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"I can't drink in uniform," the ensign said, though he seemed mollified.
"I'll have yours then." Shandy drained his cup and put it down on the table again. The man behind the table refilled it and made yet another mark on his credit sheet.
"It does seem that I've missed the great days of piracy," the ensign sighed. "Davies, Bonnett, Blackbeard all dead, Hornigold and Shandy have taken the pardon - though there is one new one. Do you know Ulysse Segundo?"
"No," said Shandy, carefully picking up his cup. "Dressy name."
"Well, sure. He's got a big three-masted ship called the Ascending Orpheus, and he's taken dozens of ships in the last couple of months. He's supposed to be the most bloodthirsty of all - people are so scared of him that some have jumped into the sea and drowned themselves when it became clear he was going to take their ship!"
"That's pretty scared," Shandy allowed, nodding.
"There's all sorts of stories about him," the ensign went on eagerly, then halted. "Of course, I don't believe most of them. Still, a lot of people seem to. They say he can whistle the wind out of your sails and into his, and that he can navigate and catch you even in the densest fog, and when he captures a ship he not only takes all the gold and jewelry off her, but also the dead bodies of any sailors killed in the capture! Why, he won't even bother with stuff like grain or leather or hardware - he takes only real treasure, though they say he values fresh blood most of all, and has sometimes drained whole crews. One captain who lost his ship to him but lived says there were corpses in the Orpheus's rigging, obviously corpses, rotting - but one of them was talking!"
Shandy smiled. "What'd it have to say?"
"Well ... I don't believe this, of course ... but the captain swore this one corpse kept saying, over and over, 'I am not a dog.' - hey, watch it!" he added angrily, for Shandy had dropped his cup, and rum had splashed on the boy's uniform trousers.
"Where was he seen last," Shandy asked quickly, "and when was it?"
The ensign blinked in surprise at this sudden intense interest, so uncharacteristic of the sleepy-eyed, easygoing man who had seemed to have no other goal in life than to be the settlement drunkard. "Why, I don't know, I - "
"Think!" Shandy seized the young man by his uniform collar and shook him. "Where and when?"
"Uh - near Jamaica, off Montego Bay - not quite a week ago!"
Shandy flung him away, turned on his heel and sprinted toward the shore. "Skank!" he yelled. "Skank, dammit, where - there you are. Come here!"
The young ex-pirate trotted up to him uncertainly. "What's up, Jack?"
"The Jenny's leaving today, this afternoon. Get all the men you can - and provisions - and get aboard her."
"But .. Jack, Venner's going to wait till January, to link up with Charlie Vane ... "
"Damn Venner. Did I ever say I was resigning the captaincy of the Jenny?"
"Well, no, Jack, but we all assumed - "
"Damn your assumptions. Round 'em up and get aboard.
Skank's puzzled frown became a smile. "Sure ... cap'n." He turned and hurried away, his bare feet kicking up sprays of white sand.
Shandy had just run to a beached rowboat and begun to drag it to the water when he remembered where he'd heard of Carib Indians. Crazy old Governor Sawney had mentioned them to him, the night before the Carmichael and the Jenny sailed to meet Blackbeard in Florida. What had the old man said? Something about having killed his share of them in his day.
Shandy paused to squint speculatively up the slope toward the corner of the settlement where the weird old man had set up a little tent for himself. No, he told himself, resuming his struggle with the heavy boat - Sawney's old, but he's not two hundred.
But Shandy paused again a moment later, for he'd remembered something else. The old man had said something about "when you get to that geyser." The Fountain of Youth had been a sort of geyser. And when Shandy gave that first puppet show, and Sawney interrupted it with his ravings, hadn't he said, "faces in the spray ... almas de los perditos ... "? Faces in the spray, souls of the damned ...
Had Sawney been there at one time?
If so, he might be more than two hundred years old. It wouldn't really be surprising. Though it is surprising that he's so deteriorated. I wonder, he thought as once again he resumed tugging at the boat, what he did wrong.
Again he stopped. Well, now, if there is something, he thought, some effect, that can make a babbling idiot of a sorceror who's powerful enough to get to Erebus and buy a century or two of added lifetime, it's something I damn well better know about - if I want to do something more this time than just be picked up and dropped into the ocean.
Slowly at first, then more quickly as he remembered other puzzling things about old Sawney - his flawless but archaic Spanish, his handiness with magic - Shandy climbed back up the slope to the tents.
"Seen the governor around today?" he asked one lean old ex-pirate. "Sawney, I mean - not Rogers."
Shandy was smiling and had tried to keep his tone casual, but the man had seen the end of his conversation with the young ensign, and he stepped back and raised his hands placatingly as he answered. "Sure, Jack, he's in that tent of his, up toward the inlet. Take it easy, huh?"
