THE GUN KETCH

his sword once more.

'Aye, I have,' Lewrie rasped. 'Doyle… I think you're bluffing. I don't think you have any more hostages in there. And I don't think you're stupid enough to kill them, when they're the only things keeping you and your bully-bucks alive.'

'Don't ye, now?' Doyle postured gaily. 'Oh, but ye're a hard'un, squire's son. Worse'n a Dublin publican t'deal with. Lookee this, hey?'

Doyle had the women fetched out again, all three of them this time. He seized one of the younger women and put the tip of his blade to her throat, making her huge brown eyes widen in terror.

'Ain't she a handsome wench, Navy?' he tittered, clawing at her gown to rip it away and expose her full young breasts, tear it down to her waist halfway to her bound wrists. Those shapely breasts were now clotted with scabbed cuts, purpling with bruises. 'This'n here, she wuz right good sport, once she got me ideer. Pity she had t'learn the hard way. Might be sportin' agin, soon's ye scrub her up, an' put some rum in 'er. Bit dowdy, now, d'ye think?' he teased, turning her from side to side, like a man appraising a used coat. 'D'ye think I'm joshin' ye, now, laddy? Wot say I cut this sweet little dug off, jus' t'prove t'ye 'tis that seryus I am.'

The blade descended to lift one breast on its razor-sharp edge. 'Still, I got me five more t'offer ye, so this 'un won't be missed.'

'Bring that prisoner up, Mister Odrado,' Lewrie called over his shoulder. 'So help me, Doyle, you harm the girl in the slightest, and you hang before the sun is down. You show one sign you mean any harm to any of them, and I will open fire, devil take the hindmost, and God protect the innocent!'Squire's son don't crave ye, girl,' Doyle frowned, and spoke in her ear, making her wail with redoubled panic. But in Spanish!

Now I have you, you bastard, Lewrie thought, wolfish with glee!

'That Spanish I heard, Doyle?' Lewrie forced himself to laugh, 'Christ, all this hanging back for fear of harm to Spanish bitches?'

'Now, lookee here, squire's son…' Doyle began to splutter.

'This scum a friend of yours?' Lewrie asked as Odrado forced a prisoner to kneel in front of him. 'Would you be upset if I shot him right here and now? What if I started in shooting all your men I hold, like the curs they are?'

'She dies, damn ye!' Doyle threatened, bringing the sword-tip up below the girl's jaw, and leveling his arm at full-bent extent for a thrust. 'Just t'prove I'm not bluffin'!'

'And then you're one hostage less, Doyle. One dago bitch less! No one I'd sport charity for. I dislike dagos more than cold, boiled mutton, don't ya know! Fought too many of 'em in the war, hey?' Alan guffawed, putting an icy edge to his sarcastic laughter. He drew out the dragoon pistol and pulled the dog's- jaw back to full cock, then laid it against the kneeling scoundrel's ear.

'I ain't foolin', squire's son!' the pirate leader snarled at him, pressing the sword's point deeper, drawing a trickle of blood, and a muffled, wheedling scream from the tormented girl.

'Neither am I,' Lewrie told him. And pulled the trigger on the pistol and shot the kneeling pirate's head apart like a melon!

'Nombre de Dio!' Odrado croaked, crossing himself.

'Fetch up another prisoner, Mister Odrado,' Lewrie instructed, trying to keep his bile down as he turned to blow the remaining powder embers from the priming pan. 'And reload that for me.'

'Jesus and Mary, ye…!' Doyle blanched, then recovered his bluster. 'I swear t'Christ, this bitch is dead!' He began to stab her through the throat. She fainted dead away.

'Trade lives with me, will you?' Lewrie scoffed. 'I kill one, you kill one, and then you run out of dago bitches a lot faster than I run out of pirates, who don't deserve better, anyway, Doyle. Now would you call that a handsome bargain, you son of a bitch?'

'Christ, yer lunatick!' Doyle goggled, trying to hold the girl up, then letting her sag unconscious to the ground. 'Ah, d' ye think I care 'bout them yonder? Keep 'em, then! Do wot ye please!'

'I'll keep shooting them down until I run across one of your cut-throats you do give a damn about, Doyle. You do what you please with your captives. They don't signify to me!' Lewrie taunted. 'You get no boats, you don't go free, and if you don't give up the women, throw down your arms and come out of there, you're dead! Now, damn your eyes!'

The two buccaneers holding their squealing, struggling captives were just as appalled as anyone else on the beach, and peered around their prisoners to gawk at one of their comrades shot to flinders.

God save me, Lewrie prayed! 'Now, Cony!'

Two shots rapped out as Lewrie ducked to the side and drew one of his pistols; one light crack from the.54 caliber fusil musket, an accurate weapon for a muzzleloader, and the deeper report of a breech-loading Ferguson which, in an age where Brown Bess couldn't hit a man in the chest at sixty yards, could reach out flat and true to 200!

One pirate gave out a high scream as he was hit in the temple, the other grunted as he was plumbed right between the eyes!

'Abajo, senoras! ' Lewrie screamed. 'Down, ladies, get down!'

The women had the sense to drop to their knees, but began to scramble and claw away from the terror, away from the cave mouth on their knees and bound wrists, scraping over the rocks despite Lewrie's pleas. 'Shit! Fire, Mister Parham! Fire!'

The boat-gun chuffed, and there was a howl over his head as the canister spread with enough wind to take off his hat. The roof of the cave sparkled and smoked just inside the entrance shelf profligate as a royal fireworks show, then the cave sang with winnings and keenings as the musket balls caromed and ricocheted inside to a satanic chorus of screams.

Lewrie rose from his protective squat as the pirate Doyle did, took aim at the amazed man, and fired. Doyle grunted with the impact and went over backwards, lifted off his feet by the heavy ball, and dropped out of sight, but for his heels drumming on the shale.

'Come on, lads, up and at 'em!' Lewrie called, drawing his sword. He stepped up the short slope of rock to peer inside as his men came thundering up to join him.

There was no fight left in them, those pirates who had lived through that lead sleeting. Lewrie knelt by Doyle, who was gut-shot and going fast.

'Jesus an' Mary, wot kind o' King's officer they givin' commissions t'now, damn ye?' Doyle panted, wincing with agony. 'Yer not supposed t'…'Do you surrender to me now, you bastard?' Lewrie grinned. 'Devil take ye!' he groaned and sank back. 'No, the Devil take you, Billy Bones,' Lewrie spat. 'I just wish I'd had the complete pleasure of watching you swing!'

V

'Expulsis piratis – Restituta Commercia.'

'He expelled the pirates and restored commerce.'

– former national motto of the Bahamas

Chapter 1

Alan Lewrie was jealous.

It was a novel experience for him, this gnawing apprehension, instead of the cut-and-thrust, quickly done sort of rivalrous jealousy of his bachelorhood where the prize was discarded once gained, and the only thing that mattered was outwitting one's rivals. But now, with the prize becoming ever dearer to him, and with the evidence clear after his long enforced separation from Caroline, he was fearful that jealousy, and its attendant alarums, would be a permanent way of life, one never even hinted at in those tales of 'happily-ever-after' one read of in fiction.