Traitor's Pay

Hot air hung like the dead man suspended from the driftwood gallows at the lip of the beach. A wind two days out of hell stirred up the heat and tugged at the strand of kelp that trailed from his foot like bunting, and the bleached, barnacled gibbet creaked languorously. The dead man turned on his rope to gaze on the sea once more with yearning, lifeless eyes.

A squat black ship slouched towards the horizon, carrying away with it his erstwhile companions. Burnt angrily onto his salty, blistered palm was the imprint of the coin that he had accepted from the Dutch, heated in a brazier and pressed into his hand by a captain who smiled at him like a crocodile as they trudged up the pink sand of the beach, the noose scratching at the sunburn on his neck with every step. A reminder to follow him to the afterlife, a cruel taunt as he stood on the banks of the Styx unable to pay Charon his levy. His traitor's pay.