"Quinn!"
Ana ran forward to grab her reeling friend just before he crashed to the cobbles. Quinn pitched into her arms, moaning.
Dras rushed out and pulled the pair back into the alley.
"Quinn, what happened? What happened to you? Are you okay?"
The Irishman's head lolled. He managed to lift an arm and wave it in the direction of the mansion he'd stumbled out of recently.
"Don' go in there. 'S bad. Monkeys."
"Monkeys?"
"I gotta tell ya abou' the monkeys."
Dras tried to assert some control over the situation.
"We'll get to the monkeys in a minute, Quinn. Where are the skulls? What did you do with them?"
Quinn braced himself against a shop wall. He belched.
"Gave 'em to her. She asked. So I gave 'em to her. Then there were monkeys."
Dras swore.
"Big monkeys."
"Quinn, this is serious."
"I feel better, though. In my head."
Quinn pointed helpfully to his temple.
Dras and Ana shared a look.
"Let's get back to the ship. Black will have an idea."
*****
Black frowned.
"I can't have all the ideas around here. What do you suggest?"
The sailor shrugged.
"Not for me to say, sir. But I heard it, and so did Watson, sir. Them dagoes is mustering to leave at first light."
Black growled and stared across the half-mile of dark water that separated the Defiant from the three Spanish warships swinging at anchor further out from shore. He whirled as the shore party came aboard with Dras, Quinn and Ana.
"The Spaniards are getting ready to ship out. Do they know where we're heading?"
Dras glanced over at Quinn before responding.
"No way to know. But they're ahead of us, that's for sure. Quinn gave all the skulls to that woman."
"What?"
"There were monkeys. Why doesn't anyone want to hear about the monkeys?"
Ana stepped forward to place herself between Quinn and Black's burgeoning ire.
"The skulls are gone. Whoever that woman is, she's clearly no one to be trifled with. We know where the skull of Carisona is, and we know how to stop her. Let's get the skull and be about it."
Black turned and stared again at the Spanish ships.
"Let's slow them down a little before we go."
He leapt down to the maindeck and leaned out to hail the returning cutter that had dropped off his friends. As the little boat turned about and returned to the Defiant, he called the crew over and began barking out orders.
"Shore crew! Lively, lads -- get the longboat in the water. Load her up with muskets, powder and shot, cutlasses, all of it. Davis, select a boarding crew and get them in the longboat. The rest of you gather up your personal things and get into the cutter. Let's go, gentlement, let's go. And keep your voices down."
The ship exploded in activity as sailors, uncertain as to their captain's plan but infected with his sudden excitement, rushed about, hissing at each other as they tossed bundles over the rail and arranged themselves for one boat or the other.
Dras sidled over to Black.
"What's the plan, sir?"
Black's grin as he turned to her was so ferocious Dras stepped back involuntarily.
"That dago captain's ship is maybe even nicer than the old Defiant. Looks English-built to me."
"What? You want to steal the Commodore's flagship?"
"Well, we'll leave him this one. It might be a little scorched, though."
*****
The sentry dozed. Not even the tarry smoke now drifting across the stern of his sloop, the Santa Cantalina, alerted him to the danger bearing down on he and his compatriots.
The sloop was largely deserted, as were both her sister ship, San Andres, and the frigate La Madalena. Crew members were being rounded up ashore, but on these ships the watch slept peacefully, their decks rocking with a slow easy motion.
Black watched the distance between The Defiant and the Spanish ships shrink as the outgoing tide carried them towards their unsuspecting quarry. Smoke was now billowing out of the deck hatches as the lower decks began to fill with flame. His savage grin had not abated one bit.
Davis, who with two others had volunteered to help Black steer the burning Defiant in to the Spaniards, ran up to his captain, matching grin for grin.
"Sir! One thing we didn't mention earlier, sir. Hope you don't mind."
"What's that, Davis?"
"We loaded the guns, sir. Thinking once the flames reach the toucholes..."
Black's grin widened further.
"Let's blast 'em good."
The Defiant bore down on the Spanish ships, striking a course directly between the two sloops. Black hauled once more on the tiller, blessing their good fortune that on this ship the tiller was attached right to the rudder post so that there were no cables to burn through and render them helpless.
"Right. Over the side with us."
Flames were licking up through the deck boards as the last four crew members aboard the Defiant scrambled over the side and into the longboat astern. Eager hands pulled at the oars, sending the boat out and around the Spanish sloops.
The senty aboard the Santa Cantalina awoke and began screaming.
But it was far too late. Even as the longboat pulled beyond the sloops, the English crewmen could hear the Defiant grind in between the two ships. Flame suddenly erupted, and Black grinned over at Davis as a series of deafening explosions told of the guns going off.
Broadsides in both directions, at utter point-blank range, demolished the Spanish sloops and swiftly the fire spread to both ships and soon there was a spiralling inferno where once three ships had floated.
The crew of the dying Defiant, split into two boats, hauled with all speed for the Spanish frigate, La Madalena, coming alongside in moments. Shrieking the foulest curses they could muster, the crew swarmed aboard, cutting down the few guards where they stood. Teams leapt for the capstan, the tiller and up into the rigging, desperate to catch the morning tide and the land breeze.
Shouts from ashore told them their efforts had been detected, but they were unmolested as the graceful frigate drifted out of the harbour. There were no forts full of guns covering the harbour entrance, and the entire crew climbed up into the rigging to cheer as they sailed free of Cap-Haitien.
Dras stood at the rail with Quinn and Ana.
"I hope that's the end of the weird stuff."
"I still haven't told you about the monkeys."
,The Thule Society, Nazis, Japanese Imperial Marines, Southsea Cannibals, Giant Apes, Dinosaurs, Zeppelins, Hyperborea, Incan Pyramids, Amelia Earhart, etc....
