Jack collapsed the spyglass and dropped it into his coat pocket. "Commodore Norrington might not be especially popular with pirates and women named Elizabeth, but I hear the King's navy sets a great deal...within earshot now, watching the shadow on the horizon with expressions that ranged from the mildly worried to the furious. Jack grinned and patted the pistol at his belt. "Then we'll bother back.

"One of these days, Jack, she'll kill you just to shut you up." "What makes you think I'll shut up when I'm dead?" Jack asked.

Sparrow nodded judiciously. "Do you need help carrying him?" "No." Norrington held out his hand. "But I do need his valuables back." Sparrow blinked. "I don't know what you're talking about." Norrington... more waiting and more sighing before Sparrow handed over a gold pocket-watch, an emerald seal ring and a jingling purse. "You," he said petulantly, "are less fun than anyone I've ever met.

Sparrow began to say something, but the words were instantly drowned out by ebullient cries of "Sparrow? Is that Captain Jack Sparrow? How exciting!" With a heavy sense of foreboding -- no, not foreboding...starting to enjoy the adulation. He gave Norrington a sly sideways glance. "I bet they don't write broadsheets about you back in England, Commodore." "I should hope not," Norrington said stolidly

"What do you think Sparrow's up to, Sir? I mean, I know he's mad, but surely even he wouldn't insist on sharing a small island with the Royal Navy without good reason." "He claims," Norrington said dryly, "that he wants to have a party."

"So?" Jack fluttered his hands again, partly because it was obviously annoying Norrington, and partly because he just liked the way the light glinted off his rings when he did it. "The place is big enough for the two of us." Norrington looked as if he didn't think the Atlantic was big enough for the two of them.

He had damned fine eyelashes, Jack noted. And the eyes that went with them weren't half bad either. A bit of kohl would do wonders for them. Really, now that he thought of it, taking a face like that and sticking it between a white wig and a starched cravat day in and day out was a crime worse than piracy.

"Why," Norrington demanded of no one in particular, "do idiots always have to be so bloody clever?"

Later, in the hold of a merchantman bound for a neutral port, Jack found every opportunity to cuddle up to his new discovery. The fact that Norrington let him, and the memory of that distinct lack of conviction...we're back in English waters, are you." Norrington didn't reply, having understood that it was not a question. He simply thinned his lips and looked away. After a while, he whispered, "God help me.

He had spent some long nights in prison before, but this took the prize. The rats and the mouldy straw weren't a problem. The threat of death on the morrow wasn't a problem. Having his darkest suspicions... I was going to do this whether I wanted to or not." "One always has a choice." "No." James fixed him with an importuning look, as though it were vitally important Jack understand. "No, one does not.