John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"What!" Ebenezer cried, starting up. "How can that be, and I've not seen her? What is't you say?"

"She is in this house this very moment, and hath been since she fled from Captain Mitchell! Here is proof." She drew from her bosom a necklace of dirty string, on which was threaded the fishbone ring presented to Ebenezer by Quassapelagh, the Anacostin King.

"I'God, the ring I gave you for her fare! Where is she?"

"Stay, Eben," Susan cautioned. "Ye've not heard all ye must before ye see her."

"A fart for't! Don't try to keep me from her!"

" 'Tis by her own instruction," Susan said, and blocked the door to the hallway. "Why is't, d'ye think, she hath not shown herself ere now?"

"Marry, I know not, nor dare I think! But I die to see her!"

" 'Tis only fit, for she hath done no less to see you."

Ebenezer stopped as if smitten by a hammer. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he was obliged to take the nearest seat — which happened to be the one at his writing desk — before he fell.

"Aye, she is dead!" Susan said. "Dead of French pox, opium, and despair! I saw her die, and 'twas not pretty."

"Ah God!" Ebenezer moaned, his features in a turmoil. "Ah God!"

"Ye know already how she was taken with love for ye, and for your innocence, after she had spurned ye in your room; and ye know she turned her back on John McEvoy when he wrote that letter to your father. A dream got hold of her, such as any whore is prone to, to live her life with you in perfect chastity, and it so possessed her that anon she vowed to follow ye to Maryland — the more inasmuch as 'twas on her account ye were sent thither — and she fondly hoped ye'd have her. But she had no money for her freight, and so for all she'd sworn to have no more o' whoring, it seemed she was obliged to swive her fare."

" 'Sheart, how this news wounds me!" Ebenezer cried.

" 'Tis joyous beside the rest," Susan declared. " 'Tis common knowledge that a pretty girl can swive most men round her finger, and any man at all if she hath fancy enough and spirit in her sporting — such is the world, and there's no help for't. 'Twas Joan Toast's plan to find a willing sea-captain, as hath many another lass, who'd let her warm his cabin the first week out in payment for her freight; yet she was so loath to play the whore again, she devised another scheme, the which was far more perilous and unpleasant in every way, but had the single merit that if it did not fail, she'd reach the Maryland shore unswived. She had heard it said along the wharves that whores were as scarce in America as Jews in the College o' Cardinals — so much so, that any lass who wished could cross the ocean free of charge in a certain ship, provided that when she got there she would hire herself to one or other of the whoremasters who met the boat."

Ebenezer groaned. "I dare not let my fancy run ahead!"

"Her new plan was, to sign aboard this vessel, that carried no other passengers but friskers, and so reach America unswived; once ashore, she'd bend her wit to find some means, of escaping her obligation — nor did that prospect much alarm her, for so eager were the provinces for women, and so eager the women for the high fees they could charge, there was no contract or other writ to bind 'em to their pledge."

"This ship," Ebenezer broke in. "I tremble to hear its name, but if she told you, I must know't."

" 'Twas called the Cyprian — the same that was attacked by pirates off the Maryland coast and all her women, save one, fetched to the rail and raped!"

"Save one? B'm'faith, then dare I hope — "

"Ye dare not," Susan said. "Joan Toast was the one, in sooth, that was not ravished at the rail, but the reason for't is, she fled aloft to the mizzen-rigging!"

"I'Christ, i'Christ, 'twas her!" Ebenezer cried. "Know, Susan, that these were the pirates of Captain Thomas Pound, the same that some time earlier had taken my valet and myself from the Poseidon at John Coode's behest! I know not how much Joan told you, but I must make confession now ere I perish of remorse: I was witness to this very piracy; I saw the Cyprian women bound up along the rail; I saw a hapless maid break free and scramble up the mizzen ratlines, though I little dreamed then who she was; I saw the Moor go after her — "

"That Moor!" Susan said with a shudder. "I know him well from her relation, and grow sick and cold at the memory! But hear the story — "

"I am not done with my confession," Ebenezer protested.

"Nor have ye aught to confess, that is not known to me already," Susan said grimly, and resumed her tale. "As soon as the pirates showed their colors, the captain advised the women not to resist but rather to submit with right good will, in hopes that once the pirates had swived their lust away, they'd leave 'em with a whole skin and a floating ship. But two girls hid in the farthest crannies of the bilge: Joan Toast because she'd vowed to stay chaste as a nun, and another girl so ruined with claps and poxes that she had but a few more days to live and wished to go to her grave unraped."

"And there the Moor discovered them! I am ill!"

"There he found 'em," Susan affirmed. " 'Twas what every lass shudders at in dreams: they crouched there in the dark, with the sounds o' lewd attack above their heads, and then the hatchway to the bilge was opened, and the monstrous Moor came in! He had a taper in his hand and in its light they saw his face and his great black body. When he spied the two women he gave a snort and leaped upon the nearest, that happened to be the one not far from death. 'Twas Joan's bad luck as well as his he could not see the wench's pox by candlelight, for anon when he was done and went for Joan, she would have two miseries instead of one to fear."

Ebenezer could only moan and shake his head.

"She made to flee whilst he was going at the sick girl, but he caught her by the ankle and knocked her such a swingeing clout she knew no more till he was carrying her and another up the ladderway to the deck. When she managed to break free and climb the rigging, as ye witnessed, 'twas her last fond hope he would give o'er the chase and take his pleasure with the flossies on the deck; but ere she reached the top the roll and pitch o' the rig so terrified her, she was obliged to stop climbing and thrust her arms and legs through like a fly in a web. 'Twas there the great Moor cracked her till she fainted dead away, and 'twas there she hung till Heaven knows when — ravished, poxed, and seeded with the monster's seed!"

"Ah, no!"

"No less," Susan confirmed. "Albeit 'twas not made plain till some time after, the Moor had got her with child. Yet all this barbarous usage was as naught beside her next misfortune: she had scarce thrown off her swoon and found herself still hanging in the rigging, when she heard another pirate climbing up and calling lewdly to her as he climbed. She resolved to leap into the ocean if 'twas the Moor, but when she turned to look — "

" Twas I," Ebenezer wept, "and may I fry in Hell for't! For the first time in my life I was possessed with lust like any rutting goat, and I had no hope of seeing Joan Toast again, that I thought despised me. Great God, 'twas only Pound's departure saved her from another rape, and at the hands of the man she'd suffered all the rest for! To this day I cannot understand that weakness, nor the other, when I made to force you at Captain Mitchell's."

"For you 'twas simple lust, that mortal men are prone to," Susan replied, "but to Joan Toast 'twas the end o' the world, for she loved ye as more than mortal. When the Cyprian put in at Philadelphia she signed herself to the first whoremaster on the dock, that chanced to be Captain Mitchell o' Calvert County."

"Dear Heav'n, d'you mean to say — "

"I mean to say she was his harlot from the first! The pox she'd got from the Moor soon spread over her in foul eruptions, and no gentleman would hire her; what's more she learned she was with child. Anon she took to opium for respite from her miseries, and thus fell into Mitchell's hands by perpetual indenture, and was set to poxing salvages and sundry menial chores. 'Twas then ye appeared a castaway at Mitchell's, like a figure in a dream, and so ashamed she was of her ruin, and possessed by wrath that ye'd betrayed her, and withal despairing of her future, she vowed to make an end on't, and took her life. 'Twas not the fair Joan Toast o' Locket's that this ring set o'er to Malden, but her awful corse!"