| From that day, I became Mr. Birdsong's leech, always drinking the blood that I drained from him, always mixing it with rum. I feigned the return of my odd color vision, when in fact it had never left me, and began to complain of sleeplessness. He kept me busy by day with reading, writing, natural philosophy, mathematics, logic, navigation, and languages (Latin and Greek with what smatterings he knew of French and Spanish -- mostly nautical terms); yet he was no real hindrance to my reckless energies. At night when mother was out, after he had fallen asleep, I would slide out a window and return ere dawn, purse brimming. |
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Indeed the cunning of my special art improved with literacy more than it might have done if left alone. I perfected a fine mare's nest when I was a young looking seventeen -- a journeyman's masterpiece, had guild tests been required of rogues. On an old piece of parchment I carefully inked a counterfeit treasure map; detailed with lines of latitude and longitude, and with drawings of plump little putti who indicated the direction of the prevailing winds by puffing their cheeks and blowing as they floated on tiny wings above the Caribbean; then I tore the map in half. I dressed my lanky body in rags, covered myself with dirt, and a smear of pig dung for authenticity, and went out, leaving behind the map half that showed the nominal booty's location. |
| I stationed myself before the door of the Jolly Raven; sitting in the dirt, and idly doodled on the other map half with a lump of charcoal. As sailors passed by, I begged coppers from them with a piteous trimble in my voice. Eventually, one of them noticed the map. |
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Copyright © Michael B.Stevens, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005. All rights reserved. Format modified Aug. 2005