by John Barth
“Aye, just so,” Ebenezer said. “ ’Tis the last thing I recall. But whom they spied I cannot guess.”
“Nor could I. Yet the ferryman held to his story, and at length Slye proposed another search of the tavern. But Scurry protested ’twas time to fetch John Coode from off the fleet.”
“Coode aboard the fleet!”
“Aye,” Burlingame declared. “This and other things they said gave me to believe that Coode hath sailed disguised from London on the very man-o’-war with the Governor and his company, who joined the fleet this morning. No doubt he fears for his cause, and wished to see first-hand what favor his enemies have with Nicholson. Then, I gathered, Slye and Scurry were to meet him in the Downs and fetch him to their own ship, which sails tonight for the Isle of Man and thence to Maryland.”
“I’God, the boldness of the man!” exclaimed the poet.
Burlingame smiled. “You think he’s bold? ’Tis no long voyage from London to Plymouth.”
“But under Nicholson’s very nose! In the company of the very men he’d driven from the Province!”
“Yet as I crouched this while behind our baggage,” Burlingame said, “an even bolder notion struck me—But first I must tell you one other thing I heard. Scurry asked Slye, How would they know their leader in disguise, when they’d seen not even his natural face? And Slye proposed they use a kind of password employed by Coode’s men before the revolution, to discover whether a third party was one of their number. Now it happened I knew two passwords very well from the old days when I’d feigned to be a rebel: In one the first man asks his confederate, ‘How doth your friend Jim sit his mare these days?’ By which is meant, How sure is King James’s tenure on the throne? The second then replied, ‘I fear me he’ll be thrown; he wants a better mare.’ And the third man, if he be privy to the game, will say, ‘Haply ’tis the mare wants a better rider.’ The other was for use when a man wished to make himself known to a party of strangers as a rebel: he would approach them on the street or in a tavern and say ‘Have you seen my friend, that wears an orange cravat?’ That is to say, the speaker is a friend of the House of Orange. One of the party then cries, ‘Marry, will you mark the man!’ which is a pun on Queen Mary and King William.
“On hearing their plans,” Burlingame went on, “I resolved at once to thwart ’em: my first thought was for you and me to pose as Slye and Scurry, fetch Coode from off the man-o’-war, and in some wise detain him till we learned bis plans and why he wanted you.”
“ ’Swounds! ’Twould never have succeeded!”
“That may be,” Burlingame admitted. “In any case, though I’d learned that Slye and Scurry did not know Coode, it did not follow they were strangers to him—indeed, they are a famous pair of rascals. For that reason I decided to be John Coode again, as once before on Peregrine Browne’s ship. I stepped around the trunks and enquired after my friend with the orange cravat.”
Ebenezer expressed his astonishment and asked whether, considering that Burlingame wore the dress of a servant and that Coode was supposed to be aboard the man-o’-war, the move were not for all its daring ill-advised. His friend replied that Coode was known to be given to unusual dress—priest’s robes, minister’s frocks, and various military uniforms, for example—and that it was in fact quite characteristic of him to appear as if from nowhere among his cohorts and disappear similarly, with such unexpectedness that not a few of the more credulous believed him to have occult powers.
“At least they believed me,” he said, “once they had composed themselves again, and I gave ’em small chance to question. I feigned displeasure at their tardiness, and fell into a great rage when they said the Laureate had slipped their halter. By the most discreet interrogation (for ’twas necessary to act as if I knew more than they) I was able to piece together an odd tale, which still I cannot fully fathom: Slye and Scurry had come from London with some wight who claimed to be Ebenezer Cooke; on orders from Coode they’d posed as Maryland planters and escorted the false Laureate to Plymouth, where I fancy they meant to put him on the Morpheides for some sinister purpose—belike they thought him a spy of Baltimore’s. But whoe’er the fellow was he must have smelled the plot, for he slipped their clutches sometime this morning.
“Now, think not I’d forgotten you,” he went on; “I feared you’d find some other clothes and show yourself at any moment. Therefore I led Slye and Scurry to a tavern up the street for rum and detained them as long as possible, trying to hatch a plan for sending you a message. Every few minutes I looked down towards the wharf, pretending to seek a servant of mine, and when at last I saw your trunk was gone I guessed you’d gone alone to the Poseidon. Anon, when we walked this way again, the old man at the wharf confirmed that Eben Cooke had sailed off in the shallop with his trunk.”
Ebenezer shook his head in wonder. “But—”
“Stay, till I finish. We came here then to pass time till evening; I was quite sure of your safety, and planned simply to send a message to you by the shallop-man, so you’d not think I’d betrayed you or fallen into peril. When Dolly told me your notebook was in the stable I swore to Slye and Scurry we’d catch you yet, inasmuch as a poet will go to Hell for his notebook, and stationed them to watch the stall for your return—in fact I planned to send the book along to you anon with my message in it, and used the stratagem merely to rid myself for a time of those twin apes. Imagine my alarm when they fetched you in!”
Ebenezer remembered, with some discomfort, the scene his entrance had interrupted.
“ ’Tis too fantastic for words,” he declared. “You thought ’twas I had gone, and I ’twas you—I say, the fellow was wearing your coat!”
“What? Impossible!”
“Nay, I’m certain of’t. The old man at the dock described it: a soiled port-purple coat and black breeches. ’Twas for that I guessed it to be you.”
“Dear God! ’Tis marvelous!” He laughed aloud. “What a comedy!”
Ebenezer confessed his ignorance of the joke.
“Only think on’t!” his friend exclaimed. “When Slye and Scurry came looking for their Laureate this morning and made sport of you, not knowing you were he, Dolly and I had gone back yonder in the stable to play: in the first stall we ran to we found some poor wight sleeping, a servingman by the look of him, and ’twas he I traded clothes with on the spot. Right pleased he was to make the trade, too!”
“ ’Sheart, you mean it was the false Laureate?”
“Who else, if the man you heard of wore my coat? Belike he’d just fled Slye and Scurry and was hiding from them.”
“Then ’twas he they saw go past the window after, which saved my life!”
“No doubt it was; and learning of your trunk he must have made off with’t. A daring fellow!”
“He’ll not get far,” Ebenezer said grimly. “I’ll have him off the ship the instant we’re aboard.”
Burlingame pursed his lips, but said nothing.
“What’s wrong, Henry?”
“You plan to sail on the Poseidon?” Burlingame asked.
“Of course! What’s to prevent our slipping off right now, while Slye and Scurry wait us on their ship?”
“You forget my duty.”
Ebenezer raised his eyebrows. “Is’t I or you that have forgot?”
“Look here, dear Eben,” Burlingame said warmly. “I know not who this impostor is, but I’ll warrant he’s merely some pitiful London coxcomb out to profit by your fame. Let him be Eben Cooke on the Poseidon: haply the Captain will see the imposture and clap him in irons, or maybe Coode will murther or corrupt him, since they’re in the same fleet. Even if he carry the fraud to Maryland we can meet him at the wharf with the sheriff, and there’s an end to’t. Meanwhile your trunk is safely stowed in the ship’s hold—he cannot touch it.”
“Then ’fore God, Henry, what is’t you propose?”
“I know not what John Coode hath up his sleeve,” said Burlingame, “nor doth Lord Baltimore nor any man else. ’Tis cert
ain he’s alarmed at Nicholson’s appointment and fears for his own foul cause; methinks he plans to land before the fleet, but whether to cover all traces of his former mischief or to sow the seeds for more I cannot guess, nor what exactly he plans for you. I mean to carry on my role as Coode and sail to Maryland on the Morpheides, with my trusted servant Henry Cook.”
“Ah no, Henry! ’Tis absurd!”
Burlingame shrugged and filled his pipe. “We’d steal a march on Coode,” he said, “and haply scotch his plot to boot.”
He went on to explain that Captains Slye and Scurry were engaged in smuggling tobacco duty-free into England by means of the re-export device; that is, they registered their cargo and paid duty on it at an English port of entry, then reclaimed the duty by re-exporting the tobacco to the nearby Isle of Man—technically a foreign territory—whence it could be run with ease into either England or Ireland. “We could work their ruin as well, by deposing against them the minute we land. What a victory for Lord Baltimore!”
Ebenezer shook his head in awe.
“Well, come now!” his friend cried after a moment. “Surely thou’rt not afraid? Thou’rt not so distraught about this idle impostor?”
“To speak truly, I am distraught on his account, Henry. ’Tis not that he improves his state at my expense—had he robbed me, I’d be nothing much alarmed. But he hath robbed me of myself; he hath poached upon my very being! I cannot permit it.”
“Oh la,” scoffed Burlingame. “Thou’rt talking schoolish rot. What is this coin, thy self, and how hath he possessed it?”
Ebenezer reminded his friend of their first coloquy in the carriage from London, wherein he had laid open the nature of his double essence as virgin and poet—that essence the realization of which, after his rendezvous with Joan Toast, had brought him into focus, if not actually into being, and the preservation and assertion of which was therefore his cardinal value.
“Ne’er again shall I flee from myself, or in anywise disguise it,” he concluded. “ ’Twas just such cowardice caused my shame this morning, and like an omen ’twas only my return to this true self that brought me through. I was cleansed by songs unborn and passed those anxious hours with the muse.”
Burlingame confessed his inability to grasp the metaphor, and so the poet explained in simple language that he had used four blank pages of his notebook to clean himself with and had filled another two with sea-poetry.
“I swore then never to betray myself again, Henry: ’twas only my surprise allowed this last deception. Should Slye and Scurry come upon us now, I’d straightway declare my true identity.”
“And straightway take a bullet in thy silly head? Thou’rt a fool!”
“I am a poet,” Ebenezer replied, mustering his failing courage. “Let him who dares deny it! Besides which, even were there no impostor to confront, ’twould yet be necessary to cross on the Poseidon: all my verses name that vessel.” He opened his notebook to the morning’s work. “Hear this, now:
Let Ocean roar damn’dest Gale:
Our Planks shan’t leak; our Masts shan’t fail.
With great Poseidon at our Side
He seemeth neither wild nor wide.
Morpheides would spoil the meter, to say nothing of the conceit.”
“The conceit is spoiled already,” Burlingame said sourly. “The third line puts you overboard, and the last may be read as well to Poseidon as to Ocean. As for the meter, there’s naught to keep you from preserving the name Poseidon though you’re sailing on the Morpheides.”
“Nay, ’twere not the same,” Ebenezer insisted, a little hurt by his friend’s hostility. “ ’Tis the true and only Poseidon I describe:
A noble Ship, from Deck to Peaks,
Akin to those that Homers Greeks
Sail’d east to Troy in Days of Yore,
As we sail’d now to MARYLANDS Shore.”
“Thou’rt sailing west.” Burlingame observed, even more sourly. “And the Poseidon is a rat’s nest.”
“Still greater cause for me to board her,” the poet declared in an injured tone, “else I might describe her wrongly.”
“Fogh! ’Tis a late concern for fact you plead, is’t not? Methinks ’twere childsplay for you to make Poseidon from the Morpheides, if you can make him from a livery stable.”
Ebenezer closed his notebook and rose to his feet. “I know not why thou’rt set on injuring me,” he said sadly. “ ’Tis your prerogative to flout Lord Baltimore’s directive, but will you scorn our friendship too, to have your way? ’Tis not as if I’d asked you to go with me—though Heav’n knows I need your guidance! But Coode or no Coode, I will have it out with this impostor and sail to Maryland on the Poseidon: if you will pursue your reckless plot at any cost, adieu, and pray God we shall meet again at Malden.”
Burlingame at this appeared to relent somewhat: though he would not abandon his scheme to sail with Slye and Scurry, he apologized for his acerbity and, finding Ebenezer equally resolved to board the Poseidon, he bade him warm, if reluctant, farewell and swore he had no mind to flout his orders from Lord Baltimore.
“Whate’er I do, I do with you in mind,” he declared. “ ’Tis Coode’s plot against you I must thwart. Think not I’ll e’er forsake you, Eben: one way or another I’ll be your guide and savior.”
“Till Malden, then?” Ebenezer asked with great tears in his eyes.
“Till Malden,” Burlingame affirmed, and after a final handshake the poet passed through the pantry and out the rear door of the King o’ the Seas, in great haste lest the fleet depart without him.
Luckily he found the shallop at its pier, making ready for another trip. Not until he noticed Burlingame’s chest among the other freight aboard did he remember that he had posed as a manservant to the Laureate, and repellent as was the idea of maintaining the deception, he realized with a sigh that it would be folly now to reveal his true identity, for the ensuing debate could well cause him to miss the boat.
“Hi, there!” he called, for the old man was slipping off the mooring-lines. “Wait for me!”
“Aha, ’tis the poet’s young dandy, is it?” said the man Joseph, who stood in the stern. “We had near left ye high and dry.”
Breathing hard from his final sprint along the dock, Ebenezer boarded the shallop. “Stay,” he ordered. “Make fast your lines a moment.”
“Nonsense!” laughed the sailor. “We’re late as’t is!”
But Ebenezer declared, to the great disgust of father and son alike, that he had made an error before, which he now sincerely regretted: in his eagerness to serve his master he had mistaken Captain Coode’s trunk for the one committed to his charge. He would be happy to pay ferry-freight on it anyway, since they had been at the labor of loading it aboard; but the trunk must be returned to the pier before Captain Coode learned of the matter.
“ ’Tis an indulgent master will suffer such a fool to serve him,” Joseph observed; but nevertheless, with appropriate grunts and curses the transfer was effected, and upon receipt of an extra shilling apiece by way of gratuity, the ferrymen cast off their lines once more—the old man going along as well this trip, for the wind had risen somewhat since early afternoon. The son, Joseph, pushed off from the bow with a pole, ran up the jib to luff in the breeze, close-hauled and sheeted home the mainsail, and went forward again to belay the jib sheet; his father put the tiller down hard, the sails filled, and the shallop gained way in the direction of the Downs, heeling gently on a larboard tack. The poet’s heart shivered with excitement; the salt wind brought the blood to his brow and made his stomach flutter. After some minutes of sailing he was able to see the fleet against the lowering sun: half a hundred barks, snows, ketches, brigs, and full-rigged ships all anchored in a loose cluster around the man-o’-war that would escort them through pirate-waters to the Virginia Capes, whence they would proceed to their separate destinations. On closer view the vessels could be seen, bristling with activity: lighters and ferries of every description shuttled from ship to
shore and ship to ship with last-minute passengers and cargo; sailors toiled in the rigging bending sails to the spars; officers shouted a-low and aloft.
“Which is the Poseidon?” he asked joyously.
“Yonder, off to starboard.” The old man pointed with his pipestem to a ship anchored some quarter of a mile away on their right, to windward; the next tack would bring them to her. A ship of perhaps two hundred tons, broad of bow and square of stern, fo’c’sle and poop high over the main deck, fore, main, and mizzen with yards and topmasts all, the Poseidon was not greatly different in appearance from the other vessels of her class in the fleet: indeed, if anything she was less prepossessing. To the seasoned eye her frayed halyards, ill-tarred shrouds, rusty chain plates, “Irish pennants,” and general slovenliness bespoke old age and careless usage. But to Ebenezer she far outshone her neighbors. “Majestic!” he exclaimed, and scarce could wait to board her. When at last they completed the tack and made fast alongside, he scrambled readily up the ladder—a feat that would as a rule have been beyond him—and saluted the deck officer with a cheery good day.
“May I enquire your name, sir?” asked that worthy.
“Indeed,” the poet replied, bowing slightly. “I am Ebenezer Cooke, Poet and Laureate of the Province of Maryland. My passage is already hired.”
The officer beckoned to a pair of husky sailors standing nearby, and Ebenezer found both his arms held fast.
“What doth this mean?” he cried. Everyone on the Poseidon’s deck turned to watch the scene.
“Let us test whether he can swim as grandly as he lies,” the officer said. “Throw the wretch o’er the side, boys.”
“Desist!” the poet commanded. “I shall have the Captain flog the lot of you! I am Ebenezer Cooke, I said; by order of Lord Baltimore Poet and Laureate of Maryland!”