appearing on his face. He then glanced back at Avery. Before his eyes met the old man’s ones, he noticed someone else’s shape, not far from where they were standing.
He was the pirate with golden teeth.
The boy staggered, as if someone had punched him in his stomach. The man was focused on listening to Wynne’s words. For just a moment, Johnny was sure he even saw him smile lightly.
“Why has he come?”, he mumbled. He got absolutely sure and was able to dispel all his doubts: that man was making him feel breathlessly scared.
“What did you say?”, Avery asked him.
“Over there…” Those words died in his throat. The guy had vanished. Johnny looked frantically for him, searching carefully the sea of heads surrounding him. He couldn’t find him anywhere.
Meanwhile Wynne kept shouting: “If my fate is going to hell, better to hurry up!”
Morgan seemed to wake up from his indolence. He started shouting orders, but nobody was able to do much. Wynne had finished by bursting out laughing even more powerfully for the second time, increasing the spreading mess which had got hold of the fortress.
“Kane!”, he screamed. “The trapdoor! Open that damned trapdoor, silly idiot! What are you waiting for?”
The hangman grasped the machine lever and pulled it. A series of sounds followed each other very quickly. Wynne then hurtled down, keeping kicking and swinging in mid-air. In spite of the violent rebound, his neck hadn’t broken. Not only that. Even if he was choking, he didn’t stop laughing his heart out. His face started turning purple and his tongue came out of his mouth. He bit it till he tore it apart. A gush of blood stained his lips and cheeks, just like the petals of a blossoming rose.
“Let someone stop him!”, Morgan shouted, joining the frenzy of the people watching that havoc.
Only the man next to him was ready to act.
He climbed to the gallows and drew his sword out. Once he got to the platform, he slipped out of Kane’s grip who had tried instinctively to stop him, surprised in seeing him there. He hacked the rope with a clear cut and the French man crashed to the pavement at last. The impact let out an unpleasant noise, coming from broken bones. He rolled on himself twice, letting agonizing sounds out, then his body turned suddenly still.
Johnny watched all that with his heart in his mouth. Wynne’s image got impressed into his retina like a fire mark. He couldn’t avoid it anymore. He could distinguish each detail: from the pirate’s unnatural position, his broken legs and his bent trunk, to his livid face, stained by the blood he had thrown out. The disgust of the execution had shown in all its horror.
“Let’s go, Johnny.” Bennet Avery was recalling him to order. “I’ve heard what I wanted to. What’s more, I don’t like all that mess.”
The boy nodded, still more shocked: the old man had seldom addressed him by his name. Besides, he had been aware of something vaguely mysterious in his attitude, a rather sinister feeling.
His fancy overwhelmed him like a river in flood, so much that it was able to wipe his perplexity away: Avery knew much more then he implied and the moment to find it out had come.
CHAPTER THREE
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
“Bloody hell!”
Flaring up in uncontrollable fury, Morgan overthrew all the objects crowding on his desk, included the nautical maps, an excellent workmanship sextant and the letter of marque addressed to Rogers.
“Filthy beggar!”, he barked. “He deserved a much worse suffering!”
The corsair was sitting in front of him on a damask sofa, showing a certain amount of indifference.
“With all due respect…”, he tried to speak.
“Shut up!”, the governor interrupted him.
A very long and deep silence followed, marked only by the man’s panting breathing. Rogers preferred not to reply. It would be better to wait till he calmed down, to pursue his own interests.
Wynne’s revelations had helped to undermine Morgan’s already bad reputation among the colonizers. His political career and his high-ranking connections had been quite useless. And the fact that they paid a deferential respect to him just hid an etiquette made of hypocrisy and respectability. As if that wasn’t enough, the rumour about the treasure was certainly spreading around Port Royal. It wasn’t going to take long to get to impudent ears.
When King George gets to know you’re financing pirate expeditions for your own business, you will get into serious trouble, Rogers thought. His feigned indifference wasn’t certainly due to a lack of interest. The question was very serious, but he could take advantage of it anyway.
“How can you keep impassive?”, Morgan asked him tightening his fists till his knuckles turned white.
He got up, without answering. He wanted to weigh up carefully the words he should utter, in order to avoid making Morgan rage still more and, at the same time, to let him understand that guys like that should be handled by the right firmness. He started walking up and down the room.
“With all due respect”, he said again, “I think that reacting in this way is really useless. Wynne has already pilloried your business.”
“And do you think that’s an unimportant matter?”
“I absolutely do.”
“He mocked us all!”, Morgan barked.
“That’s not true”, Rogers showed an histrionic, but also affected scorn. “He had fun outsmarting only you, your Excellency. So, shouting at a dead man won’t solve the question. Did you believe you had the matter under control? You were wrong!”
The governor blushed deeply, his mouth turning into a very thin line. His melted make-up made him look much more grotesque than usual. His eyes seemed to pop out of his head.
When he saw him like that, Rogers could hardly hold back a very satisfied smile.
“Unless you are ready to make a choice”, he suggested. “I mean…” and he willingly stopped talking. He pretended to be wondering, pressing his forefinger on his lips. He wanted his gesture to look like something which was helping him to think over in some way. In fact, he started supposing: You’ve lost control of the situation, Henry. You must acknowledge it. That pirate really played a bad trick on you. He might have been really crazy. Or not. Who can say?
“Come on!”, Morgan urged him exacerbated. He started rubbing his temples.
“I can bring our departure a couple of days forward”, Rogers started. “That could help us spare time, even if that would mean a change in our agreement. The crew won’t almost certainly take it very well.”
“If money is the problem…”, the governor ventured.
“The question concerns the treasure.” The corsair picked up a letter of marque from the floor and waved it before his eyes, then he slipped it into his pocket.
“Everything
