Chapter 4: Ghost Ship

Ursula had expected men armed to their teeth and prepared to defend the galleon. She was not prepared for what she saw: an eerie tableau of a dozen men, unarmed and impassive, their faces weary, their eyes resigned, wearing only knickers and lose-fitting shirts. All pretense and propriety had long ago abandoned this ship. She immediately recognized the two brothers, who stood side by side in solemn stillness, dark and handsome, yet burdened with an unspeakable sadness. Neither moved to do battle.

She approached them. They didn't budge.

"Who is the captain of this ship?" she demanded to know.

A gleam appeared in the eyes of the older brother, and he whistled softly.

"Will ya look at that?" he quipped. "Women!"

The youngest one gave his brother a dirty look, then stepped forward.

"I am," he said. His voice was calm and melodic, at odds with the situation.

"This ship and all its goods and crew are now forfeited to me," Ursula stated.

He smiled a weak and tired smile, and his rugged, handsome face briefly showed the charm hidden behind three years of fear, worry and defeat.

"It's all yours," he said.

She cocked her head sideways, wondering what game was afoot. She'd sent Jannie and Stone to check the rest of the ship, and now they returned with their report.

"The stores are full!" said Jannie, out of breath. "Food, water, everything, as fresh as the day they set sail."

"Perhaps they gathered fresh supplies recently," the captain noted, a quizzical look cast at Captain Roberto. He just grinned, and she could see how he'd earned his reputation in the Spanish Court.

"Not likely, captain. Some of the casks are sealed, and they are dated - 1714!"

"That's not all," said Stone. "There are at least a dozen bodies in the hull, soldiers and seamen, all dead, yet all appearing to have died within a few hours. Their bodies are not yet cold and stiff."

The captain took a deep breath and stared at Roberto.

"Explain," she ordered.

He laughed, his face breaking into dimples, which only served to unnerve her more.

"Explain!" she demanded, again, furious.

The older brother stepped forward. He had not yet been driven to the edge of insanity, as had his brother.

"What year is it?" Captain Luis asked. He had a voice smooth as silk, and the glint in his brown eyes was that of a man on intimate terms with many women. Rosalita and Stone were both instantly drawn to his magnetism, as if his voice had cast a spell on them.

"1717," the captain responded.

Luis smiled, and Rosalita and Stone sighed at the same time, then exchanged wicked glances.

"1717? Well, that's a relief," he said. "I thought we'd been here at least a hundred years."

"What are you talking about?" the captain demanded to know.

Jannie and Telamarine had taken up positions around the younger brother, both staking out their territory. Suddenly, Captain Ursula realized just what a foolish idea her quest had been. If there'd been trouble aboard the Orb Nymph before, it was about to get a lot worse, now that there were at least two women to every man.

"Put down those weapons. They are of no use, here," said the younger one. "We are already dead, and if you kill us, we will only rise again tomorrow, and you will have to kill us again, and again, and again...." His voices drifted off into the fog.

As he spoke, one of the ill seamen collapsed onto the deck. Stone was about to run to his side when Captain Luis grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"It's the fever," he said softly. "Let him be."

"Then we must throw him into the sea, quickly, before it spreads," said Stone.

Captain Luis shook his head.

"Don't bother. The sea will just spit him back up, and tomorrow he will rise again, sick as a dog, and die in the afternoon."

"The fever rampaged our crew before we were thrown into this place," Roberto explained. "Of the hundreds taken ill, only these three survived to come here. Now, they are doomed to die again and again, everyday reliving the last moments of their lives."

"And the dead men?" Stone asked.

"They died minutes before we came here, and their bodies remain unchanged."

Rosalita shivered as chills went up her spine, and Luis gently rested a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. Stone scowled.

The second man fell. No one moved.

"We bury them at sea, and in the morning, we find them in their beds, rising again, sick again, dying again," Roberto continued, his voice raising in timber, seethed with anger. "The same with the food and water. Everyday we eat. And everyday we arise to find the food uneaten and the water casks sealed, as if they'd never been opened. We are prisoners in a place without time, neither moving forward nor back, adrift between heaven and hell."

"If that's so," asked Jannie, frowning, "then how did we get here?"

"It's as if we're in a bubble," Roberto said, his eyes locking on hers. She felt a shiver of her own go up her back and couldn't tear her eyes from his. "You are but a shaft of light passing thorough, visible but incorporeal, like an angel. Tonight, you will disappear, and tomorrow, you will discover me again, only it will not be a discovery, because you will remember."

"You've been here three years?" asked Jannie, her blue-green eyes drawn into his deep, sad brown ones.

"We have no way of knowing. We tried notching the ship's rail to keep track of time, but the notches disappear with each day."

The third man fell, and again no one moved.

Roberto, his eyes still on Jannie, reached out and snatched Telamarine's stiletto, startling her. All of the pirates except Jannie jumped back, weapons drawn. Then Roberto quickly drew the blade across the palm of his hand and raised the hand in the air, letting the blood drip down his arm and onto the deck below, staining the wood.

"Tomorrow," he said, "my hand will be healed. The blood stain will be gone. And this day will begin, again." He handed the blade, handle outward, back to Telamarine and wrapped the wound with a piece of his sash.

"No, this isn't right," said Captain Ursula, realizing she could never kill Roberto and Luis under these conditions. "We're here! We are not incorporeal! We are flesh and blood! We can touch you, and you can touch us. Something has changed!"

"Something, then, has blown you into our bubble," Roberto replied, now focusing on the captain. "More's the pity!"

"Remove these to our vessel," Ursula ordered, indicating the nine crewmen with an air of disgust.

"But, Captain," Stone objected. "Their ship is much bigger than ours, and their stores are more plentiful. Perhaps we should stay here?"

"This is a ghost ship, with corpses in the hull. You really want to stay here?" the captain asked.

Stone was quiet. She'd forgotten about the dead soldiers below.

"What about them?" Capt. Roberto asked, indicating the three recently expired mariners.

"Do what you will with them," Capt. Ursula said.

"Oliver, Mac," Roberto called.

A cabin boy with short, dark auburn hair and gray eyes, and a tall, younger man with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes came at their captain's bidding.

"Take the men to their berths," Roberto ordered. "See to it they are comfortable."

Capt. Ursula signaled for Stone to follow the men.

"Do I have to?" she started to argue. She didn't want to leave Capt. Luis' side. Ursula scowled and Stone went with the two men.

"They're dead," Ursula said to Roberto. "What difference does it make if they're comfortable?" she asked.

Roberto's eyes blazed in anger. "Those men are my friends, and I stand here and watch them die everyday," he said. "It doesn't matter that they return to life. They experience death, and they remember it, and they wake in the morning with its bitter taste on their tongues. They deserve respect, even in death."

"Respect? In death?" Ursula shouted. "What about respect for the living? Where was this sense of respect when you blew away the Black Scoundrel!"

"The Black Scoundrel?" Roberto looked confused. He glanced at one of his crewmen, a big man with dark skin, bulging muscles and a commanding presence.

"Four years ago," the man said, his deep voice resonating through the fog and catching Ursula's attention. "Off the Ivory Coast."

Roberto nodded, as if hearing the story for the first time.

"Three-hundred and forty seven -- men, women and children -- and only 14 survived!" Ursula continued to yell. "How could you have forgotten that?"

"It was a pirate ship," Roberto said, recovering. "It attacked us."

"They were after the gold, nothing more. All you had to do was give up the gold. How much gold were those lives worth, huh?"

The second man took up the argument.

"It was their choice. They attacked us," he defended.

"My mother died in that attack!"

"We had no choice...." he tried to continue.

"Enough, Miguel!" Roberto raised his hand to silence his mariner.

"So what do you want?" Roberto asked. "A pound of flesh? You want to kill me? Go ahead. I'll just come back tomorrow to haunt you," the Spanish captain advanced on Ursula and she stepped back, startled. She raised her weapon to his heart.

"The dead men are secured," said Stone, hurrying back on deck with Mac and Oliver in tow.

"If you have any personal possessions you desire, you'd better take them now," Captain Ursula instructed the nine seamen.

"Why?" asked Roberto. "We will only awaken here tomorrow."

Ursula was finding the entire scenario very aggravating.

"Take them to the schooner!" she ordered.

"Ah, Captain?" asked Rosalita, a bit hesitantly.

"What?" Ursula snapped.

"Can I keep this one?" she asked, leaning against Luis and grinning up at him.

"Over my dead body!" shouted Stone, grabbing him by the arm.

"Oh, my beautiful ladies," Luis said, grinning broadly. "We have all the time in the world. I'm sure we can... share."

"Luis, shut up!" said Roberto. He was in no mood for his brother's levity.

"Hey, bro, after three years of nothin' but you scurvies for mates, why should I object to being taken prisoner by a ship load of beautiful women?"

Roberto didn't bother to answer.

Once on the Orb Nymph, Roberto saw for the first time the source of that voice that had called him to the deck of his ghost ship.
As he fell to his knees in tears, Baby Smile ran up and wrapped both arms around his neck as all watched. Then, to insure the prisoners would not try to escape, Capt. Ursula ordered Stone to blow La Beltranista out of the water.

"No! Don't!" yelled the galleon's cabin boy. He charged Ursula with a dagger he'd hidden somewhere on his person.

"Stop!" yelled Roberto, trying to protect the boy.

But as the boy charged, the pirate captain turned and, almost without thinking, shot him through the heart. He gasped and fell to her feet, only to be gathered up in Roberto's arms. The Spanish captain moaned and cursed; his body shook with rage and grief. Both crews stood silent and stunned.

"What are you raving about?" Ursula asked. "If what you say is true, he'll be alive and well tomorrow!"

"Have you always been so heartless?" Roberto asked, his eyes boring into hers.

"No," she said, her voice like ice.

Then she turned to Stone and ordered her to fire on the galleon.

The volleys hit their mark, striking the stored munitions and other provisions. As the crew of the Orb Nymph and the survivors of La Beltranista stood and watched in silence, the great galleon exploded with a fiery thunder, splinters and shards flying everywhere, then it gave a loud gasp and sunk below the surface, belching and boiling as it went.

The captain, true to her obsessive nature, insisted on watching from the deck rail. She wanted to oversee every second of the galleon's death. She was so intent on its destruction, that she didn't immediately realize that a large piece of splintered wood had pierced her heart. She felt herself grow woozy and weak-kneed, and looked down to see the stake implanted in her chest and the blood oozing from the wound. As she moaned and fell backwards, she was caught by the dark seaman called Miguel. Slowly he lowered her to the deck, holding her in his strong arms.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice soft and low and sad. She wondered why. Then all went black.

Sinking the 'LaBeltranista'