PORT ROYAL (5)

[Coagula]

They sleep spoon fashion, the bunk-bed has not room for sprawling. No I'm mistaken, his eyes are closed, he is thinking, he doesn't stir, he doesn't want to wake her , for when she wakes she will speak of Gibraltar, he will speak of Gibraltar, and he, I, and perhaps you too, have had enough of this unhappy history. O,,there's a lot more atrocities, lots more innocent blood was shed, but let's move the story forward.- Coagula thinking-

One or more trading voyages I must make afore Ay'll war on the Nations, and Ay'yv some more thieving smugglers owes me with interest, and there's one or two pirates wot got massive plunder this late in the game. There's all of that, true. But I now have the BOOK! And the book has the SECRET! And the secret is the FORMULA! The Alchemy process to elaborate the particles of base metals to gold! When I do that I, why, I don't have to trade anymore! Why, i could buy me way to any rank, anywhere! I have all the equipment used to make me ''Potter's Potency Potion" (my mother's preparation) and me gunpowder manufactory, so it should be simple to set up an elaboratory, The planet MERCURY, beloved by alchemists, will soon be in proper alignment. The stars...O..now I remember my dream...

There is night- not really night- the moon is eclipsing the sun-I am being burnt- not at the stake like mother-no- I lay on a stretcher/cot - wot has legs-so I am above the flames-strangest is the me there-I have two heads-one head is me and the other is a woman me- and my body, likewise, is one half me the other, with a breast, a woman-the tongues of fire lick at the sides of my (our?) cot-smoke obscures the image- i can't remember more, is this a tarot card? O Gawd, the hermaphrodite is a Mercury symbol and he, as Ay'yv said, is beloved by alchemists. It was not a nightmare but an auspicious sign, a divine instrument, enlightening.

Roxanne,sleeping, murmuring without pause, as if she had a million facts to communicate in very little time, keeps up an unintelligible babble until he hears-
" Were you there, Coagula?" even in sleep she pursues me.
" I wasn't there." My softest whisper, to persuade somnambulant.
She suddenly sits up, fully awake, " You lie, you were there and you did nothing to stop it. Did you join the fun? Or did you watch? You stood by and let it happen, did you enjoy it?"
" I didn't, no."
" But they did?
" I wanted to shoot him. I guess they did. Nobody tried to stop him. All wallowed in excess. We saw he was a madman and he frightened us. We had signed to obey him. No one thought to organize a mutiny."
" Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! You should have listened to your voice."
" We did what pirates do, we burn ships and plunder towns and love to hear women cry, we're Pirates!"
" So pirates have no morals, no sense of right or wrong."
" Not true, among ourselves the rules..."
"You were an accomplice and as guilty as they!"
And I felt guilty, she was right, I was guilty. My soul was scar-poxed by the past. I was no longer 'pure'. I had somehow betrayed myself, my spiritual compass, I wasn't feeling good about it at all, and her too.

When he went out he asked Sleeping Dog to take the helm and they had a smoke.

http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/alchemy_5.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/arr/arr12.htm