John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

It is not surprising, therefore, that however unparalleled in his experience, Ebenezer's present straits were by no means novel to his imagination. Even the details of stepping from the plank at night, clawing from the depths for air, and watching the stern lights slip away they had considered, and Ebenezer almost knew ahead of time how the end would feel: water catching the throat and stinging the nose, the convulsive coughing to expel it, and the inevitable reinspiration of air where no air was, the suck of water into the lungs; then vertigo, the monstrous pressure in head and chest, and worst of all the frenzy, the anxiety of the body not to die, that total mindless lust for air which must in the last seconds rend body and soul unspeakably. When he and Anna chose their deaths, drowning — along with burning, slow crushing, and similar protracted agonies — was disqualified at once, and the news that anyone had actually suffered from such an end would thrill them to the point of dizziness. But in his heart the fact of death and all these sensuous anticipations were to Ebenezer like the facts of life and the facts of history and geography, which, owing to his education and natural proclivities, he looked at always from the storyteller's point of view: notionally he admitted its finality: vicariously he sported with its horror; but never, never could he really embrace either. That lives are stories, he assumed; that stories end, he allowed — how else could one begin another? But that the teller himself must live a particular tale and die — Unthinkable! Unthinkable!

Even now, when he saw not the slightest grounds for hope and knew that the dread two minutes must be on him soon, his despair was as notional, his horror as vicarious, as if he were in his chamber in St. Giles playing the dying-game, or acting out a story in the summerhouse. Bertrand, he assumed with some envy, had strangled on his water and was done with it; there was no reason why he himself should not get it over with at once. But it was not simply fear that kept him paddling; it was also the same constitutional deficiency that had made him unable to draw his own blood, will himself unconscious, or acknowledge in his heart that there really had been a Roman Empire. The shallop was gone. Nothing was to be seen except the stars, or heard except the chuckle of water around his neck, yet his spirit was almost calm.

Presently he heard a thrashing in the sea nearby; his heart pounded. " 'Tis a shark!" he thought, and envied Bertrand more than ever. Here was something that had not occurred to him! Why had he not drowned himself at once? The thing splashed nearer; another wave and they were in the same trough. Even as Ebenezer struck out in the opposite direction, his left leg brushed against the monster.

"Aie!" he shrieked, and "Nay!" cried the other, equally alarmed.

"Dear God!" said Ebenezer, paddling back. "Is't you, Bertrand?"

"Master Eben! Praise be, I thought 'twas a sea-serpent! Thou'rt not drowned?"

They embraced each other and came up sputtering.

"Get on with't, or we shall be yet!" the poet said, as happy as though his valet had brought a boat. Bertrand observed that it was but a matter of time after all, and Ebenezer replied with feeling that death was not so terrible in company as alone.

"What say you," he proposed, in the same spirit wherewith he had used to propose the breath-game to Anna: "shall we have done with't now, together?"

"In any case 'twill not be many minutes," Bertrand said. "My muscles fail me already."

"Look yonder, how the stars are darkened out." Ebenezer pointed to a lightless stretch on the western horizon. "At least we'll not need to weather that storm."

"Not I, 'tis certain." The valet's breath came hard from the exertion of paddling. "Another minute and I'm done."

"Howe'er you've injured me before, friend, I forgive you. We'll go together."

"Ere the moment comes," Bertrand panted, "I've a thing to say, sir — "

"Not sir!" cried the poet. "Think you the sea cares who's master and man?"

"- 'tis about my gambling on the Poseidon," Bertrand continued.

"Long since forgiven! You lost my money: I pray you had good use of't! What need have I of money now?"

"There's more, sir. You recall the Parson Tubman offered odds — "

"Forgiven! What more's to lose, when you had plucked me clean?"

But Bertrand would not be consoled. "What a wretch I felt, sir! I answered to your name, ate at your place, claimed the honors of your post — "

"Speak no more of't!"

"Methought 'Tis he should tumble Lucy on these sheets, not I, and then I lost your forty pound as well! And you, sir, in a hammock in the fo'c'sle, suffering in my place!"

" 'Tis over and done," Ebenezer said kindly.

"Hear me out, sir! When that fearful storm was done and we were westering, I vowed to myself I'd have ye back that money and more, to pay ye for your hardship. The Parson had got up a new swindle on raising the Virginia Capes, and I took a notion to woo Miss Lucy privily to my cause. Then we would fleece the fleecer!"

" 'Tis a charitable resolve, but you'd naught to use for stakes — "

"Nor did some others that had been gulled," Bertrand replied. "They threatened to take a stick to Tubman for all he was a cleric. But he smelled what was in the wind, and gave 'em a chance to bet again on Maryland. They'd but to pledge some property or other — "

"I'faith!" cried Ebenezer. "His cassock frocked a very Jew!"

"He had the papers drawn like any lawyer: we'd but to sign, and we could wager to the value of the property."

"You signed a pledge?" Ebenezer asked incredulously.

"Aye, sir."

"Dear God! To what?"

"To Malden, sir. I — "

"To Malden!" Such was the poet's amazement he forgot to paddle, and the next wave covered his head. When he could speak again he demanded, "Yet surely 'twas no more than a pound or two?"

"I shan't conceal it, sir; 'twas rather more."

"Ten pounds, then? Twenty? Ha, out with't, fellow! What's forty pounds more to a drowning man? What is't to me if you lost a hundred?"

"My very thought, sir," Bertrand said faintly; his strength was almost gone. " 'Twas e'en for that I told ye, now we're drowning men. Lookee how the dark comes closer! Methinks I hear the sea rising yonder, too, but I shan't be here to feel the rain. Farewell, sir."

"Wait!" Ebenezer cried, and clutched his servant by one arm to help support him.

"I'm done, sir; let me go."

"And I, Bertrand; I shall go with thee! Was't two hundred you lost, pray?"

" 'Twas but a pledge, sir," Bertrand said. "Who's to say I lost a farthing? For aught I know thou'rt a wealthy man this moment."

"What did you pledge, man? Three hundred pounds?"

Bertrand had stopped treading water and would have gone under had not Ebenezer, paddling furiously, held him up with one hand by the shirt front.

"What doth it matter, sir? I pledged it all."

"All!"

"The grounds, the manor, the sot-weed in the storehouse — Tubman holds it all."

"Pledge my legacy!"

"Prithee let me drown, sir, if ye won't yourself."

"I shall!" said Ebenezer. "Sweet Malden gone? Then farewell, and God forgive you!"

"Farewell, sir!"

"Stay, I am with thee yet!" Master and man embraced each other. "Farewell! Farewell!"

"Farewell!" Bertrand cried again, and they went under. Immediately both fought free and struggled up for air.

"This will not do!" Ebenezer gasped. "Farewell!"

"Farewell!" said Bertrand. Again they embraced and went under, and again fought free.

"I cannot do't," said Bertrand, "though my muscles scarce can move, they bring me up."

"Adieu, then," said the poet grimly. "Thy confession gives me strength to die alone. Farewell!"