Book Three - Chapter Three: Repercussions

Captain Jack Sparrow returned to his ship to see his first mate flogging one of his men.

"Barbossa! What the bloody hell is going on here?" the captain roared.

Barbossa restrained his arm and addressed his captain. He pulled out the remains of the piece of eight from his pocket.

"This, Captain, is what I've come back to find. The greasy little maggot snuck into me own private quarters and produced this!" Barbossa said showing the item to his captain.

Jack took hold of it and examined it.

"Well fashioned eye this is," he said.

"That, Captain, be the piece of eight!"

"I see. It's still good, no worries, mate," Jack said calmly. "As for him," he said pointing to Ragetti whose shirt was torn and bled through, "he's suffered enough."

"But, Captain," Barbossa began to protest.

"Would you have me shoot the bugger?" the Captain snapped. "He's a stupid bilge-rat, I'll give you that, but his blood's been shed, let's leave it at that."

He handed the wooden eye back to his first mate.

"Ms. Amelia, patch him up," the captain ordered.

"Aye, Captain," she replied and immediately ran to her friend's side. She put his arm over her shoulder to help him away.

"I have granted you a fair share of power on this ship, Hector," the captain said sternly to his first mate, "but your authority over crew punishment rests only as far as your daughter is concerned, as per our accord. So long as my presence is with this ship, and so long as this ship be mine, and you sail under my colours, you will answer to me same as the others. Do I make myself clear, Sir?"

"Aye, Captain," Barbossa replied reluctantly.

Amelia sat Ragetti down and began removing his jackets and his shirt.

"You should know better than to start picking fights with my father. He never plays fair," she said trying to take the edge off of the situation.

"Aye, Ms," he said, trying to hide his shame. "Sorry about the clothes. Hope I didn't ruin them."

"It's nothing that can't be washed and mended," she said.

One of the crew members brought her some water. Amelia dipped a rag in and began to clean away some of the blood. She opened a bottle of alcohol and lightly wet the cloth with it. The sting ran through his whole body but he refused to vocalise it.

"You should be alright," Amelia said after looking at the various wounds. "There's only one deep one."

She stitched him up. A fellow crew mate gave him a bottle of rum which he consumed moderately as the stitching took place. When she was done, she put her hand on his shoulder and commended him for his patience. She felt a smoothness under one of her fingers and realized - at the same time as Ragetti did - that that was the same spot that he took a bullet wound all those years ago - the same day that he lost his eye. He remembered her being there that day. She was different then, but an angel all the same.

"All better now," she said. She quickly collected up all of the items that she had used and got up to put them away.

Barbossa approached the man and held out the wooden eye.

"You guard this with your life, you hear?" Barbossa said to him. "Loose it and I'll have your very head for breakfast!"

He lifted Ragetti's eye patch and slapped the fashioned eye inside of the socket. It was quite the unusual sensation. He felt the presence of the eye and could feel himself able to make it twitch inside of his head.

When Pintel saw him next he said, "Now that's just downright eerie. You need a pupil or something at least."

"I guess it could be painted," Ragetti suggested.

"There's lots of paint still in the cargo," Pintel said.

They agreed to go and investigate.