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merchantman must reflect good."
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Raster nodded. "The Honor Bright, carrying a cargo of..." His bleary eyes fell
upon his jug. "Medicine to ease the sufferings of a stricken city."
Pulsit clapped his hands and missed. "Excellent, and I shall captain the Honor
Bright. Captain John Fine is my name."
Raster weaved to his feet, shielded his eyes from an imaginary sun with one hand
and pointed with another. "Captain Fine! Captain Fine! Abaft the bort peam,
there!"
"Aye, Mister Trueheart? What is it?"
"Captain, bearing down on us is a pirate ship." Raster fell back against the
wall and held his hand to his neck. "The Black Tide!"
Pulsit stood next to Raster and placed an arm around his huge shoulders. A hint
of a smile played on the storyteller's lips. "Have courage, Mister Trueheart.
Our ship is fast, and our crew is the finest to be found in any port."
"But, Captain, it is Bloody Buckets!" Durki issued a drawn-out howl. "Listen!
Hear his ghost watch!" The sound diminished to a moan, then to a whimper.
Pulsit nodded gravely. "The poor souls. But stiffen your spine, Mister, else we
shall fail and a city will die."
Raster pushed himself away from the wall, held his plank before him and nodded.
"Aye, Captain. I am all right now." Pulsit looked at his own plank and turned to
Raster. "We must have blood. What do you have?"
Raster turned to a locker next to the cabin door, stooped and opened it. With
both hands he emptied the locker of odd bits of line, empty brown jugs, a half-
bolt of sailcloth, paint-caked brushes, and finally a large closed bucket of
paint. "Here it is. I must use this to mark my trapbuoys." "What color is it?"
Raster opened the wooden top, and stood out of the way. The paint was bright
scarlet. "And, there is your blood."
Pulsit closed his eyes and held out his hands. "Although the Honor Bright was
swift, the Black Tide quickly closed the distance, driven by Bloody Bucket's
sorcery. Grappling hooks flew from the pirate ship, and in moments, the two
ships were bound together. Bloody's crew swarmed over the side." Pulsit dipped
his plank into the paint and jumped up on one of the benches. "Defend yourself,
Bloody!"
Raster dipped his plank and mounted the bench on the opposite side of the table.
"Hah, Captain Fine! I'll have yer soul strapped to my mizzenmast, or me name
ain't Bloody Buckets!" The freak lunged at the storyteller, slapping his arm
with the plank. "First blood!"
Pulsit diverted the next blow, but Raster's onslaught drove the storyteller to
the door of the cabin. As he narrowly avoided a killing blow, Pulsit drove in
and poked Raster in the stomach. "Hah, Bloody! Take that!"
Raster picked up the paint and sloshed it down his front. "Curses, Fine! Ye have
marked me, that's true. But, I am Bloody Buckets, with the strength of ten!"
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"Then, up with your blade, pirate, and have at it!" Pulsit swung, knocking the
bucket across the cabin, splattering them both, as well as the cabin, with
paint. As Raster stepped into a large puddle of paint, he slipped and came
crashing down on the deck. Pulsit leaped to the fallen freak's side, lifted his
plank, and brought it down next to Raster's neck in a mock beheading. "And, die,
Bloody Buckets! Die!" Pulsit stood and looked in the direction of the overhead.
"And Captain Fine, wounded and bleeding, stood atop the deck of the Honor
Bright, his victory sweet
on his tongue, whjle the flesh of the evil pirate grew cold." Pulsit listened
and could hear nothing but the creaks of the ship, the shrieks of the wind and
the snores of Raster. "And, at last, poor souls, you are free!" The storyteller
backed up against a wall, slid down, and passed out.
Durki opened the cabin door, stepped inside and saw both his master and the
fisher on the deck, soaked in red. More red covered the walls, table and
overhead. "Whoops!" Durki covered his mouth and staggered back on deck. In
moments the moans of the slave souls once more stole across the waters.
The next morning, the waves of the night before calmed to gentle swells, Durki
pushed himself up from the railing and placed his hands gently against his
aching ribs. He thought upon it for a moment, then concluded that his stomach
had finally given in to its fate. He looked around the deck, found a canvas
bucket attached to a rope, then picked it up and drew some sea water. He
splashed it over his head, rubbed his face and dried it in the gentle wind
coming from the northwest. "Perhaps," he said to the fingernail of new sun
coming over the horizon, "perhaps this will not be so bad after all." He turned
and walked forward of the cabin, coming to a halt at the ship's prow. The Queen
of Sina dipped into the gentle swells ever so slightly, and Durki was delighted
at the lack of response from his bowels. "An adventure will do much to fuel my
own storyteller's imagination. I now understand torment."
Durki clasped his hands behind his back, assumed a deep frown, and began pacing
back and forth in front of the cabin. "This is a king's man of war, Ponsonberry,
not a pleasure ship! I said fifty lashes, and I meant fifty lashes! Now, strip
that wretch to the bones, and be quick about it lest you find yourself touched
by the cat!"
Durki stopped, turned and held out his hands. "Captain Cruel, I would rather
stand the lashes myself, than subject an innocent man to them."
"You would, eh Ponsonberry! Then order back the master at arms. It would never
do to have a common seaman lay bare the back of a king's officer. / will swing
the cat myself!"
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