Chapter 2

Once the shock of Devlin’s disappearance began to pass, or to truly set in perhaps, the pirate crew of the Gai Mer went crazed. They began running around, screaming and tearing at their hair, scrambling in all directions at once with no place to go, some of them crawling about the decks whining pitifully, cravenly cowering beneath the doubtful shelter of their own arms. A few tried to recall the forgotten practice of prayer, long-dulled from disuse. Four of the men leapt overboard, preferring a quick drowning to whatever else the Fates might have in store for them.

It was to this bedlam that Devlin awoke.

At first, he was aware of nothing more than his own misery, for he felt as if he’d run full tilt into a stone wall. It seemed as though a ton of rock rested upon his chest. While his limbs were oddly weak, there was a strange tingling throughout his body, similar to the sensation of having one’s foot fall asleep. His ears were ringing, his vision was blurred, and his head ached abominably. His thinking was very sluggish, and he had only a vague recollection of being enveloped by that eerie blue light, and little of what had happened afterward. Indeed, he had no memory of how he came to be lying on his back on the deck, or how long he’d been unconscious, though it could not have been but a few minutes, for the first pale hues of daybreak were only now streaking the eastern sky.

As his mind began to clear, Devlin became aware of a terrible commotion, an awful din that made his head throb all the worse. By sheer willpower, he rolled to his side, caught hold of the wheel, and pulled himself into a sitting position. He almost wished he hadn’t—for the painful effort of moving was certainly not worth the confusion it brought as he witnessed his crew running about like so many chickens with their heads lopped off.

“What in Hades is happening?” he murmured aloud. Forgetting himself, he shook his head, to his instant regret. “Aah! Damn but that hurts!”

Cautiously he levered himself upright, gaining his feet, only to wobble dizzily until the world righted itself again. Despite the pain, he braced himself and shouted down to his men on the deck below him. Twice, thrice, to no avail. The clamor they were making with their wailing was such that they might not have heard a cannon blast in their midst. With no help for it, Devlin stumbled the few steps to the ship’s bell, and, clamping his teeth against the resulting agony to his poor head, he gave several hearty yanks to the clapper.

A startled, wary silence fell immediately, as all eyes turned upward toward the imperious signal. Now that he had their full attention, Devlin ordered brusquely, “Listen sharp, you dunderheads! Belay that racket and get back to your stations! We’ve a ship to sail!”

Rather than obey his commands, the crew stood as one, staring in stupification. “Move, I say!” he roared, his deep, distinctive voice ringing the length of the ship. “Or I’ll have strips off all your hides before the day is half-begun!”

Still they gaped openmouthed. Several trembled visibly. One gave a hoarse shout, and, with a running leap, launched himself overboard. Another threw himself down and began to weep like a babe. Beside him, the young cabin boy fainted without a sound. Finally, one brave soul offered tentatively, “Be that you, Cap’n Kane?”

Wondering what had bedeviled his men, Devlin gave a snort of disgust. With his fists riding atop his hips, and his black eyes snapping, he retorted, “O’ course ’tis me, you befuddled bilge rat! Who else? Were you expectin’ your mother at the helm, mayhap?”

The answer was not what Devlin anticipated. Rather than see his crew turn back to the business of sailing the frigate, they began to murmur excitedly amongst themselves, their mutterings growing louder and more discordant as he watched. Scraps of comments drifted up to him, carried on the early-morning breeze.

“Saints preserve us! ‘Tis the Cap’n’s ghost!”

“It can’t be! We seen ’im disappear! He’s gone, I say!”

“Aye, but I know the Cap’n’s voice when I hears it! ’Taint another like it thet I’ve ever heard!”

“Then why are we hearin’ ’im an’ not seein’ ’im?” 

“An’ what made the bell ring?”

“If it comes t’ that, what made the cap’n melt into air like he done?”

“What in bloomin’ blazes are you fools blathering about?” Devlin bellowed at last. “Hell’s bells and little fishes! Have the lot of you gone daft? What’s all this nonsense about disappearings and ghosts? Why, I’m standin’ here as big as life, with a head that’s about to split wide with all your yammering, and ...”

“Nay, Devlin—or whoever ye be—ye’re not standin’ there as big as life. I’d stake my own skin on that.” Nate Hancock, the Gai Mer's quartermaster and Devlin’s best friend for the past nine years, stepped forward from the rest of the cowering, befuddled group. Like those around him, he gazed upward, toward the point from which the voice was coming, and claimed, “I swear by all the saints, Devlin, I can hear ye, but I’ll be double-damned if I kin see ye.”

Several others nodded in fearful agreement.

This brought Devlin up short. Certainly he’d never thought to hear anything this crazy. Why, it was ridiculous! Impossible! Suddenly he grinned. Ah! The rotten passel of sea dogs was tweaking his nose a bit, thinking to trick him into believing all this rot. It was a jest they’d brewed up among them, that was all! And a right good one, at that. “All right, lads. You’ve had your laugh for the day. Now, go fish Harl out of the brine a’fore he drowns, and let’s be on our way.”

“Ye think we’re teasin’ with ye, Devlin?” Nate asked incredulously. “Ye think this is a prank? God in heaven, man, I wish it were! Take a look at yerself, and tell me what ye see.”

Thoroughly perplexed, and more than a little worried now about the state of his crewmen’s minds, Devlin frowned and cast a quick look at his own body. “I see limbs and cutlass and boots and breeches, same as always, Nate. There’s nothing the least bit different, and I think this joke has gone too far.”

“Touch yerself and tell me what ye feel,” Nate persisted.

“Damn it all, Nate—”

“Just do it.”

Devlin felt like an absolute fool, but nothing else was going to appease his friend, so he touched his hands to his chest. “Fine. I’m here,” he announced tersely. “Aching from my hair to my toes, but all in one piece, as near as I can determine. Does that satisfy you?” 

“Actually, no. Do something that’ll prove ye truly are standin’ up there talking to us. Move something. Pick something up—something we can see.”

“Blarst it all, Nate! This has gone far enough. I feel like a buffoon, set up to play to your warped sense of humor.”

Still grumbling, Devlin looked about him. Upon spying Zeus, lying motionless on the deck, he sighed. “Drat! The stupid bird is dead! And just when I had him well-trained!” He walked over and lifted the hawk by his talons, hanging him high overhead. “Now!” he yelled triumphantly. “Tell me you don’t see that, you scurvy varmints!”

“See what, Cap’n?” came the reply.

“What are ye doin’ that we should be seein’?”

“Blimey! This is sendin’ shivers down me spine fit to stand me hair on end!”

“Ye don’t have no hair, Jonesie. But I thinks I sees a crop o’ gooseflesh sproutin’ on yer skull about now.”

Nervous laughter broke out, but it did little to ease the strain of the moment.

“Devlin . ..”

“Nay! Don’t you dare say it, Nate! Here I stand, holding a dead falcon like a bloomin’ flag, and you blind loonies are bound to claim otherwise.”

Before Nate or anyone else could answer, the hawk gave a queer little quiver and a pitiful squawk. “I’ll be hanged! He’s not dead after all,” Devlin exclaimed with relief. This was the first good sign since the storm had taken them all by surprise. He gave the bird a sharp shake, and Zeus emitted a loud, angry screech and twisted about to snap at Devlin’s hand, demanding release.

“Did ye hear thet?” one sailor cried. “Now, we’ve not only a captain we can’t see, but ’is bird too! I’m tellin’ ye, we’ve all gone round the maypole, mates! We’ve sailed too close to the Devil’s lair this time, an’ gotten ourselves caught up in it, like those on the Flyin ’ Dutchman did!”

“The ship’s doomed! And us with it!” another chimed in.

“Haunted! Great gallopin’ ghosts! What’re we to do now?”

The panic was growing again, fueled by mutual fright, but before it could gain full momentum, the ship’s bell rang out again with a tremendous clang, almost flying from its mounting. “Nate! Get up here!” Devlin raged.

When his quartermaster hesitated, obviously uneasy about complying, a belaying pin came soaring through the air, missing the man’s head by a hairsbreadth. “That’s an order, Mr. Hancock!”

With the air of a martyr about to meet his end, Nate slowly climbed to the upper deck. Silent now, afraid to breathe let alone speak aloud, the crew watched apprehensively, waiting for the worst to happen, as their quartermaster walked gingerly toward the bell. Four steps from it, he bumped into something large and solid, an object that heaved a stream of furious, hot oaths into his face.

“By heaven and hell, Nate, if you dare tell me I’m not standin’ here cursing you, I’ll throw you to the sharks!” Devlin warned darkly.

“Cap’n, I know yer standin’ there. I can hear ye and feel ye. Lord, I can even smell ye!” Nate drew in a shaky breath and added hastily, almost cringing with his next words, “But, dang it, I still can’t see ye! I’d be a liar if I said differently. Do yer worst to me, but it won’t change anything, Dev. Ye’ve turned into a ghost. A specter.”

“Nay!” Devlin denied vehemently. “I’m no phantom, I say! Nor am I a wraith of any sort! I am a man of flesh and blood, the same as ever before!”

Sadly, Nate shook his head. “Deny it if ye must, but ’tis true. When that bolt of Saint Elmo’s fire caught ye up in its flames, something queer happened. And now ye’re no longer visible to any but yerself. Not even so much as a mist in the air.”

Fear clutched at Devlin’s belly, cramping it, as he read the truth in Nate’s awe-filled eyes. Below them, the faces of the crew echoed Nate’s sentiment, most of them still grappling with the notion, but swiftly coming to accept it as fact, though none could begin to comprehend how or why such a calamitous thing had come to pass—or what any of them might expect next.

With a hoarse shout, Devlin shoved his friend aside and raced down the steps. Dashing to the rail, he leaned overboard, trying to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the sea. Far below, the choppy, storm-stirred water offered no aid. Frustrated beyond bounds, he pushed away from the rail, roughly shouldering his way through a throng of anxious, skittish pirates—men now newly alarmed as they hastily attempted to give way to a force they could not see, not knowing which way to go to get out of his path.

His footsteps fell like thunder on the bare planking as he stomped to a nearby barrel and ripped the cover from it with a furious flick of his wrist. The lid went sailing, thudding to the deck. It was still spinning on its rim as Devlin bent over the barrel and gave an awful, agonized gasp.

Dear God, it was true! It was right before his disbelieving eyes to be seen—rather, not seen! Oh, merciful heaven, what was happening? How? Why?

Tentatively, Devlin raised trembling fingers to his face. Flesh met flesh without doubt, yet in the calm pool directly below him, no vision mimicked his movements. There came only a faint ripple to disturb the surface of the water, a consequence of the anguished moan Devlin could not contain as, overwhelmed, he hung his head in despair.

A few hours and several tankards of rum later, Devlin sat slumped in the captain’s chair in his cabin. Across the desk from him, Nate did likewise. Both were soused to the gills, morosely pondering Devlin’s fate as a ghost. “How? Why?” Devlin parroted for the thousandth time.

“Dunno, Dev,” Nate commiserated drunkenly. “Mayhap the penalty for the wayward, thievin’ life ye’ve been livin’ these past years?”

“If that be so, what of the rest of you?” Devlin retorted in frustration. “I’m not the only pirate on the seas. I may be the best of the lot, but I’m far from the worst. And I sure as hell never set out to be one in the first place. If not for Captain Swift and his band of cutthroats, I’d be a common, law-abiding carpenter now, probably in business with my uncle, with a wife and six little whelps tagging about my coattails. Which, upon reflection, would not be so bad, most especially in comparison to my current, lamentable circumstance.

“But hearth and home were not to be my fate, were they? Nay, not with Swift roaming the seas back then. ’Twas he who attacked the ship carryin’ me to the colonies. ’Twas he who dragged me, kicking and screaming, into this brigands’ business.”

“Aye,” Nate agreed solemnly. “Still, ’twas better than gettin’ yer gullet slit.”

“Better a phantom pirate at the age of seven and twenty than fish bait at sixteen?” Devlin gave a woeful shake of his shaggy blond head. “I don’t know, Nate. If I’d guessed it would come to this, perhaps I’d have chosen a swift death eleven years past, when Swift first landed me in his grubby clutches.” He lifted his tankard and drained it, then thumped it atop the desk and reached for the small keg of rum nearby, intent upon pouring himself another drink.

Nate swore softly. “Damn, Dev! Do ye have the foggiest notion how dis—discomf—disturbin’ it is to see mugs and kegs raise themselves into thin air? T’ sit here and talk to ye, and hear ye, and watch things float about as they’re doin’? Sweet Jesus! ’Tis like bein’ caught up in a walkin’ nightmare!”

“Then I wish to God we’d both awaken, because I’m trapped square in the center of it with you. And as long as we’re wishin’ for the impossible, I’d like to wake up back in England and find myself a beardless youth again, with Mother baking hot tarts and Father teaching me how to plane cabinet doors to fit properly.”

“Ye can’t bring the dead back to life, Dev. They’re gone, both of ’em victims of the cholera the very month ye sailed for the colonies. Ye told me yerself, ’tis the reason they sent ye on ahead to live with yer uncle, so ye wouldn’t catch the plague.”

“Aye, and much good it did, too. My only consolation is that neither of them lived to see their only, beloved son turn sea robber, or to witness this day’s calamity.” He raised his eyes toward his friend. “You don’t suppose they have any way of knowing about this, do you, Nate?” he questioned hesitantly.

“Why ask me?” Nate grumbled. “I ain’t no expert on the habits of the dead. If anybody ought to know if they’re spinning in their graves, you should, since ye’re halfway there yerself. In body, if not in spirit.” 

“Another crass remark like that, and I’m liable to forget we’re friends, or that you’re too drunk on your ear to think before lettin’ your mouth overload your arse. Then I’ll show you just how much life is left in this body of mine, and you won’t even see the punch coming! But I’ll damned well guarantee you’ll feel it!” Devlin growled.

“Sorry,” Nate mumbled, only slightly repentant, “but this whole business has me spooked.”

The two were silent for several minutes, each contemplating the situation. Finally Nate said, “Mayhap we’re not considering the benefits behind all this, Dev.” 

With a shake of his head, Devlin frowned in confusion. “Benefits? Nate, old mate, your brains are in your cup, awash with rum. What is there to be gained by being invisible?”

For the first time that day, Nate grinned. “Well, I can name several things, now I’ve had time to think on it a bit. For one, ye never have to worry about gettin’ caught by the Spanish, or the French, or the King’s navy. How are they supposed to hang ye if they can’t see ye?” he pointed out. “Why, ye might also catch a few of our fellow pirates off their guard, perhaps even discover where Blackbeard has hidden all his treasure. ’Twould be an easy trick for ye to eavesdrop on the hairy buzzard, without his being any the wiser.”

He’d caught Devlin’s interest now, and with every word Nate uttered, the prospects of the future began to brighten. “Aye, and if we can convince the crew to go along with our plans, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t continue to captain the ship, is there? After all, I’ve proven to be a fair and ambitious leader these past five years, ever since you and I organized the mutiny and took the Gai Mer for ourselves.”

Nate nodded, remembering that time with fondness. “And stranded Swift and his bloody cohorts on that deserted island. That was a touch of genius, if I do say so meself.”

“Seeing it was your idea, of course,” Devlin conceded with a gruff laugh. “I’ve often wondered what became of that bunch. Odd that we’ve never heard or seen a thing of them since.”

“More’n likely, they all starved.”

Devlin gave an unconcerned shrug of his broad shoulders, though Nate could not see him do so. The quartermaster did, however, hear the enormous yawn that followed. Grinning, he taunted, “Tired, Dev? This is becomin’ quite a revelation. I always thought ghosts didn’t require sleep. For that matter, I wasn’t aware that they could get sloshed on rum, or feel the need to relieve themselves. I’d assumed they were above the more mundane urges of nature.” After a brief pause, he asked, “Pray tell me, what are you going to do when next you crave a woman in your bed, if that still be possible?”

A startled expression crossed Devlin’s face, a look that would have made his friend laugh had he seen it. “Leave it to you to point out my shortcomings, just as I was beginning to believe this would all work out in the end,” Devlin complained irritably.

“Oh, well, I suppose, for a portion of yer booty, I could be persuaded to lure a wench to yer bed for ye,” Nate offered, “as long as ye remembered to keep the lamp doused. We wouldn’t want the poor girl to run screamin’ into the night thinkin’ she’d bedded the Devil, or claimin’ to be the next Virgin Mary.”

Devlin snorted. “Ha! You wouldn’t recognize a virgin if you tripped over her, Mr. Hancock. And any doxy you brought to my bed would likely be diseased to her eyebrows. I’ll choose my own bed partners, thank you.”

“How?”

That was a question, among a multitude of others, which Devlin would ponder long into the night and for many a day to follow.