Posted by tina on May 24, 2006 at 11:41:47:
Hi, everyone! This is posted for Ripper X, who I assume knows a pirate's favorite letter. Enjoy!
“The Gypsy and the Captain”
By tina
The gibbous moon appeared like a deformed doubloon in the center of the starboard porthole.
“It has been almost a month, Mr. Binder,” the captain said as he eyed the shinny circle.
“Aye, Cap’n,” the first mate responded, his head down staring at his hands, “just a day shy by my recon’n.”
Captain Lockhart closed his right eye and focused on the almost full moon. His hand brought the cup of rum unsteadily to his lips. He took a swig of the hot Jamaican liquid. The dot in the porthole took on a face.
“She cursed us and it’s on your head, Mr. Binder,” the captain stated as he slammed his mug down on the scarred wooden table. The first mate shifted from left foot to right as he gripped his sailor’s hat. The round little man sighed.
“Aye,” he said in response.
Mr. Binder was only partly to blame. The captain, Captain Lockhart had brought her on board. They had entertained whores on the ship before but she was different. She was the captain’s whore and that might have passed except Marianna was a Gypsy princess. The captain was her lover and she his but the crew loved her not at all.
Then the misfortune had begun. There was always misfortune on a long sea voyage. The odd rope would break or an able bodied seaman would break a leg. The men even stood solemnly as one of their own dropped into the depths with no word of complaint. There was a bond among seafaring men that could not be broken. The captain’s woman was a different proposition. To a man they thought she had doomed the voyage.
“She’s a damn Gypsy and a curse,” they muttered to each other as the ropes were coiled or the decks swabbed.
Women are often thought bad luck on a sea voyage. Captain Lockhart’s crew was an enlightened bunch who would sail a woman from here to there. Unfortunately the boson’s cousin had supposedly been abducted by a band of Gypsies and it didn’t set well with him that the Captain’s mistress was one of them. The boson never told his mates that his uncle had hung for the little girl’s rape and murder. In his heart he knew it was the filthy Gypsies that killed his cousin and then swayed his uncle’s jury with their controlling gestures.
The boson turned the crew with his subtle talk. A mutiny is like soup that simmers until the time is right. By the time Mr. Binder told the captain that anything was amiss it was too late for Marianna. The captain saw that immediately as he rubbed a rough hand across his throat.
“Cap’n’, ye got no choice,” Mr. Binder had counseled, “Its your neck in the noose or ‘ers.”
Captain Lockhart had watched the rise and fall of her chest in the bunk. The silver light from the full moon fell on her breasts as she slept. He wanted to cry out, howl at the moon that had lit his path so many nights at sea and with some word curse it instead of her.
“Take her, Mr. Binder,” the captain had said, “ and do what you must.”
He had stared out the porthole as the first mate had taken Marianna from his bunk. He had listened to her confused protests as the man had tied her wrists with a bit of sail rope. He had closed his ears to her screams as Mr. Binder led her up the stairs. She was like a frightened animal in the wild that is caught in a snare. He stood watching the shining moon through the porthole as her screams died away.
He got to the top of the stares and out on deck as Mr. Binder forced Marianna down onto a powder keg.
“You there, tie her elbows to the mast,” Mr. Binder commanded as he pointed to an able body seaman.
The man did not hesitate a second as he came forward and took a shank of rope through Marianna’s arms and lashed them to the mast.
Captain Lockhart stood in the shadow of the upper deck and watched her chest heave. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her dark hair and eyes stood out against her pale skin. Her face seemed to shine in the moonlight as Mr. Binder stepped to her left side. The moon had shown on her face as she pulled against the rough rope. The early fear and confusion had been replaced by a look of anger as she tried to free her arms.
Mr. Binder made no sound as he looped the length of sail rope around Marianna’s neck. The captain could see she tried to say something as the rope drew tight. Her eyes went wide in the first second of the shocking strangulation. The rope was course and wide and it bit cruelly into her delicate flesh as Mr. Binder did his duty. She sat on the keg, lashed to the mast and her body fought hard against the rope.
Mr. Binder was a powerful man and he had strangled an able body seaman in his time. But Marianna was not an able bodied seaman. The lovely lady fought hard against the garrote. Mr. Binder had worked up a sweat by the second minute as his victim coughed and kicked.
The crew stared transfixed as the light of the moon shown off the bulging whites of the Gypsy’s eyes. Her tongue slowly poked out from between her gaping lips as Mr. Binder drew hard on the rough strangling cord. Captain Lockhart wanted to turn away but he found his eyes locked with hers as he listened to hideous gasping noises that she was making.
Then the deck had gone dark. All eyes turned toward the horizon where the moon had risen. All eyes except for Marianna’s protruding orbs. A small cloud was passing over the face of the full moon. Almost as quickly as the dark cover had come the cloud passed and the woman was bathed in the pale silver glow again.
Her struggles increased suddenly and she fought hard against the rough rope that encircled her neck.
“Curse you….aaaacckkk….and your ship….aaacckkkk,” the Marianna managed to cough out.
Mr. Binder looked at the captain. The first mate pulled harder on the length of sale rope. His eyes never left the face of his captain as he finished strangling the pretty princess. He was oblivious to her struggles as he held the rope tight around her neck. Marianna did not go quietly into that the moonlit night as Mr. Binder strangled the life from her. But she had finally gone. The captain waved a hand and the first mate knotted the rope around the woman’s strangled throat.
They had planned to dump her body into the sea at first light. But that was before the wind had died. The blood of the able body seaman had run cold and none of the crew had the nerve to unlash the lovely corpse.
Now the moon had risen once again with a sliver missing. The pale glow illumined the body that had still sat on deck. Her knees had separated with her thighs wide open. Her inner thighs showed white in the light. The strangling rope held her chin up over her still bosom.
The captain looked at the dot of the moon as it sat in the starboard porthole. Marianna had died a month before. Mr. Binder had garroted her with the sail rope. He had down a true and proper job of strangling the life out of her but she had cursed them at the end. The wind had died with his beloved Marianna or with her curse.
The first mate shifted from side to side as he slid the sail rope through his hands.
“Cap’n’, it’s time,” Mr. Binder said as he continued to shift nervously.
The captain looked out of the porthole one last time and sighed. The first mate took a step back as the captain rose. The big man walked to the middle of the cabin, tuned and crossed his wrists behind his back.
“Take me, Mr. Binder,” the captain said, “ and do what you must.”