The merchant shrunk back from the mean-eyed man in front of him, thinking that he should have taken his sister's advice and stayed home.

"I don't know," he insisted.

"Lies!" The pirate, the infamous Captain Low, slammed a fist on the table. "Do you know what it is to be keelhauled?"

He nodded slowly.

"You think, maybe you'll drown, eh? Well you won't. You'll be ripped to shreds by barnacles, and if you live and don't answer me then, by god I'll do it again!" Low grinned sadistically. "So you'd best tell me now, you sniveling puppy – where's the gold?"