by Teresa Coffman

Rating PG

These characters and situations are owned by Disney. I make no money from this.

We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

"Sail ho!" called a lookout from the fort wall. Will Turner, blacksmith, looked up from the work he was doing at the dock. His heart beat faster, as he waited to hear if the lookout recognized the ship. "Deadly Earnest!" the lookout called, and all work on the docks ceased.

H.M.S. Deadly Earnest had sailed in support of George Town, five days before, after an appeal for help had arrived from that British settlement in the nearby Caymans. They were under attack by pirates. Such appeals always came too late for real assistance, but Commodore Norrington had dispatched his warship in the hope of intercepting the departing raiders or bringing aid to the survivors. As Will watched the ship approach, word spread, and soon there was a crowd at the docks, eager for news.

As the ship hove to, a murmur rippled through the crowd. The deck of the Deadly Earnest was crowded with civilians. Even women and children were at her rails, looking bleakly down at the Jamaican port.

Captain Gillette and a detachment of soldiers disembarked, and headed briskly for the fort, answering no questions, so the crowd began to yell to the passengers.

"What news?! What word?!"

A grey-bearded man called back. "Pirates! We were sacked! George Town is no more. They burned everything to the ground."

A child on deck began to wail and a woman begged the graybeard to say no more, as more children joined the crying.

The crowd on the dock gasped in horror, and a few young boys separated from the group and ran back into town, carrying the news.

"They slaughtered everyone! Pirates!" the man called, ignoring the effect his words were having. "We have forty-five orphans and sixty widows. If anyone else lives, I don't know it!"

Now a wail from the dock joined the keening on deck. People began hurling names at the man. "Mary Martin! Can you tell me her fate? Have you any news of my sister?"

Will forced his way forward, and leaped a rope fence, earning a scowl from a dockhand.

"Who were the pirates?" he called, raising his voice above the din. "Tell me, man. Who did this?"

"The Black Pearl!" came the answer Will had been dreading. Others with the man nodded in agreement. "It was the Black Pearl!"

His heart aching, Will sorely needed Elizabeth. He hurried back along the cobblestone streets, not returning to the smithy, but to the cottage he shared with his new wife, adjacent to the Governor's property. He met her as she barreled out the front door.

"Will!" she cried, reaching for him like a drowning man reaches for a rope - exactly how he felt as he reached for her. "I can't believe it. Have you been to the wharf?"

Will parted reluctantly from her, but still held her arms. "It's true," he said. "The Black Pearl, again."

"And they slaughtered the town?"

Setting his jaw squarely against the pain that welled in him, he said, "It's what pirates do."

"It doesn't have to be," she said. "Did they resist? If they don't fight back, and give over their treasures . . ."

Will was too appalled to spare her. There could be no excuses. "They didn't resist. They fled for their lives. They begged for their lives; for the lives of their families. The sick and the children took refuge in the church. The pirates barred the doors and burnt it down with living souls in the sanctuary."

"No!" Elizabeth covered her mouth with her hands. "It's not possible!"

Will took her in his arms again, relieved to have the excuse. But even his wife's embrace gave him no comfort from his guilt. "I'm the one who set him free," he said.

Elizabeth looked up, searching his face. "You believe it was Jack," she said.

"It was the Black Pearl," he answered. "Unless he's sold it . . ."

Elizabeth's face grew hard. "Jack would never give up that ship," she said.

Will agreed, though he wondered why she could be so certain. "And Gibbs wouldn't mutiny," he said softly.

"No," she agreed, and they clung to each other again.

Will returned to the smithy, where he had always been able to pound out his frustrations in the punishing strokes of his work. He attacked the iron with a vengeance, trying to keep his imagination away from the destruction of George Town.

Elizabeth's dowry had not only bought the young couple a cottage, across the road from the Governor's mansion, it had also bought out Will's indenture to John Brown. Will was fond of the old drunk, and hadn't cared to go into competition with him, so now they were partners. It didn't mean Will had any less work to do, but he could keep what he earned and he had more freedom.

Light from the door caught Will's attention and he looked up to see Elizabeth standing just inside the shop. She had paused on the threshold, in deference to his wishes; he feared to have her inside a place with so many things that could injure her. He put down his tools and went to her. She wore an expression he couldn't identify.

"Father will put up some shelters on the mansion grounds," she said.

"Can't they stay in people's homes?"

"Commodore Norrington thinks there will be more. The Black Pearl has been raiding all over the Caribbean and half the fleet is out looking for her." She looked at him steadily, her eyes bright in the filtered light of the shop.

Will took her hand, and spoke slowly, searching for the words. "Elizabeth, when I realized that I couldn't let them hang Jack - whatever the cost to myself, I had to try to rescue him - I thought I was throwing everything away. I thought I was losing you, that I might be hanged, that I would certainly lose my good name, my hope . . . and it didn't matter. I had to save him, or hate myself forever."

She nodded, but stayed uncharacteristically silent, studying his face.

"But I gained everything. His life, my pardon, and my heart's true love. It all seemed so right."

"I know," she said.

"And now, I feel like such a fool. I'd do anything to change what I did. But there's nothing I can do."

Elizabeth put out her hand and put a finger to his lips. The brightness of her eyes dimmed as she blinked back tears. "Will, Norrington is sending the Deadly Earnest to join the hunt for the Black Pearl. He wants to offer you a place on the crew."

Will gasped, as hope flooded into him. "Me? I'm not a sailor or a soldier."

"He says you learned the ropes from Jack himself, and you might be able to predict him." She seized his hands in her own. "I think he also knows you'll feel the way you do, so he can count on you to be highly motivated. Will, he'll use your friendship with Jack."

Will understood the warning in her words, but it didn't deter him. He raised her hands to his lips. "Elizabeth, I must away."

She nodded. "I wish I could go with you," she said.

We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Less than a week after her husband shipped out with the Commodore and the Deadly Earnest, Elizabeth Turner locked her bedroom doors and drew the shutters. She took out a small chest and set it respectfully on the bureau, then opened the top drawer of the bureau and slid her hand into the space behind the drawer where a hook in a recess held a key. She withdrew the key and unlocked the chest.

Inside the chest, the gold gleamed, even in the dim light. She fingered the exquisite pieces of jewelry, thinking of the man who had given them to her - shoved them at her, really - Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate. "Hide these in your drawers, Missy," he had ordered impertinently as the rowboat carrying the three of them, Elizabeth, Sparrow, and Will Turner, left the treasure cave of the Isle de Muerte. "It may be I'll require them back of you one day." Then, with a casual aplomb Elizabeth still found shocking, he had pitched the priceless gold crown he had been wearing over the side of the rowboat , to be lost forever in the dark of the sea.

While Elizabeth still gaped at the loss of the crown, Will had spoken urgently. "Jack, we can go back," he said. "We can leave you here at Isle de Muerte. Norrington is bound to arrest you."

Faced with the desertion of his crew and loss of his precious ship, Jack had shaken his head sadly. "No, mate; no food or water here. And no one would ever find me." The gold of his teeth had glinted in the gloom. "Sort of by definition, savvy?"

So Jack had joined the newly-mortal, former crew of the Black Pearl, under sentence of death for piracy.

The days that followed had been the bleakest of Elizabeth's life. Her wedding to Commodore Norrington was to be Port Royal's social event of the year. She had tried to smile and laugh and plan what any other of the town's young ladies would have seen as a glorious triumph, all while she felt her real world crumbling beneath her feet. For, while the other ladies also smiled and laughed, behind their elegant fans they talked about how the Commodore was wedding a tainted woman.

From the moment Elizabeth had been taken offshore by pirates, she could no longer be considered a respectable maid by the socialites of her class. She not only had spent a number of days and nights in their company, unchaperoned, but the story had got around that she had spent a night with Jack Sparrow alone on a deserted island! This might be the stuff of high romance for many a silly young girl, but for their mothers, the women who mattered, it was the stuff of high scandal. Elizabeth pretended not to notice as the cauldron of gossip bubbled, and she told herself she did not care what people thought, but the truth was, Port Royal was a small community, and Elizabeth had lost all her friends.

Nor was that the worst. Her husband-to-be and her father both knew she had bought Will Turner's safety with her promise of marriage. Her father had granted Will clemency before she could even ask him for it, bless him. But to seek out Will then, even to inquire about him, could only be a gross betrayal of her fiancé and a further scandal, bordering on the adulterous. Even before her kidnapping, her chambermaid had known of her interest in Turner, and, if the servants knew of it, everyone did. Will himself might have arranged a brief, secret meeting, but he, too, stayed away. Elizabeth had felt sick at the realization that Will had no reason to believe her acceptance of Norrington had been compelled by anything other than her affections. And, so long as his own damnable sense of propriety kept him away, she simply had no way of talking to him.

Elizabeth had not cried since she had lost her mother as a child, but she wept every night during that time.

And every dawn brought the sound of drums followed by the horrible whump as the gallows door dropped and another pirate's neck was snapped. She cared nothing for the others, but each dawn brought closer the day when Captain Jack Sparrow's neck would be the one.

Sparrow.

The pirate had threatened her life - but with a pistol he would not have fired. He could have threatened her virtue - but he had chosen drink, instead. He had tried to barter with the life of the man she loved - but then had saved it. And, at their first meeting he had saved her own life, at no profit to himself.

Whatever his crimes, he was no blackguard. Elizabeth had been convinced of it.

A child's cry in the distance brought her thoughts from the past back to the unfortunates across the way.

How could Sparrow have done this?

Sighing, she selected a gold peacock-shaped brooch, inlaid with emeralds and sapphires in the tail, locked the chest, and returned it and the key to their hiding places. Since Will had left with the Deadly Earnest, she had sold much of Sparrow's gold to help the refugees from the Black Pearl's depredations. Fortunately, no one had questioned where she had acquired the wealth to be so much assistance. She might be a humble blacksmith's wife, but the townsfolk took it for granted that the rich would always have resources.

She opened the shutters, picked up a basket of food, and left the cottage, crossing the road that separated her from her father's grounds - now a refugee camp. The expansive lawn was cluttered with wooden shacks built out of lumber from a wrecked ship. Smoke from open cook fires wafted heavenward, waving above the camp like reeds in a pond. Most of the victims would only live there until they could find passage to England. As Norrington had feared, more refugees had arrived from other settlements - poor ones - the Black Pearl had ravaged. It was as if the pirates cared more for the suffering they could cause than for the treasure they could loot.

Ten minutes later, Elizabeth was talking to a sad-eyed woman who had lost her own children in the George Town attack, but who had adopted a tow- headed orphan boy whose parents had been her neighbors. They stood in the bright sunlight outside the woman's tiny wooden hut. Nearby, the boy sketched on paper Elizabeth had brought.

"I thank you, Mrs. Turner, for your gifts. The paper is a godsend for Matthew; he only draws, now."

"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth.

"He hasn't spoken since he saw his parents spitted on the pirates' scimitars. Poor child, he hid himself at the docks, where so many people were killed. He must have seen terrible carnage. Some of his pictures are ... horrible."

Morbidly curious, Elizabeth drifted near to the boy, studying his drawing. This drawing had no carnage in it - Elizabeth caught her breath when she recognized what the child drew. A three-masted square-rigger, flying a black flag with a skull and crossed scimitars. The boy's work was good. The figurehead was recognizable - an angel with hands outstretched, gripping a dove.

Elizabeth seated herself on a tree stump next to the crate the boy used as a table.

"That's very good, Matthew," she said.

The boy did not respond. He added a shore and burning fires on it.

Elizabeth tipped her head, noticing the ship again. "What color are those sails, Matthew?" she asked.

The boy's response was to take his charcoal back to the sails, and color them more darkly.

"Black?" Elizabeth glanced at the woman.

"I didn't see the ship," the woman said. "But they said it had the black sails of the Black Pearl."

Elizabeth nodded, thoughtfully, and looked back at the drawing. "That's the Black Pearl, all right."

She watched as the boy drew detail in on the afterdeck. A cabin at the stern, and on top of it, three leaping dolphins.

Elizabeth leaned forward, "Matthew, those are good dolphins. You draw very well. You must have had a good look at this ship."

The boy glanced shyly at her and returned to his work.

"Matthew, are you very sure about the dolphins?" Elizabeth tried to keep her tone casual.

In response, Matthew returned to the dolphins, pressing the lines hard, making their shape more emphatic.

Elizabeth left more paper and the basket of food. She abandoned her plan to visit the other refugees, and hurried back across the road, missing Will more than ever. Even her father was temporarily away. Whom could she share her news with?

She had spent days on the Black Pearl. The real Black Pearl had mermen on the afterdeck.

To her surprise, as she approached her cottage, Elizabeth heard voices and the sounds of a struggle inside. She circled to the back window, which was next to the shelf where Will kept a loaded pistol. A huge crash brought her to the window in time to see three men, all in sea-faring, buccaneer garb, one of whom had overturned her kitchen table. All three men held swords, and one man held in his other hand, a fistful of her gold.

Deftly, Elizabeth knocked open her window, reached in for the pistol, cocked it, and pointed.

"The next man who moves, I shoot!" she yelled into the fray.

Three shocked faces, two light and one dark, turned to face her. Elizabeth saw the confusion and indecision of men who have been fighting and are interrupted. She also saw that the man holding the gold was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow!

"Elizabeth!" cried Sparrow, with an ingenuous grin as if they'd met at a party.

"Don't move!" she repeated, pointing the pistol directly at him. His grin vanished. "Everyone drop your swords," she ordered.

With reluctance, the two strangers complied. Sparrow dropped his promptly, but then, he had seen Elizabeth shoot before.

"Madam," said the black man, as he caught his breath. "We caught this thief robbing your house."

Elizabeth considered that. Without doubt, Sparrow had returned for the gold. But would two roguish-looking marines really have stopped him on her behalf?

She looked at Sparrow.

He flicked his sword hand at the men with one of his absurd gestures, and swayed slightly. "Elizabeth, these men are here to kidnap Will." He placed his hand on his chest. "I was going to prevent them."

"That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it, Jack? Can't you do any better than that? Why are you holding my gold?"

"Your gold!" he sputtered. "It's my gold. I trusted you to hold it for me. And I notice a goodly chunk of it is gone."

"Mrs. Turner, is it?" asked the white man. "If I may ..."

She swung the pistol on him. "I'll shoot you if you move," she repeated. "I don't know you." She glanced around outside the house, relieved to see that the proceedings there had not been unwitnessed. Two children were watching her with wide eyes.

"Elizabeth," begged Sparrow, "please don't do anything ..."

"John, Eleanor, run and get the guards. Go now!"

"... stupid," Sparrow finished despondently.

The children fled.

The two strange men exchanged nervous glances.

"Mrs. Turner, if you'll put down the pistol, I'm sure we can explain everything in a civil manner."

Elizabeth kept the pistol steady. "I'll be very curious to hear what you're doing in my home." She nodded toward Sparrow. "It's obvious why he's here."

Sparrow fidgeted, his kohl-rimmed eyes glancing at the doors and windows. "Elizabeth, love, you know your business. You keep them here. But, ah, I really need to be going."

"No, Jack, don't move. Except to put down my gold."

Sparrow gave her an indignant look, and stuffed the gold in a coat pocket. "Just shoot me then, Missy."

"Jack?" asked the black man. "Jack Sparrow?"

Sparrow sighed. "Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please."

While Elizabeth was still trying to decide what to do about Sparrow's defiance, the other two men exploded into action. They shoved the kitchen table at her window, and then raced out the open door.

Furious, Elizabeth came around the side of the house, pistol at the ready, as the men sprinted across the road and into the refugee camp, where the crowd of innocents protected them from her. But there was still one use for her shot. She whirled around and ran in the door, just as Sparrow made for the open window.

"Avast!" she ordered. It was seamen's language for "stop" but it carried with it the warning of immediate danger to the hearer or to the ship if the command were not obeyed.

It worked. Perched ludicrously on the window ledge, one leg still dangling inside the cottage, Sparrow jerked up short, swayed and then toppled back inside. He peered up at her with a wounded look from his disarray on the floor.

"What the blazes is going on, Jack?" she demanded, as he picked himself up, found his sword and sheathed it. She heard voices and tramping feet at the bottom of the street.

"Would you put the pistol down, Lass?" he asked wearily.

"No! Then you'll run."

"Are you really going to give me to the town guards?" he asked, his gold- capped teeth flashing as he attempted a smile.

Elizabeth hesitated as the sound of footsteps grew closer.

"Did you sack George Town?" she hissed.

"Not lately, Love."

She dropped her pistol arm, and Sparrow bounded out the window. Ten feet beyond was thick jungle.

Elizabeth glanced toward her door, catching the flash of uniforms approaching, but the sound of Sparrow's voice drew her attention back to the window.

"Meet me at Pirate's Cove at midnight. Bring Will. And bring some food. I'm famished."

Then Sparrow was gone, and the guards were there.

Elizabeth spent the rest of the day in a highly nervous state. The guards were unable to find and question the two men who had been in her house, and Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to mention Sparrow to them. There were many ships in port, and no hint as to which one had brought the men. An afternoon squall hampered the search, and Elizabeth sensed that the Captain of the Guard had only a lackluster interest in the invasion of the house of a woman of somewhat dubious reputation, Governor's daughter or not. But it was not the violation of her home that unnerved Elizabeth; it was the not knowing why.

Or, that's what she told herself. She stared disconsolately out her window at the sheets of rain. Scarcely four days could go by in Jamaica's rainy season without such a squall, and woe betide the creature that had no shelter from it. What shelter had Jack Sparrow? Elizabeth thought of him, unprotected and hungry, and was angry at herself for wanting to protect him.

Behind her she heard a crack and sizzle. She returned to the hearth to find that the pot she had been boiling chicken eggs in had gone stone dry and cracked. The eggs had fallen into the ashes among the shards of the pot. She sighed and fished the cracked eggs out from the embers. Cooking was one of the many woman's skills she had had to learn when she left the privilege of her father's household, and she had far from mastered it. Poor Will had taken many of his meals at the tavern, before he had left, and Elizabeth had never blamed him. Fortunately, she did seem to have the knack for gardening, so she and Will had some fresh vegetables.

She put the blackened eggs in a basket, and added the burned scones from breakfast with a few other items.

The squall passed at sunset, leaving a world shiny and clean and glowing umber. Elizabeth watched the sun set, alone in her cottage, as Port Royal dried off and settled down for the night, as she had seen it do countless times. She knew she should be spinning - another endless woman's task - but she couldn't bring herself to go near the spinning wheel. She viewed it rather like a prisoner viewed a ball and chain.

Suddenly, she knew what she wanted. She rose from her stool, and packed a bag with the peacock brooch, a few changes of clothes - including trousers - and the pistol. As the clock tower rang eleven times, she took the bag and the basket of food, placed a note on the kitchen table, and left her cottage home for the jungle.

The jungle at night could have been terrifying, and would have been to most of the friends Elizabeth had grown up with. To her, it was only otherworldly. This had been her backyard playground for most of her life, and nighttime was merely one of the jungle's moods, to her. She picked her way with confidence through vegetation still dripping from the squall, unconcerned by the ghostly land crabs, translucent and ankle-high, which drifted across her path like specters seeking salvation.

Pirate's Cove had been, she had always assumed, misnamed. The approach was too shallow for even a schooner, let alone the deeper draft ships such as the Black Pearl. Mostly it was used by lovers, for the broad, soft beach. Elizabeth approached from the jungle, but she studied the moonlit strand before she emerged. She saw no one.

She stepped out and let the moonlight show her. She stood still for a moment, listening to the soft lapping of the ocean as it kissed the shore. Then came a whistle from her left - a sound no night bird made. In fact, it sounded a bit impertinent, more like a catcall.

She turned and walked slowly toward the sound, trying to see into the shadows. The bright moon had impaired the night vision that had led her so well through the jungle.

"Jack?" she called softly.

"Here, Lass," replied a deep voice.

She found him a few feet inside the thickest part of the verge, perched snugly on a hammock at about the height of her head, beneath a solid canopy of trees. She forced her way into the overgrowth, so as not to be visible on the beach.

"Where's Will?" he asked. He was only a solid silhouette masking the vines and leaves, but even had Elizabeth not recognized his peculiarly slurred voice, she would have known it was Sparrow. There was something about the pirate that turned the normal, solid world on its ear, and Elizabeth felt the tilt begin.

And she welcomed it.

"Aboard the Deadly Earnest, looking for you."

Elizabeth wasn't sure she'd ever heard Jack Sparrow's laugh, but she heard it now.

"Deadly Earnest? Did the good Commodore choose that name?"

"Jack, they're hunting you. Everyone is. What's going on?"

"So, Mrs. Turner, with her husband away at sea, is meeting midnight assignations at Pirate's Cove. Tsk," he teased. "People will talk."

"That ship's already sailed," she said, failing to keep the bitterness from her voice.

"Ah," he replied. Then, "Is that my food?"

"I want answers first."

"Good lass. Never give what you can leverage. All right. Someone has a ship fitted out like the Pearl and is slaughtering poorly defended settlements all over the Spanish Main without hardly bothering to loot. Over half the British and Spanish navies are hunting for us, which is a bloody nuisance, because we can't go anywhere near port and we need provisions and repairs badly. Even open water is dangerous with this much naval activity, so we haven't been able to pillage any ships. I don't know who he is, and I don't know how he avoids being caught, but I have an idea of what he's up to. Now, give us the food, there's a good girl."

"Tell me your idea."

"No, now, that's not right. I paid in information; you have to come up with the goods."

"You didn't tell me everything."

"So, you don't give me everything."

"Ah," said Elizabeth, considering her basket. "Do I give you the good stuff as incentive, or the not so good stuff?"

"The not so good, but let me believe there's better to come."

Elizabeth smiled in the darkness, and handed the scones up.

Sparrow made no attempt to see what he was eating. He bit into a scone and coughed.

"Drink!" he demanded.

She gave him a flask and he drank deeply.

"Water?" he complained. "No rum?"

"So where is the Black Pearl?"

Sparrow choked down the scones, washing them down with the water.

"Far from here, I'll tell you. Hidden nowhere near civilization. And we're getting very tired of fish. I came by boat."

"By yourself?"

"Aye. What's the next course?"

If he'd truly come that far in an open boat, by himself, it was an impressive feat of navigation, but Elizabeth decided she had no reason to doubt him. She was also impressed that he made no complaint about the rock hard, burned scones. Her conscience twinged. When had he last eaten?

She handed him the onions.

These he did not bite into right away.

"More water?" he asked.

Elizabeth took the empty flask from him and stepped away a few feet. Her jungle playground provided water reservoirs in the broad, flat leaves of palms and other plants. These were still full of rainwater, and she drained a few large ones into the flask. When she returned to him, he was halfway through one onion.

He accepted the water and drank deeply. Elizabeth struggled to hold her questions while he worked his way through the onions. She refilled the flask twice.

When he was done, he took a deep breath and smiled. Elizabeth could see him better, now. He held out his arms.

"You want to come up, love? Your skirts must be soaked."

He lifted her easily, and placed her next to him in the hammock.

Elizabeth had to admire the hiding spot. She could see the entire cove, but felt completely invisible, and was even well sheltered from rain. Sitting this close to Sparrow, she could tell he was relatively dry. She needn't have worried about him.

The impropriety of her position occurred to her, but she had to push the thought away. If she got what she wanted, propriety would be left behind her in Jamaica, shrinking into the distance. She pulled the food basket close on her lap.

"What is your idea, Jack?"

"Someone wants to find the Isle de Muerte," he said, simply. "He knows the Black Pearl amassed beaucoup treasure there - not only the cursed coins. He has to keep us away from it, so we don't carry off the gold. So he combines slaughter with his hunt for the island."

Elizabeth found herself nodding. "He knows the Navy will scour the waters for you and you won't dare come near. But how does he avoid the Navy?"

Jack's hand crept into her basket. Elizabeth slapped it away.

"And, isn't that island supposed to be impossible to find?"

"Not everyone believes that, love."

Elizabeth remembered her own skepticism about "ghost stories" and had to agree.

"But I think he's come to believe it now," Sparrow went on.

"Why?"

"It's time for another course, my dear. What else have you got?"

Reluctantly, Elizabeth relinquished the boiled eggs. She was running out of things to buy his information with.

Sparrow shelled and devoured the eggs in a twinkling.

"Those men in your house. I hid when I heard them coming, and I heard them say they were there to kidnap Will."

"I thought you made that up."

"As you said, Love, I could make up something better than that. I was as surprised as you. But I think I know why. The Isle de Muerte can only be found by someone who already knows where it is. I think my evil twin is looking to capture someone who knows where it is."

"Will! Jack, I've got to warn him!"

"Now don't get your garments all wadded up, Missy. Young Mr. Turner should be quite safe with the King's Navy. And there are others who know where it is, now."

"The entire crew of the Dauntless!"

"Not the entire crew. Most sailors have no head for navigation. Even the officers are not all advised on every course change. I'd say the pilot, the navigator, Norrington and his chief mate. Beyond that, there's myself, most of my crew, Will and maybe your father."

"Jack, Will and my father couldn't find the Isle de Muerte if their salvation depended on it."

"But you could, couldn't you, Missy?"

Elizabeth didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

Sparrow chuckled. "They came for the wrong Turner," he said, leaning greedily over her basket.

Elizabeth took out the last of the food. A big, green apple. "We've had that problem before, haven't we, Jack?"

Sparrow laughed as he took the apple, and Elizabeth couldn't help but grin at him.

As he finished the apple, Sparrow stiffened, then went very still. Startled, Elizabeth took in a breath, but held it rather than speak. She had heard something, too. She leaned forward to look back toward the curve of the cove where she had originally emerged.

"Can it be the Coast Guard?" she whispered.

The hammock tilted as Sparrow dropped almost soundlessly to the ground. Then he had his hands at her waist, lowering her. Before she could protest Sparrow put one dirty hand across her mouth, but released her when she recoiled. Sparrow took down the hammock so quickly Elizabeth wondered how it had been suspended. "Come on," he whispered in her ear, before sidling through the bushes and branches away from the beach, angling toward the opposite arm of the cove.

Peering out, Elizabeth saw a soldier, red-uniformed and musket-toting, appear on the beach before being pulled back into the jungle by an unseen hand. For one agonized moment she paused, torn. She could show herself - concoct some story to explain why she was there and stall the soldiers - Sparrow would escape but she would lose her chance.

She caught him up, and followed, trying to judge where he thought he was going. Sparrow made no acknowledgement when she joined him. He moved quietly, but, smaller, lighter, and more familiar with the terrain, Elizabeth crept all but silently behind, her skirts bundled and draped over one arm.

When he slowed to spy out the best passage over the slight rise above the cove, Elizabeth whispered, "Left." Sparrow obeyed, and soon they crossed the sand dune crest still hidden from the moonlight in the only narrow band of vegetation that snaked over to the other side.

With the rise behind them, Elizabeth risked speaking. "There's nowhere to hide over here," she whispered urgently. She spoke from childhood experience of hide-and-seek games. The best cover was behind them, between Pirate's Cove and Port Royal. For miles this stretch of Jamaica's shoreline was only waist-high bracken. Even now, if a soldier crested the rise behind them, they would be seen.

Sparrow glanced back at her, then looked beyond, to the rise, and at her, again. "Then no one would come this way to hide, would they?" he said, his tone mild and cheery as if they still sat in the hammock.

He quickened his pace and Elizabeth struggled to keep up, shaking her head. As a tactic, it seemed lacking, to her. If there were enough soldiers they could sweep the area, and hiding beneath a thorny bush wouldn't serve them long. She eyed the bright moon, and was encouraged to see the outlines of clouds near it.

Sparrow slowed, stopped, bent down, and, to Elizabeth's surprise, lifted a huge piece of the earth, bracken and all. She blinked as the beach in his hands resolved into a large canvas, sand and bushes spilling off of it. Elizabeth hurried to help.

In less than a minute they had uncovered and turned upright, a twenty foot pinnace. Elizabeth watched the terrain behind them - flat and unobstructed all the way back to the rise - nervously, as Sparrow hauled out casks and gear from their hiding places, and tossed them into the boat. She pushed the opposite side as he slid the boat the few yards to the water.

The sound of a shot, muffled by wind and distance, reached her and Elizabeth looked back to see what she had been dreading. A silhouetted soldier on the small sand dune. The two of them were out of range of his musket shot, but the sound would bring others. "Jack?" she said, her heart pounding.

Sparrow walked calmly back to the dislodged sand, and dug once again with his hands. "Decide now, Missy," he said, his low voice sounding like a growl. "If you're coming, get in and get down." He began hauling something long and heavy out of the sand.

Elizabeth gasped, but didn't hesitate. Could it really be this easy? She tossed her bag of belongings and the food basket into the boat, followed them in, and crouched down as much as she could. Grunting, Sparrow wrestled what turned out to be a mast, into the boat. Elizabeth took a painful smack on one shoulder from it, before she managed to twist out of the way. She held herself still as Sparrow threw himself against the now much heavier boat, inching it into the water. Spying an oar, Elizabeth gripped it in order to be ready. She heard another shot, closer.

The boat swayed as water slid beneath it, and then swayed more severely as Sparrow leaped in. Elizabeth sat up, took her place, positioned her oar, and waited for the panting Sparrow to position his. He gave her one appraising look, then committed to his single oar. They began rowing for their lives. Elizabeth realized, belatedly, that Sparrow had chosen the top of the tide as the time of their meeting; it was now ebbing and aiding their escape.

Her rhythm in no way matched his, and their first hundred feet straight out from land was gained only in desperate spurts. On shore, a dozen soldiers clambered to the water and leveled their muskets.

"I'll row," Sparrow gasped. "Stay down." Sweat poured down his face, glistening in the moonlight, and his chest heaved.

"No," cried Elizabeth. The disparity in their strengths was part of the cause of their uneven strokes, but he was tiring more quickly than she, and they had now found a matching rhythm. Fear and determination flooded her, giving her strength. "Row," she ordered, her voice strong.

Exhausted he might be, but he grinned almost carelessly at her, and pulled his oar. He continued to grin as the soldiers shot at them, their shots falling short, for the little boat sped away now, like a racing boat taking the lead. Elizabeth tried not to think, for she knew that as soon as her fear left her, she wouldn't be able to row another stroke.

Eventually it happened. Jamaica dwindled in the distance, and Elizabeth began to believe she would live. At that moment, she faltered on the oar, and it flew wildly from her hand. Sparrow grunted and dragged his own to lessen the force levering Elizabeth's free oar. Somehow, her every muscle protesting and her arms shaking with fatigue, Elizabeth managed to catch hold of it before it slid completely into the water.

Then she collapsed.

Maraud and embezzle and even hijack.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Will had plenty of opportunity to regret his enthusiasm for joining the Royal Navy, even, as it was, on a conditional enlistment. The officers "hazed" him mercilessly, starting on the first day. He stood double watches every day, was denied his rightful duff on the Sabbath, and was kept aloft in the riggings long after his task was completed. Once, before he learned properly how to cling to the yardarms, the ship had pitched sharply from beneath him, sending him flying into the belly of a sail. Had he hit water and been unable to swim, it would have meant his death.

Though Will knew such treatment was common for new recruits, he couldn't help but think that the Commodore, who turned a blind eye to the events, was also encouraging them. The Commodore had been with the helmsman when Will had been thrown from the rigging. Will's knowledge of the helm was sparse, but he hadn't forgotten how easily Jack Sparrow had swept him from the Interceptor with the boom.

But heavy work and long hours were nothing new to Will, and if Norrington was exercising his supremacy at sea by getting his own back at the man who had taken his intended wife and engineered the embarrassing escape from the gallows of the notorious, and now even more clearly, villainous, pirate, Will couldn't entirely blame him. And Will, unlike most of his fellows, could swim, after all. He even welcomed the double watches, for he was spared spending many waking hours below. The hold stank and the pitching of the ship tended to make him queasy, even after he acquired his "sea legs." And on deck was where everything happened. He found sailing exhilarating, and he was learning fast.

Commodore Norrington had not spoken to him since they had got under weigh, so it was from the second mate, Will's watch commander, that Will learned where they were bound. They were to rendezvous with the H.M.S. Tarantula, captained by the famous Mortimer Stanley, the "pirate-killer." Stanley and his crew had captured or sunk no fewer than three notorious pirate crews, and his most famous prize had been Captain Jack Rackham, the scourge of the Bahamas, whose desiccated corpse now hung above the harbor in Nassau.

Not surprisingly, Will was on deck when the Tarantula was sighted. Will watched, fascinated, as the two Naval vessels paced through the ceremonious hailing, acknowledgements, and formal identifications. Tarantula slid adeptly alongside the Deadly Earnest, and the chief mate of the Tarantula called over a request for his captain to come aboard. Permission was granted, and, somewhat to Will's surprise, he was summoned to attend the Commodore in the captain's cabin. He went below to change his clothes.

Stepping into the captain's cabin felt like entering a forgotten world. While the furnishings were, of necessity, simple, and largely unadorned, the room felt opulent to Will. He'd barely been at sea two weeks, but it already seemed that nothing existed but the working deck of the ship, the endless sea, and the stinking steerage where Will slept amid the coils of ropes and sails. Here was a room with a canopied bed, a table, upholstered chairs, and even a solid roll-top desk. A window sported rich curtains, and a simple cross hung on the wall over the desk. Unaccountably, Will had to fight back a sharp pang of missing Elizabeth.

Standing around the table, looking very regal in crisp blue uniforms, were Commodore Norrington, Captain Gillette, and a second captain. This man, Captain "Pirate-Killer" Stanley, was of middle-height, with a thin, hawkish face, and glittering blue eyes. Only Gillette noticed that Will entered, nodding at him to stand where he was, just inside the door. Norrington and Stanley were deep in debate.

"Commodore, it gains us nothing to search randomly, hoping that chance will bring us upon the pirate. We must anticipate his movements."

"I'm not willing to wait, idle," said Norrington, "for the blackguard to decide it's time to unload his spoils. We must keep the pressure on and find him."

"We don't know where to search," replied Stanley. "We do know his anchorage. The Black Pearl makes berth at the Isle de Muerte. Sooner or later, he will return. Give me the location of this island, and I will bring you this pirate's head."

Norrington shook his head, looking down at the table, which, Will could now see, held a map. "The Isle de Muerte was the Black Pearl's anchorage under its former master. We have no certainty that Jack Sparrow will moor her there. I won't have you, or any of my ships, wasting time at the Isle de Muerte."

"But the gold, Commodore. He'll come back for the gold. He's a pirate."

"And how many innocents will he kill while you are waiting there, Captain?" Norrington's voice was like ice. "I'd rather have you waste your time guarding Matthew Town, or Grand Turk, except that he even slaughters tiny settlements, and I haven't enough ships to guard them all. We must search and find him." Norrington looked up from the map, past the council of three men, and spotted Will. "Turner! What say you? Will Sparrow return to the Isle de Muerte?"

Will abruptly found himself under the scrutiny of all three officers. Stanley's gaze, in particular, unnerved him with its intensity. He took a few uncertain steps forward, trying to think.

"Turner?" asked Stanley. "Is this the man who prevented Sparrow from being lawfully hanged?"

"Twice," Norrington said, dryly. "But he means to lead a blameless life, evermore. Isn't that right, Turner?"

"Yes, sir," Will replied, trying to ignore the intensity of Captain Stanley's regard.

"I brought Mr. Turner along, because he's one of the only men who knows Jack Sparrow. I'm counting on his judgment." Was Will imagining it, or did that last sound a bit sarcastic? "Come, Turner, what say you?"

"I think you have the right of it, Commodore," Will said slowly. "The gold at the Isle de Muerte will be a huge temptation, but Jack knows you know where it is. He waited ten years for a chance at his revenge, so he knows how to wait for the opportune moment. I think he'll stay away from the Isle de Muerte."

Stanley scowled. "Commodore, with all due respect, are we to rely on a blacksmith's judgment?"

"In matters pertaining to Sparrow, yes," Norrington retorted. "No, Captain. My mind is made up. We need the assistance of the Spanish. I have written this letter to General Rodriguez introducing you and proposing the temporary alliance. You will deliver it to Santiago de Cuba. When I arrive, I will outline my plan for a decoy galleon as bait. Those are your orders."

"Yes, sir," replied Stanley. "A request, if I may?"

"What is it?"

"Let me have Turner. If he is truly so knowledgeable, and I am to be your point ship, I could use such a tool."

"Done. Turner, go and gather your things."

Filled with both trepidation and excitement, Will hurried to comply. Each sailor was allowed only a small trunk for his personal belongings, so in no time, Will was back on deck, following Captain Stanley into his ship's dinghy. As the boat was lowered, Norrington called to him.

"Turner! Don't disappoint me. Don't disappoint Elizabeth."

The noise from the approaching waves made replying uncertain, so Will saluted him as the dinghy plopped into the sea. How he hoped he could help capture Jack, and so redeem himself!

The dinghy passed beneath the looming bow of the Tarantula, on its way to the leeward side of the ship. Will looked up to see the figurehead, a crouched lion, blotting out the sky with its menacing snarl. He followed Stanley up the rope ladder, and presently stood on the deck of the Tarantula, the best pirate-hunting ship in the fleet.

His reception was not what he expected. Or, he expected no reception at all and was surprised that he got one. To a man, every crewman on deck or in the riggings paused in their labors to stare at him, as if some marine monster had appeared aboard with their captain. Stanley seemed unsurprised by this. "Follow me, Turner," he ordered, and headed for the helm. Will obeyed uneasily. On the Deadly Earnest he had not been allowed anywhere near the wheel.

Stanley stood Will beside himself, facing the gathered crew. "Men!" he announced, "This is seaman William Turner." This caused some looks to be exchanged that Will couldn't interpret. Surely his name meant nothing to them. Perhaps they were merely wondering why their captain was telling them this. Will certainly was. Or, had word of his rescue of Sparrow reached every sailor in the fleet? Horror at this possibility settled in Will's stomach.

"The commodore has ordered us to Santiago de Cuba, and there we will go," Stanley continued. "Mr. Turner will be my special advisor regarding Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl. As my special advisor, he is to have a place in the forecastle. He is not to have to see steerage, as his rank would require. I leave it to you to decide who is to give up his berth in the forecastle. Is this understood?"

A chorus of "Ayes" and "Aye, Captains" issued from the men.

"Go on, Turner," Stanley said, almost kindly.

So Will joined this new crew, was given a berth with the senior men in the forecastle, and was assigned to the larboard watch. A man named Jones gave up his place and removed his belongings to steerage, so far as Will could tell, without much resentment. He was treated fairly well, though his status as "special advisor" seemed to keep him a permanent outsider. Conversations in the forecastle ceased abruptly when he entered, as if he were an officer. No one made any effort to get to know him - the other men kept to each other. No one was unfriendly - Will tried complimenting them on their victories over pirates and received polite replies, but no invitation to be accepted as one of their number. He almost missed the hazing on the Deadly Earnest, where he could expect to be accepted after the initiation was done.

Will worked hard, hoping at least to earn respect in that. He soon learned the deck of the Tarantula better than he had known the Deadly Earnest. This crew allowed him, as well as the other junior men, to stand a watch at the helm, and that is where he did receive some grudging looks of respect. It took strength to hold the wheel in high seas, and years of blacksmithing had given Will considerable strength. It took a refined sensitivity to wind and current to hold a course by steering properly into the breakers, slicing them like iron in a forge, at just the right angle, and Will understood what was needed almost instinctively. The Chief Mate allowed him to stand more and more of his watches at the helm, and Will began to believe he was rather good at it.

Stanley was as good as his word about steerage, too. Will never had to enter that dark, and, no doubt, stinking, area belowdeck. Will was never sent into the hold. He hoped Jones didn't mind steerage too badly, but he didn't care to volunteer to sleep there.

So, though the atmosphere aboard this famous pirate hunting ship seemed strange, to Will, he was not unhappy with his lot. He felt a powerful connection to the ship through its wheel. He began to see how a man could love a ship, and this brought his thoughts again and again to Jack Sparrow. Did Sparrow feel the same awesome sense of power and freedom as he ploughed the waves? The Tarantula was of the same class as the Black Pearl, with three masts and a deep keel - long and sharp, for speed. In fact, Will realized with interest, besides the color of the sails, the only significant differences between the two ships were the figureheads and the ornaments on the afterdeck. The Tarantula's afterdeck bore a lovely wood sculpture of three leaping dolphins.

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

"I thought the British Navy wouldn't dock in a Spanish port," Elizabeth said. She lowered Sparrow's spyglass and handed it to him. They were still a league out of Santiago de Cuba, the nearest port to Jamaica. Sparrow's small boat, it turned out, had fresh water, but no other provisions, forcing them to sail, hungry and grouchy, to the nearest port. She had believed that to be Port-Au-Prince, and had been startled when Sparrow had steered north, for the Spanish island of Cuba. No one she knew had much truck with the Spanish.

Sparrow frowned into the spyglass, seeing what she had seen: a Navy warship flying the British flag and a white pennant, moored safely at the Spanish docks.

"That's interesting," he commented. He continued to study the harbor, saying nothing further.

Impatient, Elizabeth turned away and took a drink of water from the butt. She was unaccustomed to going hungry. She was also unaccustomed to being cramped, dirty, and sunburned, conditions that seemed to have no affect on her companion. She was determined not to complain, but she had had to struggle to keep her temper. To make matters worse, though she had been proud of her "sea legs" since she had crossed from England as a child, in this small boat she had been regularly sick every morning they were at sea. Still, she was encouraged by the nearness of land, and she waited to hear what Sparrow planned to do.

He put the spyglass down, and rummaged in a sack. He pulled out a black cloth and handed it to her. "Put this on," he said.

Elizabeth took it, puzzled, and turned it over in her hands. It proved to be something like a shroud, and with it, a veil. "Jack," she asked, "you keep women's clothes in a sack?"

"Disguises, lass, disguises."

"Why do I need a disguise?"

"One . . ." he said sternly, but with a glint in his eye, "because the soldiers on that ship may have been through Port Royal, and you were the belle of the ball there."

Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest, but Sparrow continued.

"And two . . . because this is a Spanish town, and Spanish women wear these."

"Have you worn it? And pretended to be a woman?"

Sparrow tipped his head back and smiled at the reminiscence. "Oh, yeah," he said.

Elizabeth found the front of the garment, and slipped it on over her dress. She worked at adjusting the veil.

"Tell me," she asked.

Sparrow chuckled. "Some other time," he said. "Now, let's go get us some breakfast. And maybe," he added, "a little pilfering on the side."

Sparrow beached the boat up the coast from the harbor, screened by overhanging foliage that draped down from the bank. Elizabeth helped him de-mast the boat, and the two of them scrambled cautiously up to more level ground and looked around for a path. Nearby stood some dilapidated shacks such as fishmonger's wives used in Jamaica to clean and prepare the catch.

Sparrow selected his route, set his hat at a jaunty angle, and stuck out his elbow at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth took it, gingerly.

"I'm to be your wife, then?" she asked, dryly.

"My silent wife," he said, "unless you parlez Spanish?"

"No," she admitted. "Do you?"

"Sí," he said.

"Or," he continued, "my beautiful daughter. I'm trying to arrange a profitable marriage for you. Who shall he be? A wealthy merchant? A military officer? No, not a military man, I think." He looked sidelong at her. "A craftsman, perhaps?"

"Try that Jack, and I'll open my mouth and ruin your disguise."

"Ah, my poor mad daughter, who only babbles in what she thinks is English. Your value on the marriage market will plummet."

"Someone will understand English, and I'll tell them I was kidnapped by this notorious pirate, and there will be a reward for my return."

"Very well, very well. Wife it is, then."

As they neared the town, they saw more buildings and people. Elizabeth looked with interest; she had seldom seen towns beyond Jamaica, and never a Spanish one. The architecture seemed more opulent than what she was used to. The men, she observed, wore clothing more flamboyant - in fact, more like what Sparrow wore. She studied her companion and saw how easily he could pass for a Spaniard, in looks anyway.

As they began to pass people in the street, Elizabeth felt suddenly vulnerable. She couldn't speak the language, she was completely dependant on Sparrow, and she didn't seem to be of much help to him. She suddenly wondered why he had brought her along, and a kind of panic began to settle in her breast.

And then she smelled food. Meat, cooking. She felt the sudden tension in Sparrow's body, too. All her attention focused on food. She had had not a morsel to eat in two days, and Elizabeth didn't know how long Sparrow had gone without food before she had fed him in the jungle. Without a word, they both turned left, Sparrow swaying slightly at the sudden veer, and chose a street that opened into a market square. They homed in on the vendor selling skewers of cooked meats - fowl, beef, pork, and fish.

In moments, Elizabeth was devouring one of each. Sparrow actually paid for one for each of them, but somehow hid six more in his coat. Elizabeth resolved to ask him about that - later. Right now they both ate greedily, drifting along the edges of the square, passing other vendors from whom Sparrow casually lifted bread, bananas and pastries, and handed them off to Elizabeth. Her spirits buoyed by the simple joy of eating, Elizabeth wanted to giggle at the needless pilfering.

One side of the square was open, leading down to the harbor. Again without discussion, they meandered that way, found a large rock on the slope, sat, and observed the harbor, still eating. Most of the harbor was edged with docks, and armed Spanish soldiers sat or lounged on many of them. Elizabeth wondered if there were more guards than usual due to the foreign warship in the port.

"Pretty ship," Sparrow said, licking his fingers. "I'm glad they're here. I know how the Navy loads their supplies."

"Jack, you mean to steal supplies from the Royal Navy?"

"The Pearl needs provisioning, Lass."

"You've got a pocketful of gold. You can buy provisions."

Sparrow gave her an affronted look. "Buy? I never buy what I can steal, m'dear. You may not think much of my profession, but contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest. Take those barrels, now." He directed her attention to a stack of crates and barrels on the loading dock near the ship. "Those on the outside will have salt beef for the crew. But in the middle on the bottom is the good stuff. Pastries and sweetmeats for the captain's table. He'll have them there so the men don't see what they're missing. I ask you, is that honest? You'd never get away with that on a pirate ship. Equal shares for everyone."

He tipped his head. "Well, the captain gets two equal shares, actually."

"But why is that ship here?" Elizabeth wondered.

"It's a puzzle, I grant you. Most of the British Navy should be hunting me in the Bahamas, by now."

"Why is that?"

"While I was in Port Royal I delivered a forged report saying the Pearl had been sighted out east."

Elizabeth considered that. "So, then, the Black Pearl isn't to be found in the east anywhere."

Sparrow gave her an alarmed glance, and said nothing.

"You sent the Navy to the east at the same time you got my gold to use for repairs and supplies. The Pearl is out west somewhere, isn't she? What's more, you cleared the western waters so they could safely sail somewhere to meet you."

Sparrow sighed. "Child, you know, now I have to kill you."

"Nonsense. It's your own fault for boasting. All you have to do is keep me with you, which is what you've been doing anyway. Why is that, Jack? I thought I'd have to bribe you with rum to get you to bring me along."

"You had rum?"

"If you fill that boat with provisions, there won't even be room for me. You can sail the boat by yourself; what did you bring me for? I was in no danger from the soldiers; I could have stayed behind and told them you forced me to go along as a hostage."

"All the time we were at sea, you had rum?"

"Could we stay on the subject, here?"

"Do you still have rum?"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I have a bottle in my bag. You may have it if you'll tell me the truth. Why did you bring me?"

"Well, obviously Lass, if my alter ego was looking for Will to direct him to the Isle de Muerte, it wouldn't be long before he thought of trying you, particularly once Will proved impossible to get. Both Norrington and Will were gone from Port Royal, so who would protect you? I even heard your father was gone."

"He was called to London to explain his failure to do anything about the pirate threat. He may be replaced as governor."

"Ah. Ahem. Anyway, I brought you along to keep you safe."

"And two, to keep my information safe."

"It's the same thing, isn't it? Couldn't we stick to number one?"

Before Elizabeth could retort, she spotted something that made her gasp.

"Jack!" she cried, grabbing his arm.

He arched an eyebrow at her, and looked down at her hand.

"That ship! See the afterdeck? Dolphins!"

"Aye," Sparrow replied, eyeing her warily.

"That's the imposter ship! The survivors of George Town - their Black Pearl had dolphins on the afterdeck!" Elizabeth paused, momentarily appalled. "It's a Royal Navy ship. How could they?"

"How could they, indeed?" Sparrow asked, looking at the ship. "Their figurehead is nothing like ours, and that's what most people would notice first."

Elizabeth found herself regretting her hasty conclusion. She really didn't want to believe a Navy ship could commit the atrocities that were attributed to the Black Pearl. "You think it's a coincidence? Maybe the same carpenter put dolphins on two ships?"

"Maybe," Sparrow mused, "but it's a bloody great coincidence. That ship is built exactly like the Pearl, and I've been curious how the imposter avoids the Navy scrutiny she stirs up against us."

"It's like a disguise," said Elizabeth. "Somehow she changes back and forth."

"Very bad luck, to change a ship's name. That should work for us." Sparrow stood. "Come on, time to appropriate some provisions."

Elizabeth joined him, looking back at the ship. "You know who they are and you're still going to steal from them?"

"All the better," Sparrow said, flashing a metallic smile. "One thing I want to know, though, Love."

"What's that?" she asked as she took his proffered arm.

"When were you plannin' on tellin' me this bit of information?"

"Oh, uh, when I could find a way to leverage it, I suppose."

Sparrow nodded, and set off. "Well then, we'll reckon I owe you one."

Elizabeth lay flat in the boat, covered with a canvas. Sparrow towed the boat along the coast, walking or swimming, as needed. As they approached the turn into the harbor, Sparrow submerged, breathing through a long straw. He slowed their progress to the speed of a drifting boat, inching almost imperceptibly toward the docks that edged the harbor. The wait seemed to take an age, to Elizabeth, but finally she felt the shadow of the dock pass over her and she dared to peer out from beneath the canvas. The tide was high, so the space between the rim of the boat and the wooden planks of the dock was barely enough for her head. Once the boat was largely out of sight, Sparrow picked up his pace, still towing the boat from underwater. Elizabeth watched the tip of his breathing straw as it bobbed ahead of the boat.

The boat halted, for no reason that Elizabeth could see. Above her, two Spanish soldiers sat talking, their shadows blocking the striped sunlight that filtered down to her. Sparrow's head appeared in the gloom ahead of her. He turned to her and winked. Then, silent and sinuous, he drifted to the edge of the dock, held himself in position with one hand on the planking, and snaked his other hand, holding a knife, up and around the side of the boards. Elizabeth held her breath, watching fearfully out across the harbor, but the port was large and busy, and few people were in position to notice Sparrow's hand. A moment later he drew his hand back down and placed a leather purse in the boat with her, its strings cut. Then he submerged again and returned to their forward progress.

They reached the pier where the Navy ship was docked, and Sparrow moved them directly underneath the pile of barrels and crates. Here the headroom was a little higher, almost enough to allow her to sit up. Above her, feet tramped and pounded, and voices called out directions, some in English, most in Spanish. Sparrow surfaced on the outboard side of the boat, draped his arms inside, and rested, waiting. Wet and dirty, he looked as comfortable as an alley cat on a garden wall.

The men above them deposited their burdens, making the pile even broader; then most of them retreated. Sparrow nodded at her. Now was the time. The tide kept the boat far too high for Sparrow to climb in without rocking it so violently that it would thump against the dock. It was her job to hold the boat still. She lay on her back as far from his side as she could, tilting his side of the boat up slightly. She reached out for a firm grip on a post, and carefully raised her feet to brace them against the underside of the dock. The ship rang five bells, and under cover of the sound, Sparrow hoisted himself into the boat and lay flat on his stomach while they listened for any indication they had been noticed.

When nothing happened, Sparrow gave her a gamine grin, rolled onto his back, and hauled the boat into slightly better position, by pulling on the slats above. She handed him the hacksaw he had stolen on their way to the boat, and he began to saw the planks. Carefully and with patience, he removed the wooden slats beneath the center of the pile. Extracting the barrels was a slow, heavy process, as each barrel removed changed the pitch of the pile above. He waited, sometimes holding a barrel or crate in place on his shoulders, until the dock workers were away, before slowly lowering his booty into the boat. Elizabeth helped as best she could, bracing the boat against his leverage. Even her part was hard work.

When he had four barrels and two crates stored side by side in the boat, Sparrow replaced the sections of the dock he had removed, placing them crosswise across the hole. Elizabeth lay on the barrels, to disguise their shape, as Sparrow covered them all with canvas. He lashed the canvas down, as if for bad weather, and placed coils of rope and other gear on top of the whole. Elizabeth found a small tear and put her mouth to it, for air.

They returned the way they had come, slowing painfully once they were clear of the dock. At every moment, Elizabeth expected to hear the alarm raised, as their laden boat appeared to drift from the harbor. The alarm never came, and finally Elizabeth heard Sparrow surface and climb ashore. She was dying to call out to him, but managed to hold her tongue. She was also drenched in perspiration and fighting claustrophobia, but she dealt as bravely as she could with that, as well.

Eons later, the boat halted, and Sparrow said softly, "All clear, Love." Elizabeth emerged, her hair hanging like limp noodles in her face, and promptly leaped into the cool, murky water. Sparrow was grinning at her when she surfaced, but held a finger to his lips to quiet her exuberance. Nodding, she joined him in uncovering their gear and adding it to the boat.

Then, exhausted, they both flopped down on the muddy bank, beneath the overhang.

"What now?" Elizabeth asked. She couldn't quite believe she had committed such an outrageous act of larceny.

"The rum."

"What?"

"Come now, this calls for celebration. Let's see that bottle."

Shaking her head, Elizabeth produced it. Sparrow admired it respectfully before opening it and drinking deeply.

"Won't they be looking for us?" she asked. It didn't seem a good time for him to be drunk.

"Maybe, maybe not. Come nightfall, we put the mast up and make our escape." He drank deeply again. "Ah, Mrs. Turner, your pirate husband would be proud." He held out the bottle to her.

"Would he?" She gave a rueful laugh, and accepted the bottle. "Oh, Jack, Will's not very piratical. He's gone off to hunt and capture you." She took a small, ceremonial swig of the vile tasting liquor and handed it back to him.

Sparrow gave her a narrow-eyed searching look. "He'll be all right, that one," he said.

"I know! I'm not worried about him," she protested.

He smiled knowingly and looked out at the horizon.

"I have to make one more venture into town before we go," he said.

"What for?"

"To visit the money-changers. I need this gold to be pieces-of-eight. You'll have to stay here, Love. The Spanish don't allow women at the money-changers."

Elizabeth frowned. "They don't?"

"It's a whole other world, Lass." He tipped his head and bottle back and finished the rum. "You guard the supplies. My crew is hungry. It's my job to provide for them." He buckled on his sword, donned his coat and hat, and started up the bank.

Elizabeth regarded the empty rum bottle, from which she had taken only one small sip.

"Jack!" she called, softly.

"Aye?"

"Don't do anything stupid."

For some reason, he found that very funny.

We're rascals, scoundrels, villains and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

The Tarantula docked in Santiago de Cuba amid much grumbling from the men. As usual, talk stopped when Will approached, but he heard enough to gather that the crew resented the Commodore sending them there, particularly since they were not to be granted any shore leave. Apparently most of the crew had money in their pockets and were eager to spend it, which surprised Will, since he understood he was not to be paid until his tour of duty ended, and that's how he had always heard that pay was disbursed in the Navy. Captain Stanley seemed to command a high degree of loyalty from his crew, and perhaps he accomplished it by changing some of the Navy's standard operating procedures. That was the only explanation Will could think of.

But, grumbling men or not, no British soldiers or sailors were to have shore leave in this Spanish port. Relations between their two nations were strained, and Stanley would risk neither losing his men to the civil authorities and foreign courts, nor antagonizing the Spanish with a strong military presence. The only men who saw anything beyond the docks were the soldiers who accompanied Captain Stanley on his visit to General Rodriguez.

These men were surrounded by their crewmates and peppered with questions, coarse and ribald, as soon as they were back on deck and released from their shore duty. Will, too, was curious to hear what they had seen in the town, but he kept his distance, knowing from experience that his presence would break up the talk. Too far away to hear much, he still noticed when one of the men who had been ashore slapped the other, playfully, open- palmed. The man who had been slapped reeled around, over-dramatically, and cried "I didn't deserve that!" The crowd of men laughed appreciatively, and the two play-actors grinned at each other, clearly not rancorous.

Will froze, in shock, his thoughts spinning. Then he was pushing his way through the press of men to stand before the one who had done the slapping. "Who . . . What was that? Where did you see that?" he demanded.

The men stood back, scowling at Will, and the man he addressed also gave him an angry look. "What is the problem, Turner?"

"Who said that? Where did you hear it?"

"On the street, just now. The man spoke in English. What's it to you?"

"Was it a woman who slapped him?"

The man nodded, now looking bemused. The others also started to give Will amused glances.

"What did he look like?"

"Why? It doesn't matter."

"Tell me! Did he have beads in his hair and beard? Kohl around his eyes?"

The man looked a little startled and exchanged glances with his comrade. "That's the man," he confirmed.

"Jack Sparrow! That's Jack Sparrow! Where, man? Where was he?"

"By the whorehouses and the money-changers. Up that street, there." The man pointed, but his expression showed no concern, only skepticism about Will's sanity.

Will bounded away, leaping over hatches and up stairs, to reach the Mate. "Lieutenant! The men saw Sparrow in the town. They didn't know him, but I do. I know it was Sparrow. Let me go into town and look for him!"

The Mate regarded him levelly. "Mr. Turner, you are not, under any circumstances, to leave this ship. Desertion is punishable by death. Do you understand?"

Somewhat taken aback, Will blinked. "Yes, sir. But Sparrow! Don't you care that he's here, in this town? I can identify him."

"If true, it is interesting, to be sure. If the pirate is here, it might explain our missing supplies."

"What?"

"Didn't you hear? Someone stole six of our casks by cutting the dock beneath them and spiriting them away. I believe the Captain intends to mention that to General Rodriguez, as well, while they are talking."

"No sir, I didn't hear. No one tells me anything. Do you need more proof? Let's capture him, before he gets away!"

The Mate looked out to sea with a disinterested shrug. "We have no jurisdiction to pour British soldiers into the streets searching the town. We'd start another war with Spain, right here."

Will couldn't believe how unconcerned the man appeared. "Isn't that what we're here for? To capture Jack Sparrow and stop the Black Pearl's attacks?"

Now the Mate's expression turned dark. He was a big man, and not averse to using his strength to intimidate. He bared his teeth as he said, "You forget yourself, Seaman. You don't lecture me about our mission. I will apprise the captain when he returns. You return to your duties, now, or by God, you will be flogged."

Shocked and furious, Will turned away.

"Mr. Turner," said the Mate.

Will looked back.

The man gave him an evil smile and said, "I wouldn't be so eager to capture Sparrow, if I were you. If we had him, we wouldn't need you anymore."

It was an odd thing to say, and Will didn't quite know how to take it. Certainly his role as "special advisor" would be unnecessary once Jack was caught. Perhaps that was what the man meant.

Will put thoughts of the Mate out of his mind, and concentrated on Sparrow. For some reason Jack was here, in this town, and he had stolen some of their supplies. Will guessed he planned to provision the Black Pearl with them, which meant the Black Pearl wasn't far away. If only he had Stanley or the Commodore to talk to!

The thought that Jack could even now be escaping - either by sea or to somewhere else on the long island of Cuba - made Will feel sick with desperation to pursue him. He couldn't believe his superiors would punish him if he returned with the pirate his prisoner. Or - he forced himself to face squarely this possibility - if he returned with Jack's corpse.

Dodging the watch commander's notice, Will ducked into the forecastle and buckled on his sword. Then he slid around the edge of the cabin and threw down the rope ladder. In seconds he was in the murky water of the harbor, a deserter from the Royal Navy.

He swam submerged as far as he could toward the opposite side of the harbor, surfaced once for air, praying he would not be noticed, submerged again, and then climbed out on the bank, past where the docks ended. He was seen by a couple of dockhands who called to him in Spanish. Will gave them a cheery wave and headed past them, into the town. They looked after him with astonished expressions.

Were this a British port, he reasoned, the brothels and money-houses wouldn't be far from the docks. And the crewman had pointed up this street ...

Will slowed his pace, the better to study the faces of the men on the street. He didn't have much time to find Sparrow, he guessed, before either the Spanish authorities or his own shipmates would come after him. Where would Jack be? Will had clearly found the vice area of town; brazen whores, their faces veiled but their bosoms all but uncovered, preened outside the brothels. At least one of them must have known Jack, but Will was at a loss as to how to question them. It had been about a half an hour since the crewman had seen a woman here slap Jack.

Will heard singing down an alley. A tavern! He turned down the alley just in time to see his prayers answered. Not only was there a tavern at the end of the alley, its front no doubt opening onto another street, but slipping out its back door, holding two bottles of rum, came Jack Sparrow!

"Jack!" Will called out, involuntarily.

Jack looked up, and the expression of astonishment on his face was almost comical. "Turner?" he asked, incredulously. "You're on that ship?"

Will drew his sword, exulting inside. At last he could atone in some small measure for his poor judgment in trusting a vicious pirate. "I'm taking you in, Jack," he said, advancing.

"Lad," said Jack, as he carefully placed the rum bottles on a low wall and made "you stay here" motions at them, "I'm not the man you want. You can ask your lovely wife."

All his senses on high alert, Will sized the man up. Jack was still damp from a recent swim, though not as wet as was Will. Still, it took gunpowder days to dry in their part of the world, so Will was confident that Jack could not fire his pistol.

Will continued to advance. "How like a pirate to threaten my wife. How many wives and children did you kill in George Town, Jack? You butcher! And to think I trusted you!"

Jack had stood his ground, not drawing his sword, but now, apparently convinced of Will's sincerity, he slid his sword free of its sheath and leapt nimbly onto the low wall behind him.

"Will, I can outrun you," he said, darting glances around at the alley.

"Can you? You've seen how I can throw this sword."

"You'd stab me in the back?" Jack seemed genuinely appalled.

"I wouldn't if you were a 'good man,' but you're not."

Will decided not to waste any more time in talk. He lunged, and Jack parried, but Will had expected Jack's success, seeing as the pirate had a height advantage on the wall, and he used momentum from the parry to try to sweep out Jack's legs.

Jack danced over Will's sword, then beat it aside and stabbed Will's wrist. Will yielded in time to keep the thrust from penetrating, but the pain was so acute he almost released his sword. He backed off a few steps to let his hand recover.

"Listen, Will," said Jack. "That Navy ship you're on has been pretending to be the Pearl. They're the real villains. Haven't you seen anything strange on board? Black sails, at least?"

Will bounded onto the wall, reminding himself that Sparrow might sway and veer drunkenly in his normal course, but in swordplay the pirate was precise, quick, and crafty. "I do not think I ought to listen to you," he said.

They engaged, as they had once before, on a narrow surface, moving forward and back. On one backward step, Will kicked over a bottle of rum, which tumbled off the wall and broke open upon the cobblestones.

"Ah, see now . . ." complained Jack. Jack ceased his press so Will didn't need to step back again, where the second bottle stood. Will seized his opportunity and renewed his attack, but, to his frustration, Jack parried all his blows.

"Your heart's not in this, Lad," Jack said. "Lets have us a drink and talk about this."

For the first time, Will noticed they were drawing a crowd.

Jack, too, became aware of the men and boys sliding into the alley. He said something to the crowd in Spanish and their audience laughed. Will had a strong feeling that Jack had made another eunuch joke. He lunged again, but Jack jumped off the wall, easily avoiding his blade.

"Will, do you notice we have company?" he asked. The growing crowd was ringing them and placing bets.

Will followed him off the wall. "I don't care who catches you," he said, "so long as you're stopped."

"It wasn't me, you bloody fool," Jack said, backpedaling as he parried, and finally sounding like he believed himself to be trapped.

It was that faintly desperate note in Jack's voice that gave Will pause. He stopped advancing and glowered at the pirate, but he allowed the man's words to have meaning for him.

Jack should have taken Will's hesitation as an opportunity and pressed in, but instead he also stopped and regarded his opponent earnestly. The crowd made irritated sounds at the break in the action.

"Who else could it be?" Will asked, not exactly believing him, but . . .

"I'm telling you, it's that ship you're on. Haven't they asked you yet where the Isle de Muerte is?"

This question made no sense to Will, and he told himself sternly to lift his sword and attack again, but some other part of him objected. The part that remembered Captain Jack Sparrow as an ally and a good man. A friend, even.

And then there were voices and tramping feet, and contrary to what Stanley and the Chief Mate had insisted upon, a force of British soldiers came up the street and turned into the alley. The ring of spectators broke and faded before them. To Will's astonishment, rather than seizing Jack, they laid violent hands on Will, and, the Chief Mate commanding them, leveled muskets at him.

Even Jack looked surprised, and then he tried to join the crowd of spectators who were fast disappearing from the alley.

Will struggled against the hands holding him. "Sparrow! That's Jack Sparrow!" he yelled.

Almost as an afterthought, the Mate nodded and ordered, "Seize that man!" sending half a dozen red-coated soldiers who grabbed Sparrow before he got very far.

The detachment returned promptly to the docks, accompanied by an equal force of Spanish soldiers that materialized around them and escorted them down the street and to the gangplank of the ship. Will protested his own treatment until a vicious blow from the Mate silenced him.

"You're a deserter, Turner," the man hissed.

His head ringing, Will decided to hold his tongue until he could see Captain Stanley.

Once on board, the soldiers hauled both Will and Jack down the hatch and into steerage, which Will had never seen. One part of this level had bars and a door, to serve as a brig. Into this, Will was shoved and the door locked. Jack they took down even farther, into the hold.

Before Jack vanished from Will's sight, the pirate looked at him, and Will had to look away.

Will paced in the small cell for an hour, by the sound of the bells, trying to calm down. Jack was caught, Jack was caught. That was good, wasn't it? It's what he had been working for since the George Town attacks. And Will was the one who had caught him, mostly. That was even better. Stanley wouldn't punish him once he learned the truth. And Will wouldn't have to live with the crushing guilt that had haunted him all this time. He stopped pacing and leaned his head against the bulkhead. Then why did he still feel so wretched?

Drained, Will sank to the floor, and stared absently out of his cell. He looked around steerage, the deck between the upper deck and the hold. Daylight was fading, the sinking sun making the thin shafts of sunlight glisten on the dust in the air. The odor of the bilge water was not so strong as it had been on the Deadly Earnest. Jones and the other junior men must be making their beds amid the gear stored there, under the sheets of black canvas.

Black canvas?

Will's eyes were now adjusted to the gloom, and the hair rose on his neck as he looked around at the black sails covering the other gear. Suddenly he had to know what was under them. He jumped to his feet and paced again, looking for . . . he found a rotting plank. Apparently the crew of the Tarantula never holystoned steerage like they did the main deck; some of the wood was rough and splintering. The plank he pried up was just long enough to reach the nearest heap. He stretched and lifted.

Beneath the sails was a large wooden object, irregularly shaped, with sweeping, rounded edges. Pressing painfully against the flat iron bars, Will slid the plank along the edge of the canvas and came to a carved wooden bird, its wings outstretched, gripped at the body by the fingers of a human figure the rest of which Will couldn't see. He didn't need to. He backed away, into his cell, until he was leaning against the outside bulkhead. He knew what it was. A woman's form with wings - an angel - gripping a dove. It was an exact copy of the Black Pearl's figurehead.

For a moment Will couldn't breathe. His world spun and he felt like his heart was in his boots. Will found himself sitting again, and fighting a suddenly rebellious stomach. At that moment, he heard feet and voices at the hatch. One of the voices belonged to Captain Stanley. Panicked, the only thing Will could think of to do was to feign sleep. He was in no fit state to face the man. Will curled up on his side and told himself to breathe deeply.

Stanley and his company didn't even pause in steerage; they continued down the companionway into the hold. Will sat up, relieved, when they were gone and his thinking cleared. If both he and Jack were to get out of this mess he had gotten them into, they would both need to be very clever. Jack, Will was sure, could be clever while drunk and half asleep, but Will would need to try to guess what Jack would be doing. He smiled grimly. Doing his best to guess what Jack would do had been his explicit charge from the start.

Will began a systematic inspection of his cell. The loose plank he had pried was too brittle to be of much use as a weapon, but he set it aside carefully, in case. The bars . . . Will knew that construction and considered its implications. Crossed flat iron slats made excellent cells when set in stonemasonry, but affixing them in a wooden ship had some inherent weaknesses. The bars were only as effective as the wood was strong. As a consequence, shipbuilders generally ran the bars entirely through the middle deck, down into the hold, the better to set the ends in the solid wood of the keel. One level might serve as a brig, the other as secure storage for loose or valuable items.

It occurred to Will that Jack was probably incarcerated directly below him. He laid a thoughtful hand on the bars, remembering an interesting property of metal. Casting an appraising glance around steerage, judging the amount of creaking noise the ship made as it lay in port - much less noise than it would make at sea - Will lay down next to the bars, and pressed his ear to one. Faint and tinny, but still clear, like distant voices heard across a lake, Will heard Stanley speak.

". . . until the Commodore gets here."

"Well, Mate," Sparrow's voice said, "you've got to be the worst pirate I've ever heard of."

"Imagine my disappointment," Stanley replied. "Why, in particular?"

"Attacking poor settlements? What's the point and purpose? If there's no treasure to be had, a real pirate moves on. Score a Spanish treasure ship, now, and you're sitting pretty. Unless you're afraid to attack someone who can fight back."

"I have nothing to fear," sneered Stanley. "You, on the other hand, have a very short life expectancy right now."

"That's nothing new to me, Chum. No pirate expects to live very long. Makes every day worth living well. Something else you'd understand if you were a real pirate."

"I intend to be richer than any living pirate soon. That will take the sting out of not being accepted in your brigand ranks. You're going to help me to the gold at the Isle de Muerte."

"Swag, mate, swag. At least learn how to talk like a proper pirate!"

A loud pounding noise reverberated in Will's head, as something slammed into the bars. Will guessed it to be Stanley's fist.

"Enough! Where is the Isle de Muerte?"

"Good God, man! Can't you even conduct a proper parley? You've given me no incentive whatsoever to tell you!"

"How's this for incentive? You tell me where the Isle de Muerte is, or I cut off your ears, your tongue, and any other parts that protrude. Savvy?"

"Much better! I liked the 'savvy' part at the end. Maybe you are teachable, after all. But you gave your bluff away with the tongue. How can I tell you what you want to know with no tongue?"

"You think I bluff? Mr. Sparrow, I have men on this ship who are highly skilled - and I do mean highly - in the finer arts of making a man talk. You will tell me what I want to know."

Sparrow's reply sounded subdued, to Will's hearing. "And then you'll kill me Mate, once I tell you. I know the drill. I don't look forward to your men practicing their skill, but I'll tell you one more thing about a real pirate. The worst day living is better than the best day dead. We have only Hell to look forward to, savvy? So rather than be dead I'll take the worst you have to give for a very, very long time. How much time do you have? The Commodore's arriving soon, isn't he? Will you never learn to negotiate?"

Will heard nothing for a time, but some muted voices. Stanley was not alone with Sparrow, he remembered; the Chief Mate and some other men were there.

Stanley spoke again. "Well, Mr. Sparrow, suppose I allow you to instruct me. What do you suggest I offer you?"

"Now we're talking! Excellent. Let's look at it this way. I presume you intend to share the swag with all your men? Good. Properly piratical, equal shares and all. What's more, if you don't, and they get wind of it, it's mutiny. I have some experience in the area and know what I'm talking about. You've already made them outlaws, why shouldn't they turn on you? Out of curiosity, how did you turn a Navy crew into pirates? Good bit of business, that."

"I'm so delighted to have your approval. I see no harm in satisfying your curiosity. I hand picked a crew for pirate hunting. All men with no families and reputations for brutality. When we took our first pirate ship, I suggested we keep their . . . swag, as you call it. Every man agreed, and then they were bound to me by the need for silence and the promise of more wealth. Murdering innocents was an unfortunate necessity, but they were up to the job. Now, would you please get to the point?"

"Aye, I will. You have, how many men? Two hundred or so? You agree - and get your men to agree - to make it two hundred and one. Let me have an equal share of the swag, and transport with my share on your ship, and I'll be glad to tell you where it is. It's really a lot of treasure, Mate. There's plenty there for everyone."

Will wondered if he had heard right. Was Jack really offering to throw in with Stanley?

"You would cut your own crew out?"

"Of course. They have a ship; let them get their own loot. I'll take my share and retire to an island a rich man, as I imagine you lot hope to do."

Will couldn't believe what he was hearing. Then he stopped his suspicions, dead. He wouldn't believe what he was hearing. Had he learned nothing? Once before, he had thought Jack was throwing in with Barbossa, and he'd been wrong then, too.

"That sounds suspiciously disloyal, Sparrow. Surely that's not proper pirate behavior."

"You know nothing of the Code, do you?" Sparrow sounded exasperated. "We stay together so long as it's mutually profitable. Why do you think I'm out alone? I'm not letting any of them go and find their own way to the Isle de Muerte. Now it's more profitable for me to throw in with your lot. Mutually profitable, savvy?"

Sparrow's voice lowered and grew seductive sounding.

"There is so much gold there, Mate, it will fill your entire hold and then some. I'll be glad of the help hauling it."

Again Will heard only muted voices in the background. Then, "Captain Sparrow, you have a deal."

"An accord."

"An accord, then. You tell us where the Isle de Muerte is, and we will give you an equal share of the . . . swag."

"Excellent! Now, perhaps you'll let me out of here, and I'll find me some dinner."

"No, Captain Sparrow, you will tell me the location, first."

"I don't know the actual coordinates, Mate; I have to find it by dead reckoning."

"That's convenient," Stanley said, a warning note in his voice.

"No, that's magic. 'Can only be found by someone who already knows where it is.' Sorry."

"In that case, you will give me a good faith offering or the deal's off. What part of the Caribbean is it in? You'd have to tell me where to sail toward, in any case."

"There's some truth in that," Sparrow sounded thoughtful. "It's in the Bahamas."

Will's heart leaped. He couldn't name coordinates, either, but he knew what part of the ocean he had been in when Barbossa's crew had tried to use him to lift their curse. They hadn't been anywhere near the Bahamas. Bless Jack! He swore to himself he would never distrust the man again.

"More than that, Captain, or we'll return to the torture scenario."

"A day and a half's sail north of San Salvador. But you'll still need me to find it."

"You, or someone else who's been there. What did you do with Turner?"

For the first time, Will heard the Chief Mate's voice.

"He's in the brig. He thinks it's for his desertion."

"Turner?" Jack asked. "What's he to do with it? That boy couldn't find a rock he threw himself."

"He can corroborate your general location, Sparrow. If you're telling the truth, our deal is good. If not . . . I'll hang you and we'll use him. Stay here; I should be the one to bring Turner."

"Yes sir," said the Mate.

If Jack had anything else to say to that, Will didn't hear it. He rolled on his back away from the bars, his heart pounding. He would have to pretend he knew none of this and he hadn't even noticed the black sails, let alone what was under them. He would have to be convincing: his life, and certainly Jack's, depended on it.

Full night had fallen while he had been concentrating on the faint sounds transmitted through the metal. Steerage was dark and foreboding. Will pushed the plank back out into the open, and returned to feigning sleep. Stanley's footsteps were on the stairs.

"Mr. Turner."

Will rolled to his feet. "Captain!" he cried. Stanley stood there. Behind him stood a man holding a lantern.

"Mr. Turner, I understand you single-handedly caught Jack Sparrow."

"Yes, sir. No, I . . . I had to leave the ship to do it, sir. I'm really sorry. But, you know, my enlistment is only conditional, until the Black Pearl is stopped, and I thought . . ."

"Yes, yes," said Stanley, producing a large key ring, and unlocking the door. "Very well done. I'll put you in for a commendation for this. I'm sure the Commodore will approve it. He may add his own."

Will exited the cell.

"I apologize for the misunderstanding. I'm sure you understand how serious a matter the Navy must view desertion."

"Of course, sir." Will's voice shook a little, but Stanley did not appear to notice.

"Now follow me, Turner." Stanley whirled smartly and returned to the companionway. His heart in his throat, Will followed.

The hold was as Will had imagined. Stacks of casks and crates, and some loose articles such as fine silks and tapestries were stored there, in addition to piles and piles of gunpowder kegs and cannon shot. In the equivalent to Will's cell, leaning negligently against the bars, stood Jack. A wave of regret washed over Will. He could see the man again as a friend and ally, but he was behind bars again because of Will. He looked away from Jack's piercing gaze, afraid of giving too much away.

The Mate and three men perched on upended barrels, but they stood when the Captain entered. The Captain gestured Will forward, to stand near the cell.

"Will," the Captain said, kindly, "you understand that it is your duty to serve your country and me unfailingly, even when your orders may seem strange?"

"I understand, Captain," Will replied earnestly. "I am the slave of duty."

Stanley frowned and Jack rolled his eyes. The Mate and some of the other men snickered. Will considered that he might have overplayed his part.

"I mean, how can I help?"

"It's important that we catch the Black Pearl at the Isle de Muerte, and Captain Sparrow has been kind enough to give me its location. But in order to check his good will, I'd like you to tell me where it is."

"Stanley, I'm telling you, this lubber had no idea where he was," Jack said.

"Jack, you're a liar," Will managed to say. He prayed he sounded convincing. "Sir, I can tell you generally where the Isle de Muerte is."

"That's all I require of you, lad. Where is it?"

Carefully not looking at Jack, Will said, "It's in the Bahamas."

Will heard a distinct click from Jack's direction, which he was sure was the sound of the man's teeth as he snapped his mouth shut.

"We were only a short ways out of a Spanish port, San something. San Salvador."

Stanley was nodding, slowly. "How far from San Salvador?"

"Only a day or so. I couldn't tell you what the wind was doing, so I'm not sure exactly - we had to wait for the opportune moment - but it took us about a day and a half."

Will did not even glance at Jack. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

"What direction were you headed?"

"Mostly north, sir."

Stanley turned to the Mate. "Lieutenant, we set sail at dawn for the Bahamas."

"Yes, Captain. What about the Commodore?"

"My orders were to deliver his letter to Rodriguez. He won't expect me to wait for him when I have such a good lead to the Black Pearl. Turner, return to your duties. Under no circumstances may you leave this ship again. Sparrow, you may enjoy your life a while longer."

Will escaped from the hold, feeling like a drowning man who breaks the water's surface and can gulp the air again.

They did not leave at dawn. All night the weather worsened until by morning eastern Cuba was in the grips of a tremendous storm. Shortly after midnight, "all hands" were called, and the Larboard Watch, Will's watch, turned out to assist the Starboard Watch in battening the hatches. All hands were on deck, but for Will. As they tumbled out of the forecastle, the Second Mate stopped him. "Not you, chum," he said. "We can't watch you in the dark and the rain. You're not deserting again." So Will stayed behind, useless, in a locked forecastle, his tired mind trying to keep track of the various deceptions. They might pretend they were watching that he not desert, but he was really under guard. Will was as much a prisoner as Jack Sparrow was, but he was not supposed to know it.

The storm kept them in port for three days, and they should have stayed another few days to repair the damage it did to their hull, but Stanley ordered them to sea at the first opportunity.

It had been a miserable three days for Will. All around him were men who had committed the brutal attacks on half a dozen settlements for no more reason than to implicate the Black Pearl. These men were fast growing tired of the deception they had to maintain around Will, just as he grew tired of pretending he knew nothing of it. Everyone on board knew they had Sparrow, and if they didn't know that Stanley had the location of the Isle de Muerte, they assumed that he would soon have it. Eager for the gold, but trapped in port, tempers ran high and the other men grew incautious of what they said around Will. Many times he overheard "What do we need 'im for?" It occurred to Will that by corroborating Jack's story, he had made Jack valuable to Stanley at the expense of his own worth.

All Will could learn of Jack was that he had been moved to the brig when the hold began to leak. Will had volunteered to help with the repairs in the hold, in the hopes of seeing Jack, but the Mate had only laughed at him. He thought wistfully of his snug cottage in Port Royal and was thankful that at least Elizabeth was safe.

As they left port on the fourth day, Will watched his only real hope for escape fall behind him, and finally drop off the rim of the horizon. He tried to boost his spirits by thinking of Jack. What would Jack do? Well, he told himself, Jack wouldn't give up. Even though they were now literally between the Devil and the deep blue sea, Jack would still try something. The best thing Will could do would be to try to be ready for any opportunity.

Although his sword had been appropriated when he went in the brig, and somehow never returned, no one had taken his sailor's knife. It was seen as more tool than weapon, and, since everyone had one, having one was not viewed as any particular advantage. Will removed the hilt and put the blade in the sole of his boot.

As the Tarantula sped across the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola - across, not into, because Stanley was loath to meet any returning Royal Navy ships on their way to Jamaica, and had decided to round Hispaniola the long way, from the south - repairs were carried out while under full sail. Sealing leaky planking with hot tar and oakum was a nasty job, made even more unpleasant when it had to be done on the outside of the hull while hanging from the Boatswain's chair, but it gave Will an idea.

Mindful of the Mate's laugh at his obvious ploy to get to see Jack, Will didn't volunteer for the Boatswain's chair. Instead, he busied himself as far from that activity as he could manage, until it became obvious that he was ducking his turn. Then he was promptly ordered onto the chair, supplied with hot tar and a loggerhead, and lowered over the side. He was just above the area in steerage where the brig was.

He worked diligently at sealing the planks, but he wanted to be lowered to outside the brig, and that wasn't in the pattern the Boatswain's mates were working with him.

"Hey!" he called up. "Not so low! There are sharks!"

The faces of the two mates leered at him over the gunwale. The lines holding his platform abruptly played out, dropping him sharply to just above the waves. One of the buckets of tar tumbled into the sea. The spray soaked Will, and the Boatswain's chair swung wildly, thumping against the hull. The hold itself was below the waterline, and could only be repaired from the inside, but now Will was outside the brig, and below the curve of the hull, where he could not be seen. He had to work fast before the Boatswain's mates decided they had enjoyed their joke long enough.

One end of the loggerhead was for prying planks, not sealing them, and Will put all his strength behind loosening the planking at the brig level.

"Jack!" he called, but his voice was carried away by the wind and the waves. He abandoned any hope of hearing or being heard under those conditions.

He struggled further to do the very last thing one would normally want to do to a ship under weigh - weaken its seals. He managed to bend open a crevice far enough to cram the loggerhead in. Was he imagining it, or did it feel like someone had gripped the other end of the tool, and pulled? Will couldn't be sure, because once the planking snapped back in place, he had no way to pry it again. All he could do was hold on, wet and cold, and wait.

Eventually the Boatswain's mates pulled him higher again, and when he showed them that he had lost a bucket of tar and his loggerhead, they hoisted him all the way up.

"That wasn't funny!" he yelled at them. "I told you there were sharks!"

The mates thought it was funny. They laughed.

The Chief Mate approached. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

"Mr. Turner dropped his tar and a loggerhead, Lieutenant," one of the mates said, all innocence.

Will stayed silent as the Mate looked him over.

"On your way, Turner," he said. To the Boatswain's mates he said, "Get someone else in the chair."

Will moved to the bow of the ship and looked out over what seemed like endless sea. They were still headed south, as fast as the world's winds could take them, in order to get out of potentially busy traffic lanes. Although the ocean was a moat, imprisoning him, he couldn't look off the bow without being stirred by a feeling of excitement. The safety of his smithy was a distant dream of normalcy, but it also now looked to him like a prison of another kind. He wondered with a strange detachment if he would survive this adventure, and if he did, if he would be able to return to life on land.

A flash of blue-green against the grey of sea and sky caught his attention. He looked up to see a parrot perch on the foremast shroud. That struck him as odd, since they were well away from land, now.

He looked down again, and saw what he was leaning against. It was a third capstan in the bow of the Tarantula, and he had once wondered what it was for. The other two raised and lowered the forward anchors, as on the Deadly Earnest, but the chain from this one went . . . he followed it forward, and saw that the chain must go to the lion figurehead. Of course. They had to have a way to change figureheads while under sail.

"What are you doing, Turner?" Will had not heard the Chief Mate come up behind him. His voice was full of suspicion.

"Nothing!" he answered, not very convincingly.

"Getting an eyeful?" growled the Mate. "Have you figured out what it's for?"

Will recovered quickly. "No sir, but I was curious. What is it for?"

"Enough of this!" the Mate said, and grabbed Will by the bicep. He dragged him from the bow. "Take him!" he yelled to two crewmen, who stepped up and gripped Will's arms. "I'll get the Captain."

Will said nothing as Captain Stanley approached with the Mate. Behind him, two more men brought Jack Sparrow, blinking in the sunlight, his hands bound in front of him with rope.

"So, Turner, how much have you learned?" Stanley asked, without any trace of friendliness.

"I don't know what you mean, sir," Will tried, but his protest sounded forced, even to his own ears.

"What really concerns me," Stanley said, looking out at the sea, "is how long you have known it. How long have you been in league with Sparrow?"

"I'm not!" Will cried. "You must believe me! I hate pirates!"

Stanley looked now at Jack, who gave him a genial grin. "So now," Stanley mused, "I can't trust your information."

"Of course you can," said Jack. "What's Turner to do with my interest in the gold? When could we have agreed on a story?"

Stanley appeared to consider that. "In the street before you were caught. You could have planned it then."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Bilge water," he said. "Why would I agree to be captured? Just to mislead you and then get myself killed?"

As Stanley regarded Jack, something white and fluid fell from above onto his blue uniform. An expression of outrage spread across Stanley's angular features, and guffaws passed through the watching men.

"A guinea to the man who kills that bird!" Stanley cried.

The laughter turned to greedy cheers as the watch sprang into the rigging. Will watched in amazement as normally agile sailors overreached themselves trying for the parrot, and slipped and stumbled, and tangled themselves in rigging. The parrot, for its part, hopped and flapped, and kept just out of reach.

"And someone tie a noose!" Stanley ordered. "Turner, I'm afraid you've outlived your usefulness."

"Sir!" Will gasped. "What . . . what will you tell the Commodore?"

Stanley showed an evil smile and said, "I don't expect to ever see His Nibs again. But if I must, I'll tell him Sparrow murdered you." He looked to the Mate. "Tie the noose on that yard, there."

In the rigging above, the converging sailors were now banging heads and trying to push each other away from the parrot in their attempts to be the first to reach it. The parrot flew down around the heads of the men on deck, calling "Anchors aweigh! Anchors aweigh!" before landing on a mizzenmast stay.

Every man looked at the parrot in surprise. Behind them was Spanish Cuba, and to the east was French Port-Au-Prince and this bird spoke in English? Then the men aloft dropped to the deck or swung across in a scramble aft to the mizzenmast. They never reached the parrot. It flew off the stern, heading northwest, amid many disappointed cries and oaths. Will marked its heading carefully, and he saw Jack doing the same.

Though Will had been trying not to look too much at Jack, now their gazes locked in a moment of mutual, perfect understanding. Then Jack looked away and began shaking his head.

"Captain Stanley, Captain Stanley. You can't hang the boy."

"Oh? And why not? Why should you want him spared, if you're not in league?"

"You're still thinking like a military man. Hanging? Come now, what would a pirate do?"

Will spotted the two vicious Boatswain's mates, watching avidly.

"Shut up, Jack!" Will hissed, and his performance was perfect. "There are sharks!"

The two mates hooted.

"You think he should walk a plank," Stanley said, his anger at the parrot fading into amusement.

Jack shrugged. "It's always more fun for the men."

"He's terrified of the water, sir!" called one of the mates. "Thinks there's sharks in every wave!"

"The men have been wanting to throw Turner overboard for days, sir," added the Chief Mate, grinning.

"Very well, then. You arrange what's needed." Stanley ducked into his cabin.

Jack gave cheerful instructions to the men on how to rig a plank for "walking," which they seemed to ignore, though Will thought they would have done a better job of it had they listened to him. The whole scene became dreamlike for Will. Isolated at sea with an entire shipload of men who wanted him dead. It had to be a nightmare he would waken from. He had to fight back a growing panic that was making his knees shaky. He reminded himself he was a strong swimmer, and if they tied his hands, he had a blade in his boot.

Finally the plank was ready, on the starboard side of the ship, and Stanley reappeared, wearing a clean uniform jacket. Will was forced onto the plank, his heart beating so hard it hurt his chest. He couldn't stop seeing Elizabeth on the Black Pearl's plank, so lovely and so brave. How he hoped he would see her again.

Before Will got very far onto the plank, someone called "Sail ho!" As frightened as Will had been of walking the plank, now pure terror gripped him that they would hang him after all, rather than risk him reaching another ship. Sure enough, before he could move, Stanley ordered him hauled back on deck.

"Who is it?" bellowed the Mate.

"Deadly Earnest!" came the reply. The lookout directed everyone's gaze to the southeast, where the sails were sighted.

Stanley swore, showing an impressive proficiency with sailors' profanity. "Now we'll waste more time with that man."

"You're still not thinking like a pirate, Mate," said Jack.

"Be still! I've had enough of your games," Stanley ordered.

"But you're still playing your own games. Lure him in close with all that Navy falderol, then hoist your true colors and blast the bejeezus out of him. I assume you have a Jolly Roger on board. He's the only thing standing between us and all that treasure!"

Will's head was spinning too much for him to make sense of what Jack was up to now.

"Captain," added the Mate, "the Commodore will delay us some more. And we've got to get rid of Turner before he talks to him."

Stanley nodded. "Put Turner overboard, and this time, tie his hands. Get Sparrow out of sight, back in the brig. Break out the pirate ensign, and make ready the guns. One last battle and then we're all rich men!"

"Aye, aye!" came the response from the crew. Will's hands were bound with rope, and he was shoved once again onto the plank. He managed a glimpse of Jack, who was watching Will as they forced him to the hatch.

"We'll meet again!" Jack called to him.

"You'll see, Sparrow!" Stanley called in a ringing voice. "I am a pirate!"

Will didn't even struggle as they pushed him out onto the plank. He walked to the end, took a deep breath, winged a prayer to Heaven, and dived.

We're beggars and blighters and ne'er-do-well cads.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

"They're making someone walk the plank," Elizabeth said, peering through the spyglass. "I can't make out who."

"That'll be Jack," said AnaMaria with a sigh. "He was bound to piss them off."

"The Navy don't use a plank," said Gibbs, frowning.

"That's how I know it's Jack," AnaMaria said. "We better go to the rescue."

"Loose the gallants!" she called, and threw her slight weight into turning the Black Pearl's wheel. To Elizabeth she said, "Keep him in your sight."

There was little else she needed to order; the Black Pearl had been sailing as fast as its crew could coax her for a day and a half, and was already in the best sailing trim they could manage.

Beside Elizabeth, Gibbs did not sound happy. "We're sailing into the teeth of the 'Pirate-Killer,'" he grumbled. He hopped down into the waist and bellowed, "Run out the guns!"

Watching carefully, Elizabeth saw the ship turn to the southeast, away from the Black Pearl. "Either they haven't seen us, or they're running from us," she reported.

"What about the man in the water?"

Elizabeth moved the field of the spyglass back and forth over the waves. "I don't see him!" she cried. "He didn't surface!"

AnaMaria swore and hopped at the helm as if the ship were a horse she could coax into more speed.

Cotton's parrot swooped in from wherever it had been wandering, and landed on Cotton's shoulder. "Man overboard!" it squawked. "Man overboard!"

"That's the first sensible thing that parrot's ever said," AnaMaria said. "Do you see him, yet?!"

"Yes, yes! He's up! He's swimming." Elizabeth didn't hear whatever cheers her report elicited, for she was suddenly riveted by a very strange sight. "You aren't going to believe this . . . " she said.

"What?"

Elizabeth didn't respond at first, trying to sort out what she was seeing.

"What?!" AnaMaria demanded. "Take the glass from her if she can't make a proper report!"

"Wait a moment!" Elizabeth answered. "Someone inside the hull is knocking a hole in it."

"What? That's crazy!"

Half the crew clambered to the port side of the ship, trying to see what she saw.

"Crazy like Jack," Gibbs cried. "It must be him. I wonder who the man in the water is?"

Startled, Elizabeth glanced at him before returning to the spyglass. She saw the hole in the hull widen, and movement inside. A flash of red at the hole was reminiscent of Sparrow's headscarf. "I think you're right," she said in amazement. So who . . . ?

"Oh Dear God, it's Will!" She almost dropped the spyglass. "Will's in the water!" For a moment Elizabeth's shock took her senses, and she ran toward the bow as if she could do something there. "Faster!" she screamed at AnaMaria, who glared back at her.

Then she recovered her equilibrium and looked through the spyglass again. They were overtaking the other ship, somewhat, and she could make out more. A man, definitely Sparrow, dove gracefully out of the hole in the hull. Moving the spyglass back and forth between the two men, Elizabeth saw them start to swim toward each other.

"Jack . . . Jack's in the water, too. They're together," she reported, breathlessly.

"Sail ho!" called a crewman from the rigging.

"What now?" cried AnaMaria.

The crewman pointed toward the Tarantula. "Beyond the ship!"

Elizabeth brought up the spyglass and scanned the horizon. "I can't see it!" she cried.

"It don't matter," Gibbs said, joining her at the rail. "They're farther out. We'll get our men and get away."

Soon everyone with good vision could make out the two men in the water. AnaMaria ordered the topsails and the gallants furled, to slow the ship as they approached the swimmers. Elizabeth insisted they lower a boat, rather than hoist them out with a line; the waves were choppy and she feared they might be tired or hurt. She started to get in the boat, herself, but AnaMaria stopped her.

"Stay out of the way. They know what they're doing."

Elizabeth bristled at the suggestion that she would be in the way, but she bit her lip and obeyed.

Gibbs and another man rowed out and hauled the two swimmers into the boat. Both men were shivering, but appeared unharmed and were able to climb the rope ladder into the ship.

Sparrow emerged over the rail first, his eyes sparkling above his grin. He looked fondly at his relieved crew, and then spotted Elizabeth and started.

"Elizabeth?!" he cried. His expression of astonishment was gratifying, but it wasn't Sparrow she waited to see.

"What? Elizabeth?" came the much-loved voice of her husband, and a sudden lump was in her throat. Will came over the side, and Elizabeth couldn't remember a more welcome sight to her in her life. She flew into his arms and kissed him long and hard. Behind her she was vaguely aware that Sparrow was receiving some kind of back-slapping welcome from his crew, but it was of no interest to her.

Until Sparrow's voice came from behind her. "Ahem. Enough of that, there's work to be done."

Will pulled a bit from her embrace, but did not look at Sparrow. "What are you doing here?" he asked in wonderment.

She smiled hugely at him. "Pulling you from the water, again."

"That's what I'd like to know, Missy," Sparrow insisted. "What are you doing on my ship?"

Elizabeth laid her head on Will's shoulder and looked at a wet and indignant Sparrow.

"She found us, Captain," said Gibbs, looking at the deck like an embarrassed schoolboy.

"How?" asked Sparrow brightly, aiming the question at her.

"You were changing the gold into Spanish money, Jack," she said. "There's only one port in the western waters large enough to make repairs on a ship and that takes Spanish money and is known to be friendly to pirates. And it's in western Cuba, so all I had to do was follow the coast."

Sparrow's amazement was wonderful to behold. Elizabeth knew she would treasure this moment all her life.

"She brought your supplies and some gold for lumber, Cap'n," said Gibbs.

"Gold? You had . . . more gold?" Now Sparrow looked almost ill.

"I had a brooch. It was enough to buy linen and lumber, but we had to bring the lumber along. There wasn't time to make the repairs."

"You're a sorceress," said Sparrow.

Elizabeth thought of the frightening journey she had made, at night, alone, trying to stay ahead of a full scale gale. The storm clouds had hidden the moon and stars and she could have run aground on shallows or unseen rocks countless times. "You owe me, again," she said.

"Aye," Sparrow acknowledged gravely. "And I'll repay one debt right now." His dark-rimmed gaze slid from her to her husband, with an expression not entirely friendly. Elizabeth felt Will stiffen. "I was going to ask AnaMaria to slug your husband for me, but I'll pass it up."

Elizabeth looked at Will and saw him blush deep red. AnaMaria cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, Jack," Will said, sincerely.

Sparrow smiled tightly, and turned to regard the Tarantula. The new ship was visible now, a Navy warship, closing with the Tarantula. It flew a British flag.

"What happened?" Elizabeth asked, in low tones.

"I'll tell you later," Will replied. "What were you doing with Jack in a Spanish port?"

"I'll tell you later," she said.

All discussion was interrupted by the distant sound of cannon fire.

"Captain," called a man from the rigging, "the Navy ships are firing at each other!"

Sparrow leaped to the bow, grinning like a man who sees his plans work out. "Both of them?" he called.

"Eh?" the man asked.

"Is the Deadly Earnest returning fire?"

The other ship was the Deadly Earnest? Elizabeth looked at Will. "That's your ship?"

Will shrugged, and gave her a lopsided grin. "I can't really say. It's the Commodore's ship, though."

"No, Captain," the man reported. "Their guns weren't ready. They're taking heavy damage close in."

"Well, time to come to the rescue then." Sparrow seemed terribly pleased. "Can't have the Commodore sent to Davy Jones before he clears our name. Loose the gallants and the topsails! Ready the port guns! Where's my spyglass?"

Elizabeth rushed forward to give it to him, gripping Will's hand tightly in her other hand.

Sparrow lifted the glass and laughed with pleasure. "He's flying my Jolly Roger! Stanley! That's my man!"

"Captain!" Gibbs said, "They'll join forces against us."

"The Commodore's not that stupid. And if he is, we'll show him that we have Mrs. Turner hostage." Sparrow lightened the threat with a wink at her.

Will's hand tightened protectively, but Elizabeth squeezed his hand back to tell him not to worry about her.

"Jack, haven't you heard?" she asked, "I'm not valuable to him anymore. I'm married, and besides, he's courting a knight's daughter, now."

Sparrow shook his head in mock dismay. "I really must read the Society Papers more, Love." He placed his fists on his waist and glowered at the nearing battle. "I swear they haven't even seen us! How rude! Fire number three gun!"

Gibbs repeated the order, and a cannon thundered from belowdeck. The ball flew harmlessly across the Tarantula's wake. The ship was still out of range.

"Wasn't he supposed to pine for you forever?" Sparrow asked, still looking at the Navy ships.

Infected by Sparrow's insouciance, Elizabeth laughed. "He's moved on," she said. She looked at Will. "And so have I."

"Two points to starboard!" Sparrow yelled to AnaMaria, who was still at the helm.

"Jack! Have we got any hand-to-hand weapons?" Will asked.

Sparrow smiled. "Don't worry, Mate. Now Stanley's seen us, he'll run. He has a fast ship, and the Deadly Earnest can't follow. Look how she's listing."

Elizabeth and the whole crew watched tensely as the Black Pearl sailed into fighting position. Sparrow called occasional course corrections to AnaMaria, and adjustments to the sails to Gibbs.

"She's unfurling!" someone called.

The Tarantula's sails flowed gracefully into place, and her crew made them fast. The ship leaped before a strong northerly wind, narrowly missing the Deadly Earnest's bow as they sped free of the engagement. Musketmen from both ships exchanged fire as she passed.

"Reef the topsails and the gallants!" called Sparrow. "Run up a white flag!"

Elizabeth ran to the rail in the bow, the better to see and to be seen, Will right behind her. Regardless of what she had told Jack, she thought the besieged soldiers of the Deadly Earnest might pause before shooting if they saw a woman on deck. The wind blew her hair and dress like a flag, and for a moment she saw herself as the Black Pearl's figurehead.

"Furl the mainsails and heave to!" Sparrow ordered.

"What about the guns?" asked Gibbs.

Elizabeth looked back at the men. Sparrow and Gibbs seemed to be both in thought, looking at each other. A lot depended on whether the Commodore believed them to be rescuers, or scavengers attacking a crippled prey. Deadly Earnest's guns were ready, now.

"Keep them manned, but close the gun ports," was Sparrow's order. "Elizabeth!" Sparrow turned to her. "You and Will stay there, love."

The two of them nodded, and Will waved one arm back and forth at the other ship.

Gibbs did not look happy with his orders, but it was no time for a debate, and he went to the gun deck to deliver them.

The Black Pearl slowed to drifting, well out of boarding range of the other ship, but not out of cannon range. Activity on the Deadly Earnest was intense amidships, where cannonballs had blasted through the deck and hull. The foremast was damaged, and two of its yardarms hung down, making the mast look like a skeleton swinging its arms loose at the elbows. Flames flickered from the area of the forecastle.

The entire broadside of guns poked out of the hull, ready.

Will continued his slow wave.

The Deadly Earnest's foremost cannon fired a booming shot across the Pearl's bow.

Will dropped his arm and Elizabeth grabbed it, reflexively. They both looked back at Sparrow. The entire crew stiffened.

"Hold steady!" cried Sparrow. "It was a warning shot."

Gibbs appeared back on deck, his face pale. He brought Sparrow a calling cone.

"Ahoy the ship!" Sparrow called through it.

A blue-uniformed figure separated from the other men on the Deadly Earnest. Behind him, sailors fought the fire in the forecastle.

"State your purpose!" called the Commodore.

"Need any help, Mate?" asked Sparrow. "We can lend you lumber for repairs."

Elizabeth saw AnaMaria slap her forehead. "Sell!" she said. "Sell the lumber!"

There was a pause as the Commodore consulted with others. The sailors appeared to get the fire under control, but Elizabeth could see the damage to the forecastle.

"Captain Sparrow," called the Commodore, formally, "permission to come aboard?"

Elizabeth expected an immediate affirmative, but, to her surprise, Sparrow looked at Gibbs. "Joshamee?" he asked in a voice so low, only Will and Elizabeth were near enough to overhear. "I could go to him."

"No, Jack," Gibbs replied immediately, also in private tones. "Don't trust 'em. If he has to come aboard, he has to."

Elizabeth looked at Will, to see if he understood why Sparrow asked Gibbs's permission to allow the Commodore on board, but Will looked as puzzled as she was.

Sparrow nodded. "Come ahead," he called back to the Deadly Earnest, "with no more than two men, and all unarmed!"

"Captain," said one of the men. "Let's put the bag on him! He'd bring a rich ransom."

"You can't do that!" Elizabeth cried. "You're under a flag of truce."

"He fired on us!" the man complained.

"Only a warning shot," she replied. "Jack, if he'd intended to damage you, he could have! You can't kidnap him."

"I can do whatever I like, Missy; I am a pirate," Sparrow said with a grin. "But, calm yourself." He spoke more loudly. "The Commodore's more valuable to us a free man. He can order the fleet to hunt Stanley instead of us."

By now the Commodore and two men were in a boat crossing the water to the Black Pearl. Elizabeth reached to hold Will's hand, as it occurred to her that he could misinterpret her defense of Norrington.

"He's very brave to come over here, alone and unarmed," Will told her, approvingly.

Elizabeth squeezed his hand, reminded of why she loved him.

We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs!
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Will watched with interest as the three Navy men came aboard the Black Pearl, covered at every moment by a number of pistols and rifles. Tight- lipped, they submitted to being searched by a pair of unwashed, half-clad buccaneers. The guard was dropped when it was determined that they were, indeed, unarmed, but Norrington was holding something which one man took from him and handed to Jack. Jack unfurled an admiralty flag.

"Welcome aboard, Commodore," said Jack. "What's this for?"

Norrington stepped forward. "This ship will become my flagship. I'm commandeering her to pursue the Tarantula."

Jack shook his head, and, at a signal from Gibbs, all the weapons that had been lowered were raised and again aimed at the soldiers.

"You're aboard my ship, Commodore, and I'm not about to allow her to be commandeered." Jack tossed the standard aside, where it fell, crumpled, on the deck.

"Captain Sparrow," said Norrington, "your ship is under my guns. If my men lose sight of me, or if anything happens to me, they will open fire."

"No need for threats, Mate. We mean you no harm. If you cripple the Pearl, we'll be two damaged ships on a big ocean. Let's begin again. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Commodore Norrington." Jack made a dismissive motion with his hand, and the weapons were lowered, slowly. "I am able to offer you aid. We can provide you with equipment and lumber for repairs, as well as an escort to Port Royal, or whatever anchorage you prefer. All you have to do is listen to what Will and Elizabeth Turner have to tell you. What say you to that?"

At the mention of the Turners, Norrington sought them out with a surprised expression, but then looked back at Jack. "We're wasting time, Sparrow. The Tarantula is getting away. I don't care what tale you have to tell. Captain Stanley just attacked a Royal Navy ship! Under a pirate standard!"

"My standard, Commodore. The skull and crossed scimitars is my pirate standard, and he's using it. Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth stepped forward and took a deep breath. "James, George Town was attacked by a ship that looked exactly like the Black Pearl, except that it had dolphins on the afterdeck instead of . . . that." She nodded her head toward the afterdeck's ornaments.

Norrington glanced at the stern, and also looked briefly at the entire configuration of the ship.

"Turner?" Jack called next.

Will was ready, and tried to concentrate on the part of his story that mattered. "Captain Stanley has an exact duplicate of the Black Pearl's figurehead hidden under black sails in steerage. I saw them. He says he hand-picked his crew of men for their brutality. He's been pretending to be the Black Pearl. He nearly hanged me for finding out."

The Commodore listened attentively.

"Why?" he asked, simply.

"He's looking for the Isle de Muerte," Jack answered. "Turner was to be his cipher. He attacked you because he thinks he knows where it is, now, and he doesn't need to play Navy man anymore."

"So the Isle de Muerte is where he's headed."

"He thinks he is. Surely you don't believe I told him its true location."

"But you do know where he's headed."

Jack smiled slowly. "I know where he's headed."

The Commodore tapped his foot. When Jack was not forthcoming with more than his provoking smile, Norrington said, "Mr. Turner?"

"Sir?" Will answered, automatically.

"Where is Stanley headed?"

Jack gave Will a cool look.

Will did not hesitate. "Commodore, my conditional enlistment is over. I have nothing more to tell you."

Jack bowed to Will, his hands together, and then gave Norrington a cheerful grin. "Now here's the plan, Mate. We load up the lumber for you and when you and your men are safe aboard your little boat, I'll shout the location across to you, savvy? And we'll be on our way."

In fact, the lumber was already loaded in the small boat. The Commodore left Jack and ordered the two other men to row the boat back to the Deadly Earnest. Then he returned to the conversation.

"You're not going?" Jack asked, sounding disappointed.

"I'm not going. We must pursue the Tarantula and stop her!"

Jack looked astonished. "We 'must' do nothin' of the kind! Besides, he's flying a pirate banner now. Under the Code I can fight him if he steals from me, but I can't betray a brother pirate to you."

"But, Jack," Elizabeth objected, "those people he murdered. They're entitled to justice."

"All well and good, Love, but I see no profit in it for us. The Commodore knows we aren't the ones who committed those crimes, and that's all I wanted."

"He stole your name," Norrington said. "Don't you want revenge for that?"

"What's in a name? He didn't steal my ship. I may not like his methods, but it's really not my affair."

"Jack," Will said. "You arranged for the Deadly Earnest to be attacked. It's your fault they can't pursue him."

Jack squinted in what Will had come to realize was a wince.

"Jack," put in Elizabeth, "please do this. You still owe me. Then we'll be square."

Jack looked from one Turner to the other, dropping a lot of his usual façade. He looked genuinely regretful. "It's not for me to say, Lass. This is a pirate ship. We all decide what to go after, not just me. Why would the men do this? Risk their lives for what? There's nothing to tempt them."

Will saw his wife's eyes narrow in thought, then widen as she had an idea. "A pardon!" she whirled to Norrington. "A full pardon for the whole crew, for any past crimes."

"I don't have that authority," Norrington replied archly.

"But you could get it. I know where," she insisted.

Norrington looked out at the deck of pirate faces turned toward him. Now that the small boat was loaded and launched, most of the crew had gathered on deck, listening.

Jack watched him, a tension in his usually relaxed body.

"There's a matter of justice there, too . . . " Norrington fumbled with the words.

Gazing innocently out to sea, Will said, "I imagine Stanley will be very difficult for the Navy to hunt, since he knows all the Navy's weaknesses."

"Is a pardon on the table, Mate?" Jack asked. "I've got to have something to offer them."

Norrington looked from Jack to the Turners, and back again. He looked out to sea, where the Tarantula had fled.

"Yes. Yes!" he said. "Capture or kill Stanley and his crew, and I'll get a full pardon for you and all your men."

"And women?"

"What? Er, yes. The whole crew."

"Pardon for all past crimes?" Jack asked, looking to the side, at Gibbs.

Norrington followed his gaze, and froze, seeing Gibbs. The two men stared for a long moment. "Yes," Norrington choked. "All past crimes."

"Elizabeth," Jack asked. "Will he keep his word?"

"He'll keep it, or I'll blacken his honor to all of Society," she said.

Jack looked blank. "So . . .?"

"He'll keep it," Elizabeth said.

Jack whirled and leaped up to stand beside AnaMaria at the helm, facing the crew. "What say you?" he called out. "Do we chase and attack the Tarantula in return for pardons?"

For a few moments the crew looked at each other. Then AnaMaria cried, "Aye!" and raised a fist in the air.

"Aye!" answered the crew, waving their weapons.

"Wind in the sails!" cried Cotton's parrot.

"All hands ahoy!" Jack bellowed. "Bear-a-hand up and make sail."

The crew leaped into action.

"Turner!" yelled Gibbs. "Lay aloft to loose the topsails."

And with no further ceremony than that, Will was a member of a third ship's crew in as many weeks. He kissed Elizabeth's hand, then obeyed, glad to be able to help.

He noticed immediately a difference between Jack's crew and the Navy crews. Everything here was done with a will, whereas, on both of the other ships, the sailors lifted no hand until they were ordered to it, and cared not whether their job was done fast or slow, unless there was a lash behind them. Rather than neatly defined stations - each man responsible for his assigned lines and hawsers - everyone on the Black Pearl seemed to know every job, and the nearest man to a needed task leaped to it.

Gibbs had sent him to the topsails, but had not specified which one. Since he was nearest the foremast, Will "laid aloft" there, the other crewmen making room for him with friendly nods.

In moments the topsails were sheeted home, the head yards braced aback, and the fore-top-mast staysail hoisted.

"All ready forward?" asked Jack.

"Aye, aye; all ready," answered Gibbs.

"Let go!"

"All gone, Cap'n!" and the vessel's head swung off from the wind under the force of her backed head sails, and they were under weigh.

Propelled by the trade winds rushing down the Windward Passage, the Black Pearl sped south-southeast, on the same heading the Tarantula had taken as she fled the scene of her crime. The bow of the pirate ship rose and dived confidently on the breakers. When Will was finished aloft, he looked back at the helm and saw that Jack had relieved AnaMaria at the wheel, and that Elizabeth and the Commodore stood near him. Elizabeth gripped the gunwale and leaned out, peering ahead into the wind, her long hair streaming behind her.

Lacking any instructions, he descended and headed aft to join them.

Jack appeared not to notice when Will stood at his shoulder, but Elizabeth came and gripped Will's hand again. The Commodore took Elizabeth's place at the rail, scanning the horizon. They stayed like that for many minutes, Jack's ship bounding over the sea at nigh uncatchable speed, salty spray stinging them all, and occasionally, the luff of a sail hitting the mast with a sound like thunder. Will slid his hand around his wife's waist and realized he had gone from fearing his life was over to feeling perfectly happy in under an hour.

Jack broke Will's reverie with a yell. "Gibbs! AnaMaria!"

When he had the attention of the two of them, Jack's manner shifted. "Would you mind terribly joining me up here?" he asked, in a very un-captainy way. The two pirates glanced at each other, Gibbs on deck, and AnaMaria just starting to ascend the mainmast rigging. They both left their work and climbed up to the wheel. Jack grinned at them. "Stand there for a bit," he said.

Looking puzzled, AnaMaria and Gibbs joined Will and Elizabeth, making a cluster of four behind Jack at the wheel, with Norrington off to the side. Jack hummed to himself as the wind whistled through the riggings.

AnaMaria scowled her question at Will, and he shrugged.

Finally Gibbs stepped forward. "Er, Captain? We've got ourselves some work to do; did you need something?"

"No, I'm done," said Jack. "You can go to it."

AnaMaria hopped into the waist immediately, shaking her head. Gibbs gave Jack a puzzled half smile, and followed her.

Will chuckled.

"What's Jack doing?" Elizabeth asked.

"I don't know," Will said, but he thought he did. For a few moments Jack had been at the helm of his beloved ship and surrounded by his favorite people.

Will squeezed Elizabeth harder.

Norrington came away from the rail and faced the wheel. "Sparrow," he said, "there's no sign of her. She's the same class as your ship - faster than the Interceptor was. You'd better be right about where she's headed, because we won't catch her."

"But, Commodore, we have something the Tarantula doesn't," Will said.

"What's that?"

Will felt pleased that the Commodore, who on the Deadly Earnest would hardly deign to speak to a lowly seaman like Will, was now the one in the dark. He smiled. "We have Captain Jack Sparrow."

Jack laughed. "The Commodore's right to be concerned. Stanley may not be going where we think. He doesn't know what to believe, now."

"You think he didn't believe you were telling the truth, after all?" Will asked.

"If you were Stanley, Mate, would you have believed me?"

Will thought about that. "If I were Stanley," he said, "I wouldn't be able to resist checking."

Jack nodded slowly, his eyes half closed as he looked over the bow out to sea.

Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Norrington looking frustrated. It must be difficult for a habitual commander to stand by and let others make the decisions, Will reflected, with a touch of pleasure. He knew Norrington must feel a bit out of his element; on a Navy ship, the captain would never take the helm, himself, as Jack did.

Will studied how Jack caressed the wheel, holding his course with confidence, his gaze flicking from the surface sea currents to the telltales, small streamers attached to the masts and lines indicating the direction of the winds. Even with his wife in one arm, Will's hands itched to hold the helm, himself.

Elizabeth led Will to the stairs below the wheel where the two of them could sit and talk quietly for a while. There they each heard the other's story.

They both looked up when they felt Jack adjust their course to port, heading the ship almost due east. "We must be south of Hispaniola, now," Elizabeth said. Will wished he had the map of the Caribbean in his head the way she seemed to. He resolved to study up at the first chance he had.

The sun lowered behind them, bringing to a close one of the longest days of Will's life. A bone-deep weariness gripped him, and he began to notice some aches and stiffness from his various exertions. He didn't care to ever recall again his struggle underwater to reach his boot, extract the blade without dropping it, and slice his hands free of the ropes, all the while sinking deeper. He glanced up at Jack. "Jack's been a prisoner for days," he said to Elizabeth. "He must be tired."

"More likely hungry," Elizabeth said with a small smile.

Will frowned. "I think they fed him . . ." he said, puzzled.

"Never mind," she said, her smile broadening. She stood, and Will followed her. They approached Jack, just as Norrington came toward him from the other side.

Whatever she had intended to do or say, she paused, as some activity pre-empted her.

"Furl the gallants and reef the topsails!" Jack sang out.

This time Will climbed the mizzenmast rigging, since it was nearest to him. As he worked, the sound of the conversation below carried up to him clearly.

"Sparrow!" said Norrington, "We're losing the wind and you're dropping canvas?"

"Don't want to catch them now, with night coming on," Sparrow answered mildly. "They lost the wind before we did."

"You afraid to fight him at night?" Norrington asked.

"I don't want to spend all night worrying that he's sneaking up on us. We haven't seen him yet, so he hasn't seen us. When he knows we're chasing him, he'll turn and fight."

Like everyone else aloft, Will strained his eyes to scan the ocean. He saw nothing but the foam-frosted expanse of water stretching to the edge of the earth in the twilight. He sighed and climbed down.

"Once it's dark, we'll set the sails again and lay ahead with no lights," Jack was saying. "Maybe we'll see theirs."

Jack spotted Will. "Bootstrap, take the helm," he said. "I want to get a fresh shirt."

Will exchanged startled glances with Elizabeth, but hurried to the wheel, delighted. Jack relinquished the helm with no sign that he had noticed anything odd about what he had said.

"Uh, Jack, I have petticoats drying in your cabin," Elizabeth said. "The crew let me use the captain's cabin . . ."

"That's all right, Love," Jack said with a weary shrug as he turned to go.

"Captain Sparrow!" Norrington called. "You aren't going to see the lady's undergarments!"

If Will had needed a second indicator that Jack was tired, he would have had it when Jack turned and snapped, "I bloody well am, Mate, and it's not the first time!"

In his most haughty voice, Norrington said, "You are no gentleman, sir."

Gibbs appeared at Jack's side, his hand on the hilt of a cutlass.

Jack's countenance was a canvas of changing emotion. He went from annoyance to surprise to laughter in seconds. He held out a restraining hand to Gibbs as he guffawed. Gibbs relaxed, and so did Will.

Norrington grew more rigid, if that were possible.

"Turner!" Norrington barked. "Are you going to stand for this?"

Will's mind whirled, but one thought came through clearly - Elizabeth would not easily forgive him for doing or saying anything on her behalf without first knowing her mind on the matter. He looked at his wife and saw on her face only anger at Norrington.

Jack recovered himself, and, his eyes still sparkling with mirth, bowed deeply toward Will. "Mr. and Mrs. Turner, I apologize," he said. "Mr. Turner, excuse my slight to your wife. Mrs. Turner, go and hide your petticoats. Commodore, don't provoke my helmsman; he has his hands full. And give us some warning before you do that again, Mate! It's not healthy to laugh this hard."

Jack and Gibbs moved away to speak together, and Elizabeth slid around them, hurrying to comply.

Still looking angry, Norrington spoke to Will. "Is that true ?" he asked.

"What, that Jack has seen my wife in her undergarments? That's right. I was there."

"You. Were?" Norrington looked so scandalized, that Will had a hard time keeping a straight face.

"She was in her chemise when Barbossa put them both overboard. That's how you found them, remember?"

"That incident with Sparrow substantially ruined Elizabeth's reputation; you know that," Norrington said.

Will no longer found the conversation funny. "I notice you were still willing to marry her."

Norrington lifted his chin. "Out of respect for her father. It was charity."

"Nothing to do with love? Well, I'm so glad she got the better man, then."

"You are a blacksmith."

"I am a pirate. Aboard a pirate ship. You forget your place, Commodore."

Jack appeared, in that uncanny way he had of popping up, unheard. "Commodore, I asked you not to provoke my helmsman."

Tight-lipped, Norrington turned away.

"You need to correct a bit to port, Lad. He distracted you. The tide's running out; do you feel it?"

Will did. Like a wind where there was no wind, the current was nudging the ship. He corrected, and grinned at Jack. "That tells me there's land to the north, even though I can't see it, right?"

Jack nodded. "Aye. But you need to learn the feel of a tide from the feel of other currents. It can fool you."

Elizabeth emerged from the captain's cabin carrying a stuff sack, and wearing trousers and a shawl around her shoulders against the evening chill. "All clear, Jack," she said, as she joined them.

Jack saluted her insolently and headed for the cabin. "I'll be back when it's full dark," he said.

Darkness settled over the ocean and on the ship, like a thick blanket, isolating each man from his neighbor. Gibbs gave the orders to light no lanterns - the sailors were not even to light their pipes.

Elizabeth remained at Will's side. Where Norrington went, Will didn't see.

The wind was light, and the Black Pearl glided slowly through the darkness. Sometime during the dead of night, they lost the wind altogether. "Shall we run out the sweeps, Cap'n?" Gibbs asked.

"Wait 'til dawn," answered Jack, studying the southern sky.

Will relinquished the helm to AnaMaria around midnight, and he and Elizabeth talked and dozed together quite cozily next to one of the aft capstans. The off-duty sailors slung hammocks around the deck, adding ghostly webbing to the dark ship.

When the sun rose, no one could see it. Dawn turned the air gray. The Black Pearl was mired in pea-soup thick fog, without a breath of wind. The pirates performed some of the early morning chores Will was familiar with, such as swabbing the deck, but the fog kept everyone's thoughts only half on what they were doing.

Jack was at the helm.

"I hope you have a real compass, Sparrow," Norrington said to him.

"Don't worry, Mate," replied the ineffable pirate. "I know where we are."

"Then man your oars and row us out of this."

"I know where we are, but who can say what's ahead of us? Stanley's out there somewhere. We've caught a good current taking us east. It's enough."

"Ship ahoy!" called a youthful voice from the foremast rigging.

The entire crew came alert.

"Cap'n, she's burning!" the young man added.

Will and Elizabeth clambered forward on the starboard side, with most of the rest of the crew. The patchy fog floated before their gaze like waving curtains, but Will could make out the glow of a fire, through the mist.

"Run out the starboard sweeps!" ordered Gibbs, but half the crew was already ducking belowdecks.

It was remarkable to Will the way Jack's crew anticipated their leaders' orders. It was as if the whole crew understood what needed to be done, and only waited for confirmation from Jack, Gibbs, or AnaMaria.

Before long the rowers had brought the Black Pearl around, and moved her nearer to the flames. The skeleton of a good-sized ship protruded grotesquely from the placid waters, masts and bowsprit afire like cockeyed candles on a cake. No other pieces of wood clung together large enough to support even a single man above water.

"Could it be the Tarantula?" asked Elizabeth, as she, Will, Norrington, and much of the crew stood staring at the wreck.

"Too many masts," Will told her.

Jack had the dinghies lowered, and his crew rowed carefully amid the burning wreckage. They returned with fishing nets full of salvaged goods. As the crew picked gleefully through the pile, taking anything they saw that they liked, Will sensed Elizabeth's growing indignation.

"Jack," she demanded. "Your men weren't looking for survivors?"

"Calm yourself, Missy," Jack said, plucking a fine tri-corner hat from the pile and trying it on. "If they'd found anyone, they'd have brought them aboard."

"Captain Sparrow," said Norrington, also watching the crew's antics with distaste, "did your men find any evidence of what ship she was and what happened to her?"

"Here you go, Commodore," called a scrawny pirate. The man tossed a large piece of planking at Norrington, who caught it awkwardly.

"M.S. PATRIO" was painted on the wood in green. Will saw it, and he saw Norrington tip the planking away, so others could not easily see it. Others, like Elizabeth.

"The Patriot?" she asked. She moved in front of Will to grip the planking by one end.

Norrington moved slightly to prevent her, but was too well mannered to simply snatch it away from her. "Mrs. Turner . . ." he began.

"Will!" Elizabeth gasped. "My father was to return on the H.M.S. Patriot! That's his ship!"

Will reached for her, but she whirled away in a panic to confront Jack.

"Jack! You have to look for survivors! We have to look again. Please!"

She was ringed by Will, Jack, and Norrington, each of whom regarded her with combinations of shock and pity. Even the other pirates curbed their gaiety, as Gibbs hushed them.

"I don't care if it delays us," she aimed at Norrington, before turning back to Jack. "Look again, Jack, please! They might have missed someone in the fog." Tears spilled down her face.

A sick feeling in Will's stomach told him no one had survived the explosion that must have destroyed the Patriot, and he suspected that Jack and Norrington knew it too. But it would have taken a stronger man than Will to deny her, and, apparently, a stronger man than Jack, as well.

"Aye, Lass," he said simply. "We'll look again."

Will held his distraught wife as the crew readied every boat they had on board. He wished desperately that he could think of something to say that would comfort her.

Norrington waited discreetly until she had regained some composure. Then he approached.

"Mrs. Turner, please take some comfort," he said, formally. In his hand he held a beaker of some drink, which he extended to her. She accepted it cautiously. "We can't know he was aboard. It's quite possible that he was delayed in London. The Patriot would have returned on schedule with or without him; I needed them here."

For the first time it occurred to Will that Commodore Norrington had lost men and, quite possibly, friends, on the Patriot.

"Thank you, James," Elizabeth said, in an uncharacteristically small voice. She took a sip of the drink. "But he wrote me that he planned to return with them."

"I beg you, do not lose all hope. We don't yet know all of what has happened." He bowed slightly and retreated. Will watched him go, both jealous of his manners and grateful for them.

Elizabeth turned in Will's grasp to face him. "Rum?" she offered with a brave smile.

"No, thank you," Will smiled back. "You drink it."

"I hate it," she confided.

"Consider it medicine," he said.

She frowned, but managed a few more swallows. Then she gave him an alarmed look, squirmed free of his embrace and moved to the stern where she was violently sick over the rail.

Alarmed himself, Will hurried to procure some water for her, which she accepted gratefully. "You really don't like rum," he said as she drank.

She nodded, still recovering.

Will looked for something to distract her. "Do you want to go out in one of the boats?" he asked.

"No," she said, and her hopeless expression wrung Will's heart, "he's not out there anywhere. I know it."

The pirates searched the waters surrounding the wreck, calling into the fog, but found no one. They could not be deterred from looting anything of value they found in the water, but at least they didn't celebrate within Elizabeth's hearing.

Will found a blanket to wrap her in, and stayed with her, even after the boats had all returned, the last of the Patriot had sunk beneath the sea, and Jack began giving orders to row the Black Pearl to the south. Norrington, Will could see by his gestures as he spoke to Jack, didn't agree with the course change. Will was curious about it himself, but figured he'd learn its reason soon enough. The crew could manage without him for a bit.

Jack stood forward at the bow, peering constantly through his spyglass. Will couldn't imagine what Jack thought to see through the fog, but as time wore on, the fog thinned, and Will thought it would be gone before long.

Jack lowered his spyglass and left his position, approaching the two of them.

"Elizabeth," he said gently, "do you remember you told me your father couldn't find the Isle de Muerte if his salvation depended on it?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Do you really believe that?"

Elizabeth gave Will a puzzled look. "My father has never had any interest in sailing. He's no navigator." Will noticed she didn't say "was."

"Norrington tells me they talked, though, on the way to the Isle de Muerte. The Governor knew enough to know it's located south from the Greater Antilles."

"What are you getting at, Jack?" asked Will, wishing the man wouldn't talk to Elizabeth about her father just now.

"Come with me," Jack said to Elizabeth. "I want to show you something."

The two of them followed Jack forward, to where he had been standing for the last hour. He handed Elizabeth the spyglass and pointed. "What do you see?"

Elizabeth didn't take long. She started, and looked at Jack in astonishment. "A ship!" she cried, attracting the attention of the nearest crewmen. She looked again, as Jack nodded.

"It's the Tarantula," he said calmly.

Will held out his hand for the spyglass and Elizabeth gave it to him. As Will focused on the Navy ship occasionally visible through the thinning mist, Jack asked her,

"Why do you think they suddenly turned to the south?"

Elizabeth gasped and looked at Jack with hope renewed.

The pirate grinned hugely at her and bellowed, "Ship ahoy! Double speed and run out the guns! Those villains are after our gold!"

Yo ho, yo ho,
A pirate's life for me!

As the morning sun grew warmer, the fog burned off like a curtain lifting. At first the Black Pearl's rowers gained on the Navy ship, bringing her within sight, but then the warming atmosphere of the Caribbean Sea raised a stiff southerly wind, and both ships had to beat to southward. Rowing became pointless, and it was just as well, because the whole crew was needed for the constant adjusting of the sails that it took in order to tack.

Jack left Gibbs to orchestrate the sails, watching the Tarantula carefully from where he stood at the wheel. Norrington, too, his lean body tense as he rested against a rail, looked at nothing but the other ship. Elizabeth kept one eye on the Tarantula, and watched Will with the other as he stationed himself on the mainsail yard.

She noticed, at about the same time Norrington must have, when the Tarantula traveled a little too far on a port tack without tacking about. The Commodore headed for the stairs to where Jack stood, Elizabeth hard on his heels.

"Sparrow!" Norrington called. "She's coming about."

"Aye," Sparrow said. "I wondered when he'd decide to fight."

The three of them watched in silence, as the calls of the crew echoed around them. The Tarantula turned with the wind and bore down on them. Gibbs prepared the guns, and at Sparrow's order, reefed sails, slowing the ship.

"Commodore," asked Sparrow, sounding no more concerned than if he were inquiring after the health of the man's family, "as a well-trained Navy man, what will Stanley try first?"

Norrington studied the pirate captain for a moment. "He'll try to rake us," he said.

"Interesting," said Sparrow. "Gibbs?"

"Aye, Cap'n. Blast shot through the part of our ship where there're no guns, at no risk to them. Standard Navy tactic for single ships."

"Fore or aft?" asked Sparrow.

"It depends on what he plans for his next move," Norrington answered. "Or," he shrugged, "what looks easiest. I know Stanley. He prefers a head- on fight. I say fore."

Sparrow nodded, his head tipped at a thoughtful angle. "I prefer aft, so we'll make that the easiest. Gibbs, don't run them out, but man the sweeps."

"We don't have the men for the guns and the sweeps," said Gibbs.

"Take the men off the starboard guns. We're not going to fight; we're going to take the lead in our little race."

Gibbs smiled.

Elizabeth found she was breathing fast as the Navy ship grew larger. She was bursting with questions, but held her tongue.

Norrington had no such compunction. "Sparrow," he said, "this is your chance. Your ships are evenly matched. I'll advise you on tactics. Sink her!"

"My father's on that ship, Commodore!" Elizabeth protested.

Norrington gave her an impatient, if pitying, look. "We don't know that," he said.

Never taking his gaze from the approaching warship, Sparrow smiled tightly. "Thank ye kindly, Commodore, but I hate people blowing holes in my ship."

The Tarantula grew closer and closer, her jolly roger flying proudly. The men on the Pearl's deck loaded firearms, and glanced uneasily at their captain. Elizabeth wondered if there was a spare rifle for her. She also worried for Will and the others aloft. They were such obvious targets, and all unarmed.

Will had remarked to her how the Pearl's crew seemed to anticipate their orders, and, for the first time, Elizabeth saw it, too. AnaMaria was above Will in the mainmast rigging, and Elizabeth heard her warn, "Prepare to tack about!"

Jack whirled the wheel hard to starboard. They were already on a starboard tack, so now the vessel's stern swung out, toward the approaching ship.

With the wind behind her, the Tarantula easily adjusted course to bring her port guns at the correct angle to rake the Black Pearl's stern. As soon as Sparrow saw she was committed, he called, "Helm's a lee! Run out the sweeps!"

"Helm's a lee!" answered Gibbs. The head sheets flapped as they were let go. Elizabeth heard the grinding sound of the oars sliding on the hull.

"Raise tacks and sheets!" called Sparrow.

She had seen the full process of changing tack many times. Sparrow was bringing his ship as hard to port as he could, given that they were fighting a headwind, almost doubling back on the other ship's course. Elizabeth only hoped they would move in time to evade the Tarantula's cannons. She and Norrington watched breathlessly as the warship slid behind their rotating stern. The Tarantula was so close, now, she could see the men in their Navy uniforms, and she looked desperately for a glimpse of her father. Still, the guns could only shoot straight out from the side, and the Black Pearl was slipping past the Tarantula, into position where the two ships could fire broadside to broadside.

"Let go, and haul!" ordered Sparrow, spinning the wheel all the way to port. "Full speed on the sweeps!"

As one, the yards spun like tops as the crew let go their braces. Now under full sail, and with rowers at their stations, the Black Pearl leaped into her new tack.

Elizabeth was so caught up in the activity that she hadn't noticed Norrington, until now, when he put a firm hand around her shoulders. "Mrs. Turner, I think it wise that you . . ."

He was interrupted by simultaneous cannon fire, issuing from both ships. The deck beneath her shook, almost throwing her off her feet, so that she couldn't but be grateful for his supporting arm.

Cannon balls pounded into the sea and splintered into the hull below, but when Elizabeth opened her eyes, their ship was past the Tarantula, beating full speed to the south. The Tarantula fired another, frustrated volley at where the Black Pearl had been, to no avail.

A great cheer went up from the pirates, and they threw themselves into their work with vigor. Elizabeth twisted free from Norrington and looked up into the rigging for Will, and was rewarded by his triumphant wave.

The Tarantula came about speedily, as well, but now both ships once again had to pursue zig-zag courses into the wind, and the Black Pearl was in the lead.

With each tack, Sparrow consulted what looked to Elizabeth to be the broken compass he had had on him the day he had saved her from drowning. Belowdecks, crewmen worked at repairing the damage done by the one cannon shot.

Norrington asked, "So, Sparrow, what have you accomplished but to run from a fight? What now? Do we lead them to Isle De Muerte?"

Sparrow snapped the compass shut. "Dead Man's Passage, Mate. It's on the way."

The Tarantula pursued them, but never gained. Elizabeth smiled, thinking that even against another ship of the same class, the Black Pearl was still the fastest ship in the Caribbean. She felt it had a lot to do with the skill and dedication of the crew.

All morning the race continued beneath sparkling skies and a mild sun. The two ships remained ever in sight of each other, but never very near. The crew settled in to the routine of constant tacking. Feeling useless, Elizabeth waited for a chance to ask AnaMaria to show her a way she could help. She wasn't sure that any of the men would take her request seriously.

Even AnaMaria scowled dubiously at her, until Elizabeth insisted she was in earnest. Then the dark-skinned pirate positioned her in the bow at the spanker-sheet and guy, and showed her how to ease the sheet to leeward after the mainsail was hauled aft when tacking. The first time Elizabeth did it on her own, she reported proudly into the din of the other crew reports, "Well, the spanker-sheet!" her shrill voice capturing the attention of every man on board.

Norrington, as she had anticipated, was the first to object. "Mrs. Turner!" he said, coming forward to her position. "This is not work for a woman! It's dangerous business."

It wasn't Norrington's opinion Elizabeth cared about. She looked for Will, and found him in the rigging looking at her with a mixture of amusement and concern. She smiled proudly at him, and he smiled back. She had been determined to oppose even her husband's disapproval, but was immensely relieved not to have it.

"I won't be a useless passenger, Commodore," she said.

Norrington opened his mouth and closed it again. He wasted no time arguing with her, but turned to the captain of the ship. Elizabeth's stomach tightened. It was Sparrow's command, and she felt herself obliged to obey his orders in the running of his own ship.

"Sparrow," Norrington demanded, "you can't allow this."

Sparrow glanced coolly at Elizabeth and she glared back at him. "The spanker's not so well, Lass," he said mildly.

Elizabeth lifted her chin.

"Small pull the spanker-sheet!" he ordered. "Tearlach, show her."

A nearby crewman approached, and Elizabeth relinquished her line to him. He pulled in to windward and returned the line to her. Elizabeth tried to send Sparrow a grateful look, but he had already turned away. She smiled evilly at Norrington, who also turned away from her.

Later she confided to AnaMaria her surprise that Sparrow had allowed her a station on the sails. "Why does he allow a woman to do a man's work?" she asked. She didn't mean only herself. "No one else would."

AnaMaria threw a glance in the direction of the captain, and her customary scowl softened very slightly. "The captain believes in freedom," she said. "Equal shares."

"What about women being bad luck on a ship?"

"There are exceptions," said AnaMaria. "Me, they all think I'm a sorceress."

"And me?" Elizabeth asked with some dread.

AnaMaria gave her a speculative look. "Cap'n says you're pregnant."

"What!!"

"Well, if it ain't true, better be quiet about it. Pregnant women and naked women ain't bad luck. Which do you want?"

Elizabeth got no more from her, as they all prepared for another tack.

In the afternoon, the wind shifted, and tacking was no longer necessary. Both ships sped on course under full sails.

"Jack seems pleased," Will told her, as they downed some food together. "I think the headwind worried him, for some reason."

"What exactly is Dead Man's Passage?" she asked.

"That's what they call the approach to Isle De Muerte. Remember, with all the hidden reefs and wrecks?"

She did remember. "And sharks," she said.

Will nodded, his mouth full.

"What's he going to do there?"

Will shrugged.

Elizabeth kissed him on the cheek and returned to work with a strangely light heart.

"Land ho!" called a lookout.

Ahead of them, rimming the horizon, lay a mist-enshrouded island.

Elizabeth looked back at the distant Tarantula. Now they too knew the location of the Isle De Muerte.

"Reef all sails!" ordered Sparrow, and the crew scrambled to obey. The ship slowed, and Sparrow steered a leisurely course around the island to the approach. The Tarantula, under full sail, bore down on them very fast.

Then Elizabeth lost track of the Tarantula as Sparrow ordered a series of, to her, incomprehensible maneuvers. She struggled to comply at her own station with the commands. When she could look about again, she saw that they were positioned with the wind astern, aimed directly at the Passage. But still Sparrow had only light sails flying; the Black Pearl hardly moved.

The Tarantula, however, closed with them at full speed.

"Ready all sails!" Sparrow called, watching the Tarantula. "Loose all sails!"

"All sails, Aye!" answered the crew, and in moments the Black Pearl's wings were unfurled and she flew into Dead Man's Passage at top speed.

Elizabeth's position was full forward, and Norrington joined her there, his face pale and his knuckles white as he gripped the rail and stared into the waters ahead. At the helm, Sparrow steered them at reckless speed, through reefs and wrecks and who knows what hidden perils. Elizabeth felt the whole crew cringing, and holding their breaths. She too, gasped as she saw sharp coral zip by the bow, missing the ship by only a very little bit. She had to stop looking at the water, instead she peered aft, trying to see the Tarantula.

Just when she felt she could endure the agony of apprehension no more, she heard a sound that would haunt her nightmares to come. A deep, moaning groan echoed all around her, lingering for a long time, like some huge monster yawning. Everyone froze until Sparrow ordered, "Furl all sails! Prepare to come about!" which broke the spell and allowed the crew to move again. Losing all sail slowed their progress significantly, and, while still coasting on the momentum, Sparrow began to turn the ship entirely around. The bow, where Elizabeth was, swung back toward the Tarantula.

The Navy ship, she now saw, had slammed into something that had torn a huge rip in her hull, visible at the waterline, and possibly worse below. The ship listed near to scuppers, helpless.

Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!

Will took a deep breath, only now realizing he hadn't been breathing. He swung and leaped down from the rigging, as most of the others were doing, too. Guns were more likely to be needed now than sails. He joined Elizabeth and Norrington at the bow.

"Ready port guns!" shouted Gibbs.

"Port guns, Aye!" answered the crew, part of the response muffled by the fact that half the crew were already belowdecks.

Elizabeth greeted him with a worried smile and returned to staring at the Tarantula. Will knew what she was looking for, and he also peered ahead, looking for a glimpse of a familiar powdered wig.

Stanley appeared, with a calling cone.

"Parley!" he called.

Still at the helm, Jack smiled. "Very good, Mate!" he called back. "Parley it is. What do you want?"

"Back away, out of range until we've made repairs!"

"I don't think so," Jack replied. "Your guns are aimed at the sun. Why should we go anywhere?"

Behind Stanley some men came forward, pushing another man to the rail of the ship. Will and Elizabeth tensed, and she gripped him tightly.

"Back off or Governor Swann is dead!"

"Father," Elizabeth said.

Will and Elizabeth looked anxiously back at Jack.

"Sparrow …" said Norrington.

Jack ignored him. "What's the old man mean to us?" he called back.

Elizabeth made a slight sound, and Will squeezed her.

"You're bluffing!" Stanley said. "I mean it! He's of no use to me now."

"Sparrow, they can't repair that damage!" Norrington called back toward the helm. "They're sinking."

Jack nodded, still looking at the Tarantula. "Here's my offer, Captain Stanley. Send the Governor over to us or I'll blow your ship to splinters and feed you to the sharks right now."

"There's no profit in that for us," answered Stanley. "We'll sink anyway. Can't you conduct a proper parley?"

"Damn fast learner," Jack complained to his own crew. To Stanley he said, "You can't make repairs, Captain, so what's the point and purpose? We're your only hope."

"Here's my offer," replied Stanley. "You and all your crew get into your boats. My crew transfers to your ship, and I'll be happy to leave the Governor behind with you."

Those crewmembers who were still on the Pearl's deck cried a protest.

"Quiet, you dogs!" Gibbs ordered.

Elizabeth sobbed and buried her face in Will's chest. She knew, as Will knew, that nothing would part Jack from his ship. Over his wife's head he saw the somber expression on Norrington's face. Will looked back at Jack.

Jack shook his head sadly. "Sorry Captain, you've overplayed your hand. But I'll make you a counter-offer. You and your crew get into your boats, leave Swann behind, and we'll leave you here at the Isle de Muerte."

"Sparrow!" cried Norrington.

"Shut up, James!" said Elizabeth, wiping her face.

They all waited to see what Stanley would do. Surely, Will thought, he wouldn't throw away his only leverage by killing Swann, would he? Unless he decided bargaining had become useless. But Jack had offered an alternative, still dependant on Swann being left alive.

After some deliberations with another man, whom Will thought might be the Chief Mate, Stanley called back, "How do I know you'll keep your word, once we've left Swann behind?"

Elizabeth gasped with relief, and Will too, took a deep breath.

"It's your next lesson, Mate!" Jack called back cheerfully. "It's called marooning. Properly, I can't give you to the authorities, but I can leave you here. Maybe the Navy will come for you and maybe they won't. Or you can feed the sharks - your choice."

"Captain Sparrow," Stanley called, "we have an accord."

The pirates on the Black Pearl raised a wild cheer. Elizabeth flung her arms around Will and the two embraced joyfully.

Norrington strode toward Jack.

"Stanley stays behind!" he called to Jack. "I want Stanley!"

"That wasn't part of the deal, Commodore. You want him, you'll have to come back for him. Or save the Navy the trouble of a trial and just let him starve here amid the gold - your choice."

Elizabeth sat in the Governor's parlor, a visitor in the house that had been her own for most of her life. Her father, recovered from his ordeal, sipped tea across from her. Her concerns for him were eased, but now she worried about her husband. Too quiet for days, and uninterested in his work, Will spent many long moments staring at the sea. As he was doing now, standing at the window, his back to the room. The mansion, being on a hill, had a view of a lot of ocean.

"Father," she continued without Will, "I don't care what the Commodore says. He promised Captain Sparrow and his whole crew a pardon."

Her father gave her that maddening look. The look that said "You really can't understand the affairs of adults."

"Sparrow was to capture or kill Stanley and his crew, my dear, and he did neither."

"Oh, that's nonsense! He marooned them and took the Commodore back to the Deadly Earnest. The murderous crew were all taken prisoner. It's not Sparrow's fault that Stanley himself escaped our fine Navy soldiers."

"Sparrow's crew pillaged the Tarantula. They should be happy with the wealth they found in her hold."

"He saved your life, when he didn't have to, doesn't that count for something?"

Her father looked uncomfortable. "And I am grateful, Elizabeth, please believe me. But I was replaced as Governor, and am only acting now because the new Governor was killed aboard the Patriot. They may send a new replacement soon. I don't have the right to hand out pardons."

"Yes, you do! This may be your last chance! Do it now, before anyone takes the power away from you."

Her father shook his head. "I'm sorry my dear. Now Elizabeth, enough about pirates. You should be planning for your blessed event!"

Elizabeth looked at Will, her hand on her stomach, and was relieved that he turned around and smiled.

Swann looked fondly from one of them to the other. "Now, you'll have to excuse me," he said with a knowing smile. He stood, adjusted his perfect waistcoat, and left the room.

Elizabeth joined Will at the window before he could come to her. "I'm going with you," she said.

Will gave her a puzzled look. "Where?"

"Wherever you go. I won't stay behind."

"I would never leave you and the baby," he vowed, a little too earnestly.

"No, you won't," Elizabeth said, "because we're coming with you."

She saw self-conscious understanding in his eyes.

"Where do you think Jack is?" she asked.

"Spending his money, I imagine. He'll be at sea again when it's gone."

Elizabeth nodded, planning. "That's when we'll see him again. We'd better be ready."

She kissed him, and they left the mansion, never looking back.

The End

hits since Nov. 25, 2003.