The Sot-Weed Factor (37 page)

Here ended the narrative, or what fragment of it Meech had brought aboard. Ebenezer read it again, and a third time, hoping to find in it something to connect Henry Burlingame with his luckless namesake in the story. But there was every indication that Captain Smith's antagonist, who Henry hoped would prove to be his ancestor, was not only childless but unmarried, and his future with the company of explorers was far from promising. With a sigh the Laureate assembled the pages of the Journal and concealed it under his sailcloth bed, where no one was likely to find it. Then he extinguished the lantern and sat for some while in the dark. The naked sounds of rape, floating through the shallop's fo'c'sle. conjured pictures clear enough to make him shiver. Together with the story in the manuscript -- which was as much a revelation to him as it had been to Hicktopeake -- they forced his reverie willy-nilly into a single channel, and before long he found himself physically moved by desire. He could not in honesty assert that his pity for the
Cyprian
girls was unambiguous, or his condemnation of their assault wholehearted; if he had been shocked by the spectacle, he had also been excited by it, and so fascinated that no lesser business than that of the Journal could have summoned him away. Indeed, the sight of the girl trapped in the rigging like a fly in a web, and of Boabdil climbing leisurely to envelop her like a great black spider, had aroused him as its memory aroused him now.

It was abundantly clear to him that the value of his virginity was not a moral value, even as he had explained to Bertrand one day on the
Poseidon.
But the mystic ontological value he had ascribed to it seemed less convincing now than it had seemed then. The recollection of Joan Toast's visit to his room, for example, which was customarily dominated by his speech at her departure or the hymn to virginity composed afterwards, stopped now at the memory of the girl herself, sitting pertly on his bed, and would go no farther. She had leaned forward and embraced him where he knelt before her: her breasts had brushed like cool silk on his forehead; his cheek had lain against the cushion of her stomach; his eyes had lingered close to The Mystery!

From outside came another cry, a hard, high protest that trailed into lamentation. There was an ancient ring to it, an antique sorrow, that put the poet in mind of Philomela, of Lucretia, of the Sabine virgins and the daughters of Troy, of the entire wailing legion of the raped. He went to the companionway, and climbing it looked skyward at the stars. How trifling was the present scene to them, who had watched the numberless wars of men, the sack of nations, and the countless lone assaults in field and alley! Was there a year in time when their light had not been dimmed, somewhere on earth, by the flames of burning cities? That instant when he stepped out on the deck, how many women heard -- in England, Spain, and far Cipango -- the footfall of the rapist on the stair, or in the path behind? The ranks of women ravished, hundreds and thousands and millions strong, of every age and circumstance -- the centuries rang and echoed with their cries; the dirt of the planet was watered with their tears!

The scene aboard the
Cyprian
was considerably less violent now, though by no means tranquil. Around the masts her crew were still tied fast, and watched the festivities in sullen silence; thus far none had been harmed. The pirates, their first lust spent, had broken out the rum and were fast succumbing to it. Already some lay senseless in the scuppers; others sprawled with their prizes on the decks and cabin roofs, taking drinks and liberties by turn, but no longer able to consummate their wooing still others had lost interest altogether in the women -- they danced, sang bawdy songs, or played ombre under lanterns in the balmy air, almost as on any other evening at sea. From the cabins came the sound of more carousing, but not of violence: two girls, it seemed, were being obliged to perform some trick against their will, and Ebenezer heard several women join in the general laughter and encouragement.

"So lightly they accept their fate!" He thought again of the Trojan widows, advised by Hecuba to resign themselves without protest to being concubines and slaves.

The least enviable lot, so far as he could see, was that of seven ladies trussed hip to hip over the
Cyprian's
starboard rail in classic pirate fashion, so that their heads, and upper bodies hung over the somewhat lower shallop: yet even these, despite the indignity and clear discomfort of their position, were not entirely overwhelmed with misery. One, it is true, appeared to be weeping, though she was not being molested at the moment, and two others stared expressionless at their arms, which were lashed at the wrist to the bottom of the balusters but the others were actually gossiping with Carl the sailmaker, who smoked his pipe on the shallop's deck before them! At sight of Ehenezer, who came up beside him, they were not in the least abashed.

"Oh dear," said one, feigning alarm, "here comes another!"

"Ah, now, he seems a likely lad," said her neighbor, who was older. "Ye'd not do aught unchivalrous, would ye, son?"

Even as they laughed, a drunken pirate reeled up behind them.

"Ouch!" cried the one to whom he made his presence known. "Tell him, Carl, 'tis not my turn!
Hi!
The wretch takes me for a roast of mutton! Tell him, Carl!"

The sailmaker, by reason of his age, had some authority among his shipmates. "Have at some other, matey," he advised. The pirate obligingly moved to the tearful youngster on the end, who at his first touch gave a cry that pierced Ebenezer to the heart.

"Nay, ye blackguard, don't dare jilt me!" cried the woman first molested. "Come hither to one that knows what's what!"

"Aye, leave the child in peace," another scolded. "I'll show ye how 'tis done in Leicestershire!" Aside to her companions she added, "Pray God 'tis not the Moor!"

"Ye asked for't," said the pirate, and returned to his original choice.

"Marry,
there's a good fellow!" she cried, pretending pleasure. " '
Sheart,
what a stone-horse, girls!" To her neighbor she said in a stage whisper, " 'Tis not the Moor by half, but Grantham gruel: nine grits and a gallon o' water.
Aie! Gramercy,
sir!
Gramercy!"

The other three were highly entertained.

"Your friend is yonder in the cabin," Carl said to Ebenezer. "Hop to't if ye've a mind for the ladies, for we shan't tarry here much longer."

"Indeed?" Ebenezer shifted uncomfortably; the women were regarding him with interest. "Perhaps I'd better see what mischief Bertrand is about."

"Ah, 'sbood, he doth not care for us," one of the women said. "He likes his friend better." The rest took up the tease, even the one being wooed, and Ebenezer beat a hasty retreat.

"I cannot fathom it," he said to himself.

Though he had dismissed entirely the notion of stowing away aboard the
Cyprian
and had little or no interest in his valet's present activities, he borrowed courage enough from those two motives to board the brigantine, having first walked aft to escape the women's remarks. He could not deny, however, his intention to stroll back in their direction from the vantage point of the
Cyprian's
deck, at least out of curiosity. He climbed to the rail and grasped the brigantine's mizzen shrouds to pull himself over. When by chance he happened to look aloft, the moonlight showed him a surprising sight: high in the mizzen-rigging the Moor's first conquest still hung, forgotten by all; her arms and legs stuck through as though in stocks. One could not judge her condition from below: perhaps she maintained her perch out of fear, hoping to escape further assault: or it could be she was a-swoon -- her position would keep her from falling. Neither was it impossible that she was dead, from the bite of her great black spider. Assuring himself that only his curiosity wanted satisfying, but in a high state of excitement nonetheless, Ebenezer swung his feet not to the deck of the
Cyprian
but onto the first of the mizzen ratlines, and methodically, in the manner of Boabdil, climbed skyward to the dangling girl. . .

His ascent caused the shrouds to tremble; the girl stirred, peered downwards, and buried her face with a moan. The poet, positively dizzied with desire, made crooning noises in her direction.

"I shall have at thee, lass! I shall have at thee!" When he had got but halfway up, however, Captain Pound stepped out from the cabin below, and the Moor ordered all hands back to the shallop. The men responded with loud protests but nevertheless obeyed, taking desperate final liberties as they went. Ebenezer doubled his rate of climb. "I shall have at thee!"

But Boabdil's voice came up from below. "You in the mizzen-rig! Down with ye, now! Snap to't!"

The girl was literally within reach. "Thou'rt a lucky wench!" he called up boldly.

She looked down at him. In the moonlight, from the present distance, she bore some slight resemblance to Joan Toast, the recollection of whom had fired his original desire. There was a look of horror on her face.

Weak with excitement, Ebenezer called out to her again: "A minute more and I had split thee!"

She hid her face, and he climbed down. A few minutes later the pirates had cast off the grapples and were doing their best to make sail. Looking back over the widening stretch of ocean. Ebenezer saw the women of the
Cyprian
untie their colleagues at the rail and set free the crew. Up in the mizzen-rigging he could still discern the white figure of the girl, his desire for whom, unsatisfied, began already to discommode him. The relief he felt at the accidental rescue of his essence was, though genuine, not nearly so profound a sensation as had been his possession in the rigging, which he could not begin to understand. Surely, he insisted, there was more to it than simple concupiscence: if not, why did the thought of the Moor's attack, for example, make him nearly ill with jealousy? Why had he chosen the girl in the ratlines instead of those along the rail? Why had her resemblance to Joan Toast (which for that matter he may only have fancied) inflamed rather than cooled his ardor? His whole behavior in the matter was incomprehensible to him.

He turned away and made for his cell in the rope-locker, both to assure himself of the safety of his precious manuscript and in some manner to alleviate, if he could, his growing pain. Even as he lowered himself down the fo'c'sle companionway a sharp, shrill female cry rang out through the darkness from the brigantine's direction, followed by another and a third.

"Their
turn, now," said someone on the shallop, and a number of the pirates chuckled. The blood rushed from Ebenezer's brain; he swayed on the ladderway and found it necessary to pause a moment, his forehead pressed against an upper rung.

"She's but a whore; a simple whore," he said to himself, and was obliged to repeat the words several times before he could proceed with his descent.

Whether because he thought he had put it away for safekeeping before boarding the
Cyprian
or because he was too drunk on returning to notice its absence, Captain Pound did not disclose the loss of the Journal fragment until after noon of the following day, by which time Ebenezer had found an even better hiding-place for it. Thinking it imprudent to trust his valet too far, he had waited until Bertrand went on deck that morning and had then transferred his prize from under his pallet to a fold in the canvas of a brand new sail which lay at the bottom of a pile of others on a large shelf near at hand. Thus when in the afternoon he and Bertrand stripped to the skin with the rest of the crew and stood by while Boabdil and the Captain combed the ship, he was not alarmed to see them throw aside the rag-beds in his cell: for them to unfold and refold every spare sail on the shelf would have been unthinkable. After a two-hour search failed to discover the manuscript, Captain Pound concluded that someone from the
Cyprian
had sneaked aboard to steal it. All that day and the next the pirates raced to find the brigantine again, until the sight of Cape Henlopen and Delaware Bay put an end to the chase and forced them back to the safety of the open sea.

His loss made the Captain daily more sour and irascible. His suspicion naturally fell heaviest on Ebenezer and Bertrand: though he had no reason to believe that either had prior knowledge of the Journal's presence on the ship and no evidence that either had stolen it -- both had been seen aboard the
Cyprian,
for example -- he nevertheless confined them to their cell again, out of ill humor. At the same time he had the Moor lay ten stripes on the sailmaker's aged back as punishment for failing to see the thief: the flogging could be heard in the rope-locker, and Ebenezer had to remind himself, uncomfortably, that the manuscript was exceedingly valuable to the cause of order and justice in Maryland. To Bertrand, who had nearly swooned during the search of their quarters, he declared that he had thrown the Journal into the sea for fear of discovery, and that old Carl was after all a pirate whom any judge ashore would doubtless hang.

"Nonetheless," he added resolutely, "should I hear they mean to kill or torture anyone for't, even that loathesome beast Boabdil, I shall confess." Whether he would in fact, he did not care to wonder; he made the vow primarily for Bertrand's sake, to forestall another defection.

"Small difference whether ye do or no," the valet answered. "Our time's nigh up in either case." He was, indeed, perilously disheartened; from the first he had been skeptical of Ebenezer's plan to escape, and even that long chance was precluded by their present confinement. In vain did Ebenezer point out that it was Bertrand who, by his conduct aboard the
Cyprian,
had spoiled their best opportunity to escape: such truths are never consolations.

Their prospects darkened as the day of the shallop's scheduled rendezvous approached. They heard the crew in the fo'c-'sle complain of the Captain's mounting severity: three had been put on short rations for no greater crime than that Pound had overheard them comparing notes on the
Cyprian
women; a fourth, who as spokesman for the group had inquired how soon they would put into some port, had been threatened with keelhauling. Daily the two prisoners feared that he would take it into his head to put them to some form of torture. The one bright happenstance of the entire period, both for the crew and for Ebenezer, was the news that the Moor, whom they had come to resent for executing the Captain's orders, had been blessed by one of his victims on the brigantine with a social disease.