John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Then 'tis some torture you have in mind?" Father Smith murmured. "We Christians are no strangers there, either."

"Most especially the Holy Roman Church," Burlingame said cynically, "that hath authored such delights as never Saracen could devise!" Not taking his eyes from the priest, he proceeded to describe, perhaps for Ebenezer's benefit, various persuasions resorted to by the agents of the Inquisition: the strappado, the aselli, the escalera, the potro, the tablillas, the rack, the Iron Maiden, the hot brick, the Gehenna, and others. The Laureate was impressed enough by this recital, though it made him feel no easier about the business at hand. Father Smith sat stonily throughout.

"Yet these are all refinements for the connoisseur," Burlingame declared. "Who inflicts them savors his victim's pain as an end, not as a means, and I've nor taste nor time for such a game." Still thumbing the knife blade he left the table — whereat the priest gave a start despite himself — and bolted the cabin door. "I have observed among the Caribbean pirates that they may make a man eat his own two ears for sport, or fornicate his daughter with a short-sword; but when 'tis certain information that they seek, they have recourse to a simpler and wondrous quick expedient." He advanced toward the table, knife in hand. "Since thou'rt a priest, the loss should cause you no regrets; what shall unbind your tongue, sir, is the manner of the losing. 'Tis a blow to lose a treasure in one fell stroke, but how harder to be robbed of't jewel by jewel! Must I say more?"

" 'Sblood, Henry!" Ebenezer cried, jumping to his feet. "I cannot think you mean to do't!"

"Henry, is't?" the priest said thickly. "Thou'rt impostors after all!"

Burlingame frowned at Ebenezer. "I mean to do't, and you shall aid me. Hold him fast till I find rope to bind him!"

Although the priest showed no inclination to resist, Ebenezer could not bring himself to participate in the business. He stood about uncertainly.

"Now that I know you for an agent of John Coode," Father Smith declared, "I am prepared to suffer any pain. You shall not have the Journal from my hands."

When Burlingame growled and advanced another step, the priest snatched a letter-opener from under his papers and retreated to a farther wall, where, instead of assuming a posture of defense, he placed the point of his weapon against his heart. "Stand fast!" he cried, when Burlingame approached. "Another step and I will end my life!"

Burlingame halted. " 'Tis merely bluff."

"Hither, then, and give't the lie!"

"And do you believe your God excuses holy suicide?"

"I know not what He excuses," said the priest. " 'Tis the Church I serve, and I know well they can justify my act."

After a pause Burlingame shrugged, smiled, and replaced the poignard in his belt. "Pourquoi est-ce que je tuerais un homme si loyal à la cause sainte?"

The priest's expression changed from defiance to incredulousness. "What did you say?"

"J'ai dit, vous avez d émontré votre fidélité, et aussi votre sagesse: je ne me confie pas à Nicholson plus que vous. Allans, le Journal!"

This tactic mystified Ebenezer no less than Father Smith. "I cannot follow your French, Henry!" he complained. But instead of translating, Burlingame turned upon him with the poignard and backed him against the wall.

"You will understand anon, fool!" Henry cried, and to the still-bewildered priest he ordered, "Fouillez cet homme pour les armes, et puts apportez le Journal!"

"What hath possessed you?" the poet demanded. Coming on the heels of all his other doubts about Burlingame, this new turn of events was particularly discomforting.

"Who are you?" asked the priest. "And what credentials can you show?"

"Parlons une langue plus douce," smiled Burlingame. "Je n'ai pas d'ordres écrits de Baltimore, et je n'en veux pas. Vous admettrez qu'il ne soil pas la source seule de l'autorité? Quant à mes lettres de créance, je les porte toujours sur ma personne." He unbuttoned his shirt and displayed the letters MC carved into the skin of his chest. "Celles-ci ne sont peu connues à Thomas Smith?"

"Monsieur Casteene!" exclaimed Father Smith. "Vous et ês Monsieur Casteene?"

"Ainsi que vous et ês Jesuité," Henry said, "et je peux faire plus que Baltimore ne r êve pour débarrasser ce lieu de protestants anglais. Vívent James et Louis, et apportez-moi le sacré Journal!". .

"Oui, Monsieur, tout de suite! Si j'avais connu qui vous et ês — "

"Mes soup çons n'ont pas été plus petits que les vôtres, mais ils sont disparus. Cet épouvantail-ci paraît être loyal à Baltimore, mais il n'est pas catholique: s'il fait de la peine, je le tuerai. ."

"Oui, Monsieur!" said the delighted priest. "Mais oui, j'apporterai le Journal tout de suite!" He ran to unlock an iron-bound chest in one corner of the cabin.

"What in the name of Heav'n doth this mean?" cried Ebenezer, in an anguish of doubt.

"What it means," said his companion, "is that I am not this Henry you took me for, nor yet the Timothy Mitchell I am called. I am Monsieur Casteene!"

"Who?"

"Your fame hath not spread to London, sir," the priest laughed from the corner. He fetched a sheaf of manuscript from the chest and turned scornfully to the Laureate. "Monsieur Casteene is known throughout the length and breadth of the provinces as the Grand Enemy of the English. He hath been Governor of Canada, and fought both Andros and Nicholson in New York."

"Until my enemies gained favor with King Louis and undid me," the other said bitterly.

"Monsieur Casteene then fled to the Indians," Smith went on. "He lives among them, and hath taken to wife an Indian woman — "

"Two Indian women, Father Smith: 'tis a sin God will forgive, in return for the massacre of Schenectady."

"I had heard you were on Colonel Hermann's manor in Cecil County," said the priest. "Is't possible Colonel Hermann too is more than just Lord Baltimore's man?"

"With faith all things are possible; at least he denied my presence, and disclaimed any knowledge of the Naked Indians."

"Then thou'rt traitors, the pair of you!" cried Ebenezer. "Thou'rt a traitor," he said specifically to his companion, "and I took you to be my dear friend Burlingame! How much doth this discrepancy explain!"

The man with the knife laughed a brief, derisive laugh and held out his hand to Father Smith for the Journal. "Permettez-moi regarder ce livre merveilleux pour lequel j'ai risqu é ma vie."

The priest gave it to him eagerly, whereupon, without hesitation, Burlingame struck him such a blow upon the back of his neck that he fell senseless to the floor.

"I had not thought him such a fool. Find rope to bind him with, Eben, and we shall see what have we here ere we retire."

"Come, bind him up," Burlingame repeated, spreading the Journal open on the table. "Already he hath commenced to stir." But seeing that Ebenezer was still too disorganized to act, he fetched some rope himself and bound the priest's hands and feet. "At least help me lift him into a chair!"

Reviving, Father Smith winced and blinked, and then stared sullenly at the Journal. He found his voice before the poet did.

"Who are you, then — John Coode?"

Burlingame laughed. "Only Tim Mitchell, as I said at the outset, and a loyal friend of Baltimore, if not King Louis and the Pope. Thou'rt a stiff neck poorer for your lack of faith, my friend." To Ebenezer, whose turbulent features betrayed his lingering doubts, he explained further that rumors had been rife in Maryland since 1692 of the legendary Monsieur Casteene's presence near the Pennsylvania border. Colonel Augustine Hermann of Bohemia Manor in Cecil County had denied the presence of both Casteene and the so-called Stabbernowles, or "Naked Indians" of the north, but so great was the fear of general massacre at the hands of the French and the Indians — especially in the light of Maryland and Virginia's persistent refusal to aid the beleaguered Governor Fletcher of New York and the mutual distrust among all the provincial governments — that the rumors still persisted, and the most bizarre details of the Casteene legend, such as that of the scarified monogram on his chest, were widely believed. "I scratched those letters with my dirk this evening in Oxford," he concluded, displaying them again in the candlelight. "See how fresh they are? 'Twas a card I'd not have played in the light of day!"