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Chapter OneHe was too cheerful for a man who hated so much. His face was too handsome for his angry soul. "Have you looked at this rubbish?" he asked, blue eyes sparkling through a fashionably bearded face.
"No, and I don't care to," replied the old quartermaster, lowering himself into a seat with care, worrying over his aging, unsteady legs.
"Hired to hunt us down," the young captain informed him. "Can you believe that? Governments are hiring men to hunt us down? Ha!" He rose to his full height, and paced before the desk, the excitement of rage illuminating his golden face. "I thought they hated us because we are hunters, because we are practical men who seek compensation for our troubles. And now look what they have done. Hired mercenaries to kill us."
"'Tis the way with those men," grumbled the quartermaster. "Which country is it that's seeking our heads?"
"I don't know," the captain said. "They're all the same. They're all the enemy. Would you just look at this nonsense they've written about us?" He tapped the paper with his callused knuckles and read, "'It is time to take action against the bandits who terrorize our seas.' Well, all right," he admitted, "that part's fair. But listen to this. 'Pirates are stinking, murderous demons without souls.' Now personally, I take offense at that."
"As do I," agreed the quartermaster.
"I, for one, take baths regularly," smiled his captain. "Call me what you like, but not stinking!"
"Not me. I never bathe."
"I've noticed that. But let me read on." He cleared his throat. "'Pirates attack innocent merchant ships.' Did you catch that? Innocent? Have you ever known a merchant shipthat was innocent? Innocent of what? Innocent of flogging its crewmen? No. Innocent of starving its crew? No. Innocent of paying its crew a barmaid's wage while the captain retires to his glamorous plantation after a couple of years? Makes me ill. All right, now listen to this. 'Attack innocent ships, and murder all its crew in the most torturous fashion imaginable.'"
"Oh, now that's outrageous!" cried the quartermaster, who was not usually as passionate as his young captain. "Kill the crew? Are they joking? Every time we've stopped a ship, the crew has begged us to let them join! They hate working aboard those merchant ships. Half of them were abducted in the first place. We're rescuing them, not killing them!"
"And listen to this," added the captain with a furious raise of his dark eyebrow. "And the women aboard are forced to suffer a fate worse than death."
The quartermaster chewed upon his cheek thoughtfully.
"Oh, come now!" cried the captain. "Surely you take offense at that! I certainly do. Being bedded by a lot of handsome gentlemen like ourselves? A fate worse than death? How insulting!" He chuckled brightly, for he had never ravished a woman in his life.
"I've heard some pirates do that sort of thing," the quartermaster said after a moment's pause, "but I know that you are not the only pirate captain who does not tolerate the mistreatment of feminine captives."
"Most of us don't," grumbled the captain. "What the men do with mercenary ladies at port is their own business. But aboard my ship, they'll behave as gentleman. Not so much can be said of honest sailors, I daresay."
"I agree with you wholeheartedly," said the quartermaster. "But it makes no difference. They will say whatever they must in order to get those anti-pirating laws passed. And we've no way to silence them."
"Listen to this," continued the captain, unable to stop his rampage. "'We propose that any merchant convicted of conducting business with a known pirate be sentenced to death, for as an accomplice, he is no less guilty of piracy.'"
"That should hurt business," the old man agreed.
"Hurt business?" cried the outraged captain. "Hurt business? Who cares about business? It's the principal of the matter which troubles me. Imagine hanging a man simply for buying bounty! And they call us murderers?"
"Sir," warned the quartermaster, concerned that his captain was suffering in his youthful rage, "we cannot control this. They will say what they will, and we are unable to reply. I suggest we simply ignore them."
"Ignore them when they are hiring sailors to hunt and kill us?"
"What else can we do? You knew when you signed your life to this ship that pirates are hated. Why do you seek the approval of a world you reject?"
"I reject the dry world, it is true. But I ask that land people leave me be in my chosen life away from them, at sea."
"But you're robbing their ships."
"Why must you be so argumentative? Men of dry land have no business sailing ships. Pirates own the sea, and anything which travels on its waves is rightfully ours."
"You're an idealist, Captain. But your men and I are not. We are happy to be hated, for our own hate is just as deep."
"Well, I am sick of being hated," stormed the captain, his blue eyes flaming bright. "I am an honorable man running a business as honest as any merchant's. What I take is mine, and I share it with my crew, as they are my equals. It is the governments, the 'honest' businessmen, the land creatures who are criminals. They don't want to kill me because I steal their loot. They want to kill me because I am free, and they fear that others will follow me."
"I'm not sure that's true," said the old man with caring eyes. "Why don't we go below and toss some dice with the men? I'm sure they're wanting us to join them. Come. It will take your mind off your troubles."
The handsome captain sighed. "I suppose you're right. I am a bit wound up today."
"You need a woman is all," observed the quartermaster.
"Do you think?" The thought of something soft to hold at night gave the captain's face a sudden and strange glow. "Are we nearing New Providence anytime soon?"
"I don't think so, Captain. We shan't see dry land for some time."
"Hmm, that is a bother. Oh well, we'll just have to invite some comely maidens aboard after our next capture."
"And we'll afford them every courtesy?"
"Absolutely! I insist upon it. In fact, I plan to invite at least one of them to sleep in our most honored quarters--mine."
"You aren't forgetting your principles now, are you, Captain?"
"Absolutely not! I wouldn't dream of harming the poor thing. Nor," he shrugged, "would I dream of allowing her to sleep in the heavily cumbersome undergarments that men of dry land so savagely inflict upon her. And naturally, should she be frightened by a passing storm, I would feel that as her host and captain it was my duty to comfort her."
"And lock the door against suspicious intruders?"
"Naturally."
"You are a true gentleman, Captain."
"Well, I am a pirate after all."
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