Old Mars

I do not wish at this late date to recount the circumstances under which Governor Smith revoked my Letter of Marque, nor the deceptions by which I was then forced to choose between my loyalty to the crown or my honor as a gentleman. I made my choices then, and I have accepted the consequences of them. For the greater part of a decade, I have led my crew through Caribbean waters, the forces of personal loyalty, despair, and rude vengeance changing me as a caterpillar in its chrysalis into the debased, cruel, and black-hearted man that I was accused of being long before it was true. I have sunk a dozen ships. I have ransomed members of your own family. I have taken what was not mine by right but by necessity. I have no doubt that you have heard my name spoken in tones of condemnation, and rightly so, for I have made that original calumny true a hundred times over. Nor shall I pretend any deep regret for this. My loyalty and care were rewarded with betrayal, and though it be a defect of my soul, such a trust once broken with me can never be mended.

I have likewise no doubt that on this, the occasion of Governor Smith’s death, some part of the credit or blame for his demise might be attributed to me. I write to you now not to ask pardon for that which I have done or defend myself against accusations of which I am innocent. It is my sole hope that you shall read my words and through them understand better the circumstances of the governor’s death and my own role in it. I only ask that as you read this you bear in mind these two things: I swear before God that, though he had earned my vengeance a thousand times over, it was not my hand that slew the governor, and that I was once an honorable man.

Picture, then, my ship, the Dominic of Osma, as she rode upon the August waves. A hurricane had assaulted the coast three days earlier, and water and air held the serenity that only comes after such a storm or before it. The sun shone with a debilitating heat, looking down upon our poor sinners’ heads like the eye of an unforgiving God or else His counterpart, and we rode upon a sea whose blue echoed the sky. I recall feeling a profound peace as we moved between these two matchless vastnesses. I had a hold stocked with salt pork, freshwater, limes, and rum. I had a crew of men whose loyalty and ability I had reason to trust. We might have spent weeks upon the sea without sighting land or fellow vessel before I felt the first pang of anxiety.

But that was not to be.

Quohog was the first man to sight the doomed ship, and his barbaric yawp sounded down from the crow’s nest. In his accent, one of the oddest I have heard in the widely traveled Carib, the call of Ship ahoy! sounded more Zeeah loy and his further report of smoke as Awch. For those of us who had shipped with him, there could be no doubt as to the meaning of his garble, but as to the intent of it, I believe we all hesitated. Quohog had a well-earned reputation as a man who enjoyed a good joke, and none of us, myself included, would have been surprised if he had invented the sighting for the sheer joy of looking down at the deck and watching us scatter. So it was that I made no order to change our sail until I could, with spyglass in hand, climb aloft and confirm the existence of this improbable ship.

She was a merchant fluyt, that was clear, and she rode low in the water. Sails once proud hung ragged from her arms, and smoke rose from her. The gunports were open, and her half dozen cannon stood openmouthed and unmanned. She flew the tattered flag of Denmark, and her rail and sides were splintered and burned. In retrospect, I believe it was the burning that led me astray, for I had seen the leavings of many battles at sea, and I had never seen scorching of that kind from a weapon of man. I assumed instead that I was looking upon a lightning-struck ship that had through ill chance or malice been caught in the open sea during the tempest just passed. Such easy prizes were rare but not unheard of, and with pleasure at our good fortune, I called the man at the wheel to turn us in pursuit.