Pirates of the Caribbean: How Many Miles to Babylon?

The Tribute of the Brethren

The Tribute of the Brethren

From the moment the cannon came to rest upon the soft, sandy bottom of the sea, Bootstrap had struggled to find any posture that was remotely tolerable. He floated a little above the sand, with his legs twisted into an awkward position, grass waving in his face, and curious fish darting forward to nip at his skin. The cannon had landed on the knots that bound him, pressing them into the sea bed. Unable to move the cannon, and lacking his cutlass, he knew escape was impossible. Better to resign himself to eternity.

He passed each night watching his own bones glistening underwater as shafts of moonlight played upon them, and he spent endless hours wondering how soon dawn would come. He made a game of reckoning how many more times the sun and stars would go wheeling over his eternal resting place before the seas dried up and the world ended. Would there be even one shred of his mind left by then?

Worst and yet sweetest of all were his hopes and fears for his family, who were never absent from his thoughts. He recalled how cheerfully he would take his leave of them after each short visit, so certain of his own return, so sure that life would continue thus for many years. Then, in the blink of an eye, his life had been frozen and rotted by the curse. From then on the sun would bring daylight, but no future for him.

He pictured his wife and young Will bidding him farewell for what turned out to be the last time. They had watched as the boat took him out, Margaret's hand resting on their boy's shoulder. Young Will begged to be allowed on the ship, but he had refused his son, determined to keep up the lie that he was an honest seaman. He thought about how Margaret must have reacted to his last letter enclosing the medallion, and pictured Will many years hence, as an old man with white hair, but with the gold still in his possession.

And then one day, as his thoughts ran the same course they always followed, there had been a tremendous disturbance in the grass bed. He would have thought the hull of a ship was descending on him, except that the ship would have had to be sailing underwater.

All at once, a group of creatures pushed the grass aside and surrounded him. They were somewhat like men, but with hideous deformities and embellishments to their bodies, and ruined faces as though they had been half absorbed by monstrous specimens of marine life. From the midst of this fearful company emerged one who was evidently their leader. Standing before him was none other than Davy Jones.

"D'ye fear death?" Jones asked him with a sneer. "Or d'ye fear this more? Shall I cut ye free? Are ye willin' t' pay the price?"

"Aye, cap'n," Bootstrap replied. "Name your terms."

"T' serve a hundred years aboard the most infamous ship known t' man," said Jones, his eyes glittering like hard stones. "Will ye serve?"

"I'd serve the devil himself to get free," answered Bootstrap.

Jones smiled. "Done!" he declared. Using the great claw that served as his left hand, he gripped the ropes and pinched them until they broke.

At the very moment the ropes fell loose, Bootstrap and the creatures who had freed him disappeared, leaving the cannon and ropes lying abandoned in the grass bed.

.........................

Several weeks later, a strange, dark ship appeared on the horizon, surrounded by a small fog bank as she sailed towards the spot where Bootstrap had been trapped. The Black Pearl was returning to reclaim her own.

Since departing from the Pantano, Barbossa had interrogated nearly every man on the Pearl in an effort to trace the missing medallions. One by one, he had questioned them, recording their answers in his log. It was an exhausting, tedious chore, but he was determined to recover every piece of the stolen treasure.