Mile Charite de Guilleri lowered her lashes and smirked over the rim of her crystal champagne glass, secretly delighted by their hired man's not-so-secret lust, and her heady power to deny.

"I still say we should just shoot them, make them to 'walk the plank,' or something," her cousin, Jean-Marie Rancour, spat.

"Oui, Jean… dead men tell no tales, after all," another of their party said. Unlike the rest, he was dark-haired and brown-eyed, was Don Rubio Monaster, while Charite, her brothers Hippolyte and Helio, and their cousin were the typical long-settled Creoles, with chesnut hair and blue eyes. "Just kill them and be done," Don Rubio asserted with what he was certain was an aggressive, decisive, and manly lift of his chin… for Charite's benefit and, hopefully, at some future time of bliss with her, his own.

"We've done that," the eldest brother, Helio de Guillieri, responded in a lazy drawl. "That Havana slaver's crew, remember, Rubio? We made them walk the plank, Jean."

"But we haven't done marooning yet," middle brother Hippolyte snickered. "Just about the only thing we haven't done."

"Kill or maroon?" Helio, as "leader," posed. "The old buccaneers practiced egalite and fraternite, they voted on things. Let's vote."

"Shoot!" Don Rubio Monaster quickly replied, but he was shouted down by those in favour of marooning their captives. Only Jean sided with him, and that not with a whole heart.

Mon Dieu, what a pack of… Capt. Lanxade thought. "Marooned men tell no tales. No one ever comes here. They give these isles a wide berth for fear of shoals and reefs. Only piles of bleached bones will be found… if ever," he gruffly told them.

"I cannot shoot even one?" Don Rubio plaintively asked.

"Rubio, don't be greedy," Mile Charite coaxed, sashaying to his side to drape an arm round his shoulders and lay her head next to his, as if cajoling her papa for a new gown. "We have seen how well you shoot. Those runaway slaves…pim-pim-pim, and all your doing, n'est-ce pas? If we run across another prize on the way home, we will leave things to you… won't we, Helio… Hippolyte?"