"Oh," the youngest lad said, as if he'd pricked his finger on a thorn, and clapped a hand to the inside of his right thigh. "Oh!" he reiterated, as if a wasp or bee had stung him, as he looked down at the blood on his white breeches. "Ah. Oh Lord!" as realisation came, as he fell to his knees and went as pale as the wave spume.

The other captives could see the tiniest wisp of spent powder smoke that blew westward from the schooner's small quarterdeck, ragging past the taffrails like the spirit of a hag that had ridden her mortal too long and must flee the coming of dawn.

"Oh, you bloody bastards! You goddamn' Frog sonsabitches!" the doughty older captive howled, shaking both fists at their tormentors. "We'll get ye, yet! We'll find ye, and cut yer damn' balls off, hear me? Ye'll all dance th' Tyburn Hornpipe 'fore we're done wi' ye!"

"Oh, poo," Don Rubio groaned, grimacing at his poor aim with a slim and expensive Jaeger rifle. "This boat's pitching, though." His compatriots cheered his expertise, even though he hadn't struck his mark in mid-chest.

"You said you wished to shoot just one, Rubio!" Hippolyte said in commiseration. "He'll die of that, right below his organes! What a bother he'll be for them, before he does. Ha ha!"

"Perhaps they'll eat him!" Helio quipped, eyes merrily alight.

De tit zozos-ye te assis,

De tit zozos si la barrier,

De tit zozos qui zabotte,

Qui ca ye di mo pas conne!

They sang as well, hooting and capering, even assaying a nautical, buccaneer's hornpipe, though they hadn't heard a word that their captives had yelled from shore.

Monzeur-poulet vini simin,

Croupe si ye et croque ye,

Personn pli tend ye zabotte,

De tit zozos si la barrier!

A Creole song, a slave song, one they'd all learned as children.