Yaargh. It was awhile ago now but I recall it still I does. We had sailed for quite a spell
and happened upon a huge stash of booty. Twas all manner of things, more than we
could tell much about, really, and what with time bein' pressed when we was doing the takin'
we stored it all in the hold to take stock of on the long voyage home.
Upon seein' to our gains we found mostly the usual spoil - gold, plate, some fine silks
for the ladies we know what will have us, and so on. The first mate saw to most of the
tally, but as we approached home waters he comes to me cabin all quiet-like with a small blue chest.
It were a queer lookin' thing - dark in patches as if there be somethin'
black and sick inside leakin' out. "Part of the treasure, Captain", he says, "but
all the men together can't open it."
I had a bad feelin' right away and sent for Voodoo Jack. He comes and as soon as he sees it
he gets all quiet as well. He brings out some baum and works it in and and mumbles some. Soon
enough he manages to coax the chest open to show a few odd lookin' geegaws and bits of paper with
heathen marks - no gold nor jewels, and nothin' that would scare a body, even a child.
Relief was what I felt, but nothin' like that were on Jacks face. White like a ghost he was,
and quick reached out and slammed on the lid. "Magic", he says, hushed-like. "Magic, and
the blackest sort. The sooner we're rid of this, the better", he says soberly, and for Jack
that's sayin' alot.
Now here we has a problem. Spoils have to be divvied, they do, and shares are shares. We would
have to count this out same as all of it, and Jack assured us that this were not the sort of thing
any crew should have it's hands on. "It'd be mutiny, pestilence and death in short order," sez
Jack. "We got to pass it on - throwin' it overboards would be worse than keepin' it - the sea would
swaller us in a gulp. But I thinks I know what we can do here."
Jack went on. "There's a hermit I've known about who can take on evil of this sort. Everyone
knows that if'n we sail past him we'll be havin' to give passage from the booty, and all we has to do
is offer up a chest of worthless trinkets. Nobody can suspect a thing of that," he says. "Since
that course be on the short way home, there's every reason to be takin' it. I'm sayin' this is the
way, I am."
So we seed Jacks thinkin' and reckoned to set sail towards the hermit, tellin' the crew
that for a trifle passage we would be drinkin' grog on the dockside that much the sooner.
All seemed well with that, and we kept the secret of the chest, heedin' Jacks warnin's.
The first mate moored us at Thirty Seven, Thirty Eight, Nine Twenty Five and One Twenty
One, Fifty Four, Two Sixty Five. Jack and me crossed a busy sea lane and made our way up
a steep hill. Fear was in the air all around us - there
was fences and gates everywheres, with familiars up on the walls keepin' watch for their masters.
When our way run out we took a Long View back of where we were moored. Jack then looks aside by some
Evergreens and seed there were a small faint buoy pointin' a course to the hermits Lair, and we took it.
All at once the woods turned strange-like and the sun shone a sick yellow like it was tryin' to shine
through somethin' but couldn't quite make it. Creatures were about - we could see 'em
through the thick hangin' trees, and they looked us over like they was both wild and not, the queerest
animals I done ever seen. We climbed up and back and finally come to a place where Jaak said the hermit
should be. I looked about sayin' "where?", and as I turned back there be the funniest lookin' fella,
standin' right before me, come as if from nowheres. Dirty as aces he was, from livin' his whole life
in them woods, if you could even be callin' it livin'.
Now this feller, this hermit, he may be small but he don't got the air where what you'ld want to cross
his path without thinkin' about why. Jack started talkin' fast like jibber-jabber and seemed to to be
keepin' his attention. "Take out the chest", says Jack finally, and I does, and the hermit's eyes locked
on it right away. He snatches it from me and gives me a haughty glare like I got no right even seein' such
a thing, much less holdin' it.
That ain't the sort of thing I'll belay, and I makes a move for him I does, magic or not, but Jack
reaches out and pulls me around. I pull back and away, and when I turn to have at that scoundrel
feller, he's gone as quick as he appeared, even tho there's noplace to be gone to.
Well, all this appearin' and then not so has me fuddled such that I grab Jack and make to be gettin' out of these
woods and off this hill and away from all this, hang magic to blazes. We steps lively, we does and all the while
Jack tells me that the creatures we've seen ain't creatures at all, rightly, but the cursed spirits of them what's
come too close to the hermit's Lair.
So I'm seein' that this be why them what's lives on the hill fence and guard themselves so tight. Likely
more'n a few of their loved ones have met this fate at the filthy hands of that dog of a hermit. I'm seein'
too that this is what we dodged ourselves on account of carryin' passage to him. Them what goes to plunder would
see a sorry end, it's sure.
Stay away, says we. This evil magik is nuthin' to be triflin' with, nor are them's what lives with such!