A Thief's Punishment

 As told by: Bosun Greybeard at Bosun's Deadmen Tales.

 NOTE: Every so many moons old salt Bosun Graybeard sails into Pirates Destiny and holds his evenings of storytelling. Tales of great conquest, of sad endings and new beginnings, all by the enchanted campfire in the fog of the island. We've gathered a few of them here. Bosun has since sailed out for an adventure, but he will likely return. Keep your eye on the horizon for the tales to resume.

 

 

I was found guilty of theft, one of the worst offenses aboard a ship. Never mind it was just half of a lime. I had been suffering from scurvy and was desperate. The captain had caught me red handed and drug me before the crew to sentence me. A unanimous guilty and I was flung into the longboat and dumped unceremoniously onto a sand-spit with nothing more than a wine-skin of slimy bilge water and the captains personal dragoon with one shot left in it.

A cruel joke at best. I had begged the captain to let me have a quill and bit of parchment to allow me my last diary.
 

He had stepped forward at the moment I was being lowered into the longboat and punched me in the face while at the same time shoving the items into my waistcoat so none of the crew saw his compassion.

I sat onto the sand and watched the sails of my ship fade on the horizon and began my first entry:

Day 1: Marooned. No food, little water. Nothing to make shelter. Night is falling. The heat of the day at last ebbed away as the sun slipped below the horizon. A million stars twinkled in the night sky. Far off in the distance, the telltale whoosh of a whale's breath as it hunted for the tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill.

Day 2: Slept fitfully. Made attempt to explore the island. There is nothing to explore, only sand. The heat is unbearable. With nothing to shelter me from the sun, I had gotten terribly sunburned. The coolness of the night was welcomed, although it provided little relief from the pain.

Day 3: Trying to conserve water. Managed to dig a hole in the sand for shelter. Found a sand crab. I am so very alone. The mix of pain, loneliness and despair begins to set in.

Day 4: I saw a sea turtle in the distance but was too weak to swim to it. Water is nearly gone, down to a few drops. I am just lying here waiting to die. I think of those I loved and feel so empty with regret. The thirst is beyond words. She came to me in my dreams again last night. Black flower in her hair. Tormented and weakening with each passing day, I begin to have visions of a beautiful woman with a mysterious black flower in her hair.

Day 5: The sun, it's burning. I am surely in Hades. Filled with desperation, I drank of the sea.

Day 6: The swirling mist, the lovely dark swirling mist. I see her..the black flower is so beautiful.

Day 7: The mist, the cool mist..I felt her fingertips entwining into mine…reaching..beckoning to me.

Day ? I am mad. I know she is there but she cannot be. Its so hot. The sea quenches my thirst but I only thirst for more. I cannot load the dragoon, I cannot. I will NOT. As the day slowly turned into night once more, I close my eyes for the last time and dream of her. We are hand in hand, walking a garden path filled with flowers of all shapes and colors. Years went by, and the tiny spit of sand grew into a small island. The sea carried to it seeds and bits of flotsam, and the seeds took root. Eventually, palms and grasses appeared, and life came. Birds nested and flew overhead in the tropical sky. Small lizards scurried about in the underbrush and dolphins frolicked offshore, hunting fish among the coral reef.

One day, a ship appeared and dropped anchor. The ship carried a map maker who was charting this part of the ocean and wanted to draw an accurate representation of the island. A shore party was formed and landed on the sandy beach. The cartographer was careful as he drew out tiny details of each inlet and point on his parchment. When he was done, he wandered into the jungle and began to explore. As he entered it, he stumbled over…a sun-bleached skull. Startled, he knelt down and carefully brushed the years of sand away, uncovering first an ancient dragoon, a skeletal hand still grasping it. He continued brushing away the sand and discovered the barely readable parchment, rolled up tightly in the other bony fingers of the long dead sailor. Standing up, he made the sign of the cross, muttering to himself sadly, “Another marooned seaman lost and found again.”

Respectfully, he covered the bones up again after pocketing the diary. Looking around for something to form a cross to place at the head of the body, that’s when he noticed it. Hanging underneath the fronds of a large palm tree very close to the skeleton.

There swaying gently in the sea breeze, a single orchid, black as midnight.