Pirate Code Read Online Free Page A

flaunted his wealth and everything he had. Tiola, he had wanted for her beauty and for the begetting of a son. And for getting the better of Jesamiah Acorne.
    “Of course,” the Dutchman countered disdainfully, “you would be knowing of the debauchery that occurs inside a prison, having extensive personal experience of such places.”
    Prudently Jesamiah held his tongue, accepted the offer of several cheeses Governor Rogers hurriedly pushed in his direction.
    “Try the goat’s cheese, lad, it has just the right blend of herbs. M’cook makes it himself, fine man. As black as tar o’ course, indentured into m’service. Not a slave. I don’t hold with keeping slaves as cooks, couldn’t trust the buggers not to put something nasty in the soup, eh? Ha, ha!” Rogers had not changed in the few years since Jesamiah had first met him. A paunch-bellied, opinionated man who relished the sound of his own voice. But he was well meaning, and there were those – especially back in England – who muttered that he proffered too much of a soft touch where the taste of the lash would serve better purpose.
    He was right about the cheese.
    Before Jesamiah’s arrival Hornigold had been recounting some sea adventure of his youth and the conversation returned to his rambling anecdote. Jesamiah sat quiet, apparently politely listening, his mind dwelling on how easy it would be to draw a pistol, cock the hammer and shoot van Overstratten right between the eyes. Except, out of courtesy he had handed the weapon to the servant at the front door, along with his cutlass. It did not do to sit at the Governor of Nassau’s table with a primed pistol tucked through your waist belt or a cutlass nestled at your left hip. Pity.
    The conversation faltered. Taking a breath to steady the anger churning with the sickness in his stomach, Jesamiah wiped his fingers on a napkin. It would not serve any purpose to lose his temper. Not here.
    “I have come to plead clemency, Governor,” he said. “To offer payment for any wrong I have committed against this Dutchman, Master Stefan van Overstratten.”
    “You could not afford the bill, Acorne,” van Overstratten snapped as reply. “You are personally responsible for the loss of at least three of my ships and several thousand pounds in value of cargo. Not to mention the innocent men you killed in the process of your plundering.”
    “For all of which I have received the King’s pardon of amnesty.”
    “Your king’s pardon. I am Dutch. George is not my king. Nor have I granted you pardon.”
    Swallowing bile and his temper, Jesamiah again stared direct at the man opposite him. He could afford a large payment in compensation. Were he to bother tallying the gold he had stored in various banks he would probably find himself richer than this Dutchman. In the recent-formed Bank of England alone he had a hoard of more than £15,000. With the comparison of a naval captain’s wage of £1 per day on a first rate vessel, Jesamiah was a rich man. He had almost two-thirds as much again stowed in Dutch and Portuguese bank vaults – and that without the value of gems and mercantile goods, barrels of expensive indigo and nutmeg; the fine wines, silks, china, and spices stashed in warehouses in various scattered ports. That all his wealth had been made from stealing other people’s property, some of it, aye, from van Overstratten’s merchant fleet, was immaterial to Jesamiah.
    Quietly he offered; “I will return the Sea Witch to you in exchange for Tiola’s freedom.”
    It was not an easy offer.
    Jennings, Hornigold, and even Rogers, all three of them captains and seamen, sat staring at him, dumbfounded. A captain to give up his ship voluntarily for a woman? Had such a thing been heard of before?
    Van Overstratten was no sailor, he did not see the significance of the proposal, nor the effort it had taken to make it. He threw back his head and laughed outright.
    “Of what use is a worm-riddled, rotten-keeled