Chapter XVIII - The Great Escape
 
 

    It is often observed how the passage of time can slow or quicken depending on who's making the observation. A second spent in a fire feels like an hour, an hour spent in pleasurable company feels like a second, and likewise the days for the captured pirates inched along at a snail's pace while time aboard the Black Pearl seemed to be cheating.
    The problem with it was that eventually, it's meant to trip on its own feet.
    "We've hit a bit of a snag," Westley said tentatively, the morning of the last day. He was with Inigo in the captain's quarters, alone except for a couple underfed, irritable parrots, sitting opposite each other with the heaped-up black desk between them.
    "We don't have enough money for the backers," Inigo interpretted.
    "It always comes back to that, doesn't it? Money." Westley sighed. "In the old days you could get by simply on a righteous fight and a just cause."
    "In the old days they took the request of 'lend me your ears' at face value," Inigo reminded delicately.
    "Point."
    "We could ask Delphine if she has any more gold. Only I don't think we'd be well off doing so; you keep her too drunk these days for her to be the least coherent."
    "She doesn't have the time to master a fake hangover. Best that she has a real one."
    "Justify it however you like, but that woman is scary under your regime, Westley."
    "Why, thank you. Of course, it won't make a shred of difference if we can't get the money, my friend. The one thing it all comes down to, if you recall. It's no good promising them jam tomorrow. Quite frankly, what we've promised to pay them barely passes as a downpayment; they'll be in a right fervor if they don't find as much loot in Bombay as they're expecting."
    "There has to be money somewhere. Have you checked in here? Jack has all sorts of junk hidden in corners..."
    "Repeatedly, and yes, I did include that in my calculations. Although I'd appreciate it if you could help me determine the value of this," he said, hefting up a small pistol that was surprisingly heavy for its size, a purple tint to its metal. Inigo's eyes bulged. "What is this, some child's toy?"
    "Oh, no no no no no," Inigo said swiftly, snatching it from Westley's hand and holding it close to his chest. "We can't lose this, it's one of a kind!"
    Westley arched an eyebrow, sitting up in his chair. "One of a kind? Would that increase its value, then?"
    "We're not selling it! It's far too dangerous in the wrong hands," he added lamely, as if the excuse was just one thought up to explain his vehement stubbornness.
    "What's it... do?"
    With a bit of reluctance, Inigo told him.
    To his surprise, Westley grinned deviously. "Call off the backers."
    "What?"
    "We won't need them if we have this."

    Mid-afternoon, the Jackal was in the process of slowly, painstakingly fastening the rigging of a sail (it wasn't important work; she was too out of sorts to do anything crucial to the ship) when she noticed that the sun that had been cheerfully bearing down on her seemed to have been blotted out. She looked up, shielding her eyes with one arm, seeing nothing but two obscured, shadowy figures.
    "Are you sure about this?" one of them asked. He was holding something in his hand that gleamed brightly when the light hit it, for however small the fraction of a second.
    "Well, if not, I'm sure it can all be sorted out."
    Which were the last words she heard, before a deafening crack filled her ears, a burst of light exploded from the tip of the man's gun, and everything went black.
    "How long do we have?" Westley inquired.
    "Around half an hour, I've been told," the Spaniard replied.
    "Get him to his room. Tell Mary and Anne they have ten minutes."
    "And for the rest of us?"
    "Prepare to set sail! Bombay awaits."

    The red light of sunset was filtering through the windows of Bombay's jail house when the tired, starved and sick Brethren of the Order looked up, and immediately drew away from the bars when they saw who it was.
    Kidd's cane clacked on the stone floor as he walked imperiously down the row, followed by a timid jailkeep. He swung his mass to a halt before the cell containing Jack and his cohorts, and stuck out a thick finger toward his subject of choice, each in turn. "Him, and him, and her," he told the jailkeep, pointing to Jack, Hands, and Granuaile. He spun around and jabbed a finger at the vacant eyes of Anamaria. "And her."
    There was a small skittering, scratching noise as the jailkeep penned a few notes down on his parchment. "That leaves one open space, sah. Anyone else y'wanna send up?"
    Captain Kidd hmmed thoughtfully, looking back and forth between the two crowded cells. His eyes passed over masses of wrinkles, ratty clothes and rattier beards, until his eyes settled on the young, perfect face of the shy, blue-eyed first mate to Captain Lunaseer, presently trying to hide from view.
    "Her," Kidd said decidedly, pointing.
    "I think thassa him, sah."
    "What, am I writing a biography on these people?" Kidd snapped. "Collect them already. Get them sent over to the fort first thing."
    The jailkeep nodded, twisting his upper half to face the distant door and giving out a sharp whistle. With a loud bang the door swung open, and half a dozen guardsmen stormed in one after another in single file, boots thundering in unison. They clustered around Kidd and the jailkeep, while the latter approached the dented and scraped cell lock with a single skeleton key. The cell's occupants retreated back as the door swung inward, though they had little where else to go at this point.
    "That one," the jailkeep told the guardsmen nearest to him, pointing to the blue-eyed boy, who was finally starting to realize the implications of the gesture. He cowered, clinging desperately to Lunaseer's arm as the first of the guards entered, struggled to hold on as they ripped him away, clawing at Lunaseer's sleeve and wailing things in his strange native language that made Jack in the next cell cringe and try desperately to block out.
    Soon Jack had his own problems on his hands, as the other cell was opened and the other guards poured in, tearing Granuaile away from his side and pulling Israel Hands along like a rag doll, then finally Jack himself being pulled along as if he offered no resistance at all, while another guard bound his hands in ropes at the wrists. He felt rather than saw his emergence into the hallway, colliding with a small, frail figure he realized was Anamaria being thrust in the opposite direction. He did the best he could with his hands constrained to steady her and help her stay aloft, an act he did unthinkingly by habit or instinct as the five pirates were pulled and shoved down the hall to a door that held no features but the sun's angry red light.

    The sunset faded into a velvety black nighttime, all light from the moon and stars blotted out by a thick, overpowering cloud cover. The lights of Bombay were muted and pale, hardly casting a glimmer upon the water as the Black Pearl, trailing its own magical fog, sailed slowly into the harbor. Minutes later, a handful of boats landed softly among the waves and rowed silently to shore, as behind them every last light aboard the ship blacked out.
    Not long after, hiding their boats among the brush on the beach, small clusters of dark clad figures rushed across the sand and took refuge in dark corners and behind low walls. Behind one of these, a small circular crack providing a small glimpse of a weakly-lit deserted harbor beyond, a group of four pirates huddled together and pored over a map.
    "I certainly hope you're right about this, Munchausen," Westley hissed, a single eye peering through the small chink in the stone. "If our timing's off..."
    "I am a man known first and foremost for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and you take me for a liar?" the German demanded haughtily, also in a low tone.
    "Not a liar. Just... misinformed," Westley said delicately.
    "We're about four streets from the cells, and another six from the fort," Inigo murmured, running a finger down a row of lines on his map. He checked his watch. "And we have fourty-three minutes."
    "Possibly fourty-three minutes," Westley corrected.
    "Now honestly!" Munchausen complained.
    "Why can't you just take it for granted that the man's right?" Inigo asked. "You're not still upset over that pill thing, are you? That was five years ago."
    "That could have seriously fouled up our entire operation."
    "Well, we made do, didn't we?"
    "Can we get on?" growled a low voice.
    "Right you are," Inigo said quickly. He checked the map again, then sidled closer to the edge of the wall until he caught the eye of a squadron huddled against a stack of barrels across the street.
    He made a couple of short hand gestures, which the squad then echoed to the group farther down from them, and again and again. When message had gotten back that all teams had received the information, Inigo nodded, and performed one final gesture: pointing his finger down the street in the direction of the lights and sound of the gathered townsfolk.
    Fifty pirates with swords and pistols and a hell of a lot of ambition rose up and charged.

    The nighttime warden was first alerted by the whistles and clamour of voices of the men standing guard outside. When these were interspersed with giggles of the distinctly feminine variety, he couldn't contain his curiosity and went to the window to look out across the courtyard toward the front gate, where there seemed to be a great number of the gate's perimeter forces clustered around two figures clad in some strategically placed strips of silk and muslin and not much else.
    "What's going on out there?" the night warden shouted down to his lieutenant, who looked away reluctantly to meet his superior's gaze.
    "A couple young ladies here to see you, sir," the lieutenant said, a little uncertain over his own words. The two women waved up at the warden, or what could be seen of him through the tiny, barred window. One of them, her face covered in an blue veil, playfully slapped away the hand of a guardsman who was getting slightly too comfortable around her hips.
    "See me?"
    "Courtesy of the commander, sir. To apologize for the overtime."
    "Well, send 'em up already!"
    "'Scuse me, sir," said a private, "but d'you 'spect to keep 'em occupied the whole evenin'?"
    "Relax, Mister Bluejay. That'd hardly be fair of me, would it?"
    Enthused cheers went up through the crowd of guardsmen, as a path was cleared and a couple of soldiers led the two women up the stairs to the warden's office, which opened for them as they arrived at the top step. The women, both young and almost dangerously thin, were both caucasian, dressed as Hindi belly dancers. One of them, the shorter of the two, with curly red hair tucked under a black headdress and veil, slinked around behind the warden, running a thin hand over his shoulders with skin so cold it sent shivers down the man's spine. The other, black-haired and blue-veiled, used her hips to shut the door behind her, drowning out the cat-calls from the guards below.
    There were three clicks in quick succession. The first was that of the door shutting, and the second and third were of the two women drawing their pistols.
    The warden swallowed. Very slowly. He raised his arms over his head. Even slower. The moment he started exceeding about a quarter of a mile per hour the red-haired girl pushed the barrel of her gun into the back of his head the slightest bit more.
    "I don't have any money," the warden began.
    "We'd go to the bank if we needed money," Read sneered, pulling the veil down beneath her chin. "Where're the keys to the cells?"
    "You're not expecting to make off with all those old men? My forces against a bunch of old coots?"
    "Well, that's where you come in, mister," she said in his ear, as she reached down to his belt and found the larger metal key ring, which jangled as she removed it and tossed it to Anne Bonney. "Say mister, you know Latin, mister?"
    "N-no..."
    "I only know the one phrase, it's a really good one: 'Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.' Y'know what that means, mister?" Behind them, Bonney disappeared down the hallway with the keys jingling at her side. As she entered, there were whoops and hollers very much akin to the ones she'd been subjected to outside, although a little differently pitched.
    "No..." the warden whimpered.
    "'Means, if y'got a man's full attention, their 'earts an' minds'll follow."
    "Er..."
    "I know, t'ain't all that great, is it?"
    "If I might ask one thing," he requested.
    "Shoot." The word made him jump. When he recovered, he plunged on ahead.
    "Where, may I ask, were you hiding those guns?"

    This must've been what the gladiators felt like back in Rome, Jack thought to himself. It was, by and large, a fairly close comparison. He was presently standing in a small cage-like cell extending into a large circular area, around which were rows upon rows of Bombayan citizens, clamouring to get a better look at the center platform where a stately marine stood taking a last-minute look at his scroll containing the list of charges.
    The stone walls were near limitless, it seemed. When the eyes finally did drift upwards far enough to produce both the desired view and a most painful crick in one's neck, one could see the turrets and catwalks along which guardsmen walked in pairs, keenly eyeing the scene on either side of them. Each of them had a bayonet, armed and ready in anticipating hands, as if hoping for the opportunity that the victim was taking too long to be successfully lynched.
    Except that was the problem...
    "Say, Bill?" he said experimentally, catching the captain's attention as he stood just outside the small holding cell. "Where's the ropes?"
    "Oh, there's to be no gallows for you, Jack," Kidd said, with all the jolliness of Santa Claus telling a little boy of the very special present in store for him. "I've found you have a history of escaping your death that way. Very keen, you are, the way that any time that the words 'hanging' and 'Jack Sparrow' get together in one sentence they usually don't remain that way. I thought some extra insurance might be in order." He used his cane to indicate across the center stage, directing Jack's and the others' eyes to the gigantic, dark-clad figure standing near the rear wall, resting his hands on an enormous axe.
    Jack swallowed. "A little overboard, doncha think?"
    "Why, Jack! I thought you'd love to go away in style," said the Scotsman, grinning.
    "Style. Yeah. I can see that..."
    Tikalus, Captain Lunaseer's shy first mate, mumbled something only Jack could hear or understand.
    "I can't let y'do that, kid," Jack said resolutely, unfortunately loud enough for others to pick up.
    "What'd he say?" Kidd demanded.
    "He wants to go first," Jack told him, jabbing a reluctant finger at the boy.
    "I'm sure he does."
    "No, honestly, God's truth. But you already told yer audience who'd be up first, didn't'cha?" Jack asked, grinning a golden smile. "Want to make sure everyone hears when ol' Jack goes down for the count, innat right?"
    "You should be taking solace in the fact that you are benefitting someone else's career," Kidd said calmly, combing his beard with a few fingers.
    "I usually take solace in the ones I ruin. Which is a lot fewer'n what the law's done, righteous or ain't. There's no crime y'can pin on me that's worse than what you men've done to inspire my type to start with."
    "The cornered man's mantra. But as your last request I think I'll grant it to you to continue believing your little fantasies that justify every sin you've committed and every man that you've wronged. Have you any famous last words?"
    "All the good ones've been taken."
    "Spoken like a born thief."

    Inigo gave a final grunt and a heave, falling back onto the stone catwalk as the old Baron Munchausen finally succeeded in climbing over the side wall and tumbled down in a heap on the floor. Inigo paused a moment to catch his breath, then climbed back onto his feet to help Fezzik up.
    "I muzt be getteeng out of shape," the giant said after he too was up on the catwalk beside the others. He stretched. "I remember being able to carry seex peeple at one time."
    "A pirate life isn't good for you," Westley told him, lounging back on the ground as if expecting to lie back for a suntan. "Not enough things to lift."
    "I cood try leefting the sea," Fezzik suggested.
    "You could."
    Munchausen sat up into a more comfortable position and peered over the side of the wall. He hmmed appreciatively. "What's our time, Roberts?"
    "Which one?"
    "The Spanish one."
    "Oh," said Inigo, diving into his pockets and procuring his watch. "Fifteen minutes now. Those shouts over by the jailhouse must mean our reinforcements are on the way."
    "Right on schedule," Westley said cheerfully.
    "'Ere," said a low voice a few feet down from them. "The door's locked. That wasn't in the plan."
    The other pirates looked up at what their companion was indicating to. Slowly, the four men climbed to their feet and joined the other pirate by the doorway. Westley shook the handle experimentally.
    "Locked," the low voice growled again.
    "What do you want us to do," Westley demanded, "call a locksmith?"
    But his compatriot gave a head shake and turned to the giant that loomed behind them. "Fezzik?"
    "Yez cap'n," Fezzik said automatically, as the others backed away to either side while he pushed his sleeve up and flexed his fist.
    "Wait!" Munchausen hissed, moments before Fezzik's swing, causing the giant to stop mid-flex. "Someone's coming!"
    The five pirates ducked away from the door, hiding down the adjacent walkway as a lone guardsman, bayonet hanging loosely in his hands, shuffled dully down the walkway with a ring of keys jangling on his belt.
    He leaned his rifle against the door frame and pulled the ring up, fumbling through the keys in search for the appropriate one, although he paused in this action upon discovering the blade of a cutlass pressed against his throat.
    "'Allo," said a strangely seductive, rough and probably hung-over voice, next to his ear. "Mind steppin' aside there, mate?"

    In the days before television, radio, the internet, and eccentric politicians, the average civilian was often hard-pressed to find decent, accessible entertainment. Where they often found it was in street theater, the little dramas of husband-wife tiffs, buildings on fire with no one around to put them out, publicly humiliated civil servants, anything they could get their hands on. In a world before baseball, soccer, and football, executions simply were the highlight of a person's week. Somewhere, someone was probably printing up trading cards of the convicts to share and trade with friends, although it wouldn't quite catch on until the engravers were able to get a good look of the men on trial before they were, well, tried.
    The people of Bombay loved executions, especially the kind where they were allowed to bring their own food to throw at the convicted and whoever else was in throwing distance.
    It was due to this state, so enraptured with anticipation as the pirate on the stage above them was prepared for the chopping block, that scarcely anyone noticed the grappling hooks flying by overhead.
    But everyone heard it when a voice from above boomed, "TALLY-HO!"
    Nearly half saw a group of four pirates swing down on ropes, the one in the lead a dark-skinned man with long black hair in braids and bead strands, swinging a cutlass as he descended and cleanly swiped across the front of the executioner's face so suddenly and deeply that blood sprayed the nearest members of the audience.
    Most people saw the four men land, swords and guns drawn, on the small raised center platform, with the black-clad one going to the captured pirate's side and going immediately to cut his bindings and the three others fending off the guards that were beginning to rush towards them.
    Hardly anyone saw the arrival of reinforcements because said soldiers were presently being besieged by four hundred and fifty skilled, murderous brigands that were coming in from precisely the wrong direction as the one they'd been anticipating.
    Granuaile and the other pirates held in the cage saw nearly none of the going-ons because their view was obscured by the massive form of Fezzik, who lifted the bars of their cell clear off its hinges and tossed it aside like paper, only to moments later inflict some excruciating pain on the unfortunate members of the crowd to be pinned beneath it.
    "What's happening?" Granuaile demanded, as Fezzik lifted a sack off of his shoulder and propped it open, handing out swords and pistols. The sack was the size of a man but it may as well have been the case for Fezzik's pillow. "Fezzik, what's happening?!"
    Captain Kidd, farther off in the crowd, was wanting to know much the same thing as the crowds around him broke down and became a sea of running, fear-stricken people. He all but knocked a guard off his feet trying to get the man to stop.
    "Get me Sparrow!" he bellowed into the man's face. "Bugger all what happens to the rest of them but get me Sparrow alive!"
    Kidd might've gone on to reiterate his instructions, but at that moment the air was punctuated by a horrible scream, and then another, as above them the guardsmen up on the catwalks and turrets were thrown to their deaths.
    "Madmen," Kidd said weakly, mostly to himself. "Bloody madmen!"
    The newly freed Brethren of the Order were surging inward now, overfilling the crowded fortress as hundreds of townsmen scrambled to go just the opposite way. At the head of the pack, Harlock and Lunaseer shouted commands that might or might not have been understood, and among the ranks Stede slashed through anything that wore a uniform, Anamaria gunned down opponents as easily as cans lined up on a fence, and William Turner III fenced more magnificiently than his father would have ever dreamed.
    "What is it with you and breaking the Code," Jack gasped weakly, helped up onto his feet by Inigo Montoya. It was almost as strange seeing Inigo there without his mask as it was seeing him at all.
    "We'll argue about it later," Inigo told him warmly. He pushed a spare sword into the man's grip. "For now..."
    Jack grinned. "Dibs on Kidd."
    "He's all yours."
    Before Jack could say anything else, Inigo had disappeared into the chaotic crowd. The Spaniard brushed Israel Hands's shoulder a few moments later as he was passing, which had the surprising effect of putting an extra ounce of swing into Hands's attack and so cut through the extra few inches of flesh that might just have saved his opponent's life. Hands was unnerved by this for all of two seconds before he mopped the blood from his face and returned screaming into the fray.
    Jack dodged the swing of a bayonet blade and caught the gun's barrel, kicking the owner in the face with his boot. It wasn't long after this that he ducked backwards by a misaimed sword swing, dodged a couple other guardsmen, and blocked a few more while looking over their shoulders for a telltale sign of Captain William Kidd. On the other side of the platform, the dark-skinned leader of the attack was doing the very same thing, and it was through this that, dodging, blocking, and parrying swords and guns, that the two backed into each other.
    Both of them spun around, and froze in puzzlement, for they were looking at themselves.
    Jack gawked. The man standing opposite him was his height, his shape, with the same hair and outfit down to the smallest details of his clothes. The bead patterns in his hair were different, the bandana was a different color, the nose was ever so slightly different shaped, but no matter how he looked at it, the person he was looking at was... him. Completely down to the kohl smudges.
    Seeming to hear something that meritted his attention, the Other Jack tore his eyes away and looked off into the crowd. Jack followed his gaze to discover that the crowd around him, in fact, was backing away and leaving the two of them in the middle of a widening circle. To one side of it, a bruised and bloodied guard, clutching at his bayonet like a lifeline, and Captain Kidd holding onto his shoulder.
    "What are you waiting for?" Kidd roared.
    "Mista Kidd--" the gunman began.
    "What? What?" Kidd bellowed. He looked over at what was left in the center of the cirle. "What the..."
    "What do I do, sah?" the soldier cried.
    "Well-- Shoot the imposter!"
    "Which one's the imposter, sah?"
    "How the bloody hell should I know?"
    "Err..." the gunman tried a different tactic. "Oi! Which one o' ya is Jack Sparrow?"
    The man beside Jack huffed indignantly. "What's it look like? I'm Jack Sparrow!"
    "He is not!" Jack said vehemently, pointing at the other man. "I am! He's the imposter; shoot him!"
    "Who're ye callin' imposter, mate?" the Other Jack demanded. "I'd think I'd know who I am, wouldn't you?"
    "You're not me!"
    "Aye," his doppleganger agreed. "I'm the genuine article, ain't that right?"
    Growing furious past the point of tolerance, Jack pushed the other man in the shoulder. "Look, whoever you are, stop messing about. You're mucking the whole thing up."
    The Other Jack pushed right back; harder. "Piss off."
    Jack punched him soundly in the jaw. "You bloody well piss off!" he yelled, as the other man staggered.
    After regaining his balance, the doppleganger returned the punch. Before there was time for a retort, Jack struck again, and again. The Other Jack fought back, harder, faster. Time hardly had a chance to elapse before the two were on the floor, punching, kicking and biting each other with all sense of the others around them completely forgotten.
    Members of the crowd exchanged glances with each other. This wasn't really how they were expecting it to go.
    "Do we just shoot 'em both, sah?" the gunman asked Kidd experimentally.
    "No!" Kidd snapped. "Just... go sort it out, will you?" With a bit of reluctance, the soldier nodded, handing his rifle to the pirate hunter and stalking off across the clearing to where the two Jacks were still brawling with enthusiasm.
    At one point, when Jack found himself in the Other Jack's headlock, he grunted, "Might I humbly request something?" As he said it, he swung his elbow back and connected with the other man's shoulder.
    "Orright," coughed the doppleganger, landing on the floor. He rolled to prevent being put in a strangling hold. "What's on yer mind?"
    "You're me and I'm you, right?"
    "'Seems to follow." He wheezed as Jack landed a punch to his abdomen, knocking the air out of him.
    "Then you'd agree we've got bigger fish to fry, right?" Jack asked, pulling his arm out of the way before his opponent could sink his teeth into it.
    "You're suggestin' a truce?"
    "Aye."
    The Other Jack pinned him on his back, saying, "Hell, I'm game."
    Hesitantly, the guardsman tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me?"
    Without a word or gesture from his opponent, the Other Jack abruptly reared back, headbutting the guard and sending him stumbling back, moments before it was followed by a swipe of the leg that swept the man off his feet.
    The two Jacks helped each other stand up and found their swords again.
    "Right."
    "Right."
    Their identical eyes landed on Captain Kidd at the opposite edge of the crowd. They chorused together:
    "Right!"
    And charged.
    Kidd charged too. In the opposite direction.
    "Keep on 'im!" Jack told the other man. "Elsewise we'll never catch up again!"
    It's like talking to meself, Jack thought in wonder, as the two ran through the crowds. It is talking to meself. And I didn't have to go mad to do it.
    Two guards blocked their way, and they flashed through them like a hot knife in butter. A whole group barred the path and they ran full-speed between them, breaking through with such synchronized speed and motion that it probably even surprised them.
    "There!" the Other Jack said, pointing to a side corridor down which the waddling form of Captain Kidd was racing. Jack grabbed his doppleganger by the wrist and began to dart after the Scotsman, when there came a voice from above.
    "Jack!"
    The two looked up to see Inigo Montoya hanging onto the rigging of a flag, sword in one dangling arm. He looked as though he had had something to say before, but something had amused him so greatly that he could only grin and occasionally chuckle.
    Captain Jack Sparrow stood looking up at him, perplexed, so it was the Other Jack that jerked him into motion again, sprinting through the fighting crowds toward the distant corridor. Bodies, swords, and guns flashed by on either side blurring into incoherency, and when they stopped again to take in their surroundings it was a few moments before they realized that any change in scenery had taken place. They'd emerged outside the fort, but the fighting had overflowed here now, compacted with looting and rioting in the streets. A few blocks down, fires were springing up. This was definitely an entertainment night for the average citizen.
    Jack caught a glimpse of Kidd on a bridge passing by overhead and beckoned his companion's attention to it. They sought around their immediate vicinity and found some crates stacked up by the bridge, and set immediately to climbing them. Lacing his hands together, the Other Jack gave Jack a boost up onto the bridge, and was then likewise pulled aloft.
    "D'you know, it never occured to me before," Jack said cheerfully, as the two went into a sprint following Kidd's trail, "but another me can make an excellent partner."
    The Other Jack glanced over at him, grinning wildly, hair flying across his face. "You're stickin' wit' me, then?"
    "'Ere. You're stickin' with me. That's how it works."
    "Ain't you a wee bit confused," the Other Jack cackled, bounding over a low wall onto stack of barrels. They descended down into the harbor and rushed to the distant pier, where Kidd and one of his men were casting off in a small boat.
    "I'll bet we can make that," Jack remarked of the distance to Kidd's boat, as their feet pounded on the salt-encrusted planks of the dock.
    "Two shillings says we can't," his counterpart returned, without slowing down.
    "You're on!"
    They were five feet from the edge of the dock...
    A loud BANG erupted from the area of Kidd's boat...
    The Other Jack jerked back and collided with his companion, blood blossoming from his chest, a result of having pulled in front of the other man at the last second.
    "Shit."
    Jack grabbed his shoulders, but he fell to the deck, clutching at the flowing wound. Jack knelt down beside him, head nearly touching his, and it was then that he noticed for the first time that the other man's bandana was navy blue.
    "Go on!" his doppleganger cried hoarsely. "It's just a shoulder. You won't catch 'im if y'stop now!"
    "I guess you're not me after all," Jack said, gently lying him flat on the ground.
    "Hey?"
    "The real me wouldn't've stopped me gettin' hurt."
    "You're balmy. I tripped, s'all. Go on; Kidd's out there. One o' us 'as gotta get 'im!"
    "S'too late now. There'll be another day."
    His doppleganger reached up with a bloodstained hand and gripped him by the neck of his shirt. He pulled him down so close that they were nose to nose. "What the hell d'you mean by that? Have you lost yer marbles?"
    "Maybe," he said morosely. "God knows it's overdue. Now let's go find someone to take care of that wound..."
 

End Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XVII