Explain to d'Artagnan that you did come for him first, in fact you only came for him; you just threw a dagger to distract William's attacker first, because William was already disarmed, on the ground, and would have certainly died otherwise. Point out that, even though William's situation was worse, you still decided to come help d'Artagnan. Lastly, tell him that you couldn't have stopped all the attackers by yourself, so it's thanks to you preventing William's death that you and William were able to save d'Artagnan together. It was all an effort to prevent them both from dying, and thankfully it had worked. Then say something that's chummy and conversationally appropriate to show you're grateful for the fact d'Artagnan's still alive.
After this exchange is over, go find the captain, and ensuring that none of the captured enemies will hear you, suggest this idea to him:
"We should tell the survivors of the enemy crew that anyone who wants to join our pirate crew is welcome to, and more important, that those who join us will decide the fate of those who do not.
Each of the new pirates will write a vote for "live" or "die", and then they'll put their anonymous votes into a hat at the same time so we can pick one at random. If "live" is chosen, then the remaining survivors will be allowed to stay on their ship, but all the new volunteers will be required to go back to their ship as well. If "die" is chosen, the remaining survivors will be executed, and all the new volunteers will become pirates. If no one volunteers to join, then "die" will be the default choice and all survivors will be executed regardless. After the chosen vote is read, the remaining votes will be thrown into the ocean, since they serve no purpose.
The idea is, because they will all die if no one volunteers to join, some of them will volunteer out of obligation to try to save everyone, even though they don't want to. Others will volunteer just to make sure they escape death. However, this also gives those who truly wish to join us a chance to abandon their crew without raising suspicion. Even if they're forced to go back to their ship, no one in their crew will ever know what their vote was.
This is where the importance of the votes comes into play. When it's time for everyone to submit their votes, we take the guns that were supposed to be used to execute the survivors, and aim them at the new volunteers instead. We take their votes by force. Those who didn't want to join us will surely write "live" for their vote, and because "live" forces all the new volunteers to return to their own ship, those who truly want to forsake their past life to become pirates will have written "die".
Once we know who is who, we can give them all what they asked for. First, we can send those who wrote "live" back to their ship, and tie them up with the other survivors there. They'll get to stay on their ship, just like they wanted. Then we give the "die" votes what they wanted as well, and we sink the ship.
I'm sure you know that recruiting captured enemies usually carries more risk than it's worth. You never know who is a coward, just joining to save themselves, and planning to flee in the night with our loot when we get back to shore. You also don't know who is pretending to be loyal just to get close to you, so they can find an opportunity to avenge their fallen crewmates.
That's the best part of this method though: The pirates who join us won't hold any resentment towards you, because by writing "die" they proved beyond any doubt that losing their old crew was worth being a member of our crew. In most cases, you're likely doing them a great service by ensuring no one from their past will come seeking revenge for their betrayal. At the end of the day, we can trust that their loyalties truly lie with us."
Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 22 2013, 10:42 pm by Azrael.