Bandit screeched and leapt onto Blake’s shoulder.
“Good eve to you, Captain,” Sam said, though his tone indicated anything but pleasure at having his brooding interrupted.
“You are a man of philosophy and science,” Blake began, hoping the flattery would get the man talking. “What do you know of nightmares? Are they merely fabrications of one’s deepest fears? Or do they come from some outside source?”
Silence, save for the rush of the sea and the drunken shouts of pirates, answered him.
Finally, Sam leaned further upon the railing and clasped his hands. Moonlight glistened off his short-cropped gray hair. “What possible force outside of one’s own mind could they hail from, Captain? I fear these superstitious cullions you call a crew have befuddled your mind.”
Indeed. A fortnight ago, Blake would have agreed and dismissed the dreams. But he’d never had nightmares, even during the worst of times. Not like those since he’d acquired the Ring. “I do believe there are powers beyond what we mere humans can know.”
The wind shifted, flapping the sails above, and blasting over Blake, tossing hair into his face. He snapped it aside.
At the risk of his surgeon thinking him mad, he continued. “But what if nightmares become real, visible to one’s sense of sight and hearing?”
Grunting, Sam gripped the leather baldric strung across his chest and gave Blake a look of censure. “I’d say you’ve been overindulging in rum, Captain. Perhaps ’tis the woman that has driven you mad. You abandoned her on St. Kitts?”
“Aye.” Though Blake bristled at the termabandoned.
The old man’s gaze locked upon Blake. “Good. Beware of losing yourself to feminine devices, for they are only illusions.”
“Never fear, I have not thought of her since,” Blake lied. The enigmatic Emeline Hyde had oft been on his mind this past week. No matter how hard he tried to scatter all memory of her. Yet…he studied his friend, only then recalling that ’twas a woman who had ruined him. “Are you never to seek the company of a good woman, Sam?”
He gave a sad laugh. “Is there such a thing?”
Bandit, silent until then, let out a screech as if answering the man. Oddly, it sounded as though the monkey had said yes! Blake shook his head. This wasn’t the first time he thought he understood the little beast, nor the first time it seemed Bandit understood him. He twisted the Ring on his finger. Either he was going mad, or this was another power the Ring possessed. But to what purpose?
Blake chuckled. “Perhaps next time, choose a woman who is not already married?”
“I admit to the mistake.” Sam stared out to sea. “But ’twas her betrayal to her husband, the admiral, that enslaved me upon a ship of the line.”
Blake nodded. So he’d heard.
“Was it not a woman who nearly ruined you?” Sam asked. “You would be wise to learn from that mistake.”
Blake ground his teeth.Josephine Arnaud. ’Twas the French vixen’s betrayal that set him on his present course. “Nearly ruined, being the prudent phrase, for I learned much from the encounter.”Andthe heartbreak. “As should you. You are free now, Sam. You have wealth. You can choose more wisely and live out your days in happiness.”
“Bah.” Sam shook his head. “’As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.’ That is the lot of all men.”
As if confirming his words, a gust of wind tore over them, forcing Bandit to grip Blake’s neck to keep from falling.
Scripture? Sam Goode quoting the Bible? Surprising.’Twas even more surprising that Blake recognized it from the times his mother would read to him the Holy Writ. So many years ago. He gripped the cross around his neck. He’d always thought the passage morbid. Why ponder one’s fate when there was still life to live?
“Then I leave you to your musings.” Pushing from the railing with Bandit still atop his shoulder, Blake mounted the quarterdeck ladder and nodded at Rummy as he leapt down the companionway. As soon as he approached his cabin, the madcap monkey leapt from him and rushed back down the hall, screeching as if he’d seen a ghost. Blake could swear he heard the word evil within the beast’s shrieks.
Perhaps he had. Ever since Blake had returned to the ship, Bandit refused to enter his cabin. It made no sense, but then again, many things didn’t make sense at the moment. Like the darkness he felt in his cabin. More than a sense of evil. A palpable presence. Eerie cries and moans that burned his ears, sights that turned his blood to ice. Not only when he was in his cabin. He’d seen and heard the specters throughout the ship. Yet when he pointed them out to his crew, no one else could see them.
Pouring himself a shot of rum, he perched on the stern window ledge and stared upon the dark sea where faint moonlight sprayed white glitter over select waves. He rubbed his eyes. He’d not slept in a week. The Ring warmed his finger, and he closed his hand over it and braced for what was coming.
The black creatures returned, swaying, undulating, filling his cabin with a weight Blake felt pressing against his soul. Then the voices came, all muttering together, anguish and agony in their tones. He could make out only a few phrases in their demonic babble.
Doomed. Murderer. Worthless.
He closed his eyes, trying to shut them out, hoping his father would not join them as he so often did.
Emeline Hyde. Hadn’t the dark figures vanished in her presence? There was goodness in her. Purity. She kept the evil part of the Ring at bay. He craved its power, but he could not go on like this. He found no joy in his recent victories, no peace in his sleep, no happiness in the pleasures he once enjoyed. He must find a way to control these demonic forces, and he had but one recourse.
Aye, no matter what, he must find Emeline and get her back.
