The Sot-Weed Factor (38 page)

"Whether 'tis French pox or some other I don't know," said the man who had the news, "but he is sore as a boil of't and cannot walk to save him."

Ebenezer readily assumed that it was the girl in the mizzen-rigging who had been infected, for though Boabdil had assuredly not confined his exercise to her, none of the other pirates showed signs of the malady. The disclosure gave him a complexly qualified pleasure: in the first place he was glad to see the Moor thus repaid for the rape, yet he quite understood the oddity of this emotion in the light of his own intentions. Second, the relief he felt at so narrowly escaping contagion himself, like the relief at having his chastity preserved for him, failed to temper his disappointment as he thought it should. And third, the presence of infection suggested that the girl had not been virginal, and this likelihood occasioned in him the following additional and not altogether harmonious feelings:
chagrin
at having somewhat less cause to loathe the Moor and relish his affliction;
disappointment
at what he felt to be a depreciation of his own near-conquest;
alarm
at the implication of this disappointment, which seemed to be that his motives for assaulting the girl were more cruel than even the Moor's, who would not have assumed her to be virginal in the first place;
awe
at the double perversity that though his lust had been engendered at least partially by pity for what he took to be a deflowered maiden, yet he felt in his heart that the pity was nonetheless authentic and would have been heightened, not diminished, during his own attack on her, whereas the revelation that she had not lost her maidenhead to Boabdil materially diminished it; and finally, a sort of overarching
joy
commingled with
relief
at a suspicion that seemed more probable every time he reviewed it -- the suspicion that his otherwise not easily accountable possession by desire, contingent as it had been on the assumption of her late deflowering and his consequent pity, was by the very perverseness of that contingency rendered almost innocent, an affair as it were between virgins. This mystic yearning of the pure to join his ravished sister in impurity: was it not, in fact, self-ravishment, and hence a variety of love?

"Very likely," he concluded, and chewed his index fingernail for joy.

How Captain Pound explained his dereliction, the Laureate never learned. The six weeks ran their course; well after dark on the appointed day the prisoners heard another ship saluted by the pirates, and the sound of visitors brought aboard from a longboat. Whatever the nature of the parley, it was brief: after half an hour the guests departed. All hands were ordered aloft, and into the rope-locker came the sounds of the pirates making sail in the gentle breeze. As soon as the shallop gained steerageway the acting first mate -- none other than the boatswain impressed from the
Poseidon,
who had so rapidly and thoroughly adjusted to his new circumstances that Pound appointed him to replace the ailing Moor -- climbed down into the fo'c'sle, unlocked the door of the brig, and ordered the prisoners on deck.

"Aie!" cried Bertrand. " 'Tis the end!"

"What doth this mean?" the Laureate demanded.

" 'Tis the end! 'Tis the end!"

" 'Tis the end o' thy visit," the boatswain grumbled. "I'll say that much."

"Thank Heav'n!" Ebenezer cried. "Is't not as I said, Bertrand?"

"Up with ye, now."

"One moment," the poet insisted. "I beg you for a moment alone, sir, ere I go with you. I must give thanks to my Savior." And without waiting for reply he fell to his knees in an attitude of prayer.

"Ah, well, then --" The boatswain shifted uncertainly, but finally stepped outside the cell. "Only a moment, though; the Captain's in foul spirits."

As soon as he was alone Ebenezer snatched the Journal manuscript from its hiding-place nearby and thrust it into his shirt. Then he joined Bertrand and the boatswain.

"I am ready, friend, and to this cell bid
Adieu
right gladly. Is't a boat hath come for us, or are we so near shore? 'Sblood, how this lifts my heart!"

The boatswain merely grunted and preceded them up the companionway to the deck, where they found a mild and moonless mid-September night. The shallop rode quietly under a brilliant canopy of stars. All hands were congregated amidships, several holding lanterns, and greeted their approach with a general murmur. Ebenezer thought it only fit that he bid them farewell with a bit of verse, since all in all they had, save for the past six weeks, treated him quite unobjectionably: but there was not time to compose, and all he had in stock, so to speak (his notebook having been left behind, to his great sorrow, on the
Poseidon)
was a little poem of welcome to Maryland that he had hatched at sea and committed to memory -- unhappily not appropriate to the occasion. He resolved therefore to content himself with a few simple remarks, no less well turned for their brevity, the substance of which would be that while he could not approve of their way of life, he was nonetheless appreciative of their civil regard for himself and his man. Moreover, he would conclude, what a man cannot condone he may yet forgive:
Many a deed that the head reviles finds absolution in the heart;
and while he could not but insist, should they ever be apprehended at their business, that their verdict be just, he could pray nonetheless, and would with his whole heart, that their punishment be merciful.

But it was not his fortune to deliver himself of these observations, for immediately upon reaching the gathering he and Bertrand were set upon by the nearest pirates and held fast by the arms. The group separated into a double column leading to the larboard rail, from the gangway of which, illuminated by the flickering lanterns, the prisoners saw a plank run out some six feet over the sea.

"Nay!" Ebenezer's flesh drew up. "Dear God in Heav'n!"

Captain Pound was not in sight, but somewhere aft his voice said "On with't." The grim-faced pirates drew their cutlasses and held them ready; Ebenezer and Bertrand, at the inboard end of the gauntlet, were faced toward the plank, released, and at the same moment pricked from behind with swords or knives to get them moving.

"From the first, gentlemen, I have been uncertain which of you is Ebenezer Cooke," said Captain Pound. "I know now that the twain of you are impostors. The real Ebenezer Cooke is in St. Mary's City, and hath been these several weeks."

"Nay!" cried the poet, and Bertrand howled. But the ranks of steel blades closed behind them, and they were shortly teetering on the plank. Below them the black sea raced and rustled down the freeboard; Ebenezer saw it sparkle in the flare of lanterns and fell to his knees, the better to clutch at the plank. No time for a parting song like that of Arion, whose music had summoned dolphins to his rescue. In two seconds Bertrand, farther outboard, lost his balance and fell with a screech into the water.

"Jump!" cried several pirates.

"Shoot him!" others urged.

"I'God!" wailed Ebenezer, and allowed himself to tumble from the plank.

The Laureate and Bertrand, Left to Drown,

Assume Their Niches in the Heavenly

Pantheon

F
or better or worse,
the Laureate found the water warm; the initial shock of immersion was gone by the time he scrabbled to the surface, and when he opened his eyes he saw the lights of the shallop's stern, already some yards distant, slipping steadily away. But despite the moderate temperature of the water his heart froze. He could scarely comprehend his position: uppermost in his mind was not the imminence of death at all, but that last declaration of Captain Pound's, that the
real
Ebenezer Cooke was in St. Mary's City. Another impostor! What marvelous plot, then, was afoot? There was of course the possibility that Burlingame, so clever at disguises, had arrived safely and found it useful to play the poet, the further to confound Coode. But if he had learned of Ebenezer's capture from passengers on the
Poseidon,
as one would suppose, surely he understood that assuming his identity would jeopardize his friend's life; and if instead he believed his ward and proté
g
é
dead, it was hard to imagine him having the heart for imposture. No, more likely it was Coode himself who was responsible. And to what evil purpose would his name be turned? Ebenezer shuddered to think. He kicked off his shoes, the better to stay afloat; the precious manuscript too he reluctantly cast away, and began treading water as gently as possible to conserve his strength.

But for what? The hopelessness of his circumstances began to make itself clear. Already the shallop's lights were small in the distance, obscured by every wave; soon they would be gone entirely, and there were no other lights. For all he knew he was in mid-Atlantic; certainly he was scores of miles from land, and the odds against another ship's passing even within sight by daylight were so great as to be unthinkable. Moreover, the night was young: there could be no fewer than eight hours before dawn, and though the seas were not rough, he could scarcely hope to survive that long.

"I'faith, I am going to die!" he exclaimed to himself. "There is no other possibility!"

This was a thing he had often pondered. Always, in fact -- every since his boyhood days in St. Giles, when he and Anna played at saints and Caesars or Henry read them stories of the past -- he had been fascinated by the aspect of death. How must the cutpurse feel, or the murderer, when he mounts the stairway to the gibbet? The falling climber, when he sees the rock that will dash out brains and bowels? In the night, between their bedchambers, he and his sister had examined every form of death they knew of and compared their particular pains and horrors. They had even experimented with death: once they pressed the point of a letter knife into their breasts as hard as they dared, but neither had had the courage to draw blood; another time each had tried being throttled by the other, to see who could go the farthest without crying out. But the best game of all was to see who could hold his breath longer; to see, specifically, whether either was brave enough to hold it to the point of unconsciousness. Neither had ever reached that goal, but competition carried their efforts to surprising lengths: they would grow mottled, their eyes would bulge, their jaws clench, and finally would come the explosion of breath that left them weak. There was a terrible excitement about this game; no other came so close to the feel of death, especially if in the last frantic moments one imagined himself buried alive, drowning, or otherwise unable to respire at will.

It is not surprising, therefore, that however unparalleled in his experience, Ebenezer's present straits were by no means novel to his imagination. Even the details of stepping from the plank at night, clawing from the depths for air, and watching the stern lights slip away they had considered, and Ebenezer almost knew ahead of time how the end would feel: water catching the throat and stinging the nose, the convulsive coughing to expel it, and the inevitable reinspiration of air where no air was, the suck of water into the lungs; then vertigo, the monstrous pressure in head and chest, and worst of all the frenzy, the anxiety of the body not to die, that total mindless lust for air which must in the last seconds rend body and soul unspeakably. When he and Anna chose their deaths, drowning -- along with burning, slow crushing, and similar protracted agonies -- was disqualified at once, and the news that anyone had actually suffered from such an end would thrill them to the point of dizziness. But in his heart the fact of death and all these sensuous anticipations were to Ebenezer like the facts of life and the facts of history and geography, which, owing to his education and natural proclivities, he looked at always from the
storyteller's
point of view: notionally he admitted its finality: vicariously he sported with its horror; but never, never could he really embrace either. That lives are stories, he assumed; that stories end, he allowed -- how else could one begin another? But that the teller himself must live a particular tale and die -- Unthinkable! Unthinkable!

Even now, when he saw not the slightest grounds for hope and knew that the dread two minutes must be on him soon, his despair was as notional, his horror as vicarious, as if he were in his chamber in St. Giles playing the dying-game, or acting out a story in the summerhouse. Bertrand, he assumed with some envy, had strangled on his water and was done with it; there was no reason why he himself should not get it over with at once. But it was not simply fear that kept him paddling; it was also the same constitutional deficiency that had made him unable to draw his own blood, will himself unconscious, or acknowledge in his heart that there really
had
been a Roman Empire. The shallop was gone. Nothing was to be seen except the stars, or heard except the chuckle of water around his neck, yet his spirit was almost calm.

Presently he heard a thrashing in the sea nearby; his heart pounded. " 'Tis a shark!" he thought, and envied Bertrand more than ever. Here was something that had not occurred to him! Why had he not drowned himself at once? The thing splashed nearer; another wave and they were in the same trough. Even as Ebenezer struck out in the opposite direction, his left leg brushed against the monster.

"Aie!"
he shrieked, and "Nay!" cried the other, equally alarmed.

"Dear God!" said Ebenezer, paddling back. "Is't you, Bertrand?"

"Master Eben! Praise be, I thought 'twas a sea-serpent! Thou'rt not drowned?"

They embraced each other and came up sputtering.

"Get on with't, or we shall be yet!" the poet said, as happy as though his valet had brought a boat. Bertrand observed that it was but a matter of time after all, and Ebenezer replied with feeling that death was not so terrible in company as alone.

"What say you," he proposed, in the same spirit wherewith he had used to propose the breath-game to Anna: "shall we have done with't now, together?"

"In any case 'twill not be many minutes," Bertrand said. "My muscles fail me already."

"Look yonder, how the stars are darkened out." Ebenezer pointed to a lightless stretch on the western horizon. "At least we'll not need to weather that storm."

"Not I, 'tis certain." The valet's breath came hard from the exertion of paddling. "Another minute and I'm done."

"Howe'er you've injured me before, friend, I forgive you. We'll go together."

"Ere the moment comes," Bertrand panted, "I've a thing to say, sir --"

"Not
sir!"
cried the poet. "Think you the sea cares who's master and man?"

"-- 'tis about my gambling on the
Poseidon,"
Bertrand continued.

"Long since forgiven! You lost my money: I pray you had good use of't! What need have I of money now?"

"There's more, sir. You recall the Parson Tubman offered odds --"

"Forgiven! What more's to lose, when you had plucked me clean?"

But Bertrand would not be consoled. "What a wretch I felt, sir! I answered to your name, ate at your place, claimed the honors of your post --"

"Speak no more of't!"

"Methought
'Tis he should tumble Lucy on these sheets, not I,
and then I lost your forty pound as well! And you, sir, in a hammock in the fo'c'sle, suffering in my place!"

" 'Tis over and done," Ebenezer said kindly.

"Hear me out, sir! When that fearful storm was done and we were westering, I vowed to myself I'd have ye back that money and more, to pay ye for your hardship. The Parson had got up a new swindle on raising the Virginia Capes, and I took a notion to woo Miss Lucy privily to my cause. Then we would fleece the fleecer!"

" 'Tis a charitable resolve, but you'd naught to use for stakes --"

"Nor did some others that had been gulled," Bertrand replied. "They threatened to take a stick to Tubman for all he was a cleric. But he smelled what was in the wind, and gave 'em a chance to bet again on Maryland. They'd but to pledge some property or other --"

"I'faith!" cried Ebenezer. "His cassock frocked a very Jew!"

"He had the papers drawn like any lawyer: we'd but to sign, and we could wager to the value of the property."

"You signed a pledge?" Ebenezer asked incredulously.

"Aye, sir."

"Dear God! To what?"

"To Malden, sir. I --"

"To Malden!" Such was the poet's amazement he forgot to paddle, and the next wave covered his head. When he could speak again he demanded, "Yet surely 'twas no more than a pound or two?"

"I shan't conceal it, sir; 'twas rather more."

"Ten pounds, then? Twenty? Ha, out with't, fellow! What's forty pounds more to a drowning man? What is't to me if you lost a hundred?"

"My very thought, sir," Bertrand said faintly; his strength was almost gone. " 'Twas e'en for that I told ye, now we're drowning men. Lookee how the dark comes closer! Methinks I hear the sea rising yonder, too, but I shan't be here to feel the rain. Farewell, sir."

"Wait!" Ebenezer cried, and clutched his servant by one arm to help support him.

"I'm done, sir; let me go."

"And I, Bertrand; I shall go with thee! Was't two hundred you lost, pray?"

" 'Twas but a pledge, sir," Bertrand said. "Who's to say I lost a farthing? For aught I know thou'rt a wealthy man this moment."

"What did you pledge, man? Three hundred pounds?"

Bertrand had stopped treading water and would have gone under had not Ebenezer, paddling furiously, held him up with one hand by the shirt front.

"What doth it matter, sir? I pledged it all."

"All!"

"The grounds, the manor, the sot-weed in the storehouse -- Tubman holds it all."

"Pledge my legacy!"

"Prithee let me drown, sir, if ye won't yourself."

"I shall!" said Ebenezer. "Sweet Malden gone? Then farewell, and God forgive you!"

"Farewell, sir!"

"Stay, I am with thee yet!" Master and man embraced each other. "Farewell! Farewell!"

"Farewell!" Bertrand cried again, and they went under. Immediately both fought free and struggled up for air.

"This will not do!" Ebenezer gasped. "Farewell!"

"Farewell!" said Bertrand. Again they embraced and went under, and again fought free.

"I cannot do't," said Bertrand, "though my muscles scarce can move, they bring me up."

"Adieu,
then," said the poet grimly. "Thy confession gives me strength to die alone. Farewell!"

"Farewell!"

As before, Ebenezer took a breath before sinking and so could not do more than put his face under. This time, however, his mind was made up: he blew out the air, bade the world a last farewell, and sank in earnest.

A moment later he was up again, but for a different reason.

"The bottom! I felt the bottom, Bertrand! 'Tis not two fathom deep!"

"Nay!" gasped the valet, who had been near submerged himself. "How can that be, in the middle of the ocean? Haply 'twas a whale or other monster."

" 'Twas hard sand bottom!" Ebenezer insisted. He went below again, this time fearlessly, and from a depth of no more than eight feet brought up a fistful of sand for proof.

"Belike a shoal, then," Bertrand said, unimpressed. "As well forty fathom as two; we can't stand up in either. Farewell!"

"Wait! 'Tis no cloud yonder, man, but an ocean isle we've washed to! Those are her cliffs that hide the stars; that sound is the surf against her coast!"

"I cannot reach it."

"You can! 'Tis not two hundred yards to shore, and less to a standing place!" Fearing for his own endurance, he waited no longer for his man to he persuaded, but struck out westwards for the starless sky, and soon heard Bertrand panting and splashing behind. With every stroke his conjecture seemed more likely; the sound of gentle surf grew distant and recognizable, and the dark outline defined itself more sharply.

"If not an isle, at least 'twill be a rock," he called over his shoulder, "and we can wait for passing ships."

After a hundred yards they could swim no farther; happily, Ebenezer found that by standing on tiptoe he could just clear the surface with his chin.

"Very well for you, that are tall," lamented Bertrand, "but I must perish here in sight of land!"

Ebenezer, however, would hear of no such thing: he instructed the valet to float along behind him, hands on the poet's shoulders for support. It was tedious going, especially for Ebenezer, only the balls of whose feet were on the bottom: the weight behind pulled him off balance at every step, and though Bertrand rode clear, his weight held Ebenezer at a constant depth, so that only between waves could he catch his breath. The manner of their progress was thus: in each trough Ebenezer secured his footing and drew a breath; when the wave came he stroked with both arms from his breast and, with his head under, rode perhaps two feet -- one of which would be lost in the slight undertow before he regained his footing. Half an hour, during which they covered no more than forty or fifty feet, was enough to exhaust his strength, but by then the water was just shallow enough for the valet to stand as well. It required another thirty minutes to drag themselves over the remaining distance: had there been breakers they might yet have drowned, but the waves were never more than two feet high, and oftener less than one. At last they reached a pebbly beach and, too fatigued for words, crawled on all fours to the base of the nearby cliff, where they lay some while as if a-swoon.