White and Black Pearls 2 - One Remaining Pearl

Chapter Fourteen

“No, it’s right,” Barbossa said firmly to himself as he spun the wheel of his ship and it began to make another turn. He lifted his head and stared at the tiny sandy island with a shake of his head. “It’s just so very wrong.”

He was staring at the very desert island he’d marooned Jack on not once, but twice, and they’d circled it all the way around now – the compass was pointing towards the island and only the island. There was no mistaking it. Barbossa looked over at Calypso then.

He was no fool, not by a long shot. From the instant she’d approached him the captain had known and acknowledged that she had some sinister plan in mind for him, his crew and his ship if she’d chosen him to be her escort here. She could have used any number of creatures on the planet, from makeup caked women of the night to that squeaky-clean new captain of the Flying Dutchman. All of them could use the compass for Calypso, and ride on a ship… but she’d chosen this ship, this crew, and this captain. He didn’t like it, and yet, it only made his anticipation swell. “From here I’m curious as to what you intend to do,” he said slowly, closing the compass, putting it in his pocket and inclining his head towards the island. “You can see clear into the trees and we circled the entire island already. Jack’s not there but the compass says this is where he be.”

Calypso pushed her lips out tightly, narrowing her eyes. She looked the island over before moving to the edge of the ship and climbing down the rungs on the portside, until she was just above the water’s edge. Barbossa watched her curiously from his position up on deck as she stepped off the rungs and right onto the water; his eyebrows hiked up quickly and he whistled, impressed, as she walked across the water and looked around. “There’s an entrance under the water but it’s too small to be the regular port of entry. It must be up on the land somewhere, where I can’t see it.” She pointed up at his rowboats. “Go on then, lower your anchors. Take those down and we make for the island.”

Barbossa had a bad feeling about this. He wanted to get on that island as much as he wanted every tooth in his head pulled out with hot irons, and his every instinct was telling him that he was walking into a trap. But without pushing ahead with this, he would fall out of the fray and lose this close brush with the excitement once more. He couldn’t regain his enjoyment out of having a nemesis if he was too yellow-bellied to jump into the lion’s den with Jack in the first place. The captain called orders for men to lower one of their boats and they moved immediately, though he could see the wariness in their faces too.

The rumblings of the men were tuned out as Barbossa watched the boat hit the water near Calypso. He did not need their doubt picking at his determination alongside his own, and that besides, the majority of the men under him were fools and dullards.

When the boat was filled and the men were all prepared to row, Calypso called up several waves to carry them to shore, and she skimmed along the water beside them, seated atop a wave like a rolling throne. Silence fell among the men as their boats hit sand, and they stared at the white shore sullenly, remembering these beaches and leaving Jack here an eternity ago.

It was Barbossa whose boots sank into the sand first; he got out of the boat with a glare to the rest of the men, and they scrambled after him, pulling their small craft up higher onto the shore so the tide wouldn’t take it and clustering together almost nervously.

The crew was antsy before among them two finally spoke up.

“What should we do?” Ragetti squeaked, a lost expression on his face.

“Wait for the captain’s orders!” Pintel shushed him gruffly. “What do you say cap’n, what should we do?”

One slow inhale, and one slow exhale… Barbossa composed himself. He was standing on the beach that he’d left Jack upon, and nothing had happened yet. One glance over his shoulder told him that the Pearl was waiting in the deeper water where she should be, her anchors secure.

“We search for the entrance to wherever Jack be hiding!” Barbossa announced with a shake of his fist.

“Aye!” the men called out enthusiastically, hurrying to go scour the beaches and the land of this small island.


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