Part 1: Bella

It all happened, or at least this tale starts, shortly after I'd accidentally gotten a local milkmaid in a womanly way, at the tender age of sixteen (that was my tender age; her age was even tenderer); my father, being a practical man; and my mother being an hysterical woman and prone to the puritanical, and my eldest brother being a lousy drunk who felt he was above everyone else on earth and had the title to the family's estate, such as it was, to hold over me if I ever doubted his superiority; all three of them had their own reasons for wanting me out of the house, and probably wanting me dead as well. That they did not consult the pretty milkmaid is hardly surprising.

So with the poor young girl five months along and understandably inconsolable, I found myself in a hired coach and four whizzing along the turnpike to London town, whereupon my father had procured me a berth on a merchantman, a three-master christened The Beautiful Cee in honor of the true love of the man who outfitted her. She was laden with wool and brandy and bound for a port in the New World.

By my third trip across the Atlantic on the Cee, I'd been elevated from master's mate to the lofty position of second lieutenant. Lieutenant Corbin, I was, Lieutenant Sean Corbin. One of the great advantages of the promotion was that I moved out of the horrible berth I shared with six other smelly cabin boys and into quarters of my own. A small room, barely an inch to spare, but with a real bed at least. The watch I oversaw was a gang of lubbers and criminals, but we made do, and they could haul with enough respectably that the navy boys didn't make too much sport of us when we set sail. One of the better things about the ship was the owner's political connections, which meant our papers were clear and we had no fear of being pressed into the service of His Majesty, and thus we had a life of relative ease upon the open sea.

One evening during my fourth year on the barky, I now being a hale and hearty young man of twenty, I was standing watch on an uneventful deck, gazing lazily out as the sun slowly settled its bright red visage into the sea, the breeze kicking up a moderate swell and sending the vessel cutting through the water at a good ten knots, when I spied what appeared to be a piece of interesting flotsam rising up and down at the horizon. Curious, though more from boredom than professional concern, I lifted my glass to my eye and focused. Damned if it wasn't a boat, a rowboat as best I could tell, there was no sail set at all, but there did appear to be a person standing in the fore and waving frantically in our direction.

Cursing the lubber in the top whose duty it was to keep a lookout for such things, I gave the command to haul wind, and within a minute me and my boys were on the water, pulling hard in the direction of what was now clearly a rowboat, and one that was not seaworthy in the least. Fifteen minutes of hauling and we were upon them. Inside, to my astonishment, were two children. A boy of about fifteen, and a girl of a somewhat younger age. A scrawny black cat, barely past the kitten stage and very wet and very ornery, watched the rescue with suspicion from underneath the girl's bench. Though all three appeared to be famished, and no doubt terribly thirsty, they were none the worse for the wear and I sensed that they hadn't been on the sea for too all that long.

Inquiries about how this unexpected menagerie had come to be riding the evening sea in the middle of the open ocean were met with silence, although on the pull back to the ship, they did let out a few words in what was apparently their native French, a dialect that I had great difficulty understanding, but at least I could make out that the boy's name was Anthony, and the girl's, Isabella. The kitten, left for the time being in their little rowboat being towed behind after having hissed and spat at the brave seamen who could not gather him up, was Henri.

While the children ate a meal of leftover lamb, kindly warmed by the cook who rekindled the stove with barely a word of complaint, and the scrawny cat had a bowl of fresh goat's milk, the captain and I discussed their fate. We both agreed that it would never do to have the children berth anywhere near the men, but the captain hated children. This was in fact the reason he'd left his home so long ago for a life on a merchantman--to escape the confines of his young wife and the offspring she kept forcing upon him with her wanton ways. So his quarters were out of the question for the children's berth, and I begrudgingly offered up my hard-earned room, which the captain heartily agreed to. But, he told me, he wouldn't have me sleeping with the ship's boys again, not a second lieutenant on his bark. I was to ask the first to share his bunk with me. The first, however, a grey-templed man named Pierce, was a thoroughly unpleasant gassy old drunk and there wasn't a chance in hell that I would room with him, and so I strung a hammock in the little bit of available space that my cabin offered and there were three of us in a very crowded room that night, not counting the cat.

Over breakfast the next morning, the girl provided me some details of their circumstances while the boy objected silently, but strenuously. I had raided my rather scantly stocked larder, and the captain offered up his laying hens, and the cook prepared us a beautiful breakfast of ham and fried eggs and soft tack which the kids attacked with a passion. I set a bowl of warm fresh goat's milk down for the cat, who answered my kindness with narrowed eyes, ears back flat against his head, and a long spitting hiss.

"O mon chaton," the girl said, "Henri, you be nice to le lieutenant."

"Henri's a peculiar name for a cat," I said, suspecting there was something significant behind the name. "How'd he come to be called that?"

I saw the boy glare at the girl, but she took no notice. "He is named after my papa," she said.

"Your papa?"

She said nothing further at the time, but once the girl had finished off four eggs and two big slices of ham, and half the soft tack I had left that wasn't moldy or infested with weevils, she was quite satisfied and sat back with a small smile on her little round-cheeked brown-skinned face. Feeling that she might be in a mood to open up to me, I asked the cook to make us a pot of chocolate.

While we sipped our morning treat, I observed the two of them. The girl had cleaned up quite nicely with a bath she'd had in the captain's quarters the evening before. She had the most charming mop of curly brown locks atop an intelligent face, and for the first time I realized she must have a little native or African blood about her because her coffee color did not seem to be merely the result of too much time in the sun. Her eyes appeared to match the suspicion; they were the most amazing, magical pale brown. I found myself enthralled with them. All about her was an interesting air--a learned child, well-spoke even with a strange French and even stranger and less certain English. Though she was small, she was hearty. As I've always enjoyed a strong lady over a weak one, I couldn't help thinking that this girl would make a fine catch for a young gentleman one day.

Her brother, though hale himself in a way, did not share his sister's genes for a healthy look. He was as pale as a ghost, his brown hair unremarkable, bluish eyes undistinguished. The physical differences implied to me that they were not siblings of the normal sort. Most likely, he was the legitimate son of a white man and his wife, and she was the result of the man's tryst with an island girl.

The boy was, however, tall and muscular and I made the quick assumption that he wasn't a spoiled rich kid but had to work for his keep. A glance over to his sister upon this realization revealed most likely the same. She was little, not a hair above five feet tall and skinny as a rail. Not rich kids, I figured, but apparently at least a bit cultured. From a family that had fallen from grace, perhaps.

"So," I said, my eyes on the little thing as she held the mug of chocolate in both hands, raising it occasionally to her full pink lips, "I know now that your father's christened name was Henri, but I know nothing more about you. What is your story? How did you come to be out on the ocean in that little boat?"

The lad made a grunt, and a gesture to his sister that she should keep her tiny mouth shut. She gave him a glare that sent him a clear message of defiance in return, then turned to me.

"We's left our papa's farm," she said in her strange and broken English, "or his, I think you calls it a 'plantation?'" I nodded, wanting her to continue. "We were to head to France to live with our old aunt." The boy shook his head disapprovingly, but the girl continued. "And we were beset by pirates! And they captured us and made me and Tony their slaves!"

The boy glared at his sister and I had a suspicion that the story was true. It would explain how they wound up out in the middle of the ocean like they did.

"And then," the boy joined in, "a whole squadron of your British Navy arrived and the pirates fought them off..."

The girl let out a giggle.

"And then, there was a huge whirlpool! And a giant sea monster!"

I kicked my chair back with my heel and stood. I wasn't about to be made game of by this insolent boy and his bratty sister. And I was just beginning to like her.

The captain told me later that day that he planned to ship the children back to England on the first merchantman we spoke that was heading in that direction. Or France, then, he said, once I told him the more believable parts of their breakfast tale. His was a plan with which I entirely concurred, and I silently hoped we would speak a ship before the next watch and be rid of the two of them posthaste.

Alas, no such luck. The days dragged on and the children became a standard fixture at the rail. The captain allowed them on his sacred quarterdeck, so long as they kept quiet and entirely out of his way, which proved not to be much problem at all as they were quiet and insular at first, spending most of their free time looking pensively out over the sea or watching for dolphins swimming alongside the bark.

But eventually they began to come out of their shells, at least Isabella did, and she would walk amongst the hands and they all took a liking to her, teaching her the knots and stitchings that make up such an important part their maritime knowledge. Her brother mostly remained a scowling young teenager but he tagged along behind "Bella," as the hands took to calling her, from boredom and lack of anything better to do, and the hands treated him kindly, for his sister's sake.

A certain sound awoke me in the middle of the dog watch one night, a fortnight after the two had joined us. In a confused state of only partial wakefulness, I saw a candle burning on my sea chest, and a strange object like a doll standing beside it and casting unearthly dancing shadows about the room.

The children, in the bed, were most certainly not asleep, although it was not yet clear to me what they were doing. I rolled to the side for a better look, at which point the kitten, hitherto immersed in the act of cleaning his paws and oblivious to the happenings around him, flashed his menacing yellow eyes at me and bared his teeth, his ears back and his tail raising and expanding.

It was then that it dawned on me what the two were doing.

There, in the moonlit darkness, I saw the outlined form of little Bella, down under the covers between her brother's legs with her head bobbing at his lap. The boy, with both hands above the covers and on her head, was trying hard to keep quiet, but his breath was labored and obvious, and then he lifted his hips and let out a low grunt, followed by another.

She climbed up from between his legs, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and quiet as a fairie stood and stepped to my sea chest. She picked up the little doll and spoke some words in a strange native tongue, then put the doll into her rucksack, extinguished the candle and did the same with it.

Only now did the cat's devil eyes fade to pale, his mouth cease with the baring teeth, and his ears and tail relax. He returned to cleaning his paws.

"Merci," the girl said to her brother as she climbed into the bed again. His only reply was to kiss her on the forehead.

As I lay in my hammock in the grey blackness, I contemplated my response. The barky carried no parson, but I didn't need much consultation to conclude that these children had committed a sin, perhaps even a mortal one. Worse still, regardless of one's opinion of sin and mortality, mariners were a superstitious lot and having these two children behave in ways that might be seen by the men as bringing down the wrath of one god or another was never a good idea.

On the other hand... The girl was sweet, and, really, what's the harm in a little fun between siblings? And if she's open to doing such a thing with her brother, a mere boy and a blood relative, then why not with her lieutenant? Surely, with her lieutenant as well!

Ultimately I was led to the conclusion that, regardless of their sin, I would hold my tongue.

It was so uncharacteristic of Bella to miss her morning meal of several of my best eggs and at least two slices of ham, that when her brother reported she was not feeling well I felt a need to pay her a visit.

Her native-brown cheeks were pale and she was sitting up, looking very ill.

"I am OK, lieutenant," she told me. "It will pass soon."

I was a bit perplexed as to what ailed her. Surely it wasn't sea sickness, the child had been with us for nearly a month now and asea some time before that as well, and showed no signs at all of the affliction. A communicable disease seemed unlikely, too, as no one else on the barky was ill. Foul food, then? Divine punishment for her sin? Regardless, I was pleased to see her at the rail two days later, standing with Toothless Joe as they watched the dolphins play in the barky's wake. If it was punishment for sin, the gods did not seem particularly concerned.

Bella continued to be a favorite of the crew as the days wore on, with the calm of the passage slowing our progress and preventing us from speaking with any home-bound merchantmen. The gruff old hands of the daytime watches helped her learn the skill of climbing shrouds to the top and even to the mastheads, whereupon she would sit in the sun and look out wistfully over the endless sea. When time and duty allowed, I would join her at the top, and she and I would converse in her broken English or her strange, and I came to believe very beautiful, French, talking of the ship, the sea, and even sometimes about her once-carefree life on her father's plantation before the British government banned the trade of slaves and the source of their labor began to dry up, which led her father to drink and the plantation to ruin.

There was no further lovemaking between brother and sister that I could discern, and after a few days had passed since Bella's recovery from her strange illness, I was beginning to wonder if my recollection of their nighttime activities wasn't some sort of fever dream on my part. But then one early morn just after eight bells tolled midnight, there was a odd whispered conversation between the two, their strange French even harder to understand when spoken so quiet and hoarse. But as best I could gather, the conversation went as such:

"Don't you need to do more magic?" the lad asked the girl.

"No," she answered, "it worked, it's fine now."

"Oh," he said in reply.

"You seem disappointed." Her voice had the hint of a little smile to it.

"Well... It's just..."

"I understand," she said in a kindly way. "Here, I will help you."

It was very dark, almost black, but I could see her form slide under the covers, and a minute later I heard him grunting.

It was the lad who said "Merci" this time when she climbed out from under the covers, wiping her mouth again on the back of her hand.

"Chips," I said to the carpenter's mate the next afternoon as he passed by Bella and me standing at the rail, "how's the progress on the leak below?"

"She's stopped, sir," he answered, touching his forehead. "Seen no water these last two days."

"Excellent," I said, nodding to his salute. "Shall we go see for ourselves, Bella?"

"Certainly," the child answered, no doubt glad to have something a little different to occupy her time.

I swear I had no ill intent upon setting off with the girl and down the various steps and ladders into the very depths of the Cee. But once we were alone, down in the hold and shrouded in the semi-darkness of my safety lantern, as she stepped down the last few steps of the ladder and I reached out and took her hand and the flickering orange glow against her island-toned skin lit her in an enticingly magical way... She smiled, full lips opening to reveal shining white teeth and a little hint of the pink of her tongue... The soft rocking motion of the ship was less pronounced now, down here so deep in the hold, and it felt not unlike a mother rocking her baby in a cradle. My heart skipped suddenly and unexpectedly, and I could tell hers did, too.

I pulled her into me as she came down off the ladder, and I took the liberty of kissing her, full on the lips.

Her face was upturned towards mine, and when I had completed the kiss, she spoke a solitary word. "Again?" she said. Our lips met and did not part for a very long time. As we kissed, we continued to hold tightly to each other's hand as if both of us were unwilling to ever let go, and I lifted my other hand to the soft curls atop her head. She set her free hand, so tiny, so sweet! on my chest, and then slowly lowered it until her fingers reached the tie of my trousers.

Fumbling nervously, she managed to pull the string.

"Bella..." I whispered, but whatever words were yet to come were stopped by the feeling of small, cool fingers reaching down into my trousers. They found my hardened cock and began a gentle stroking. I let go of her hand that I was holding and reached down, setting it over her little hand. "You don't need to do this, Bella," I whispered to her, finally finding my voice.

I could see her eyes shining in the glow of the safety lantern as she looked up at me. "You are so big, so warm." She continued with her gentle stroke. "You are a kind man, I want to help you feel good."

I was lost now, beyond the ability to object any further, lost to the magical feeling of the child's skillful hand. Knowing that she would soon bring upon me the moment that I now craved, I reached down and pulled my pants to below my throbbing cock, and the girl brought her other hand to bear, holding my balls and still gently stroking. Oh what a wonderful stroke the child had!

Soon the little girl brought me to the brink and I grunted as the first shot fired out, up into the dark dusty air. She continued her ministrations, stroking and gripping tightly to my balls as I exploded repeatedly in an unbelievable release. When I was finished, she let go of my shaft, still holding to my balls. She lifted the hand that had been stroking my shaft, messy now with my semen, and licked it clean, staring up and me and smiling.

Part 2: The Wind

For all of the morning watch the next day, the westerly breeze that had been propelling us to our destination at a snail's pace slowly fell until, by eight bells, it had died entirely and the sails hung sadly limp. With little to do but wait for the breeze to pick up again, I climbed up the shrouds to where Bella was sitting, reading a book in French that the master had loaned her and gazing off into the horizon. She always seemed to look west and south when she was scanning the sea, and often with a pensive, melancholy look upon her face.

She smiled at me as I settled in.

"What are you thinking about, my Bella?" I asked her.

"Home," she replied.

"You miss your home."

"I do... I misses me mama."

"I bet she misses you, too."

She smiled at me, but something sad hid behind her eyes.

"The breeze has died completely," I said. "We're stuck in the doldrums now."

"What ares the 'doldrums?'" she asked.

"It means a place in the sea where there is no wind, and the ship won't be going anywhere."

For a moment, her eyes lost the sadness behind them. "Would you like more wind?" she asked.

"Well, I suppose I would. Better to be moving than not, wouldn't you say?"

"I can..." she stood up and took hold of a stay, "we can tries ta make the wind blow for yous, my lieutenant!"

"Make the wind blow?" I said.

Her eyes sparkled. "Yes! I ha'... I know something wes can do!"

I was glad to see the sadness leave her beautiful brown eyes, and so I figured I would entertain whatever silly notion the child had in her brain. Mariners are full of ways to make more wind: whistling on deck and scratching the backstays; the girl no doubt had her own superstitions, taught to her by the island natives most likely. I would entertain them, to make her happy again.

"Com'on!" she shouted as she leapt off the top and slid down the stay. Holy god, it frightened me to see the girl frolicking like this! I stood and watched with almost fatherly concern, as did several of the men on deck, but she detached herself from the rope at just the right moment and landed square on her feet on the deck, looking up at me with an impatient glare. "Com'on!"

Two seconds later I joined her on the deck via the same stay and she took my hand and pulled me to the hatch to go below decks to our berth.

The child sparked a tallow candle alight and set it on my sea chest and pulled the porthole closed, leaving only the candlelight to illuminate the small room. Then she lifted her miniature rucksack that contained her few meager possessions and upturned its contents onto the bed. From the furthermost reaches spilled out a little handmade woven-straw doll, her face stained dark brown, with painted white eyes and dark irises and her hair made of black horse's mane. I realized that this must be the doll I had seen the other night, a week ago or so, the first night that she and her brother had...

The child lifted the toy in my direction and smiled, eyes wide, mouth broad, teeth gleaming white in the flickering glow of the candle. The entire effect of the scene was dramatic, and a little unnerving; shadows danced across Bella's normally soft and gentle face, casting long strange dark images, and she held the doll into the air, its ghostly image cast in dancing shadow onto the wall just as it had before. She spoke, in a language I could not identify. Suddenly the ship leaped forward as if propelled by an unexpected gust of wind, and a shout went up on deck. The girl lowered the doll and gave a self-satisfied smile, suddenly returning from high-priestess-sorcerer to little Bella once again. My eyes were surely wide in shock and amazement, but I now had duty abovedecks, and so I rose, gave my little magician a bow, and dashed to the ladder. She made a noise as I left. "But, wait..." I hadn't a moment to spare, though, so I did not so much as pause.

"Wind, lieutenant," said Pickerding, a topman on my watch. "At least, there was... Seems to ha' left us now." He was looking up at the sails, once again limp. I looked out and saw to the east of us a small and solitary squall, racing rivulets across the water some quarter mile to starboard of the barky. "Might be best we dina have more sail set, sir," he offered. "She mighta pulled our masts right off, she was so strong for that first moment she hit."

A few bells later I saw a little dark figure lurking behind the captain's gig.

"You there, mate," I hollered. "Make yourself known!"

Bella stepped out of the shadows, standing before me with her feet crossed one over the other and her knees knobby together. She had her head down but her eyes up and looking at me, a hint of merriment mixed with her apologetic pose.

"Now I suppose you think..." I started.

"I's sorry, lieutenant," she said.

"Sorry?"

"Sorry it didn't quite work. But it were close! It's just..."

"Bella, the squall was a fluke, a coinci..."

"...you left 'fore we could complete it all. If you had lets us finish the spell we'd'a had all kinds a' wind."

"And how is the 'spell' finished?" I asked the little would-be sorceress.

The child looked about her for a moment. "Can't says here, lieutenant," she said.

"Listen, Bella..." I put a condescending hand on her head. "Are you familiar with the word 'coincidence?'"

She shook her head, which had the adorable effect of bouncing the curls of her hair underneath my hand.

I decided to just leave it at that. No reason to crush the child by telling her that her island's magic was mere superstition and nothing more.

That night the captain had his officers join him for dinner, and afterwards to discuss options for the doldrums. After we toasted the king, we retired to the captain's office and the maps. The master plotted our position and we discussed the prevailing weather and what we'd do if we didn't see any wind in the next few days.

Then the captain turned to me. "Those children of yours seem to be getting along quite fine."

"Yes, sir."

"The boy doesn't seem suited for a sailor's life, otherwise I'd rate him master's mate."

"No, sir, he does not seem so suited. I can ask him if he'd like the position, though."

"I know you're becoming attached to them. If you'd like we can keep them until we get back home, and you can have some time to find them a proper situation."

"Oh Captain!" I said, forgetting myself. "Sir," I quickly added. "I'd be much obliged!"

"I thought you might. Ask the boy about the rating, he seems to have his wits about him, and that's an asset to a ship. Maybe we should have a surgeon's mate?"

"Yes, sir, that would seem a good fit, I believe the old surgeon could use some help. I will ask him!"

"Good, good. That'll be all, lieutenant."

"Yessir," I said, knuckle to forehead.

Upon returning to my berth, I heard whispered argumentation through the door, in the pidgin French the children speak, but enough that I could make out the general gist.

"The lieutenant needs wind," the girl said, "so I shall give him wind."

"But the magic will work regardless of him or me," the boy whispered back. "Let it be me!"

"Quiet, now," she replied. "He is my man, or will be. You must sleep in the hammock tonight."

"No, you silly girl," the boy responded. "He'll just fuck you and leave you with a baby. That's what always happens to silly girls."

"What about you? You're the same!"

"You won't get a baby from what we do," he said.

She laughed. "We both know you want more, though!"

"We both know you do, too, Isabella!" he answered.

"Yes, exactly! Now go, to the hammock! The lieutenant will come soon and I need to be ready for him."

I tiptoed away, not sure what the girl needed to do to get ready but wanting to give her time to do it. I climbed up through the hatch to abovedecks where I stood in the dead calm and watched the stars for a few minutes. Then I returned below.

The room was pitch black, not a glimmer of light shone through the port. This was odd, since I had just been admiring the starlight abovedecks not a minute before, but I paid it little attention and quickly disrobed in the darkness, into my usual sleeping slops of naught but my breeches, and I climbed into the bed, knowing the boy was in the hammock tonight. Immediately my little bunkmate jumped up and sparked the tallow candle, still on my sea chest. I rose up onto my elbows, my eyes adjusting to the pale flickering flame, and I saw that Bella was naked. Not a stitch of clothing on her little body. She smiled at me, her brown eyes twinkling in the dimness, her curls casting strange shadows across her soft face. My eyes wondered down, alighting on her pubescent breasts. What lovely baby girls! Only just beginning to grow into their womanly shape, mere half-handfuls of pale brown flesh above her thin chest and tapering into tiny cones where her dark pink nipples swelled to soft, almost undifferentiated tips. I had barely managed to tear my eyes away from the angelic sight, to move them down further to look upon her sex, when she turned and began rooting through her little bag. I sat and watched, gazing on her backside now, her pale and round and wonderful buttocks accentuated by the dancing darkness of the shadows that surrounded her, and she rose again and set her little doll on the sea chest next to the flickering candle.

Then she walked back to the bed, her thin body now concealed in shadow but so light and lithe, and she climbed onto me, straddling my hips. She leaned down and kissed me and as we kissed, I felt the wetness of her girlhood on my belly and she began rubbing against me, sliding up and down, leaving a little trail of her hot nectar along my skin. Burning with desire and operating on mere instinct alone I reached down and pulled my breeches down, to below my now-rigid cock. She responded by sliding further down until her warm wetness touched my cockhead. She rubbed against it, up and down, coating it with her magical love and offering me the chance to part her lips and peek inside. Then she slid down the length of my shaft until she reached the base and pressed down in a wet and wonderful kiss. She slid back up to my glans again, then down, then up again, pressing against me with her lips splayed around my thickness and making love to me without yet allowing me to enter her.

With her lips open wide against the base of my shaft, she finally broke our kiss and sat up. She took my hands and lifted them to her breasts and I fondled the delicate little mounds of flesh, so tiny that they disappeared completely in my hands, her swollen nipples as silken as downy feathers, as soft as butter. She raised herself up now, onto her knees, and reached down and lifted my cock, at the same time spreading her sex open and helping my head to find his way into her warm flesh. She pressed down, lifted up, down again, my cockhead afire with her womanly heat as he burrowed into her unbelievably tiny entrance.

Once I was two inches into her, she lay down on me again. She had her head on my shoulder, her face towards mine and her mouth but a half an inch from my cheek and I could feel her warm breath, smell the wonderful scents of island life about her--coconut, fresh breeze, cinnamon and coffee, as she began slowly sliding herself along the length of my shaft, taking more of me into her with each downward push until I was in her entirely, bumping up against the soft warmth of the furthest reaches of her body.

She pressed her lips against my cheek in a little kiss, then whispered in her strange and wondrous accent, "You are my man." The little girl was breathing hard now and sliding along me fully, pulling up until only my head was inside her, then back down to the base, slowly increasing the rhythm of her work. Soon, I was close to orgasm, and like a skilled artist she began moving faster and faster in response to my own deeper breathing. I knew she would bring me to the brink in only moments, and she knew it, too, and right at the instant of my orgasm she whispered in that strange foreign tongue she had used the day before, unintelligible words spoken just as my cock lurched and spasmed and fired the first shot of my semen deep into her young body.

"O Bella!" I moaned. She lifted herself onto her hands above me now, hammering down, then pulling quickly up and hammering down again. She was smiling broadly as I came.

When I had finished unloading, she climbed off of me and walked, with some apparent gingerness, to my sea chest. She picked up her little doll, gave it a kiss and a few words in her island language, and put it back into her bag. Then she blew out the candle. A moment later she climbed back into bed and snuggled up against me, giving my cheek a little kiss. I heard the hammock squeak and knew that the boy was aware of what his sister and I had done, and at the same time, most astoundingly, my erstwhile nemesis Henri the kitten jumped onto the bed and sat with his paws resting on my chest, his eyes narrowed into little yellowish slits, his ears standing up smartly, and a quiet gentle rumble emanating from inside of him.

"Kitty knows, Monsieur Lieutenant," my little lover whispered to me. "You will get your wind now."

When I awoke the next morning, I must admit I was a little disappointed to find that there was still no breeze at all. It was silly, of course, to think that her spell might have actually worked, but whether in a dream or simply in my sleeping mind, I had convinced myself that it would bring upon us the much-desired wind that would carry us to our destination, and from thence back to my homeland where I could set her and her brother up in a good situation, as the captain had so generously suggested. Alas, it is not to be, the island magic is as fantastical as I had suspected it would be.

At eight bells in the morning watch the captain came on deck with a somewhat wary look upon his face. "Corbin, Pierce," he said to me and the First, "come with me, I have something to show you."

I followed him into his quarters and he set his glass on the table. "It has been steady for this last fortnight," he said, "but look at it now. The mercury has been falling since sunrise, falling dramatically!"

Not yet giving a moment's thought to Bella's island magic, I wasted little time in recommending to the captain that we should double the preventer stays, take in all sails but the maintop, which should itself be replaced with storm canvas and treble-reefed. "Make it so," the captain commanded, "and show some leg!"

It was a tall order for our ship's crew, even the most experienced hands were not used to this level of work. The drum beat all to quarters and the orders were given. With bewilderment among the men, working as they were in bright sunshine without a cloud on the horizon nor even a hint of ripple in the calm, they manned the masts and booms and begin the work of taking in all sails. As the first lieutenant and I supervised the work from below, shouting the necessary instructions, I saw the children come on board to watch the festivities. "Stay away from the men," I ordered them. "To the quarterdeck with you, and make haste of it. Do not get in our way."

"What is happening?" the boy asked.

"Go now!"

The crew performed admirably, given the strangeness of the orders, and our full set of sails intended to catch the slightest breeze were taken in, the t'gallant masts lowered to deck and stowed away, the maintops'l replaced with heavy canvas and its reefs secured. Once completed, the men added an extra run of ten inch rope to the stays to secure the masts. The captain came on deck to observe the proceedings and pulled me aside. "Still falling," he said. "Still falling dramatically."

And yet, with the two hours of heavy work now complete, the men stood around at first confused, and then disgruntled, looking to the sky and the sea and seeing nothing. "Sometimes the glass lies," was a phrase none had used before but was now percolating through the crew as they learned about the captain's observations. But then a cry came from the men above--"Look! Ten points to starboard, on the horizon!" There you could just barely make out a grey and ghostly cloud, rising from the sea. As the afternoon progressed it rose, and rose, lofting into the sky like an angry mountain. Soon lightning strikes could be seen within it and the wind and the waves began to blow.

"All hands!" the captain shouted. "All hands to dinner! Cook, feed these men now before she's upon us! Double rations, with extra grog and beer!" The men cheered at the command and the mood upon the barky improved, and after the extra rations of drink it improved even more; in a case like this it is often better for the men to be well along the way to drunk, little was needed from most of them now but to haul a rope when ordered and otherwise to hide below.

The cloud-mountain seemed to move so slowly; the barky was cutting the sea at a brisk pace now, having caught the wind. The master at the con kept us steered in the opposite direction of the storm and the line told that we were traveling at thirteen knots, a speed rarely seen in this tub. And yet despite the wind, the storm hung on the horizon like a lurking predator, waiting for his prey to make a fatal error. The rumor began to spread amongst the men that we would outrun her, that she would die away before she reached us, and why doesn't the damned lieutenant have us set more sail? We could make even better time then! And thus I began to sense the beginnings of our fatal error before the beast; the men were bringing ill luck upon us and it would not be a pleasant thing.

With the thought of ill luck in my head, my mind turned again the Bella's island magic. Yes, indeed, my little witch had brought me the wind, and with it a hurricane!

Part 3: The Storm

The storm finally made ship-fall late in the evening watch. The men and I all stood along the starboard rail and watched it coming, grey sheets of rain of unimaginable density, a half mile off, then by the next bell a quarter mile, then only a few hundred yards. Lightning filled the sky constantly and the roar became deafening until no conversation was possible, even at the highest volume a man could make. The swell now was enormous, thirty feet, sometimes forty feet, with the poor little barky stalled windless in the valleys and gathering mightily at the peeks, the master working hard at the helm merely to keep us from keeling over, all hands lost, a complete disaster. Once the rain hit, there was little moving at all; a scant crew was lashed to the rails and another at the con, the rest sent below to wait it out. The rain was painful as it beat upon my head and my oilskin coat and tarpaulin provided no aid, I was almost instantly soaked to the bone. There was little to do but stand in awe of nature's power and the skill of the master as he still managed to guide the boat through the waves and wind and keep us afloat.

After nearly four hours of indescribable hell, the weather suddenly calmed. The sea was dark and angry and the air was filled with birds, gulls and terns and albatross, flying in great circles above us. Stars began to appear in the dark blue sky above and men started climbing through the hatches from below.

"Get back down there you bastards!" the master shouted from the con. "Have none of you lubbers ever been in a hurricane before? There is much more hell to come!"

And alas the master's experience proved more than right, within a few minutes we had the same strange sensation of watching the grey sheets of rain coming upon us again and the huge swells, which had not left us during the calm, increased with even greater intensity until every man aboard was certain that this would be our last day upon God's Earth.

It was shortly after the rain hit us again that the sickening sound of shattering wood was heard and in the darkness the towering foremast began a long, slow, elegant glide to port.

"Hatchets, men!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, an order that was heard by no one but was understood by all and soon I and a meager band of exhausted men were hacking away at the splintered vestiges that still held the mast anchored to the ship and the thick ropes that once secured it but now kept it in its terrible place, leaning the poor old barky over almost into the sea. This was when I saw the first man go overboard. Old Abercrombie. Never to be seen again.

An hour later, the mainmast went as well, and we all knew we were doomed. We managed to rig a square sail to the mizzen, but soon that was in tatters and all hope was lost.

When the sun rose the next morning it revealed before us an unbelievable sight. The ocean, angry still but calming, was scattered with a thousand floating bodies of dead fish and even a small whale, belly up a hundred yards to port. Wood and other unidentifiable pieces of human-made debris floated about among the graveyard of sea life, some of it from the barky, some from unknown boats that must have been nearby and must have suffered a far worse a fate than us. The barky herself still carried her mizzenmast, but she was laying low in the water and listing terribly to port, the rail sometimes almost underwater. The carpenter came on deck and announced to the gathered officers that there was ten foot of water in the well, and she wouldn't hold much more. By some miracle, though, the ribs were sound and there didn't appear to be much more damage to the underside than a mallet and some caulking would solve. The tired men manned the pumps, officers too, and within hours the ship had righted herself and the carpenter's crew set about the caulking. At noon, all hands were mustered and counted; ten souls had been lost. Services were held to commit their bodies to the deep, and then we set about the task of jury-rigging a boom to the stump of the mainmast, setting something of a sail there, and all officers met in the captain's mess to chart a course for the nearest port for refitting.

Only then, after our course was charted, was I able to finally go below to my berth and check on my charges there. I'd seen them come on deck for the services, but they'd hung back and not said a word to me and I was too busy to pay them any further mind. When I entered our quarters, the boy stood immediately and touched his knuckles to his forehead. He'd never done that for me before. "I told 'er, sir," he said. "I told 'er not to mess with the ways of the islands. Her mama always said she had the power, but she doesn't know how to use it proper."

I looked over at little Bella, sitting on the bunk, her eyes red and swollen.

"Oh, Bella," I said to her and reached my arms out to her.

She stood and let me take her into me, and the poor little thing began sobbing as I held her tight. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she said.

"Bella," I said, "it's not your fault. We're safe, the barky floats, it'll be OK."

"It is my fault," she said, stepping back and still sobbing slightly. "I brought this on us."

"No," I said. "Your magic cannot control the weather. This storm was just a coincidence, a freak of nature, nothing more. It is not your fault."

I looked from Bella to her brother, and back to her again. Neither of them were convinced by my opinion.

"Now," I said to them, "Capt'n has invited us all to dinner. Clean yourselves up and put on some decent slops and look sharp about it!"

After standing the late watch on our poor crippled barky, the breeze setting nicely and filling our jury-rigged sail, I climbed below to our berth. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I got there--would I be relegated to the hammock again? I'd hoped not; I wanted to provide comfort to Bella, whom I knew was feeling very sore indeed about what had happened. Thankfully I found the hammock occupied by the boy and thus climbed into the bed after quietly doffing my slops. Immediately, the girl moved to me and put her hand on my shoulder. I turned to her and took her into my arms and held her.

"It's OK, Bella," I whispered to her. "It's not your fault."

We held each other for a while, just breathing. I could smell her fragrance; the girl had a remarkable perfume about her once again, evoking thoughts of palm trees and beaches of bleached-white coral sand. Eventually, a little cool hand began to move, sliding down my chest, my belly, to my groin.

"Bella," I whispered as gentle fingers found my cock, rising now to meet them, "you don't need to..."

In response, she moved her body down, kissing me on my chest, then down further. She planted a kiss on my manhood through my breeches, her warm breath exciting me and bringing me to full attention.

A little voice whispered from below the covers. "I need to love you," she said.

My ability to object to her actions was gone, and she pulled my breeches down and I felt the warmth of her small mouth against the bare flesh of my cockhead. A kiss, a little kiss. Another little kiss, partly down my shaft, and another, down until she was at my scrotum. She gave each ball a gently little kiss, then simply lay at my groin with her soft lips against my sack, warming my balls with her sweet breath. Cool fingers wrapped around my shaft and began a tender stroke. She kissed each ball again, then I felt the warmth and wetness of her tongue as she gave each of them a broad, full lick. She lifted her face away, lifted my shaft, and suddenly I experienced the overwhelming sensation of my cockhead taken in between her little lips.

Still stroking so delicately on my shaft, she began to suck, a strong inward pull in her mouth with each upward motion of her hand, then letting go as her hand moved back down, then sucking in again as her hand moved back up.

It was a most remarkable thing to experience, so unlike vaginal sex and much better in a way. Both methods have their own wonders and rewards, of course, but the cunt has nothing like the powerful suck nor the playful tongue that the girl was administering to my cockhead now. I'd had my cock in a few women's mouths by this point in my life, but never before had it been even remotely similar to this. Young Bella was an expert, an extraordinary talent. An artist.

When she brought her other hand to bear, cupping it around my balls, I knew it was only moments before the inevitable, and I groaned out loud. She locked her lips around my head, sucked even harder than before, and pumped with vigor on my cock. And then I exploded, a huge surge of semen rifling out of me. She sucked hard again as she swallowed it, continuing to pump and to cradle my balls, while I emptied myself into her. She held my head in her mouth as it twitched through the final throes of orgasm, lapping with her soft tongue at my hole to coax out every drop of semen. Only once she was satisfied that I was completely done did she finally take her mouth away.

She climbed up to me after, laid her head on my chest. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Thank me?" I said, astonished. I'd never had a girl say "thank you" to me after oral sex, or any sort of sex at all for that matter. "Thank you!"

"No," she said, "thank you. I... I really needed that."

"You needed it? Why?"

"I need to know that you still want to be loved by me."

I kissed her on top of her beautiful mop of curly hair. "I love you and adore you, Bella."

She let out a heavy sigh and whispered, "thank you," again, before slipping away into well-earned sleep.

I woke up horny the next morning, which is not an uncommon occurrence for me especially after having such an experience the night before. My angel Bella was still asleep next to me, her brown face so soft and tender with her mouth open slightly, pulling in air, letting it out. A more lovely vision you could not possibly imagine. I could hear her brother's raspy breathing from the hammock as well, but I paid him little mind at any rate; if he wasn't used to his sister's and my lovemaking by now, he was already in a sorry shape regardless.

It seemed a shame to wake such a beautiful child from her slumber, and I briefly considered simply pleasuring myself while I watched the sweet child sleep. But I had other things in mind. I felt that I owed her something. It was my turn to crawl under the covers.

At first, just gentle kisses, not intended to wake her yet. I carefully lifted her nightgown above her knee and kissed her legs, first one, then the other; her flesh felt so soft against my lips that I could hardly bring myself to move up further. Little kisses now up underneath her nightgown, up her thighs to even softer skin. How could anything be so delicate, so doll-like, so perfect?

She stirred, one leg sliding slightly to the side, an open invitation to me to kiss her further. When I planted my lips upon her child's sex, she made her first sound, a gasp; then she reached down and quickly began pulling her underthings down. I took over for her and pulled them off and soon they were in a pile under the covers at the foot of the bed. Thereupon she spread her legs open and I settled my face back at the little opening of wetness and joy that was between her legs.

Again just a gentle kiss, and another, my lips and hers in intimate contact. I felt the softness of her angelic skin and the downy fur that graced her sex, and inhaled her wonderful perfume, again her island smells--trees and sand, and sweetness like a newly-ripening plum, and a saltiness like the very sea water of her home. My tongue parted her lips now and I licked, beginning at the base of her opening and moving up, pressing in and tasting, O tasting my beautiful baby Bella! She tasted of all that I smelled, island things--plums and mangos and pineapples, smoked oysters and salt fish, cracked black pepper and ground coriander. A feast! Bella's sex, my nourishment!

As I licked, she began to flow, and I drank of the finest liqueur man has ever tasted, brandywine, aged for thirteen years in the body of an island beauty and begging, begging! to be finally tasted by a man! It was a most splendid and welcome elixir for this morning, of all mornings, when my tired body was in desperate need of the magical comfort only a woman's sex can give to a hungry man.

Only now did my tongue lift higher yet, to the tiny bulb of her little clitoris, stiff and erect and crying out for attention now. When I kissed her nub, Bella took in a deep, full breath and put her hands on my head, cradling me to her. When my tongue licked at her button, a mere touch with the tip of my tongue, her body shook. And when I then let the fullness of my tongue engulf her clitoris entirely, she moaned aloud and locked her thighs around my cheeks.

She moaned and shook and her sex flowed even more, and then she said in a quiet voice of deep satisfaction, "Will you fuck me, Mister Corbin? Now?!?"

As I climbed onto the little girl I pulled my breaches off and pulled her shirt up over her head, leaving it yet still around her wrists as a sort of restraint. My cock easily found its mark, needing no help from me nor her and slipping right into her desperate, eager puss. I drove in deep. She grunted from the weight of me and the force with which I entered her, from the rude thickness of my cock forcing her open to accept my girth.

And then, with her hot little petals spread open around the width of my base, sloppily dripping their warmth onto my scrotum, I felt a charge of manly energy and I reared back and slammed in again and suddenly Bella was not the beautiful thirteen year old girl whom I adored and cared for; she was now but a whore, a wanton woman who was open underneath me and was mine to use and abuse as best my cock would do.

And so I fucked her, hard and glorious, using every inch of her little cunt, every tight hot inch, for my carnal pleasure. And she lay passively and took it like a grown woman would. Her little pussy put up not a hint of residence to my assault; she was sopping wet and her cum was splashing out of her with each of my solid thrusts, costing my balls in warmth and the bedsheets in the island fragrance I had come to love so well. Gushing pussy wanted this, she wanted to be overpowered and dominated and forced to take what her man would offer her.

And take it she did. It did not take particularly long for her to milk me and I slid in and out with ferocity as my orgasm reached its height before driving in as deep as I could and holding myself there while semen pumped out of me and into that wonderful magical place where babies are made inside my beautiful Bella. As I drove in the second time, to unload the second shot, I held myself above her and looked into her unimaginably lovely eyes, the pale brown windows into her heavenly soul.

"I love you, Bella," I said as the second shot surged forth and filled her womb.

She gave me the sweetest smile. The most beautiful smile any man had ever seen before.

Part 4: Bella's Magic

The days wore on at an excruciatingly slow pace, the breeze slowly slacking and the boat at times barely moving at all even with every scrap of cloth set that we could manage. We did eventually rig a boom to the foremast stump as well, but it was a skinny little thing and we couldn't risk it in anything but the lightest air.

The girl was disappointed that she could no longer skylark to the top of the now non-existent main t'gallant, thereupon to sit and read one of the dozens of books that the learned coves on deck would loan her. Her appetite for words was remarkable, she could read anything from the driest writing about plant genuses that the surgeon had to offer, to the romance novels that the purser had; his only interest with such books, so he claimed, was to keep up with his reading of the French. She even took up Greek and Latin, and I served as her tutor in this regard, which is a bit of a laugh because my learning ended when I was sent to sea, and had been less than enthusiastic prior to that. But between the two of us, with an occasional consultation with the captain, we could make our way through the few texts in those languages that were found about the boat. So, sadly for the girl, she was now relegated to the much less comfortable top of the jury-rigged mainmast, or the more proper mizzen if she so chose, but the captain preferred to have her on the quarterdeck with him. She was becoming known for her fine sense of humor and her infectious laugh, and he, yes even he who once swore to hate children, he like all the other men found he greatly valued her company.

At the same time, the boy had taken up the captain's offer to be the surgeon's mate and proved a good companion to the old man in the areas of extracting the rotten tooth or letting the blood of a patient who reported sick. But when there was spare time in that capacity, of which there was much these days as no one was finding themselves twisting arms or breaking ankles in the tops any longer, he would work with the carpenter and his mate, hammering caulk, refitting cannon carriages, learning how to take down the bulkheads. Around this time he chose to move out of my berth, preferring to mess with the other boys of the ship, and this left Bella and I alone in my cabin together. Normally this would have been a subject of great controversy, but by now it had been well-established on board that she and I were together and no one really batted an eye at the island girl and her hopelessly love-lost man.

If the days were slow and uneventful, the nights... Oh my, the nights. Bella liked it best on top, and she was so skilled at this that it was a wonder to behold. But I preferred to board her like a sailor, down on her back, her skinny brown legs spread wide, and me taking my place above her. I would start out gentle enough, of course, but soon I was fucking my girl like I owned her and she would coo and caw underneath me, mew and moan, and let me have my way. She still loved to use her hand, and even more her mouth. She always felt that if she didn't get enough cum in her belly she wasn't being treated right by me.

Those were wonderful days, despite the ship's slow progress and crippled shape. Wonderful days indeed.

But all that, of course, was soon to change.

"Sail ho!" The lookout cried.

"Where away?" I shouted.

"There!" the dumb man shouted back, pointing. Every eye without a glass was straining to see what they could. We hadn't spoken a ship in weeks, since before the children had arrived, and we could hope that they might have a better boom for our jury-rigged fore, or even perhaps a spare mast in their hold, if it were a Royal Navy ship. Regardless it would be good to see a face belonging to someone, anyone, who was not a member of this godforsaken crew, all of whom's ugly mugs we had been staring at for interminable ages now.

Then the first hint of a problem arose.

"The black flag," the first lieutenant whispered as he focused on the ship through his glass.

"Corbin," the captain said in a calm voice. "Let's get the men fed. It promises to be a rough night."

The officers held council later in the afternoon over stew of freshly slaughtered mutton, and fresh soft tack, in the captain's quarters. By now the pirate ship, while clearly manned by men who had no idea how to reef and steer, had nonetheless gained half the distance and would make the other half before sundown.

The captain was despondent. The first lieutenant was drinking hard. The lower officers were a mixed bunch, some more resigned to their fate than others.

"Well men," the captain said, "I suppose it was inevitable that she wouldn't make it to her destination. This has been a cursed trip."

"We're not done in yet, sir," I said.

He sighed. "We are, lad, we are."

"We got five guns a-side," I protested. "Let's load them and prime them and see what they got."

"There's no use lieutenant," the first said. I glared at him.

"The men'll do it if I ask them," I implored to the captain. "You know they will. They don't want to be pirate slaves."

The captain took a heavy breath and shook his head.

"What about the girl? Do you expect me to just stand aside while she is taken by pirates?"

The captain looked at me with sorrow in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Sean."

I stood. "They'll rape her," I said.

The captain shook his head.

"At least let me fire the cannons at them. They'll bear now, let's see what happens."

"The guns won't be fired, Sean, I'm sorry. They'll only make matters worse. They kill men when a crew fights back."

I knew what the captain meant, as did every man in the room. They kill the officers when a crew fights back. I stood up as straight as possible in the low-ceiling room and touched my knuckles to my forehead. "By your leave sir?"

"You can go, lieutenant," the captain said, pouring another round of whiskey for the gathered men.

Back in my quarters I found Bella on her knees in front of the tallow candle and her little doll. She looked at me with tears flowing down her cheeks.

"Oh my Bella!" I said, reaching out to her.

"The captain won't fight, will he?"

"No, he won't."

"I can't go back. I can't be his slave again."

"Slave? Again?" I said, surprised. I had a vague recollection of the story she told me on that first night after we had rescued her and her brother from the swell. I had assumed then that she was playing me the fool, and we had not discussed it again since. I still knew very little about the circumstances that led them to our ship that fateful day.

"Yes, this is the pirate ship I told you about, the very ship that captured us."

I nodded. "Yes, I remember."

"The pirate captain is a horrible man," she said, her voice shaking. "He... I..." She sobbed. "I was pregnant by him when you found us."

Suddenly, I remembered how I had witnessed her casting a magical spell, only a few weeks after the children had joined us, I remembered her illness that followed. Suddenly, I understood.

"I can't go back," she sobbed. "I won't."

"O Bella, I won't let you! I promise you that you will not!"

"Will you help me with my spell?"

Although a day before I would have shouted "no!" it seemed to make little difference now. "I will," I answered. "What is it you are casting for?"

"That we will fight. And win."

"I'll do whatever it takes to bring that about. What do you need me to do?"

Still on her knees she reached out and undid my buckle. Shortly my trousers were at my knees and she leaned towards me with her mouth open.

"Bella..." I began to object.

She looked up at me, her wide brown eyes imploring. "You know my spells need this. And you know I need this. If this is our last day together, I will show you my love."

And with that, her magical lips wrapped around my head. She began with no hands at all, simply slipping succulent lips over the ridge of my crown as she bobbed her head up and down, sucking each time she took my glans into her mouth, letting up as she pulled off, then back down and sucking hard again. She stared up at me with those angelic eyes, and as I gently petted her soft cheek I swore that she would not be taken by the p irates that night. I didn't know how I would bring it about, but it will not happen.

Once that trails of spittle began to drip down my shaft, she finally reached a hand up and wrapped it, very loosely, around my shaft, sliding it in rhythm with her mouth, spit still flowing from her mouth and providing a wonderful lubrication. When I moaned, she lifted her other hand as well, so delicately cupping my balls.

"Oh, Bella," I whispered down to her, "Beautiful Bella! I love you."

She smiled as best she could with my cock in her mouth, working diligently at her appointed task with her sucking and sliding, drooling and stroking. Amazingly, unbelievably, this was the best yet that the girl had done with her versatile and wonderful mouth.

All the other guns on board the ship silent by the captain's order, my cannon fired nonetheless that evening, all the energy in my whole body devoted to giving my little lover what she craved, and wanting to experience that fantastic feeling of how she sucked and swallowed while I came. And she did, she swallowed and swallowed, showing her man how much she loved him by accepting his seed inside her.

When I was finished, she licked my head, all over and especially the hole, lapping up every drop that leaked out in the aftermath like a hungry minx.

As I left my berth that evening, I wondered what her spell would bring.

Abovedecks, I stood with the captain and observed the enemy, now within musket range if not pistol. I said not a word, arguing with the captain would bring about no good and worse problems as the crew would hear it all, and it would depress their morale. If I had any hope of bringing this crew together for a stand, I needed them in as good of spirits as I could hope.

On the other side of the captain stood the first lieutenant. Well, "stood" isn't quite the right word; swayed and pitched and stumbled would be better. He lifted his flask to his lips and downed more whiskey. Good god he will poison himself before the night is up. He offered the flask to me and I shook my head, never taking my eyes off the pirate ship.

From across the several hundred yards of sea came a loud crack, a sound every man aboard recognized, and I and the captain heard the quick buzzing of the bullet fly past us not but ten feet above.

"Lower the flag," the captain announced, rather more quietly that one would expect of a command of such seriousness. The man at the rope hesitated, unsure what he had heard, and looked at me. I wasn't quite sure what to tell him to do, either. I could not, would not, bring myself to relay an order with which I disagreed so utterly.

There was another crack from the pirate ship.

This one found its mark.

The captain sunk to the quarterdeck next to me, a bullet hole through his brain.

It took me but half a second to realize that through this unspeakable tragedy, this chance moment of violence, I had become the barky's rightful commander. The lieutenant was too drunk to even notice what was happening, too drunk to even duck when the next crack sounded. Whether that man would see the light of dawn will be up to his Maker alone.

"Men!" I roared. "The guns! Man the guns!"

A cheer went up from the assembled crew. "To Captain Corbin!" the shout arose, "three cheers! Huzzay, huzzay, huzzay!"

"Beat to quarters drummer! And make it damned quick!" I shouted.

The crew was not well-versed in the operation of the guns, but they were untying them from their moorings even as the carpenters and his mates were striking down the bulkheads, and soon we had five guns loaded and primed and the deck readied for battle.

"Get your sister," I ordered Anthony, the boy. "You and she will run us ball and shot and powder." The lad ran off and I turned my attention to the gunnery.

"First gun, you over there men! You will fire on my order. Then each gun in succession, count to five and then fire! Aim as best you can for the masts, if we bring down her masts she'll never catch us."

The men stared intently out of each gunport.

"And.... FIRE!"

A deafening roar filled the deck, along with the sharp and pleasant odor of burning powder and the blinding flash of discharge. A cheer was heard from abovedecks as the men knew we were finally engaging. A chorus of small arms fire erupted from there as well and I smiled to myself. The master knew his game, the old sot, and had armed them men above even though I had neglected to give the command.

"Another ball!" I shouted to the boy and girl, "get each gun that fires another ball and powder!"

With that the second gun exploded in the same cacophony of flame and powder and massive force, propelling its twelve pound ball of iron through the air with unbelievable power.

We kept up the fusillade as best we could until the guns were so hot they could no longer be safely handled by such inexperienced crews, and the men were pouring with sweat. As we watched the smoke clear away we saw in the distance a shattered wreck; one of her two masts were down, her side and her remaining sails riddled with holes. And yet, she still floated, and worse still, she still steered and filled with wind. She would be upon us in a second.

"Grape," I hollered to the children, who had no idea what I meant and so I ran to them and showed them how to help the men load the small shot into the blazing hot cannons. We would be lucky to get one side of grape fired, but at this close range, the devastation it would wrack upon the enemy was unimaginable. Rivers of blood. The first cannon let loose its shot and you could watch the men on the deck of the pirate ship fall. By the next, the smoke was too dense to see what was happening behind it but you could hear the cries, and the moans. But then you could hear the chains as the enemy hooked onto us.

"Cutlasses now, men!" I shouted. "Pistols!" The cannonfire was done, there would be no more that evening. We had done grave damage to our opponent but had not taken him out of the game.

Abovedecks the scene was one of mass confusion, a wave of men driving forward, then another wave driving them back. It was impossible to tell how many pirates had come on board, or how many of my men were left alive, but the gun crews that arrived with me certainly made a difference, perhaps the important difference that would turn the tide in our favor, and we charged forward with a holler that was caught up by all the men. The first rapscallion that I personally engaged spent too much time trying to bring his pistol to bear, and while the barrel was aimed right at me, the hammer hit with a click and not a roar, and his action was met with a cutlass stroke from me across his neck. He fell a lifeless heap. The next man was much more ready for a battle and this was certainly not his first of the evening, he was cut and bleeding, and his blade was an angry red. He engaged me briefly before managing to get the upper hand, slicing my arm terrible which severely limited my ability to raise my sword. Seeing his opening, he raised his blade above me to strike its fatal blow.

"Beg for my mercy," he said, spraying me with blood-infused spittle as around us the battle continued to rage.

All I could do was stare, wide-eyed, and prepare to die.

"That's the lieutenant, Jack," the man next to him said in a sneer. "Step aside you bugger, I won't let him beg!"

"You got it Cap'in!" the man said, and the pirate captain stepped in front of me with his broad sword raising high into the air.

At that moment a strange thing happened. There was a sound like the shriek of a woman in childbirth, like an otherworld banshee unleashed from hell upon the innocent earth. For the briefest moment, every man stopped, their flush faces drained of blood and pale with fear. Through the air flew an apparition, black as coal against the grey light of the dusk.

And now it was the pirate captain who let out a hellish howl that dark and dreadful e'en as four sets of cat's claws dug deep into his face. As he stumbled backwards, his man came to his senses and raised his sword again to split my head in two.

A small brown hand appeared as if from nowhere, gripping to a little blade no more than a paring knife stolen from the cook's supplies. The knife sunk into the side of the pirate, high in his ribs. It connected with his heart, and the explosion of blood from the wound was unimaginable and he sank dead in an instant.

Not even yet aware of what had happened, what miracle or magic had saved my life, I found my strength again despite my wound and raised my blade and drove it through the heart of the pirate captain.

"You're captain's dead," I shouted to the remaining pirates as I withdrew my blade and the body fell. "It's over! You've lost! Fall to your knees and drop your weapons, now!"

Knowing as they do that the crime for piracy is death, few of them obeyed me. But at that moment the master roared forward with a group of men with newly primed firearms and a rain of bullets poured forth and ten more of the enemy fell to the deck. The few remaining men dropped to their knees.

I turned and saw my beautiful Bella, sitting among a pile of cloth away from the battle. She was covered, head to foot, in blood. Next to her sat Henri the cat, calmingly cleaning his paws as if he were king of the world. Or, perhaps, king of the underworld I suppose.

I went to her quickly. "Are you injured?" I asked.

She shook her head. "You are," she said, reaching up to the angry wound on my arm. I had forgotten all about it in the final moments of the battle, and suddenly it hurt terribly and I felt very weak. I knelt and she wrapped a cloth around my arm to stop the bleeding.

"You saved my life, Bella," I whispered to her. The kitten looked quizzically at me, and I reached a hand to his head and scratched him behind his ears. "And you, too, my Henri." If it were possible for a cat to smile, there is no doubt that it would have been the expression he had on his face at this moment.

All around us the men were cheering. "Victory! Hazzuh! To Captain Corbin!"

She smiled at me. "Do you believe in my magic now, Monsieur Capitaine?"

"I do, my dear. I do."

Part 5 The Island Girl

"Mon capitaine?" my island girl said to me, her legs still wrapped around my hips as she straddled me, up on her knees on the bed in the darkness of the pirate captain's cabin. It as a spartan room, but much larger than my quarters on the Cee and considerably more private. Pierce, the former First, had declared himself captain of the good ship over the strong and loud and nearly mutinous objections of the crew, and then he read me into acting command of the pirate ship. Captain Corbin, they call me now, can you believe it?

The two crippled vessels were now strapped together in the middle of the deep blue sea, as the tired crew did the best they could to make them at least reasonably sea-worthy for as quick a run as possible to the nearest port.

And so, here we were, Bella and me, bedded down together in the cabin of my new command.

"Mon capitaine?" she said.

"Yes, my little love?"

"Henri, the cat, he's something to shows you."

I heard the cat scratching lightly at the other side of the door. Bella gave me a kiss, and a smile, and climbed off of me. I hopped up and opened the door, where stood the little cat with a mouse clenched in his teeth.

"Ah, a mouse! For me?" I said, kneeling and scratching him between his ears. "Thank you, Henri."

Bella laughed. "The mouse is not for you! That is not what he wishes to shows you!"

The cat looked at me with a condescending eye, asking me how it was that his mistress could have found herself involved with such a stupid man. And then he stood and turned and, with a flick of his extended tail, began marching away.

I grabbed my breeches and followed. Down stairs and ladders the cat led me, with his mouse hanging from his mouth, to the hold, to the very bottom of the ship. There was a couple of foot of water, but the animal managed to hop from one thing to another and avoid getting even his paws wet while I sloshed behind, until he reached his destination, a small hole in a wall separating the hold from the shored up room where was kept ballast stone. The cat disappeared into the hole, then turned and stuck his head out, looking smugly at me.

I was, I will confess, a bit annoyed. Had I been dragged from my bed, and my lady, and made to wade through the putrid water of the hold, merely to witness the cat's favorite mousing hole? But he seemed insistent that I see what it was that he wished to show me, and he was a remarkably intelligent animal considering his brain was less than the size of a walnut. And so I leaned down and held my lantern to the hole and peaked inside.

A flash of metal caught my eye. Intrigued, I grasped the board and pulled it back a bit to open the hole further and looked again.

The entire room was filled with gold.

Bella clutched the blood-red velvet bag containing her share of the pirates' gold. The good men of the Cee had insisted that Bella be given a seaman's share of the prize, and while it wasn't enough to make a man rich, it was enough to set him up with a good life and money to spare.

"It pro'ly ain't enough..." she said, affecting the words of the foredeck hands as she clutched her treasure to her chest, "...to buy back my father's farm, but I think it's enough for a little house where he and I can live, and to buy my mama's freedom..."

'You'll stay with them then?" I asked her, feeling a sinking in my chest. It had become very hard for me to imagine what life would be like without the beautiful Bella by my side.

"I gots nowheres else to go," she said, "'specially now that Tony's gone back to England with Captain Pierce." For Pierce had set sail on the Cee the moment the port hands had plugged her holes and shipped her new masts, taking with him what little crew he could cajole or bribe; for the bulk of the hands much preferred to serve under "the Good Captain Corbin" and his beautiful island witch. They were so thankful to the girl, and loved her so dearly, that the crew had insisted that the pirate ship be rechristened the Bella in her honor.

I looked down at the fresh-scrubbed deck and cleared my throat. "I was hoping..." I said. I kicked my toes like a nervous schoolboy. "I was hoping you might stay with me."

"Mon capitaine?" she said in a whisper. "With you?"

I dropped to a knee. "I've grown so fond of you, Bella. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Her sweet round chocolate cheeks blushed, and a beautiful smile broke across her face. "I growns fond of you, too, Captain Corbin!"

"Then will you, my love? Will you marry me?"

"Will you have me?" She asked. I saw her eyes wetten, and a large tear well.

"O I will have you Bella, I will be the happiest man on Earth if only you be my lover and my wife for the rest of my life!"

She stood with a stuttering smile on her face, looking down at the man on his knee before her, tears rolling down her beautiful cheeks. "I must tell you one more thing, mon capitaine, before you can agree to this."

"Anything, Bella, anything at all!"

She placed a little brown hand on her belly. "I am with child."

"O Bella!" I said, and I reached out and put my arms around her and drew her into me, my head resting against her belly.

"Will you still have me then, Captain?"

"I'm so happy, my child! Of course I will!" I kissed her belly and whispered to the precious life inside her, "Welcome to the family, little one." Then I stood and took Bella in my arms and kissed her fully on the lips. "You will then? You will be my wife?"

"I will, mon capitaine, I will!"

I reached out and took her hand that clutched her little velvet purse. "I have all the money in the world, Bella my beautiful wife. The pirate treasure made me the richest man I know, and it is all yours now. We shall buy your father's farm and free your mother and all the other slaves as well!"

She took my hand. "You shouldn't spend your fortune on me," she said.

"I will do anything for you," I answered.

"Anything?" she said, her eyes suddenly affecting a mischievous glint.

I put my hand on her soft bum. "What exactly do you have in mind, young lady?"

"The men are not here," she said, "They've all gone on shore leave. Let us go up to the top, mon home, and make love in the open!"

"I'll not have you climbing the shrouds with a baby in your belly," I said.

She laughed. Loud and joyous, ringing with the happiness of our relationship, and before I could blink an eye she was already half-way to the top. "Our baby loves heights!" she called down. "Almost as much as she loves having her father lay with her mother!"

I raced up after her. "How do you know what she loves? How do you even know she is a she?"

She was standing on the top now, untying the neck of her dress. "Oh, I know," she said with an eye twinkle, and I knew she was right. How could I ever have even doubted her?

She pulled her dress down, and off, and she stood in front of me in nothing but her drawers. "Touch our baby, Capitaine," she said. "She wants her papa to touch her again."

I reached my hands out and set them on her belly, and I felt her exhale, long and deep.

"Bella," I whispered, "I love you."

"O Capitaine!" She dropped her drawers to the floor of the top. "I love you too!"

My breeches fell to the planks with a definite thud as she lay down, her thin brown little legs wide to welcome her new husband into his home. I climbed on board, feeling more like a man now than I ever had before in my once-miserable life, and I took possession of my new command; I entered the warm darkness of my captain's quarters aboard the Beautiful Bella, my ship, my girl, my wife. The mother of my child!

I was astounded at how wet she was, how easily I entered her, sliding in all the way until the base of my shaft, even my balls, were enveloped in a luscious womanly kiss. Her pussy seemed to be hungry for me, craving more. "Come inside!" pussy said to me, "Welcome! And you, my captain's balls! Come inside me as well and meet our baby girl!"

"Oh Bella," I moaned, seeing the golden gates of heaven before my eyes as I began to fuck her, out in the open, in the top, with the whole of Port Royale and the beautiful island of Jamaica spread out before us. "Oh Bella, my love!"

She wrapped her thin arms and legs around me. "My captain!"

I set an aggressive but steady pace, long full strokes of my thick hard shaft driving, plunging, plowing, my balls slapping hard against my little lover's little ass. Only now did I discover her breasts, still so small but swelling with pregnant expectation, with pending motherhood. I held them in my hands and she smiled and laughed, and when I leaned down and took an excited nipple into my mouth, I felt her body quake and I knew she was cumming, and I felt my own body begin to surge and--

At that very moment, a head appeared over the edge of the top. John Bristol he was, an able seaman from the morning watch.

"Oh sir!" he said, touching his cap, "I'm sorry..."

I noticed the man staring at my wife's beautiful body, so pink with the glow of pregnancy and flush from the exertion of lovers' sex. His eyes were wide, and as much as he wished to not stare, he could not help it. I wasn't angry with him. I couldn't blame him. But I did feel concerned for my wife's modesty.

I needn't've worried myself about that.

The child lifted her head slightly from the planks of the top and looked at the man with a smile. "'ello John!" She said with the breathless enthusiasm of a girl still in the last moments of orgasm.

He touched his hat to her as well. "Um, 'ello Miss Bella."

I began to climb off of her, to do the decent thing and find her dress and cover her, but she wouldn't let me go. She kept her arms and legs locked tight around me. "Finish, mon capitaine," she said. "John won't mind!"

"Um, no sir," the poor man stammered,"...um, I mean, ma'am!" From the way he was staring at us, it was clear that he wouldn't mind at all.

And so Captain Corbin took command of the Beautiful Bella again.

She seemed inspired by her audience, arching her back and letting out a womanly wail, much to John Bristol's wide-eyed surprise (and no doubt delight), and he and I both beheld the remarkable beauty of an orgasmic little girl suddenly cumming in front of us a second time. And this brought me over the edge as well; she had primed and powdered me well and I unleashed a broadside into her, cumming with the ferocity of the hurricane that Bella had once conjured with her magic, now conjuring another with her loins.

"What is it then, Bristol?" I said to the poor young man as I unmoored.

"Port Admiral's duty, sir," he said, touching his hat again but barely able to take his eyes off of Bella's beautiful young body as she stood, completely naked, flush-faced and wet with sweat and sex. "The men... they're drunk and..." His face went red and he looked at Bella, her full little breasts barely fitting beneath the bodice of her dress as she mercifully covered them from the poor man's sight. "...they's drunk and fornicatin'... begging your pardon, ma'am."

Bella giggled, and I must admit I gave a laugh myself, then pulled my trousers on, and the three of us climbed back down the shrouds.

Mr. Jackson was a fat man, at least 20 stone, and he seemed to expand before my eyes as his face reddened and he laughed, his jowls wafting from one side to the other like a poorly sheeted sail in a moderate breeze. "What are you, man," he said in his thick American accent, "one of them abolitionists?"

"I'm a man with a purse full of gold who wants to buy some land."

"Well," the fat man answered, "the plantation's yours, if you really want it. The place is as dry as a witch's tit and I'm glad to be rid of it. As for the slaves... I don't think I'll be selling any of my slaves to a British abolitionist."

"But how will my man run the plantation without anyone to work it?"

"If you're thinking of making money off this endeavor, Captain, you'd best think again," the American said, taking a big drink from his fruit-and-rum concoction. "There's little money to be made on this island even with the best land, what with your king Georgie putting a price on the slavers' heads. And that john fool, Plance, he might've run that sugar farm of his good enough when he was younger, but then he took up with the slave girls and the drinking and... Between you and me, he's barely a Christian anymore. These islands get to men sometimes." He took another swig. "These island girls, they get to men sometimes."

I nodded, understanding more than the man could imagine.

"I wouldn't trust a man like Plance with a penny of mine."

"Nonetheless, I have my reasons for wanting to set him to rights," I said, taking my own, more moderate sip of the drink, "and to buy the freedom of your slaves."

"It'll never happen, Corbin. There isn't enough gold for me to sell them to a British abolitionist, the people of this island would have my head, were I to do that."

At that moment a shriek filled the little anteroom we were occupying, and a girl came running in, a little blonde thing somewhere around eight or nine years old.

"Papa! Papa! Isabella says they have some kittens on their ship! Can I have one of the kittens, Papa?"

The man let out a loud laugh and reached both hands out to the girl. "Come here, my island flower!" he said. "Corbin, here's my daughter, Rose."

I stood and made a leg, which caused the girl to break into a delightful giggle. Then she turned back to her father.

"Papa, please! A kitten!"

A din arose from the next room as a pack of dogs began to bark, and Bella came dashing in, laughing, and behind her came an island boy with a pack of hounds baying around him. Jackson scolded the boy for bringing the dogs into the house. It wasn't an angry scold, however; more of a light-hearted one. His mood seemed to have eased a great deal with the appearance of his daughter.

"And, Mr. Jackson, allow me to present to you my wife, Isabella." I reached my hand out to Bella.

Little Rose giggled. "His wife, Papa! Can you believe it? I couldn't believe it when she told me that she was a ship's captain's wife! Isn't that the most incredible thing? And she is pregnant, Papa! She will have his baby!"

"Rose," the man said, "do not be so indelicate."

"I'm sorry, Papa," the girl said, hanging her little head. But her remorse lasted not a second, her face quickly lit into a smile again. "A kitten, Papa! A kitten! Can we?!?"

The man laughed, and patted her affectionately on her bottom, then looked over at Bella.

"Well now," he said. "I think I know you, don't I? Ain't you Plance's natural daughter?"

Bella gave him a curtsy. "Am," she said.

"Ah!" he said, "I'm beginning to understand! Your mother's one of mine, isn't she? I suppose I bought her when I bought your father's estate?"

I looked him square in the eye. "Jackson, why don't you and your family join me and Bella for dinner aboard my ship. There we can get little Rose her kitten and conclude our business."

He nodded. "As for my family, there's nothing left but me and Rose." His eyes clouded for a moment and his daughter threw her arm around his neck. She looked at me, her eyes so blue and bright.

"My mama was a pretty lady, wasn't she, Papa?" the girl said. "She died when my baby brother Michael was born. Michael didn't last but another day or two."

The man nodded and gave his daughter a loving smile. "She was almost as beautiful as you, little flower," he said. Then he stood, and I stood, too. "I'll stop by my solicitor and have him draw up a couple documents."

I reached my hand out to him. "So sorry to hear about your wife and child, sir," I said. "I will see you in three hours aboard the Bella?"

"The Bella," he said with a knowing smile. "A nice name for a boat."

"My men insisted on the name when we captured the barky," I answered with a smile of my own, "but I do find it quite pleasant."

It was a long, hot climb up the hillside to the little shack where Henri Plance and his wife made their home. We stood outside, Bella nervously shuffling from foot to foot, me trying my hardest to look respectable despite my sweat-soaked clothing. The door opened just a crack, and a woman's eye peered out suspiciously. Her face instantly lit into a bright smile as she recognized the girl.

The conversation, over a steaming hot cup of bitter coffee cut with goat's milk, was entirely in the strange French that the boy and girl used between themselves. I could barely keep up, but I followed enough that I could fill in some of the blanks in the children's story, and Bella would sometimes turn to me and explain in English some of the more complicated things. The woman was overjoyed to hear of how her son Anthony had fared with Captain Pierce, and to hear of our marriage and our coming child.

Her father, while pleased by all this, was unhappy that Bella had been playing that day with Rose Jackson, and even more unhappy that I had been speaking with the child's father.

"You should not meet with this man," he said to me in his French. "He is an evil man."

"But Papa," she said "Le Capitaine wishes to get your farm back for you, and he must therefore offer gold to Mr. Jackson."

"No, no, do not give the man your gold!"

"But he'll sell me his slaves, too." I looked at his wife, wondering if she would be happy with this news.

She gave me a gracious smile.

"He'll sell you his slaves?" Henri Plance said. "He told you this?"

"Well..."

"Do not trust him. He is not a good man."

As Bella and I walked back down the hill afterwards, she told me more. "When Mr. Jackson bought my father's farm, the slaves went with it, my mother and all the other slaves. And, Capitaine, do you see that I was the child of a slave? And to Mr. Jackson, he was now my owner?"

"Ahhhh..." I said. Suddenly I saw today's events in a strange new light.

"Papa would not have his Isabella be a slave."

"No, of course not."

"And our arrival here, and our talking with the Jacksons..."

I nodded in understanding.

And so I sat in my captain's quarters with the man who would own my wife. Dinner was an elegant affair, considering the circumstances. The cook I'd hired in Port Royale prepared a fine turtle soup and a good roast of mutton, and the girls scurried off to find for Rose a kitten of her own, while the men remained to discuss our business. Jackson had brought two documents from his solicitor; the first was simple, outlining the purchase of the Plance sugar farm. The second was for the purchase of a slave named Lotte, "and all her offspring."

"Lotte," he said, pointing at the document, "is the girl Isabella's mother."

I nodded. "And what's this about her offspring?"

"Her offspring are rightly mine by law, you can understand I'm sure. But I will graciously decline to press charges against the various parties guilty in her escape, and instead will include her in the sale."

"And what will your graciousness cost me?"

"One hundred dollars in gold."

I looked at him with as steel-eyed as stare as I could manage, but before I could respond there was a loud knock on the cabin door.

"Sir," a boy said, opening the door without even waiting for me command. "Smittie's duty, sir, and there's trouble."

Up on the quarterdeck immediately, I found that three boats had pulled out from the harbor, filled with men who appeared to be in various states of drunkenness.

"There he is!" one shouted. "'e's the abolitionist captain!"

"The one who says he married a colored girl!" another shouted.

"Shoot him now!" came up a cry.

"Smittie," I said to my first mate, "let's make sure we've got the men well armed, and let's get ready to set the..."

Jackson appeared next to me, looking with interest over the rail. At the same moment the crack of a musket rang from below, and the fat American fell in a heap.

I walked quickly through the gundeck and mounted the stairs; the news from the surgeon was grim--"Won't make it through the night most likely." I asked him to clean up the blood as best he could so that I could fetch his poor little daughter down to the sick berth to say her last goodbyes. Oh, poor Rose--lost her mother when she was young, and soon will be orphaned at the age of eight? Bella and I will take her in, I swore to myself. We'll make as good by her as we can.

At the door to my quarters, I heard the sound of Bella's magic. Her words, in that strange native tongue, chanting, the higher softer tone of Rose's voice joining in.

I was angry, at first at least. How could Bella do this to the poor girl, give her false hope like this? And even if her magic does work, it always seems to have some unintended consequence--wind, but a hurricane! Battle against the pirates, but because the captain died of a stray bullet wound! What would be the horrible consequence this time?

Regardless, when I threw the door open and stormed in, I saw the two of them on their knees in front of the little doll and the tallow candle, Rose clutching the kitten she had chosen to be her own, her blue eyes red and tears flowing down her pale round cheeks. Bella was crying too, crying for the life of the man who would have owned her, and I was overcome with tender mercy.

"Capitaine," Bella said, "will you help us with our spell?"

"Of course," I said. I didn't have the heart to tell them no.

Given the circumstances of events that evening, and the presence of eight year old Rose kneeling next to my little island witch, the need that Bella's magic had seemed inappropriate. As she turned on her knees to face me, and began unfastening my drawers, I tried to give voice to my objections.

"This? Tonight of all nights?"

She looked up at me as cool fingers found my cock. "You know my magic needs this."

"Yes, but, at least let's send Rose to the next room."

"No, she needs to be here. The spell is hers."

I felt Henri, the cat, rub against my leg and his serpentine tail wrap around my calf, and he looked up at me with eyes that were barely open, and I knew he was assuring me that it was the right thing to do.

Rose sat on her knees, clutching her kitten, and watching with fascination as Bella took my cock into her warm mouth. Within moments I was hard, and she was sucking and stroking with unbelievable skill. Soon I was panting. I'd never had a woman bring me to orgasm so quickly and easily with just her hand and mouth. As I began my ejaculation, she withdrew her head and aimed my throbbing cock at little Rose. The first shot was glorious: huge and long, arcing through the air and landing on the girl's pretty face. Her eyes went wide and she flinched away, but as Bella continued stroking I stepped forward, suddenly driven to cover the girl, and she smiled as I pumped my cum onto her.

Bella reached out and ran a finger through my cream, then held her finger in front of Rose's mouth. "Taste it," she said, and Rose opened her mouth and licked my cum from Bella's finger. "There you go," Bella said, "you need it inside you. The spell would not work, if it were not inside you."

A shout lifted up from the men on deck, followed by commotion of shouts and men scurrying about. The three of us ran as quickly as we could to see what the matter was.

"What is it, Smittie," I said as the girls and I approached the first mate.

"Sir," he said, "more boats setting off."

On shore it was clear that a group of men had gathered, some with torches, some with guns. One boat, then a second, pushed away from the shore, amid general cheer from the assembled mob.

"Tide won't be going out for a couple hours, sir," the first mate said. "Shall we beat to quarters?"

"I don't think that's necessary. Make sure the men are armed and their pistols primed. And tell them not to shoot unless you or I or ol' Joe give the order. And be ready to set sail as soon as the tide is in our favor."

"Aye aye," he said. "And, cap'in, the surgeon..." He gestured to the man standing unobtrusively nearby.

"Ah, hello Mahoney," I said.

"Sir!" He touched his forehead.

I looked over at the girls, then lowered my voice and spoke gravely. "Is the patient cleaned up enough that we might visit?"

"Sir, he is, Sir. But... That's not the thing."

"No? What is it, Mahoney?"

"The patient, sir, Mr. Jackson, he's... He's sitting up, he's talkin', he seems to be just fine, Sir. Ain't seen nothing like it before."

I shook my head. "Well, I'll be damned."

"Yes, sir," the surgeon said, but then he smiled. "I mean, no sir!"

"Cap'in," the first mate said, "you might want to see what the men's doing on shore." He was handing me his glass.

I looked through the glass to shore, then spoke sharply "Mahoney, take the young'uns down to the sick berth to see the patient, would you?" I nodded to the girls. "I'll be down as soon as duty allows."

"Yessir," he said, touching his forehead again.

As they walked past me, Bella paused and looked up at me. "Do not you worry about what is on shore, mon capitaine. The island knows. The people know. They will take care of their own."

Amazed by my young wife's cryptic words, I was nonetheless glad I'd sent the girls below. They shouldn't witness what was happening now. The mob had dragged Henri Plance, Bella's father, down the hillside and had his hands bound behind his back. Next to him was his wife, and shortly Lotte, Bella's mother, joined them as well. A moment later the first of the boats that left the harbor was within shouting distance.

"Captain," yelled a man with a thick American accent, "we have the slave girl's parents here!"

"The slave girl is my wife!" I hollered back.

"You cannot marry an island whore! We demand that she be returned to us the slave that she is, or we will kill her mother!"

I let out a heavy sigh and turned to Smittie. "Let's get a couple boats lowered, and gather up as many men as will follow me. Looks like it'll be a hot night."

My first mate nodded, and set to work.

I was glad to find the entire crew jostling to be allowed to follow me into the little skirmish. We had three boats dropped down the back side of the barky, manned them full, and set out rowing around the boat for shore.

At that same moment, the moon broke through a cloud, almost full today, and bathed the entire scene in a silvery glow. And there was suddenly an unearthly sound--two of them, actually, one from the hills behind the village where the prisoners were held, and another from around the tip of the sound at the end of the cove where the barky was anchored. The next moment, boats appeared. A dozen at least, an entire flotilla of canoes filled with island natives and slaves, barking orders to each other in that strange language that the children used. When the mob on shore realized what was happening, they turned to run into the hills, and were met with gunfire from the band of natives there, in amongst the trees. At the same time, my men, pulling hard, brought us into range of the enemy boats and we opened fire on them.

Captain's dinner, the next evening, was held in the sick berth. My father-in-law, Henri Plance, joined us together with his wife and Bella's mother and a sizable crew of other guests: the surgeon, the first mate, the master, two leaders of the island natives and their wives, and of course the fat American, Jackson, amazingly recovered and completely changed. When I'd asked him if we could sign the papers, he quickly autographed the one for the sale of the farm, but looked puzzled at the other.

"It ain't right to own a person," he said.

"No sir, it isn't," I answered.

He looked up at me with strange melancholy eyes. "I used to own people, didn't I?"

"You did, sir."

He tore the paper in half.

"No slaves no more," he answered. "I saw the angel of death, you know, Captain. She was beautiful. And she was black. Her eyes were kind. She told me that I had more to do in the world, that it wasn't my time yet. That there were people who cared for me and begged for my life to be spared."

I nodded at his story.

"I asked the angel who these people were, and she told me Rose, of course. And she told me that one of them was your Isabella."

I sat in silence, enraptured by his strange tale.

"I cried to the angel, I asked for mercy and forgiveness, and she told me it was already mine. 'Go now, you old fool,' she said, 'and be a good man for all the people of the world, from this day forward.'"

So now at dinner, he related the story of the angel of death to the assembled crowd. "I always knew it was wrong. Every slaver and every plantation man knows it's wrong, but they won't say it out loud, for fear, you know. But as I lay here in this bed, well, folks, I was almost dead, you know it's true, it's what the surgeon said. And as I laid here the angel of death came to visit me and told me I wan't to die today, I was to live, and to learn, and to be a good man."

He looked at Bella's father. "I'm sorry for what I've done to you," he said. Plance nodded.

He looked to Bella's mother. "I'm terribly sorry for what I've done to you," he said.

"And you, little girl," he said to Bella. "You are a beautiful thing. You make this here Captain a happy man," he nodded at me. "I owe you my life, child. Oh how I wish I had never..."

Bella was blushing. "Don't you worry Mr. Jackson," she interrupted him. "If you hadn't been my slave owner, I'd never have run away, and I'd never've met me husband! So I'm glad that you did as you did."

He smiled at her and nodded. "Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

Everyone around the table nodded and laughed and raised a glass in agreement.

The night watch set upon the barky as the moon settled over the lapping waves of the grey Caribbean Sea, I stood and watched the boats pulling ashore with the evening's visitors aboard, and a host of my men to stand sentry until the morning. The patient, though fully recovered, was weak and dehydrated from loss of blood and the surgeon would not have him leaving the sick berth, at least not for another day or two. This meant that we would have an additional guest aboard; little Rose would be quartering with Bella and I. And as much as I was overjoyed to have her enthusiastic smiling self with us, I must admit I felt a little disappointed right then. Maybe it was the drink... we'd passed the bottle a few times during our sick berth dinner. Or, maybe it was the evocative smells that came gently blowing down the hillside in the evening breeze; coffee trees and coconuts, then mangos and tangerines, then saltwater and coral sand. I stood, watching the boats disappear into the glimmery waves and inhaled those island smells and I thought immediately of my sweet little lover...

But alas, we were not alone in our quarters that night, so I would necessarily endure the sleep of an unsatisfied man.

Bella, of course, didn't quite see it this way. She'll not leave her man in such a state.

She sat up from the bed as I walked into the sleeping chambers. Next to her I saw the little form of Rose, asleep under a thin sheet.

"Hello my love," I whispered to little Bella.

"'ello mon capitaine," she whispered back. She reached her arms out to me, and I went to her, driven by instinct alone if not by reason.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she helped me undress until I was naked. She took my swollen cock into her cool hands.

"You are so big, mon capitaine," she said. "So strong. Such a man!"

"What about Rose?" I said, my voice raspy from breathlessness as she began moving her magical hands.

"She does not mind," Bella said as she leaned down and kissed my cockhead. "She wants to watch."

My head now inside Bella's warm mouth once again, I looked up and saw Rose's glimmering blue eyes, sparkling with delight as she watched.

Bella sat up, then lay down on the bed, still holding my cock and pulling me to her. She pulled her nightgown up to her waist and spread her legs open wide. "Show her, Captain," Bella said. "Show her how a man fucks a girl!"

My cock was an iron beam now, solid and large and standing straight out, aimed precisely at his mark. I could see little Rose staring at it with a smile on her face, and I reached out and took her small hand. I showed her how to wrap her little fingers around my cock and how to massage it with her little fist.

"Do you like it, Rose?" I asked her.

She nodded, and Bella smiled as she lifted her foot and ran her toes across my ballsack. "He loves to have his balls touched when you stroke him."

Rose nodded in understanding and reached her other hand up and cupped it around my balls.

Bella and I watched in quiet fascination as the young girl learned what to do with a cock; experimenting, exploring. It was a very erotic thing to watch, and the truth is that her ministrations were quite effective and within a couple of minutes I felt like I was nearing my orgasm.

I put a hand on top of hers."I'm going to make love to Bella now," I said.

She withdrew her hands and nodded. "I'd like to watch."

I smiled at her. "I'd like that."

The smells of the island filled the room as my cockhead parted Bella's open lips and slipped into her warmth. I felt the waves of the sea and the nourishing ocean water as the two of us, my Bella and me, began our mating dance, hips sliding back, then pushing forward to meet each other, cock delving deep and becoming a part of her. She was hot, she was wet, she was open, and I was already on the brink!

I turned to little Rose. "I'm about to..." I said in a halting, shaky voice, "...about to cum! Usually I last longer than this! But..."

Bella lifted her legs in the air. "But Rose was so good with her hands! I could tell you were close! Now cum, Capitaine! Cum inside me!"

And in the beautiful silvery moonlight, in the captain's quarters of the Beautiful Bella, with the wind from the hills bringing for us the fresh beautiful smells of island life and island love, as little Rose watched in fascination while I lifted my head in the air and let out a howl and Bella lifted herself into the air to greet me, I came. I filled my little lover once again.

We lay together, all three of us, afterwards, telling stories and laughing and touching. Bella and I made love twice more, and Rose learned much more about a man's cock, before the sun rose and the next morning began.