Castillano left his cabin, still barefoot and tying up his trousers. The night shift was bending over the gunwales to look aft.
"Ship dead astern, Lion!" said Flores, his lieutenant, when he reached the bridge. "And I'll be damned if it's not that filibuster ship that almost sinks us."
He opened a telescope and pointed it to the ship that seemed to fly over the waters. He needed to clench his teeth to keep from smiling.
"Yes, it's the Phantom," he said.
Flores turned to him, his face reflecting horror. "The Phantom?" he repeated in a scared whisper. "The ship that attacked us was the Pearl of the Caribbean's?
"Didn't you see her lead the boarding?" Castillano replied. "She jumped from the bowsprit right before you."
"I thought the captain was the blond giant who beat us on deck."
"Blind fool," Castillano grunted under his breath, trying to keep a grip on the stupid happiness filling his chest.
Surely the child regretted having spared his life and was coming to right her mistake. He didn't care. At least he'd see her again. And if she granted him a few last words before killing him, he'd get a chance to tell her that he was sorry for being such a jerk and that he still loved her. Well, he'd better start with that. Maybe she'd run out of patience and put a ball between his eyes before he was done talking. Like she did to poor bigmouth Pedro.
"What do we do, Lion?"
His lieutenant's shaky question forced him to pull himself together. The Phantom had better wind than them and would have the New Lion in range in thirty minutes tops.
"Send word to Fausto and Salvador to make sail and get away," he ordered. "We're turning south, to lay about with our guns left. Any men that's not working a cannon must be here on deck with a musket."
"Aye, aye, Lion!"
Castillano left the bridge. His men buzzed all over as he headed back to his cabin. There he locked the door and opened his chest, enjoying that moment of feeling the happiest moron in history. He kept mocking himself as he wore a clean shirt, clubbed his hair neatly, brushed his boots, buckled his sword to his side and grabbed his best coat.
Back to the bridge, he saw the two merchantmen sailed away as light and gracefully as a rheumatic cow. The New Lion had already veered and floated right across the moon's trail, which now shone among the Phantom's masts. The pirate ship cast its ominous shadow on the sea toward the Spaniards, that stood in her way to cover the merchantmen.
An anxious silence filled the New Lion. But seeing how calm their captain stood on the bridge, hands behind his back and face to the threat barreling down on them, helped the Spaniards to stay strong.
Half a mile away from the New Lion, the Phantom turned north first, then south, the sails stricken to lay about too. With that precision Castillano remembered so well, the pilot used the push left to take the Phantom only a hundred yards away from the New Lion, showing the starboard side bristling with cannons.
The Spaniards looked up at the bridge and saw their captain kept his hands behind his back as he stepped up in no hurry to the gunwale.
Castillano's blue eyes moved over the superb ship and the figures he could spot on deck. The pirates hadn't veiled their lanterns, and he didn't see any sign that they were ready to fight. He spotted Morris' tall figure on the bridge.
"Go below deck and make sure nobody opens fire. Our lives depend on it," he said to Flores.
Where was the child?
He waved the bosun over and repeated the same orders for the shooters on deck.
It was then that a small shadow climbed to the Phantom's gunwale, grabbing the rigging. Castillano's heart raced in his chest. He forced himself to breathe deep and opened his telescope. Of course it was her. Barefoot, wearing her breeches, the red sash wrapped around her slender waist, her raven hair unbraided and... Castillano swallowed hard. A women's shirt, the low collar from shoulder to shoulder and ribbons around the short sleeves. Like the one she'd worn that afternoon back in Campeche, under the tamarind tree.
The pirates seemed to have turned to stone on the Phantom, all of them turned to the New Lion. The wind brought not a voice.
The Spaniards kept looking from that monster that could sink them at any given moment to their captain on the bridge and back.
Castillano didn't understand what was going on, and he refused to buy the explanation his imagination offered: the child was there for him, to see him. He would've spent the rest of the night there, just gazing on Marina. And the next day. And the next. But he didn't trust his men to control their sweaty hands much longer.
He needed to know what the child was up to. So he climbed to the gunwale as well.
"Phantom ahoy!" He shouted on top of his lungs. "What do you want?"
A murmur spread among the Spaniards, praising the courage of their captain, calling the pirates out like that.
"I'm looking for the Lion, if there's any left on your ship!"
Marina's answer flew in the wind to caress Castillano's ears, and he found himself smiling again. He only reacted when he saw her jump down from the gunwale. Then he did the same and trotted down from the bridge.
"Lower the small boat away!" he commanded. "Flores! Close the gunports and keep a shooters watch. If the Phantom maneuvers before I'm back—"
"We'll open fire, Lion!"
"Hush, you fool! They'd sends us down in a heartbeat. If the Phantom maneuvers before I come back, I want you to take command, turn around and go on to Trujillo."
"What!?" Flores' cry was echoed by all the men who heard Castillano's orders.
"Not a chance, Lion!" cried another man.
"We won't leave you behind!" cried a third man.
Castillano lowered his head. His men knew him enough to tell he was seething and Flores signaled them to shut up. Castillano scowled up at them.
"Am I not your captain?" he asked angrily, and waited for them to nod. "Then do as I say, dammit!"
The men stepped back, knuckling their foreheads. Castillano spun around and went to the top of the larboard ladder, waited for the boat with three oarsmen to be at the end of it and climbed down to board it.
He stood at the bow, so his men wouldn't see the expectation on his face as he counted the yards between him and the Phantom.
He couldn't help another silly smile when he grabbed a step of the pirate ship's starboard ladder, because he felt once more the untamable spirit that lived in the Phantom's bones, refusing to rest in peace in order to watch over the child. He turned to the oarsmen, doing his best to look grave.
"Go back to the New Lion," he ordered, not giving room to complaints.
He stood on the ladder until his men turned around and rowed away grudgingly. He looked one last time at his ship. She'd been strong and loyal to him for a whole year. He was pretty sure it was the last time he'd see her. The child would most likely kill him, and he wouldn't even try to stop her. And if the heavens opened and God felt like wasting a miracle on him, the child would take him away.
He turned to face the hull and looked up.
"Wish me luck, old man," he said to the Phantom, climbing up the wooden steps.