Since I last wrote, many things have occurred. I had begun writing my play when a terrible storm started, a long series of them. The captain disappeared deeper inside the island.
The morning after the first storm we found two dead bodies on the beach, sailors from the ship. Their distorted faces seemed permanently fixed in terrible grins of death. Violet was upset, she didn't cry but started playing the muselaar. We left her with it.
I hope the animals and birds will deal with the corpses soon, I can’t bear to touch them. I haven’t been out to see them since that first time.
James and I ventured deeper into the island to find raw materials for our house, and food to eat. Roots would not sustain us long, we are still saving our rations from the ship, and our wine is now gone.
We found a spring that provided us with drinkable water.
Violet played the muselaar for seven days on the beach. She slept underneath it and miss James and I fed her, while she played on and on wordlessly, even during the storms when tall waves washed the beach, she was like a granite sculpture against them.
After a week we moved the muselaar, and Violet, inside the bungalow. She doesn't say anything.
James doesn’t seem too concerned about anything, she has an aura of secretive assurance telling me that whatever happens, she will pull through. I tried to talk with her about the paper I found in the captain’s cabin, that was when James stopped talking to me entirely.
We’d both had idealistic notions about the purpose of piracy in the South Serpent Sea, but I didn’t become one in order to break free from the laws of the Empire, and I don’t know her motives exactly. But she was as heartbroken as I am now when we found that most of the pirates ships sailing our seas belong to rich lords. The captains receive commissions and lords can wage war between themselves without interference from the emperor.
I feel sorry for her, and the dead sailors. It’s been all for nothing, for them.
