Chapter 11: The End of Captain Jack?

Chapter 11: The End of Captain Jack?

Jack’s men were soon back on the Black Pearl. Will slowly opened his eyes.

“What happened to the chest?” he asked.

“Norrington took it. Jones’s men followed him,” Elizabeth told him.

Gibbs came and welcomed them all onto the ship. He was ready to sail.

“Jack!” he said. “We saw the Dutchman an hour ago. She was coming around the end of the island!”

“Was she?” Jack replied. He didn’t seem worried.

“The most dangerous ship on the ocean is too close to us!” Gibbs called to the other sailors. “Pull up the sails!”

Jack felt no need to hurry. He sat down and held his bottle tightly to him.

“Gibbs, is your mouth dry?” he asked. “Is your heart moving quickly in your chest?”

“Yes,” Gibbs answered.

“I think you’re afraid,” Jack told him.

“Well, aren’t you afraid, too?” Gibbs said. He didn’t understand Jack. Where was the frightened captain of only a few hours before?

Elizabeth walked across the ship to the two men. She agreed with Jack.

“We’re in no danger,” she said to Gibbs. “I can’t see any ships.”

She spoke too quickly. As they watched, the ocean began to move. Suddenly, the Flying Dutchman came up from below the water and stopped next to the Pearl

Jack turned toward the Dutchman and lifted the bottle above his head. He pointed to it, smiled, and gave a friendly wave.

On the Dutchman, Davy Jones realized what he meant. “He’s got my heart!” He turned to Maccus. “Prepare the guns,” he said.

“We’re here! Yoo-hoo! Let’s talk!” Jack shouted.

“What are you doing?” Gibbs asked angrily.

“Be quiet,” Jack replied. He lifted the bottle again. “I have the heart. In here,” he said quietly.

“Really? How?” Gibbs asked.

Jack smiled. “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow, remember? Nobody is smarter than me.”

Gibbs knew very well that Jack wasn’t always right.

“I have to protect the ship,” he said, and shouted, “Move to the left! Hurry, men!”

The Black Pearl sailed away from the Dutchman. The Dutchmans guns began to shoot but the Pearl was escaping.

“Can the Black Pearl move faster than the Dutchman?” Will asked.

“That isn’t a natural ship,” Gibbs said, pointing to the Flying Dutchman. “It can sail into the wind, and not lose speed. That’s how it catches other ships. But if the wind is behind us-”

“We can move faster than her!” Will said. Suddenly, he understood Gibbs’s plan.

“Yes,” Gibbs said. “The Black Pearl is the only ship that Davy Jones fears.”

Jack smiled, and held his bottle close to his chest.

“We can take the Dutchman!” Will said to Jack. “We can turn and fight!”

“Or we can run away,” Jack answered brightly.

“You have the only ship that can take the Dutchman in a fair fight.”

“But I don’t like to fight fairly,” Jack said.

Suddenly, the Black Pearl moved to one side and sailors fell to the floor. Jack’s bottle was knocked from his hands and broke. Sand and earth went everywhere. Jack fell to his knees and looked through it. There was nothing in there except sand.

Jack looked up at Gibbs. “Um… I don’t have the heart.”

“Then who does?” Gibbs asked.

Jack turned pale. He didn’t have Jones’s heart, and he didn’t have Tia Dalma’s earth.

The Pearl stopped moving and Elizabeth looked out at the ocean.

“Have we hit some rocks?” she called.

“I heard those words on the Edinburgh Trader” remembered Will. “No!” he shouted. “It’s not rocks! Move back!”

“What is it?” Elizabeth asked, seeing the fear in Will’s eyes.

“The Kraken,” Gibbs said. “It’s coming for Jack.”

The men on the Pearl were silent.

Jack stopped looking through the sand on the floor of the ship. The heart wasn’t there, and the black mark was on his hand again.

Very quietly, Jack moved toward the end of the Pearl. None of his men saw him climb into a small boat. He rowed quickly away from his ship.

The water around the Pearl began to move as, slowly, the Kraken came up out of the ocean.

“Go to the guns!” Will shouted. “Protect the ship”

The pirates quickly prepared for the monster’s attack.

The Kraken’s long arms moved onto the ship, but the guns were ready. Will ordered the men to shoot the monster.

Badly hurt, the Kraken moved away. It broke all the ship’s small rowing boats as it went down.

“It will return!” Will shouted. Turning to Elizabeth he said, “Get off the ship.”

“There are no boats,” Elizabeth replied. “The Kraken destroyed all of them.”

Not all of them…

As the Kraken prepared to attack again, Jack rowed away more quickly. But something stopped his escape. When he looked down at his Compass, it was pointing toward the Black Pearl and his men.

Sadly, Jack began to row back again.

On the Pearl, the Kraken was winning the fight. The pirates shot at it repeatedly, but they couldn’t stop it.

Elizabeth stood in the captain’s room, with a gun in her shaking hands. She was very angry. “Jack has disappeared,” she said to herself. “He’s the person that the Kraken wants. He brought us into this mess.”

Then, as the Kraken’s arms moved slowly through the windows toward her, she dropped the gun. She ran up to the top of the ship-and into Jack. He was back.

“We have some time. Leave the ship!” he ordered.

“Can we really escape in a rowing boat?” Will asked.

“We can return to the island. We can escape while the Kraken takes down the Pearl.” Jack’s eyes showed his sadness at the thought of the end of his ship.

Will, Gibbs, and the other pirates went toward the rowing boat.

“Thank you, Jack,” Elizabeth said softly. She moved closer to him. “You came back. I always knew that you were a good man.”

She kissed the pirate, then stepped back slowly. There was a sharp noise.

Jack looked down at his hands.

“I’ve chained you to the side of the Pearl” Elizabeth explained. “The Kraken wants you-not the ship, and not us.”

“You’re a great pirate,” Jack said.

Elizabeth looked at him for the last time and remembered-so much, and so many adventures. Then she ran off the ship and left Jack… waiting.

Slowly, the Kraken’s arms moved onto the Pearl, and the monster’s head moved toward Jack. Its mouth was open and in its teeth was Jack’s lost, much-loved hat. He took it out of the monster’s mouth and placed it on his head.

“Hello, monster,” he said.

From the rowing boat, the pirates of the Black Pearl watched the Kraken and Jack fight. Slowly, the terrible monster covered the ship with its body. Then it pulled the ship, and Jack, down below the waves.

Davy Jones stood on the Flying Dutchman and smiled. “Jack Sparrow,” he said happily. “Now I have you.”

Jones was not the only person watching from the Dutchman. As Jack went down with the ship, Bootstrap Bill watched the water, too. Sadly, he remembered Jack Sparrow-Captain Jack Sparrow.

“I thought you could do it,” he said quietly. “Only you.”

The Black Pearl and her captain were gone. And, already, the world seemed a darker place without them.