Galapagos Regained (50 page)

Despite their shackles, the inmates crossed the yard with a buoyant gait, disappearing into the keep.

His mission accomplished, Stopsack took leave of Hengstenberg and, transcending his bulk, climbed Mount Pajas to converse with Chloe and her friends. Wheezing and sweating, he explained that for the next two hours he must ensconce himself in Hengstenberg's office, signing papers legalizing the convicts' deracination from Dartmoor Prison to Her Majesty's Galápagos Penal Colony, the better to establish that Charles Isle was now of a piece with the British Empire.

The troupe and the Governor descended in tandem. As Stopsack returned to Mephistropolis, Chloe and her friends strode towards Post Office Bay, taking satisfaction in the lush fecundity they observed along the way. Here on the lava field: a bright yellow short-spined lizard they'd delivered from the wrath of Wilberforce. There, near a fresh-water spring: a clan of saddleback tortoises who would never suffer the garrote. Beyond, in a thicket: a scattering of ground finches, forever spared the fowling pieces of Garrity's sailors. In time the adventurers reached the wharf, where Chloe basked in the imagined gratitude of the very iguana colony she'd observed upon landing in the Encantadas.

For several silent minutes she stood and watched topsails and headsails blossoming on the spars of the
Antares
. The crewmen raveled up the mooring lines, and the brig blew free of her berth, then headed south across the bay towards the open sea. There, it was finished: she'd beheld Simon Hallowborn exit her life and the prisoners enter a place where they could work no mischief. Having fulfilled her sacred obligation to the Galápagos fauna, she could now turn to the formidable—perhaps impossible—task of getting the ark to Oxford.

*   *   *

During the week that followed the
Antares
's departure for England, Malcolm enlisted all his powers of persuasion in attempting to discourage Stopsack from becoming a Shelley Prize contestant, an endeavor in which he found ready allies in Dartworthy and Miss Kirsop but a stubborn antagonist in Miss Bathurst, who continued to argue (despite her knowledge of its origins) that the ark, astutely deployed, might bring spiritual blessings to the multitudes. Whilst Dartworthy tried to convince Stopsack that hauling the
Covenant
across the isthmus would prove an endeavor only slightly less insane than trying to sail her around the Horn, Miss Kirsop told the Governor that, in the event the ark failed to win the competition, the Roman Church might sponsor its own version of the Great Winnowing, thereby causing no end of headaches for his administration. But it was Malcolm who (in his own estimation at least) offered the most persuasive case. The Shelley Prize was a moral miasma. No genuine Christian would imagine acquiring so sordid a reward.

Despite Malcolm's exhortations, or perhaps because of them, the seventh evening in September found the Governor leading Eugenio, Sancho, Pablo, and Virgilio in a raid on the
Covenant
. Armed with truncheons, Stopsack and the furloughed Ecuadorians sailed the
Hippolyta
out to the ark, dragged the sleeping Indians from their hammocks, and ferried them to shore, leaving all six to fend for themselves in the mangrove glades. In his subsequent gubernatorial proclamation, Stopsack explained that his devotion to the Anglican Communion had compelled him to appropriate “one of Christendom's most sacred relics, lest it devolve to those who would use it for personal gain,” by which of course he meant that, bent on using one of Christendom's most sacred relics for personal gain, he'd sought to prevent its devolving to anyone else.

From his most recent conversations with Dartworthy and Miss Kirsop, Malcolm had concluded that the Governor's hunger for the prize no longer distressed them, for they seemed exclusively focused on their scheme to visit every whaling ship, sealing brig, and survey vessel stopping in the Encantadas until they finally found a captain who liked the idea of taking on four English explorers pledged to serving him faithfully in exchange for their eventual passage home. It thus came as a shock to Malcolm when Dartworthy and Miss Kirsop appeared at his bedside late one night, kerosene lanterns in hand, and announced that they'd discovered how to prevent Stopsack from entering the contest. Annoyed and confused, Malcolm nevertheless agreed to board the longboat and accompany them as they rowed through the inland waterways and beyond. And so it happened that, after a half-hour's journey (during which his companions refused to specify whatever game was afoot), he found himself in the Bahía de Cormoranes, heading towards the ark.

“We hope you will sanction tonight's escapade,” said Dartworthy, “though we mean to carry it out in any case.”

“We thought it would be wrong to burn the
Covenant
without telling you first,” added Miss Kirsop.

“Burn it?” gasped Malcolm, appalled.

“Given the success of the masquerade, Solange and I now deem Miss Chloe Bathurst capable of whatever ridiculous feat might catch her fancy,” Dartworthy explained. “With Stopsack cheering her on, she'll drag the ark over the isthmus, sail it across the Atlantic, pilot it up the Thames, adopt the persona of a conventional Christian, and convince all six Oxford judges that a proof of God lies to hand.”

“This is madness,” said Malcolm.

“What choice do we have?” asked Miss Kirsop.

“The choice not to burn the ark,” said Malcolm.

“I thought you were now a freethinker, Reverend,” said Miss Kirsop. “Evidently I was mistaken.”

Throughout the remainder of the crossing, Malcolm simply sat and brooded, mutely formulating arguments against the intended crime and imagining the arsonists' rebuttals. Miss Kirsop countered his silence by chattering about the imminent adventure, explaining how every night for the past week she and Ralph had collected kindling from the arid inland thickets, furtively borne the sticks to the vessel, and distributed them throughout the cargo hold. The
Covenant
was a floating tinderbox, awaiting a fateful spark.

No sooner had they all climbed the rope ladder to the weather deck than Dartworthy disappeared into the forecastle. He returned carrying a bundle of dried reeds, which he proceeded to ignite with the flame of his lantern. When Malcolm made a final plea for canceling the plan, asserting that no person had the right to obliterate an artifact so central to the Huancabamba religion, Dartworthy reminded him that for the past century the Indians had been happy to let the ark rot in a salt marsh.

As she dragged the door free of the hatch, Miss Kirsop quoted Macbeth. “If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.”

Burning faggot in one hand, lantern in the other, Dartworthy descended into the hold, bound for the secret pyre.

“Do you remember my constellations?” Miss Kirsop asked Malcolm. Stretching an arm towards the Milky Way, she sifted the stars through her splayed fingers. “When we met on St. Paul's Rocks, I told you I'd sown the sky with constellations made of my personal demons.”

“Miss Kirsop, I am not now, nor shall I ever be, interested in your mental disease.”

Despite this protestation, she insisted on telling him of a starry succubus fond of poisoning village wells, and she was about to relate the story of “my most demonic alter ego, a streetwalker adept at castrating her clients with her father's shaving razor,” when Dartworthy emerged from the hold, followed by a helix of thick gray smoke.

“It would be in our collective interest to abandon ship,” he said.

A half-hour later, Malcolm, seated on a lava rock, observed the burning
Covenant—
as did Dartworthy and Miss Kirsop, standing together on the beach. Already the flames had broken free of the hull and begun stabbing through the weather deck. The Bahía de Cormoranes mirrored the blaze, the glimmering orange tongues flashing across the waters like colonies of phosphorescent algae. Now the flames were climbing the masts, turning the spars into torches, the sails into billowing scarlet clouds. Like some hellish tree dropping overripe fruits, the ark shed great chunks of burning canvas, the embers hitting the bay and expiring in reptilian hisses.

“'Tis done—and quickly,” said Miss Kirsop.

“And well,” added Dartworthy.

“Nothing good will come of this,” said Malcolm.

“Stay where you are!” a male voice bellowed from out of the swamp.

Armed with a pistol, Governor Stopsack quit the shadows, accompanied by Eugenio and Sancho. Shackles jangled on the servants' belts. When Stopsack, raising his kerosene lantern high, shouted the inevitable command—“Arms out! Wrists together!”—Malcolm was the first to comply, though the arsonists (having every reason to suppose the pistol loaded) also assented in a timely manner.

“Your crime played out more conspicuously than you would have wished,” the Governor explained whilst Eugenio manacled Dartworthy's wrists and ankles. “I saw the flames from my veranda.” He turned to Malcolm, offering him a dispensational smile. “As a mere bystander to this incident—or so I assume—you may leave whenever you wish. Professor Cabot and Miss Quinn, however, are going to Mephistropolis, there to remain till Eggwort puts them on trial or the Devil sponsors a frost fair, whichever happens first.”

As Sancho shackled Miss Kirsop, she told Stopsack, “You are correct to hold Mr. Chadwick blameless—and mistaken to imagine God ever wanted you to enter the contest.”

“Your frustration is understandable, Governor,” said Malcolm. “But in binding two stalwart British subjects over to Hengstenberg you'll be simultaneously committing a cardinal sin and making a grave political miscalculation.”

“You can't detain us without bringing formal charges,” noted Dartworthy.

“Then I formally charge you with gross sacrilege, radical impiety, and arrant blasphemy,” replied Stopsack.

“Let's be honest, Governor,” said Miss Kirsop. “Your sensitivity to sacrilege is such that you wouldn't care if we made a chicken coop of the True Cross or a spitoon of the Holy Grail. The problem is that you think we cheated you out of ten thousand pounds.”

“Five thousand,” said Stopsack. “I was prepared to split the prize with Madam Prophet.”

“Here's a detail for you to ponder—the
Covenant
is a fraud,” said Malcolm. “It was built by a Huancabamba religious sect a mere hundred years ago.”

“Mr. Hallowborn has judged the ark authentic,” Stopsack replied. “Eggwort believes in it, too, for that matter. Those endorsements are good enough for me.”

Silence descended on the cove, the various factions having turned their attention to the dying
Covenant
. As seawater flooded the gutted hull, the ark begin its vertical voyage, plank by plank, yardarm by yardarm. Soon only the mainmast was visible, piercing the waves like a sword—and then even that flaming Excalibur was gone.

“Miss Quinn and I eagerly await our day in court,” Dartworthy insisted.

“We are keen to advertise our low opinion of piety,” added Miss Kirsop.

“Allow me to remind you that Eggwort will be conducting the trial,” said Stopsack. “If I were you, I'd be dreading my day in court with every fiber of my being.”

*   *   *

Only through the application of hindsight did Granville Heathway understand that any painting titled
No Transmutation Without Plenary Copulation,
much less one featuring a man and woman engaged in the marital act, would distress his custodians. At the time, however, Dr. Earwicker's anger surprised him, as did Dr. Quelp's conclusion that poor old Heathway must be madder than previously supposed, for who but a victim of satyriasis would create so scandalous a tableau? Happily for Granville, nobody had made an initial accounting of his art supplies, and so when Tobias the orderly sought to repossess them, barging into his cell and bearing away four camel's-hair brushes and seven tubes of paint (plus every one of his pictures), two brushes and four pigment capsules went unclaimed, Granville having secluded them in the dovecote, where the fastidious Tobias had not cared to search.

There remained the challenge of finding an object upon which to apply the paint, a problem whose solution, he now realized, was staring him in the face. He would produce his next work on the north wall of his cell: a barren whitewashed plane, surely as suitable for his visions as was the Sistine Chapel ceiling for Michelangelo's. Pondering potential subjects, he decided to adorn the wall with a representation of itself. Through this clever choice of theme, he would avoid consuming any actual pigment, for he could achieve a convincing effect simply by running his brush, its bristles moistened with drinking water, along the naked surface.

Before Granville could begin creating
Wall on Wall,
Achilles wafted into the cell and landed on the dovecote. Granville set his brush aside, for every message from Constantinople deserved the same immediate attention he would accord an angelic annunciation or a
mene mene tekel upharsin
.

Dearest Father,

Is it possible that, concerning Noah and the Flood, the Mussulmans' Koran is more accurate than the Hebrews' Bible? In any event, two days ago the Grand Vizier received a semaphore message from Mr. Dalrymple.
NO ARK ON ARARAT. DISMAYED BUT UNDAUNTED. ON TO AL-JUDI
.

Naturally this news put me in a melancholy frame of mind. Were it not for yesterday's encounter in the hookah-den, I would now be awash in self-pity. The longer I talked with Dr. Rosalind Franklin, however, the more trifling my own troubles seemed, and in time I forgot Mr. Dalrymple's communiqué.

No sooner had I entered the grotto than Yusuf Effendi urged me to present myself to the disconsolate woman sitting beside the samovar. Dr. Franklin, he explained, had traveled here from London, seeking an educated person with whom she might discuss her illness whilst inhaling the hookah-den's famously potent hashish—for
Cannabis
reportedly mitigates the collateral effects of “cobalt radiotherapy,” a treatment that the physicians at the Royal Marsden Hospital had recently inflicted upon her.