©2007 by Peter Bernhardt. All rights reserved.

Author's Notes:

Well, Bellfont's got a back full of rusty darts and the Tetanus vaccine won't be developed for over 170 more years. It's looking grim for the lovable first mate of the Seaworthy. Wait a minute, this is a comedy! If Bellfont's going to die, it has to be from getting drowned during a keelhauling, intense overeating, choking on a whole fish, or being pied in the face and suffocating as a result. He will NOT be dying from uncontrollable and grotesque muscle spasming as a result of a bacterial infection! The humor of such a situation is rather lost on me. So Bellfont is not going to bite the big one as a result of this little incident.

"What about poison?" you may ask. "Why aren't the darts poisoned? That's stupid!" Yes, you may have noted that the darts only seem to be tipped with "sleepy-time" drugs instead of super-death poison, and you may have been further tipped off by my previous statement that Bellfont is going to live. Well, this trap is clearly designed to be a two-step killer in which 1) the victim is filled with darts that render them unconscious, and 2) the victim is skewered upon the spears that pop up from the floor. Apparently, the natives did not account for a very heavy-bodied individual like Bellfont when they designed it. The result is the successful navigation of the first trap by the very lucky Captain and his away team! Stay tuned for the continuation next week!