The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  Presently he heard a thrashing in the sea nearby; his heart pounded. “ ’Tis a shark!” he thought, and envied Bertrand more than ever. Here was something that had not occurred to him! Why had he not drowned himself at once? The thing splashed nearer; another wave and they were in the same trough. Even as Ebenezer struck out in the opposite direction, his left leg brushed against the monster.

  “Aie!” he shrieked, and “Nay!” cried the other, equally alarmed.

  “Dear God!” said Ebenezer, paddling back. “Is’t you, Bertrand?”

  “Master Eben! Praise be, I thought ’twas a sea-serpent! Thou’rt not drowned?”

  They embraced each other and came up sputtering.

  “Get on with’t, or we shall be yet!” the poet said, as happy as though his valet had brought a boat. Bertrand observed that it was but a matter of time after all, and Ebenezer replied with feeling that death was not so terrible in company as alone.

  “What say you,” he proposed, in the same spirit wherewith he had used to propose the breath-game to Anna: “shall we have done with’t now, together?”

  “In any case ’twill not be many minutes,” Bertrand said. “My muscles fail me already.”

  “Look yonder, how the stars are darkened out.” Ebenezer pointed to a lightless stretch on the western horizon. “At least we’ll not need to weather that storm.”

  “Not I, ’tis certain.” The valet’s breath came hard from the exertion of paddling. “Another minute and I’m done.”

  “Howe’er you’ve injured me before, friend, I forgive you. We’ll go together.”

  “Ere the moment comes,” Bertrand panted, “I’ve a thing to say, sir—”

  “Not sir!” cried the poet. “Think you the sea cares who’s master and man?”

  “—’tis about my gambling on the Poseidon,” Bertrand continued.

  “Long since forgiven! You lost my money: I pray you had good use of’t! What need have I of money now?”

  “There’s more, sir. You recall the Parson Tubman offered odds—”

  “Forgiven! What more’s to lose, when you had plucked me clean?”

  But Bertrand would not be consoled. “What a wretch I felt, sir! I answered to your name, ate at your place, claimed the honors of your post—”

  “Speak no more of’t!”

  “Methought ’Tis he should tumble Lucy on these sheets, not I, and then I lost your forty pound as well! And you, sir, in a hammock in the fo’c’sle, suffering in my place!”

  “ ’Tis over and done,” Ebenezer said kindly.

  “Hear me out, sir! When that fearful storm was done and we were westering, I vowed to myself I’d have ye back that money and more, to pay ye for your hardship. The Parson had got up a new swindle on raising the Virginia Capes, and I took a notion to woo Miss Lucy privily to my cause. Then we would fleece the fleecer!”

  “ ’Tis a charitable resolve, but you’d naught to use for stakes—”

  “Nor did some others that had been gulled,” Bertrand replied. “They threatened to take a stick to Tubman for all he was a cleric. But he smelled what was in the wind, and gave ’em a chance to bet again on Maryland. They’d but to pledge some property or other—”

  “I’faith!” cried Ebenezer. “His cassock frocked a very Jew!”

  “He had the papers drawn like any lawyer: we’d but to sign, and we could wager to the value of the property.”

  “You signed a pledge?” Ebenezer asked incredulously.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Dear God! To what?”

  “To Malden, sir. I—”

  “To Malden!” Such was the poet’s amazement he forgot to paddle, and the next wave covered his head. When he could speak again he demanded, “Yet surely ’twas no more than a pound or two?”

  “I shan’t conceal it, sir; ’twas rather more.”

  “Ten pounds, then? Twenty? Ha, out with’t, fellow! What’s forty pounds more to a drowning man? What is’t to me if you lost a hundred?”

  “My very thought, sir,” Bertrand said faintly; his strength was almost gone. “ ’Twas e’en for that I told ye, now we’re drowning men. Lookee how the dark comes closer! Methinks I hear the sea rising yonder, too, but I shan’t be here to feel the rain. Farewell, sir.”

  “Wait!” Ebenezer cried, and clutched his servant by one arm to help support him.

  “I’m done, sir; let me go.”

  “And I, Bertrand; I shall go with thee! Was’t two hundred you lost, pray?”

  “ ’Twas but a pledge, sir,” Bertrand said. “Who’s to say I lost a farthing? For aught I know thou’rt a wealthy man this moment.”

  “What did you pledge, man? Three hundred pounds?”

  Bertrand had stopped treading water and would have gone under had not Ebenezer, paddling furiously, held him up with one hand by the shirt front.

  “What doth it matter, sir? I pledged it all.”

  “All!”

  “The grounds, the manor, the sot-weed in the storehouse—Tubman holds it all.”

  “Pledge my legacy!”

  “Prithee let me drown, sir, if ye won’t yourself.”

  “I shall!” said Ebenezer. “Sweet Malden gone? Then farewell, and God forgive you!”

  “Farewell, sir!”

  “Stay, I am with thee yet!” Master and man embraced each other. “Farewell! Farewell!”

  “Farewell!” Bertrand cried again, and they went under. Immediately both fought free and struggled up for air.

  “This will not do!” Ebenezer gasped. “Farewell!”

  “Farewell!” said Bertrand. Again they embraced and went under, and again fought free.

  “I cannot do’t,” said Bertrand, “though my muscles scarce can move, they bring me up.”

  “Adieu, then,” said the poet grimly. “Thy confession gives me strength to die alone. Farewell!”

  “Farewell!”

  As before, Ebenezer took a breath before sinking and so could not do more than put his face under. This time, however, his mind was made up: he blew out the air, bade the world a last farewell, and sank in earnest.

  A moment later he was up again, but for a different reason.

  “The bottom! I felt the bottom, Bertrand! ’Tis not two fathom deep!”

  “Nay!” gasped the valet, who had been near submerged himself. “How can that be, in the middle of the ocean? Haply ’twas a whale or other monster.”

  “ ’Twas hard sand bottom!” Ebenezer insisted. He went below again, this time fearlessly, and from a depth of no more than eight feet brought up a fistful of sand for proof.

  “Belike a shoal, then,” Bertrand said, unimpressed. “As well forty fathom as two; we can’t stand up in either. Farewell!”

  “Wait! ’Tis no cloud yonder, man, but an ocean isle we’ve washed to! Those are her cliffs that hide the stars; that sound is the surf against her coast!”

  “I cannot reach it.”

  “You can! ’Tis not two hundred yards to shore, and less to a standing place!” Fearing for his own endurance, he waited no longer for his man to he persuaded, but struck out westwards for the starless sky, and soon heard Bertrand panting and splashing behind. With every stroke his conjecture seemed more likely; the sound of gentle surf grew distant and recognizable, and the dark outline defined itself more sharply.

  “If not an isle, at least ’twill be a rock,” he called over his shoulder, “and we can wait for passing ships.”

  After a hundred yards they could swim no farther; happily, Ebenezer found that by standing on tiptoe he could just clear the surface with his chin.

  “Very well for you, that are tall,” lamented Bertrand, “but I must perish here in sight of land!”

  Ebenezer, however, would hear of no such thing: he instructed the valet to float along behind him, hands on the poet’s shoulders for support. It was tedious going, especially for Ebenezer, only the balls of whose feet were on the bottom: the weight behind pulled him off balance at every step, and though Bertrand rode c
lear, his weight held Ebenezer at a constant depth, so that only between waves could he catch his breath. The manner of their progress was thus: in each trough Ebenezer secured his footing and drew a breath; when the wave came he stroked with both arms from his breast and, with his head under, rode perhaps two feet—one of which would be lost in the slight undertow before he regained his footing. Half an hour, during which they covered no more than forty or fifty feet, was enough to exhaust his strength, but by then the water was just shallow enough for the valet to stand as well. It required another thirty minutes to drag themselves over the remaining distance: had there been breakers they might yet have drowned, but the waves were never more than two feet high, and oftener less than one. At last they reached a pebbly beach and, too fatigued for words, crawled on all fours to the base of the nearby cliff, where they lay some while as if a-swoon.

  Presently, however, despite the mildness of the night and the protection provided by the cliff against the westerly breeze, they found their resting-place too cold for comfort and had to search for better shelter until their clothes were dry. They made their way northward along the beach and were fortunate enough to find not far away a place where the high sandstone was cut by a wooded ravine debouching onto the shore. Here tall wheatlike weeds grew between the scrub pines and bayberries; the castaways curled together like animals in a nest and knew no more till after dawn.

  It was the sand fleas that roused them at last: scores of sand fleas hopped and crawled all over them—attracted, luckily, not by hunger but by the warmth of their bodies—and tickled them awake.

  Ebenezer jumped up and looked unbelievingly about. “Dear God!” he laughed. “I had forgot!”

  Bertrand too stood up, and the sand fleas—not really parasites at all—hopped madly in search of cover.

  “And I,” he said, hoarse from exposure. “I dreamt I was in London with my Betsy. God pox those vermin for waking me!”

  “But we’re alive, at that. ’Tis more than anyone expected.”

  “Thanks to you, sir!” Bertrand fell to his knees before the poet. “ ’Tis a Catholic saint that saves the man who ruined him!”

  “Make me no saint today,” Ebenezer said, “or you’ll have me a Jesuit tomorrow.” But he was flattered nonetheless. “No doubt I had better drowned when Father hears the news!”

  Bertrand clasped his hands together. “Many’s the wrong I’ve done ye, sir, that I’ll pay in Hell for, anon—nor shall I want company in the fire. But I vow ye a vow this instant I’m your slave fore’er, to do with as ye will, and should we e’er be rescued off this island I shall give my life to gaining back your loss.”

  The Laureate, embarrassed by these protestations, replied, “I dare not ask it, lest you pledge my soul!” and proposed an immediate search for food. The day was bright, and warm for mid-September; they were chilled through from exposure, and upon brushing the sand from themselves found their joints stiff and every muscle sore from the past night’s labors. But their clothes were dry except for the side on which they’d slept, and a little stamping of feet and swinging of arms was enough to start the warm blood coursing. They were without hats, wigs, or shoes, but otherwise adequately clothed in the sturdy garb of seamen. Food, however, they had to find, though Ebenezer longed to explore the island at once: their stomachs rumbled, and they had not much strength. To cook their meal was no great problem: Bertrand had with him the little tinderbox he carried in his pocket for smoking purposes, and though the tinder itself was damp, the flint and steel were good as new, and the beach afforded driftwood and dry seaweed. Finding something to cook was another matter. The woods no doubt abounded with small game; gulls, kingfishers, rails, and sandpipers soared and flitted along the beach; and there were certainly fish to be caught in the shallows; but they had no implements to hunt with.

  Bertrand despaired afresh. “ ’Tis a passing cruel prank fate plays us, to trade a quick death for a slow!” And despite his recent gratitude, the surliness with which he rejected various proposals for improvising weapons betrayed a certain resentment toward Ebenezer for having saved him. Indeed, he shortly abandoned as hopeless the search for means and went to gather firewood, declaring his intention to starve at least in relative comfort. Ebenezer, left to his own resources, resolved to walk some distance down the beach, hoping to find inspiration along the way.

  It was a long beach. In fact, the island appeared to be ot considerable size, for though the shoreline curved out of sight in both directions, its reappearance farther south suggested a cove or bay, perhaps a succession of them; one could not locate the actual curve of the island’s perimeter. Of its body nothing could be seen except the line of stratified cliffs, caved by the sea and weathered to various browns and oranges, and the edge trees of the forest that ran back from the precipice—some with half their roots exposed, some already fallen the sixty or a hundred feet to the beach and polished like pewter by salt air and sand. If one scaled those cliffs, what wonders might one see?

  Ebenezer had been at sea nearly half a year in all, yet never had he seen it so calm. There was no ground swell at all: only catspaws riffling here and there, and laps of waves not two hands high. As he walked he noticed minnows darting in the shallows and schools of white perch flipping and rippling a few feet out. Crabs, as well, of a sort he had never seen, slid sideways out to safety as he approached; in the water their shells were olive against the yellow sand, but the carapaces he found along the beach were cooked a reddish-orange by the sun.

  “Would God I had a net!”

  Around a bend just past the place where they had crawled ashore he saw a startling sight—all along the foreshore, below the line of weed and driftwood that marked high tide, were sheets of white paper; others rolled and curled in the rim of the sea. The thought that there might be people on the island made his face burn, not entirely with joy—in fact, it was a curious relief he felt, small but undeniable, when the papers proved to be the tale of Hicktopeake, Laughing King of Accomack; but he could not as yet say plainly what it was that relieved him. He gathered all the pages he could find, though the ink had run so that only an occasional word was legible: they would, when dry, be good for lighting fires.

  He started back with them, thinking idly of John Smith’s adventures. Did this curious pleasure stem from the fact that he, like Smith, was in terra incognita, or was there more to it? He hoped they would find no Indians, at least, like the fearsome fellows Smith had found spearing fish along the shore…

  “ ’Sheart!” he cried aloud, and kissed the wondrous Journal.

  An hour later their dinner was on the fire: seven respectable perch, half a foot long after cleaning, roasted on a green laurel turnspit, and on a thin piece of shale such as could be picked up anywhere along the cliffs, four crabs, frankly an experiment, fried in their natural juices. The hard-shelled ones could not be speared, but in pursuit of them Bertrand had found these others—similar in appearance but with shells soft as Spanish kid—brooding in clumps of sea-grass near the shore. Nor did they want for water; in a dozen places along the base of the cliff Ebenezer had found natural springs issuing from what looked like layers of hard clay, whence they ran seawards across the beach on the beds of softer clay one encountered every few hundred feet. One had, indeed, to take care in approaching these springs, for the clay beds were slippery and in places treacherously soft, as Ebenezer learned: without warning one could plunge knee-deep into what looked rock-hard on the surface. But the water was clean and sweet from filtering through the stone, and so cold it stung the teeth.

  To get full benefit of the sun they did their cooking on the beach. Bertrand, humbled anew by his master’s inspiration, attended the meal; Ebenezer made use of a fallen tree nearby for a back rest and was content to chew upon a reed and regard the sputtering crabs.

  “Where do ye fancy we are?” inquired the valet, whose curiosity had returned with his good spirits.

  “God knows!” the poet said cheerfully. “ ’Tis some Atlantic isle
, that’s sure, and belike not giv’n on the charts, else I doubt me Pound would choose the spot to plank us.”

  This conjecture pleased the valet mightily. “I have heard tell of the Fortunate Islands, sir; old Twigg at St. Giles was wont to speak of ’em whene’er her gout was paining.”

  “Well I recall it!” Ebenezer laughed. “Didn’t I hear from the cradle how she stood watch all the voyage from Maryland, hoping for a sight of them?”

  “Think ye this is the place?”

  “I’faith, ’tis fair enough,” the poet granted. “But the ocean swarms with isles that man knows naught of. How many times dear Anna and I have pled with Burlingame to tell of them—Grocland, Helluland, Stokafixa, and the rest! How many fond hours I’ve pored over Zeno the Venetian, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, and good Hakluyt’s books of voyages! E’en at Cambridge, when I had better done other things, I spent whole evenings over ancient maps and manuscripts. ’Twas there at Magdalene, in the antique Book of Lismore, I saw described the Fortunate Islands dear old Mrs. Twigg yearned for, and read how St. Brendan found them. ’Twas there I learned of Markland, too, the wooded isle; and Frisland and Icaria. Who knows which this might be? Haply ’tis Atlantis risen from the sea, or the Sunken Land of Buss old Frobisher found; haply ’tis Bra, whose women have much pain in bearing children, or magic Daculi, the cradle island, where they go for gentler labor.”

  “It matters naught to me,” said Bertrand, “so we be not killed by salvages. ’Tis a thing I’ve feared for since we stepped ashore. Did ye read what manner of husbands the wenches have?”