The Sot-Weed Factor (79 page)

Drepacca too had to reflect for a moment before he could supply an English approximation.
"Enthralled?
Nay, not as a slave. . . to be helpless, but not as one in shackles. . ."

"Driven?"
Ebenezer suggested quickly.
"Exalted? O'ermastered?"
Chicamec's nostrils flared with impatience at the delay.

"He was
driven
with lust," Quassapelagh declared. "So much so, that he shook in every limb like a beast in season. Now the Secret of the Sacred Eggplant, whereby Queen Pokatawertussan was destroyed, had perished with her heavenly spouse, but the Tayac Chicamec had no need of it, being a man in all his parts. When the maid sought to move his pity by kneeling at his feet, he could no longer wait to make her his Queen. Nay, he climbed her then and there, and in the night that followed filled her with his seed!"

Although Quassapelagh had remained impassive as he translated, Chicamec's voice had grown excited; his breath was coming faster, and his old eyes shone. Now he paused, and his face and tone grew stern again.

"In the morning, unknown to all, she was with child, and the Tayac made her his Queen. The evil spirit that had possessed him now left his head at last, and all the while her belly grew he did not touch her again, for shame, and trembled lest she bear a white-skinned boy for him to slay. But strange and far-reaching is the vengeance of the gods! She bore him a fine dark son, a very prince among Ahatchwhoops, a man-child perfect in every wise save one, which the Tayac observed at once the boy had. . ."

"Inherited."

". . . had inherited from his grandsire Henry Burlingame One -- the single defect of that lordly man; and it was clear, his grandsire's Secret of the Holy Eggplant being lost, this boy would ne'er be able to carry on the royal line. For that reason he was not called Henry Burlingame Three, but
Mattassinemarough,
which is to say, Man of Copper; and for this reason as well, albeit the lust was gone out of him, the Tayac Chicamec durst force his Queen a second time, and plied her with seed the night through to get another son on her. And again he trembled lest she bring forth a white child for him to slay, and did not go into her the while her belly rose beneath her coats. As before, the Queen was brought to bed of a son, this one neither dark as the dark Ahatchwhoops nor white as the English Devils, but the flawless golden image of his father, save for one thing: like his brother Mattassin he had not the veriest shadow of that which makes men men, and since none but God imparts to men the Mysteries of the Eggplant, this boy could never in a hundred summers get grandsons for the Tayac Chicamec. Thus he was not called Henry Burlingame Three, but
Cohunkowprets,
which is to say, Bill-o'-the-Goose, forasmuch as his mother the Queen, on first beholding his want of manliness, declared
A goose hath pecked him;
and farther,
She would that goose had spared the son and dined upon the father.

"But the Tayac Chicamec waited for the Queen to gather her strength, and a third time drove her with the seed that brings forth men; and until the harvest he trembled like an aspen in the storm. But the third son of his loins was neither dark like Mattassinemarough, nor yet golden like Cohunkowprets, but white as an English sail from head to foot, and his eyes not black but blue as the Chesapeake! He was his grandsire born again, e'en to that defect shared by his brothers, and albeit the gods might have seen fit to impart to the boy the Eggplant Secret, as they had imparted it to his divine grandsire, there was naught for it but the Tayac Chicamec must fulfill his awful vow and slay the boy for an English Devil.

"Mark how the sinner pays thrice o'er! When the Tayac Chicamec declared to the town that the white-skinned child must die, the Queen snatched up a spear, flung herself upon it, and perished rather than witness the new babe's slaying or bear another child to take its place. But the Tayac Chicamec fetched the white-skinned prince alone to the waterside to drown him, and his heart was heavy. The Queen was dead, that he thrice had ravished in vain, nor durst he get children on the concubines who would share his bed thenceforth, but sow his murtherous seed in the empty air. And at last he was not able to drown the child: instead he painted with red ochre on its chest the signs he had learnt from his father and
The Book of English Devils:
HENRY BURLINGAME III; then he laid the boy in the bottom of a canoe and sent him down the mighty Chesapeake on the tide. And he prayed to the spirit of the Tayac Henry Burlingame One to spare the child from drowning and impart to him the Magic of the Eggplant, that he might further the royal bloodline -- even if amongst the English Devils."

"I'God!" Ebenezer marveled. Yet though he remembered Mary Mungummory's tale of her singular love affair with Charley Mattassin -- a tale which not till now could he fully appreciate -- and also certain startling assertions of Henry's -- for example, that he had never made actual "love" to Anna -- nonetheless he found this "certain defect" of Chicamec's offspring most difficult to reconcile with the staggering sexuality of his friend.

"The Tayac Chicamec enquires of Quassapelagh's brother," Drepacca said, "whether the man you call Henry Burlingame Three hath many sons in his house?"

Ebenezer was on the verge of a negative reply, but he suddenly changed his mind and said instead, "Henry Burlingame Three was still a young man when he tutored me, but albeit I know where he dwells, I've not seen him these several years. Yet I know him for a famous lover of women, and 'tis quite likely he hath a tribe of sons and daughters." In fact there had occurred to him the dim suggestion of a plan to save his companions as well as himself; not so rash as before, he pondered and revised it as Chicamec, evidently disappointed by the reply, concluded his narration through the medium of Quassapelagh.

"In the years that followed, the Tayac Chicamec raised his other sons to manhood, dark-skinned Mattassin and golden Cohunkowprets; and for all their sore defect they grew strong and straight as two pine trees of their country, bold as the bears who raid the hunter's camp, cunning as the raccoons, tireless as the hawks of the air, and steadfast -- steadfast as the snapping-turtle, foe to waterfowl, that will lose his life ere he loose his jaws, and e'en when his head is severed, bite on in death!"

The old chiefs voice had rung with pride until this final attribution, which evidently gave him pain. Now the furrows of his face winced deeper, and he spoke more broodingly.

"Who knows what deeds the gods regard as crimes," Quassapelagh translated, "until they take revenge? Was't so grave a sin to raise the daughter of the English Devil in the Tayac's house and get sons upon her when she came of age? Or was't a fresh sin that he vowed to slay his white-skinned child, and drove the Queen to fall upon a spear? If either be sin, is not the other its atonement? Or was his new crime that he spared the boy at last, and he hath lived? One thing alone is given man to know: whate'er his sins, they must perforce be grievous, for terrible is the punishment he suffers, and unending! 'Twas not enough the Tayac flung his third son to the waves, and lost his Queen, and saw his line doomed to perish from the land; nay, he must lose all -- lose e'en his stalwart, seedless sons that did so please him with their strength, and that he hoped would lead the Ahatchwhoops in their war against the Devils! Mattassin and Cohunkowprets! Did he not school them day by day to hate the English? Did he not rehearse them in
The Book of English Devils
and recount the warlike passions of their grandsire? And they were not hot-blooded boys, or dogs in season, that blind with lust will mount a bitch or a bulrush basket, whiche'er falls into their path; nay, they were grown men of two-score summers, canny fellows, sound in judgment, and sore they loathed the English as did their father! None were more ready than they to league our cause with the cause of the Piscataways and Nanticokes; when the first black slave escaped to this island 'twas Mattassin himself bade him welcome and made this town a haven for all who fled the English; and 'twas not the Tayac Chicamec that first hit on the plan of joining forces with the man Casteene and the naked warriors of the north to drive the English to the sea -- 'twas golden Cohunkowprets: wifeless, childless, and athirst for battle! Piscataways, Nanticokes, Chopticoes, Mattawomans -- all men envied the Ahatchwhoops, that boasted such a pair of mighty chieftains; and Chicamec, too old to leave the island for the first great meeting of our leaders -- was he not proud to send Mattassin in his stead?"

The Tayac Chicamec paused, overcome with bitter memory, and Ebenezer tactfully observed that he was familiar with the subsequent course of Mattassin's life. At the same time, since the information might have some bearing on his nebulous plan, he professed great curiosity about the other son, Cohunkowprets: surely he too had not been hanged for murdering English Devils?

"They have not hanged him," Chicamec said through Quassapelagh, and at no time thitherto had his malice so contorted every feature. "Their crime against Cohunkowprets is more heinous ten times o'er than their crime against Mattassin. Beautiful, golden son! Him too the Tayac Chicamec dispatched, but one full moon ago, upon an errand of great importance: to go north with Drepacca and make treaties with the man Casteene; him too the gods saw fit to lure from his goal, and in the same wise, despite the sternest counsels of Drepacca. . ."

He had previously spoken of the Negro element in the town as one would speak of a blessing by no means unalloyed, and had mentioned his allies' envy of his sons. It now became clear to Ebenezer that Chicamec's partiality to Quassapelagh was not only, as it were, skin deep: it masked a deep distrust of the Africans, and especially of Drepacca, and dated, apparently, from his embassy to Monsieur Casteene. Indeed, the poet went so far as to speculate that Chicamec held Drepacca in some way responsible for Cohunkowprets' defection.

"In short," Quassapelagh went on, "King Drepacca was obliged to leave Cohunkowprets on the mainland near the Little Choptank, with the white-skinned woman he lusted after, and the Tayac Chicamec hath not seen his son these many days."

"A wondrous likeness of misfortune," Ebenezer sympathized, "and a shame in itself! But what is this heinous crime the Tayac speaks of?"

"I had best answer that myself," Quassapelagh replied, "and not rouse farther the Tayac Chicamec's wrath. Rumor hath it that Cohunkowprets hath taken an English name and married an English wife; he lives amongst the English in an English house, speaks their tongue, and wears their clothes. He is no longer an Ahatchwhoop in any wise, but looks upon his people with contempt, and for aught we know may betray us to the English king."

At this point Chicamec, who had held his peace impatiently for some moments, began to speak again, and Quassapelagh was obliged to resume the labors of translation.

"Behold him now, the Tayac Chicamec," he said, "his body enfeebled by the cares of four-score summers, his island peopled with strangers and ringed round by English Devils, his ancient dream of battle in the charge of outland kings; his honor mired and smirched by faithless sons, and his royal line doomed to perish in his person! The brother of Quassapelagh must tell his friends these things if they ask him for what cause they lose their
members
and go to the torch; the brother of Quassapelagh must seek out the man called Henry Burlingame Three and tell him these things, and tell him farther to flee the land at once -- with his sons, if he hath any; for already the Tayac Chicamec hath defied the gods to save him but now every English Devil in the countryside must die!

At Least One of the Pregnant Mysteries Is

Brought to Bed, With Full Measure of

Travail, but Not as Yet Delivered to the Light

Ebenezer had now no
doubts as to the main lines of his plan. He spoke at once, before his imagination drowned him in alternatives and fears.

"This errand that the Tayac Chicamec sets me, dear Quassapelagh -- is it a condition of my freedom?"

The latter phrase required some moments, and Drepacca's assistance, for translation, and occasioned some further moments of discussion in Indian language. Finally Drepacca ventured, "Nothing is a true condition that cannot be enforced. We agree, however, that if you are in sooth a brother of Quassapelagh, you will not shirk this errand."

Ebenezer steeled his nerve. "If the Tayac Chicamec murthers my three friends, I will carry no message to Henry Burlingame Three, for the reason that I shall die with them here. Tell this to him."

"My brother --" Quassapelagh protested, but Drepacca translated the declaration. Chicamec's eyes flashed anger.

"Howbeit," the poet continued, "if the Tayac Chicamec sees fit to concur with the merciful opinion of his wise and powerful fellow kings and set the four of us free, I pledge him this: I will go to Henry Burlingame Three and tell him the story of his royal birth and the father who saved his life; moreover I will
bring him here,
to this island, to see the Tayac Chicamec. He knows the tongues of Piscataway and Nanticoke; father and son can converse alone, without interpreters."

All these things filled Quassapelagh and Drepacca with surprise; they translated in fits and starts and exchanged impassive glances. Lest they distort his message through astonishment or apprehension, however, Ebenezer rose to his feet and delivered it at close range, in a clear deliberate voice, to the aged king himself, accompanying the English words with unmistakable emphases and gestures: "
I
-- bring
Henry Burlingame Three
--
here
-- to
Chicamec. Chicamec
and
Henry Burlingame Three
--
talk
--
talk
--
talk.
No
Quassapelagh.
No
Drepacca. Chicamec
and
Henry Burlingame Three
--
talk.
And just to demonstrate my good faith, sirs:
I
will tell
Henry Burlingame Three
to
look
--
look
--
look
for his brother
Cohunkowprets. Henry Burlingame Three
will find
Cohunkowprets
and
talk
--
talk
--
talk,
and haply he'll show him the error of his ways. How would that strike you, old fellow?
Chicamec
here;
Cohunkowprets
here;
Henry Burlingame Three
right here!"

Whether he understood the conditions or not, Chicamec grasped enough of the proposal to make him chatter feverishly at Quassapelagh.

"I thought 'twould not displease you," Ebenezer said grimly, and resumed his seat. "But tell him 'tis all four of us or none," he added to Quassapelagh. Now that his bid was made he nearly swooned at the boldness of it. Bertrand and John McEvoy, who had heard the lengthy tales in despair, came alive again, their faces squinted with suspense.

Some debate ensued, by the sound of it not sharply controversial, and at the end Quassapelagh said, "My brother will not lightly be cured of his foolhardiness when he learns it hath succeeded."

"I'Christ! Do you mean we're free?"

"The Tayac Chicamec yearns to behold his long-lost son," Drepacca declared, in the same stern tone used by Quassapelagh, "and albeit he hath disowned his son Cohunkowprets, he counts an errant son as better than no son at all, and so will entertain entreaties for his pardon. The brother of Quassapelagh will be carried by canoe across the straits and given one full moon to make good his pledge; the others will remain here as hostages. If at the end of that time he hath produced neither Cohunkowprets nor Henry Burlingame Three, the hostages will die."

The faces of the Englishmen fell.

"Ah, nay!" the poet objected. "If the Tayac Chicamec hath no faith in me, let him slay me; if he trusts me, why, there is no need of hostages."

Chicamec smiled upon receiving this protest and countered that if the brother of Quassapelagh made his promises in good faith, he need not fear for the safety of the hostages.

"Very well," Ebenezer said desperately. "But one companion, at least, you must permit me, if you mean to limit my time. Suppose I lose my way on the mainland, where I'm a stranger? Suppose Henry Burlingame Three is not at home, and I must seek him elsewhere, or suppose he insists we find Cohunkowprets before we return here? Two men travel faster than one on an errand like this."

Quassapelagh frowned. "There is reason in what you say. Two hostages, then, instead of three."

"And your servant, my savior Bertrand, for your companion," Drepacca added, "lest your time run out."

"Aye," Bertrand cried, speaking up at last, "I swear I am a very bloodhound for finding folk, and this fellow Burlingame is e'en indebted to me for some small favors."

Chicamec nudged and scolded until the bargaining was translated for his approval; then he frowned, but did not openly protest the new amendment.

Ebenezer laid a hand on his valet's arm and addressed Drepacca. "This man hath been some time my servant, and was my father's before in England. He hath divers times betrayed or otherwise deceived me, yet for the sake more of expediency than of malice, and I bear him no ill will for't. But he is given to presumptuousness and fear, and succumbs to opportunity like a toper to strong drink; I dare not trust this errand to his hands."

Bertrand was aghast, but before he could muster more than a faint
B'm'faith,
Ebenezer was pointing to McEvoy and had proceeded with his statement.

"This man here was once my enemy, and whatever injury I have done him accidentally, he hath repaid threefold a-purpose. Yet all he did, he did on principle, nor e'er hath stooped to dissembling or other fraud. Moreover he is the soul of courage and resourcefulness, and our differences are behind us. I choose this man to go with me."

On this proposal neither Chicamec nor Quassapelagh ventured a judgment; by tacit consent the decision was left to Drepacca, as the man whose interest in the case was greatest, and after considering Ebenezer and the dumfounded McEvoy carefully with his eyes, the African king nodded approval. It was decided that the prisoners should return to their quarters until the midday meal, whereafter the two fortunates would be ferried across Limbo Straits to the mainland of Dorchester County; the remaining pair would be preserved from any injury or molestation for one lunar month and set free at any time before that term if either Burlingame or a repentant Cohunkowprets appeared on the island.

" 'Tis but a hoax and treachery!" Bertrand complained to Ebenezer. "Is this my reward for all I've suffered on your account? Ye'll murther your only friend to save that lying pimp McEvoy?" Tears of self-commiseration welled in his eyes.

"Nay, friend," Ebenezer answered, putting his arm about Bertrand's shoulders as the guards escorted them from the royal hut. "If 'twere a ruse I should choose you, but 'tis not, I swear. I mean to ransom all of us, as I pledged."

"Ah, 'tis easy for you to make grand vows, that will live in any case! How will ye find Burlingame, or this other salvage, that ye ne'er laid eyes upon? And e'en should ye stumble on 'em in yonder marsh across the straits, d'ye think they'll give themselves up to these imps o' Hell? But 'tis no worry of yours, what happens to the man who once saved your life!"

Ebenezer could not, as a matter of fact, recall any such salvation, but he let the claim stand unchallenged. "Prithee don't mistrust me, Bertrand; if I can't make good my pledge in the time allowed, you'll see me trussed beside you on yonder stakes."

The valet snorted. "I doubt it not, thou'rt so prone to folly! But we shan't see McEvoy there, ye may wager."

Seeing that he would not be consoled, Ebenezer said no more. They paused at the center of the common while the guards freed Captain Cairn from his post. Unstrung by fatigue, cramped muscles, and incredulity, the old man could not stand unaided: Ebenezer and McEvoy bore him to the prison-hut. And whether because the ordeal had impaired his understanding or because the reprieve was too gross an anticlimax for rejoicing, he displayed no emotion at all when McEvoy told him the news.

Nor did McEvoy himself make any comment until some two hours later, when he and Ebenezer had bid farewell to the listless Captain and the still-acrimonious valet and had been ferried to a marshy point of land north of the island, the southernmost extremity of Dorset, where Limbo Straits joined the Chesapeake to a broad and choppy sound. There the two were put ashore at what appeared to be a long-abandoned wharf, and were left to make the best of their way on foot.

"We're in luck," the Irishman said soberly. "This is the very road Bandy Lou and I came down to reach the island. 'Tis half a hundred miles from here to Cambridge, but ye can't mistake the path, and there's farms and trappers' cabins along the way."

"Thank Heav'n for that," Ebenezer replied; "we've no time to lose. 'Tis more likely Burlingame's in St. Mary's than in Cambridge, but haply we'll find this Cohunkowprets by the way, if we enquire enough."

They walked up the muddy road for a while in silence, engaged in separate reflections. The afternoon was warm for late December. On every hand the salt marsh and open water extended flat to the horizon: brown marsh grass and cattails rustled in the wet west wind; rails and pipers picked for food along the flats, and from nests in the silvered limbs of salt-cured pines, ospreys and eagles rose and hung.

Ebenezer did not fail to observe that his companion's spirit was in some way troubled, and assumed, not without a certain satisfaction, that McEvoy's problem had to do with the proper way of expressing his gratitude and obligation. Indeed, Ebenezer's own spirit was far from tranquil; he reacted against the boldness of his stratagem, for one thing, now that he was committed to it: with no food, no money, no means of transportation, and no more than a general notion of their quarry's whereabouts, how could they dream of succeeding in their quest? Moreover, now that he was out of immediate peril all his former problems and anxieties reasserted themselves: the loss of his estate, his desertion of Joan Toast, his father's wrath, his sister's safety. . . Despair stretched brown about him like the marsh, unrelieved to his fancy's far horizons.

McEvoy had found a walking stick in the path; now he swung and bobbed a cattail with it.

"Marry come up!" he swore. "I am unmanned in any case!"

"Eh?" Ebenezer looked over in surprise. "How's that?"

McEvoy scowled and slashed. "Ye saved my life, that's how it is, and I'm eternally beholden for't! What's worse, ye'd every cause to hate me. But ye save my life instead!" He was unable to raise his eyes to Ebenezer's. "I'faith, how can a man live with't? If the salvages had gelded me, at least I could have hollowed like a hero and died soon after; here ye've gelded me nonetheless, but I must grovel and sing your praises for't, and live a steer's life till Heav'n knows when!"

"But that's absurd!" the blushing poet protested. " 'Twas a practical expedient; not a favor."

McEvoy shook his head. "Ye've no need to go on thus; 'tis my conscience makes me grovel, not you, and the more you protest I'm not beholden, the deeper I sink in the Slough of Obligation.
I must love ye,
says my conscience, and that voice makes me despise ye, and that despisal makes me farther loathe myself for crass ingratitude."

"Ah, prithee, don't whip yourself so! Put by these thoughts!"

"There I sink, another hand'sbreadth in the Mire!" McEvoy grumbled, keeping his eyes averted. "If only ye'd call for gratitude o'ermuch, I might hate ye and have done with't! As't is, I am fair snared, a fawning
castrato."

Up to this point the poet had been more embarrassed than annoyed, for McEvoy's confession made him realize that he had in fact enjoyed, most unchristianly, a feeling of moral superiority to his comrade in consequence of having saved the fellow's life. But now his embarrassment was supplanted by irritation, perhaps directed at himself as much as at McEvoy; he too fetched up a walking stick, and laid low a brace of cattails on his side of the path.

"Henry Burlingame once told me," he said coldly, "that in ethical philosophy the schoolmen speak of moralities of motive and moralities of deed. By which they mean, a wight may do a good deed for a bad reason, or an ill deed with good intentions." He unstrung another cattail and slashed at a fourth. "Now, 'tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer. Burlingame declared the difference 'twixt sour pessimist and proper gentleman lies just here: that the one will judge good deeds by a morality of motive and ill by a morality of deed, and so condemn the twain together, whereas your gentleman doth the reverse, and hath always grounds to pardon his wayward fellows."

" 'Tis all profound, I'm sure," McEvoy began, "but how it bears upon --"

"Hear me out," Ebenezer broke in. "The point of't is, methinks I see two pathways from this silly mire you wallow in. The first is to appraise whate'er I say and do from a morality of motive, and you'll find grounds for more contempt than gratitude: I chose you in lieu of Bertrand purely for revenge, to make you roast in the fire of conscience and to even the score for Bertrand's past offenses; I urge you not to thank me overmuch, to the end of driving you to thank me all the more. . ."

McEvoy sighed. "D'ye think I've not clutched at that broomstraw already?"

"Aha. And to no avail? Thou'rt still unmanned by gratitude?"
Swish
went the stick, and another cattail dangled from its stalk. "Then here's your other pathway, friend: turn your morality of motive upon yourself, and see that behind this false predicament lies simple cowardice."