John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Enough!" Ebenezer ordered again.

"No harm intended, sir: no injury meant. In any case I was pleased to make the change, not alone in that I had the better of the bargain but also to escape from Slye and Scurry. Yet I went no farther than the door of the King o' the Seas ere they spied me from inside and gave chase: 'twas only by hiding behind some baggage on a pier that I eluded them. Then fancy my amazement, sir, when I saw 'twas your own trunk had saved me, that I'd packed myself not long before! I knew — alas! — ye were not there to claim it and so resolved to carry my poor deception one step farther; to board your ship, sir, with your own commission, and hide till I deemed it safe to go ashore. To that end, so soon as I was safe aboard I unlocked your trunk — "

"What say you?"

"Ye'd left one key with me in London, what time I packed ye. But I found the paper gone, sir."

"Gone! Great heavens, man, whither?"

"Lost, strayed, or stolen, sir," said Bertrand. " 'Twas on the very top I'd laid it, yet now 'twas nowhere in the trunk. I had to use my false commission instead, which happily convinced 'em for all it had no seal. I told the Captain to keep watch for my pursuers. The rest ye know."

Ebenezer paced the cabin wildly, his finger ends pressed against his temples.

"When word came to me that some stranger was aboard that called himself the Laureate, then swore he was the Laureate's man," Bertrand concluded, watching his master anxiously, "I durst not leave this room. If't was Slye or Scurry or Coode himself, I would be murthered on the spot. I had no choice but to stand here, sick at heart, and watch the ship get under way. The officer then said I must inspect ye, and so sure was I of death, I could not turn from the window till I heard your voice. How isn't thou'rt not in jail, sir?"

"Jail!" Ebenezer said with impatience. "I never was in jail!"

"Then who is't took your place? Slye vowed that when he and Scurry searched the posthouse for ye, they heard on every side of a man who'd been arrested not ten minutes before and carried off to jail. None knew what crime he'd done, but all knew his name was Eben Cooke, for the man had strode about declaring name and rank to the world."

"No doubt a second impostor," the poet replied, "bent on whoring my office to his purpose. May he rot in irons for ever and aye! As for you, since 'twas not among your plans to make a voyage, you'll sail no farther — "

"Ye'll have 'em fetch me ashore?" Bertrand went to his knees in gratitude. "Ah marry, what a place in Heav'n is thine, sir! What an injustice I did ye, to fear ye'd not have pity on my case!"

"On the contrary; 'tis perhaps the one injustice you did me not."

"Sir?"

Ebenezer turned away to the stern windows. " 'Twere well to say a prayer before you rise; I mean you'll swim for't."

"Nay! 'Twere the end o'me, sir!"

"As't were of me," Ebenezer said, "had you not owned — "

He stopped short: master and man measured each other for an instant, then sprang together for the false commission on the floor — which laying hold of at the same instant, they soon destroyed in their struggle.

"No matter," Ebenezer said. " 'Twill take but a minute with the twain of us for any fool to judge which is the poet and which the lying knave."

"Think better of't!" Bertrand warned. " 'Tis not my wish to harm ye, sir, but if it comes to that, there'll be no judgment; I've but to send for the man that fetched ye here and swear I know ye not."

"What! You'll threaten me too, that have already set the law upon me, robbed me of name and passage, and well-nigh caused my death? A pretty fellow!"

For all his wrath, however, Ebenezer was not blind to the uncertainty of his position; he spoke no more of summoning an officer to judge between them nor did he further question Bertrand's tale, though several details of it failed to satisfy him. The valet had declared, for example, that only the certainty of his master's departure had allowed him with clear conscience to send Bragg's bullies to the posthouse; yet it was his certainty of Ebenezer's arrest that had allowed him, before entering the posthouse again, to conceive the notion of posing as Laureate. And how could the commission have disappeared, if master and servant owned the only keys to the trunk? And what had the wretch to gain by his lying tale of Anna and Henry together in the posthouse? Or if it were no lie — But here his reeling fancy failed him.

"You merit no lenience," he said in a calmer tone, "but so far shall I let mercy temper justice, I'll speak no more of casting you astern. Haply 'twill be punishment enough to spend the balance of your years in Maryland, since you fear it so. For the rest, confess and apologize to the whole ship's company at once, and let future merit atone for past defect."

"Thou'rt a Solomon for judgment," Bertrand cried, "and a Christian saint for mercy!"

"Let us go, then, and have done."

"At once, at once, sir," the valet agreed, "if ye think it safe — "

"How should it be otherwise?"

" 'Tis plain, sir," Bertrand explained, "there's more to this post of yours than meets the eye. I know not what passed 'twixt you and Lord Baltimore, nor is't my business to enquire what secret cause ye've sworn to further — " Here Ebenezer let forth such a torrent of abuse that his valet had need to pause before continuing. "All in the world I mean, sir, is that your common garden laureate is not set upon by knaves and murtherers at every corner as I have been, nor is't a mere distaste for rhyme, methinks, that drives this villain Coode to seek ye out. For aught we know he may be on this ship; certain he's aboard the fleet, and Slye and Scurry as well — "

"Nay, not they," Ebenezer said, "but haply Coode." He described Burlingame's stratagem briefly. " 'Twas Henry bought a passage in your name," he explained, "and left the scoundrel stranded with the fleet."

" 'Twill but inflame him more," said Bertrand, "and who knows what confederates might be with him? Belike he hath a spy on every boat!"

" 'Twere not impossible, from what I've heard of him," Ebenezer admitted. "But what's the aim of all this talk? Think you to persuade me into skulking caution and not to tell my office to the world? Is't to weasel out of penance and confession?"

Bertrand protested vigorously against such misconstruction of his motives. "Confess I shall," he declared, "right readily, and mark it light penance for my imposture — which pray recall I practiced for no vicious ends, but to save that part which makes man man. Yet penance ne'er healed wound, sir." He went on to praise the bounteous and forgiving nature of his master and to upbraid himself for repaying kindness with deceit — not forgetting to justify once more his imposture and to review, apropros of nothing, sundry evidences of the high esteem and confidence in which old Andrew held him. At length he concluded by maintaining that what he sought was not mere penance but restitution; some means wherewith to atone for what humiliation and discomfort his wholly innocent imposture had occasioned the noblest master poor serv-ingman ever served.

"And what means is't you have in mind?" the poet asked warily.

"Only to risk my life for yours," the valet said. "Whate'er the cause you serve — "

"Enough, damn you! I serve the cause of Poetry, and no other."

"What I meant, sir, is that whate'er Lord Baltimore — That is to say — "

" 'Sblood, then say it!"

"Since I have played ye to your hurt," said Bertrand, "let me play ye to your profit. Let me dare the rascal Coode in your name, sir. If he do me in, 'twill be my just desert and your salvation; if not, there's always time for clean confession when we land. What say ye?"

The plan so astonished Ebenezer that he could not at once find language strong enough to scourge the planner for his effrontery, and — alas! — the moment till he found his tongue discovered the scheme's unquestionable merits. The Laureateship was in truth a perilous post — of that he'd proof enough by now, though why he'd still small notion; John Coode was undeniably aboard the fleet and doubtless wroth at having been duped; Burlingame, despite his fanciful last assurances, was not on hand to protect him. Finally and most persuasively, the poet still shuddered at his morning's escape from Slye and Scurry at the King o' the Seas; only the appearance of Bertrand in the street had saved his life.