Where Afeared Yer Cap'n's Been

Aye, lads, a goodly tie yer cap'n tied on, laced & licked through with rum & whiskey & haunted ever by ghostly, ghastly memories, lads, such that mine eye was clouded white o'er with the past, aye, at the very expense of the fledgling present, in all of its tender eager dreaming. Aye, well, 't happens, lads, when a cap'n falls on palimpsest & 'is back to the bow does turn. But here I be, lads, ready to wind on me cautionary tale, aye, if ye've an ear for listening. Me previous note digressed lads 'pon that sore subject of Blackbeard, most famed of the post-Golden Age pirates, aye, for reasons I shall avoid exposing again today, though suffice it to say me laddies that ere a man becomes a pirate proper he dabbles not in marketing, nay, but steers a course of trial, toil & travail that defines 'is endeavor, aye, to its very core, lads, such that the savagery of battle defines i'm from the inside out, lads, & not, as with that pestulant proxy, the loosely worn cape of words. Well, enough o' that, lads, & on with me tale. I left ye there with the frigid water rushing full into me brigate's hull, aye, with me unpatched eye looking on as about me artifacts whirled in the wake of the sinking bulk, me shoulder badly bitten by the mule-shark that now shall grin no more, aye, &, from what I espied there below the blue, me crew had lighten 'pon the British man-o-war with nary a speck of apparent guile, divested thereupon of their integrity as pirates, becoming instead, of an instant, scurrilous dogs, aye, woe-beholden, manacled to the fate of the pussilanimous & putrid of spirit, aye. & there me spied their things whirling in that vortex of frozen sludge, & there I spied me escape, aye, where no good eye would fall 'pon me, where me crew might think me dead that I may Lazarus unbid to bring them to the consequence of their mutiny. Aye, lads, I found me escape in-- beg yer pardon, lads, a knock, a knocking now 'pon me wooden door...

Me Tale Winds On...

Aye, lads, a heavy repose did yer cap'n take there, dreary-lidded, aye, e'en under the rosy fingers of Eos in 'is bloody chariot, lads. If me memory serves me well, aye, I'd told ye of the muleshark, that now toothless beast of the depths, bespotted, speckled, various in hue, aye, that now I fear may find no easy purchase among the creatures of that watery abyss. Once that dear creature, though, had through 'is collision with me old ship's hull there poked a hole, aye, as ye know lads, the watery depths did there extend, eager like as the damned lined up o'er that Stygian clime. There rushed that frigid water, until me eye did perceive the slow undoing of me brigate's buoyancy, lads, & methought the hull did turn peculiar in its perpendicularity to the sea's rolling plain, & there, after a moment's hesitation, did I see it slowly to sink, lads, a sight not unmixed in its effects on me, as long years of travail, toil, & bounty have I abovedecks there espied, aye, & long years of various other pleasures belowdecks linger still in me sweet memory, lads, aye, for memory & its very remembering profer the pirate some small comfort over peril-imbued journeys like this very tale I tell ye now. But me focus wavers, lads, as the bygone cries out to me, aye, in its luring euphonic lull, a siren that ne'er leaves yer course unfettered. Nay, but there I saw me ship plunge & perish, its various effects scattered in variegated states of disrepair, aye: a cape flowing like anenome here, an oak box of jacks letting each, one & all, float forth of its open lid like stars being birthed, lads, the severed mast whirling yet as if wind-touched, the scrimshaw cane me pilfered off of the Ivory Coast, the pantaloons that a gypsy in the West Indies swore up & down to have belonged to Blackbeard 'isself, who, let it be known here & now, lads, for all of 'is performative savagery, was found out & hung when 'is ship sat lazily adrift in a none-too-remote cove, aye, & he & 'is crew could not be stirred from their inebriate sense of the world's calm to rightly defend themselves. 'Tis said that the cap'n of the Royal vessel that brought the broadside about was in fact hesitant e'en to near the ship, such was the stretch & power o' the myth, lads. Blackbeard, 'is beard lit aflame, 'is eight daggers & two pistols, thought 'imself impervious to the cruelty of fate, but there, 'is crew on 'is side, a smaller Royal ship took 'im for all 'is worth, lads. But I, yer cap'n, be here still, aye, & yer cap'n records here misadventures that surmount the petty cannonroar of any nation's fleet. Be my beard ablaze, lads? Be me timbers shivered? Be me but a mockery of me own self, unable to draw 'pon me will to salvage what seems a dire & inexorable fate? Aye, I thought not. I'll the rest explain ere long, lads, but believe ye me, Blackbeard be but a cartoon, aye, a schoolgirl as I've sung, when ye put 'im next to me. I'll tend the bottle now, lads, 'fore I tend me tale...