Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (12 page)

ELEVEN

hen the English coast had shrunk to a dark line in the distance, Dread Steele ushered the children and MacGuffy into his quarters aboard the
Spectre
. The Captain sat MacGuffy in his own chair and Mister Gilly tended to the old pirate’s injuries. As Jim and his friends gathered about the old salt, Jim could not help but sneak a look about the Captain’s quarters.

An oak desk, battered and scarred from what appeared to be everything from knife gouges to shark bites, stood at the back of the room by the aft windows. Upon it sat a single quill, leaned within an inkwell, beside a tattered book, which Jim assumed was the Captain’s log.
Jim wished he could steal but a single glance into those pages and the adventures of Dread Steele and his pirate crew kept within.

An odd bell hung from a hook on the desk’s corner, though it seemed to Jim far too big and too old to serve as a simple dinner bell. He wondered what purpose it could possibly serve other than a useful perch for Cornelius. The raven sat on the hook at that very moment, pecking at his wings and ruffling his feathers. There was also a tall shelf, stuffed full of books so old that most of the covers had fallen off, and a modest bed with a dusty, wooden locker at its foot. Last of all the same map that had hung in the captain’s quarters onboard the little sloop in London was there on the portside wall. As before it was covered end to end with drawings of mythical creatures, mysterious landmarks, and arcane symbols.

For all the legends and tales Jim had heard of Dread Steele, Lord of the Pirates, he had fully expected this room to be piled high with the spoils of battles and raids, jewels and riches from the world over. But the quarters were practically bare. Jim suddenly imagined that Dread Steele’s pockets were lined more with secrets than they were with silver and gold.

“How do you feel, my friend?” Steele asked MacGuffy. He handed the old man a glass of brandy from a bottle kept within one of the desk drawers.

“Old and useless as a sock with a hole in the toe, Cap’n,” MacGuffy grumbled. “In the old days MacGuffy the pirate would ne’er o’ ‘llowed himself to be taken unawares nor find hisself unable to defend his charges, neither.” The poor man hung his head. His lips fell into a deep frown upon his scarred face. But Lacey, who cared very much for the retired pirate, put a gentle hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

“MacGuffy, please don’t say such things. You did your best. You’ve taken such good care of us for all this time, haven’t you? Besides, there were ten of them after all, and that’s not even figuring the Count, that horrible Bartholomew, and that wicked pirate, Splitbeard.”

“Too right, Lacey,” George agreed. His brothers flanked him on either side and all three of them gave MacGuffy their winningest smiles.
“And I say, you took that wallop to the back of the head like a true champion, MacGuffy! That blow would have killed a lesser man, no doubt about it!”

“Your head is hard as a rock, MacGuffy!” Peter added.

“Solid as an oak, sir,” Paul concluded. He clenched both fists before his face for added effect. “Solid as an oak!” Jim thought those might have been the worst compliments he had ever heard, especially given the circumstances. But they were genuine and so even MacGuffy managed a laugh, which had him wincing with pain all the more.

“Rascally sea pups! Ye have good hearts after all, don’t ye? I thank ye for it, I do. But I think that’ll be enough dawdlin’ o’er an old man’s bumps and bruises, Cap’n. I’ll live, I will. Per’aps we should be getting’ down to business and tellin’ the lad why ye was sailin’ to Morgan Manor this night in the first place.”

“You are right, MacGuffy, for our arrival was not by chance.” Dread Steele said. The lantern light in the cabin cast a hard shadow on the Captain’s face, so much so that it seemed to Jim that darkness was drawn to the pirate lord.

“You were coming anyway?” Jim asked. But he quickly realized that Dread Steele could not possibly have known the evil goings on at Morgan Manor. Even if he had, the
Spectre
could hardly sail to the coast of England in a single night. “You were coming to talk to me about something. You were coming to ask me about the Treasure of the Ocean, weren’t you?”

Steele nodded in reply to Jim’s question, his mouth drawn into a thin line. “Indeed, I was, Jim. For little more than a year now Cornelius and I have sailed the
Spectre
to the very world’s edge and back. At every port and isle did we lay a false trail of bread crumbs for Cromier and his dark son to follow.”

“We did have some fun with it all along the way though, did we not Captain?” Cornelius said. He laughed with a caw and hopped down from the hook onto the desk, twisting his wings this way and that as he spoke. “Told old Shark-Tooth Tim we’d buried the entire treasure beneath the Inn of the Wet Rock. Largest overbite you’ve ever
seen has old Shark-Tooth. Could very nearly nip the bottom edge of his own chin with his incisors, I’d wager. Ha! Anyway, never expected Tim to actually believe that one, really. Thought he caught the winks I was giving him the whole way, if you know what I mean. King’s men captured the poor bloke the next week breaking in after midnight. He was pulling up the floorboards, using his teeth to draw out the nails, no less. Had the fool in stockades for half a month. Left the most wicked splinters in his lips too, or so I heard.”

“How awful!” Lacey said with a gasp. But Dread Steele cleared his throat loudly and frowned in Cornelius’s direction. Cornelius squawked irritably, tucking his wings down to his sides and keeping quiet.

“Nevertheless,” Steele continued. “Certain were we that the Cromiers had set themselves upon our winding path. Thought we that finally you would be safe to return home, Jim. So we came to meet you in hopes of divining some clue as to the Treasure of the Ocean’s true whereabouts.”

“You knew about the map, then?” Jim asked. A sudden pinprick of suspicion stuck him in his heart. It seemed that everyone wanted the Treasure. Though only the Count had given Jim any hint that the desires were for far more than simple wealth. “You were coming for the map?”

“Map? What map?” Steele exclaimed. His dark face sparked with such surprise that Jim and his friends flinched at the growl in the pirate captain’s voice. Though Dread Steele had been Jim’s rescuer twice over, he was still the most dangerous of all pirates to sail the Seven Seas.

“It was a magic map, sir. I never even knew I had it until tonight. When we arrived at Morgan Manor, the house was already burnt. Phineus was there, and the one thing he had been able to save from the fire was a vial of moonwater. We had only to shine light through the vial to see that something more than words were written on my father’s letter. When the Count poured the moonwater on the page, a map burned on the letter, as though it was writ with fire, blue fire. It
lit up the entire room. The Count said it was a map to the Treasure of the Ocean.”

For a long moment, Dread Steele said nothing. His eyes drifted from Jim’s face into nowhere, as though a thousand thoughts flew through his mind all at once. Finally Steele’s mouth twisted into a bitter frown and he swore aloud.

“Confound Lindsay and his infernal cleverness! Did the man trust no one but himself? The loss of this map is a brutal blow indeed!”

“Captain,” Cornelius cawed. “While I am no great master of the magical arts myself, it seems highly doubtful to me that Lindsay Morgan would have known exactly to where the Treasure of the Ocean would have disappeared from the Vault. Magic that powerful is unpredictable at best, unknowable at worst. For that matter, Lindsay could not have known for certain the Treasure’s fate at all after he left it in the Vault.”

“Argh,” MacGuffy harrumphed from his chair. “Then what good be the map, Cornelius? Why draw it at’all?”

Cornelius placed one feathered wing beneath his beak, as though thinking quite hard on the matter. “The map must lead to some other magical object, some talisman of a sort. Lindsay may have wanted to ensure Jim could find the Treasure at any time, if ever it was lost or wherever it might be hidden.”

“You mean like a seeker?” Jim suddenly asked. “When the King of Thieves wanted to find the Pirate Vault, he used a silver dragonfly that could find any hidden or secret place, as long as the person looking knew the place to be there—”

“But not the where of the there!” Lacey finished for Jim. A spark of excitement lit in her voice, for Lacey was a very clever girl indeed and enjoyed solving riddles and mysteries a great deal. Steele paced back and forth before his desk. He cast his dark eyes to the floor and rubbed his hand furiously along his unshaven jaw. When he spoke it was as much to himself as to the others gathered about him.

“Indeed, this may be so. But if Cornelius is right, and if the Cromiers find whatever magical item is buried at the end of the map’s
path, they shall be one step closer to possessing the Treasure of the Ocean. If Cromier finds that…if he and Bartholomew hold it in their grasp…”

Steele never finished the thought. MacGuffy whistled long and low and shook his white-haired head in distress. Jim remembered the mad look in the Count’s eyes as he had spoken of the vast power to be his once he obtained the treasure. Jim’s stomach clenched in his gut and frosty tendrils climbed through his veins.

“We must not allow Cromier and Bartholomew to take this prize. But we are at great risk of losing the race before it has even begun,” Steele continued, shaking his head. “Count Cromier has the map, and with it, the only clue as to this mystery’s hidden location.”

Despair took hold of all in the cabin. Even Dread Steele ceased his pacing and stared hard at the wall in silence. But Lacey, whose eyes had been sparkling with adventure since Jim had reminded her of the seeker, suddenly spoke up.

“There may be one clue, left, Captain Steele,” she said. “We could use the stars.”

“Stars?” Cornelius squawked, flapping his wings and ruffling his feathers. “What know you of stars, fair Lacey?” Lacey reached into the handbag she had worn with her new dress and produced her tattered and faded volume.

“Well, Mister Cornelius, I know about all the stars in this book. MacGuffy gave it to me. Even though it was only for a moment or two, I’m sure I saw some that I recognized on the ceiling at the stables. Somehow I think they can give us a clue!”

“Oh no!” George said, shaking his head. “Not your stupid star book again!”

“It’s not stupid, George!” Lacey snapped. George took a wise step backward for Lacey seemed quite ready to club him with the volume if he opened his mouth again. “It’s full of special constellations, ones that regular sailors don’t even use. And those were the ones on the map, I’m certain of it!”

Dread Steele raised a curious eyebrow at this and stepped slowly over to Lacey. He held out his hand to take the book and leafed through the pages. After a moment the Captain furrowed his brow in ever deepening wrinkles of concentration.

“Lacey,” he finally said, “show me the stars you saw.”

TWELVE

teele wasted no time and spun on his heel toward the desk. He shooed Cornelius from the hook with a swat of his hand and motioned everyone closer.