“Hurrah!” cried the Captain as he bounded up. “Man the Seaslug! Get ready to set sail!”
The pirates hauled the newly-mended ship into the water. They jumped on board and sailed out of the bay.
Leaning over the side, they strained their eyes to see the ship. Sure enough, there were faint flickering lights ahead in the outline of a boat.
“Excellent! It’s a big one!” said the Captain greedily.
Then they heard high voices crying out for help.
“Oh, woe is me! Oh fiddle de dee! Our silly old ship is sinking and my lovely lace gown is getting all damp!”
“Oh, piff and puddle! My gold necklace is about to fall into the nasty horrid water!”
“Oh boo and hoo! Have pity on a rich lady! Who will save my beautiful strings of pearls from drowning?”
“Rich ladies!” gasped Captain Snatchit. Like Neptune, he had never met many ladies of any sort.
“Cor blimey, guvnor, we’re all done for!”
“And a cabin boy!” grinned the Captain, totally convinced. “They’ll be easy pickings. There’s treasure a-plenty for us on that ship! We’ll go on board and rob the lot!”
The Seaslug sailed towards the lights.
“Don’t worry, ladies!” yelled the Captain. “We’re coming to rescue you!”
But then, to his alarm, they screamed back shrilly.
“Who’s there? I bet you’re horrid pirates! Don’t come any closer or we’ll fire!”
“Curses!” snarled Captain Snatchit. He began to chew his beard. “They’re armed. But I want that jewellery. We’ll smash their blistering boat to bits – and then pick up the pieces! Fire the cannons!”
Four
The parrots were nearly exhausted.
They were fluttering above the waves in the outline of a ship, carefully carrying glow-worms in their claws.
They were hoarse from screeching like rich ladies, just as Neptune had taught them.
And now they were worried that they were about to get blown up.
“They’re going to fire the cannons at us!” wheezed Neptune.
“Good,” said Liana. “That’s exactly what I want to happen. The other parrots should have done their job by now.”
“I hope so!” muttered Neptune, as he waited anxiously...
The pirates pounded across the deck to the cannons, which were loaded and ready to fire.
But in the darkness, nobody had noticed dozens of parrots landing on the Seaslug with leaves in their beaks.
No-one had seen the parrots stuffing the leaves down the barrels of the brand new cannons.
They had not glimpsed the parrots as they flew away again.
“Fire the scabby cannons!” yelled the Captain.
The pirates lit the fuses. They hissed and sparkled, and then...
KABOOM!! KABOOM!!
There were two enormous explosions. All the pirates fell over.
With their barrels blocked, the cannons had backfired. They blasted a huge, ragged hole in each side of the Seaslug.
With a groan and a glug, the ship rolled slowly over and began to sink for a second time.
And ten minutes later, it was back down at the bottom of the sea.
Neptune flew over to inspect the wreckage.
“Your plan worked, Liana!” he squawked.
The pirates were swimming around in the dark. Captain Snatchit was clinging to a piece of driftwood and cursing horribly.
“Can’t you even fire a pair of cannons properly, you goofy gumboils?”
“It’s all right, Cap’n,” spluttered a pirate. “Here comes a scabby ship! We’re rescued!”
“What?” squawked Neptune. “Rescued? Oh, bother!”
Another ship was ploughing through the waves towards them. And this one was a real ship, lit up by torches, not a pretend one made of glow-worms.
“That’s the salvage ship!” exclaimed Liana. “What’s it doing here?”
“It must have heard the cannons,” Neptune said.
The salvage captain shouted, “Get those men on board!”
Neptune groaned. “Fry my feathers and griddle my gizzard! Now they’ll pull the Seaslug back up to the top again. All our effort was for nothing.”
Soon Captain Snatchit and his crew had been hauled out of the water. They stood dripping on the deck.
“Good timing!” grinned Captain Snatchit. “My boat’s down at the bottom of the scabby sea. You can bring it up again!”
But the salvage captain glared at him. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he growled. “You know that gold you paid us?”
“What about it?” said Captain Snatchit, looking shifty.
“Fake – every last coin!” roared the salvage captain. “We’re not rescuing your ship this time. We’re clapping you in irons and taking you to jail!”
And they began to tie the pirates up in chains.
As the ship sailed away, the parrots could hear Captain Snatchit shrieking.
“Oh, woe! Boo hoo! Have pity on a poor old pirate!”
Slowly his shouts faded into the distance.
“Now that’s what I call a good night’s work,” said Liana, as the weary parrots flew home to their island.
They carried the glow-worms back to the hole in the dead tree. Then they settled down to rest, just as the sun was thinking about rising. It laid a shimmering golden path across the peaceful sea.
And far beneath the waves, a happy octopus was moving in to a comfortable new home in the wreck of the Seaslug.
The End
And that really is the end of Captain Snatchit... for now, at least.
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