"So, let us assume that the measuring of you and your proposal are done and that we are partners in a venture to acquire and reform Nassau." "Jack went to hunt Captain Flint." "Chances are good you've seen the last of him." "When Anne was recruiting spies in Port Royal, she met a man with an estate in the wilderness." "This man found it profitable to offer his services to wealthy families with a need to make troublesome family members disappear." "What families?" "Flint doesn't need to get far." "All he needs is to bury that gold somewhere unknown and he's won." "Accept the treaty and John Silver lives." "This war, it will not be bargained away to avoid a fight." "Even if you could kill me, how are you going to explain it to her?" "She believes in this." "If it costs a war to save her, you'll have lost her anyway." "Even you cannot construct a story to make her forgive you that." "Is this war more important than her life?" "Answer the question." "I wanna hear you say it." "What's to be done with the unwanted ones?" "The men who do not fit, whom civilization must prune from the vine to protect its sense of itself." "Every culture since earliest antiquity has survived this way, defining itself by the things it excludes." "So long as there is progress, there will always be human debris in its wake, on the outside looking in." "And sooner or later, one must answer the question..." "What becomes of them?" "In London, the solution is to call them criminals." "To throw them in a deep, dark hole and hope it never runs over." "I would argue that justice demands we do better than that." "That a civilization is judged not by who it excludes, but by how it treats the excluded." "That is not what I asked." "Many of the men incarcerated here have enemies, sir." "Such is the nature of being anathema to the empire." "And the only way I can protect them is to ensure that once they walk through these gates, their anonymity is protected, too." "Here, they must cease to be to be able to find peace." "I already said I'm not an enemy of his, nor is the man who sent me." "Yes, and I believe you when you say it." "But still..." "Do you know where I come from, sir?" "No, I don't." "I come from Nassau." "My name is Tom Morgan." "I come on behalf of Long John Silver." "Have you heard of him?" "Yes, of course." "Good." "Then I ask you again and for the last time, is the prisoner we are looking for here or isn't he?" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Ready, set." "Come up." "Quick!" "Get to cover!" "Get on the beach!" "When we make our landing, pass word to the men I need Flint alive." "If he departed with the money, he's the one who knows its whereabouts." "What of the others, my lord?" "There are no others." "No quarter, Mr. Utley." " Come on, run!" " Go!" "Get to cover!" "Give me your hand!" "Give me your hand!" " Ready to starboard!" " Starboard!" "Bring her about!" "Back to the ship!" "Jesus." "Yeah." "Make ready to take on survivors." "An hour ago, we were upon a fool's errand to capture Captain Flint and find an island that does not exist..." "You're welcome for that, by the way..." "Evade a ship full of redcoats, fight through a ship full of pirates, and somehow get past Long John Silver." "I don't know if you've noticed, but this is considerably better luck than you and I have experienced lately." "And yet somehow, I get the sense you and I are possessed of different instincts as to how to react to this." "How would you like to react to it?" "Throw him in a sack, sail away from here, let the Guthrie woman and her lawyers deal with the governor, and be alive come tomorrow." "He's headed for open water." "I noticed." "He has everything he came for?" "We were at the camp." "They told me you brought the cache to ransom for her life." "It's in the ground." "Ashore." "I'm the only one who knows where." "It comes out when Madi is safe, when the governor is dead or captured, and when we are ready to return together to the camp to resume the war to which we all committed ourselves." "Then and only then." "Can you live with that?" "She runs or she wants room to fight this out?" "You've met the man." "What do you think?" "He'll never stop until we're all hanging in his square." "Unless we defeat him today, together." "Get us underway and ready the guns." " Make ready the guns!" " We should speak." "The three of us." "Woodes Rogers isn't going to receive a letter from anyone's lawyer informing him I've beaten him." "I'm going to tell him so." "Jack..." "I want my money back." "If it takes rescuing the girl to get Flint to dig it up, then, Augustus, you and I are in the rescuing business today." "Get us after that ship." "Well, here I am." "What exactly is on the agenda?" "Where did you go?" "You were to follow us to the camp." "Your ship disappears and then you arrive here as though none of it happened." "Before we discuss anything else, I wanna know where you went." "I went to Philadelphia to see Joseph Guthrie." "You went to see Joseph Guthrie?" "I presented him with a plan to join our cause." "Every rebellion can use a wealthy convert or two early in the game." "What did he say?" "He politely passed." "Anne remained to be tended to in the city." "Max with her." "Now that we're all caught up, might we agree there are more pressing issues at hand?" "Namely, what we intend to do from here." "I intend to assume command here, pursue the governor, and capture his ship whole." "Is that so?" "We'll need to take her without the use of our great guns." "It will be technically beyond your capacities." "Without the guns?" "Why would you..." "It would put Madi's life at greater risk." "Securing her alive is all that matters today." "Return her, him, and the cache back to the camp intact along with the governor defeated and in chains." "And news of it will travel far and wide." "The war will be fully, undeniably, and maybe unstoppably underway." "Victory here today changes everything for everyone forever." "And it is most likely to happen under my direction." "Do you have anything to say about this?" "He's right." "And you know it." "You people." "We need to watch him." "The governor is the danger ahead of us." "But if he has a chance to put knives in our backs for the money, he'll do it." "You don't think I know that?" "What the hell is this?" "You cannot honestly believe that placating me is going to repair what's been broken here." "I absolutely think that it is repairable." "And no one is placating anyone." "Then what exactly is it you think you're doing here?" "I know what it's like... to have lost her." "And then seeing a way to have her back." "I understand what that must've felt like." "You asked me once what I would do, what I would sacrifice if it meant having Thomas back again." "I honestly don't know what I would've done." "I honestly couldn't say I wouldn't have done what you did." "I told you I'd see you through this." "Put things back together again so that we can move forward." "I meant it." "Please know..." "I was so conflicted about all this when it began." "I knew it would be difficult to separate them..." "Flint and Silver." "They'd grown so close, it was hard to know where one ended and the other began." "I worried that the act of separating them might destroy them both... when what I wanted was to remove Flint." "And I saw no other way." "But the things I've done in the pursuit of it... were intended to honor my oath." "But somehow, here I am now." "What I've just done... there's no coming back from that." "There is no difference between Flint and Silver now." "Or between Flint and any of them." "They are all enemies of mine." "Now, I believe they are outmatched today." "I believe at the end of the day, there will be no more of them left alive." "But if somehow... they are able to prevail today against us... fight their way through the British soldiers above, through the governor, through me..." "I will ensure that at the end of it all, when they walk through this final door, there is defeat awaiting them." "You think killing me means defeat for them?" "You will have given them a martyr to unite them." "Still no sign of her." "Thought he'd try to block us in ahead." "He's out there." "Maybe there, ready to loose his guns once we clear the mouth." "We should veer to starboard as far as is possible and be prepared to take fire when we do." "The captain suggests Eurydice is likely lying in wait beyond that headland." "We should take measures to prepare for it." "In the meantime, why don't you tell me what the fuck you're actually doing here?" "You presented a plan to the Guthrie family to bolster piracy in Nassau... with Max at your side?" "I sincerely doubt you'd go along with any plan that promised support for the account." "And from there, my questions only multiply." "Which is probably not a state you want to leave me in." "A state of multiplying questions." "I suppose that makes two of us." "Because there is something in the air between you and your friend up there." "It's just tension between steadfast partners." "Or it's something else." "We could suffer under the weight of our respective questions." "Or would you like to start trading answers?" "Helm!" "Hard to starboard!" "Put the wind on the port quarter." "Mr. Featherstone, set the foresail," "Trim as we alter course." "What's happening?" "We're gonna get hit." "My lord, shall we withdraw in favor of a wider approach?" "No." "I beg your pardon, sir, but there are easier ways to attempt to board her." "I do not wish to board her." "I wish to cause confusion and terror amongst her men." "I wish to shatter their spirits." "I wish to break them." "And then I wish to board her." "Keep her main mast aligned over the bow." "Bow guns we fire at will." " Fire!" " Take cover!" "Helm, prepare to come hard over to starboard." "Helm, prepare to come hard over to starboard!" "Now!" "Brace for impact!" "Brace for impact!" "Target the rail!" "Target the rail!" "Come on, men, fire at will!" "Take cover!" "Stay down!" "Ready the rest of the men." "And lead them over the stern." "Board them at the helm." "The helm?" "Just get them ready." "When you're on board, get below decks and find Madi." "Where are you going?" "To turn us around." "Musket!" "You." "Join the muskets on the foremast." "Musket." "Reload!" "Target on the quarterdeck!" " We broken away!" " Yeah!" "Hooks at the ready!" "You load that now." "Come on, men!" "Come on!" "What are you doing down here?" "Are you a fucking coward?" "P-please, sir." "I'm just the cook." "You had a prisoner here." "Is she still alive?" "Don't worry." "No one's going under the ship today." "Though, the thought had crossed my mind." "No, I'm quite certain I can do better than that." "I'll need cutting away completely." "Time is of the essence for what happens next." "Take the better part of a day, maybe two, to secure the chest." "Captain Rackham will ferry you back to the camp aboard the Lion to relay the news." "I'd like to stay, actually." "To help see the chest secured properly." "Mr. Featherstone can see her back aboard the Eurydice." "Provided the majority of men crewing the Lion are ours, not yours, and you remain on the ship while we retrieve the chest." "Yes?" "Let's go." "We'll rest up here." "I can keep going." "We'll rest here." "You really are getting nimble on that thing." "Pain is an exceptional tutor." "We won't be going any farther." "Won't we?" "I won't take another step towards that chest until I know for certain that I'm wrong about what I suspect is happening here." "I don't know what you're talking about." "Please don't do that." "And what is it you think is happening?" "I show you the chest, the chest is brought out of the ground... and then..." "I don't know what then exactly, but I doubt it involves returning it to the camp as planned." "Am I wrong?" "Tell me I am and we'll continue on our way." "And then what?" "This war... your war... her war..." "Julius will be no obstacle to it." "As long as you and she stand for it... as long as the treasure powers it... nothing can stop it from beginning now." "Nothing but you." "Why would you want to do that?" "This is what it would be." "Time after time after time." "Endlessly." "The measuring of lives and loves and spirits so that they may be wagered in a grand game." "How much ransom can be afforded for the cause?" "How many casualties can be tolerated for the cause?" "How much loss?" "That isn't a war." "That is a fucking nightmare." "And I cannot take a single step towards leaving this forest... till I know it's over." "This is how they survive." "You must know this." "You're too smart not to know this." "They paint the world full of shadows... and then tell their children to stay close to the light." "Their light." "Their reasons, their judgments." "Because in the darkness, there be dragons." "But it isn't true." "We can prove that it isn't true." "In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it." "And who has been so close to doing it as we are right now?" "This isn't about England... or her king... or our freedom, or any of it." "When I thought Madi was gone," "I saw... for the first time," "I saw the world through your eyes." "A world in which there is nothing left to lose." "I felt the need to make sense of the loss." "To impart meaning to it... whatever the cost." "To exalt her memory with battles and victories." "But beneath all of that," "I recognized the other thing... hiding in the spaces." "The one whose shape you first showed me." "And when asked, it was honest about the role it wanted to play." "It was rage." "And it just wanted to see the world burn." "I see a life for myself with her." "And I will not live it wondering if tomorrow is the day your nightmare finally takes her away for good." "So, what next, then?" "What decisions have you made about what our tomorrows will be?" "I made arrangements... to ensure that when we leave here, it is with compromises in place that will diffuse any threat of widespread rebellion." "All this will be for nothing." "We will have been for nothing." "Defined by their histories... distorted to fit into their narrative... until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children." "I don't care." "You will." "Someday, you will." "Someday." "Even if you can persuade her to keep you... she'll no longer be enough." "And the comfort will grow stale." "And casting about in the dark for some proof that you mattered and finding none, you'll know... that you gave it away in this moment... on this island." "Left it in the ground... along with that chest." "This is not what I wanted." "But I will stand here with you... for an hour, a day, a year... while you find a way to accept this outcome... so that we might leave here together." "For if not... then I must end this another way." "Captain Flint is gone." "Gone?" "Gone where?" "Retired from the account." "He was persuaded that his efforts were no longer viable, that those closest to him had grown tired of them." "And of him." "He then chose to walk away from it all." "He's no longer a concern of ours." "This sounds somewhat less definitive an end than I had expected." "But far more effective." "For if our intent was to extinguish his war, feeding it a martyr seems like an odd way of going about it." "Flint had allies who would've only been emboldened by his death." "Some of whom, had they the desire, could and would have fought his war without him to honor his memory." "Instead of a martyr, we have fed it a story, a tragedy that diffused their fighting spirit and enabled the more moderate voices among them to press for a more moderate solution." "What is that?" "A treaty." "Its terms conceived by Governor Rogers." "Its terms agreed to by the Maroon leaders... over a few scattered objections." "I can tell you whatever it is you want to hear about Flint's whereabouts." "He's dead." "He's retired." "The truth of it matters not at all." "The truth is there will be no Maroon War in the West Indies because the Maroons themselves have agreed to it." "All that remains, then, is for you to purchase Woodes Rogers' debts." "Force his default and incarceration and see him replaced with a new governor who will honor these terms." "You asked for proof of Captain Flint's removal." "I cannot give it to you." "But this is a meaningful assurance that the pirate threat is no more." "You asked for a governor I would call husband." "I cannot give that to you either." "But I have given you a candidate whose trustworthiness I can guarantee." "What candidate?" "You want me to administrate Nassau?" "These are the terms under which it will happen." "They are the best I can offer." "Are they acceptable to you?" "Just one more thing." "Small favor to ask before the ink dries on whatever it is you've agreed upon." "Once the demand for repayment has been made and his default recorded and the warrant sworn, there will be a trial." "And at that trial, the court will solicit affidavits from his creditors." "Affidavits that will shape the official narrative of the default." "The failure." "The humiliation." "For a man like Woodes Rogers, how difficult that will be... to sit helpless while history records such an unflattering end to what was once such a promising story." "I suppose what I'm asking is once the time comes to submit that affidavit," "I'd so love to help you write it." "Leave." "No." "The treaty is being ratified." "The chiefs from the other camps will be leaving shortly along with the pirate crews." "The war is over." "Yes." "I don't know why you did this." "But I know you did this." "Sent me away from that island so I would not see it." "Emboldened Julius so I could not oppose it." "Orchestrated it." "Don't you dare insult me by denying this." "Flint's war could only have one result." "A life of loss... and misery... and fruitless sacrifice." "I had to stop it." "You had to stop it?" "And I'm not sorry for it." "I lost you once." "I would not do it again." "Captain Flint didn't retire from this." "It was important that they heard that, but they didn't know him like you do." "I won't insult you by repeating it." "He trusted you." "He was your friend." "And you killed him." "No." "I did not kill Captain Flint." "I unmade him." "The man you know could never let go of his war." "For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself." "So I had to return him to an earlier state of being." "One in which he could function without the war." "Without the violence." "Without us." "Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy." "You know this." "I told you this." "I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it." "There is a place near Savannah... where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret." "An internment far more humane, but no less secure." "Men who enter these gates never leave them." "To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be." "I don't believe you." "I don't believe this." "Flint would have fought to the death before allowing it." "He resisted... at first." "But then I told him what else I had heard about this place." "I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it." "I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it." "So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner." "He returned with news." "Thomas Hamilton was there." "He disbelieved me." "He continued to resist." "And corralling him took great effort." "But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish." "I couldn't say why." "I wasn't expecting it." "Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight." "Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer... he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss." "The man whose mind I had come to know so well... whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own." "It was a strange experience to see something from it... so unexpected." "I choose to believe it... because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all... but one who existed beforehand... waking from a long... and terrible nightmare." "Reorienting to the daylight... and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes... letting the memory of the nightmare fade away." "You may think what you want of me." "I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it." "But I'm not the villain you fear I am." "I'm not him." "You sent a man... to investigate this place?" "Yes." "And he did this and returned to Nassau... all before the Spanish arrived?" "Yes." "You didn't just betray my trust." "You have planned to betray it... all that time." "Get out." "The pirates will be leaving here." "The chiefs." "But I will stay." "And I will wait." "A day... a month... a year... forever... in the hopes that you will understand why I did what I did." "Get out." "A story is true." "A story is untrue." "As time extends, it matters less and less." "The stories we want to believe... those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval and transition and progress." "Those are the stories that shape history." "And then what does it matter if it was true when it was born?" "It's found truth in its maturity, which if a virtue in man ought to be no less so for the things men create." "As this relates to your question specifically..." "I'm sorry." "Remind me, what was your question, specifically?" "Long John Silver." "Long John Silver, yes." "Please forgive me." "I will go on from time to time, but generally in the service of thoroughness and always with the best of intentions." "I appreciate your indulging me." "No need." "I was drawn in." "Long John Silver's story... is a hard one to know." "The men who believed most deeply in it... were ultimately destroyed by it." "And those who stood to benefit most from it... were the most eager to leave it all behind." "Until all that remains of any of it are stories bearing only a passing resemblance to the world the rest of us lived in." "A world we survived." "A world that is no more." "I hear it ain't altogether over." "I hear there are still men on the account here under the blessing of the governor." "I hear he allows for it as long as it helps drive up prices for the merchants here." "I hear he allows you to continue the practice." "That's why I came." "Two things you must know if you're gonna be spending time here with us." "One, the governor." "Lovely man." "Dear friend." "Might be the hero given credit for the Maroon truce, bringing peace to the West Indies, and finally, at long last, bringing law and order to Nassau." "But let's just say he had some help." "And the true power here is a little more complicated than that." "And two, there is, by law... and strict enforcement of the administration, no piracy in Nassau." "Not anymore." "Not ever." "It's critical for commerce." "This is known to the world." "Meet me at the jetty." "Are we ready to depart?" "Don't remember talking about bringing on new people." "We didn't." "I know we didn't." "He's come from the continent." "Served with the regulars in the war." "Mark." "Mark Read." "You could be more welcoming to new people." "Would it hurt?" "Planning on bringing them all on?" "All of who?" "All the fools that have heard you may know where to find Captain Flint's treasure." "The ones thinking you may go looking for it again." "Thinking you'll make them rich." "The ones I worry might just convince you to do it." "I've chased Captain Flint's treasure." "I've had Captain Flint's treasure." "It never ends well." "Rather than rush off after it again... maybe let's just do this a while longer." "Maybe..." "Is that it?" "Still don't understand what was wrong with the one we had." "Because what's it all for if it goes unremembered?" "It's the art that leaves the mark." "But to leave it, it must transcend." "It must speak for itself." "It must be true." "It's fine." "It's fine." "Get us underway."