Had someone told young Charles Taylor he would survive storms at sea and shipwreck before this year was over, he'd have thought them daft.  If they told him he would have to fight alongside fierce pirates and black slaves for his very life against some of the fiercest man-eating savages in the world, he would have known for sure that person was daft!

Had this mysterious prophet told him, a boy of fourteen, he would sail away from his home in Havant, England, to far-away and exotic lands in search of hidden treasure, the value of which the mind could not begin to comprehend, Charles would have laughed.  He would have laughed, but the icy fingers of fear would also have gripped his soul.  But, alas, no such phantom seer appeared to him, as he sat atop the old abandoned warehouse, watching the ships in the harbor and dreaming of such things as young men dream.