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left me to watch while ye dragged her outside. None of us ever saw her again. I didn't even get to say good-bye."
    "Bell," Jack murmured. He wasn't trying to get her attention; he only wanted her to remember that her friends were there beside her."After she was gone, I had to do me mum's job at the Faithful Bride, with drunken sailors cursing at me all day and all night. Me dad drank too much before she died, and after--there was n othing left of him. When the tavern closed each night, I had to clean up after all the drunken fools and then clean up after Dad, too. He was a good father--once--he was--" Tears were welling in Arabella's eyes again."Ye as much as killed him, too, when ye took me mum. All that time, I've been alone. And all that time, I've known who took my family away. But I look at ye now and--killing ye won't bring Mum back." She slumped, as if defeated."Bell," Jack said, "put the Sword away. We're not like him. We're not killers. We're not pirates."Arabella stumbled backward, just two steps. Her hand gripped the sword so tightly that her knuckles grew white. The great struggle within her heart showed on her face. Slowly, so slowly that it took Jack a moment to re alize she was moving, Arabella let her arm fall to her side. Then she breathed out a hard sigh of disappointment and release. It was over.Louis sat up. "I told you that you wouldn't " he said.His sneering words were cut off by Fitzwilliam, who kicked Louis squarely in the jaw.Arabella's cheeks were bright with tears, but she didn't give in to crying. Her eyes were feverish and somewhat wild. If she were the sort of girl to burst into sobs and Jack were the sort of boy to comfort a crying girl--well, Jack thought, they might have done something like that. But she kept her glare fixed on Louis as the others bound him up tightly with rope."He will go to jail," Fitzwilliam said reassuringly. "Undoubtedly he will be hanged, in accordance with the law. The Cutlass will be cut up into kindling and sent to Pirate Cove, and no one will again suffer because of Louis's cruelty. Not ever again, Arabella. All because of you.""Until they hang ye," Arabella said to Louis, "I will hate ye, every day. And after the hanging, maybe I'll have some peace." She laughed, a strange, broken sound. "My great--my only--wish is that my mother may find you, wherever she may be--in this world, the next, or anywhere in between. May justice be done. And let it be done by her hand."The Sword of Cortes began to glow again, and everyone in the mill knew what was happening. The air rippled as it had before. And Louis writhed and howled . . . then vanished.Jean said something in French that Jack suspected wa sn't very polite. Tumen looked around wildly. Fitzwilliam stamped his foot upon the place where Louis had been, but his buckled shoe hit only the floor.Jack realized it was all over. Left-Foot Louis h ad disappeared--for good.
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    For a few long moments, the crew of the Barnacle stared at Arabella in horrified fascination."Impossible," Arabella whispered, gazing at the still-glowing sword in her hand."Amazing, isn't it, how many impossible things are nonetheless true?" Jack folded his arms and studied the empty spot where LeftFoot Louis used to be." The Sword of Cortes did this," Fitzwilliam said, leaving Jack to wonder why Fitz always needed to state the obvious. "You wished that justice might be done by your mother's hand, and then he disappeared."Tumen kept staring suspiciously around the mill. "Her mother is dead. So where did the pirate go?""The afterlife," Jean said, as though it were obvious. "He took the ropes with him, so he's still tied up, wherever he is. I hope he stays tied up forever, Arabella.""I killed him." Arabella tossed the Sword of Cortes to the mill floor, where it clattered against the wood, and then held her hands up to her quivering mouth. Fitzwilliam took one step toward Arabella and made an attempt to touch her shoulder, but she jerked