John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Farewell!"

As before, Ebenezer took a breath before sinking and so could not do more than put his face under. This time, however, his mind was made up: he blew out the air, bade the world a last farewell, and sank in earnest.

A moment later he was up again, but for a different reason.

"The bottom! I felt the bottom, Bertrand! 'Tis not two fathom deep!"

"Nay!" gasped the valet, who had been near submerged himself. "How can that be, in the middle of the ocean? Haply 'twas a whale or other monster."

" 'Twas hard sand bottom!" Ebenezer insisted. He went below again, this time fearlessly, and from a depth of no more than eight feet brought up a fistful of sand for proof.

"Belike a shoal, then," Bertrand said, unimpressed. "As well forty fathom as two; we can't stand up in either. Farewell!"

"Wait! 'Tis no cloud yonder, man, but an ocean isle we've washed to! Those are her cliffs that hide the stars; that sound is the surf against her coast!"

"I cannot reach it."

"You can! 'Tis not two hundred yards to shore, and less to a standing place!" Fearing for his own endurance, he waited no longer for his man to he persuaded, but struck out westwards for the starless sky, and soon heard Bertrand panting and splashing behind. With every stroke his conjecture seemed more likely; the sound of gentle surf grew distant and recognizable, and the dark outline defined itself more sharply.

"If not an isle, at least 'twill be a rock," he called over his shoulder, "and we can wait for passing ships."

After a hundred yards they could swim no farther; happily, Ebenezer found that by standing on tiptoe he could just clear the surface with his chin.

"Very well for you, that are tall," lamented Bertrand, "but I must perish here in sight of land!"

Ebenezer, however, would hear of no such thing: he instructed the valet to float along behind him, hands on the poet's shoulders for support. It was tedious going, especially for Ebenezer, only the balls of whose feet were on the bottom: the weight behind pulled him off balance at every step, and though Bertrand rode clear, his weight held Ebenezer at a constant depth, so that only between waves could he catch his breath. The manner of their progress was thus: in each trough Ebenezer secured his footing and drew a breath; when the wave came he stroked with both arms from his breast and, with his head under, rode perhaps two feet — one of which would be lost in the slight undertow before he regained his footing. Half an hour, during which they covered no more than forty or fifty feet, was enough to exhaust his strength, but by then the water was just shallow enough for the valet to stand as well. It required another thirty minutes to drag themselves over the remaining distance: had there been breakers they might yet have drowned, but the waves were never more than two feet high, and oftener less than one. At last they reached a pebbly beach and, too fatigued for words, crawled on all fours to the base of the nearby cliff, where they lay some while as if a-swoon.

Presently, however, despite the mildness of the night and the protection provided by the cliff against the westerly breeze, they found their resting-place too cold for comfort and had to search for better shelter until their clothes were dry. They made their way northward along the beach and were fortunate enough to find not far away a place where the high sandstone was cut by a wooded ravine debouching onto the shore. Here tall wheatlike weeds grew between the scrub pines and bayberries; the castaways curled together like animals in a nest and knew no more till after dawn.

It was the sand fleas that roused them at last: scores of sand fleas hopped and crawled all over them — attracted, luckily, not by hunger but by the warmth of their bodies — and tickled them awake.

Ebenezer jumped up and looked unbelievingly about. "Dear God!" he laughed. "I had forgot!"

Bertrand too stood up, and the sand fleas — not really parasites at all — hopped madly in search of cover.

"And I," he said, hoarse from exposure. "I dreamt I was in London with my Betsy. God pox those vermin for waking me!"

"But we're alive, at that. 'Tis more than anyone expected."

"Thanks to you, sir!" Bertrand fell to his knees before the poet. " 'Tis a Catholic saint that saves the man who ruined him!"

"Make me no saint today," Ebenezer said, "or you'll have me a Jesuit tomorrow." But he was flattered nonetheless. "No doubt I had better drowned when Father hears the news!"

Bertrand clasped his hands together. "Many's the wrong I've done ye, sir, that I'll pay in Hell for, anon — nor shall I want company in the fire. But I vow ye a vow this instant I'm your slave fore'er, to do with as ye will, and should we e'er be rescued off this island I shall give my life to gaining back your loss."

The Laureate, embarrassed by these protestations, replied, "I dare not ask it, lest you pledge my soul!" and proposed an immediate search for food. The day was bright, and warm for mid-September; they were chilled through from exposure, and upon brushing the sand from themselves found their joints stiff and every muscle sore from the past night's labors. But their clothes were dry except for the side on which they'd slept, and a little stamping of feet and swinging of arms was enough to start the warm blood coursing. They were without hats, wigs, or shoes, but otherwise adequately clothed in the sturdy garb of seamen. Food, however, they had to find, though Ebenezer longed to explore the island at once: their stomachs rumbled, and they had not much strength. To cook their meal was no great problem: Bertrand had with him the little tinderbox he carried in his pocket for smoking purposes, and though the tinder itself was damp, the flint and steel were good as new, and the beach afforded driftwood and dry seaweed. Finding something to cook was another matter. The woods no doubt abounded with small game; gulls, kingfishers, rails, and sandpipers soared and flitted along the beach; and there were certainly fish to be caught in the shallows; but they had no implements to hunt with.

Bertrand despaired afresh. " 'Tis a passing cruel prank fate plays us, to trade a quick death for a slow!" And despite his recent gratitude, the surliness with which he rejected various proposals for improvising weapons betrayed a certain resentment toward Ebenezer for having saved him. Indeed, he shortly abandoned as hopeless the search for means and went to gather firewood, declaring his intention to starve at least in relative comfort. Ebenezer, left to his own resources, resolved to walk some distance down the beach, hoping to find inspiration along the way.

It was a long beach. In fact, the island appeared to be ot considerable size, for though the shoreline curved out of sight in both directions, its reappearance farther south suggested a cove or bay, perhaps a succession of them; one could not locate the actual curve of the island's perimeter. Of its body nothing could be seen except the line of stratified cliffs, caved by the sea and weathered to various browns and oranges, and the edge trees of the forest that ran back from the precipice — some with half their roots exposed, some already fallen the sixty or a hundred feet to the beach and polished like pewter by salt air and sand. If one scaled those cliffs, what wonders might one see?

Ebenezer had been at sea nearly half a year in all, yet never had he seen it so calm. There was no ground swell at all: only catspaws riffling here and there, and laps of waves not two hands high. As he walked he noticed minnows darting in the shallows and schools of white perch flipping and rippling a few feet out. Crabs, as well, of a sort he had never seen, slid sideways out to safety as he approached; in the water their shells were olive against the yellow sand, but the carapaces he found along the beach were cooked a reddish-orange by the sun.