Galapagos Regained (46 page)

“I'm confused,” said Ralph. “You hold Smith's cult insipid, yet you've brought it to these shores
in toto
.”

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ain't no
cult,
Perfessor,” said Eggwort in a reproving tone. “We're the most accurate edition of Christianity yet vouchsafed the human race. Just because a revelation is tedious and tiresome, that don't make it false. The more I read these stultifyin' stories, the more convinced I become that the author enjoyed intimate spiritual relations with the Lord God Jehovah Hisself. It would've been easy as pie fer Smith to hire some fancy poet to fix up his book, tossin' in glittery words and highfalutin phrases, but our prophet done kept the sentences just the way they come a-gushin' from his mouth, which fer my money proves their authenticity. Now, I assume you didn't sail all the way from Peru out of any special hankerin' to join our church—but you're welcome to do so anyway, likewise your wives and brownie slaves, providin' ever'body's willin' to swear an oath to me.”

“These women aren't my wives,” Ralph reminded their host. “The Indians aren't my slaves,” he added.

“When we spotted your vessel this afternoon,” said Eggwort, “Rebecca and Naomi took to speculatin' it might be the Reverend Mr. Hallowborn's brig, but then I realized that couldn't be true, not such a queer-lookin' thing. If I didn't know better, I'd say that fat boat of yours was the ark of Noah, rigged fer ocean travel. So what sort of ship is the
Covenant
?”

“The ark of Noah,” said Ralph.

“Rigged for ocean travel,” added Solange.

“Here in Duntopia, we don't make jokes at the Supreme Emperor's expense,” said Eggwort.

“These brownies, as you call them, hail from a race living on the Rio Jequetepeque, direct descendants of Jacob's forgotten son Serug,” said Ralph. “Two millennia ago the Serugites boarded Noah's ark and journeyed from the Near East to South America, hoping to find a New Canaan. In other words, Your Excellency, you are hosting a delegation from the Lost Thirteenth Tribe of Israel!”

“You just said a mouthful,” Eggwort noted.

“I'm aware of that.”

“If this Serugite exodus really happened, it would be in the Book of Mormon.”

“Evidently Smith lost track of a gold plate or two,” said Ralph, a retort Chloe thought rather resourceful.

The Emperor frowned, apparently wondering whether to reject Professor Cabot's narrative as a hoax or embrace it as a missing chapter from Smith's epiphany. “These Indians are
Jewish
?” he said at last. “I've always appreciated Jews. In that regard, I'm rather like God.”

“After putting down roots near Puerto Etén,” Ralph continued, “the Serugites set about guarding the
Covenant,
performing their task so faithfully that God gifted them with a prophet, the woman in white who stands before you.”

Languidly Eggwort extricated himself from his hammock and, hooking his thumbs under his latex braces, swaggered up to Chloe. “You fancy yourself a prophet?”

“In the crucible of my bones all truths are fused,” she said, using the voice she'd devised for the wraith in
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
“dust becoming clay, clay becoming flesh, flesh becoming spirit. Myriad orbs of vision lie embedded in my being. I am Lady Omega of the ten thousand eyes.”

“Here in Duntopia,” said Eggwort, “we don't take kindly to visitors holdin' themselves superior to the Supreme Emperor.”

“Before the Almighty all creatures stand as equals, be they emperors or indigents, prophets or pariahs, caliphs or outcasts,” said Chloe. “Rest assured, Your Excellency, I did not come to imperil your earthly kingdom.”

Eggwort issued a hum of satisfaction leavened with skepticism, then strutted up to Solange. “If you're not the Perfessor's wife, then who are you?”

“Bianca Quinn, aerialist, born in Tunbridge Wells but raised in the West Indies,” Solange replied using her weirdest sea-witch voice (not an ideal choice, Chloe felt). “Eventually I ended up working for a circus in Lima. During my last performance I fell thirty feet to the ground. I feared I would never walk again, much less on a tightrope, but then my friends bore me by donkey cart to Lady Omega, who laid a hand on my splintered spine, and I was healed.”

The Emperor clucked his tongue, then marched back and forth before the Indians like a Turkish general reviewing his janissaries. “Lost Thirteenth Tribe, you say? Keepers of the ark?”

“With God's guidance, we sailed the holy ark across the sea,” recited Cuniche, casting a beatific smile on Chloe.

“Century after century, we have guarded the sacred vessel,” said Yitogua, according his teacher a loving glance.

“Lady Omega has forbidden us to eat our enemies' ashes,” said Pirohua.

“Lady Omega taught us not to shrink our enemies' heads,” said Rapra.

“Cain asked his Creator, ‘Am I my brother's coat of many colors?'” said Ascumiche.

As Chloe grimaced, Ralph declared, “He intended to say—”

“I
know
what he intended to say,” interrupted Eggwort. “I prefer the brownie's version.”

“Because his wife disobeyed, God changed Lot's jolly rod into a pillar of salt,” said Nitopari.

Ralph hastened to add, “By which he meant—”

“I
know
what he meant,” Eggwort insisted.

Cuniche began, “As punishment for the Towel of Babel, God rained foreskins on Sodom—” But before he could finish, Chloe pressed her hand against his lips, then turned to Eggwort, offering him the same smile a
Times
critic had once called the most luminous object on the London stage, not excluding limelight.

“One stormy night I was walking along the banks of the Jequetepeque when of a sudden my ten thousand eyes began to spin,” she said. “From each orb fell scores of tiny tear-shaped lanterns, streaming to Earth and showing me numberless lizards and countless tortoises, and lo, I beheld ninety and two shackled men, and lo, they drew forth their swords and fell upon the reptiles, and in the glow of the lightning and the gleam of the lanterns I beheld the blood of the beasts, that it was blameless!”

“No, those creatures are all hellspawn,” Eggwort protested. “Governor Stopsack showed me a letter from Bishop Wilberforce. The Great Winnowin' will be a kick in the teeth to the Devil hisself.”

“Wilberforce has slandered the Encantadas fauna,” said Chloe. “His theology offendeth our Creator. You must join me in thwarting the slaughter.”

Eggwort scratched his head vigorously, as if to recruit every brain cell into interpreting the prophet's words. “Know what I gotta do? I gotta see the brownies' boat up close. If I judge it to be the true Genesis ark, I'm a-thinkin' that my thoughts will become the clearer.”

“You may visit the
Covenant
at your earliest convenience.”

With one hand Eggwort brought the Book of Mormon to his chest, as if applying a poultice, using his free hand to brush Chloe's sleeve. “Art thou truly a Heaven-sent messenger?”

She laughed and said, “I am what I am.”

*   *   *

With the coming of darkness Chloe, Ralph, and Solange climbed into the longboat, whereupon Cuniche and Nitopari rowed them across the bay, the other Huancabambas following in the cutter. The Indians pulled mightily against the current, the watery path illuminated by a full moon shining through a winding-sheet of cirrus clouds. Speaking over the boom of the surf and the splash of the oars, the English adventurers soon reached a consensus: the rehearsal had gone swimmingly. True, Lady Omega's followers had garbled their lines, but the Emperor hadn't seemed to mind. The Serugites were a storytelling people, after all, not bookish like their Israelite forebears, so naturally their recollections of Holy Writ would have degenerated over the centuries.

The following morning, shortly after dawn, Eggwort appeared on the weather deck, having been ferried to the
Covenant
in a dinghy rowed by Rebecca and Hagar. Solemnly he marched from fore to aft and back again, caressing the sacred sails, fingering the holy shrouds, turning the consecrated helm. His tour complete, he sank to his knees, prostrating himself before the mainmast like a pagan worshiping an oaken idol. He pressed his lips to the planks, bringing to this devotion the same ardor he might have invested in kissing the feet of Joseph Smith.

“Orrin's mighty impressed,” Rebecca told Chloe.

“This here ark's as genuine as the gold plates of Cumorah,” added Hagar.

Hauling himself erect, Eggwort sought out the Huancabambas and, one after the other, caressed the shining black hair of God's chosen brownies.

“This vessel puts a body in mind of Alma chapter ten, verse twenty-two, don't it, Cleavewife Rebecca?” said the Emperor in a hortatory voice.

“‘If it were not for the prayers of the righteous, ye would even now be visited with utter destruction,'” Rebecca recited, rising to the challenge, “‘yet it would not be by flood, as were the people in the days of Noah, but by famine and by pestilence and the sword.'”

“Well done!” Eggwort cast a minatory eye on Hagar. “And, of course, this holy boat recalls Third Nephi chapter twenty-two, verse nine.”

“‘As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the Earth,' quoted Hagar, “‘so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee.'”

“Splendid!” Eggwort declared, then sauntered up to Ralph. “Truth to tell, Perfessor, I'm bowled over like a bunch of skittles. I can't say whether it was Moroni or Joseph Smith who mislaid the gold plate in question, but either way your brownies are the by-God Lost Thirteenth Tribe, and Noah hisself surely walked this deck.”

“Thou art perspicacity personified,” said Ralph.

“Which ain't to say I accept
all
of your anthropoidal notions, Perfessor. Last night our prophet appeared to me as in a dream.”

“Nothing good has ever followed the sentence, ‘Last night our prophet appeared to me as in a dream,'” muttered Solange.

“Smith's angelic form warned me that the one called Lady Omega was not sent by Jehovah as a messenger to the Serugites,” said the Emperor. “The woman is a charlatan.”

“I shan't conceal my bewilderment, Your Excellency,” said Ralph, indicating Chloe with his spyglass. “Thou art bearing false witness against a prophet of God.”

She shuddered as if enduring a second bout of the ague. Three syllables,
char-la-tan
, each like a sudden slap on the cheek (and she was not inclined to turn the other). But before she could protest, Eggwort wrenched the glass away from Ralph and, elongating the implement, pointed it at her as if wielding a rapier.

“If you're really the apple of Jehovah's eye, Miss Omega, how's about partin' the waters of Post Office Bay fer us? Why don't you go prancin' atop the waves or changin' 'em into wine? While you're at it, make Mount Pajas erupt in flames and lava.”

“That's the stuff, Orrin,” said Rebecca. “Show the imposter what fer.”

Chloe accorded Eggwort the same piercing stare she'd perfected whilst playing Mr. Coleridge's wraith. “I don't do ostentatious tricks.”

“Back in Minor Zion, we don't call 'em tricks,” the Emperor retorted. “We call 'em signs and wonders, two exhibitions evidently beyond your powers.”

“No, that's not true,” said Solange. “Lady Omega is a fount of signs and wonders. She made me walk again.”

“The sooner you return to England,” said Eggwort to Chloe, “leavin' these Peruvian Hebrews to protect the ark without you crammin' their heads full of theological poppycock—the sooner you do that, the better.”

Executing an about-face, the Emperor rested the glass atop the anchor windlass, then marched towards the rope ladder that held the dinghy to the
Covenant
.

“She made me walk!” cried Solange.

Eggwort issued an imperial sneer and, wives in train, climbed down to the dinghy. Whilst Rebecca and Hagar worked the oars, their husband sat in the prow and bellowed a verse from the Book of Mormon. “‘And it came to pass that when they were buried in the deep there was no water that could hurt them, their vessels being tight like unto the ark of Noah'!”

Slouching against the starboard gunwale, the English adventurers stared at a flock of red-pouched frigate birds wheeling above the ranting emperor. With their enormous wings, scissor-shaped tails, and beaks suggesting sabers, the creatures seemed to Chloe a kind of hellish weapon—and from a storm petrel's perspective, frigate birds were indeed satanic: in his travel journal Mr. Darwin had described seeing one such predator overtake a petrel in flight and eat it alive on the wing.

“You were right, Solange, and I was wrong,” said Chloe. “Eggwort will never be our ally.”

“Obviously you should've sought the counsel of your favorite deity before inviting that lunatic to help us,” said the courtesan.

“And it came to pass that Chloe Bathurst and Solange Kirsop agreed never again to discuss metaphysical matters,” said Ralph, “lest the Western world become embroiled in yet another war of religion.”

*   *   *

According to
The Voyage of the Beagle,
getting from one Galápagos island to the next posed severe navigational difficulties. The sudden doldrums and rogue winds were bad enough, but the archipelago also challenged mariners with a patchwork of incompatible currents, including the Humboldt, the Cromwell, the Panama, and the South Equatorial. Prepared for the worst, the company of the
Covenant
was hardly surprised when it took them the rest of the morning to make the fifty-mile run from Charles Isle to the northern shore of Indefatigable.