… Longstaffe was a rebellious young aristocrat or a conscience-stricken slaver or a pirate whose brutality and ruthlessness made Henry Morgan himself shake his head in appalled disapproval.

He was hanged for defiling a well or he was slain and eaten by the Tomami or he was slain and eaten by his shipwrecked mates because they were hungry or perhaps just because he was unpopular and they were trying to make a point. Or he became a hopeless drunk and was found dead from Paresis on the sands of Sanctuary Strand.

The only consistent part of his legend is his virility and his paramour, Deep Gertie.

(Punchline to a favorite island joke, typically told loudly and with gestures at The Death, the Society, and the Shards and in low voices at The Rose, on the schoolyard, or at Madame Bonney’s Tuesday Teas when they run late and she’s broken out the Madiera:)

“‘…but first, the constable said, looking down at the red plumed hat, ‘let’s get that poor man out of her.’”