“Try me on for size, lad. I’ve heard worse, I’ll warrant.” Bertha stood, arms akimbo, her one good eye gleaming with humor.

My father clapped a surprisingly strong hand on my shoulder. “Oh, he’ll have to tell us all what he’s been up to. But for now it’s bath and supper for the boy. He deserves no less, being stuck on that island for days.”

“Oh! Forgive me, master, where are my manners? I’ll go scare up a meal that will right fatten you up, lad. Just you wait.”

Before I could say so much as a peep, I was steered into a cabin, unceremoniously stripped of my dirty, threadbare rags, scrubbed from head to toe until my skin was red and raw, and dressed again. A girl was helping me into a freshly laundered shirt as my father walked in, and I watched with regret as he shooed her out of the room.

“Pretty little thing, ain’t she? I picked her up in Barbados. Traded her for two of my best guns. Well, we have an hour before Bertha comes looking for you, so it’s time to start talking, boy. Start at the beginning.”