The first cannon shot destroys the poop deck. The shock makes me lose my balance. I have to hold on to the rail to stop myself from falling down. The cabin has been totally destroyed, from my bunk to my handsome desk.

"We shall have to find a new refuge for our wild nights," Florence whispers in my ear before rushing over to Leng to help him move the helm.

A few weeks ago, this woman was a noblewoman from French high society. Today, she is leading a pirate embarkation in the middle of a sea battle. If all this is possible then perhaps our situation is not as desperate as it seems.

Echoing my thoughts, a second salvo reaches us and hits the capstan. Segments of steel fly and embed themselves in everything around. Mast, canvas, deck, human bodies. A pirate falls. A mercenary from La Balise. The first.

More cannon balls hit us, high up again. Their aim is not to sink the ship, but to weaken us so that they can come abord and seize our gold. An idea flashes across my mind. Basselin's chest must be in the hiding place under the floor of my former quarters. That bloody silver. Fourteen thousand pieces of eight to be precise. Carpentier will not see the colour of it. I am ready to be rid of it.

I rush towards the stern when a heavy projectile hits our main mast. The wood groans above my head. It cracks. The canvasses take fire and collapse onto the deck, imprisoning me in a cloud of smoke. Blinded, I walk forwards in the opaque fog. I use the hole made by the first salvo to enter what is left of my cabin. The floor has been blown to pieces. Fortunately, it is not difficult to find the object I am looking for. Before I can lean down to pick it up, another detonation scores a direct hit. I fall backwards. The pain of the wound in my belly has awoken. A hot liquid runs down my left arm. I need several seconds to understand that it is my blood. A shard of wood has lodged itself near my shoulder. A mere splinter that I pull out before grabbing the burning chest. The flames are beginning to lick the floor of steerage. The brig is going down.

I cannot see a thing. The fumes seep into my mouth, nostrils, throat and lungs. I cough and spit out the black soot which paralyses me.

An explosion above my head saves me. It blows away the roof and the walls of my closet. The steps of the stairway hit me full on. I avoid thinking about the pain and concentrate on the pure air I can breathe once again.

I have no time to wait. In desperation, I hasten over to the port side and hurl the chest into the ocean. A smile lights up my face. Florence had once accused me of being a slave to gold. She was right. Today, I am breaking the chains of fear and neediness. I trust myself. I know that I am capable of rebuilding everything that Carpentier is trying to destroy.

Freed of my burden, I race on deck to analyse the situation. The muskets and pistols of the pirates are singing out a macabre din. The mast has broken in the middle and is floating nonchalantly to starboard, causing the ship to lean dangerously to one side.

The Vindicta is sailing around us. The privateers use grappling hooks to board us. The smoke prevents us from taking any action. Theirs is a clever tactic: to oblige our ship to heave to and to hinder us by keeping the crew busy as they strive to contain the fire. This cannot be Carpentier's strategy. He knows too little of the sea. It has to be Valentin, the pilot. I knew he was a good navigator.

The hulls of the two ships scrape together. I hear the pirates on the Anarkhia before I can see them. Their battle cries echo on the sea which is dark with the fragments of my vessel. That was all the pirates were waiting for. At last they retaliate. They emerge from the dust to confront their enemies. Energized by their cries, I throw myself into the skirmish, sabre in hand. Metal against metal. I watch Sirena from the corner of my eye with a view to protecting her. No need. Florence is fighting like a madwoman. She fires, slashes and repels her enemies. It is as if she has been doing this all her life. I am impressed by her agility and the aggressiveness she puts into the battle.

Our boots slip and slide in a river of blood.

I find myself fighting against men I supped with a few days earlier. Swords dance, piercing flesh and splitting bodies.

Carpentier is nowhere in sight. The coward!

A tall silhouette appears before me. Jean. If I can't have the captain, I'll have to make do with one of his associates.

The first thrust is mine. Sabre in hand I strike this man I have been dreaming of killing since the first day I saw him in New Orleans. Unfortunately, he is more agile than he looks. He blocks my attack with a nimble movement which causes me to lose my blade. And here I am with only my fists against a fellow equipped with two daggers. I have my pistol in my belt, but I have not changed the powder for weeks. I fear that it will be too damp to ignite.

I must move away. I think it would be a good idea to go aboard the Vindicta to get a better view. Jean follows me, intent on doing me in. A wounded sailor knocks into me before falling overboard. I hold on to the rigging to slow my fall. The ropes burn my already wounded hands. I get up just in time and plunge towards Jean, feigning a weakness in my left leg. I pretend to stumble. I have reached my target. He lowers his guard for a second. I have an opening. The impact of my boot on his knee is devastating. His joint cracks as it bends backwards. Hoping that the pain will prevent him from retaliating, I try to take one of his daggers from him. The privateer is not going to give up. He struggles to keep his advantage. In the haste, I receive a bad blow from the hilt of a sabre on my temple, at the exact point that Gwewa had already wounded the day before yesterday. The agony in my skull paralyzes me. My eyes are foggy. In close combat, this feebleness is unpardonable.

This is the end. The end of me.

I wait for the ultimate strike, but it doesn't come. In its place, Nick throws himself on my opponent and drives his well-sharpened machete into my enemy's head. Jean falls down dead beside me. My young ship's boy holds out his hand to help me stand up again. He is proud of his exploit. Happy to have supported his former mentor in a perilous situation.

A second later, an axe dislocates his right shoulder.

"Nick!"

I just have time to cry out before a second blow cuts into his arm.

His wounded limbs drench my face in a scarlet spray of blood. A sword pierces his back and comes out through his belly. The blow floors him. His body collapses at my feet.

This time I must face the obvious. It is over. We have lost. I kneel down to take in my arms the corpse of the child that I had erstwhile saved.

Finally, Carpentier had decided to join the battle. The cleanliness of his coat proves that he was just waiting for the outcome of the fighting to work in his favour.

'There was no need to kill the nipper,' I manage to say in spite of my breathlessness.

"I hurt you as you hurt me, my friend," he spits, pointing at Jean's body.

I look down at Nick's face. His eyes were green, like mine.

To my right, Sirena is being held at gunpoint by two seamen as are Jaime, Bappé and Gwewa. Léon is alive, too. Leng and Rick are nowhere to be seen.

"You are privateers," I state loud and clear for all the sailors to hear. "We surrender, and therefore we are prisoners of war."

Carpentier looks daggers at me.

"That's what you think," he proclaims harshly. "Vaudreuil will not hold it against us if we clean up the Caribbean. No mercy for pirates..."

He walks towards me and kicks me in the stomach. Ever since our exchange in New Orleans, he has known that there are new scars on my belly. As I think to myself that he could have hurt me even more, my face comes in contact with the steel of a capstan. The pain radiates through my jaw. I lose all notion of time. A tooth comes loose. I spit it out as I struggle to straighten up.

"Where is the gold?" he asks, grabbing me by the throat.

Blood runs from my wounded mouth and soaks into his impeccable sleeve. My lips stretch into the most diabolical smile I can muster.

"With the mermaids," I gloat, wheezing.

What a joy to see defeat in his eyes. He knows I am telling the truth.

"Check it, Baptiste," he orders his accomplice.

The man obeys and goes aboard the Anarkhia which is miraculously still afloat. He comes back a few minutes later shaking his head.

No cry of rage or attempt to murder me. Carpentier remains haughty, even in defeat.

"We do not have enough victuals for the prisoners," he announces. "Kill them all, now."

No-one makes a move. Has he forgotten that he has commandeered a French army transport ship? It is no easy task to transform honest men into lawless freebooters. The crew is not trained in combat. Our small band of pirates has decimated their numbers. The upper deck of the sloop might be a field of coral. It is impossible to move without falling over a mutilated body.

The rugged faces of the survivors show the disgust they feel for this situation. And for this man who is rotten to the core.

"Make haste!" he orders planting his sword in the deck.

His voice is a crackling tremolo and less assured. Not one of the sailors of the Vindicta dares to cry his opposition out loud, even though they continue to disobey him.

"You are going to follow the man who has brought death and misery on you, sailors?" I mutter despite the shooting pain in my mouth. "You should have done away with this swindler! The so-called lettre de marque he showed you when he commandeered this vessel is a fake."

"Silence, you dog!" he says insultingly.

To my great surprise, he does not strike me. He lacks the courage to do so.

"For our survival, kill them," he hammers. "We cannot encumber ourselves with too many mouths to feed."

Appealing to their common sense is all that he has left.

"Their ship did not sink," says a sailor from the stern. "They can go back to her."

"This means condemning us to a slow, painful death," Florence interjects furiously.

"Something you should have considered before engaging in piracy," retorts one of the men who is threatening her with his musket.

"It is agreed," Carpentier admits. "We keep Kelly. What an honour for Monsieur le Marquis Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil to have succeeded in capturing the Butcher of Nassau that the English have been searching for years. He will be delighted to hand you over to his counterpart in New Providence. And believe me, I will be there when they sentence you to death."

A roll of thunder echoes his declaration.

"This is what you have been intending to do all the time, isn't it?" I growl between my bloodied teeth. "Deliver me to your employer to be in his good graces. It will not work. Everyone knows that you are rotten to the core."

He glares at me.

"For your information, the lettre de marque is not a fake. The governor of Louisiana knows all about the affair. At least, almost all. I offered to rid him of an old captainless sloop and bring back the pirates who are the most wanted by the crown of England. I have an official authorisation to pursue and capture the Anarkhia and her crew. You are a good actor, Kelly. But not good enough to have me believe that you can read."

His statement torments me even more than my broken tooth and my painful shoulder. My weak point. He has found it. He has been exploiting it from the start. To admit that what is condemning me today is that I am incapable of deciphering those bloody letters is more difficult to bear than all the blows in the world.

I am ashamed that Florence should hear this.

I am ashamed of myself.

Carpentier has tricked me. He wanted the gold for himself and the honours for his career in the navy guard.

The rain falls heavily on us. I thank fate for sending us this salutary water that hides the tears of despair flowing from my closed eyes.

"Why did you not capture me in New Orleans? Why this masquerade?"

"You will know soon enough."

"I know that you are a good for nothing!"

"A good for nothing who has trapped the pirate Steven Kelly. I had Vaudreuil believe that I knew where to find you, that all I needed was a ship and a crew to catch you and bring you back. Easy to make them understand that it was in their best interest. Our administration would be able to brag in front of the English. Show them that we had succeeded where they continued to fail. Contemplate my victory! Even if I have lost those thousands of pieces of eight, I still have my position, the honours and my ship. You, pirate, are left with nothing. I shall watch you die slowly and shit yourself when the English put the rope around your neck."

He punctuates his tirade by spitting in my face. I would like to be able to stand up. Strangle him. Put his eyes out with my fingers. Hit him on the head until his brain explodes.

I do not do anything. Theenergy which is usually mine has abandoned me, replaced by the torpor of thishumiliation. I give in. He has said it all. I have nothing left.