And thus, another skirmish in the perennial war between pirates and ninja ends in a decisive – draw. It’s not like I hadn’t my own opinion of who should have won, but, at the end of the day, I felt it wouldn’t be a very good idea to p.o. either party.
Fortunately, Father John had a sufficiently attractive offer to make. You might not have known, but Captain Flint had actually divided his booty into three distinctive parts before hiding it on Treasure Island: The bullion and pearls, the bar silver and arms, and the pr0nz, with the pr0nz definitely being the most valuable, back in those days. A large part of Captain Flint’s huge stash of such literature came from an intercepted shipment of Spanish pr0nz, sent by Phillip V of Spain to educate clergymen in his oversea dominions on the nature of human sinfulness. Much of the rest had been created in “Hith Royale Britannic Majesty’s manufacturie of workse of art appreciating the humane bodie and to wanketh off to”, and been sent westward during the reign of King George II. It had been requested by the governours of his American colonies to help fight the rise of puritanism – we would be living in a very different world today, had Flint not intercepted this crucial shipment.
For Ben Gunn, this had been the only kind of literature available during his many, lonely years on Treasure Island – which kinda explains his mental state at the time he was found, methinks…
Long John Silver had had hidden the map to that part of his treasure inside his hollow pegleg – where he also tended to store, depending on who is retelling the story, the key to the ship’s chains, a knife, a pirate flag and a three-pounder gun loaded with nails. Of course, by the time he made it back to the Island, he had reached an age where the silver bars held a higher attraction for him…
More on Monday, and don’t forget to check out the new voting incentive.