"The Arrival" (Short Story, Part 2/3)

If you just dropped in, check out the first part of this shirt-story here:
https://steemit.com/writing/@whymonkey/the-arrival-short-story-part-1-3

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When he managed to fight the whims of the currents and swim upwards, the oxygen tasted almost sweet in his lungs. He looked around, but the ship was way gone, now only a diffuse shadow in the night. He wasn't even sure if anyone had seen him fall overboard. As he struggled to keep his head above the water, Salvador came swimming to him.

"Salvador! Are you OK? Where is Jorge? Where is Jorge, Salvador?", but the dog just kept trying to climb on to his shoulders.

"Salvador, no! Where is Jorge?", he insisted, evading the persistent thought that, even if the sailor was still alive, it would be impossible to rescue him from the depths of the ocean in this pitch-black darkness.

Salvador barked and he looked to his right. Another ship from the fleet was coming right in their direction. He instinctively started to scream for rescue as loud as his lungs could manage, "Down here! Hey! Down here!", but the storm was louder than his words and, when he realized he could never be heard above, he just struggled to swim away from the path of the ship.

When the ship was right beside them, a tremendous lightening bold veined through the night and struck the fore-mast with such mighty force and blinding fulgor, that the fore-masted snapped on the base and tilted overboard with a loud crack as it smashed against the wooden handrail on its way down.

It all seemed out of a nightmare.

The scare was such that the friar briefly forgot to swim and gulped down another taste of the ocean. As the ship rushed pass, the mast was left floating on the dark waters and the friar swam to it, in the hope of using it as a flotation device. Salvador came swimming behind him.

He climbed on the piece of wood and, after awhile, found that if he laid belly down and spread his arms to the sides where the mast and the yard came together, he could stay almost completely out of the sea water. The rain was still down pouring abundantly, but at least it wasn't half as freezing as the Ocean. Salvador came to rest on the flat of his back, which also helped him fight the cold. Waves came and went, but the long perpendicular yard, still attached to the white cloth of the sails to both sides of the mast, helped keep a decent balance.

He was cold, soar and lonely, but managed to doze off for brief parts of the night, always hoping that that terrible nightmare had been nothing more than that.

During the night, the storm slowly faded out and the first shreds of a pink dawn invaded the canopy of stars. His throat was sore, as were all the muscles in his body, so he just kept the same position until the rising sun cut through the last clouds and the sea shone sapphire once again. For hours he floated with the tide, thirsty and drained, in the limbo between dream and reality. Hours passed uneventful except from the noise of water clapping against the wood and the occasional movement of Salvador on his back. He could feel death shadowing in, carried by the salty breeze.

Suddenly the squeak of a seagull brought him up from this lethargy.

Was it real?

Or was his mind playing tricks on him?

He felt Salvador also standing up on his back and so he managed to gather enough strength to raise his head. Amazed at the view, he realized the tide had brought him close to land! Thank God!

About two kilometers away, he could see the vivid green shades of the vegetation, as well as the red and brown of rock and earth and so he drifted aboard his floating mast and waited for the tide to carry him to solid ground.

A galley much like the Portuguese ones he had sailed on, was anchored near the shore, but he could tell from the detailing and the figurehead that the galley was not Portuguese. He would guess Dutch.

When he was close enough to be heard he tried to shout to get the attention of whoever was on board. The first two times he couldn't do nothing more than muffled sounds, just the effort to keep his head up was overwhelming, but by the third time he managed a muffled wail and by the fourth a low shout. Salvador probably understood what he was trying to do because he started to bark. When he heard noise from above, he just had the time to give graces and then passed out of exhaustion.

Water. Someone was trying to pour fresh water on his mouth.

He opened his eyes and two dark-skinned very sunburnt Asian faces where locked on him. One was oddly missing the left eye and was so ugly he could curdle milk. The other one had one arm stretched to his face and was pouring water on his lips using a wooden cup. The water was fresh and sweet and the friar sipped it all in eagerly. Afterwards he closed his eyes and his mind slipped again into oblivion.

When he regained consciousness a red afternoon was drifting above. He tried to move and realized his hands were tied tightly to the fife rail. One of the crew members noticed and commented to the rest of the crew "He seems to be awake", without paying him much attention. Some looked at him, but most just ignored. He had been around long enough to know the character of sailors, their sympathy dulled by many layers of salt. The one-eyed man from before was looking outwards to the shore and turned around to say "Well! Just in time, the captain's coming in..."

With his wits about him from the rest, he took the time to observe his surroundings. The ship seemed in good-enough condition, but the crew seemed to be amiss in there. An Asian crew aboard an European ship? And then it hit him. The ragged clothes, the rusted blades hanging from makeshift belts, the sunburnt skins.

Pirates. They were pirates!

The realization sent a rush of blood to his head where his heartbeats now rang loud and thunderous.

A few minutes later the captain came into the ship climbing slowly up the jacob's ladder. It was clear he was the captain from the silence that descended upon the deck and the aura of deference surrounding his presence. Quickly the captain noticed his presence and unsheathed his sword with mild distaste, pointing it at his throat.

"What are you doing here?", he asked in an angry Cantonese, but terror muted the friar's words and the best he could manage was to look up with eyes wide with fear. Following a short silence, the captain didn't seemed to entertain the thought of wasting more of his time and he told the one-eyed man to have him thrown overboard.

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(End of part 2/3)

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