John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Cooke," Ned pleaded, clearly intimidated himself. "I have the wretch here that says he is your servant, sir: the one that tried to tell us he was you, sir."

"Aha! Send him in and leave us alone," said the voice, as if relishing the prospect. All thought of victory fled the poet's mind: he resolved to ask no more than mercy from the man — and possibly a promise to return, when they reached Maryland, that commission from Lord Baltimore, which somehow or other the impostor had acquired. And maybe an apology, for it was, after all, a deuced humiliation he was suffering!

Ned opened the door and assisted Ebenezer through with another cruel pinch, this time on the buttock, and an evil laugh. The poet jumped involuntarily; again his eyes watered, and his knees went weak when Ned closed the door behind him. He found himself in a small but handsomely furnished cabin in the extreme rear of the vessel. The floor was carpeted; the Captain's bed, built into one wall, was comfortably clothed in clean linen. A large brass oil lamp, already lit, swung gently from the ceiling and illuminated a great oak table beneath. There was even a glass-fronted bookcase, and oil portraits in the style of Titian, Rubens, and Correggio were fastened with decorative brass bolts around the walls. The impostor, dressed in Burlingame's port-purple coat and sporting a campaigner wig, stood with his back to the poet-at the far wall — actually the stern of the ship — staring through small leaded windowpanes at the Poseidon's wake. Satisfied that Ned was gone, Ebenezer rushed around the table and fell to his knees at the other man's feet.

"Dear, dear sir!" he cried, not daring to look up. "Believe me, I've no mind at all to expose your disguise! No mind at all, sir! I know full well how you came by your clothing in the stable of the King o' the Seas and fooled the ferryman Joseph and his father at the wharf — though how in Heav'n you got my Lord Baltimore's commission, that he wrote for me in his own hand not a week past, I cannot fathom."

The impostor, above him, made a small sound and backed away.

"But no matter! Think not I'm wroth, or mean to take revenge! I ask no more than that you let me pose as your servant on this ship, nor shall I breathe a word of't to a soul, you may depend on't! What would it profit you to see me drown? And when we land in Maryland, why, I'll bring no charge against you, but call it quits and think no more of't. Nay, I'll get thee a place at Malden, my estate, or pay your fare to a neighboring province — "

Glancing up at this last to see what effect his plea was having, he stopped and said no more. The blood drained from his face.

"Nay!" He sprang to his feet and leaped at the impostor, who barely escaped to the other side of the round oak table. His campaigner, however, fell to the floor, and the light from the lamp fell full on Bertrand Burton — the real Bertrand, whom Ebenezer had last seen in his room in Pudding Lane when he left it to seek a notebook at the Sign of the Raven.

"I'God! I'God!" He could scarcely speak for rage.

"Prithee, Master Ebenezer, sir — " The voice was Bertrand's voice, formidable no more. Ebenezer lunged again, but the servant kept the table between them.

"You'd watch me drown! Let me crawl to you for mercy!"

"Prithee — "

"Wretch! Only let me lay hands on that craven neck, to wring it like a capon's! Well see who drinks salt water!"

"Nay, prithee, master! I meant thee no ill, I swear't! I can explain all of it, every part! Dear God, I never dreamed 'twas you they'd caught, sir! Think ye I'd see ye suffer, that e'er was such a gentle master? I, that was your blessed father's trusty friend and adviser for years? Why, I'd take a flogging ere I'd let 'em lay a hand on ye, sir!"

"Flogging you shall have right soon, i'faith!" the poet said grimly, reversing his field in vain from clockwise to counterclockwise. "Nor shall that be the worst of't, when I catch you!"

"Do but let me say, sir — "

"Hi! I near had thee then!"

"- 'twas through no fault of mine — "

"Ah! You knave, hold still!"

"— but bad rum and a treacherous woman — "

" 'Sheart! But when I have thee — "

"— and who's really to blame, sir — "

"— I shall flog that purple coat from off thy back — "

"— is your sister Anna's beau!"

The chase ended. Ebenezer leaned across the table into the lamplight, brighter now for the gathering dark outside.

"What is't I heard you say?" he asked carefully.

"I only said, sir, what commenced this whole affair was the pound sterling your sister and her gentleman friend presented me with in the posthouse, when I had fetched your baggage there."

"I shall cut thy lying tongue from out thy head!"

" 'Tis true as Scripture, sir, I swear't!" Bertrand said, still moving warily as Ebenezer moved.

"You saw them there together? Impossible!"

"God smite me dead if I did not, sir: Miss Anna and some gentleman with a beard, that she called Henry."

"Dear Heav'n!" the poet muttered as if to himself. "But you called him her beau, Bertrand?"

"Well, now, no slur intended, sir; oh, no slur intended at all! I meant no more by't than that — ah, sir, you know full well how folks make hasty judgments, and far be't from me — "

"Cease thy prating! What did you see, that made you call him her beau? No more than cordial conversation?"

" 'Sheart, rather more than that, sir! But think not I'm the sort — "

"I know well thou'rt a thief, a liar, and a cheat," Ebenezer snapped. "What is't you saw that set thy filthy mind to work? Eh?"

"I hardly dare tell, sir; thou'rt in such a rage! Who's to say ye'll not strike me dead, though from first to last I am innocent as a babe?"

"Enough," the poet sighed, "I know the signs of old. You'll drive me mad with your digressions and delays until I guarantee your safety. Very well, I shan't besmirch my hands on you, I promise. Speak plainly, now!"

"They were in each other's arms," the servant said, "and billing and cooing at a mad rate when I came up with your baggage. When Miss Anna had sight of me she blushed and tried to compose herself, yet all the while she and the gentleman spoke to me, they could not for the life of 'em stand still, but must be ever at sweetmeat and honeybee, and fondle and squeeze — Are you ill, sir?"

Ebenezer had gone pale; he slumped into the Captain's chair and clutched his head in his hands. " 'Tis nothing."

"Well, as I said, sir, they could not keep their hands — "

"Finish thy story if you must," Ebenezer broke in, "but speak no more of those two, as you prize your wretched life! They paid you, did they?"

"They did in truth, sir, for fetching down your baggage."

"But a pound? 'Tis rather a princely reward for the task."

"Ah, now, sir, I am after all an old and trusted — " He stopped halfway through the sentence, so fierce was the look on Ebenezer's face. "Besides which," he concluded, "now I see how't strikes ye, 'tis likely they wished me to say naught of what I'd seen. I tell ye, sir, 'tis not for much I'd have missed your setting out! Had not Miss Anna and her gentleman insisted that I leave at once — "

"Spare me thy devotion," Ebenezer said. "What did you then, and why did you pose as me? Speak fast, ere I fetch the Captain."

" 'Tis a tragic tale, sir, that shames me in the telling. I beg ye keep in mind I'd never have presumed, sir, save that I was distracted and possessed by grief at your arrest and in direst peril of my life."

"My arrest!"

"Aye, sir, in the posthouse. 'Tis a mystery to me yet how thou'rt free, and how you came so rapidly from London."

Ebenezer smacked his hand upon the table. "Speak English, man! Straight English sentences a man can follow!"