Page 137 of Storm over the Caribbean
The fatty cleared his throat. “Err…because…I put it there?”
Judging from the wrathful glare he received in reply, that was not an adequate answer.
Straightening his spine, Gaptooth met his captain’s gaze. “Sorry, Captain, but I don’t really know why you’re so pissed off. We got a new ship. We got plenty of gold. There were no survivors. What’s the problem?”
“The problem, Gaptooth,” the captain snarled, stabbing a finger into his deputy’s wobbling belly, “is that I left orders toattack only very specific ships, on very specific shipping lines, as per our sponsor’s orders!”
My hands clenched into fists. Leaning towards my husband, I whispered, “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Indeed.” Eyes narrowed infinitesimally, Mr Ambrose gave an affirmative jerk of the head. “It seems that our assumptions were correct.”
“So what are we going to do n—”
“Shh!” He lifted one long, elegant finger to his lips, not taking his eyes off the pirate captain for an instant. “They’re talking.”
“—clear, direct orders!” hissed the captain. “And you, my dear friend, decided to not only ignore those orders, but go and attack thebloody biggest navy in the world? Are you as thick as your paunch is?”
Grumbles rose from the crowd that had been celebrating and smiling just moments earlier. Gaptooth’s fat face reddened. “We didn’t exactly have a frigging choice! We were just sailing along, and they fired their cannons at us before we could—”
“You could have run! You could have turned your ship around and not attacked the frigging Royal Navy! You know perfectly well we were hired to only attack the ships of—”
“We’re pirates!” The growl that erupted from Gaptooth’s throat was like the rumble of a volcano. A fat, lazy volcano, but a volcano nonetheless. The pirates had long stopped cheering and were watching the scene with intense attention. “Pirates! We attack who we want, and take what we wan—”
The captain bared his teeth. “Did Iaskyou to talk back to me?”
“No,Captain. But—”
The captain moved in a flash. One moment, Gaptooth was standing there, the next, he was lying on the ground with a bloodied mouth, the imprint of a fist on his face. With a growl, the captain cracked his knuckles.
“Did. I. Ask. You. To. Talk. Back. To. Me?”
There was a moment of silence. Well, if you didn’t count the grinding of Gaptooth’s rotting teeth. For a moment, he looked ready to jump up and fight—then lowered his head. “No, Sir.”
“Good.” The pirate captain’s steely gaze swept across the crowd. “Anyone else want to challenge my authority?”
Silence. Absolute silence hung over the beach.
That is, until—
“Yes,” came a far too familiar voice from beside me. “I.”
And Mr Rikkard Ambrose stepped forward.
Fierce Fights and Brilliant Plans
My jaw dropped. Instinctively, I reached up to check whether my ears were clean. But, deep inside, I knew I hadn’t misheard.
“Are you bloody insane?” I hissed, grabbing his arm. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Taking the best opportunity we’re going to get,” he answered, his voice low and cool as a cucumber. “Look around you. Those men are bloodthirsty sharks. They don’t like people telling them what they can and cannot do. That’s why they’re pirates in the first place. If I can challenge the captain now and win, I can usurp his authority and we will not have only one boat at our disposal, but an entire fleet!”
“And if you don’t win, you’ll die!”
“Indeed.”
I was just about to open my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of this response when, from down at the beach, came the roar of the captain.
“Who? Who the hell said that?”
