The Sot-Weed Factor (35 page)

Ebenezer scrambled out of his cranny, over boxes and barrels, and up the ladder to the hatch, nearly sick with indignation and excitement. He was bursting to tell Bertrand all he'd heard; in the considerable uproar that greeted the appearance of the two captains he was able to climb to the deck and move forward to the fo'c'sle companionway (which led also to his berth in the rope-locker) without attracting undue notice.

The men were indeed in mutinous spirits, ready to make trouble at the slightest excuse. Grudgingly they released the two terrified sailors from the
Poseidon,
whom they had tormented throughout the captains' private conversation; their faces darkened as Meech's longboat, under the barrels of their pistols, struck out for its mother ship on the north horizon.

Ebenezer slipped through the fo'c'sle to his cell -- which customarily remained unlocked -- and told Bertrand the story of Meech's treachery, Coode's latest intrigues, and the valuable document in the Captain's quarters.

"I must lay hands on those papers!" he exclaimed. "How Coode came by them I can't imagine, but Baltimore shall have them!"

Bertrand shook his head. "Marry, sir, 'tis not thy fight. A poet hath no part in these things."

"Not so," Ebenezer replied. "I vowed to fling myself into the arms of Life, and what is life but the taking of sides? Besides, I've private reasons for wanting that Journal." How pleased would Burlingame be, he reflected happily, to learn that Captain John Smith had a secret diary! Who knew but what these very papers were the key poor Henry so long had sought to unlock the mystery of his parentage?

"I see those reasons plain enough," the valet declared. "The book would fetch a pretty price if ye put it up for bids. But 'twill do ye small good to steal it when we've no more than a fortnight left on earth. Marry, did ye see what spirits the Moor is in? If this Coode doth not kill us, the pirates will."

But the Laureate did not agree. "This faction may be our salvation, not our doom." He described the delicate atmosphere on deck. " 'Tis Pound that holds us prisoner, not the crew," he said. "They've naught to gain by killing us if they mutiny, but they may well kill him. What's more, they know naught of the Journal. Belike they'll make us members of the crew, and once the turmoil hath subsided I'll find a way to steal the book. Then we can watch our chance to slip ashore. Or better, once we're pirates like the rest we can hide aboard some ship we're sent to plunder; they'd never miss us. Let 'em mutiny, I say; we'll join them!"

As if the last were a command, an instant later a shout went up on deck, followed at once by a brace of pistol-shots. Ebenezer and Bertrand hurried up to declare their allegiance to the mutineers, who they readily assumed had taken charge of the shallop, and indeed they found Boabdil at the helm, grinning at the men assembled in the waist. But instead of lying dead on the deck, Captain Pound stood beside him, arms crossed, a smoking pistol in each hand and a grim smile upon his face, and it was one of the crew, a one-eyed Carolina boy named Patch, who sprawled, face-down and bleeding on the poop companionway.

"We'll put into port when I say so," Pound declared, and returned the pistols to his sash. Two men stepped forward to retrieve their wounded shipmate.

"Over the side with him," the Captain ordered, and despite the fact that he was not yet dead, the Carolinian was tumbled into the ocean.

"The next man I shan't waste a ball on," Pound threatened, and did not even look back to see his victim flounder in the wake.

"Why is the Moor so happy?" Bertrand whispered to Ebenezer. "Ye said he was the wrathfulest of all."

The poet, stunned by his first sight of death, shook his head and swallowed furiously to keep from being ill.

Just then the lookout cried "Sail, ho! Sail to eastward!" The pirates looked to see a three-master heading in their direction, but were too chastened to display any great interest.

"There, now!" laughed Captain Pound, after examining the stranger through his glass. "If Patch had held his peace ten minutes more, he'd not be feeding sea-crabs! D'ye know what ship stands yonder, men?"

They did not, nor did the prospect of robbing it fill them with enthusiasm.

" 'Tis the London ship I've laid for these two weeks," Pound declared, "whilst you wretches were conspiring in the fo'c'sle! Did ye ne'er hear tell of a brigantine called the
Cyprian?"

On hearing this name the crew cheered lustily, again and again. They slapped one another's backs, leaped and danced about the deck, and at the Captain's orders sprang as if possessed to ratlines, sheets, halyards, and brace. Topsails and forestaysail were broken out, the helm was put hard over, and the shallop raced to meet her newest prey head-on.

"What is this
Cyprian,
that changed their minds so lightly?" Bertrand whispered.

"I do not know," his master answered, sorry to see the mutiny come to nothing. "But she hath sprung from the sea like her namesake, and haply we'll have cause to love her. Look sharp for your chance to slip aboard; I hope to steal the Journal if I can."

The Rape of the
Cyprian;
Also, the Tale of

Hicktopeake, King of Accomack, and the

Greatest Peril the Laureate Has Fallen

Into Thus Far

I
n less than
a quarter of an hour the shallop and the brigantine, sailing smartly on opposite reaches, were within cannon-range of each other. Dozens of the brigantine's passengers were crowded forward to see the shallop, possibly the first vessel they'd met in weeks; they waved hands and kerchiefs in innocent salute. The pirates, every idle hand of whom was similarly occupied, responded with a fearsome cry and fired a round into the water dead ahead of their quarry. It was not until then, when the others screamed and ran for cover, that Ebenezer began to guess in a general way what was afoot: every one of the passengers he could see was female.

"Dear Heav'n!" he breathed.

The captain of the brigantine realized the shallop's intention and came about to run north before the wind, at the same time firing on the attacker; but his defense came too late. Anticipating exactly such a maneuver, Captain Pound had his crew already stationed to follow suit, and the shallop was under way on the new course before the brigantine finished setting her sails. Moreover, although the several square-rigged sails of the brigantine were better for running before the wind than the fore-and-aft rig of her pursuer, the shallop's smaller size and lighter weight more than compensated for the difference. Captain Pound ordered his men not to return the musket-and pistol-fire; instead, taking the helm himself, he cut so close under the brigantine's stern that the name
Cyprian,
on a banner held by carved oak cupids, was plainly legible on her transom. At the very moment when the shallop's bowsprit seemed about to pierce the victim's stern, he veered a few degrees to starboard; the cannoneer in the bow fired a ball point-blank into the brigantine's rudder, and the chase was over. The
Cyprian's
crew scrambled to take in sail before the helpless vessel capsized. By the time the shallop came about and retraced her course the brigantine was rolling under bare poles in the swell; the crew stood with upraised arms, the first mate ran a white flag up the main halyards, and the captain, hands clasped behind him, waited on the poop for the worst.

The pirates were beside themselves. They thronged to the rail, shouting obscenities and making lewd gestures. It was all Boabdil could do to bring the shallop alongside, so preoccupied were they all with their joy: the Moor himself had stripped off all but his tall red headgear and stood like a nightmare at the helm. At length the grapples were made fast, the sails struck, and the ships lashed together along their beams, so that they rode like mated seabirds on the waves. Then with howls the pirates swarmed over the rails, cursing and stumbling in their haste. The
Cyprian's
crew backed off in fright, but no one paid them the slightest attention: indeed, Captain Pound had finally to force three of his men at pistol-point to tie them to the masts. The rest had no thought for anything but breaking open the companionway and cabin doors, which the terrified passengers had bolted from inside.

Their savagery made Ebenezer blanch. Beside him where he stood near the shallop's foremast was the oldest member of the pirate crew, Carl, the sailmaker -- a wizened, evil-appearing little man in his sixties with a short, dirty beard and no teeth at all -- chuckling and shaking his head at the scene.

"Is the ship full of women?" the Laureate asked him.

The old man nodded mirthfully. "She's the whore-boat out o' London." Once or twice a year, he explained, the
Cyprian's
captain took on a load of impoverished ladies who were willing to prostitute themselves for six months in the colonies, where the shortage of women was acute. The girls were transported without charge; the enterprising captain received not only their fares but -- in the case of girls with special qualifications such as virginity, respectability, or extreme youth, or comeliness -- a bonus as well from the brothel-masters who came to Philadelphia from all over the provinces for the purpose of replenishing or augmenting their staffs. As for the girls, some had already been prostitutes in London, others were women rendered desperate by poverty or other circumstances, and some simply hard-reasoning young serving girls bent on reaching America at any cost, who found six months of prostitution more attractive than the customary four-year indenture of the colonial servant.

"Every pirate on the coast keeps his eye out for the
Cyprian
this time o' year," the sailmaker said. "There's better than a hundred wenches behind that door. Lookee there at Boabdil!"

Ebenezer saw the naked Moor push aside his shipmates and raise a huge maul that he had found nearby, probably left on deck by the brigantine's carpenter. With one blow he splintered the door and dived headlong inside, the others close behind him. A moment later the air was split with screams and curses.

Ebenezer's knees trembled. "Poor wretches! Poor wretches!"

"This!"
scoffed Carl. " 'Tis but a bloody prayer meeting,
this
is! Ye should have shipped with old Tom Tew of Newport, as I did. One time last year we sailed from Libertatia to the coast of Araby, and in the Red Sea we overhauled one o' the Great Mogul's ships with pilgrims bound for Mecca; a hundred gun she carried, but we boarded her without losing a man, and what do ye think we found?
Sixteen hundred virgins,
sir! Not a maidenhead more nor less! Sixteen hundred virgins bound for Mecca, the nicest little Moors ye e'er laid eyes upon, and not above a hundred of us! Took us a day and a night to pop 'em all -- Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Portogeezers, Africans, and Englishmen, we were -- and ere we had done, the deck looked like a butcher's block. There is not the like o' that day and night in the history of the lickerish world, I swear't! I cut a brace myself, for all I was coming on to sixty -- little brown twins they were, and tight as a timber-hitch, and I've ne'er got up the old fid since!"

He rambled on, but Ebenezer could not bear to hear him out. For one thing, the scene on deck was too arresting for divided attention: the pirates dragged out their victims in ones and twos, a-swoon or awake, at pistol-point or by main strength. He saw women assaulted on the decks, on the stairways, at the railings, everywhere, in every conceivable manner. None was spared, and the prettier prizes were clawed at by two and three at a time. Boabdil appeared with one over each shoulder, kicking and scratching him in vain: as he presented one to Captain Pound on the quarterdeck, the other wriggled free and tried to escape her monstrous fate by scrambling up the mizzen ratlines. The Moor allowed her a fair head start and then climbed slowly in pursuit, calling to her in voluptuous Arabic at every step. Fifty feet up, where any pitch of the hull is materially amplified by the height, the girl's nerve failed: she thrust bare arms and legs through the squares of the rigging and hung for dear life while Boabdil, once he had come up from behind, ravished her unmercifully. Down on the shallop the sailmaker clapped his hands and chortled; Ebenezer, heartsick, turned away.

He saw Bertrand a little distance behind him, watching with undisguised avidity, and recalled his plan. The time was propitious: every member of the shallop's crew except old Carl was busy at his pleasure, and even Captain Pound, who normally stood aloof from all festivities, had found the Moor's trophy too tempting to refuse and had disappeared with her into the brigantine's cabin.

"Look sharp!" he whispered to the valet. "I'm going for the Journal now, and then we'll try to slip aboard the
Cyprian
." And ignoring Bertrand's frightened look, he made his way carefully aft to the doorway of Captain Pound's quarters. It required no searching to find what he sought: the Journal lay in plain view on the table, its loose pages held fast by a fungus-coral paperweight. Ebenezer snatched it up and scanned the first page with pounding heart: a transcription of the Assembly's convening, meaningless to him. But on the
recto
--

"Ah!"

A Secret Historie of the Voiage Up the Bay of Chesapeake From Jamestowne in Virginia,
he read,
Undertaken in the Yeer of Our Lord 1608 By C
^apt
J
^no
Smith, & Faithfullie Set Down in Its Severall Parts By the Same. And below, in an antique, almost illegible hand, the narrative commenced, not as a diary at all but as a summary account, probably meant as the initial draft of part of the author's well-known
Generall Historie of Virginia:

Seven souldiers, six gentlemen, D
^r
Russell the Chirurgeon & my selfe did embark from the towne of Kecoughtan, in Virginia, in June of the present yeer 1608,

To walk a wayless Way with uncouth Pace,

W
^ch
yet no Christian Man did ever trace. . .

Much farther than this the poet dared not read at the moment, but he could not refrain from thumbing rapidly through the rest of the manuscript in search of the name
Henry Burlingame.
It did not take long to find:
No sooner was the King asleep,
he read on an early page,
then I straightway made for the doore, and w
^d
have fulfill'd his everie wish, had not L
^d
Burlingame prevented me, and catching hold of my arme, declar'd, That he did protest my doing this thing. . .

"Burlingame a Lord!" Ebenezer exclaimed to himself, and joyfully thrust the manuscript into his shirt, holding it fast under the waist of his breeches. He peeped out onto the deck. All seemed clear: the only man in a position to spy him was the Moor in the
Cyprian's
mizzen-rigging, and he was occupied with climbing down for further conquests, leaving his first quite ravaged in the ratlines. The sun was setting; its long last rays lit the scene unnaturally, from the side, with rose and gold.

"Hi ho, Master Eben!"

The Laureate quailed at the salute; but the voice was Bertrand's.

"Stupid fellow! He'll do me in yet!" He looked for the valet in vain on the shallop's deck: the sailmaker stood alone by the railing.

"Come along, Master Eben! Over here!" The voice came from the direction of the brigantine. Horrified, Ebenezer saw Bertrand standing in the vessel's stern, about to have at a plump lass whom he was bending over the taffrail. Ebenezer signaled frantically for the man to come back, but Bertrand laughed and shook his head. "They've asked us to join 'em!" he called, and turned to his work.

For Ebenezer to slip aboard unnoticed was unthinkable in the face of this defection. All over the
Cyprian
the debauch continued; the hapless women, gilded by the sunlight, had for the most part abandoned hope, and instead of running, submitted to their attackers with pleas for mercy or stricken silence. The poet shuddered and fled to his cell in the rope-locker, determined, since he could not make his escape, to take advantage of the diversion to read through the precious manuscript. He borrowed a lamp from the fo'c'sle, closed the heavy door, took out the Journal, and lay on his bed of tattered sailcloth, where he read as follows:

Seven souldiers, six gentlemen, D
^r
Russell the Chirurgeon & my selfe did embark from the towne of Kecoughtan, in Virginia, in June of the present yeer 1608,

To walk a wayless Way with uncouth Pace,

W
^ch
yet no Christian Man did ever trace.

We took for the voiage a barge of three tonnes burthen, to the provisioning whereof I earlie set the great Liverpooler Henry Burlingame, that I durst not leave behind to smirch my name with slander & calumnie. Yet scarce had we dropt Kecoughtan to Southward, then I found the wretch had play'd me false; to feed the companie of fifteene men the summer long, he had supply'd one meager sack of weevilie oats and a barricoe of cloudie water! I enquir'd of him, W
^d
he starve us? Or did he think to make me turn tayle home? W
^ch
latter hope I knew, he shar'd with all the idle Gentlemen his fellows. Then I set them all to short rations and fishing over the gunwales, albeit I knew no means to cooke a fish in the barge. The truth was, I reckon'd on a landfall within two days, but said naught of it, and what fish they caught I threw back in the Bay. I then commenc'd instructing one & all in the art of sayles & tiller, wch matters the souldiers took to readilie and the Gentlemen complayn'd of -- none lowder then L
^d
Burlingame, that I had a-bayling water from the bilge.

This Burlingame w
^d
say to his neighbour, What doth the Captain reck it if we perish? What time he getteth in a pickle, we Gentlemen must grubb him out, else some naked Salvage wench flieth down from Heaven to save his neck. By w
^ch
he referr'd to Pocahontas, Powhatans daughter, that some months past had rescu'd me, and I saw, he meant to devill me through the voiage.

Next day we rays'd a cape of land, lying due North of Kecoughtan, and the companie rejoyc'd thereat, inasmuch as there bellies all complayn'd of meale & clowdie water. We made straightway to shoar, whereupon we found a pair of fearsome Salvages, arm'd with bone-poynt speares. I made bold to salute them, and was pleas'd to learn, they spake a tongue like Powhatans, to w
^ch
Emperour they declar'd them selves subject. The fiercenesse of these men was in there paynt alone; they were but spearing fish along the shallows. Upon my entreatie, they led us to there town and to there King, that was call'd Hicktopeake.

Then follow'd an adventure, w
^ch
I cannot well include among my Histories. I shall set it down upon these privie pages, for that it shews afresh that enmity I spake of, betwixt L
^d
Burlingame & my selfe, w
^ch
led us anon to the verie doore of Death. . .

"Mercy!" Ebenezer cried, and turned the page.