She jerked out of her thoughts when she noticed the flame of her oil lamp flickering in a draft of wind. Only, how could it be flickering if she neither felt a draft nor were their any windows open? Another gust of air blew and then the light flickered lower and suddenly went out.
It may have been icy cold outside, but with a roaring fire going and a well-built abode, the blacksmith's forge was stifling hot. Will was sweating as he progressed on the sword he had been working on for the past hour.
Mr. Brown wasn't helping. He never did. Every item made by the blacksmith in Port Royal and every blacksmith's item that was exported from Port Royal was really the craft of Mr. Turner's hands, not Mr. Brown's. In fact, Mr. Brown stopped working a long time ago and no one even realized it. He laid in his favorite corner, drinking or already drunk almost all the time. Will didn't opposed or even say anything. He just did his work and gave his master the credit. Hopefully, though, one day someone would discover his gift and he could become his own blacksmith, so he could get his own higher pay. Perhaps he could even take his work back to England or to the Northern Colonies?
The blade he was working on was still in the form of an ingot, glowing a reddish orange and sparks flew from it as he pounded it once, twice, three time, a fourth time, and stopped in mid-swing. What was that noise outside?
He crept to the window and slowly pushed it open. It creaked as it moved and revealed a dark and empty alleyway. His face soothed with pleasure as the icy air licked his sweltering hot face, and then ran down his upper-body, cooling it off. He peered down the street. Nothing was there except for a fine mist about the ground and a stray black cat trotting past his window and down the street.
Commodore Norrington and Governor Swann were walking along the parapet of Fort Charles, chatting and keeping each other company. It didn't take too long for their conversation to turn to the direction of Elizabeth. She was, after all, a close woman of the two.
"Has my daughter given you an answer yet?"
"No, she hasn't," the commodore sounded a bit disheartened at this remark.
"Well, she has had a very trying day," the governor pointed out cheerfully. He walked a bit ahead of the commodore, who had stopped and was thinking in his own world. "Ghastly weather, don't you think?" the Governor continued.
Norrington sighed and looked out over the sleeping town of Port Royal. "Bleak. Very bleak." Elizabeth was probably at home sleeping at the moment....
Governor Swann gave a small chuckle. The commodore was always so straight-forward. He frowned. "What's that?" he asked as a strange almost whistling noise sounded through the air, steadily growing louder.
Norrington listened to the sound and it only took him one second before he dove down on the Governor realizing it was, "Cannon fire!"
A section of the fort exploded in a sudden combustion of fire and some pieces of rocks flew into the air and showered back down. The commodore was on his feet again seconds later and barking commands- they were under attack. "Return fire!"
Jack listened from inside the jail to the faint low booms of the cannons down in the bay. "I know those guns," he told himself as he recognized the unique (to him, anyway) sound of the cannon fire below. He sprung up, ran to his only window and looked through the bars down at the large black galleon as the jail gave another rattle. "It's the Pearl."
"Black Pearl?" the nervous prisoner from earlier asked in a shaky voice. He bolted over to peer at Jack and gulped as he gripped the bars of his cell. "I've heard stories. She's been preying on ships and settlements for near ten years. Never leaves any survivors."
"No survivors?" Jack asked with a grin. He turned back to the prisoner, who now had his friends gathered round him. "Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"
People were running in mad chaos. Explosions were going off left and right throwing people into the air and springing up fires in countless places. The buildings were blown to bits unexpectedly and things where toppled over. One such incident occurred when a cannon build fired and hit a large wooden tower used to help reach the higher places of a building they're building. The tower began to fall and a young blond baby boy was barely scooped up and swept out of harm's way before the tower crashed down where he stood, tearfully weeping for his mother. Then, matters became worse as the devils came ashore.
They came in longboats in large groups, running through out town and doing whatever they pleased. They burned buildings, stole all precious items that caught their greedy eyes, broke and destroyed things of lesser value, killed innocent people and chased others just for the pleasure of hearing them scream- especially the women.
Will had been preparing for this day ever since he came to Port Royal. Innocent lives would not be lost because of pirates attacking and he not being able to do anything them. He grabbed a hatchet and a sword then ran out with that alone into the street. The moment he stepped out his door a woman ran past him screaming as a pirate chased her, laughing with glee. Will raised his hatchet and cast his hatchet after the scallywag and leveled him with a hit right behind the shoulder blades. That was one. Will ran out into the street plucking the hatchet. From the dead pirate's back as he went and switching his sword to his right hand.
Another pirate came charging at him as a dwelling blew up to his left. The pirate swung down at him with his axe, but Will blocked it with his sword and hatchet in a cross form, then stabbed him with his sword and slammed him with his hatchet through the stomach at the same time. That was two. He was going to show no mercy.
Commodore Norrington was bellowing commands at his men atop the fort as they fired cannons back at the black ship. Governor Swann wandered about behind the soldiers, pale and a bit frightened at the idea that he had no idea how to deal with the situation- he was never taught to fight.
Norrington turned to the Governor suddenly. "Governor, barricade yourself in my office."
The governor stood there staring back at him, unwilling to leave from the fear that he felt. Wasn't he safe up here? "That's an order!" Norrington snarled.
The loud explosions and din of the mass confusion reached Elizabeth in her bedroom and sent her running to her window to see what was going on. She looked out and saw her little town of Port Royal being blown to pieces as Fort Charles fired back on the large gloomy vessel below. That's when she saw them.
A small mob of pirates made their way to the gate of her mansion home and forced it open. They were planning to come in! She pulled inside and ran toward the foyer to warn the butler.
She ran until she got to the stair landing from which she could see the door and the door could be seen by her. A knock thudded on the door's cold wood and the butler walked calmly to open the door.
"Don't-" but he opened it before she could tell him otherwise.
"Hello, chum!" In a sudden blast from the leading pirate's pistol, the poor butler crumpled to the floor in a heap as Elizabeth let out a squeal of fright.
The lead pirate, called Pintel, was a squat man with shoulder-length tangled greasy dark blond hair, a rugged patch or whiskers on his face and he was balding at the top of his ruddy head. His teeth were filthy, yellow and light brown, and he wore a brown coat that was so soiled it appeared to be dark grey. His loose white shirt (now tinted yellow-brown) was left open, exposing a fat belly. He wore brown pants and boots, had a belt strapped across his chest to hold the sheath to his cutlass and in his belt he kept his pistol tucked.
His closest friend (or "mate," as pirates would say), was Ragetti. Ragetti was taller and thinner in stature. He had sandy blonde hair that was in a remarkably tidy and well-done bull cut.
He wore the same thing as Pintel, only with a ruby-red loose shirt that was open at the chest, had an earring in his right ear and didn't have the chest-strap. There was also a very unique thing about Ragetti that made him very distinguishable from the rest of the group: his right eye was made of wood and it squeaked when it moved.
As soon as Pintel stepped through the door the other ten or so pirates came streaming in too, and before she knew it, they were running all over the mansion's main level, taking all they pleased, and Elizabeth couldn't do a thing about it. Pintel and Ragetti walked into the foyer as their cronies scattered everywhere. They looked up the stairs to see who had squealed when they fired their gun.
"Up there!" Ragetti blared and he pointed her out, just in case his friend didn't see her.
Elizabeth went cold. They'd seen her. A chill ran up her spine and she took off, quivering in fear.
"Girl!" Pintel called after her and she took off faster up the stairs. As she got to the hallway, she could hear their voices and heavy footsteps pounding up the stairway behind her- they were following her!
She charged into her room and slammed the door shut and locked it tight. The pirates began to ram against it, attempting to knock it down. She ran to her room and ran into someone. She squealed at the sudden surprise and fear of it. As she turn to run in the other direction, she froze when she realized the person she ran into shrieked as well and grabbed Elizabeth. It was Estella, Elizabeth's maid.
"Miss Swann, they've come to kidnap you!" she hissed in a harsh whisper, beside herself with fear.
"What?!"
"You're the Governor's daughter."
She could be right. She had heard of stories of pirates kidnaping the daughters of governors and other rich and powerful men in hopes of receiving a ransom or just to have a woman around for a change. She needed to hide. To hide, or she needed to keep them busy until the commodore could come or send some soldiers and save her.
"Estella," Elizabeth instructed, quite out of breath, "they haven't seen you. Hide and the first
chance you get, run to the fort."
Estella nodded and ran to hide as her lady had instructed. Elizabeth ran toward her bedroom just as the pirates threw all their weight onto the door and it came crashing down.
They scanned the room and Ragetti caught a glimpse of the hem of Elizabeth's dressing gown as she ran through the door. He smiled to Pintel and the two made their way toward the door, with stupid grins on their faces and Pintel in the lead. Honestly, it was always so fun when the ladies ran our put up a fight- made things more interesting.
As Pintel stepped through the door, some thing came flying through the door way, at his face and, with a metal pang, cracked him hard on the nose. Whatever it was, it was also very hot and briefly burnt him. Being complete unexpected, Pintel fell to the floor, crossed-eyed.
Elizabeth prepared to strike Ragetti now, who was right behind Pintel. The last bloke was easy to get rid of and this one looked even more stupid. She swung her bedpan for his face. However, Ragetti wasn't exactly that stupid and foresaw the blow. He grabbed Elizabeth's arms and stopped her from landing her hit.
"Gotcha!" He pinned her arms down to her sides and barked and laughed at her as she squirmed and tried to wriggle away from him. She twisted this way and that and nothing was working. She had to get away. She couldn't let them take her. She pulled to her right once again in a frantic attempt to escape and, as she did, her finger fell upon the smooth metal ring that opened the bedpan.
She leaned the pan over Ragetti, stuck her forefinger into the ring and pulled it like the trigger of a gun. A shower of red coals, glowing hot, rained down on Ragetti.
He gave a surprisingly girlish squeal and furiously began brushing the coals off. "It's hot! It's on me!"
At that moment, Pintel rose from his heavy sleep and sat up to see Elizabeth making for the staircase at a run. "Come on!"
Elizabeth was in a panic unlike any other she'd felt before. These foul men really wanted her and her specifically, otherwise they wouldn't be so willing to deal with all that trouble she was giving them. Estella was probably right about them wanting to kidnap her. She flew down the stairs, her lungs pulsating and burning in her chest. Her legs were throbbing and aching mercilessly and she wished she could just stop, but she reached the final landing and could see the foyer from where she was. She was almost there, just one last set of stairs.
She was halfway down, and then three quarters of the way down Ragetti dropped from above and landed in front of her, having vaulted over the banister above. He smiled maliciously in the light of the torch he held in his left hand. She went stiff, then spun around, in hopes of being able to run back up the stairs and find a room up there to hide. To her horror, Pintel was already coming down the stairs, eyes hungry and red with anger. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape or object to hit with. She was trapped!
Another pirate trotted into the room, his arms full of gold and jewelry and a smile upon his face from the glee of having found where the family kept much of their riches. A deep boom sounded and a cannonball tore up the wall, ripped through some columns in its path and hit the pirate smack-dab in the stomach sending him flying through the air, backward till he hit some closed doors and opened them with the force of his body slamming into it.
A crack broke through the galvanized air and Elizabeth, Pintel and Ragetti looked up and saw the chandelier beginning to fall. Her stomach lurched with surprise and she reacted in the first way that seized her mind- by running. Pushing Ragetti out of the way, she took hold of the moment she ran across the foyer. She could feel the rush of the air as the chandelier fell to the floor just barely missing crushing her delicate body. She ran into the dining room and slammed the double doors shut behind her. Then, grabbing a candle holder that had a long stem and branched to the left, up and right into three places for the candles, she jammed the holder over the handles of the door.
She desperately needed to hurry. The door lurched forward threateningly but the candle holder held them fast as the pirates rammed against the door. She looked around the room. There was no other way out and by now the pirates were not going to tolerate any more. She need a weapon. She searched the room with her eyes as the doors gave another terrifying rattle. There was the table, but it was too big to carry. The fire place, windows, the rug, the table cloth, some swords, the cupboard, and- swords?! Surely enough, hung on the wall above the mantlepiece of the fireplace were two rapier-like swords crossed and set in a mortar mount for decoration. But the swords were real, and she could use them. She ran and grabbed the handle of one, hoping to have it slide so she could fight the pirates, but as she pulled the whole mount came down instead and shake as she liked, the sword would not come free, but remained stuck as a display piece.
She looked up as the doors wined in another ram.
Pintel and Ragetti were almost through the doors, they could feel it. The threw one last shoulder-butt into the doors and they finally gave, admitting the foul-smelling brigands into the room. The looked about the room. It appeared completely empty except for the furniture and regular items to found in a diningroom. It was absolutely soundless, all except for the silent blazing of the torch Ragetti held in his hand. The curtains of an open window flowed softly in the gentle breeze flowing in from outside, and this too made a sound.
Pintel scowled. The girl probably opened the window in an attempt to trick them into thinking she had climbed out the window. Ha! He knew better than that. No woman would climb out a window, especially in her nightgown. He and Ragetti began to look around the room for possible hiding places.
"We know you're here, Poppet," Pintel cooed in his husky voice.
"Poppet," Ragetti echoed with a low, stupid giggle.
"Come out and we promise we won't hurt you."
"Eh?" Ragetti asked a bit bewildered. Then he caught after Pintel gave him the look and showed he understood by pointing to his nose. Pintel resisted rolling his eyes.
"We will find you, Poppet. You've got something of ours and it calls to us," Pintel went on as he looked around for a clue to where the woman had run. And a clue he found when he noticed that a corner of the floor rug was overturned. Looking up, he saw that a cabinet made to blend into the wall stood before it. He grinned. "The gold calls to us."
Elizabeth held her breath and let it go repeatedly in silence attempting to steal her breathing. She didn't have anything that belonged to them. What were they talking about? Unless.... She took the medallion in her hands. Unless the medallion was the gold. She looked at it hard. This couldn't be what they were after, could it? And yet ... and yet when she found it she did assume Will to be a pirate. Could it really be a pirates' medallion? It did have the skull. Light shining through the door (which was open a crack) glinted on the coins surface as she studied it, then a shadow was cast over it. Elizabeth looked up to see what was blocking the light.
Pintel's eye was peering through the crack. He grinned wickedly. " 'ello, poppet."
The door sprung open and Elizabeth felt a cold rush of fear and a gasp leave her lips as Pintel cocked his pistol and pointed it at her head and she went stiff as a board.
"Parlay!" she barked. She said it so fast and so unexpectedly that Pintel was unsure he heard her correctly. On top of that it was most very uncommon for non-pirates to know rule of parlay.
At first the pirate looked like he thought he hadn't heard her correctly. "What?"
"Parlay. I invoke the right of parlay," she repeated in a shaky voice. "According to the code of the brethren, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, you have to take me to your Captain."
"I know the code!" he growled ferociously. He, however, found it hard to believe that this girl knew the code.
Well, Elizabeth couldn't help but notice that the gun was not lowered. This disturbed her (and I'm sure it would have disturbed you had you had a cocked pistol pointing at you) so she felt it necessary to remind the pirates of their rules once again. "If an adversary demands parlay you can do them no harm until the parlay is complete."
"Apparently, so does she!"
"To blazes with the code!" Ragetti snarled and rose his gun.
"She wants to be taken to the Captain!" Pintel roared surprisingly loud at his friend, who jumped and bowed his head as a reaction. Pintel turned back to Elizabeth and smirked. "And she'll go without a fuss.... We must honor the code."
Will was locked in a hot battle with a pirate who was bald except for the bangs at the front of his head, had an earring in his right ear and used a grapple as a weapon- hence his name, Grapple.
Will dodged a swing from the grapple swing from the grapple and swung at him with his sword, which was blocked. He was disarmed and then hooked around the neck with the grapple before he could process what was happening. He was drawn up close to Grapple, who pulled on the hook forcing Will's head to tip back and his neck to be fully exposed. Grapple grinned toothily and raised his axe near Will's throat.
"Say goodbye!" he jeered with glee.
His breath smelt horrible, but that wasn't something Will was concerned about at the moment. He tensed, almost feeling the axe digging into his skin, searing with pain and warm blood running down his neck and shoulders. He didn't want to die like that, not yet. His anger immediately dissipated and was replaced with terror.
Low boom sounded from the harbor and a cannonball came flying through the air. It collided with the building Will and Grapple were standing in front of. It hit the base of a chain that held up a heavy wooden sign reading what the shop they stood before was. The chain broke and the sign began to drop and swing down like a giant hammer toward Will and Grapple. It was at this moment that Will's wits returned and he ducked, feeling the rush of the wind the sign gave off as it passed him overhead. Stumbling backwards, he looked up just in time to see it sweep Grapple into the window- killing him in a shower of glass.
"Goodbye!" Will answered the pirate's command. It was a bit disturbing to know that he could also have been caught in that unexpected death. He took his hatchet, picked up his sword and began to walk down the street seeking another opponent, when his eyes fell upon a group of pirates, tugging a prisoner along at a very fast pace. This was curious sight and he looked closer to see who it was.
"Come on!" one growled and he pulled on the roped tied around the young woman's wrists to get her to run faster. She looked up and met eyes with him.
"Will," she muttered. Perhaps he could get her out of this mess?
Will felt his stomach give an uncomfortable lurch as he realized who their prisoner was. "Elizabeth," he felt softly leave his lips. For it was her. They were taking her away. Anger boiled inside of him. They, that whole bloody group was his next target and they would pay dearly. All of them would die. He stepped to go after.
A pirate stood in his path and he became more infuriated at the thought that someone dared interfere with his rescue. He looked at the pirate with wrath burning in his eyes and then became very confused. He was... he looked exactly like the first pirate he killed. He had a beard of dread locks that smoked at the ends and his filthy face was no doubt the same. The pirate, Jacoby was his name, giggled and waved his hand to the young blacksmith and Will suddenly became aware of a faint hissing. He looked down to see the fuse of the hand grenade placed at his feet burn and disappear into the bomb.
There was a still moment in which Will waited for it to explode. To excruciating heat course over him in pain and agony ... but it never did. Nothing happened. It was a dud. Will looked up at Jacoby with the same fire burning in his eyes and heart that was burning only moments before. Jacoby shrank back and prepared to run as Will raised his hatchet with a smirk.
"Outta my way, scum!" someone roared behind him.
He felt a sharp pain on his skull and then everything was black. He, Elizabeth's only witness and only hope of rescue, was struck on the head and knocked out as he fell to the floor, helpless and out cold.