Banners of Canvas

Captain Carlos hurried topside from his cabin below and approached Captain Juarez who was twisting the long glass about in his hands staring hard to sea.  

            “¿Que pasa?” Carlos demanded hand on his sword.

            “That ship,” Captain Juarez said, pointing. “I don’t like the make of her. She has the look of pirate. I’ve ordered all canvas spread even to stu’ns’ls. I’m going to make a run for Havana.”

            “Let me see,” Carlos said, reaching for the long glass. “She’s black-hulled and shows no flag,” Carlos muttered, slamming the glass closed. “And it looks like she’s making for us.”

            “What is wrong?” Margarita asked, looking at Erendida who had just returned from talking with Captain Juarez.

             Erendida caught both of Margarita’s hands in her own. “Captain Juarez thinks the other ship might be…a pirate,” she swallowed, face a pasty white.

            “¡Madre de Dios!” Margarita gasped.

            Mesmerized, trembling with excitement, Margarita and Erendida watched with an almost fatal fascination as the black speck grew larger and larger, first dead astern, and then on a parallel with them only two miles distant.

            “¡Dios me libre!”  Captain Juarez cursed, “They’re cutting us off from shore.”

            The black ship’s three masts were sharply canted, sails billowing, gun ports gaping, a thing of power and speed. Though she flew no flag the name Sea Witch was plainly visible on her bow. Suddenly a cloud of smoke erupted from the deck of the sinister black ship and Margarita screamed throwing her hands to her face as the Bella Canto’s topgallant yard tumbled to the deck followed by a rain of splinters and hiss of lines.

            “Take the women below!” Captain Juarez ordered, and Captain Carlos pushed the women before him down the steps. 

            As the terrifying crash of musketry sounded from above, the two women huddled before the small statue of la Virgen where a small candle winked in the dimness of the cabin. The sudden sound of fierce shrieks and thumping and pounding of feet came from the deck above and the women screamed, clinging tightly to each other. There was crashing and bumping in the stair well and the sound of men cursing, the clash of metal upon metal and then with a splintering of wood the cabin door was flung open. In a flash Margarita saw the crumbled, bloody form of Captain Carlos at the foot of the stair. Over him stepped a half naked creature, blood splattering his massive chest and arms. He clasped a bloodied cutlass in one hand and a sharp-pointed dagger in the other. Several other men of like appearance crowded into the cabin behind the first pirate where they halted staring at the two women in lewd appraisal. To Margarita their faces loomed shapeless and distorted all hair and teeth, mouths much too large for their bodies, and they brought with them the foul smell of unwashed bodies and the sickening scent of blood. The first pirate advanced purposefully toward the women who huddled in frozen horror against the transom window. His lust-filled eyes came to rest on Margarita who turned sick and nearly faint at the sight of him.

“You,” he purred sensuously in a voice with a thick French accent. “Come to me.”

“No!” cried Erendida thrusting herself protectively in front of Margarita.

As though he found her conduct amusing, the pirate’s lips curled in a sneering grin baring yellow teeth. Sliding the dagger beneath the leather belt holding up his baggy breeches, he suddenly seized Erendida’s wrist and nearly jerking her off her feet, swung her around him into the arms of one of his companions who, uttering a lurid expletive, grabbed her about her waist.

“Tickle ‘er up Joss,” one of the motley group shouted as they crowded around Madame Dubreuil and her captor.

“Let’s see what she looks without her fine clothes,” laughed another, odious and obscene.

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