After many long hours, as Billy waited for their return it began to dawn on him that perhaps they weren't coming back at all. Though he was quite sure they had been washed overboard in that huge wave, he prepared a hot meal for them if they returned. It also occurred to him, as best he could calculate if he kept the lines attached to the Warrior Princess, at the pace they were making, he'd be in Europe in a day or two. . .

    Indeed, the two brave men never did return from the Warrior Princess. Perhaps they were lost to the waves the rolled over the deck of that great ship. Perhaps they made it as far as the bridge where they were apprehended by armed security forces . . .

    But one day many years in the future little Billy, now Sir William able to speak perfect Latin (he was knighted for saving the Prince of Cuthington from certain death at a cricket game when his son, now William's best friend, whacked a stray ball straight at his father's head: were it not for Sir William's quick reflexes and cool demeanor, the prince would have died instantly) was watching the evening news in his Castle in the hills above London when he learned the great Warrior Princess had run down a luxury ocean liner in what was being called the greatest disaster at sea.

    Oddly enough, several of the survivors of this tragedy had reported seeing a Jolly Roger on top of the ships antenna and, in their shocked and traumatized state, swore that it had been no accident at all . . .