My Voyages with Captain Pon Tune

Only when I had finished my ale, was I aware of the man sitting alone in the shadows. Half a dozen stools down the bar sat a tall, broad shouldered man. He wore a large, black tricorn hat with its wide rim bent up on three sides; the shadow of this hat concealed its wearer's eyes. He wore a heavy, darkened high-seas coat which was buttoned in brass, knee length and weathered by the fog of the sea. His ears were pierced with rings of gold which glistened among the dishevelment of black stringy mane that issued forth from beneath his leather tricorn. The greater part of this mane, he kept in long, thick braids that fell far past his vast shoulders. He had a beard that was kept short save for at his chin where it fell in five thin braids down to the collar of his smudged and darkened burgundy shirt. His many ringed fingers were lengthy, scarred and callused. A sword hung from his baldric and a pistol was thrust through his long, torn, dark azure sash. On his right foot he wore a knee high leather boot, but I was started when I noticed the wooden peg protruding from the drapes of his coat where his left leg should have been. The man turned his visage in my direction and he took a swig from his tankard of rum. From below the point of his hat, I was aware of his deviant eyes upon me. I instantly and instinctively diverted my vision elsewhere.

I took the first opportunity I had to slip a whisper to the barkeep.

“Who is that man at the end of the bar?”

The man’s eyes grew wide. And he whispered back with utmost caution. “That be none other than Captain Pon Tune. He’s the most notorious pirate to sail the seas since that Blackbeard and Black Bart Roberts. He’s not one to be crossed. Watch yerself, young sailor.”

This pirate I had heard tale of before.