940. Chapter 940

After Captain Kate and the Buried Treasure

Chapter Three

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, none of whom own Castle. Rating: K Time: See Above

Meanwhile, Queen L'Anie had led her tribesmen to as close to the slave pens as she could get them and still stay in the cover of the jungle. When she heard the explosion at the battery, she ordered her men forward. Each of them had a musket and a cutlass, and carried as many cutlasses, axes, and boarding pikes as they could manage. Coming to the fence, they began tossing the weapons to the slaves inside and screaming for them to arm themselves. The slaves didn't need to be told twice.

As her men shot down any slavers near the pens, L'Anie led them around the pens to attack the slavers camp. As the slaves chopped their way out of the pens, they poured into the camp as well. In minutes, the slavers were either dead, or had fled into the jungle.

As the slaves celebrated their sudden freedom, L'Anie drew her men up in a line between the freed slaves and the battery, knowing Kate and her crew could be coming soon. She didn't want the recently freed slaves to mistake Captain Kate and her crew for more slavers. But, by the time Kate and the rest arrived, L'Anie, El Tee and others had explained everything.

"It look like we can start digging now." Kate said, giving L'Anie a hug.

Before she could reply, both women were knocked off their feet by a blast.

"Is that the battery?" L'Anie asked.

"No." Kate said, rising to her feet. "It's the volcano."

The narrow column of smoke that had been rising from the volcano for years, if not decades, had been replaced by a giant, boiling cloud of smoke, gas and ash shooting to the heavens. And, a red hot river of lava was pouring down the volcano's sides, heading straight for them.

"To the boats. We have to get back to the Revenge. "Kate screamed. "L'Anie, tell the freed slaves to….Oh, damn!"

The freed slaves had taken one look at the volcano and had started running down the beach as fast as they could. L'Anie and her people managed to catch a few women and children, but that was all.

"Why are they running?" Kate asked her friend.

"They don't know there's a ship to take them to safety. And they probably aren't very trusting of white people right now."

Kate cursed and began to run to where their boats had been left. As they pushed the boats through the surf, they saw the Revenge headed for them. Alexis was standing on the quarterdeck, waving to them. The pirates piled into the boats and rowed as fast as they could towards their ship.

Kate was the first one to clamber up the side of the Revenge and run to the quarterdeck. "Alexis, we need to sail down the beach and rescue the freed slaves before the lava gets to them."

Alexis shook her head. "We can't! Look!" She pointed out to sea. There, under full sail was a large Spanish warship, headed right for them.

"That's the San Francisco de Assisi." Long John Slaughter said. "She's an older, smaller frigate of some twenty four guns. You can take her."

Kate nodded. "And by the time we do, the freed slaves will either be dead or so far into the jungle that we'll never find them."

"And if we heave to off the beach and send boats ashore, the Spanish will be able to shoot us to bits. We won't be able to maneuver and we won't have enough men to man all of the guns." Alexis added.

Kate thought for just a moment. "Raise the English flag and head towards the bloody frigate. If we can get close enough, we can damage her badly enough so we can do a rescue and then run for it."

However, the ruse of the English flag didn't work. As soon as the Revenge closed on the Spanish ship, the Spaniard fired a straggling broadside. The range was too great and most of the cannon balls either missed or bounced off the Revenge's stout hull.

Kate smiled. Before the Spaniard could reload, she'd run the Revenge alongside of her and pour a broadside into her at the range of half a pistol shot. That idea lasted for only a few seconds as a mighty roar stunned them, followed by a sulfurous blast of wind. Then the sea seemed to drop away under both ships and then the water came rushing back in, lifting both ships half way to the beach.

Kate reacted quickly. "Let the Spaniard go and…."

"Captain, look." Cried Esposito. A rain of very hot ash was pouring down on both ships. Ropes covered in tar, dry sails and wood dried out under the Caribbean sun were like tinder.

"Man the pumps!" Cried Captain Kate. "Water down the whole ship. The sails and the rigging first. Everyone not on the pumps, grab a bucket and fill it with sea water. We can't let a fire start. Alexis, Esposito, get us to the open sea."

It took over an hour, but the Revenge outran the cloud of fiery ash and put out the few small fires that had started. The San Francisco de Assisi had not been so lucky. They could see the ship blazing brightly in the distance. The ship's boats were carrying the crew to the mainland of the Spanish New World.

Kate took the Revenge back to where they had last seen the Africans. There was no sign of anyone, but fortunately, the lava hadn't come this way. Queen L'Anie took a longboat to the beach crewed by her followers. She stood on the beach and implored the Africans to come out and told them they'd be safe aboard the Revenge. The only response she got was a pair of musket shots that zipped past her.

The Revenge sailed back to where the slaver's camp had been. The jungle between the volcano and the beach had been burned away to nothing and the site of the camp was covered in lava. The rise where the battery was sited was intact, however. The lava was still flowing down the volcano and into the sea, raising a huge cloud of steam as it hit the water.

"How long will that last." Rick asked.

"I have no idea, Father." Alexis said. "But I understand that volcanoes can erupt like that for years. Some of them eventually blow themselves apart, destroying everything."

"In the meantime our gold is under several fathoms of burning rocks." Muttered Long John Slaughter. "And when it cools, we'll have to dig up the whole island to find it. And sooner or later some damned warship or another would chase us away. And seeing our digging, they'd find our treasure."

"Assuming the new inhabitants of the island don't kill us first." Rick said lightly.

Everyone on the ship stared at the unimaginable riches, now beyond their reach.

"Lieutenant Castle, please set as course for Tortuga." Kate ordered.

"Aye, aye, Captain."

Once back at Tortuga, Kate gave Grey and Slaughter a small bag of money and wished them well, although happy to have the two rogues off of her ship. Then the Revenge sailed away.

That night after dinner, Alexis put a chart onto the table. "I made a chart of the island and I took bearings on physical features that weren't affected by the lava. With that and what Grey told me about where the treasure was buried, I believe we can find it again with little trouble."

"Not for a while, though." Said Rick, thinking of the lava.

"No, not for a while, Father."

Rick and Kate smiled at each other, each imagining le comte and comtesse de Castle dancing at the Palace of Versailles while Bracken swung from a gibbet in England.

Author's note: If you're at all interested you can find Who Are You?, a Caskett story set in season seven at

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