John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Throughout the journie, as one might guess, my Captain bragg'd and strutted handsomelie. I was oblig'd to him for life, he declar'd, for that his deed had preserv'd the twain of us; and he offer'd to murther me, in some dark and dastard wise, if ever I noys'd about in Jamestowne the manner of our salvation. I c dscarce protest, inasmuch he had in sooth preserv'd me, but it was bitter frute to eate, for that I must submitt to his browbeating and braggadocio without compleynt. In briefe, I was to feign I had been detain'd with Opecancanough, and my Captain alone led in unto the Emperour. Moreover, he made so bold as to shew me a written account of his salvation by Pocahontas, the w chhe meant to include in his lying Historie: this version made no mention whatever of his scurrilous deflowring of the Princesse, but merelie imply'd, she was overcome by his manlie bearing & comelie face! It was this farce and travestie, then, wherein I was oblig'd to feign belief, and w chhath mov'd me, in hopes of pacifying my anguish'd conscience, to committ this true accounting to my Journall-booke. Whereon, I pray God, my Captain will never lay his lecherous eyes!

Here ended Sir Henry's Privie Journall except for one final entry, dated several weeks after his return to Jamestown and only a few months prior to his conscription for the fateful voyage up the Chesapeake:

March, 1608: Pocahontas, the Emperours daughter, having at long last regayn'd full possession of her health, is ever at the gates of the towne, with a retinue of her people, enquiring after my Captain. He shuns her as much as possible, albeit in her absence, and in his Historie, he makes the finest speaches in her praise. The truth is, he feares his fowle adventure will out, and I suspect he is torn betwixt his reluctance to wed her (and thus make an honest woman of her), and his desire once againe to sate his lust on her. For albeit the verie sownd of his voice doth sicken my stomacke, so do I loathe him, yet he cannot contain his lewd exployt, but must still catch privilie my eare, and declare that hers was the most succulent flowr ever he pluckt, & cet., & cet.

As for the Princesse, she still lingers at the gate, all wystfullie, and sends him, by her attendants, woven basketts of great dry'd egg-plants. .

"God's body!" Burlingame cried at the end. "Your Excellency, look here!"

Nicholson smiled from the green table, where he was completing the transaction with Sowter. "New matter against Coode, is't?"

"Coode be damned!" Burlingame replied. "Here, read it, sir! 'Tis all about the mysterious eggplant business I spoke of before! I'God, if only the recipe were there as well! 'Tis some encaustic, or aphrodisiac, don't ye think, Eben? That 'fyrie hue' sounds like phlogosis. . But marry, what is the trick? I could save this miserable Province with it!"

"Go to, ye lose me!" Nicholson protested, as mystified as everyone else except Ebenezer; but when the contents of the Journall and their significance were explained to him, his face grew grave. " 'Twere a risky adventure even so," he declared, referring to Burlingame's proposed embassy to Bloodsworth Island, "but with this eggplant trick to confound 'em. ."

"I could do it!" Burlingame insisted. "I'd be King of the Ahatchwhoops by the week's end if I had that recipe! Smith!" He turned upon the wondering cooper. "Where's the missing part of these papers? I swear you'll not leave the Province till we have it!"

To Ebenezer's surprise, before the cooper could protest his bewilderment, Joan Toast spoke up for the first time.

" 'Tis vain to threaten him," she said. "He hath no idea what you want, or where to find it. I stole those pages, and I mean to keep them."

Burlingame, Nicholson, and Sir Thomas all pleaded with her to surrender the missing passages, or at least to disclose the trick which Captain John Smith had employed to win the day in Virginia; they explained the gravity of the situation on Bloodsworth Island and Henry's strategy to forestall an insurrection — but to no avail.

"Look at me!" the girl cried bitterly. "Behold the fruits of lustfulness! Swived in my twelfth year, poxed in my twentieth, and dead in my twenty-first! Ravaged, ruined, raped, and betrayed! Woman's lot is wretched enough at best; d'ye think I'll pass on that murtherous receipt to make it worse?"

In vain then did Burlingame vow never to employ Smith's formula for carnal purposes, but only to demonstrate his identity to the Ahatchwhoops.

"The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be," Joan retorted. "The time will come when ye crave a child by Anna yonder, or some other. . I shan't e'en make the vile stuff for ye myself!"

"Then it is some potion he takes!" cried Henry. "Or is't a sort of plaster?"

Nicholson pounded his stick pn the floor. "We must know, girl! Name thy price for't!"

Joan laughed. "D'ye think to bribe the dead? Nay, sir, the Great Tom Leech bites sore enough, God knows; I'll not give him more teeth than he hath already! But stay — " Her manner suddenly became shrewd, like Sowter's. "I may name my price, ye say?"

"Within reason, of course," the Governor affirmed. "What ye ask must be ours to give."

"Very well, then," Joan declared. "My price is Malden."

"Nay!" Andrew cried.

"Nay, prithee!" pleaded Ebenezer, who until then had found the discussion as embarrassing as had Anna.

" 'Tis a hard price," Burlingame observed, regarding her curiously.

"Not for doing so great a disservice to my sex," Joan replied.

Now even McEvoy was moved to join the chorus of objections. "Whate'er will ye do with this estate, my dear?" he asked gently. " 'Tis of no use to ye now. If there is someone ye wish to provide for, why, peradventure the Governor can make arrangements."

Joan turned her face to him, and her expression softened, if her resolution did not. "Ye know as well as I there's no one, John. Why d'ye ask? Can it be ye've forgot the whoremonger's first principle?" For the benefit of the others she repeated it: "Ye may ask a whore her price, but not her reasons. My price is the title to Cooke's Point, forever and aye: ye may take it or leave it."

Nicholson and Burlingame exchanged glances.

"Done," said the Governor. "Draw up the papers, Tom."

"Nay, b'm'faith!" cried Andrew. " 'Tis unlawful! When Smith gave o'er his claim, the title reverted to me!"

"Not at all," said Burlingame. "It reverted to the Province."

"Damn ye, man! Whose side are ye on?"

"On the side of the Province, for the nonce," Henry answered. "Those pages are worth a brace of Maidens."

Andrew threatened to appeal to the Lords Commissioners, but the Governor was not to be intimidated.

"I've seldom stood on firmer ground than this," he declared. "When I move to save the Province ye may appeal to the King himself, for aught ye'll gain by't, and Godspeed. Where are the papers, Mrs. Cooke?"

Not until he heard the unfamiliar mode of address did Ebenezer have the least hint of Joan's motives. Now suddenly, though a hint was all he had, his backbone tingled; his heart glowed.

"Where are thine?" she demanded in reply, nor would she stir until Sir Thomas had conveyed the title to Cooke's Point into her possession. Then she calmly reached into her bodice and withdrew a tightly folded paper which, when she handed it to Burlingame for unfolding, proved to be three missing pages of the Journall.

" 'Sheart, Eben, look here!" Henry cried. "May he look, Joan?"

" 'Tis not mine to forbid," the girl said glumly, and seemed to relapse into her former apathy.

First [read the missing fragment] he pour'd a deale of water into the dish of floure, and worked the mess to a thick paste with his fingers. Then he set the remainder of the water, in its vessell, next the smalle fyre, w chthe Salvage had been Christian enough to make us, against the cold. Whenas he sawe this water commence to steem and bubble, then drewe he from his pockett (w chforsooth must needs have been a spacious one!), divers ingredients, and added them to the paste. Of these I c dname but few, forasmuch as I durst not discover to my Captain that my sleep was feign'd; but I did learn later from his boasting that it was a receipt much priz'd for a certain purpose (whereof I was as yet innocent) by the blackamoors of Africka, from whom he had learnt it. To witt: a quantitie of Tightening Wood (w chis to say, the bark of that tree, Nux vomica, wherefrom is got the brucine and strychnyne of apothecaries), 2 or 3 small dry'd pimyentoes (that the blackamoors call Zozos), a dozen peppercorns, and as many whole cloves, with 1 or 2 beanes of vanilla to give it fragrance. At the same time he boyl'd a second decoction of water mix'd with some dropps of oyl of mallow, to what end I c dnot guesse. These severall herbs and spyces, I s hdadd, he still carr'd on his person, not alone for their present employment, but as well to season his food, w chin his yeeres of fighting the Moors he had learnt to savour hott; and for this cause he did prevaile upon the masters of vessells, to fetch him such spyces from there ports of call in the Indies.