The Sot-Weed Factor (50 page)

He returned to the table and poured a fourth round of
Jerez.

"Let us say the young men mock him for some hours, aping his gestures and tormenting him with sticks. They become quite curious about the color of his skin: one grasps the priest's hand in his own, chattering to his companions as he compares the hue; another slaps the flesh of his stomach and points to Father FitzMaurice's cassock, wondering whether the stranger hath the same outlandish color from head to foot. The rest deride this notion, to the great indignation of the curious one; he lifts up his muskrat loincloth and voices a second conjecture, so fantastical to his brothers that their eyes brim o'er with glee. They fall to wagering -- four, five strings of
wompompeag
-- and at length deprive Father FitzMaurice of his weathered clothes, for proof.
Ecce homo!
There he stands, all miserable and a-shiver; his belly is as white as the belly of a rockfish, and though his parts have lain as idle as a Book of Common Prayer in the Vatican, he boasts in sooth a full set nonetheless. The challenger stalks off with his winnings, and the young Tayac, who is not above thirty years of age, gives commands to end the sport."

"Ah, now, prithee, wait a moment!" Burlingame protested "This is made up from the whole cloth!"

"Say, from the Holy Cloth," rejoined the imperturbable Smith, widening his blue eyes at the jest.

"I for one prefer't thus," Ebenezer declared impatiently to his friend. "Let him flesh his bony facts into a tale."

Burlingame shrugged and turned back to the fire.

"The women then bring forth the evening meal," the priest went on. "To Father FitzMaurice, cowering naked on his grass mat in the corner, it seems interminable, but anon 'tis done; the women remain, tobacco is passed round, and a general carouse ensues. The priest looks on, abashed but curious, for albeit he is a Jesuit, he is a man as well, and plans moreover to write a treatise on the practices of the salvage if his life is spared. His presence is for the nonce ignored, and as they disport in their error he wrings his wits to hit upon a means of speaking with them, so to initiate the business of conversion.

"The hour arrives when the young Tayac addresses certain words to all the group, sundry of whom turn round to regard the priest. Two hoary, painted elders leave the hut to fetch back a carven pole, some ten feet long, that bears a skunk pelt at the bottom and a crudely mounted muskrat on the top. All present genuflect before it, and its bearers hold it forth toward Father FitzMaurice. The Tayac points his finger at the muskrat and speaks certain gibberish, whose imperious tone hath need of no translation: 'tis a call for similar obsequies from the priest.

"Father FitzMaurice deems the moment opportune. His nakedness forgot, he springs to his feet and shakes his head to signify refusal. Then he once more holds aloft his crucifix, nods his head in vigorous affirmation, and makes a motion as though to fling the idol down. The Tayac now grows wroth; he repeats the same command in louder tones, and the other folk are still. But Father FitzMaurice stands firm: he raises a finger to indicate that the figure on the crucifix is the true and only God, and goes so far as to spit upon the sacred staff. At once the Tayac strikes him down; the idol-bearers place the butt of their pole upon the back of his neck to pin him fast to the dirt, and the Tayac pronounces a solemn incantation, whereto the others shout assent."

"Unhappy wretch!" sighed Ebenezer. "I fear his martyrdom is at hand."

"Not yet," the priest declared. "Now the hut is cleared at once, and Father FitzMaurice is left trembling in the dirt. Anon a dozen salvage maidens enter, all bedaubed with puccoon paint; they spread their mats about the floor and to all appearances make ready for the night. . ."

" 'Tis no mystery what will ensue," Burlingame remarked, "if these Nanticokes are like some other Indians."

But Ebenezer, who knew nothing of such matters, implored Father Smith to go on with the tale.

"Father FitzMaurice is abashed tenfold at the presence of the maidens," said the priest, "more especially as he seems the subject of a colloquy among them, carried on in mirthful whispers. He makes a mental note, for his treatise, that salvage maids all share a common chamber, and.rejoices when at last the fire burns out and he can clothe his shame with darkness.

"But his solitude doth not live long: he hath told not more than three
Ave Marias
ere an Indian wench, perfumed with grease of bear and covered no more than an Adamite, flings herself upon him and bites him in the neck!"

"I'God!" cried Ebenezer.

"The good man struggles, but the maid hath strength, and besides, his foot is tethered. She lays hands upon the candle of the Carnal Mass, and
mirabile,
the more she trims it, the greater doth it wax! Father FitzMaurice scarce can conjure up his Latin, yet so bent is he on making at least one convert ere he dies, he stammers out a blessing. For reply the heathen licks his ear, whereupon Father FitzMaurice sets to saying
Paternosters
with all haste, more concerned now with the preservation of his own grace than the institution of his ward's. But no sooner is he thus engaged than
zut!
she caps his candle with the snuffer priests must shun, that so far from putting out the fire, only fuels it to a greater heat and brilliance. In sum, where he hath hoped to win a convert, 'tis Father FitzMaurice finds himself converted, in less time than it wants to write a syllogism -- and baptized, catechized, received, and given orders into the bargain!"

Burlingame smiled at the Laureate's absorption in the tale. "Doth that strike you closely, Eben?"

"Barbarous!" the poet said with feeling. "To fall so from his vows by no fault of his own! What misery must his noble soul have suffered!"

"Nay, sir," Father Smith declared, "you forget he is the stuff of saints, and a Jesuit as well."

Ebenezer protested that he did not understand.

"He explores the
pros
and
contras
of his case," the priest explained, "and adduces four good arguments to ease his suffering conscience. To begin with, 'tis e'er the wont of prudent missionaries to wink their eyes, at the outset, at any curious customs of the folk they would convert. In the second place, he is promoting the rapport 'twixt him and the heathen that must be established ere conversion can commence. Third, 'tis to his ultimate good he sins, as is shown past cavil by holy precedent: had not the illustrious Augustine, for example, essayed the manifold refinements of the flesh, the better to know and appreciate virtue? And finally, lest these have an air of casuistry, he is tethered and pinioned from head to foot and hath therefore no choice or culpability in the matter. In fine, so far from wailing o'er his plight, he comes to see in it the hand of Providence and joins in the labor with a will. If his harvest be commensurate to his tilling of the ground, so he reflects, he might well be raised to a bishoprie by Rome!

"When anon the maid is ploughed and harrowed, Father FitzMaurice finds her place taken by another, whom he loses no chance to prime like the first for her conversion. Ere dawn, with the help of God, he hath persuaded every woman in the hut of the clear superiority of the Faith, and inasmuch as there were in all some half-score visitants, when the last is catechized he falls exhausted into sleep.

"Not long after, he awakes in high spirits: such strides hath he made toward conversion of the women, he feels sure of making progress with the men. Nor do his hopes seem groundless, for anon the Tayac and his cawcawaassoughs appear and order the women from the hut, after which they cut the tether from his foot. 'Bless you, my friends,' he cries. 'You have seen the true and only Way!' And he forgives them for his cruel use at their hands. They fetch him up and lead him from the hut, and he is overwhelmed with joy at what he sees: the hurricane is gone, and through its last dark clouds the sun falls on a large wooden cross, erected in the courtyard of the town, and on the priest's four precious sea-chests at its foot. The Tayac points first to Father FitzMaurice's crucifix and then to the larger cross.

" 'This is God's work,' declares the missionary. 'He hath shewed to thee thine error, and in thy simple fashion thou dost Him homage!' He is moved to kneel in grateful prayer to God, whom he thanks both for working His divine will on the minds of the heathen men and for vouchsafing to His lowly priest the wherewithal to work His will upon their unmarried women. Then alas, his prayers are cut short by two strong men, who grasp his arms and lead him to the cross. Father FitzMaurice smiles indulgently on their roughness, but in a trice they bind him fast to the cross by his ankles, arms, and neck, and then pile faggots on the sea-chests at his feet. All in vain he cries for mercy to the gathering crowd. His novitiates of the night just past, when he addresses them, merely cluck their tongues and watch the scene with interest: 'tis the law of their land that when a man is doomed to die he may enjoy the tribe's unmarried girls on the eve of his execution, and they have discharged their obligation!

"Then comes this great soul's noblest moment. The Tayac confronts him for the last time, in one hand the sacred muskrat, in the other a flaming torch, and makes an ultimate demand for his obeisance. Yet though he sees his case is lost, Father FitzMaurice summons up his last reserves of courage and spits on the idol once again."

" 'Tis a marvel he could summon any spit," Burlingame observed.

"At once a shout goes up, and the Tayac flings his torch upon the faggots! The salvages dance and shake their sacred pole at him -- for in fact 'tis as a heretic they condemn him -- and the flames leap up to singe his puccoon paint. The good man knows that our afflictions are God's blessings in disguise, and so reasons that he was meant not for a missionary after all, but for a martyr. He lifts his eyes to Heaven, and with his final tortured breath he says, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do. . .'"

Though he was not religiously inclined, so impressed was Ebenezer by the tale that he murmured "Amen."

" 'Twould perhaps have made his death more easy, if no less warm, had Father FitzMaurice known that even as he roasted there were three white babes a-building in the wombs of his novitiates. Of these, one died a-bearing, another was exposed out in the marsh, and the third, when she was nubile, became the mother of my informant by the old Tayac himself. As for the Jesuit mission, when George Calvert returned at last to St. Mary's City, his negotiations with Claiborne proving bootless, the remaining priests vowed not to report their colleague's defection to Rome until they learned more of his whereabouts. To this end they reported, in the annual letter I read you, that both priests had returned with the expedition. After that time such various rumors were heard of him that they put off reporting his absence indefinitely. New priests came to the Province; God's work went on less zealously but more steadily, and in time the name FitzMaurice was forgot."

He would have said more, but Burlingame interrupted him to ask, "And what is your opinion of him, Father? Was the man a fool or a saint?"

The priest turned his wide blue eyes upon his questioner. "Those are not true alternatives, Mr. Mitchell: he was a fool of God, as hath been many a holy man before him, and the most that can be said is that his way was not the way of the Society. A dead missionary makes no converts, nor doth a live martyr."

"It is truly said," Ebenezer declared:
"There are more ways to the woods than one."

"Then permit me a nearer question," Burlingame insisted. "Which way is the more congenial to
your
temper?"

Father Smith appeared to consider this question for some moments before replying. He tapped out his pipe and fingered the papers on the table. "Why do you ask?" he inquired at last, though his tone suggested that he knew the reason already. " 'Tis not likely one could gauge his capacity for martyrdom ere the choice was thrust upon him."

To this Burlingame only smiled, but his meaning was unmistakable. Ebenezer blushed with horror.

"The fact of the matter is," the priest went on, "I scarcely dare deliver the Journal into your hands. The ways of Coode are infinitely devious, and your authorization is signed by Nicholson, not Lord Baltimore."

"So that is the stripe of't!" Burlingame laughed mirthlessly. "You don't trust Nicholson, that owes his post to Baltimore?"

The priest shook his head. "Francis Nicholson is no man's tool, my friend. Hath he not struck out already at Governor Andros, that erst was his superior? Doth he not intend to move the capital from St. Mary's to Anne Arundel Town, for no better reason than to show his allegiance to the Protestant King?"

"But dear God!" Burlingame cried. " 'Twas Nicholson stole the Journal in the first place, and smuggled it to Baltimore!"

" 'Tis as I said before of Mister Cooke," Father Smith explained. "All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate. Thus Father FitzMaurice showed a loyal zeal for service in the Province, as did Fathers White and Altham, but once here, that same zeal led to his defection; no man knew till then 'twas some other goal he strove for. How shall I say it?" He smiled nervously.

"Many travelers ride the Plymouth coach together," Burlingame suggested, "but not all have Maryland for their destination."

"Our Laureate here could not have put it better! If I could see an authorization in Lord Baltimore's hand, with his signature affixed, as I was instructed to demand, then I should deliver up the Journal to John Calvin himself, and there's an end on't."

Fearing the measures his friend might threaten, Ebenezer came near to imploring the priest to trust him personally, as Charles Calvert's poet laureate, if he could not trust Nicholson or Burlingame; but he checked himself upon remembering again, with no little annoyance, that his commission was not authentic, and that even if it were, he could not produce it for inspection.

A new expression came to Burlingame's face: leaning over the table toward their host he drew from his belt a leather-handled,
poignard
like knife, and in the candlelight ran his thumb across its edge.