John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Two men then laid hold of Bertrand, who stood nearest the entrance to the hut, forced him to his knees, and with the assistance of a spearpoint obliged him to crawl through the little doorway, whinnying protests and pleas for clemency. The Captain too, now that imprisonment was at hand, let go a fresh torrent of threats and mariner's oaths, to no avail: down upon his knees he went, and through the dark hole after Bertrand.

"I say!" the original tenant complained, breaking off his song at the ruckus. "This is too much! What is't now? 'Sheart! Did I hear an honest English curse there? Hallo, another!" Ebenezer's turn had come to scramble after. "D'ye mean we've enough for four-man shove-ha'penny? Who might you gentlemen be, to come calling so late in the day?"

"A pair of travelers and an innocent shipmaster," the Captain answered, "blown hither by the storm and betrayed by two black devils of a crew!"

"Ah, there's your crime," the other prisoner said. The hut was dark, so that although in its small interior the Englishmen lay like logs in a woodbox, they could not see their companions even faintly. Their jailer, after receiving instructions from the Indian leader, remained on guard outside, and the raiding party dispersed.

"What crime?" the Captain protested. "I've ne'er laid an angry hand on the rascals since the day I bought "em!"

" 'Tis enough ye bought 'em," replied the tenor. "More than enough. I ne'er bought or sold a black man in my life, nor harmed a red — how could I, i'faith, that's but a runaway redemptioner myself? — but 'twas enough I matched the color of them that did."

"What is this talk of slaves and colors?" Bertrand demanded. "D'ye mean they'll scalp poor hapless servingmen like myself?"

"Worse, friend."

"What could be worse?" the valet cried.

"By'r voice I'd judge ye sing a faltering bass," the other declared. "But if they do the trick they've set their minds to, well all be warbling descants within the week."

Of the three new prisoners only Ebenezer grasped the meaning of this prediction; yet though horrified by it, he was too disconcerted, even confounded, by his prior astonishment to interpret the figures for his comparisons. Their host, however, the invisible tenor, did so at once in plainest literal English, to the consternation of Bertrand and the Captain.

"I've not been in this wretched province many months," said he, "but I know well the Governor hath enemies on every side — Jacobites and John Coode Protestants within, Andros to the south, and the Frenchman to the north — so that he lives in daily fear of insurrection or invasion. Yet his greatest peril is one he little dreams of: the complete extermination of every white-skinned human being in Maryland!"

"Fogh!" cried the Captain. "They're but one town against a province!"

"Far from it," the tenor replied. "Few white men know this town exists, but it hath lain hid here many a year; 'tis the headquarters, as I gather, for a host of mutinous salvage chiefs, and a haven for runaway Negroes. All the disaffected leaders are smuggling in this week for a general council of war, and ourselves, gentlemen, will be eunuched and burnt for their amusement."

At this news Bertrand set up such a howling that their guard thrust in his head, jabbed randomly in the dark with the butt end of his spear, and muttered threats. The tenor replied with cheerful curses and remarked, when the guard withdrew, "I say, there were three of ye came in, but I've heard only two speak out thus far: is the other wight sick, or fallen a-swoon, or what?"

" 'Tis not fright holds my tongue, John McEvoy," the poet said with difficulty. " 'Tis shock and shame!"

The other prisoner gasped. "Nay, i'faith! 'Tis past belief! Ah! Ah! Too good! Ah, marry, too wondrous good! Tell me 'tis not really Eben Cooke I hear!"

"It is," Ebenezer admitted, and McEvoy's wild laughter brought new threats from the guard.

"Oh! Ah! Too good! The famous virgin poet and reformer o' London whores! 'Twill be a joy to see you roasting by my side. Aha! Oh! Oh!"

"It ill becomes you to rejoice," the poet replied. "You set out a-purpose to ruin my life, but whate'er injury or misfortune you've suffered at my hands hath been no wish of mine at all."

"Marry!" Bertrand exclaimed. "Is't the pimp from Pudding Lane, sir, that tattled to Master Andrew?"

"I take it ye gentlemen know each other," the Captain said, "and have some quarrel betwixt ye?"

"Why, nay," McEvoy answered, "no quarrel at all; 'tis only that I made his fortune — albeit by accident — and out of gratitude he hath wrecked my life, hastened my death, and ruined the woman I love!"

"Yet not a bit of't by design, and scarce even with knowledge," Ebenezer countered, "whereas 'twill please you to know your revenge hath surpassed your evillest intentions. I have suffered at the hands of rogues and pirates, been deceived by my closest friend, swindled out of my estate, and obliged to flee forever in disgrace from my father; what's more, in following me here, my sister hath been led into Heav'n knows what peril, while poor Joan Toast — " Here he was overwhelmed with emotion and lost his voice.

"What of her?" snapped McEvoy.

"I will say only what I presume you saw at Malden: that she hath suffered, and suffers yet, inconceivable tribulations and indignities, in consequence of which she is disfigured in form and face and cannot have long to live."

McEvoy groaned. "And ye call me to blame for't, wretch, when 'twas you she followed? I'Christ, if my hands were free to wring your neck!"

"I have a burthen of guilt, indeed," Ebenezer admitted. "Yet but for your tattling to my father you'd ne'er have lost her; or, if you had, 'twould've been to Pudding Lane and not to Maryland. In any case, she'd not have been raped by a giant Moor and infected with the pox, or ruined by opium, or whored out nightly to a barnful of salvages!"

At the pronouncement of each of these misfortunes McEvoy moaned afresh; hot tears coursed from the poet's eyes, ran cold across his temples and into his ears.

"Whate'er thy differences, gentlemen," the Captain put in, " 'tis little to the purpose to air 'em this late in the day. All our sins will soon enough be rendered out, and there's an end on't."

"Aiee!" Bertrand wailed.

"True enough," McEvoy sighed. "The man who won't forgive his neighbor must needs have struck a wondrous bargain with his own conscience."

"The best of us," Ebenezer agreed, "hath certain memories in the night to make him sweat for shame. Once before, in Locket's, I forgave you for your letter to my father; yet 'twas a bragging sort of pardon, inasmuch as what you'd done had seemed to make my fortune. Now I have lost title, fortune, love, honor, and life itself, let me forgive you again, McEvoy, and beg your own forgiveness in return."

The Irishman concurred, but admitted that since Ebenezer had at no time set about deliberately to injure either him or Joan Toast, there was little or nothing to be forgiven.

"Not so, friend — i'Christ, not so!" The poet wept, and related as coherently as he could his trials with Captain Pound, the rape of the Cyprian, his bargain with the swine-girl, the loss of his estate, and his obligatory marriage to Joan Toast. In particular he dwelt upon his responsibility in Joan's downfall, her solicitude during his protracted seasoning, and the magnanimity of her plan for their flight to England, until not only himself and McEvoy, but the whole imprisoned company were sniffling and weeping at her goodness.

"For reward," Ebenezer went on, "she asked no more than that I give her my ring for hers, to make her feel less a harlot, and that she be given the honor of providing for me in London — "

"As she did for me," McEvoy reverently interposed.