THE SAILS OF THE HIGH SEAS

- Chapter 6 -

In a perfect world, people of all walks of life, lineage, and designation would be considered equal to each other. Competition would give way to compassion. And lending a helping hand would matter more than using it to push someone down. That manner of thinking may have seemed utopian to most, but Sandokan grew up with such values taught to him by his beloved mother. His older sister, Aruna, preferred to spend more time with their father, Kaigadan, the last of a dynasty of rulers of Borneo. As such, she grew up with a more practical view of the world and the harshness of the reality around them.

Although they both mourned the loss of their parents, they dealt with it in their own ways. They also vowed to continue to lend a helping hand to their people instead of leaving them behind. As a man of certain lineage, and opportunities that were simply out of reach to most individuals that Sandokan had come to share his current livelihood as a pirate, he was much more aware of the vast disparity between his people and the British. Likewise, thanks to the way he was raised, and because of his unsurpassed ability to adjust to the situations he often found himself in, Sandokan wasted no time on wailing about them but rather... ran with them. Even if it meant morphing into a character he had no problem inventing.

Since Marianna was the only person aware of his true identity, and Sandokan felt in his heart that he could trust her, not only with his secret but with his life as well, he began to design the identity of the man he would sooner or later have to become. After all, how long could a man pretend to lie unconscious or pretend to be sleeping before his own stomach revolted against him? All day, actually, through the fault of his own stubbornness. The only incentive he looked forward to through the entire day he laid and waited for Marianna was the fact that she was to return to his side by nightfall. Except, she didn't.

Resigned, bored, and quite frankly irritated, Sandokan accredited the sleep he experienced through the whole night to the fact that his body was not only exhausted from feeling hungry, it was drained from the pain that did not flee his body as fast as he had hoped. When the morning came, and the first rays of the sun at dawn played master with his eyes, Sandokan awoke, and listened to ensure that he was alone in his room. Realizing that he was, he opened his eyes. Even though the dawn had come, Marianna had not. And that feeling of not being so relevant to her that she would disregard her own word to him, and did not come to visit the entire day, pulled at his heartstrings. If he had to wait another whole day just to see her, he would go mad - if not from longing for her, then from hunger.

Close to dozing off again, around the late morning hours, he heard someone approach his room. "The doctor, again," Sandokan thought to himself. He would be poked at and turned from side to side, as if being hungry beyond levels of cruel madness wasn't enough of a punishment. But then, suddenly, his heart leaped within his chest. He was convinced he truly had gone mad. He swore to himself in a silent inner oath. Hungry or not, irritated or not, with sadness battering his heart, he opened his eyes. And... looked right at Marianna.

"Good morning", Marianna looked at him with something close to resignation in her turquoise eyes.

"I would reason with You on that," Sandokan replied. His anger at her evaporated the moment he saw how sad her eyes looked.

"Always so intuitive?" Marianna tipped her head to the side.

"Usually more, but I have been slacking on that in the last week or so," he replied, though there was no humor in his eyes. The moment he finished talking, they heard a soft knock on the door. Hearing it, Sandokan closed his eyes immediately.

"Come in," Marianna called out to whomever stood on the other side of the door.

The door creaked open, and a servant walked in carrying a tray of food, the scent of which all but caused Sandokan to leap out of bed, disregarding his injuries.