It was noon before Taylor returned to the Captain’s room. She brought some cool water, and some soothing medicine.

The man was lying much as she had left him, but sitting a little higher. He was awake, but seemed both weak and excited. “Taylor! Taylor, you’re the only one here, worth a penny. You know I’ve always been good to you. Never a month but I’ve given you a silver fourpenny. And now, you see me low. Mate, I’ve been deserted by all. You’ll bring me one noggin of rum, now, won’t you, matey?”

“Doctor Livesey -” She began.

The Captain interrupted with a string of curses that could have curdled milk, before continuing weakly. “Doctor is all swabs. That doctor, there? What the devil might he know of seafaring men? I’ve been to places where the ground was hot as pitch, mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the land heaving like a sea in earthquakes. What would the doctor know of a place like that?”

She shrugged politely.

“I lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, man and wife, for me. If I’m not to have my rum, now, I’m a poor old hulk on lee short. My blood’ll be on you, Taylor. And that Doctor!” The man interrupted himself to curse violently.

Taylor considered whether such a display might not count as a sin on her own part, how fierce it was.

“Look, Taylor! I haven’t had a drop, this blessed day. That doctor’s a fool, I tell you. I seen horrors, if I don’t get a drop in me, I be seein’ them agin. I’ll see old Flint in the corner, oh that’ll be horrors. Your doctor himself said one glass won’t be hurtin’ me. I’ll give you a gold guinea for noggin, Taylor.”

Concerned that the man’s voice was rising, and he might disturb her father, who should never have got up to begin with, and needed no further excitement, Taylor gave in. “I want none of your money, but that which you owe my father. I’ll get you one glass, and none more.”

The travel down to the bar, and to return, didn’t take her long. The inn was quiet at this time of day, with few to none about. Leaving space for Taylor’s concerned thoughts to consider what might happen to the one who had escaped.

Had the Captain’s attack made certain that the Black Dog would never be returning? Or would he be the pitch and fiery torch kind?

When Taylor returned with a glass, the old man in the bed downed it greedily. Skulling the thing in a quick burst, before giving a long sigh. “Aye. Oh, aye. That’s better, sure enough. And now, matey, did that doctor-fool say how long I was to lie along this old berth?”

“A week. At the least.” She replied.

“By thunder!” He exploded, “A week? I cannae do that. They’d have my name known by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me, right at this moment. Couldn’t keep what they got, and want to nail what is another’s. Bastards. Is that a seaman’s play? I’m a saving soul. I never wasted mine, nor lost it. I’m not afraid of them. I’ll shake out another reef, mate, and we’ll daddle ’em again.”

The Captain took her shoulder with a grip worse than the Black Dog’s, and dragged himself from the bed. His legs moved like dead weights, and Taylor had no doubt she was the only pillar keeping him upright.

Yet, when the man had struggled all he could, just to get to sitting upon the edge of the bed, he gave a sigh. “Doctor done me. Lord. Lay me back.”

Before she could do anything, though, the man collapsed back to where he had been. Lying silently and still for a long time.

She went to leave, when he mumbled, “Tee? You saw that seafaring bastard, today?”

“Black Dog?”

“Aye. Black Dog.” He said tiredly, “He’s a bad ‘un. But there’s worse that put him to task. Now, if I can’t get away nowhow… Mind you, it’s the sea-chest they after, not me ol’ soul. If I can’t get by, Tee… Get yourself on a horse. Fast as you can. Get to that doctor bastard, and gather all his friends. Tell ’im that all of old Flint’s crew, man and boy, all that’s left, is at the Nightingale.”

Taylor stared at him, not entirely enjoying his change of tone.

“I was his first mate. Flint’s old mate, Tee.” The Captain continued, “I’m the only one as knows the place. He gave it to me, at Savannah, when he were dying. Like as to myself, you see. But you won’t needin’ to run, unless you see that Black Dog agin, or a seafaring man with one leg. Lords be cursed. Him above all.”

“Keep a weather eye open, Tee. Do me, and I’ll share with you equals, upon my honour.”

Taylor wasn’t sure what to make of that. The Captain wasn’t exactly someone that she thought bore the weight of great honour upon his shoulders. All the same, the fear in him now, might have set him upon the right and proper. Or at least, a little.

She left the room quietly, as the man drifted off.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

----------------------------------------

All thoughts of the morning were lost to Taylor, when she her father died that evening.

She busied herself, as best she could. Sending out letters to neighbours, and the doctor. Beginning arrangements for the funeral, and still running the inn as usual. She left herself no space to think, whatsoever.

She had no time the next day for her unruly guest, either. He got downstairs, and she fed him breakfast as usual, though he ate little. When he demanded rum, she didn’t have a single care left to offer, and so gave it without rebuke.

The man was all scowls for the next three days, but she didn’t afford herself time for more than a polite greeting. She had known that this was coming, for a very long time, but losing a parent is still one of the grimmer duties of a child.

The few brief and quiet moments when there was nothing to do, would find Taylor wiping down one surface or another, as her tears fell silently.

On the third day, on the night before the funeral, the Captain was as drunk as ever. Singing away some old sea song, in a house of mourning.

> “The cabin boys name was Chipper,”

> “A Randy little nipper,”

> “He made a pass with a broken glass,”

> “And circumcised the skipper!”

Weak as the Captain was, the entire inn were all in fear of him. Or for him. Doctor Livesey was taken up with a case many miles away, and could be nowhere near the Nightingale.

The Captain was weak, and seemed to be getting weaker, rather than regaining any of his strength. He clambered up and down the stairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and returning. Sometimes he put his nose out of door or window, just to grasp the scent of the salty sea.

He held onto the walls for support as he moved around, breathing hard like one upon a mountain.

The Captain never really addressed Taylor, which was fine by her. The little speech about the Captain’s fears was right as well forgotten, as she tried her best to be a good host in the midst of her grim brokenness.

However, the Captain’s temper was more flighty than ever, and more violent. In the midst of his drunken tirades, the man began to pull his cutlass, and lay it bare upon the table.

For all of that, though, he did seem to mind people less, and shut up in his own thoughts. Either sitting at a table, or wandering around the parlour or bar. The man seemed to be carrying a different air to him, now.

As Taylor was scrubbing at a rather stubborn stain on the bartop, and not at all weeping like a hell’s angel, she heard the Captain singing quietly. A noticeably different song, to his usual fare.

> “I dreamed a dream, the other night,”

> “Lowlands, lowlands away, me John,”

> “My love, she came, dressed all in white,”

> “Lowlands away.”

Taylor wandered over to the door. Looking out at the foggy, frosty afternoon. Full of sad thoughts, and heart feeling heavy. As she stood there, she saw with surprise, someone upon the road. Tapping before himself with a stick, and wearing a great green shade over his eyes and nose.

He was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge old tattered sea cloak, with a hood that made him appear positively deformed. She had never seen someone look as if their entire existence was such a curse.

The man stopped a little from the front door of the inn, and raised his voice. “Will any kind soul inform a blind man, who lost the precious sight of his eyes in the defence of his native country - God bless King George! - Where or in what part of this country, he may now be?”

Taylor pulled open the door, looking at the man curiously. “You are at the Nightingale Inn, Black Hill Cove, good sir.”

“I hear a voice. A young voice.” The man stated, “Will you give me your hand, kind gal, and lead me in?”

Taylor’s heart leapt into her throat, but she took the hand of the pitiful creature. He instantly became the third one to remind her of a demon’s grip, and dragged her in close.

She flinched as he grabbed the back of her head and pulled it down to his. His lips scraped across her cheek, and then he snarled into her ear. “Now, gal. Take me in to the Captain.”

“I…” A tumble of thoughts flashed through her mind, “I cannot, sir. I dare not.”

His other hand crept lower, “Take me in, straight, or you will spend the rest of your life wishing that you had.”

Taylor thought quickly, “It is for yourself, sir, I mean. The Captain is not what he used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass! When another -”

“March.” He grabbed on tightly through her pants.

She was cowed more by that, than by any threat of mere pain, and began to obey at once. Walking him straight through the door, and into the parlour. The old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum.

The blind man clung to her, leaning into her with almost more weight than she could carry, and still with his cursed grip in places few knew existed upon her body.

“Lead me straight up to him. And when I’m in view, announce Bill. If you don’t…” With that, he threatened to tear deeper at her sensitivities.

Taylor found the terror of the blind beggar far and away superior to her terror of the Captain, and so led him to the spot, “And here’s your old friend, Bill.”

The Captain raised his eyes, and at a single look of the blind man, went sober. He sat up, with an expression less of fear, and more of sickness. He made a move as to rise, but seemed too weak to leave the chair.

“Now, Bill.” The beggar cautioned, “I may not see, old boy, but I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Gal, take his left hand by the wrist, and bring it to mine.”

Both the Captain and Taylor obeyed him to the letter. The beggar passed a small envelope into the Captain’s hand, which closed upon it instantly.

“And now, that’s done.” The blind man said with finality, and released her.

As she was struggling to breathe, the man turned, and with a nimbleness that surprised her, left of his own accord. Moving as if he had full usage of his sight, out of the inn and back upon the road. His tapping stick lost beneath the wind as he left the building.

It took more than a few moments for either the Captain or Taylor to come to their senses.

As she started off to close the outside door, before the wind swept it shut, the Captain jumped to his feet. “Ten o’clock! Six hours.”

The man put a hand to Taylor’s shoulder, squeezing her tightly, “We’ll do them yet, Tee! We’ll -”

The Captain issued forth a peculiar sort of sound, and grabbed at his throat with both hands. He swayed for a moment, and then fell from his whole height, face foremost into the floor.

“Shit!” Taylor issued the first curse of her life, falling to her knees beside him, but to no avail.

She may not have liked the man, perhaps pitied him, but in seeing that he was dead, she burst into a flood of tears.

So close upon her father’s death, to face another, she was not prepared.