The crew was awoken to the sound of high-pitched, hysterical screaming.

"You beasts! You rotters! Put me down!"

There were some muffled thud, the organic thump-crunch of bone on wood, and the familiar litany of Ragetti: "Argh, me eye! Me eye!"

Barbossa groaned. He was lying face down on his bed- not such a good idea, as try as he might, he simply could not introduce the idea of washing sheets into his mens' minds. There were things snooping about under his body, leading blameless insectile lives and looking at the buttons on his nightshirt. He rolled over (ignoring further shrieks of outrage and agony, like a good pirate captain) and breathed out bitterly. Jack had never had this problem. Admittedly, his sheets were never washed either, but it didn't matter as Jack never slept in the Captain's Bed. He'd fall asleep curled around a bottle of rum, or on his feet (at the helm), or in an awkward foetus position in the ship's cat's basket with the cat snoozing peacefully on his face. Barbossa could even remember on more than one occasion Jack had burst, drunk as a buccaneer in a brewery, into the crew's sleeping quarters and demanded that Barbossa 'shifty up' in his hammock and let him share. Barbossa used to stand this as good naturedly as possible, but Jack snored. Really, really loudly.

He got up, stood up, scratched himself (which is the pirate equivalent of 'having a shower', unless it rains) and milled towards the door. As soon as he opened it, he snapped erect and adopted the Cold-Hearted King of the Sea stride. His calf twinged in protest.

There was a little scene from some peculiar tragedy being acted out on the deck, watched in amused silence by most of his crew. Captain Lovehaste was, of course, at the centre of attention. Ragetti was trying in vain to dodge her surprisingly accurate kicks and flails. One of his eyeball sockets was empty- Barbossa wondered where Jack the monkey had taken it. Pintel was trying to hold the skinny body down by pressing his full weight onto her friable shoulders. Occasionally he'd shout, "Stop hitting him, you little witch!" just to add pathos.

"SHUT UP," Barbossa hollered. Lovehaste slumped and gaped at him. Pintel dropped her and lumbered over to Ragetti, who used the ceasefire to burst into tears.

Barbossa strode up and picked up the hapless girl by her nose, which was admirably suited to the task. He noticed a film of sweat had formed on her forehead and was trying to run down her face, but her eyebrow was getting in the way. "What is the meaning of this conduct, ex-Captain?" he asked, putting special emphasis on the 'ex'.

She drew herself up. Barbossa noticed gloomily she was almost taller than him, and the tendons on her neck quivered when she was angry. "I was frightfully awoken," she snapped, "by a member of your beastly crew trying to- trying to impugn my virtue!"

Barbossa fixed her with his trademark Steely Eye. It worked, thank God, and she seemed to lose several inches. "Firstly, Lovehaste," he said coldly, "what in the name of the seven oceans makes yer suppose any man on this ship would want to know yer that well?" Titters from the crew, but she flashed him a significant look, one full of innuendo, and he immediately felt horribly, horribly nauseous. Please, please, I'll sell me soul twice over and give up me man-bits to charity for that not to mean what I think it means.

Nevertheless, he continued. "Secondly, how d'yer know it was yer virtue he was seekin'?"

She opened and closed her mouth. She seemed to think. She opened and closed her mouth again. Barbossa fought back the urge to pop a penny in the back of her throat and see if she could make it disappear and then come out through a nostril.

Finally she spluttered, "He- he ought to be flogged at once. He- he laid his hands on me."

"I never!" wailed Ragetti, sobbing anew. "I only touched the non-naughty bits, like you told me to!"

Barbossa was not allowed to squirm. Pirate captains do not squirm. It is a physical movement they cause, not suffer. However, every single one of his toes curled up and refused to come out.

"'You' told 'me' to?" Lovehaste said, bemused.

Barbossa swung round to look her her. "I gave him specific orders to 'lay hands' on yer, Lovehaste. Fer good reason, too."

She inflated again. "Aha! I see where this is going!" she growled. "So, Mr Scary Pirate Captain, are you afraid to take me yourself! Are you afraid... of THIS!"

The next moments are best described in slow motion. Lovehaste, who had clearly been reading a lot of steamy, romantic novels with bold, bosomy female heroines in them, had reached for her blouse to rend it open. This would have been very impressive if Lovehaste had anything underneath, and if she knew how to go about rending. No one had warned her bold, bosomy female heroines have to spend three years at a finishing school perfecting their blouse-rending, shirt-ripping and skirt-tearing. Lovehaste instead got a nail (broken from a hard day's scrubbing the deck) caught on a button, and had succeeded only in hurting herself and revealing a respectable inch of vest.

She seemed confused, because her blouse had definitely made a rending noise. She was unaware that this was actually a dry retch on Barbossa's part. As she looked down to see what the problem was, Barbossa took a step backwards. Unfortunately, Jack the monkey was behind him, playing with Ragetti's wooden eye. Ragetti gave a joyful whoop of, "Me eye!" and leapt for it, knocking Barbossa forward again, into Lovehaste. Fortunately, Ragetti's leap had also knocked Pintel, who was comforting him, sideways, and Pintel ended up sandwiched between Lovehaste (suddenly shrieking once more) and the now-furious Barbossa.

Barbossa recovered first. He barked at his men to get on with their duties, which they obeyed promptly (his heart swelled slightly- what a lovely crew he had, such sweet guys, so nice of them to mutiny with him etc.), and knocked Pintel efficiently out the way. He didn't bother with the nicety of nose-hauling this time, but simply dragged Lovehaste up by whatever skinny appendage his hand came into contact with first. She made a weird ululating noise, then caught his eye and wisely went quiet.

"Ragetti," he hissed softly, not breaking contact with her. "Hold out your hand."

There came a little whimper from behind him. "Yer not going to slap me, are yer, Cap'n?"

"Ragetti, do what Cap'n says," wheedled Pintel. "It'll be over quicker that way."

Barbossa bit his lip, irritated. I should have left them with Jack, he thought. They were on the same mental wavelength.

"Show me what's in yer hand, ye bilge rat," he snarled. Ragetti scuttled forward and anxiously thrust something silvery between Lovehaste's and Barbossa's nose.

She went cross-eyed in an effort to see it. "Tweezers?" she said, hesitantly.

"Aye. Tweezers. For yer eyebrows, Ragetti's a dab hand at usin' them."

Ragetti beamed.