Sea's Justice

---

Greed, the dreaded ship of the illustrious pirate Captain Jacob "The Hoarder" Thatcher, slid nimbly across the ocean. The last hours of twilight were seen in the sky and his last lights were reflected on crimson red sails.

The crew’s morale was at an all-time-high. They had been at sea for more than a week and had taken the treasure of several merchant ships. Jewels, fine garments, spices, precious metals, and chests full of all kinds of valuables adorned the cargo hold. They had even sunk several corsairs who sought to bring them to justice, that did not yield material wealth, but did feed the ego and pride of the seadogs who traveled with Thatcher.

When the captain was about to return to his cabin for the night, a voice from the crow's nest gave an announcement.

"Avast ye! Ship on sight, cap’n!.”

Thatcher returned to the deck.

"What’s her jack?”

"She has no colors, cap’n.”

Thatcher grinned, the crew knew what he was thinking.

“Avast ye, scurvydogs! Lets scuttle those landlubbers and take their coffers! No prey. No pay!”

The crew screamed fiercely and everyone started working. The ship gained speed as the cannons were loaded and the crew prepared for another sea battle.

The other ship stood there, floating in the briny deep. Greed was close, Captain Thatcher ordered the ship to be brought broadside. Cannons loaded, the crew aimed and awaited the command.

“FIRE!” screamed Thatcher.

Everyone expected to hear tormenting cries of pain and panic, fire, men falling into the water, all the elements of the victory chorus. instead, they only heard the splashing of cannonballs as they rushed into the water.

Thatcher used his spyglass to look at the ship and cold sweat started falling along his back. He saw haunted faces of men dead long time ago. He took another lasting look at the ship’s crew and found someone who looked like him except for ragged clothes, barnacles on his cheek and burned flesh. When their eyes met, he knew that was retribution.

The ghostly ship turned with an unbelievable movement to face them, with broken sails it gained tremendous speed and headed directly at Greed’s broadside.

“She is ramming us!”

The spectral navy cut through Greed’s deck like a hot knife through butter. Soon after, its powder hold exploded and a rain of fire and gold descended to the dark seas. Captain Thatcher fell overboard and sunk with his ship and treasures to the remote and dark depth of the vast ocean, where his greed could no longer bring sorrow.

---

---

---

This is my entry for today's #5MinutesFreeWrite. This is an initiative hosted by @mariannewest, @freewritehouse and @latino.romano. If you'd like to participate in today's challenge check this post the prompt is "Remote".

I can write a lot in 5 minutes but then I have to take like 30 minutes to check spelling, grammar, put punctuation symbols and more. This particular entry took more time to polish because I had to translate the dialogues to pirate! (weird sentences I never imagined myself writing or doing)

Image courtesy of Matthew Henry at Burst