While LeChuck exulted, Guybrush had picked himself up off the floor of the hold and was taking stock of the situation. He was in a small cannonport, complete with cannon--a small, red-haired pirate was wielding it with all piratey vigor. The only way out was a locked door behind him--or through the cannonport window. But the window looked too small to squeeze through.   

I've got to help Elaine, he thought. If I could only get out this one door, I could easily overpower the armed guards above, slip over the side, and make for the shore. He had to do something, needed to help Elaine even more than he needed water or a place to lie down. But despite his bravado, he knew he wouldn't be a match for anyone right now--not even be a match for the little pirate set to guard him. Fatigue alone kept him from pacing the port in frustration.  

*click* Oh, yes, and the fact that the little pirate had a pistol pointed at his nose. That made the chances of taking him even more unlikely.   

"Quit yer mumblin', captive," the pirate scowled darkly as he hid the pistol away in a fold of his jacket. But when Guybrush moved to talk to him, out it came again. "Stand yer distance!!"   

Being drawn on at the drop of a hat would be enough to unsettle anyone. "Hello. Please don't kill me," was the best opening line Guybrush could come up with.   

"Oh, don't worry," said the pirate in a smaller voice, "I don't--um, I mean, ye'd best beg for yer life, ye fetid flounder!" He put the pistol away again.   

But Guybrush, looking more closely at the small pirate, realized that all the piratey toughness seemed to be an act--his beard was glued on, his hook was plastic, and his eyepatch had a monocle underneath it. Something about that tugged at Guybrush's memory...red hair and a monocle. Now where...?  

"Wait a minute..you're not a pirate.."  Realization hit.."Wally!! Don't you remember me? It's Guybrush Threepwood!"  

Wally, the little pirate, looked almost disappointed. "Oh, gee...hello Mr. Brush." Wally had been a cartographer on Scabb Island before he met up with Guybrush--both of them had been kidnaped and taken to LeChuck's fortress.  They would have died in LeChuck's torture chamber if Guybrush hadn't managed to get them both free. Guybrush had later escaped, but Wally had not been so lucky.  Now, for lack of any better options, he had joined LeChuck's crew, and was doing his best to live up to his new pirate ideals of savagery and cruelty.   

Guybrush felt a stab of pity--no one was less suited to the life of a pirate than Wally. But that fact could also be used to his advantage, if he could just make Wally see it...   

"Snap out of it, Wally!" he said sharply, "You're a failure as a pirate!"  

That got Wally's attention. "Ye scabrous swab!!" he cried, "One more peep out of you and I'll do ye in!"   

Guybrush found himself looking down Wally's barrel. Again. But he also saw that Wally had squeezed his eyes shut, obviously hoping he wouldn't actually have to fire. "Just go ahead and shoot" he declared, putting hands on his hips and summoning up his best look of withering contempt. He stared both Wally and the gun barrel down, hoping he wasn't making a terrible mistake.  

Wally was enraged. "One more word out of you--" he threatened. But Guybrush only crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Try it, shrimpy."  

"I'm gonna blast ye!" Wally suddenly realized that he was going to have to pull the trigger on Guybrush. He nerved himself and tried to move his finger. "I'm gonna..." It wouldn't move. He couldn't, could not actually fire the gun and kill him. The one true test of a pirate, and he had lost his nerve. He couldn't even kill his Captain's worst enemy. What a failure. Ashamed, he dropped the pistol and sank to his knees.   

"You're right, Mr. Brush," he sobbed, as a fat tear coursed down one cheek, "I'm just not a pirate. I'm not vicious or cruel or bloodthirsty or anything! I'm not even.." he choked off as another tear fell.."I'm not even unpleasant!" He tried to put his face in his hands, stabbed himself with that plastic hook, threw the hateful thing away, then flung himself on the ground and sobbed bitterly.   

Footsteps on the deck--Guybrush came closer. Wally braced himself, but Guybrush made no attempt to touch him or take the pistol. Instead, he picked up his discarded hook carefully and straightened up, looking out the cannonport window. Four longboats filled with skeletal soldiers were visible outside, and the wall of the fort itself, Wally knew, but if Guybrush meant to jump out there--   

BOOM!! Guybrush had fired the cannon! An outraged shout and sounds of splintering wood followed--he must have hit one of the boats. More booms followed--sounds of another boat being destroyed, a splash, cheers as an errant cannonball hit the wall of the fort--"Sorry about that!"--from above, two more explosions, and then silence. Guybrush must have destroyed all the boats. Wally curled up, then, and lost himself in his misery.   

Guybrush released the cannon's trigger-string. Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this, he thought, peering out the window to view his handiwork. Outside was the gruesome sight of all the bones and debris from the destroyed boats--floating towards the ship. Ick.  Still, piratey ingeniuty said that any object could be useful, so he ducked outside to see if anything was within reach.   

A bit of unidentified junk and a skull floating on a plank greeted his eyes as he looked down. The skull was still horribily animate, though (amusingly) rather annoyed at its predicament. "This is so unfair.." it complained. "Now everyone else will storm the fort and I'll be stuck here." It was silent a moment, then--"If I could just get my hands on that gunner...If I could just get my hands, period."   

Guybrush suddenly felt evil. "Lose something?" he called down to the skull.  

"Yes," replied the skull, in a tone that made him suddenly glad that it was safely disembodied, "I'm looking for some bones. Maybe I'll just take yours."   

"What are you going to do--head-butt me?"   

"Well, I--" this obviously threw the demonic skull.  In a smaller voice--"Would you pick me up so I can bite you?"  

"No!"  

"Okay..just thought I'd ask."  

The evil resurfaced. "Can I call you BOB?"   

"You may call me Murray," thundered the skull. "I am a powerful demonic force! I am the harbinger of your doom. And the forces of evil will applaud me as I stride through the gates of Hell, carrying your head on a pike!"   

Guybrush couldn't resist. "Stride?"  

"All right then, roll. Roll through the gates of Hell. Must you take the fun out of everything?"   

He sounded so aggrieved that Guybrush resisted the temptation to ask how Murray had planned to carry the pike. "You know, you'd look great with a melting candle on your forehead."  

"I get the feeling you're not taking me very seriously," muttered the skull.   

Guybrush found himself rushing to placate him. "Oh, but I am. Really."   

"Really? Then let me hear you scream in terror!"  

Guybrush obliged him. "Aaah."  

"Bwahahahahahaha!!" Murray cackled in insane glee. Guybrush judged this a good time to get out of the conversation.   

"Run, then. Run! Run away from the fearsome skull!" triumphed Murray. "Until you die, I shall revisit you in your most terrifying nightmares! Mwahahahaha!"  

Guybrush shook his head and ducked back inside, looking for something long enough to reach the debris below. A long ramrod hung on the back wall--he carefully lifted it and went back outside. Wally, still on the floor, didn't appear to notice him.   

But after two attempts to reach the debris, he concluded that he needed more than just the ramrod to pick up the unidentified floating object--suddenly he remembered Wally's hook. He pulled it out of his pocket and fitted it snugly onto the end of the ramrod. Improvised gaff in hand, he snagged the thing; it proved to be a skeleton arm with a float cushion on it--its hand was still holding a cutlass. Murray's arm, apparently, judging from the skull's protests as he pulled it out. But not for long: Guybrush cut him off in mid-complaint with a solid thump from the gaff and down he went into the water with a most satisfying splash. Feeling victorious, Guybrush went inside once more.   

Cutlass in hand, he faced off against the rope holding the cannon in place, having just a glimmer of an idea in mind. He sliced through the rope with ease, then gathered up the trigger-thread again, braced to jump away at the proper second.  He pulled the thread.   

Zombie Pirate LeChuck posed on his deck, holding a green globe that flamed evilly just over his head. He had reason to be proud--this was the moment of his triumph, the highest point in all his long, disjointed life. With this, his secret weapon, he would end the long battle, blasting the fort to pieces and blowing his significant other into the significant other world. Surely, once he had shown Elaine the power of undeath, he would seem more attractive to her. And even if not, with her fort decimated, his waiting boat crew could bring her to him by force. Then she would know, and the whole Caribbean with her, that he was LeChuck, mighty pirate, undead ruler of the South Seas, who always gets what he wants.   

And at that very moment, the unpredictable pirate Guybrush Threepwood fired the unrestrained cannon.  

The cannon jumped violently backwards, carrying him with it before he could spring away. He went, backward, right through the locked door, and slammed into the opposite wall of LeChuck's treasure hold before he quite knew what had happened. But even that was incidental compared to what followed.   

The entire ship shook from the impact. The voodoo cannonball, balanced precariously on LeChuck's palm, wobbled and rolled around as he struggled to keep it--and himself--upright on the wildly tilting deck. It was a desperate struggle, but he held on until the ship righted herself--and then he made the mistake of relaxing.   

"Whew....Neptune's navel, that was a close--"  

The cannonball leaped out of his hand and onto the deck below.   

Elaine, watching tensely from the top of her fort, saw the entire midsection of the ship spontaneously erupt into green flame--from its center, a skull-shaped cloud rose, hovered for a second, then dissipated with an outraged "Aaaaargh!!" A pair of boots, still smoking, slid across the terminally tilting deck and dropped into the ocean. The entire ship was rolling over, keel pointing towards the stars, playing dead in a particularly grim fashion. And then she knew that she was saved--LeChuck and his crew were certainly dead by now. But, strain her eyes as she might, she didn't see the one person she was looking for.   

Guybrush! Elaine ran from her fort down to the beach, hoping for some sign that he had survived the explosion. Don't you dare die on me!   

Guybrush climbed slowly to his feet, clutching his much-abused stomach. When he had his bearings again, he realized that he was inside LeChuck's treasure hold--which was completely inverted. Through a gaping hole in the "ceiling," he saw the night sky--the entire ship must have rolled over onto its deck. Air trapped in the hold was keeping the ship afloat, but eventually the waterlogged ship would sink as its own weight dragged it down. However, for now he had enough time to look at LeChuck's amassed treasure.   

It was every red-blooded pirate's dream, filled with gold, jewels, and other lucre--some merely filthy, some downright unsanitary--all rightfully his to claim, as the sinker of the ship. Even if he couldn't quite remember how he'd done it...   

First things first..he couldn't claim any of the gold if the ship sank with him still aboard. He looked around--that bag of wooden nickels looked light enough to carry with him, even if it wasn't much of a treasure. He knelt down and picked it up--and there, underneath it, was a massive diamond engagement ring. His breath caught--it was incredibly beautiful--and it looked just about Elaine's size. He took it with a certain feeling of awe.   

What was more, a diamond was supposed to be sharp enough to cut glass--possibly even that porthole over there. If that were opened, he could slip out, or at least raise the water level in the hold so he could swim out of that gaping hole in the ceiling.   

And so, for the second time that night, he acted without really thinking. Standing directly in front of the porthole, he sliced the glass open with the ring--and two seconds later was pinned to the opposite side of the hold by a gushing jet of water.   

Elaine Marley, still scanning the water at dawn, saw a strange creature paddling towards shore with two long white flippers and a blue horse's head. Then a blond head emerged above the blue one, and it was Guybrush Threepwood who waded out of the water in front of her, wearing a horsey floatation device around his waist. She felt a moment of surprise--even though she'd been watching and hoping for something like this, even before LeChuck had arrived, she hadn't expected him to look so changed. He'd lost the beard he'd worn the last time she had seen him, but it was more than that. He was so thin, and looked so worn-out--his manner and appearance were no longer those of the overconfident pirate she'd seen last, or even of the inexperienced boy she'd met on Melee Island. What he was was harder to define--he seemed to have aged years in the few weeks since she lost sight of him on Dinky Island. He had finally gained the air of competence that all true pirates have, but that odd light in his eyes didn't fit the image. She could hardly believe that this transformed person was actually Guybrush--and if so, what had he experienced to cause such a change?   

"Guybrush....I thought I'd lost you forever" she heard herself saying. "Is it really you?"   

The odd light never flickered--she thought it might be joy. "Yes, Elaine!" He was still grinning like a fool, but some of his dignity was lost as he paused to shake a fish out of his pant leg. Then the entire manner dropped--he ducked his head and reached around to play with his ponytail, endearingly shy, like a schoolboy. "Um...Elaine? Did you really mean what you said out there? That I was the only man you ever loved?"   

Elaine suddenly needed to adjust her earrings. "Well...yes...I suppose I did."   

Guybrush, reassured, straightened up, the odd light brighter than ever. "Elaine, I'm a man of action. A swashbuckler. A rogue. A wanderer. A man who can hold his breath for five minutes..." He almost seemed to have forgotten she was there as he became more caught up in his speech. "I have no ties and no regrets; I sail with the wind and go wherever adventure takes me. But somehow, something always leads me--"   

At this rate, it'd be noon before he got to his point. "Guybrush, stop babbling."   

That shut him up--temporarily. But then he looked directly into her eyes, and she finally recognized that strange light. It was the look of a man who is in love.   

"Elaine...will you marry me?" he asked.   

That shut her up. But she looked back at him and she realized that she did love him, so very much. "Oh, Guybrush.." was all she could say as he took her left hand in his and slipped a diamond engagement band onto her finger. It was a perfect fit..and a massive stone. The 'yes' on the tip of her tongue, she stared at it--and at him--astonished, until a soft sound from next to them broke the moment.   

Wally, who had miraculously survived the wreck unscathed, gaped at her ring. "Wow, Elaine" he breathed, "that's some ring!"   

"Thank you, Wally." She couldn't resist showing off her ring, like any young woman, even if it was only for Wally. "It's an engagement ring from Guybrush."   

"It looks just like the one that LeChuck had in his treasure hold--you know, the one with that ghastly, disfiguring voodoo curse on it."   

Curse? He gave me a cursed ring? She whipped around to pin Guybrush under her accusing glare--he looked back with frightened eyes. "But I'm sure Guybrush wouldn't have given you that ring," Wally continued blithely, oblivious to the dynamics over his head. "Well, I better be going. I hear there's a tattoo-removal place on the island that's freckle-safe." Off he went, having unwittingly destroyed their moment of happiness. "See you at the wedding!"   

Elaine had not let Guybrush up from underneath her glare since Wally had mentioned the curse--he looked downright uncomfortable, but she was furious. "A cursed ring. How could you act so sincere and then give me a cursed ring?" her eyes said. "Guybrush!!" was what her mouth said. "You're about to die" was what her drawn-back right fist said.  

She knew, in her rational mind, that Guybrush probably hadn't meant to give her a cursed ring, but at that point she was so fed-up with his incompetence--and still feeling the emotional side-effects of a long night spent defending her fort--that she didn't care. She didn't even want to hear his explanation; right now she was going t--   

--and the curse froze her in mid-punch. Before Guybrush's astonished eyes, she was transformed into a golden statue--an enraged statue, with a cursed diamond ring on her finger.