The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  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 com-panionway 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.

  “Whether ’tis French pox or some other I don’t know,” said the man who had the news, “but he is sore as a boil of’t and cannot walk to save him.”

  Ebenezer readily assumed that it was the girl in the mizzen-rigging who had been infected, for though Boabdil had assuredly not confined his exercise to her, none of the other pirates showed signs of the malady. The disclosure gave him a complexly qualified pleasure: in the first place he was glad to see the Moor thus repaid for the rape, yet he quite understood the oddity of this emotion in the light of his own intentions. Second, the relief he felt at so narrowly escaping contagion himself, like the relief at having his chastity preserved for him, failed to temper his disappointment as he thought it should. And third, the presence of infection suggested that the girl had not been virginal, and this likelihood occasioned in him the following additional and not altogether harmonious feelings: chagrin at having somewhat less cause to loathe the Moor and relish his affliction; disappointment at what he felt to be a depreciation of his own near-conquest; alarm at the implication of this disappointment, which seemed to be that his motives for assaulting the girl were more cruel than even the Moor’s, who would not have assumed her to be virginal in the first place; awe at the double perversity that though his lust had been engendered at least partially by pity for what he took to be a deflowered maiden, yet he felt in his heart that the pity was nonetheless authentic and would have been heightened, not diminished, during his own attack on her, whereas the revelation that she had not lost her maidenhead to Boabdil materially diminished it; and finally, a sort of overarching joy commingled with relief at a suspicion that seemed more probable every time he reviewed it—the suspicion that his otherwise not easily accountable possession by desire, contingent as it had been on the assumption of her late deflowering and his consequent
pity, was by the very perverseness of that contingency rendered almost innocent, an affair as it were between virgins. This mystic yearning of the pure to join his ravished sister in impurity: was it not, in fact, self-ravishment, and hence a variety of love?

  “Very likely,” he concluded, and chewed his index fingernail for joy.

  How Captain Pound explained his dereliction, the Laureate never learned. The six weeks ran their course; well after dark on the appointed day the prisoners heard another ship saluted by the pirates, and the sound of visitors brought aboard from a longboat. Whatever the nature of the parley, it was brief: after half an hour the guests departed. All hands were ordered aloft, and into the rope-locker came the sounds of the pirates making sail in the gentle breeze. As soon as the shallop gained steerage-way the acting first mate—none other than the boatswain impressed from the Poseidon, who had so rapidly and thoroughly adjusted to his new circumstances that Pound appointed him to replace the ailing Moor—climbed down into the fo’c’sle, unlocked the door of the brig, and ordered the prisoners on deck.

  “Aie!” cried Bertrand. “ ’Tis the end!”

  “What doth this mean?” the Laureate demanded.

  “ ’Tis the end! ’Tis the end!”

  “ ’Tis the end o’ thy visit,” the boatswain grumbled. “I’ll say that much.”

  “Thank Heav’n!” Ebenezer cried. “Is’t not as I said, Bertrand?”

  “Up with ye, now.”

  “One moment,” the poet insisted. “I beg you for a moment alone, sir, ere I go with you. I must give thanks to my Savior.” And without waiting for reply he fell to his knees in an attitude of prayer.

  “Ah, well, then—” The boatswain shifted uncertainly, but finally stepped outside the cell. “Only a moment, though; the Captain’s in foul spirits.”

  As soon as he was alone Ebenezer snatched the Journal manuscript from its hiding-place nearby and thrust it into his shirt. Then he joined Bertrand and the boatswain.

  “I am ready, friend, and to this cell bid Adieu right gladly. Is’t a boat hath come for us, or are we so near shore? ’Sblood, how this lifts my heart!”

  The boatswain merely grunted and preceded them up the companionway to the deck, where they found a mild and moonless mid-September night. The shallop rode quietly under a brilliant canopy of stars. All hands were congregated amidships, several holding lanterns, and greeted their approach with a general murmur. Ebenezer thought it only fit that he bid them farewell with a bit of verse, since all in all they had, save for the past six weeks, treated him quite unobjectionably: but there was not time to compose, and all he had in stock, so to speak (his notebook having been left behind, to his great sorrow, on the Poseidon) was a little poem of welcome to Maryland that he had hatched at sea and committed to memory—unhappily not appropriate to the occasion. He resolved therefore to content himself with a few simple remarks, no less well turned for their brevity, the substance of which would be that while he could not approve of their way of life, he was nonetheless appreciative of their civil regard for himself and his man. Moreover, he would conclude, what a man cannot condone he may yet forgive: Many a deed that the head reviles finds absolution in the heart; and while he could not but insist, should they ever be apprehended at their business, that their verdict be just, he could pray nonetheless, and would with his whole heart, that their punishment be merciful.

  But it was not his fortune to deliver himself of these observations, for immediately upon reaching the gathering he and Bertrand were set upon by the nearest pirates and held fast by the arms. The group separated into a double column leading to the larboard rail, from the gangway of which, illuminated by the flickering lanterns, the prisoners saw a plank run out some six feet over the sea.

  “Nay!” Ebenezer’s flesh drew up. “Dear God in Heav’n!”

  Captain Pound was not in sight, but somewhere aft his voice said “On with’t.” The grim-faced pirates drew their cutlasses and held them ready; Ebenezer and Bertrand, at the inboard end of the gauntlet, were faced toward the plank, released, and at the same moment pricked from behind with swords or knives to get them moving.

  “From the first, gentlemen, I have been uncertain which of you is Ebenezer Cooke,” said Captain Pound. “I know now that the twain of you are impostors. The real Ebenezer Cooke is in St. Mary’s City, and hath been these several weeks.”

  “Nay!” cried the poet, and Bertrand howled. But the ranks of steel blades closed behind them, and they were shortly teetering on the plank. Below them the black sea raced and rustled down the freeboard; Ebenezer saw it sparkle in the flare of lanterns and fell to his knees, the better to clutch at the plank. No time for a parting song like that of Arion, whose music had summoned dolphins to his rescue. In two seconds Bertrand, farther outboard, lost his balance and fell with a screech into the water.

  “Jump!” cried several pirates.

  “Shoot him!” others urged.

  “I’God!” wailed Ebenezer, and allowed himself to tumble from the plank.

  16

  The Laureate and Bertrand, Left to Drown, Assume Their Niches in the Heavenly Pantheon

  FOR BETTER OR WORSE, the Laureate found the water warm; the initial shock of immersion was gone by the time he scrabbled to the surface, and when he opened his eyes he saw the lights of the shallop’s stern, already some yards distant, slipping steadily away. But despite the moderate temperature of the water his heart froze. He could scarely comprehend his position: uppermost in his mind was not the imminence of death at all, but that last declaration of Captain Pound’s, that the real Ebenezer Cooke was in St. Mary’s City. Another impostor! What marvelous plot, then, was afoot? There was of course the possibility that Burlingame, so clever at disguises, had arrived safely and found it useful to play the poet, the further to confound Coode. But if he had learned of Ebenezer’s capture from passengers on the Poseidon, as one would suppose, surely he understood that assuming his identity would jeopardize his friend’s life; and if instead he believed his ward and protégé dead, it was hard to imagine him having the heart for imposture. No, more likely it was Coode himself who was responsible. And to what evil purpose would his name be turned? Ebenezer shuddered to think. He kicked off his shoes, the better to stay afloat; the precious manuscript too he reluctantly cast away, and began treading water as gently as possible to conserve his strength.

  But for what? The hopelessness of his circumstances began to make itself clear. Already the shallop’s lights were small in the distance, obscured by every wave; soon they would be gone entirely, and there were no other lights. For all he knew he was in mid-Atlantic; certainly he was scores of miles from land, and the odds against another ship’s passing even within sight by daylight were so great as to be unthinkable. Moreover, the night was young: there could be no fewer than eight hours before dawn, and though the seas were not rough, he could scarcely hope to survive that long.

  “I’faith, I am going to die!” he exclaimed to himself. “There is no other possibility!”

  This was a thing he had often pondered. Always, in fact—every since his boyhood days in St. Giles, when he and Anna played at saints and Caesars or Henry read them stories of the past—he had been fascinated by the aspect of death. How must the cutpurse feel, or the murderer, when he mounts the stairway to the gibbet? The falling climber, when he sees the rock that will dash out brains and bowels? In the night, between their bedchambers, he and his sister had examined every form of death they knew of and compared their particular pains and horrors. They had even experimented with death: once they pressed the point of a letter knife into their breasts as hard as they dared, but neither had had the courage to draw blood; another time each had tried being throttled by the other, to see who could go the farthest without crying out. But the best game of all was to see who could hold his breath longer; to see, specifically, whether either was brave enough to hold it to the point of unconsciousness. Neither had ever reached that goal, but competition carried their efforts to
surprising lengths: they would grow mottled, their eyes would bulge, their jaws clench, and finally would come the explosion of breath that left them weak. There was a terrible excitement about this game; no other came so close to the feel of death, especially if in the last frantic moments one imagined himself buried alive, drowning, or otherwise unable to respire at will.

  It is not surprising, therefore, that however unparalleled in his experience, Ebenezer’s present straits were by no means novel to his imagination. Even the details of stepping from the plank at night, clawing from the depths for air, and watching the stern lights slip away they had considered, and Ebenezer almost knew ahead of time how the end would feel: water catching the throat and stinging the nose, the convulsive coughing to expel it, and the inevitable reinspiration of air where no air was, the suck of water into the lungs; then vertigo, the monstrous pressure in head and chest, and worst of all the frenzy, the anxiety of the body not to die, that total mindless lust for air which must in the last seconds rend body and soul unspeakably. When he and Anna chose their deaths, drowning—along with burning, slow crushing, and similar protracted agonies—was disqualified at once, and the news that anyone had actually suffered from such an end would thrill them to the point of dizziness. But in his heart the fact of death and all these sensuous anticipations were to Ebenezer like the facts of life and the facts of history and geography, which, owing to his education and natural proclivities, he looked at always from the storyteller’s point of view: notionally he admitted its finality: vicariously he sported with its horror; but never, never could he really embrace either. That lives are stories, he assumed; that stories end, he allowed—how else could one begin another? But that the teller himself must live a particular tale and die—Unthinkable! Unthinkable!

  Even now, when he saw not the slightest grounds for hope and knew that the dread two minutes must be on him soon, his despair was as notional, his horror as vicarious, as if he were in his chamber in St. Giles playing the dying-game, or acting out a story in the summerhouse. Bertrand, he assumed with some envy, had strangled on his water and was done with it; there was no reason why he himself should not get it over with at once. But it was not simply fear that kept him paddling; it was also the same constitutional deficiency that had made him unable to draw his own blood, will himself unconscious, or acknowledge in his heart that there really had been a Roman Empire. The shallop was gone. Nothing was to be seen except the stars, or heard except the chuckle of water around his neck, yet his spirit was almost calm.