PotC fic -- Tiger By the Tail
New story in the American Revolution series -- In which James Norrington realizes that capturing the tiger's cub is rather like having a tiger by the tail.
This follows At the Sign of the Green Dragon, Teach's Hole, Den of Iniquity, Tea, Roast Goose and Revolution, A Pirate's Life For Me, The Wind From Lexington, Approaching Thunder, Crossing Lines, The Storm Breaks and The Tiger's Cub.
The Black Pearl rode at anchor in Roanoke Inlet, bright sunlight gilding her wet decks, fresh from swabbing down. Jack was talking to Pintel all the way forward and didn’t look around as the boat approached, but she knew he noticed all the same from the tilt of his head, the set of his shoulders.
Elizabeth didn’t pretend to confidence. She leaned out as soon as the boat came in range. “Where is he?” she shouted.
Will spread his hands in an I-don’t-know kind of gesture, his brow furrowed. He probably wasn’t actually close enough to hear her words, but he knew what she meant anyway.
Jack waited until the boat was almost alongside to come over, but it was his hand that grabbed Will’s as he clambered up the side.
Will took it and pulled himself on deck, shaking his head. “There were the casks on the beach, but no sign of the water party. The sand was all churned up, but the wind’s been blowing and there were no distinct prints. If there was a boat, I can’t tell. The tide’s only a couple of hours off high.”
“We shouldn’t have stopped to chase that prize,” Elizabeth said hotly.
“It was your idea,” Will pointed out.
“I know that.” Elizabeth pushed her bleached hair out of her eyes. “Don’t you think I don’t know that, Will?”
“Let’s not get our breeches in a twist until we know what happened,” Jack interposed. “Jamie’s a big lad, and he had four good men with him. Like as not, they decided to find some food on their own, down soundside at Liverman’s house or such. It’s not but six miles and you can’t miss it. The boy’d not starve in three days in a place he knows perfectly well, in high summertime, with a sea full ‘o fish.”
Will took a deep breath. “You’re right. They probably went down to Bub Liverman’s place when they got tired of hardtack. Mistress Liverman’d feed them up and they could wait for us in comfort.”
“Or else they went down oceanside,” Elizabeth said, “figuring they’d spot the Pearl before the Gypsy Queen that way.” She refrained from saying anything about snake bites. If anyone had been bitten by a snake….
Jack put a hand on each of their arms, rings twinkling in the bright sun. “So here’s what we’ll do, me lad and me lass. I’ll take a party ashore and go down the island, just in case they’re back in the yaupon out of sight. Will, you take the Queen down the ocean side in case they’re on the beach, and Lizzie, you take the Pearl down soundside to Liverman’s. I’ll meet you there on land, and we’ll all sail down the island and meet Will at the other end, hey presto, with Jamie and the boys.”
Will nodded. “That covers anything. As narrow as the island is, if you’re down the middle and we’re to either side….”
“Half the time I’ll see one or the other of ye,” Jack grinned. “Let’s get to it, then. Pintel! Get me six men chop-chop! Captain Turner’s going to put us ashore in his boat on the way back to the Gypsy Queen!”
Elizabeth looked at Will and saw his thought in his eyes as clearly as if he’d said it. It was comforting to see Jack taking blithe control, as though he wasn’t worried in the least. Of course he wasn’t.
Admiral Sir James Norrington waited until after breakfast to go on deck, as was his custom. He carefully finished each morsel of toast with orange marmalade, shook out his napkin and brushed his lapels fastidiously before he went on deck. It would not do to show any deviation in his routine. That should smack of pure blind panic.
James Swann was well forward, standing next to Midshipman Snipes, who appeared to be pointing out some detail of the Courageous’ rigging, pointing aloft as he did. Words were exchanged, and in an instant both boys jumped for the rigging, competing to see who could get aloft fastest, like a pair of young apes. Snipes was a good lad and aboard Courageous nearly a year, so Norrington was pleased to see that Swann nearly kept pace with him.
He did, James Norrington thought, look extraordinarily like Elizabeth. Darker hair, of course. Hers had more gold in it, especially kissed by the sun. But his features, his way of moving, made him eerily like her, like Elizabeth made male and young again.
If she were still alive, she would not look like this, of course. Norrington was keenly aware of the passage of time. She would not look like the maiden he had wooed anymore than he looked like that young captain. The years would have changed her. Had already changed her irrevocably, the last time he had seen her on the other side of the world as the Black Pearl warped away from Beckett’s crippled flagship, the gale raging about them. She had looked back once, he was certain, had seen him there, still upright and bellowing orders, looked back as Sparrow seized her hand and a wave broke over them both.
To see her son here and now was an almost impossible coincidence.
It was nearly midmorning, and even his patience could wait no longer. “Pass the word for Mr. Swann, if you please,” he said to the officer of the watch.
It took the boy longer to respond than it would have a midshipman, but he came promptly enough, his chest heaving from the run through the rigging, his eyes wary. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“I did,” Norrington said, aware of how imposing he must look, decked out in gold frogging and wig. How old. “I do not intend to ask you any questions that you in honor may not answer, for I believe I know that you are a man of honor.”
“Thank you, sir,” the boy said, standing a bit straighter in his tatty shirt.
“Have you been long at sea?” Norrington asked, his voice casual, glancing aloft to Stipes as he did. “You seem easy enough.”
“Most of my life,” the boy said, following his gaze. “On one ship and another. Lordy but she’s a big ‘un, ain’t she?”
“Courageous? Indeed she is. She must be a good deal bigger than you’re used to.”
“By half again,” Swann agreed cheerfully. “I do like she’s not so high aft. Must be able to have guns in the stern quarters when you’re cleared.”
Norrington’s eyebrows rose. “There are a pair of guns in my salon when we’re cleared for action, yes. With the bulkheads broken down. Not what you’re used to?”
The boy nodded, glancing over the side toward the stern windows. “If you put a pair that far over the waterline she’d be tippy for sure, what with the high stern castle….” He broke off, giving Norrington an accusatory look. “Will that be all, sir?”
Norrington suppressed a smile. “Certainly, Mr. Swann.” For all his cleverness, the boy had no idea what Norrington was fishing at.
Norrington watched him make his way forward again, steady and sharp. He was almost unaware of Gillette at his elbow until he cleared his throat and spoke in a lower tone than usual. “It must be quite unnerving, sir.”
Of course Gillette remembered Elizabeth Swann. He made some noncommittal answer.
“I mean,” Gillette said, “He’s a fine, well-grown boy, but it isn’t every day that a man is faced with a son he never knew he had. It must be something of a shock.”
For a moment James Norrington stood absolutely frozen. James Norrington. James Swann. Dear God, the conclusion was inevitable!
And entirely wrong. Despite his occasional heated thoughts, he had never been more intimate with Elizabeth Swann than one kiss of her hand. Whichever…whoever she had ultimately disgraced herself with, it had not been him.
“Captain Gillette, you forget yourself,” he said icily, and went below.
The Black Pearl came in to Bub Liverman’s dock just after two in the afternoon. Out to sea, a thunderstorm was building, purple clouds piling up against the eastern sky. Jack was standing on the dock, two sailors and Dolly Liverman beside him, frowning. Dolly was a heavy redhead in her mid thirties, her sweaty hair clinging to her forehead under a mob cap in the heat.
Elizabeth didn’t wait for a boat to be lowered - the Pearl needed four feet of water, and it was not quite three at the dock at low tide. She climbed down the side and jumped out, wading ashore through shallow water. “What’s the matter?”
“Caleb says British marines ambushed the water party,” Jack said, for once all flourish absent. The rising clouds cast his face in a gray light. “He’s sure they didn’t hit Jamie, but he thinks they captured him. They couldn’t have gone far. It was only six or eight men in a boat. There must be a warship lying offshore.” Jack met her eyes. “Nothin’ illegal about takin’ water aboard. Jamie’s a clever lad, and he didn’t have his hands in the honeypot. Worst they’d do is press him.”
“He’s too young to be impressed,” Elizabeth said, and knew as she said it she was wrong. Jamie was old enough, and an able seaman to boot.
Jack didn’t bother to answer that. “Wind’s been nor’west all day and light. They’d be running down the banks, not up, if they’re a full rigged ship. This rising storm’s the first breath of contrary wind we’ve had all day.”
“Will,” Elizabeth said. “He’s out on the ocean side, working down the banks. He’ll sail straight into her if she’s out there.”
“If he had I’d have heard,” Dolly Liverman put in. “No missing the sound of cannon, and couldn’t be more than five miles distant, no matter what. I saw his topsails not an hour ago from the attic window.”
Jack gave Dolly a measuring glance, then nodded. “If he’s that close, I’ll run over to the beach and give him a wave. Got to tell him what’s the jig. You go on and take the Pearl down the sound side, and I’ll meet you at the other end with Will. Then we’ll work it out.”
Neither of them said what they both knew. With the wind freshening, a warship would make for sea, or if she were sound side, out in to the middle of the Albemarle, away from shallows where the wrong puff of wind could send her aground. Every moment expanded the search area.
Jack bent over Dolly Liverman’s hand like a gallant. “Thank you Dolly, me sweet lass! Yer hospitality has no equal on this earth!”
Mistress Liverman pulled her hand away coquettishly, her calico dress stained with a child’s spit up on the shoulder. “You’re a wicked man, Captain Sparrow. I don’t know why we receive you.”
“Something about my charm,” Jack said, winking at Elizabeth as she turned to get into the boat that Pintel had finally lowered. “That, or ten pounds of contraband tea.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Incorrigible,” she said. “I’ll see you at the inlet!”
Jack had already strode off with the sailors, down the winding path between yaupon bushes, toward the beach side.
The rain hammered down on the decks of Courageous in sudden gusts. She made way in Albemarle Sound, though her sails were reefed. The monotonous chant of the leadsman was barely audible over the rain. Norrington shielded his eyes with his hand. Roanoke Island lay behind them. Beyond it, the mainland coast was invisible with distance and rain. Night was coming up early with the thunderheads off the Gulf Stream.
James Swann stood at the taffrail, his eyes likewise shaded, his soaked shirt clinging to his shoulders. The Banks were indistinct, an endless boring shoreline of scrub pine. If he saw something there, Norrington could not imagine what it might be.
“Are you looking for your ship?” he asked.
The boy shrugged. “Just lookin’.”
Behind him, Gillette gave the order to come a bit to starboard. The channel was getting tight. And far too shallow. He would not….
And at that very moment he felt the shudder run through Courageous, felt her list a few degrees to port.
Bugger, thought Norrington. He’s run her aground.
There was a flurry of activity. Norrington didn’t even deign to look. She’d take no harm from a sand bottom, and there probably wasn’t a rock for a hundred miles. It was low tide, and as soon as the tide came in they’d lift free. Why was he the only person with the common sense God gave all animals to not run the ship aground in the bloody Albemarle?
“We’re aground,” James Swann said, somewhat smugly.
“Yes,” Norrington said shortly.
“Too bad for you,” Swann said, and dived over the rail.
It took a moment for it to register. Then Norrington shouted, “Man overboard!”
The boy had already bobbed up like a cork and was swimming for the Banks at full speed.
Gillette rushed to the rail. “The Swann boy? Is he drowning?”
“I don’t see how he bloody could with the water bloody four feet deep!” Norrington snapped. “Lower a boat! Get me three men who can row, not Marines who can’t get their feet wet. Damnable stupid boy!” He dashed his soggy hat against the rail, concluding that if you want something done you have to do it yourself.
“Why….” Gillette colored, clearly trying not to repeat his faux pas of earlier in the day.
Norrington rounded on him. “Because I want the Black Pearl! She’s out there. I can smell her. Rebel privateer be damned. I’ll have that pirate.”
Dawn came to Gillette’s face. “And if we have the tiger’s cub….”
“Then we have the tiger by the tail,” Norrington said.
It was eerie on the water as night came on. Transpiration rose from the shallows in a great fog, occasional squally raindrops still falling. The oarsmen set out after the splashes, following James Swann. He was not swimming, but wading now, pushing through mud and water, through the broad shallows. Norrington could see him ahead now and again. He could have made the shot, perhaps, if he had tried. But he wasn't trying to kill James Swann. That wasn't the point. James Swann was his way to finally find the Black Pearl.
It little surprised him that Sparrow should turn commerce raider, bleeding off the life of the British Empire. That was more or less expected. But Elizabeth.... As little as she might need rescuing, surely she could not want her child to be an outlaw, bound for the hangman's noose as certainly as his misbegotten father.
Behind them, Courageous faded into distance and fog. Gillette would be hours getting her off.
Ahead, the splashing intensified. Perhaps they were coming up on land, on some swampy ridge where the boy had to rest. It should be some small matter to get him back in the boat. "Come back, lad!" Norrington called. "You won't be harmed."
One of the rowers gulped, his face changing, and Norrington saw what he had seen, just a moment later. Rising out of the mist like a wall was the faded black side of the frigate, ports open and guns bristling.
A clarion laugh came down the side, clear and cutting as morning. "I wonder just who has captured who," Elizabeth Swann said.
Feedback is greatly appreciated!
This follows At the Sign of the Green Dragon, Teach's Hole, Den of Iniquity, Tea, Roast Goose and Revolution, A Pirate's Life For Me, The Wind From Lexington, Approaching Thunder, Crossing Lines, The Storm Breaks and The Tiger's Cub.
The Black Pearl rode at anchor in Roanoke Inlet, bright sunlight gilding her wet decks, fresh from swabbing down. Jack was talking to Pintel all the way forward and didn’t look around as the boat approached, but she knew he noticed all the same from the tilt of his head, the set of his shoulders.
Elizabeth didn’t pretend to confidence. She leaned out as soon as the boat came in range. “Where is he?” she shouted.
Will spread his hands in an I-don’t-know kind of gesture, his brow furrowed. He probably wasn’t actually close enough to hear her words, but he knew what she meant anyway.
Jack waited until the boat was almost alongside to come over, but it was his hand that grabbed Will’s as he clambered up the side.
Will took it and pulled himself on deck, shaking his head. “There were the casks on the beach, but no sign of the water party. The sand was all churned up, but the wind’s been blowing and there were no distinct prints. If there was a boat, I can’t tell. The tide’s only a couple of hours off high.”
“We shouldn’t have stopped to chase that prize,” Elizabeth said hotly.
“It was your idea,” Will pointed out.
“I know that.” Elizabeth pushed her bleached hair out of her eyes. “Don’t you think I don’t know that, Will?”
“Let’s not get our breeches in a twist until we know what happened,” Jack interposed. “Jamie’s a big lad, and he had four good men with him. Like as not, they decided to find some food on their own, down soundside at Liverman’s house or such. It’s not but six miles and you can’t miss it. The boy’d not starve in three days in a place he knows perfectly well, in high summertime, with a sea full ‘o fish.”
Will took a deep breath. “You’re right. They probably went down to Bub Liverman’s place when they got tired of hardtack. Mistress Liverman’d feed them up and they could wait for us in comfort.”
“Or else they went down oceanside,” Elizabeth said, “figuring they’d spot the Pearl before the Gypsy Queen that way.” She refrained from saying anything about snake bites. If anyone had been bitten by a snake….
Jack put a hand on each of their arms, rings twinkling in the bright sun. “So here’s what we’ll do, me lad and me lass. I’ll take a party ashore and go down the island, just in case they’re back in the yaupon out of sight. Will, you take the Queen down the ocean side in case they’re on the beach, and Lizzie, you take the Pearl down soundside to Liverman’s. I’ll meet you there on land, and we’ll all sail down the island and meet Will at the other end, hey presto, with Jamie and the boys.”
Will nodded. “That covers anything. As narrow as the island is, if you’re down the middle and we’re to either side….”
“Half the time I’ll see one or the other of ye,” Jack grinned. “Let’s get to it, then. Pintel! Get me six men chop-chop! Captain Turner’s going to put us ashore in his boat on the way back to the Gypsy Queen!”
Elizabeth looked at Will and saw his thought in his eyes as clearly as if he’d said it. It was comforting to see Jack taking blithe control, as though he wasn’t worried in the least. Of course he wasn’t.
Admiral Sir James Norrington waited until after breakfast to go on deck, as was his custom. He carefully finished each morsel of toast with orange marmalade, shook out his napkin and brushed his lapels fastidiously before he went on deck. It would not do to show any deviation in his routine. That should smack of pure blind panic.
James Swann was well forward, standing next to Midshipman Snipes, who appeared to be pointing out some detail of the Courageous’ rigging, pointing aloft as he did. Words were exchanged, and in an instant both boys jumped for the rigging, competing to see who could get aloft fastest, like a pair of young apes. Snipes was a good lad and aboard Courageous nearly a year, so Norrington was pleased to see that Swann nearly kept pace with him.
He did, James Norrington thought, look extraordinarily like Elizabeth. Darker hair, of course. Hers had more gold in it, especially kissed by the sun. But his features, his way of moving, made him eerily like her, like Elizabeth made male and young again.
If she were still alive, she would not look like this, of course. Norrington was keenly aware of the passage of time. She would not look like the maiden he had wooed anymore than he looked like that young captain. The years would have changed her. Had already changed her irrevocably, the last time he had seen her on the other side of the world as the Black Pearl warped away from Beckett’s crippled flagship, the gale raging about them. She had looked back once, he was certain, had seen him there, still upright and bellowing orders, looked back as Sparrow seized her hand and a wave broke over them both.
To see her son here and now was an almost impossible coincidence.
It was nearly midmorning, and even his patience could wait no longer. “Pass the word for Mr. Swann, if you please,” he said to the officer of the watch.
It took the boy longer to respond than it would have a midshipman, but he came promptly enough, his chest heaving from the run through the rigging, his eyes wary. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“I did,” Norrington said, aware of how imposing he must look, decked out in gold frogging and wig. How old. “I do not intend to ask you any questions that you in honor may not answer, for I believe I know that you are a man of honor.”
“Thank you, sir,” the boy said, standing a bit straighter in his tatty shirt.
“Have you been long at sea?” Norrington asked, his voice casual, glancing aloft to Stipes as he did. “You seem easy enough.”
“Most of my life,” the boy said, following his gaze. “On one ship and another. Lordy but she’s a big ‘un, ain’t she?”
“Courageous? Indeed she is. She must be a good deal bigger than you’re used to.”
“By half again,” Swann agreed cheerfully. “I do like she’s not so high aft. Must be able to have guns in the stern quarters when you’re cleared.”
Norrington’s eyebrows rose. “There are a pair of guns in my salon when we’re cleared for action, yes. With the bulkheads broken down. Not what you’re used to?”
The boy nodded, glancing over the side toward the stern windows. “If you put a pair that far over the waterline she’d be tippy for sure, what with the high stern castle….” He broke off, giving Norrington an accusatory look. “Will that be all, sir?”
Norrington suppressed a smile. “Certainly, Mr. Swann.” For all his cleverness, the boy had no idea what Norrington was fishing at.
Norrington watched him make his way forward again, steady and sharp. He was almost unaware of Gillette at his elbow until he cleared his throat and spoke in a lower tone than usual. “It must be quite unnerving, sir.”
Of course Gillette remembered Elizabeth Swann. He made some noncommittal answer.
“I mean,” Gillette said, “He’s a fine, well-grown boy, but it isn’t every day that a man is faced with a son he never knew he had. It must be something of a shock.”
For a moment James Norrington stood absolutely frozen. James Norrington. James Swann. Dear God, the conclusion was inevitable!
And entirely wrong. Despite his occasional heated thoughts, he had never been more intimate with Elizabeth Swann than one kiss of her hand. Whichever…whoever she had ultimately disgraced herself with, it had not been him.
“Captain Gillette, you forget yourself,” he said icily, and went below.
The Black Pearl came in to Bub Liverman’s dock just after two in the afternoon. Out to sea, a thunderstorm was building, purple clouds piling up against the eastern sky. Jack was standing on the dock, two sailors and Dolly Liverman beside him, frowning. Dolly was a heavy redhead in her mid thirties, her sweaty hair clinging to her forehead under a mob cap in the heat.
Elizabeth didn’t wait for a boat to be lowered - the Pearl needed four feet of water, and it was not quite three at the dock at low tide. She climbed down the side and jumped out, wading ashore through shallow water. “What’s the matter?”
“Caleb says British marines ambushed the water party,” Jack said, for once all flourish absent. The rising clouds cast his face in a gray light. “He’s sure they didn’t hit Jamie, but he thinks they captured him. They couldn’t have gone far. It was only six or eight men in a boat. There must be a warship lying offshore.” Jack met her eyes. “Nothin’ illegal about takin’ water aboard. Jamie’s a clever lad, and he didn’t have his hands in the honeypot. Worst they’d do is press him.”
“He’s too young to be impressed,” Elizabeth said, and knew as she said it she was wrong. Jamie was old enough, and an able seaman to boot.
Jack didn’t bother to answer that. “Wind’s been nor’west all day and light. They’d be running down the banks, not up, if they’re a full rigged ship. This rising storm’s the first breath of contrary wind we’ve had all day.”
“Will,” Elizabeth said. “He’s out on the ocean side, working down the banks. He’ll sail straight into her if she’s out there.”
“If he had I’d have heard,” Dolly Liverman put in. “No missing the sound of cannon, and couldn’t be more than five miles distant, no matter what. I saw his topsails not an hour ago from the attic window.”
Jack gave Dolly a measuring glance, then nodded. “If he’s that close, I’ll run over to the beach and give him a wave. Got to tell him what’s the jig. You go on and take the Pearl down the sound side, and I’ll meet you at the other end with Will. Then we’ll work it out.”
Neither of them said what they both knew. With the wind freshening, a warship would make for sea, or if she were sound side, out in to the middle of the Albemarle, away from shallows where the wrong puff of wind could send her aground. Every moment expanded the search area.
Jack bent over Dolly Liverman’s hand like a gallant. “Thank you Dolly, me sweet lass! Yer hospitality has no equal on this earth!”
Mistress Liverman pulled her hand away coquettishly, her calico dress stained with a child’s spit up on the shoulder. “You’re a wicked man, Captain Sparrow. I don’t know why we receive you.”
“Something about my charm,” Jack said, winking at Elizabeth as she turned to get into the boat that Pintel had finally lowered. “That, or ten pounds of contraband tea.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Incorrigible,” she said. “I’ll see you at the inlet!”
Jack had already strode off with the sailors, down the winding path between yaupon bushes, toward the beach side.
The rain hammered down on the decks of Courageous in sudden gusts. She made way in Albemarle Sound, though her sails were reefed. The monotonous chant of the leadsman was barely audible over the rain. Norrington shielded his eyes with his hand. Roanoke Island lay behind them. Beyond it, the mainland coast was invisible with distance and rain. Night was coming up early with the thunderheads off the Gulf Stream.
James Swann stood at the taffrail, his eyes likewise shaded, his soaked shirt clinging to his shoulders. The Banks were indistinct, an endless boring shoreline of scrub pine. If he saw something there, Norrington could not imagine what it might be.
“Are you looking for your ship?” he asked.
The boy shrugged. “Just lookin’.”
Behind him, Gillette gave the order to come a bit to starboard. The channel was getting tight. And far too shallow. He would not….
And at that very moment he felt the shudder run through Courageous, felt her list a few degrees to port.
Bugger, thought Norrington. He’s run her aground.
There was a flurry of activity. Norrington didn’t even deign to look. She’d take no harm from a sand bottom, and there probably wasn’t a rock for a hundred miles. It was low tide, and as soon as the tide came in they’d lift free. Why was he the only person with the common sense God gave all animals to not run the ship aground in the bloody Albemarle?
“We’re aground,” James Swann said, somewhat smugly.
“Yes,” Norrington said shortly.
“Too bad for you,” Swann said, and dived over the rail.
It took a moment for it to register. Then Norrington shouted, “Man overboard!”
The boy had already bobbed up like a cork and was swimming for the Banks at full speed.
Gillette rushed to the rail. “The Swann boy? Is he drowning?”
“I don’t see how he bloody could with the water bloody four feet deep!” Norrington snapped. “Lower a boat! Get me three men who can row, not Marines who can’t get their feet wet. Damnable stupid boy!” He dashed his soggy hat against the rail, concluding that if you want something done you have to do it yourself.
“Why….” Gillette colored, clearly trying not to repeat his faux pas of earlier in the day.
Norrington rounded on him. “Because I want the Black Pearl! She’s out there. I can smell her. Rebel privateer be damned. I’ll have that pirate.”
Dawn came to Gillette’s face. “And if we have the tiger’s cub….”
“Then we have the tiger by the tail,” Norrington said.
It was eerie on the water as night came on. Transpiration rose from the shallows in a great fog, occasional squally raindrops still falling. The oarsmen set out after the splashes, following James Swann. He was not swimming, but wading now, pushing through mud and water, through the broad shallows. Norrington could see him ahead now and again. He could have made the shot, perhaps, if he had tried. But he wasn't trying to kill James Swann. That wasn't the point. James Swann was his way to finally find the Black Pearl.
It little surprised him that Sparrow should turn commerce raider, bleeding off the life of the British Empire. That was more or less expected. But Elizabeth.... As little as she might need rescuing, surely she could not want her child to be an outlaw, bound for the hangman's noose as certainly as his misbegotten father.
Behind them, Courageous faded into distance and fog. Gillette would be hours getting her off.
Ahead, the splashing intensified. Perhaps they were coming up on land, on some swampy ridge where the boy had to rest. It should be some small matter to get him back in the boat. "Come back, lad!" Norrington called. "You won't be harmed."
One of the rowers gulped, his face changing, and Norrington saw what he had seen, just a moment later. Rising out of the mist like a wall was the faded black side of the frigate, ports open and guns bristling.
A clarion laugh came down the side, clear and cutting as morning. "I wonder just who has captured who," Elizabeth Swann said.
Feedback is greatly appreciated!