The door closes quietly behind First Mate Angus Gordon. You’re not worried about whether you can handle one slightly-the-worse-for-wear salty sea dog. In addition to your cutlass, you carry a pistol in the pocket of your greatcoat. They hesitate, but you wave them off impatiently. Carved and lacquered chests are brimming over with books, for when you’re not marauding the high seas, you like to curl up with a good murder mystery. The chart table is littered with rolled and unrolled maps, your compass, your spyglass. Your prisoner sprawls and lands face first on the sumptuous purple Persian carpet. Watery blue light filters through the three sides of massive windows, hundreds of glittering prisms created by diamond-shaped panes of glass. You reach your cabin, throw open the door, and your prisoner is hurled inside your richly appointed quarters. The battle has been fought, the spoils won. The ship murmurs to herself in anticipation. The scent of timber and tar mingle with sweat and gunpowder. You saunter ahead of your men as they hustle the still struggling, big, blond, Royal Naval officer across the rolling deck and down a narrow stairway. (Psst! YOU’RE Captain English! Remember? Don’t just stand there gaping. “Bring the prisoner to my cabin,” Captain English drawls, sliding his cutlass into its scabbard and absently straightening the snowy cuffs of his linen shirt.
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