Sea Maiden 18 Rebecca and Sea Master Amorus by Robert Kline

Sea Maiden 18 Rebecca and Sea Master Amorous

Art and story by Robert Kline

Days of fair weather and fine sailing turned to weeks as the HMS Baci sailed up the western coast of South America. All was forgiven by Captain Constance Daphne as her once mutinous crew vied to please her; no order lingered unattended, no wish denied. Every man Jack jumped to the rigging with alacrity while even the cranky cook hummed a sea chantey as he chased weevils form the flour and smothered slanderous beef in great vats of soup.

It turned out that Pretty Willey was not alone in borrowing from the captain’s cabin while she was ashore. Had she moved to wear more than her deposed husband’s naval blouse and pants (he was a small man) she would have found those chests with her intimate apparel empty, for during the crew’s short lived mutiny and flight they had maintained their unflagging attachment to her by fashioning scarves, head cloths, and wrist bands from every stitch of fine silk she’d owed. Had these absconded and obvious items not been so coveted she would have called her sailors to task, but their motives were transparent, their behavior artless.

And while the crew was numerous, the good captain had once been a woman of large parts, indeed, a very large women of very large parts before she retired her incompetent husband and gave chase to the feared Naughty Nat with a partially provisioned ship, thus leaving as many pounds as sea miles in her wake until the once bounteous woman was little more than legs, arms, a beautiful face and a magnificent bosom.

Only Sir Edmund Roberts, the gentleman naturalist and Sea Maiden questor and Gnarly Dan, the irritating old salt, went without mementos, they having been marooned with their captain.

Meanwhile, rumors blew like spindrift relative to the current whereabouts of the pirate Naughty Nat, the most substantive being that he now pursued the HMS Baci, bent on reclaiming his treasure, flogging the crew to submission, hanging the ship’s cat, ravaging Captain Constance Daphne and finally dismantling the Baci plank by plank leaving nothing m but a sour memory of the enterprise that had tweaked his nose and sullied his reputation.

Totally nonplussed was Sir Edmund Robert, whose forays in Halley’s patented diving apparatus continued, his latest Sea Maiden sighting near the coast of Peru.

His journal, later damaged during overzealous scrutiny by his relatives seeking evidence of his mental incompetence, speaks of the encounter:

Non legible writing…

Sea Maiden 18 “Rebecca”

Sea Master 5 “Amorous”