The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  “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!

  9

  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 Burlin
game 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’s-breadth 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.”

  The Irishman looked up for the first time, his eyes flashing. “What drivel is this?”

  “Aye, cowardice,” Ebenezer declared. “Why is’t you make no move to second my pledge to Chicamec? Forget this casuistry of who’s obliged to whom and mortgage your life along with mine! Bind yourself to come hither with me one month from now, when our quest hath borne no fruit, and we’ll commend ourselves together to Chicamec’s mercies! How doth that strike you, eh? A fart for these airy little members of the soul; lay your flesh-and-blood privates on the line, as I have, and we’re quit for all eternity!” He laughed and slashed triumphantly with his stick. “How’s that for a pathway, John McEvoy? I’Christ, ’tis a grande avenue, a cami
no real, a very boulevard; at one end lies your Slough of False Integrity—to call it by its name on the Map of Truth—and at the other stands the storied Town… where Responsibility rears her golden towers…” He faltered; for a moment his voice lost the irony with which he had strung out the figure, but he quickly recovered it. “There, now; take a stroll in that direction, and if you vow thou’rt still a gelding, why then sing descant and be damned to you!”

  McEvoy made no reply, but it was clear he felt the sting of the poet’s challenge: the anger went out of his face, and he put his stick to the homely chore of helping him walk. As for Ebenezer, his outburst had raised his pulse, respiration, and temperature; his step took on a spring; exhilaration narrowed his eyes and buzzed in his fancy; he opened his coat to dry the perspiration and unstrung a phalanx of cattails with one smite.

  As the weak winter daylight failed they began to look about for lodging. To expect an inn in such desolate countryside would have been idle; they turned their attention to a barn far up the road and agreed that they were not likely to find better quarters before dark. Ebenezer’s position was that they should ask the owner’s permission to sleep in the hayloft, on the chance he might have room for them in the house; McEvoy held out for stealing unnoticed into the hay, on the grounds that the planter might send them packing if they asked for his consent. Their debate on the relative merits of these strategies was interrupted by the approach of a wagon from behind them, the first traffic they had encountered all afternoon.

  “Whoa, there, Aphrodite; whoa, girl! Climb up here lads, and rest your feet a spell!”