Chapter 4: The Secret of the Dead Man's Chest

Chapter 4: The Secret of the Dead Man’s Chest

Jack Sparrow sat at the front of the Black Pearl.

“Do you want us to sail away from the island?” Gibbs asked him.

“Yes, but stay in shallow water,” Jack replied.

He opened his Compass and looked at it carefully. Will Turner stood next to him.

“Jack,” he said quietly.

“Not now,” Jack answered, with his eyes still on the Compass. “Jack, I need…”

“Not now” Jack said angrily, reaching for his gun. Finally, he saw Will. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Jack,” Will said again. “I need that Compass.”

“Why?” Jack asked. He looked at the Compass again, then closed it.

“I want to save Elizabeth,” Will said.

Jack shook his head. “I’ve heard those words before,” he said. “We saved Elizabeth before. Why don’t you watch her more carefully? Lock her up in a room?”

“She is locked up. In prison. She’s going to die because she helped you.”

Jack started to climb up into the sails.

“That isn’t my problem,” he said.

Suddenly, he felt the cold touch of Will’s sword at his neck.

“Give me the Compass. Now! Then the English will stop looking for you.”

Jack said slowly, “All right. You get the Compass and you save your pretty girl. What do I get?”

“You’ll be free. The English will stop searching for you,” Will explained again.

“I will give you the Compass,” Jack said slowly. “But you must find something for me. It’s quite dangerous…”

He pulled the small piece of cloth out of his pocket. Will looked at the picture of the key on the cloth.

“Is this going to save Elizabeth?” he asked.

Jack put his mouth close to Will’s ear. “How much do you know about Davy Jones?” he said very quietly.

“Nothing,” Will said.

Jack smiled. “Yes,” he said. “It’s going to save Elizabeth.”

On the Edinburgh Trader Elizabeth Swann, dressed in a sailor’s clothes, was on her way to Tortuga. She was hoping to find Will. But Will was nowhere near Tortuga now. He, Jack Sparrow, and Jack’s men were traveling down the Pantano River in two rowing boats.

“Why is Jack so nervous?” Will asked Gibbs quietly.

“He’s made an enemy of Davy Jones,” Gibbs said seriously. “He thinks that he’s only safe on land. If he goes out onto the ocean, Davy Jones will take him.”

“Davy Jones?”

“Well, he has a monster that works for him. The Kraken,” Gibbs said. His voice shook. “It’s terrible-it can pull a ship to the bottom of the ocean…”

Gibbs stopped, and Will saw the fear in his eyes.

“Is Jack afraid to die?” asked Will.

“Davy Jones doesn’t kill you,” Gibbs answered. “He punishes you. Think of the worst thing in the world. It’s waiting for you in Davy Jones’s world. And it never ends.”

“And the key will save him?” Will asked finally.

“That’s the question that Jack wants to answer. So he’s going to visit… her.”

“Her?” Will asked nervously.

“Yes-her.”

The rowing boats stopped near a small wooden house high in a tree. There was a light outside the door.

“Don’t worry,” Jack called to the other men. He tried to speak happily. “Tia Dalma and I are old friends.”

“I’ll watch your back,” Gibbs offered.

“I’m more worried about my front,” Jack said quietly.

As Jack climbed up into the house, the other pirates stayed close behind him. In the low light, they saw many strange animals in glass bottles. Ragetti touched his wooden eye when he noticed a bottle of eyes in a corner.

Tia Dalma sat at a table in the shadows. She wasn’t surprised by the visitors because she could see into the future. She stood.

“Jack Sparrow,” she said, “I knew the wind would bring you back to me one day.”

Her eyes moved past Jack to Will. She smiled as she looked at him.

“I can see a great future for you, William Turner,” she said, moving closer.

“Do you know me?” Will asked.

“You want to know me,” she replied.

She looked into his eyes and pulled him close.

She looked into his eyes…

Jack walked to Tia Dalma and pushed her back toward the table.

“We need your help,” he said.

“Is Jack Sparrow asking for help?” she asked, amused.

“It’s not for me,” Jack answered. “It’s for William. If you help me, I will help him.”

Tia Dalma smiled. “How can I help you? How will you pay me?

“I will pay you with this!” Jack said brightly.

He took a wooden box from Pintel’s hand. Inside was the monkey. Jack lifted his gun and shot it. The little monkey looked angrily at him.

“The pay is fair,” Tia Dalma agreed. Her eyes moved again to Will.

Jack passed the picture of the key to Will, and he quickly showed it to Tia Dalma.

“Were looking for this. What does it unlock?” Will asked.

Tia Dalma spoke to Jack. “Your key opens a chest…”

“What is inside the chest?” Gibbs asked.

“Gold? Treasure?” Pintel said, his voice full of hope.

“Nothing bad, I hope,” Ragetti said nervously.

Tia Dalma smiled at the pirates. Then she told her story.

“You know about Davy Jones? A man of the ocean, a great sailor until he met man’s biggest problem.”

“What is man’s biggest problem?” Will asked her.

“The ocean,” Gibbs said seriously.

Tia Dalma shook her head.

“Adding numbers,” Pintel said.

Tia Dalma shook her head again.

“The difference between good and bad,” Ragetti suggested.

Everyone in the room looked at the one-eyed pirate and shook their heads.

“A woman,” Jack said, ending the game.

Tia Dalma smiled at the rough pirate. “A woman. He fell in love, but his love brought great pain. He couldn’t live with the pain-but he couldn’t die.”

The pirates smiled sadly. They understood the story.

“Exactly what did he put into the chest?” Will asked.

“He cut his heart out of his body and put it in a chest. He hid the chest from the world. He keeps the key with him at all times.”

Will finally understood. The key opened the chest that held Jones’s heart.

“You knew this,” Will said to Jack.

“No, I didn’t…” Jack said nervously. “Well, I didn’t know where the key was.”

Will didn’t believe him.

“But now we know,” Jack said smoothly. “You can go onto Jones’s ship, the Flying Dutchman, and take the key. Then you can go back to Port Royal and save your pretty girlfriend.”

Jack moved toward the door. Tia Dalma spoke before he opened it.

“Show me your hand,” she said.

Slowly, Jack untied the cloth. Tia Dalma looked carefully at the black mark.

Gibbs saw the mark, too. Pintel and Ragetti watched the old pirate turn in a circle three times for good luck. Not knowing why, they also turned three times.

Tia Dalma moved across the room and climbed the stairs. At the top, she opened a great door. The sound of the ocean came quietly from outside it. Tia Dalma slowly closed the door and came down the stairs again. In her hands she carried a large bottle with a wide top that she gave to Jack.

“Davy Jones can step on land only once every ten years,” she said to him. She put some earth into the bottle. “You are safe on land, Jack Sparrow, so carry the land with you.”

Jack looked into the bottle. “Is this bottle of earth really going to help me?” he asked.

Tia Dalma reached out her hand for the bottle.

“If you don’t want it, give it back to me.”

“No!” Jack cried, and held the bottle to his chest.

“Then it will help you,” she said.

Will looked at Tia Dalma. “We need to find Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman,” he said.

Tia Dalma smiled at his young face, then sat at her table again.

“I’ll tell you where to go,” she said.