Pirate Code Read Online Free PDF

cast an eerie blur of mildly rocking shadows. Thunder. The flash of lightning quicker on its tail, the storm rolling nearer.
    “Where is Jesamiah?” Tiola asked, concern making her voice curt and angry, one hand, with fist bunched, on her hip. “Do not tell me he has gone ashore, Rue. Do not dare tell me he is that stupid!”
    The Frenchman responded with a loose shrug, his tone gruff. “I was coming to ask you the same question, ma chère . You know Jesamiah. When ‘e decides to be stupid ‘e does it in grand style. The jollyboat is gone and ‘e is the only one missing.” He glanced into the cabin as if hoping his statement was wrong, hoping to see Jesamiah come from his bed, yawning and scratching at his backside.
    Tiola hitched the slipping sheet higher. “If they gave prizes for stupidity, on occasion Jesamiah would be the outright winner.” She swore a third time, one of his often used, more colourful phrases. “Hell’s balls, I suppose he has gone after Stefan?”
    Rue nodded. He supposed the same.
    A large man, Rue was burly, with muscled shoulders, a bull neck and stamina to match. In his mid-forties, his dark beard was beginning to show the badgered grizzle-grey of his age, but his eyes missed nothing and his courage was never wanting. He thought of Jesamiah as the son he never had, Tiola the daughter-in-law. Was as annoyed as her at Jesamiah’s idiocy. As damned angry at the threat hanging over Tiola.
    “Did you not try and stop him?” Tiola admonished as she searched for her clothes, gathering them to her, partially regretting now her abandon with Jesamiah when they had so desperately made love here in his great cabin.
    “You ever tried stopping le Capitaine from doing something ‘e is determined to be about?” Rue answered pragmatically. He peered dismally into the rain now falling as if it were being emptied straight from a bucket. Sighed. “You are going to tell me we must go ashore and stop ‘im from getting ‘imself arrested, non ?” He paused, wistfully hoping she was going to disagree. She did not. He puffed resigned air through his cheeks. “I will stir the boat crew. They will not be best pleased.”
    “ Ais , do so. Tell them to complain to their captain. It is his fault we will be getting wet this night.”
    Five minutes later Tiola was descending the hull cleats and stepping into the gig, a larger craft than the jollyboat, the men grumbling at the oars, Rue, equally as irritated, at the tiller. The rain was falling almost vertical.
    The jetty was no more than two hundred yards away but the offshore wind and the swell of the tide made the distance seem twice as far; the effort to pull twice as hard. Tiola screwed up her eyes to peer through the murk, the curtain of rain obscuring the beach to the left with its haphazard sprawl of tents made from sails and oars, and the scatter of the more robust wooden bothies and lean-to shacks. From the upper walls of the fort and some of the grander houses further around the harbour, a few lights were haloed in the shrouding and watery darkness. Otherwise, the town was unlit. There were no bonfires on the stretch of sand this night; no flaring pitch torches. No laughter or carousel, not in this downpour.
    Lightning cracked open the sky illuminating everything and reflecting on the restless sea. Tiola glanced at the swirl of water, at the depth of blackness beneath her and shuddered. Something was coldly observing her, she could feel the glare of its all-seeing eyes, the seething hatred. Tethys was awake and watching.
    The air suddenly smelt of rotting seaweed and dead fish. Through the rain and the growl of thunder, Tiola heard the voice of the sea, sounding in her head like the wash of a wave lurching upon the shingles of a storm-wracked shore.
    ~ I want him. He is mine Witch-Woman. Give him to me. Jesssh..a..miah! ~
    ~ He is not yours to have, Tethys. ~
    For answer, a wave hurled against the side of the gig drenching the occupants further and