The two ghostly combatants were locked hilt to hilt and straining like fighting rams when a tremendous lunge by the Lord Admiral knocked the pirate off balance. Gilligan's ancestor grinned, pulling at his moustache. "Ha ha! Take that, you rogue!"

"Prancing dandy!" the pirate snarled. "Your luck'll run out yet, sprat! Hearken well – bring your shipmates here at sundown this day, or ye'll be the last man aboard!" And like a swirl of grey smoke, he vanished.

Gilligan blinked, used even as he was to these supernatural comings and goings. After a moment he let the cutlass drop to his side as the Lord Admiral strolled up, straightening his immaculate cuffs.

"Wow – you're not even out of breath!" Gilligan noted, a little jealous.

"Well, I've no breath to lose, have I?" The ghost laughed.

Gilligan looked at the spot where the pirate had vanished. "Did you hear what he said? How am I going to get the others to come here? What if they won't come?"

"Hmmm. T'is a pretty problem. They're hardly likely to come now that you've spun your little yarn about crocodiles."

Gilligan looked worried for a moment, then sighed in resignation. "No, they'll come. They'll be worried about me. They won't let me out of their sight for long."

The ghost nodded approvingly. A moment later he pulled a pout as he looked down the trail where Mary Ann had disappeared. "Damn the fellow. No sense of occasion at all! Just as you and the little milkmaid were getting on so splendidly."

Gilligan frowned. "I thought you said it was your cue to vanish!"

The Lord Admiral's grin was pure mischief. "I'm sure I'm neither the fool nor the gentleman Scallion takes me for, lad. You and the maid are far too valuable to lose. And I saw how she refused to leave your side. She's smitten, I tell you. Right 'round the maypole!"

Gilligan laughed scornfully. "Don't get your hopes up. What do you think Mary Ann thinks of me now? Like Scallion said, I sure am good at running!"

The Lord Admiral sniffed. "She couldn't hear him, you ninny! And anyhow, there's no shame in having damned good reflexes. I never yet knew of a sluggish swordsman who prevailed. That's our strength, lad! We move like the wind! We strike like the lightning!"

"And we run like rabbits!"

"Oh, poppycock! Did I not see you push the little maid behind you? Did I not see you prepared to die to save her?"

"But I didn't save her, did I? I couldn't protect her at all! You always have to come leaping out and fight my battles for me!"

When the Lord Admiral blinked in dismay, Gilligan backed down. "I'm sorry, Lord Admiral. I don't mean to complain – heck, that's the second time you've saved my life. But I'm tired of Scallion pushing me around! I know you mean well, but I want to stop him next time, not just watch from the sidelines!"

"But how could you possibly fight him? You don't know the first thing about it!"

"You could teach me!" Gilligan's blue eyes lit with steely determination. "I've seen you handle a sword. You make it look so easy!"

The Lord Admiral was aghast. "But it ain't easy! Swordplay is an art! I'd had years of training! You couldn't possibly –"

"Please, Lord Admiral!"

The Lord Admiral shook his head. "You've all the wild courage of our line, lad, for good or ill. Very well, I'll teach you. But mark this: you can't fight Scallion on his terms. You've got to find your own way, whatever that may be."

For a moment the twin Gilligans were silent. Then the ghost smiled and beckoned towards the ridge and its view. "Come on, lad. The little maid was right: you're quiet a poet. I've a mind to stop and gaze upon this little kingdom of yours."

They sat down on a great flat stone and gazed out across the water. The Lord Admiral sighed. "It puts even our own ancestral Emerald Isle to shame…England too, I'll be bound. This other Eden, demi-paradise…this precious jewel, set in a silver sea…" He looked over and noticed that his descendent wasn't following him. "That's the Swan of Avon, lad!"

"Hmm?" Gilligan shaded his eyes and looked down at the water. "No, we don't get swans here. See the big bill? I think that's a pelican."

"Oh, by Drake's drum, not the bird! I meant the Bard! You do know Shakespeare, surely!"

"Oh, yeah. He's the guy who wrote Hamlet."

The ghost brightened. "Why, my favourite play! Do you know it?"

"Yeah." Gilligan began to sing softly. "I ask 'to be or not to be. A rogue and peasant slave is what you see." He glanced over at his ancestor, who seemed surprised at hearing Hamlet sung. Gilligan sighed. "Sometimes I think I know what Hamlet meant. Boy, I sure wish I was like you, Lord Admiral."

The ghost raised his eyebrows. "We're as like as two peas in a pod, lad."

"No, no, not like that. I mean what you're like on the inside. You're brave and daring and dashing –"

"And dead."

That simple word brought Gilligan up short. "Oh yeah…I keep forgetting," he mumbled lamely.

The Lord Admiral smiled sadly. "So do I. I mean to say…all the rest of what you say is true enough but…hang it all, like me on the inside?" He tried to rest his hand on Gilligan's shoulder, but the hand sank into the flesh and vanished. Gilligan shuddered slightly as a cold vapour seemed to make its way down his ribs. Then the phantom withdrew his hand, still whole. "I haven't got any insides, lad. I'm dead. Dear God, I was dead at twenty-five. I never reached home!"

Gilligan's eyes widened as he realized how close to that age he was himself. It also made him think of the one thought he tried never to think of: that everyone back home believed he was dead, too. No, no, they knew he was alive. They had to. They just had to. He shook himself as though trying to dispel a gloomy cloud, then saw that the ghost was caught under his own. "But…but you became famous. You left a legend behind you!"

"And a wife. And an infant son." The ghost stared out across the water, the beauty invisible to him now. "They had to go on without me. But…they…they must have made out all right; after all, the line wasn't broken. You're proof of that. My son did live long enough to marry." The Lord Admiral looked up at him, blue eyes anxious in a way Gilligan had not seen before. "I wonder if you'd know his name? William Francis Gilligan?"

"Of course I know it. I'm named after him! First, middle and last."

"You don't say!" The Lord Admiral brightened visibly. "Why, my boy, I'm delighted! Perhaps he was the cut of your jib. Hope so, anyhow. Did you ever hear of what became of him?"

"Uh-huh. He was a great captain just like you. He had a big family and lived to a ripe old age."

"Truly? Oh – oh, lad. Thank you. Thank you for saying that."

"You're welcome." Gilligan paused, looking searchingly at his ancestor. "Lord Admiral, don't give up. I never have."

"Give up what, lad?"

"Believing that you'll see your family again. I know we will, someday. You've got to keep believing."

The Lord Admiral sighed. "As the Bard would say, "I would, if I were human…We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded in a sleep."

The unlikely pair sat silent for a time, gazing out at the green primeval mountains as the sun dappled them in light and shadow. Then at last the Lord Admiral shook himself and stood up. "Right – we've dallied long enough. There's work to be done."