Pirate Blood

“Wynne is a pirate, so he must pay for his crimes”, the other man replied.

Without a fair trial? Those thoughts flashed in the corsair’s mind with a disarming easiness. Do you really consider me such a fool, Henry? You’ve dragged me here for a much more important reason. Why are you spinning out? Lost in those thoughts, he got in front of a cell, without even being aware of it. The interior, which had been enveloped in darkness till then, was lighted by Kane’s torch. He saw him fumbling about a heavy brass ring enclosing a dozen keys. He put one of them into the keyhole and made it turn, producing a resounding creaking. The bars opened on a poor, bare room, whose only furniture was a bedstraw. Being underground, there wasn’t any kind of window, neither simple slits. A heavy smell of mould, excrements and urine was hovering all around.

Morgan was very interested in the shape lying on the bedstraw. It was still, covered in a filthy blanket. “Are you sure you didn’t go too far, master Kane? We want this man to be hanged before a jubilant crowd, not to die here like a rat.”

“Don’t worry”, the hangman assured him and moved towards Wynne. He then kicked his ribs. The pirate got up in a hurry, squealing. He looked like a ghost in the dim light. His thin face was marked by a bristly beard surrounding his cheeks in a mess. His long oily hair was falling on his eyes and behind his shoulders.

The governor showed a very false grin. “ Monsieur Wynne is very worn out by what happened to him. We don’t need to treat him like this. We are among gentlemen. Now, please, leave us alone. We can manage by ourselves.”

“Really…”, Kane tried to disagree.

Morgan’s face became gloomy at once.

“You can go”, he repeated slowly.

The hangman left his torch on the cell wall and disappeared.

“Wynne”, Rogers called him. “Can you hear me?”

The corsair waited, hoping the other man would answer. But when he realized he would have to wait forever, he knelt down, a few inches from the prisoner. “My ship found you off Nassau, do you remember? I’m here to talk about the map. What happened to you?”

Wynne lifted his head, staring at his interlocutor, but it looked as if he couldn’t see him. Rogers thought he saw a greenish glare coming from one of his eyes. He held his breath. He wasn’t sure, as the pirate had his hair stuck on his face. He then was persuaded that was just the reflex of the torch hanging on the wall.

“The Devil’s Triangle”, Wynne croaked after a while.

“Did you really sail those seas?”, Rogers questioned him.

“I shouldn’t have left my place. The captain’s orders. He will be furious.”

“He keeps telling the same story again and again”, Morgan said in an irritated tone. “He wants to go back to Bellamy. Even Kane’s whip strokes couldn’t make him change his mind.”

When he heard those words, the pirate started, gasping like a fish out of water and letting deep rattles come out of the bottom of his throat.

“Were you at Samuel Bellamy’s orders?” Rogers moved his fingers cautiously, catching his arm softly. Wynne was clearly made shy by Morgan’s presence. If Rogers couldn’t make him calm down, he would withdraw into numbness again.

The small man let out a surprised gasp. “We got lost.”

“Explain it better.”

“The fog… was everywhere.”

“Which fog?” Rogers spurred him. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I must keep on watch”, Wynne changed his voice. It sounded like the one of a man looking for confidence. “The captain’s orders.”

Rogers kept silent, waiting again.

“There’s nothing to do”, Morgan asserted. “We are wasting our time. You have been able to learn something more, captain. We’ll grant it. However…”

“That’s just what you don’t understand!”, the pirate burst out. A spark of consciousness seemed to light again into his brain. “There’s a price to be paid by those who are looking for the treasure. A treasure which can change the destiny of the man who will find it.”

“Which treasure?”, the governor suddenly asked.

Wynne started. He got free from the corsair’s grip and crouched back on the bedstraw, in a foetal position. From that angle, Rogers could see the fresh whip signs.

“Wynne!”, Morgan exclaimed in a threatening voice. “What treasure are you talking about? Answer, God damn!”

The pirate burst into a series of moans and stopped talking. The governor’s insults couldn’t stir him anymore.

“Was that all you wanted to know, Excellency?” That sounded more like a bare statement than like a question on Roger’s part. “You’ve used me to find out the possible existence of a treasure?”

Henry Morgan’s face turned gloomy. “I didn’t use you, captain. You had a precise task. To catch Wynne. And you succeeded very well.”

“It was a simple chance, to use your same words.”

“Of course.”

“What are you playing at, Henry?”

The man stared at him doubtfully.

“You owe me some explanation”, Rogers went on soon after. “I did my duty. And I thought that was all. But now you’re involving me in this story.”

The sound of some steps came from the bottom of the corridor, together with Kane’s light whistle. They had clearly remained in the cell too long and the hangman was coming back to check if something had happened.

“There’s no need of discussing the matter here, captain”, Morgan hissed.

“I’m afraid there is”, Rogers disagreed.

“What do you want to know?”

“The truth.”

“Ok”, the governor replied. “You’re a trustworthy man, after all.”

“Hurry up!”

“Bellamy himself came to tell me what he wanted to do. Our past is not a mystery, isn’t it? So you won’t be surprised by our friendship.”

I’m not surprised at all, Rogers considered.

“He asked us for a loan.” Morgan was talking fast and he sometimes turned his eyes to see if Kane suddenly came. “He didn’t have enough money to afford starting such a dangerous journey. We wanted the list of the crew in return. Experience has taught us to get to know who is going to use the money we are spending. The only name of the list we already knew, was Wynne’s.”

“So you sent me to look for him”, Rogers highlighted.

“Exactly. When we learnt that Bellamy had disappeared, we couldn’t do otherwise.”

The French man started talking again. He was sitting on the bedstraw, crossing his legs. “I’ll be punished because I stirred up a mutiny. But it wasn’t my fault. I can swear it. Don’t trust the man with golden teeth.” Even if his face was hidden by his hair, he was clearly smiling. “What’s more, I was the only one who could see. I was on the observation mast. I had to watch, just like the shaman had told us.”