CHAPTER 7

Rum ..... The ship's deck was filled with bottles of rum . The deck was as filthy as it could be with both finished and unfinished rum bottles lying around .

It almost looked as if they were trying to collect rum bottles .

" Why is it so filthy ? " I questioned eyebrows raised , which resulted in him , giving an awkward smile . I knew pirate ships were filthy , but never imagined one to be this filthy .

" Do you ever clean this ship , " I asked seeing some mice running into one of the barrels that were lying near the steering wheel.

" Yeah we do , we dump all of the finished bottles into the big pit at Sephty when we visit there . "

" When was the last time you visited there ? "

" Five months ago , now come on . I will show you something ". He spoke as he walked towards the cabins .

Seeing the man walk inside the cabin , I followed him . The cabin was not as much as of a mess compared to the deck . The cabin floor had a number of papers and maps lying down .

Trying not to step on any of them , I carefully made my way to John who was standing near a cupboard , he had set the torch on a chair near him .

" Look at this . " He spoke , pulling me closer . I looked inside the cupboard to see a lot of things inside , but one specific thing caught my attention . Seeing me look at it , he immediately took a piece of cloth and put it over the torch , leaving us in complete darkness .

" Now , look at it again . " Hearing that , I looked at it to see it was glowing . Curiously, I asked him . " What is that ? "

" That is a something , I got from under the sea last summer when me and the boys went swimming . We call it the ' glowing rock ' . "

The rock had a neon green glow to it . I stared at it in awe , it was the first time I saw something like this .

"You can hold it if you want , it won't bite you ."

I slowly took the rock . The glowing rock was heavy . The moment I took it , I almost fell down along with it .

" This is heavy ! " I exclamed as I held the rock now with both hands .

" Eh , I thought you will work it out on your own . "

Keeping the glowing rock back at its place , I took the cloth which was on the torch . Holding the torch closer to the cupboard , I observed the items kept in it .

There were different types of compasses , diaries , ornaments and things , I don't know what they are .

" Tell me , when you are finished checking , I will be at the deck . Don't go through any of the shelves , I know where each and everything is kept . " John spoke as he , carefully walked out towards the deck , hoping he won't trip on anything.

~

I walked out of the cabin towards the deck to see John sitting down , leaning onto to the wooden wall of the cabin with his eyes closed .

" Are we going back to the inn now ? "

John opened his eyes as he heard me speak .

" Nope , we are going to spent some time in the crow's nest ". He spoke as he got up and patted the back of his pants .

" What's a crow's nest ? " I questioned .

" Seriously lass , you don't know what a crow's nest is and you want to be a sailor . You better start thinking something else you want to do with your future " He retorted , as he stared at me ,with his hands on his hips .

" I am still learning . " I replied irritated and embarrassed .

" Come on , I will show you what it is .You most probably have seen or before , you might just not know what it's name is . " He spoke as he patted my head and walked towards the high of the main mast .

" This is what you call a crow's nest . The place where you sit for look out , eh " . John spoke , pointing his fingers towards the high of the main mast .

" Oh , I know this. In our place it's called the high of the main mast . It's quite long , I know . "

" Well then congrats, you are not as stupid as I thought you were . " He spoke , laughing as he clapped while I stared at him .

" Takes a stupid to know a stupid . " I replied , and smiled at him , self satisfied with my answer .

Now , it was his time to stop laughing .

" You climb first . " He spoke , in his deep voice , which now seemed almost emotionless . Feeling the awkwardness and not wanting to raise it , I climbed .

~

The full moon shined in its full glory the entire time . We sat in the crow's nest looking at the vast sky , that was scattered with stars . The air was incredibly cold up here and John was kind enough to get me a blanket . Apparently , the cold was nothing to him . Spending almost all his life being a pirate , these cold winds did not affect him a lot .

" How did you become a pirate ? " I asked him , curiously . From the talks we had moments ago , it was clear to me that he was skilled at a lot of things . He could have easily got a high paying job .

" My father was a pirate . " He started. " He became one , because he was scared , or atleast that's what he told me . His parents were murdered during a war , not being able to live at a place where his parents were killed , he left the place one night , took a small boat and sailed away , without knowing anything about the oceans and the seas and what they hid beneath .

" Later he reached a small island , there he fell in love with my mother . He thought he finally found the place to settle down . He was soon proved wrong . The people of the island , specifically mother's parents didn't want their daughter to marry someone who was not from the island .

So just like before , father left the island , but this time with mother and someone else sail boat , one that was bigger than his .

While sailing through the oceans for a few days , they met with some others who wanted to continue their life travelling. My parents were more the overjoyed to join them .

Soon , the crew members started increasing as more people were added to the group and with no source of money , they began stealing .

Then after a while they started feeling a bit guilty for robbing a lot of people , so this time they decided it would be best if they take from dead people . There they started hunting for treasure , but stealing from men had not ceased completely . Once they found their first treasure , they were not able to stop , they wanted more .

Thus they were always on a hunt for treasure , and that ended up in me being born on ship . The crew had started to consider themselves as pirates by now . They had started to follow pirate codes as well . The crew by this time was getting trained for combat , by the crew members who were skilled at combat .

Later weapons were brought .

I was taught about the pirate life from when I was a kid , and so I grew up trained to be a pirate .

Later a shipwreck occurred , a lot of the crew were dead . This happened when I was seventeen I think . Then I , along with the rest of living crew , swam to the nearest place with as many things as we could and from there we stole , another ship . There were some people there who wanted to be part of our crew , and soon we got more crew members . Then I became the captain . Father and mother , sadly ended up dead due to the shipwreck . A lot mo - ARE YOU SLEEPING ? "

" What do you mean by that , I was not sleeping . I was just giving my eyes some rest . " I replied . Truth be told , I was sleeping . His story was a bit too long for me and the sleeplessness was slowly crawling up to me .

" Is drooling a part of resting your eyes , lass ? " He questioned again . " Sorry ". I awkwardly replied , raising the tension around us . Thankfully , it was broken soon .

" Captain , you up there ? " A tired voice called out .

" I'm up here . " Replied John to the young voice .

" Captain , Godwin's ready to talk . "