Mr. William Smith walked slowly savoring the summer evening. The air smelled of the vast and salty ocean that lay before him, the playground of his childhood, the place of his hard labor in his youth, the source of his riches when he reached middle age. William chuckled to himself, certainly the sea would see his demise, it would be only fitting.

Gulls called out overhead. A heron dived for his supper. A light breeze prickled William's sun-baked and leathered skin. It feels like a ladies light caress across me scruffy beard, thought William. He sighed remembering all the beautiful young ladies he'd bedded in his handsomer days and the plumper older ones whose boosmes he'd sought solstice in on his darkest days...even the ones he'd been so drunk when he'd paid them for a favor he'd seen two of them. 

But his true mistress was the sea. She'd taught him long ago to respect her. She could giveth and she could taketh away. Her fickle nature manifested in tides, and winds, and maelstroms. A moodier mistress never existed. She'd taken the lives of William's friends and foes more times than he could count. But he loved her. He would die loving her.

As he walked along, William felt the rough-cut wood beneath his feet. His feet, like his hands, were callous and tough. The wood felt warm in the heat of the setting sun. If it had splinters, William's feet didn't notice. Funny to think a grand old tree had been dragged to the edge of the sea just for a man as inconsequential as himself to walk upon it tonight. 

William had avoided life on land for so long he had to strain to remember the last time he'd been in a forest full of trees. He remembered hunting as a small lad with his uncle who had nearly drowned himself as a boy and had avoided the sea after at all costs unlike the rest of William's family. He remembered the forest being cool and dark and full of creatures. Not so unlike the sea, really, but at least on the sea one slept in a boat upon the water. The sea creatures couldn't get you in your bunk as you bobbed up and down above them. But sleeping in the forest had terrified William more than any storm he'd weathered on a ship before or after. He knew then that he'd follow in his father's footsteps and be a seafaring man, unlike his uncle.

William chucked again. Of course, in the end he would drown like his uncle nearly did all those years ago. He felt the sharp poke of a cutlass against his left buttock.

"Oy," said a gruff voice. "'urry it up. De sharks es gettin' 'ungry!"

The titter of dirty uncouth men could be heard behind the owner of the cutlass. 

William straightened his shoulders as square as he could with his hand tied tightly behind his back. He smiled to himself and stepped off the end of the plank, ready to meet his mistress for the final time.