“To the depths with him!”
“He’s as mad as the captain!”
“Tie a cannon to his feet!”
The men shouted, the crew demanded, and so a man’s fate was decided. The sailor’s hands and feet were crudely bound, all the while a cannon was pulled across the deck. Once esteemed, once a member of the crew, once a father, the damned sailor viciously struggled as his former mates carried out the sentence. The cannon has been tied to his ankles, and now all that is left is one final effort to finish the deed. Shouts of desperation leapt from his mouth as the men pushed the cannon over the side. The slack in the rope quickly vanished, and with a forceful jolt the condemned’s ankles broke as he was violently pulled into the dark waters below.
The moon was full that night, and the waters still; and so the moonlight clearly pierced through the dark waters. Looking up towards his betrayers, the rapidly sinking sailor clung onto the sight of the ship’s hull as the darkness slowly preyed upon his vision. As his ultimate fate took its course, he let out one final gurgled scream as his ears ruptured from the pressure.
Then, in absolute darkness he struck the ocean floor, but water had already filled his lungs; and the pain and agony have already taken their tole. He felt himself begin to slip away into the arms of death, where the devil awaited him. Moments go by, and yet, somehow, he knew he was still conscious when he shouldn’t be. He should have perished by now. A strange thing, a feeling, came over him. The weight of the water no longer caused him pain, and his water filled lungs relinquished their desire for air; and pain from his broken ankles ceased to exist. Being still tied to the cannon, he felt himself being pulled by it once more. However, it was not towards the abyss where it led him, but the surface.
After the initial pull he felt himself impact something solid, and the tension on the rope around his ankles disappeared; for whatever it is that he’s impacted, its also the very thing lifting him towards the surface. As he neared the surface the moonlight began to illuminate his surroundings once more. The cannon he was bound to was caught upon the mast of a ship, and he laid upon the deck as it rose with ferocity.
The sailor’s mind raced with anticipation as he could see the surface quickly approaching. With a thunderous splash the vessel breaks through the ocean’s surface which sent him and the cannon airborne for a brief moment. He, and the instrument of his demise, impacted the deck with enough force to inflict a significant amount of damage to himself, and yet he was unharmed and without pain.
Water poured from the masts all around him while he came to his senses. Able to stand, he rose to his feet and fixed his gaze upon the moon with a single thought, “How is this possible?” Momentarily, the ambience of water flowing off the deck was the only sound that reached his now intact ears; before another sound, which he would one day be all to familiar with, conquered all others. An ominous sequential thud echoed throughout the ship. He turned towards the stern and beheld the source of such a commanding sound.
Still within the shadow of the cabin behind him, a man took determined steps towards him, with every other step generating the demanding thud that held him in place. While this figure still remained in the shadows, the sailor noticed something glowing near the head of this worrying stranger; it pulsed in intensity as it grew closer.
The figure halts its advance just before it were to step into the moonlight and utters this phrase, “Bootstrap Bill, do ye fear death?”