The Sot-Weed Factor

1: The Poet Encounters a Man With Naught to Lose, and Requires Rescuing

Throughout the frozen fifteen miles between Cooke's Point and the wharf at Cambridge, Ebenezer shivered not from the wind alone, nor again from the simple self-revulsion that came and went in clonic spasms, and between the seizures of which he could affirm the cardinal value of his art and the corollary value of his independence; what shook him mainly was his fear that Joan might follow, or that he would be recognized, apprehended, and returned to Malden as a fugitive from his late indenture. It was not yet dawn when he arrived at the county seat: the inn and courthouse were dark, but in the creek-mouth loomed the Pilgrim, her ports and masthead lanterns lit, and about her decks as well as on the wharf men toiled by lamplight to fit her out for the turning of the tide. Now nearly set, the moon hid all but the morning star; it pleased Ebenezer to imagine that it hung over the meridian of London like the star of old over Bethlehem, guiding him to the cradle of his destiny.

"There's a figure Henry Burlingame would make mincemeat of," he reflected, and tethering his horse, made his way nervously towards the wharf. "I know not whether I am Magus, Messiah, Lazarus, or the Prodigal."

He had not gone far through the laboring stevedores before a hand fell lightly on his shoulder and someone behind him asked, "Are ye quitting Cooke's Point so soon, Master Laureate?"

Ebenezer spun around to face his captor, but the man he saw, though distantly familiar, was no one whose intentions he could confidently assume to be hostile. It was a dirty, ragged old fellow with much untrimmed beard and no wig, thin as a skeleton, who had been coiling lines nearby.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The fellow showed great surprise. "Ye do not even know me?" he cried, as though the possibility were too good to be true.

Ebenezer scrutinized him uncomfortably: barring a metamorphosis nothing short of miraculous, the man was not Burlingame, McEvoy, Sowter, Smith, or Andrew Cooke, and neither his dress nor his occupation suggested the county sheriff.

"I do not, nor why you accost me."

"Ah now, fear not, Mister Cooke, sir. I care not whether or wherefore ye sail, nor would it matter if I did: ye can see yourself I'm but a wharf rat, and could not stop ye."

"Then prithee let me go," Ebenezer said. "I must find passage out to yonder ship at once."

"Indeed?" The stevedore smiled a toothless smile and squeezed the poet's arm. "Is Madame Cooke sailing with ye, or doth her business keep her at Malden?"

"Put by your hand and your impertinence this instant," Ebenezer threatened, "or I'll have you sacked!" His voice was angry, but in truth he was terrified at the prospect of apprehension. Already a gentleman standing some distance behind the stevedore was watching them with interest.

"There's little ye can do to injure me," the stevedore sneered. "At my wages 'tis no threat to sack me, and I can't sink lower when I'm already on the bottom. Ye might say I am a man with naught to lose, for I've lost it all ere now."

"That is a pity," Ebenezer began, "but I do not see — "

"Know that not long since I was a gentleman, Master Poet, with horse and dog, wig and waistcoat, and sot-weed fields a-plenty in my charge; but now, thanks to you, sir, 'tis a good day when my work so wearies me that I sleep o'er the growling of my gut, and I go in tatters, and harvest naught but vermin, chilblains, and blisters."

Ebenezer frowned incredulously. "Thanks to me?" Suddenly he recognized his detainer and tingled with alarm. "Thou'rt Spurdance, my father's overseer!"

"No other soul than he, that was deceived by your father, conspired against by your unholy friend Tim Mitchell, and ruined by yourself!"

"Nay, nay!" Ebenezer protested. "There is more to't than you know!" To his distress he saw the interested gentleman moving nearer. " 'Twas my poor innocence undid you!"

" 'Tis you, not I, that are benighted," insisted the stevedore. "I know ye granted Malden away in ignorance, and I know as well as you Tim Mitchell is not Tim Mitchell, nor Susan Warren Susan Warren. But I know too old Captain Mitchell, for all he was erst a wicked and unnatural rogue till some years past, hath lately been in the power of your friend Tim! 'Tis Tim Mitchell that is the grand high whoremaster, whoe'er he is and whoe'er he works for; 'tis he that oversees the opium trade from New York to Carolina; 'tis he conspires with Monsieur Casteene and the Naked Indians; 'tis he made the contracts with your father and the rest to turn their manors into brothels and opium-houses, now the sot-weed market's fallen, and woe betide the honest overseer that will have none of't!" He grasped Ebenezer's other arm as well and crowded him backwards toward the bulkhead. "If he be not ruined by some ninny like yourself, that knows not black from white, he will be sacked by's crooked master; if he make the evil public, all his neighbors will turn on him as one man, lest their pleasures be curtailed, and if he dare make trouble for your nameless friend — "

"Beware the bulkhead, sir!" the approaching gentleman cried, and drew his short-sword.

"I cannot help it!" Ebenezer gasped, observing his peril. "This man — "

"Release him!" the stranger commanded.

Spurdance glanced wildly at the sword. "I've naught to lose, damn ye! This wretch and his devilish ally — "

The stranger smote him across the face with the flat of his sword, and before he could collect himself the point was at his gullet.

"Not another word upon that topic," the stranger said: "neither now nor later, else 'twill be your final word on earth." To the assembled stevedores he said, "This madman assaulted Master Cooke, the Laureate Poet of Maryland! If he's a friend of yours, fetch him out of here before I set the sheriff on him."

Though in all likelihood he had been recognized already, Ebenezer was alarmed at the proclamation of his name. Yet the stranger's manner quite awed the stevedores: two of them helped the injured Spurdance move off toward the inn, and another volunteered to ferry both gentlemen out to the Pilgrim.

"I'faith, you've saved my life, sir!" Ebenezer said.

"My honor, Mister Cooke," the stranger replied. He was a short, swarthy, and solidly proportioned man, rather older than the poet; he wore his natural iron-grey hair and a short beard of the same color, and his coat, boots, and breeches, though simply designed, were of expensive-looking material.

"Yonder is the Pilgrim's gig." he declared. "I'm Nicholas Lowe of Talbot, bound for St. Mary's City."

But even as he identified himself his face was illuminated by the lantern of a passing stevedore: Ebenezer recognized the bright eyes and unfortunate teeth and gasped

"Henry!"

"Nicholas is the name," Burlingame repeated. "Nicholas Lowe, of Talbot County. Are you traveling alone, sir? I understood you were a married man."

Ebenezer blushed. "I–I must try to explain that, Henry, when there's time. But i'God, 'twas not for my sake you smote Spurdance!"

"No other cause," Burlingame said. "A man may see his friend need, but he will not see him bleed. And call me Nicholas, if you will, since Nicholas is my name."

"The things he said of you, and of Father! They dizzy me!"

"Sleeveless poppycock."

But Ebenezer shook his head. "What cause had he to lie? As he himself declared, he'd naught to lose."

" 'Tis not enough for trust that a man hath naught to lose," Burlingame replied, "if by virtue of that fact he hath somewhat to gain."

"Nor that he hath naught to gain," Ebenezer added bitterly, thinking of the attack on Spurdance, "when he hath much to lose."

"Yet remove all prospects for gain and loss alike, and for all your witness hath Truth for his mainsail, his rudder will be Whimsy and his breeze inconstant Chance."

"You'd have me think no man is trustworthy, then?" Ebenezer asked. "Methinks there is a motive in that cynicism!"

"What the saint calls cynicism," Burlingame said with a shrug, "the worldly man calls sense. The fact of't is, all men can be trusted, but not with the same things. Just as I might trust a sea-captain with my life, but not with my wife, so I trust Ben Spurdance's intention, but not his information. 'Tis only fools and children, or wretches blind with love like poor Joan Toast, that will trust a man with everything."

Ebenezer's face burned. "You know my shame!"

Burlingame shrugged. " 'Tis mankind's shame, is't not, that we are no angels? What have I learnt, save that thou'rt human, and Joan Toast such a fool as I described?"

"And I another!" the poet wept. "What was't but love for you that all these months hath scaled my eyes to your behavior, plugged my ears to your own admissions and the dire reports of others, and so deranged my reason that I justify your arrantest poltrooneries?"

"You believe that booby of an overseer," Burlingame said scornfully. "Why is't you do not swallow hook and leader as well, and believe those folks who say 'twas I brought Coode and Jacob Leisler together and set off the entire string of revolutions? Why not believe the gentlemen who make me chief lieutenant of the Pope or King Louis, or James the Second, or William Penn, or the Devil himself?"

"I believe no one any longer," Ebenezer replied. "I believe naught in the world save that Baltimore is the very principle of goodness, and Coode the pure embodiment of evil."

"Then I must make your disillusionment complete," his tutor said. "But now let's board our ship, or she'll make way without us." He started for the Pilgrim's gig, but Ebenezer tarried behind. "Come on; what holds you back?"

Ebenezer covered his eyes. "Shame and fear; the same that urge me on!"

"They are the cantinières of all great enterprise and must be lived with."

"Nay," Ebenezer said. "This talk hath clipped the wings of my resolve: I cannot fly to England."

"Nor did I mean you to, but to St. Mary's City with me, on pressing business."

Ebenezer shook his head. "Whate'er your business, right or wrong, I am done with't."

Burlingame smiled. "And with your sister Anna as well? 'Tis she I hope to meet in St. Mary's City."

"Anna in Maryland! What new enormity is this?"

"We've not time for't here and now," laughed Burlingame, and led Ebenezer by the arm toward the waiting gig. "See yonder how the Pilgrim slacks her pendant? The tide is set to turn."

For a moment longer the poet resisted the familiar, urgent spell of his former tutor, but the news of Anna — though he allowed for its being altogether false — was too astonishing and intriguing to let pass. While they were being ferried out into the creek-mouth he fingered absently at his ring, as always when his thoughts dwelt on his sister, and it was with a little shock of regret that he felt fishbone instead of silver.

"What must Joan be doing now?" he wondered, and slipped the fishbone ring into his pocket lest it elicit questions from Burlingame.

Since he carried no other luggage than his ledger-book, it took but a few minutes for Ebenezer to sign on as a passenger aboard the Pilgrim. By the time the sun's rim edged the flat horizon the ship had left Castlehaven Point to larboard and was standing for the open waters of the Chesapeake. Both to warm himself and to avoid seeing Cooke's Point again, Ebenezer insisted that they go below, and demanded at once to hear whatever news Burlingame had of Anna.

"From what you told me in the Cambridge winehouse," he said tiredly, "she is more twin to Joan Toast than to me. Yet if in sooth she hath crossed the ocean, methinks her quest is not so chaste as Joan's. What have you learnt of her, Henry?"

"All in its place," said Burlingame. "To commence, you really must call me Nicholas Lowe. Your friend and tutor Burlingame is no more, but hath perished by his own hand."

"Nay, Henry." Ebenezer waved his hand wearily. "I am surfeited with poses and intrigues, and care not how or wherefore thou'rt disguised."

"This case is different," his friend persisted. "Nick Lowe's my legal name, I swear't. D'you recall what business it was first fetched me to Dorset, other than seeing you to Malden? 'Twas to find a Mr. William Smith, that had in his keepbg some fragment of John Smith's secret history."

"Marry, that seems a decade past! You mean to say you got the papers from your friend the cooper, and they proved your name is Nicholas Lowe?"

"Slowly, slowly," Burlingame laughed. " 'Tis rather knottier than that. I've yet to lay my hands upon the papers, but when I first learned they were in Smith's possession, I asked him as if from simple curiosity what befell Sir Henry Burlingame in that final portion of the history, and in particular whether any mention was made in't of his issue. His answer was that as best he could recall, naught happened to Burlingame at all: John Smith contrived in some wise to take the salvage doxy's maidenhead, and both men returned to Jamestown shortly after."

Ebenezer frowned. "What's this of maidenheads? The last I read was the piece you robbed the Jesuit of, that ended with their capture."

"That is the pity of't," Burlingame replied. "What the cooper hath is not Smith's history at all, but a piece of The Privie Journall of Sir Henry Burlingame, that tells of Smith's adventure with Pocahontas. 'Twas the first half of't you read in the carriage to Plymouth. Can you see the double import of this news?"

"I see it means your search was fruitless, unless there are more Smiths in Maryland to threaten with castration."

Burlingame laughed. "You little dream the relevance of your words! But aye, that is one implication of't: so far as I know, Smith's history ends where last we read; the rest either is lost or ne'er was writ, and Sir Henry's name appears no more in the records. When I learned this I called my search a failure, abandoned hope of proving my identity, and resolved to create one from the outside in. I went to Colonel Henry Lowe of Talbot, that once years ago I saved from Tom Pound's pirates and, after explaining who I was, prevailed upon him to save my life in turn by owning me as a son. Thus was Nick Lowe born, from nothing and without travail."

"I must own I scarcely see the need for't," Ebenezer said, "much less how 'twould save your life. But Heav'n knows 'tis not your first mysterious action."

"If you think it mysterious, reflect again on the fact that 'tis not Smith's history the cooper hath, but Sir Henry's Privie Journall. Do you recall how I came by the first half of that journal? 'Twas when I stole Coode's letters in England from his courier Ben Ricaud! The Privie Journall was John Coode's possession, not Baltimore's!"

In spite of his disinclination to show any great interest in Burlingame's affairs, Ebenezer could not conceal his curiosity at this disclosure.

"At first, after what I'd learned from Ben Spurdance," Burlingame went on, "it seemed no great wonder to me that Coode should trust Bill Smith with the papers, since Smith was Captain Mitchell's chief lieutennnt on the Eastern Shore. But the more I reflected on't, the muddier it grew: why was the cooper's name included in the list I'd got from Baltimore, if he was one of Coode's company? And how explain the marvelous coincidence that Coode, as well as Baltimore, entrusted his papers to men of the surname Smith? 'Twas not till some days after your wedding, when I chanced to mention the matter to Spurdance at the Cambridge tavern, I learned that Coode had ne'er given Smith the papers in the first place — the cooper had long since stolen 'em from Ben Spurdance. 'Tis Spurdance is Coode's lieutenant, and 'twas on the strength of this prize that Bill Smith became Baltimore's; in fact, 'twas just this coup decided Baltimore to divide his precious Assembly Journal into halves — not thirds, as we supposed — and to entrust it to two other friends of his named Smith. He hath a bent for such theatrics, and the move hath cost him dearly."

"Then Smith is Baltimore's man and Spurdance Coode's?" Ebenezer asked incredulously. "How can that be, when the one is such a thorough-going varlet and the other, for all his temper, an honest man? And how is't an agent of Baltimore's is trafficking in whores and opium for Captain Mitchell — which is to say, for Coode? La, methinks expediency, and not truth, is this tale's warp, and subterfuge its woof, and you've weaved it with the shuttle of intrigue upon the loom of my past credulity! In short, 'tis creatured from the whole cloth, that even I can see doth not hang all in a piece. 'Tis a fabric of contradictories."

"It is indeed," Burlingame conceded, "if approached with the assumptions we both have steered by. But we are like a Swedish navigator I knew once in Barcelona that had dreamed up a clever way of reckoning longitude by the stars and was uncommon accurate in all respects save one: to his dying day he could not remember whether Antares was in Scorpius and Arcturus in the Herdsman, or the reverse. The consequence of't was, he reckoned his longitude by Antares with azimuths he'd sighted from Arcturus, and ran his ship into the Goodwin Sands! In plain language, I knew Mitchell had support from some powerful outside agency whose motive was more sinister than mere profit and, since his traffic is wicked, I assumed from the first that Coode was at the bottom of't. 'Twas not till this matter of Spurdance and Bill Smith that alternatives occurred to me — "

Ebenezer had been slouched wearily in his seat, but now he sat upright. "Surely thou'rt about to tell me Baltimore's involved in Mitchell's traffic!"

Burlingame nodded soberly. "Not merely involved, Eben: he is the heart, brains, and hand of't! His plan, no less, is so to enervate the English in America with opium, and friendly towns of salvages with the pox, that anon the several governments will fall to the French and the Naked Indians of Monsieur Casteene. Thereupon the Pope hath pledged himself to intervene and unite all the colonies into one great bailiwick of Romanism, and Baltimore, as reward for his services, will be crowned Emperor of America for his lifetime and a holy Catholic saint upon his death!"

"But 'tis absurd!" Ebenezer protested.

Burlingame shrugged. "That Baltimore stands behind Mitchell I am certain, and viewed through the lens of this knowledge, the entire history of the Province takes on a different aspect: who knows but what old William Claiborne was a hero, along with Penn and Governor Fendall and the rest, and Baltimore the monster all along? All I know of Coode is that he hath worked counter to every government in Maryland: did it e'er occur to you that they all might have been as corrupt as Baltimore himself, and that Coode, like Milton's Satan, might more deserve our sympathy than our censure?"

Ebenezer pressed his palm to his forehead and shuddered. "The prospect staggers me!"

" 'Tis not that the facts are absent, after all — I have been Baltimore's chief intriguer these four years, and am privy to more facts than ever Sallust knew of Catiline. The difficulty is, e'en on the face of 'em the facts are dark — doubly so if you grant, as wise men must, that an ill deed can be done with good intent, and a good with ill; and triply if you hold right and wrong to be like windward and leeward, that vary with standpoint, latitude, circumstance, and time. History, in short, is like those waterholes I have heard of in the wilds of Africa: the most various beasts may drink there side by side with equal nourishment."

"But what is this," Ebenezer asked, "except to say the facts avail one naught in making judgments! Is't not that very notion I affirmed last fall in Cambridge, at the cost of my estate?"

"Not at all," Burlingame replied, "for the court judge dons his values with his robe and wig, that are made for him by the legion of the judged, and the jury hath no other office save to rule on facts. Besides which, they see the litigants face to face and hear their testimony, and so can judge their character; but for all his notoriety I ne'er have met the man who hath seen John Coode face to face, nor, despite his fame and influence and the great trust he hath placed in me, have I myself ever seen Lord Baltimore, any more than you have."

"How can that be?"

Burlingame answered that all his communication with the Lord Proprietary had been through messengers, for Baltimore had confined himself to his chambers on the grounds of illness.

"There is no way to lay eyes upon Baltimore now," he said, "but I have lately sworn myself a solemn vow: if there lives in fact such a creature as this John Coode — that hath been Catholic priest, Church-of-England minister, sheriff, captain, colonel, general, and Heav'n alone knows what else — I shall confront him face to face and learn once for all what cause he stands for! 'Tis to seek him out, and Anna as well, I am en route to St. Mary's City."

At mention of his sister's name all thoughts of Maryland politics vanished from the poet's mind, and he demanded once again to know why she and Andrew had come to the province so long before their scheduled visit.

"Your father's cause will be clear," Burlingame said, "once I've told you that they did not make the voyage together. 'Tis to seek her out he's come, and haply to negotiate with Mitchell. He little dreamt, when last I saw him, that he had no more estate in Maryland — but haply he hath heard the news by now. ."

"Then Spurdance's charge is true, that my father is in league with Mitchell!"

"Not yet, to the best of my knowledge, but 'twill be true enough anon. What with the war, the want of foreign markets, the unseasonable weather, the scarcity of ships and hardy plants, the fly, the ground worm, the horn-worm, the house-burn, the frostbite, and the perils of sea and enemies, your sot-weed planter nowadays is in sore straits. Some have sold half their landholdings to clear the rest; some have turned to other crops, scarce worth the work of growing; some have moved to Pennsylvania, where the soil hath not as yet been leached and drained of spirit; and some, that have no love for these alternatives, have turned from planting to more lucrative fields. I have cause to think old Andrew had an audience on this topic with Lord Baltimore ere he sailed, else he'd no reason to come straight from Piscataway to Captain Mitchell's, where Joan and I caught sight of him two days past. 'Twas then we fled together — she to warn you of his presence, I to make my bargain with Colonel Henry Lowe and meet the twain of you here. I could stay no more with Mitchell, not alone because I'd learned my search was hopeless, but also because the real Tim Mitchell, so I have heard, is en route to the Province. What's more, the Jesuit priest Thomas Smith, that we called upon near Oxford, hath complained to Lord Baltimore of my abusing him, and on all sides I was looked at with suspicion."

"But damn it!" Ebenezer cried. "What of my sister? Where is she now, and why hath she come to Maryland?"

"You know the cause as well as I," said Burlingame.

"That she loves you!" Ebenezer groaned. "Ah God, how pleased that news would once have made me! But now I know you for the very essence of carnality, I feel as Mother Ceres must have felt, when Pluto took Proserpine for his bride. And galled — i'faith, it galls me sore to think how she praised my innocence, joined hers to mine there in the London posthouse, and sealed our virgin vows with her silver ring! And all was guile and cruel deceit: you'd long since had her maidenhead in the summer-house, and swived her behind my back in London, and e'en that very day of my departure, ere my business with Ben Bragg was done, the twain of you had billed and cooed all shameless in the public view. Hypocrisy! What lewd delight she must have taken in swearing to me she would be chaste, when even as she swore she still felt your hands upon her, and yearned for one last tumble on your bed! 'Tis clear now why that last farewell discomfited me, and the matter of the rings: she was so taken with rut for you, that stood disguised not ten yards distant, she fancied 'twas you whose hand she toyed with, and the fancy near made her swoon!"

"Enough!" Burlingame ordered. "If you believe this rot in sooth, thou'rt not so much innocent as stupid!"

"You deny it?" the poet cried. "You deny 'twas your lewd connection my father learned of in St. Giles and sacked you for?"

"Nay, not entirely."

"And those foul boasts in the Cambridge tavern!" Ebenezer pressed angrily. "That she hath begged you to have at her, and discovered her secrets to your eyes, and gone mad with joy in your lubricious games — do you deny these now?"

"They are true enough in substance," Burlingame sighed, "but what you fail to see — "

"Then where lies my stupidity, save in esteeming her too much to see 'twas common lust for you that fetched her to our rooms in Thames Street, and that this same monstrous lust hath brought her half round the world to warm your bed?"

"No more, you fool!" exclaimed Burlingame. " 'Tis love in sooth hath driven her hither, or lust, if you prefer; but love or lust — i'Christ, Eben! — have you not remarked these many years 'tis you that are its object?"

2: A Layman's Pandect of Geminology Compended by Henry Burlingame, Cosmophilist

Ebenezer's features contorted wondrously. "Dear Heav'nly Father, Henry! What have you said?"

Burlingame turned his fist in his palm and frowned at the deck as he spoke. "Your sister is a driven and fragmented spirit, friend; the one half of her soul yearns but to fuse itself with yours, whilst the other half recoils at the thought. 'Tis neither love nor lust she feels for you, but a prime and massy urge to coalescence, which is deserving less of censure than of awe. As Aristophanes maintained that male and female are displaced moieties of an ancient whole, and wooing but their vain attempt at union, so Anna, I long since concluded, repines willy-nilly for the dark identity that twins share in the womb, and for the well-nigh fetal closeness of their childhood."

"I shudder at the thought!" Ebenezer whispered.

"As well doth Anna — so much so, that her fancy entertains it only in disguise — yet no other thought than this impelled her to me in the summer-house! 'Twas quite in the middle of a fine May night, the night of your sixteenth birthday, and though the time for't was some days past, a shower of meteors was flashing from Aquarius. I had lingered late outside to watch these falling stars and plot their courses on a map of my own devising; so engrossed was I in the work that when Anna came up behind — "

"No more!" cried Ebenezer. "You took her maidenhead, God curse you, and there's an end on't!"

"Quite otherwise," Burlingame replied. "We spent some hours discussing you, that were asleep in your chamber. Anna likened you to Phosphor, the morning star, and herself to Hesper, the mortal star of evening, and when I told her those twin stars were one and the same, and not a star at all but the planet Venus, the several portents of this fact near made her swoon! We tarried long in the summer-house that night, and long on many a balmy night thereafter; yet always, I will swear't, I pleased her in no wise save as your proxy."

"I'God, and you think this argues to your credit?"

Burlingame smiled. "There are two facts you've got to swallow, Eben. The first is that I love no part of the world, as you might have guessed, but the entire parti-colored whole, with all her poles and contradictories. Coode and Baltimore alike I am enamored of, whate'er the twain might stand for; and you know what various ground hath held my seed. For this same reason 'twas never you I loved, nor yet your sister Anna, but the twain inseparably, and could lust for neither alone. Whence issues the second fact, which is, that de'il the times her blood waxed warm the while she spoke of you, and de'il the times I kissed her as the symbol for you both, and played the sad games of her invention, yet your sister is a virgin still for aught of me!"

He laughed at Ebenezer's shock and disbelief. "Aye, now, that wants some chewing, doth is not? Think with what relish, as a child, she would play Helen to your Paris, but ever call you Pollux by mistake! Recall that day in Thames Street when you chided her for lack of suitors and as a tease proposed me for the post — "

Ebenezer clutched his throat. "Marry!"

"Her reply," Burlingame went on, "was that the search for beaux was fruitless, inasmuch as the man she loved most had the bad judgment to be her twin! And reflect, in the light of what I've told you, on this matter of your mother's silver ring, that Anna gave you in the posthouse: did you know she was wont to read the letters ANNE B as ANN and EB conjoined? Can a poet be blind to the meaning of that gift and of the manner of its giving?"

"To contemplate it is to risk the loss of my supper," Ebenezer groaned, "yet I must own there is some sense in all you say — " His face hardened. "Save that she's still a maid! That's too much!"

His friend shrugged. "Believe't or no. We'll find her anon, I pray, and you may get a physician's word for't if you please."

"But what you bragged of in the Cambridge tavern!"

"Many shuffle the cards that do not play. I could as easily have had at you in Bill Mitchell's barn, but the truth is, as I said before, 'tis not the one nor the other I crave, but the twain as one. Haply the day will come when Anna's secret lust will get the better of her reason and your own likewise (which, deny't as you may, is plain to me!): if such a day dawn, why then perchance I'll come upon you sack a sack as did Catallus on the lovers, and like that nimble poet pin you to your work — nay, skewer you both like twin squabs on a spit!"

The poet shuddered. "This is too much to assimilate, Henry: Coode a hero; my father in Maryland searching for Anna and leagued with the villain Baltimore; Anna herself yet virginal; and you, after all that hath transpired — you wholly innocent and still my friend! And marry come up, you make matters no simpler when you declare my sister's lust to be reciprocal! Such a prurient notion hath never crossed my mind!"

Burlingame raised his eyebrows. "Then you quite deceived your servants at St. Giles. Mrs. Twigg was wont to tell me — "

"She was a foul-fancied harridan!"

"Why, they even had a rhyme, the which — "

"I know their scurrilous rhyme, whate'er it be," Ebenezer said impatiently. "I have heard a dozen such, since I was small. Nor is your wicked imputation foreign to me, if you must know, albeit I'm not a little shocked to hear you share it. Poor Anna and I since birth have breathed in an air of innuendo, the which hath oft and oft caused us to blush and lower our eyes. Since I was ten our father's household hath assumed the worst of us, for no other reason than that we were twins. 'Twas Anna's ill luck her body blossomed at an early age, and e'en her fondest girl friends — e'en that same Meg Bromly who took your letters to her from Thames Street — they all declared her ripening was my work and drove Anna to tears with their whispering! All this, mind, on no grounds whate'er save our twinship, and the fact that unlike many brothers and sisters we never quarreled, but preferred each other's company to the concupiscent world's! I cannot grasp it."

"Then for all thy Cambridge learning," Burlingame laughed, "thou'rt not by half the scholar your sister is! When first I guessed her trouble, long ere she saw't herself, we launched a long and secret enquiry into the subject of twins — their place in legend, religion, and the world. 'Twas my intent by this investigation not so much to cure Anna's itch — which I was not at all persuaded was an ailment — as 'twas to understand it, to see it in's perspective in the tawdry history of the species, and so contrive the most enlightened way to deal with it. I need not say my interest was as heartfelt as her own; her oft-sworn love for me, I could see clearly, was love for you, diverted and transmogrified by virtuous conscience. When she would run to me in the summer-house, 'twas as a jilted maiden runs to a convent and becomes the bride of Christ, and I sorely feared, if her case were not soon physicked, 'twould bereave her altogether of her reason or else drive her to some surrogate not so tender of her honor as was I."

"Dear God!"

"For this reason I led her on," Burlingame continued. "I declared my love for her — half in truth, you understand — and together we explored the misty land of legends, Christian and pagan. Four years we studied — from your fourteenth to your eighteenth year — and all in secret. On the face of't our enquiry was beyond reproach, and I yearned for you to join us, but Anna would have none of't. I'faith, Eben, what a tireless scholar is your sister!" He shook his head in reminiscent awe. "I could not find her volumes enough of voyage and travels, or heathen rites and practices: she would fall on 'em like a lioness on her prey, devour 'em in great bites, and thirst for more! I'd wager my life on't, at seventeen years she was the world's foremost authority on the subject of twins, and is today."

"And I knew naught of't!" Ebenezer shook his head and laughed uncomprehendingly. "But what is there to know of us twins, save that we were conceived in a single swiving?"

"Why, that Gemini is your sign and springtime your season," Burlingame replied.

"It wants no scholarship to hit on that. 'Tis common knowledge."

"As is the fact that springtime — and Maytime in particular — is the season of fertility and the year's first thunderstorms."

"Don't tease!" the poet said irritably. "This day and night have been my life's most miserable, and I am near dead from shock and want of sleep, to say naught of misery. If all your study ploughed up no lore save this, have done with't and let us rest. 'Tis all impertinence."

"On the contrary," Burlingame declared. "So pertinent are our findings, methinks you'd as well give o'er the search for Anna unless you hear 'em: 'tis better to be lost than saved by the wrong Messiah." His manner and tone grew serious. "You know that spring is the season of storms and fertility, but do you know, as doth your sister, that of all the things our rustic forebears feared, the three that most alarmed them were thunder, lightning, and twins? Did you know thou'rt worshipped the whole world over, whether by murther or by godhood, if not both? Through the reverence of the most benighted salvage runs this double thread of storms and fornication, and the most enlightened sages have seen in you the embodiment of dualism, polarity, and compensation. Thou'rt the Heavenly Twins, the Sons of Thunder, the Dioscuri, the Boanerges; thou'rt the twin principles of male and female, mortal and divine, good and evil, light and darkness. Your tree is the sacred oak, the thunder-tree; your flower is the twin-leaved mistletoe, seat of the oak tree's life, whose twin white berries betoken the celestial semen and are thus employed to rejuvenate the old, fructify the barren, and turn the shy maid's fancies to lusty thoughts of love. Your bird is the red cock Chanticleer, singer of light and love. Your emblems are legion: twin circles represent you, whether suggested by the sun and moon, the wheels of the solar chariot, the two eggs laid by Leda, the nipples of Solomon's bride, the spectacles of Love and Knowledge, the testicles of maleness, or the staring eyes of God. Twin acorns represent you, both because they are the thunder-tree's seed and because their two parts fit like male and female. Twin mountains represent you, the breasts of Mother Nature; the Maypole and its ring are danced round in your honor. Your sacred letters are A, C, H, I, M, O, P, S, W, X, and Z — "

"I'Christ!" Ebenezer broke in. " 'Tis half the alphabet!"

"Each hath its separate import," Burlingame explained, "yet all have common kinship with swiving, storms, and the double face of Nature. Your A, for example, is the prime and mightiest letter of the lot — a god in itself, and worshipped by heathen the great world round. It represents the forked crotch of man, the source of seed, and also, by's peak and by's cross-line, the union of twain into one, that I'll speak of anon. When you set two A's cheek by jowl you see the holy nippled paps of Mother Earth, as well as the sign of the holy Asvins, the twin charioteers of Eastern lore. Your C betokens the crescent moon, that in turn is held to resemble man's carnal sword, unsheathed and rising to the fray; two C's entwined are the union of Heaven and Earth, or Christ and his earthly church — "

"In Heav'n's name, Henry, what are these riddles thou'rt flooding me with?"

"Anon, anon," Burlingame said. "Your H portrays the same happy union of two into one: 'tis the zodiac sign for Gemini; the bridge 'twixt the twin pillars of light and dark, love and learning, or what have you; 'tis also the eighth letter, and inasmuch as 8 is the mystic mark of redemption (by virtue of its copulating circles), 'tis no surprise that H is the emblem of atonement — the making of two into one."

"Again this mystery of twos and ones!" the poet protested.

" 'Tis no mystery when you know about I and O," said Burlingame. "In every land and time folk have maintained that what we see as two are the fallen halves of some ancient one — that night and day, Heaven and Earth, or man and woman were long since severed by their sinful natures, and that not till Kingdom Come will the fallen twain be a blessed one. 'Tis this lies 'neath the tale of Eve and Adam, and Plato's fable, and the fall of Lucifer, and Heav'n knows how many other lovely lies; 'tis this the Lord Himself refers to, in the second epistle of Pope Clement: He declares His Kingdom shall come When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female. Thus all men reverence the act of fornication as portraying the fruitful union of opposites: the Heavenly Twins embraced; the Two as One!"

Ebenezer shivered.

"Your I and O are plainly then discovered," Burlingame said with a smile: "the one is male, the other female; together they are the great god Io of Egypt, the ring on the maidens' merry Maypole, the acorn in its cup, the circumcised prepuce of the Jew, the genital letters P and Q — and the silver seal ring Anna slipped upon your finger in the post-house!"

"I'God!"

"As for the others, your M is the twin mountain breasts I spoke of; S is the copulation of twin C's face to face, and is sprung as well from the sacred Z; W- the double-vow, as M is the double-we — W, I say, is a pair of Vs sack a sack: 'tis thus the sign of the Heavenly Twins of India, called Virtrahana, and the third part of the Druids' invocation to their god, the whole of which was I.O.W. X, like A and H, is the joining of Two into One, and as such hath been venerated since long ere the murther of Christ; Z is the zigzag lightning flash of Zeus, or whatever god you please, and is ofttimes flanked, in ancient emblems, by the circles of the Heavenly Twins — "

"Enough!" the poet cried. "This dizzies me! What is the message of't, and what hath it to do with Anna and me?"

"Why, naught in the world," Burlingame responded, "save to show you how deep in the marrow of man runs this fear and reverence for twins, and their connection with coitus and the weather. All over Africa the birth of twins is followed by dances of the lewdest sort: sometimes 'tis thought to prove the mother an adultress, since husbands generally get one babe at a time; other folk think the mother hath been swived by the Holy Spirit, or that the father hath an inordinate lingam. In sundry isles of the western ocean 'tis common for the salvages to throw coffee beans at the walls of a house where twins are born; they believe that otherwise one must die, inasmuch as twins break the laws of chastity while still embraced in their mother's womb! In divers lands no living twins can be found, for the reason that one is always slain at birth; but murthered or not, they are worshipped in every place, and have been since time out of mind. The old Egyptians had their Taues and Taouis, the twins of Serapeum at Memphis, as well as the sisters Tathautis and Taebis, the ibis-wardens of Thebes; in India reigned Yama and Yami, and the holy Asvins I spoke of earlier, that drew the Heavenly Chariot; the Persians worshipped Ahriman and Ormuz; the ancient myths of the Hebrews tell of Huz and Buz, Huppim and Muppim, Gog and Magog, and Bne and Baroq, to say naught of Esau and Jacob, Cain and Abel — or as the Mohammedans have it, Cain and Alcimand Abel and Jumella — "

"Ah!" Ebenezer exclaimed.

"Some held," Burlingame went on, "that Lucifer and Michael were twins, as are most gods of Light and Darkness; and for the selfsame cause the old Edessans of Mesopotamia, who erst had worshipped Monim and Aziz, were wont to regard e'en Jesus and Judas as hatched from a single egg!"

"Incredible!"

"No more than that God and Satan themselves — "

"I don't believe it!" Ebenezer protested.

" 'Tis not a question of your belief," laughed Burlingame, "but of the fact that other wights think it true; 'tis but a retelling of the tale of Set and Horus, or Typhon and Osiris, whom some Egyptians took for twins and others merely for rivals. But I was coming to the Greeks. ."

"You may pass o'er them," sighed the poet. "I know of Castor and Pollux, the sons of light and thunder, and as well of Helen and Clytemnestra, that were hatched with 'em from Leda's eggs."

"Then you must know too of Lynceus and Idas, that slew the Dioscuri; of Amphion and Zethus, that sacked and rebuilt Troy; of Heracles and Iphikles, that are twins in this tale and half-brothers in that, and of Hesper and Phosphor, the morning and evening stars."

"And now you'll go to Rome, I'll wager, and speak of Romulus and Remus?"

"Aye," said Burlingame, "to say naught of Picumnus and Pilumnus, or Mutumnus and Tutumnus. 'Twas the great respect accorded these classic twins that carried them into the Christian Church, which had the good sense to canonize 'em. Hence the Greek and Roman Catholics pray to Saints Romolo and Remo, Saints Kastoulos and Polyeuctes, and e'en St. Dioscoros; the fonder amongst them go yet farther and regard as twins Saints Crispin and Crispian, Florus and Laurus, Marcus and Marcellianus, Protasius and Gervasius — "

"A surfeit!" cried the poet. "There is a surfeit!"

"You have not heard the best," Burlingame insisted. "They will hold Saints John and James to be twins as well, and e'en Saints Jude and Thomas, inasmuch as Thomas means 'a twin'. I'll not trouble you with Tryphona and Tryphosa, that Paul salutes in's Epistle to the Romans, but turn instead to the Aryan heroes Baltram and Sintram, or Cautes and Cautopates, and the northern tales of Sieglinde and Siegmunde, the incestuous parents of Siegfried, or Baldur, the Norseman's spirit of Light, and his enemy, dark Loki, that slew him with a branch of mistletoe!"

" 'Tis a hemisphere o'erridden with godly twins!" Ebenezer marveled.

Burlingame smiled. "Yet it wants twin hemispheres to make a whole: when Anna and I turned our eyes to westward, we found in the relations of the Spanish and English adventurers no less a profusion of Heavenly Twins, revered by sundry salvages; and the logs of divers voyages to the Pacific and Indian Oceans were no different. Old Cortez, when he raped the glorious Aztecs, found them worshipping Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, as their neighbors reverenced Hun-hun-ahpu and Vukub-hun-ahpu. Pizarro and his cohorts, had they been curious enough to ask, would have found in the southern pantheon such twins as Pachakamak and Wichoma, Apocatequil and Piquerao, Tamendonare and Arikute, Karu and Rairu, Tiri and Karu, Keri and Kame. Why, I myself, enquiring here and there among the Indians of these parts, have learnt from the Algonkians that they reverence Menabozho and Chokanipok, and from the Naked Indians of the north that they pray to Juskeha and Tawiskara. From the Jesuit missionaries I have learnt of a nation called the Zuñi, that worship Ahaiyuta and Matsailema; of another called Navaho, that worship Tobadizini and Nayenezkani; of another called Maidu, that worship Pemsanto and Onkoito; of another called Kwakiutl, that worship Kanigyilak and Nemokois; of another called Awikeno, that worship Mamasalanik and Noakaua — all of them twins. Moreover, there is in far Japan a band of hairy dwarfs that pray to the twins Shi-acha and Mo-acha, and amongst the gods of the southern ocean reign the great Si Adji Donda Hatahutan and his twin sister, Si Topi Radja Na Uasan. ."

" 'Tis your scheme to drive me mad!"

"That is their name, I swear't."

"No matter! No matter!" Ebenezer shook his head as though to jar his senses into order. "You have proved to the very rocks and clouds that twin-worship is no great rarity in this earth!"

Burlingame nodded. "Sundry pairs of these twins are opposites and sworn enemies — such as Satan and God, Ahriman and Ormuz, or Baldur and Loki — and their fight portrays the struggle of Light with Darkness, the murther of Love by Knowledge, or what have you. Sundry others represent the equivocal state of man, that is half angel and half beast: the first of such pairs is mortal and the second divine. Still others are the gods of fornication, like Mutumnus and Tutumnus, or Picumnus and Pilumnus; if less than gods, they yet may be remembered for incestous lust, like Cain and his Alcima, and even be honored for swiving up a hero, as were Sieglinde and Siegmunde. How Anna loved the Siegfried tales!"

So heavy with revelations was the poet, he could only wave his hand against this remark.

"Yet whether their bond be love or hate or death," Burlingame concluded, "almost always their union is brilliance, totality, apocalypse — a thing to yearn and tremble for! 'Tis this union Anna desires with all her heart, howe'er her mind disguise it; 'tis this hath brought her halfway round the globe to seek you out, and your father to fetch her home if he can find her. 'Tis this your own heart bends to, will-ye, nill-ye, as a flower to the light, to make you one and whole and nourished as ne'er since birth; or as a needle to the lode, to direct you to the harbor of your destiny! And 'tis this I yearn for too, and naught besides: I am Suitor of Totality, Embracer of Contradictories, Husband to all Creation, the Cosmic Lover! Henry More and Isaac Newton are my pimps and aides-de-chambre; I have known my great Bride part by splendrous part, and have made love to her disjecta membra, her sundry brilliant pieces; but I crave the Whole — the tenon in the mortise, the jointure of polarities, the seamless universe — whereof you twain are token, in coito! I have no parentage to give me place and aim in Nature's order: very well — I am outside Her, and shall be Her lord and spouse!"

Burlingame was so aroused by his own rhetoric that at the end of his speech he was pacing and gesturing about the cabin, his voice raised to the pitch and volume of an Enthusiast's; even had Ebenezer not been too dismayed for skepticism, he could scarcely have questioned his former tutor's sincerity. But he was stunned, as well with recognition as with appall: he clutched his head and moaned.

Burlingame stopped before him. "Surely you'll not deny your share of guilt?"

The poet shook his head. "I'll not deny that the soul of man is deep and various as the reach of Heav'n," he replied, "or that he hath in germ the sum of poles and possibilities. But I am stricken by what you say of me and Anna!"

"What have I said, but that thou'rt human?"

Ebenezer sighed. " 'Tis quite enough."

By this time the sun was bright in the eastern sky, and the Pilgrim stood well down the Bay for Point Lookout and St. Mary's City. The other passengers were awake and stirring about their quarters. At Burlingame's suggestion they fastened their scarves and coats and went on deck, the better to speak in private.

"How is't you know Anna to be in St. Mary's? Why did she not come straight to Malden?"

" 'Tis your man Bertrand's fault," Burlingame answered and, laughing at Ebenezer's bewilderment and surprise, confessed that when he had dispatched Bertrand from Captain Mitchell's to St. Mary's City back in September, he had charged the valet not only to retrieve the Laureate's trunk but if possible to claim it in the guise of the Laureate himself, the better to throw John Coode off the scent while they made their way to Malden. "To this end I rashly loaned him your commission — "

"My commission! Then 'tis true you stole it from me back in England!"

Burlingame shrugged. " 'Twas I authored it, was't not? Besides, would it not have gone worse with you had Pound been certain of your identity? In any case, there was some peril in your man's assignment, and 'twas my thought, if Coode should kill or kidnap him with the paper on his person, he might think you yourself were an impostor — 'twould have spun his compass for fair! Howbeit, Bertrand could not rest at fetching your trunk, it seems, but must parade St. Mary's City as the Laureate and declare his post in every inn and tavern."

Thus it was, Burlingame declared, that on reaching the port of St. Mary's some time ago, Anna had been given to think her brother was in the town and had disembarked in quest of him. "I myself heard naught of this until old Andrew came to Captain Mitchell's; he had learnt in London of my whereabouts, and, like you, thinks Anna hath come to be my wife. But he believes thou'rt party to the scheme as well and are pimping us in some wise: when he learns the state of things at Malden, today or tomorrow, he'll assume you've fled with the twain of us to Pennsylvania, where fly all fugitives from responsibility — the more readily, inasmuch as neither Anna nor the false Laureate hath been seen or heard of since she landed." He sucked in the corner of his mouth. " 'Twas my intent to stay with Andrew, disguised as Timothy Mitchell, the better to temper his wrath and learn his connection with Lord Baltimore; but so vain hath been my search for parentage in the world, and so much rancor hath that search engendered, 'twas no longer safe to play that role."

Ebenezer asked what were his tutor's present plans.

"We'll put ashore together at St. Mary's," Burlingame said. "You then enquire in public places for news of Anna or Eben Cooke, and I shall search alone for Coode."

"At once? Is't not more urgent to find my sister ere some harm befall her?"

" 'Tis but two paths to a single end," replied Burlingame. "No man knows more than Coode of what transpires in Maryland, and for aught we know he may have made prisoners of them both. Besides which, if I can win his confidence, he may abet us in regaining your estate. 'Twill be a joy to him, after all, to hear the Laureate of Maryland is his ally!"

"Not so swiftly," Ebenezer protested. "I may be disabused of my faith in Baltimore, but I've sworn no oaths of loyalty to John Coode. In any case, as you well know, I ne'er was Laureate — and even had I been, I'd be no longer. Look at this." He drew the ledger from his coat and showed Burlingame the finished Marylandiad, which in view of its antipanegyric tone he had retitled The Sot-Weed Factor. "Call't a clumsy piece if you will," he challenged. " 'Tis honest nonetheless, and may spare others my misfortunes."

"What's full of heart may be bare of art," Burlingame asserted with interest, "- and vice-versa." He held the ledger open against the rail and read the work closely several times while the Pilgrim ran down the Bay to Point Lookout, where the Potomac River meets Chesapeake Bay. Although he made no comments either favorable or unfavorable, when the time came for them to transfer to the lighter for St. Mary's City he insisted that the poem be forwarded aboard the Pilgrim to Ben Bragg, at the Sign of the Raven in Paternoster Row.

"But he'll destroy it!" exclaimed the poet. "D'you recall how I came by this ledger back in March?"

"He'll not destroy it," Burlingame assured him. "Bragg is obliged to me in ways I shan't describe."

There was no time to ponder the proposal; with some misgivings Ebenezer allowed his former tutor to entrust The Sot-Weed Factor to the bark's captain, who also refunded the balance of his fare to England, and the two men ferried upriver to St. Mary's City.

3: A Colloquy Between Ex-Laureates of Maryland, Relating Duly the Trials of Miss Lucy Robotham and Concluding With an Assertion Not Lightly Matched for Its Implausibility

Not long after his arrival in the Province some months previously, Governor Francis Nicholson had declared his intention to move the seat of Maryland's government from St. Mary's City, which was unhappily associated with Lord Baltimore, the Jacobean and Carolingian kings, and the Roman Catholic Church, to Anne Arundel Town on the Severn River, which enjoyed the double merit of a central location on the Chesapeake and an altogether Protestant history. Although the actual transfer of government records and the official change of the capital's name from Anne Arundel Town to Annapolis were not to be effected until the end of February, the consequences of the decision were noticeable already in St. Mary's City: few people were on the streets; the capitol and other public buildings were virtually deserted; and some inns and private houses were abandoned or closed and boarded up.

Before the arched doorway of the Statehouse Burlingame said, " 'Twill hasten our search if we move in separate directions; you enquire at the wharves and taverns hereabouts, and I shall do likewise farther in the town. At dusk we'll meet here and go to supper — God grant your sister will be dining with us too!"

Ebenezer agreed to the proposal and to the wish as well, for though the prospect of confronting Anna, after Burlingame's revelations, was a disconcerting one, yet he feared for her safety alone in the Province.

"But if perchance we find her," he asked with a little smile, "what then?"

"Why, haply Coode will find some way to snatch Cooke's Point from William Smith, and then, when Andrew hath returned in peace to England, the three of us will make our home in Malden. Or haply we'll fly to Pennsylvania, as your father suspects already: Anna, if she'll have me, shall become Mrs. Nicholas Lowe, and you, under a nom de plume, poet laureate to William Penn! 'Tis a wondrous tonic for defeat, to murther an old self and beget a new! But we must hatch our chickens ere we count 'em."

The two then separated, Burlingame heading inland and Ebenezer towards an inn not far from where they stood. Upon entering he found a dozen or more townspeople eating and drinking and could not at once muster courage enough to make his inquiries. He had not the small, prerequisite effrontery of the journalist or canvasser, for one thing; for another, he was still too confounded by events of the immediate past to know clearly how he should feel about his present position. When was it he had finished The Sot-Weed Factor in his room at Malden? Only the previous evening, though it seemed a fortnight past; yet since that time he had been given to assimilate no fewer than twelve perfectly astounding facts, each warranting the most careful contemplations and modification of his position, and some requiring immediate and drastic action:

He had become the indentured servant of Malden's master.

His father was in Maryland and en route to Cooke's Point.

His wife Susan Warren was in fact his Joan Toast of London.

But she was a slave to opium, a victim of the pox, and a whore to the Indians of Dorchester.

Moreover she had been raped by the Moor Boabdil, and almost by Ebenezer himself.

He had in deserting her committed the most thoroughly and least equivocally dishonorable act of his entire life — indeed, the very first of any magnitude, not counting his thwarted ill intentions aboard the Cyprian and at Captain Mitchell's manor.

Lord Baltimore might not at all represent, as he had supposed, the very essence of Good, and Coode the essence of Evil, but vice versa, if Burlingame spoke truly; and Andrew might well be party to an enormously vicious plot.

His tutor Burlingame had been, perhaps, a loyal friend after all, and was inflamed with passion for Ebenezer and Anna as one.

His sister was at that moment somewhere in the Province.

She was a virgin to that day, despite her intimacy with Burlingame.

She loved not Burlingame but her brother, in a way too dark and deep for her cognition.

And he himself had no direction, aim, or prospect whatsoever for the future, but was as orphan in the world as Burlingame, without that gentleman's corporal, financial, intellectual, experiential, or spiritual resources.

With these propositions very nearly unhinging his Reason, how could he approach the strangers and calmly put his question? Even their mildly curious stare upon his entrance set his stomach a-quiver and his face afire. His small resolution vanished; with some of the money entrusted to him by Joan Toast he purchased his first meal since the previous day, and when it was eaten he left the inn. For some minutes he wandered unsystematically through the several rude streets of the town, as though in hopes of glimpsing Anna herself on one of them. Had the season permitted, he would doubtless have continued thus all day, for want of courage refusing to comprehend in what serious straits his sister might well languish, and then at sundown have reported with a sigh to Burlingame that his inquiries had borne no fruit. But the wet wind off St. Mary's River soon chilled him through; he was obliged to take refuge in another nameless public house, the only other tavern he had observed, and order rum to still the chattering of his teeth.

This establishment was, he observed, less elegantly appointed than its competitor: the floor was paved with oyster-shells, the tables were bare of cloths, and in the air hung a compound fragrance of stale smoke, stale beer, and stale seafood. This last smell seemed to come not so much from the tavern's cuisine as from the damp coats of its patrons, who in other respects as well appeared to be fishermen. They paid Ebenezer no notice whatever, but went on with their talk of seines and the weather, or fingered beards and brooded into their glasses. Although their indifference removed any possibility of Ebenezer's interrogating them, at the same time it permitted him to feel less uneasy in their presence; he was able to move his chair nearer the fireplace and was even emboldened, as he sipped his rum, to survey the other customers more closely.

In one corner of the room, he noticed a man sleeping with head, arms, and chest upon the table. Whether liquor, despair, or mere fatigue was the soporific, the poet could not tell, but his heart beat faster at the sight, for though the fellow was no cleaner nor less ragged than his companions, his coat in better days had been not the honest Scotch cloth of the laborer, but plum-colored serge and silver-grey prunella — a very twin to the one Ebenezer had worn to his audience with Lord Baltimore and had packed next day in his trunk to bring to Maryland! That there could be two such coats was most unlikely, for Ebenezer had chosen the goods himself and had them tailored to the style of the moment, which was scarcely to be seen outside London; nevertheless he dared not risk a scene by waking the fellow, and so signaled for more rum instead and asked the waiter who the slumbering chap might be.

"Haply 'tis Governor Nicholson, or King William," the man replied. " 'Tis not my wont to pry into my patrons' lives."

"To be sure, to be sure," Ebenezer persisted, and pressed two shillings into his hand. "But 'tis of some small importance that I know."

The waiter examined the coins and seemed to find them satisfactory. "The fact is," he declared, "nobody knows just who the wight may be, albeit he hires his bed upstairs and eats his meals at yonder table."

"What's this! Ye want two shillings for that news?"

The waiter held up an admonitory finger and explained that the sleeping man was no stranger to St. Mary's — indeed, he had frequented the tavern for some months past — but current rumor had it that his declared identity was false.

"He hath given all and sundry to believe his is the Laureate Poet of Maryland, name of Ebenezer Cooke, but either he's the grandest swindler that ever prowled St. Mary's, or else he is afraid of his very shadow."

Ebenezer betrayed such considerable interest in this statement that to hear it glossed set him back another shilling.

"He came to St. Mary's last September or October," the waiter went on, pocketing the money, "though whence or how no man knows truly, since the fleet was come and gone some weeks before. He was dressed in the clothes ye see there, that were splendid then as a St. Paul fop's, and had a wondrous swaggering air, and declared he was the Laureate of Maryland, Eben Cooke."

"I'Christ, the fraud!" Ebenezer exclaimed. "Did no man doubt him?"

"He had his share of hecklers; that he did," the waiter conceded. "Whene'er they asked him for a verse he'd say 'The muse sings not in taverns,' or some such; and when they asked him how he was so lately come from England, he declared he'd been kidnaped by the pirates from Jim Meech's boat Poseidon ere the fleet reached the Capes, and was later cast o'erside to drown, but swam ashore and found himself in Maryland. The wags and wits had fun at his expense, but his story was borne out anon by Colonel Robotham himself, the Councillor — "

"Nay!"

The waiter nodded firmly. "The Colonel and his daughter had crossed with him on the Poseidon and had seen him kidnaped, along with his servant and three sailors, that have ne'er been heard from since. Some skeptical souls still doubt the fellow's story, for he hath spoke not a line of verse these many months, and to set him in a panic one need only mention his father Andrew's name, or the name of his father-in-law."

"Father-in-law!" Ebenezer rose from his chair. "You mean William Smith, the cooper?"

"I know no cooper named Smith," the waiter laughed, "I mean Colonel Robotham of Talbot, that was persuaded enough to take him for a son-in-law, but hath learned since of another wight that's said to be Eben Cooke! He means to file suit against the impostor, but in the meantime this fellow here so fears him — "

"No more," Ebenezer said grimly. Leaving his fresh glass of rum untouched he strode unhesitatingly to the sleeper's table, and seeing that it was in fact Bertrand Burton who slumbered there, he shook him by the shoulders with both hands.

"Wake up, wretch!"

Bertrand sat up at once, and his alarm at being awakened thus ungently turned to horror when he saw who had been shaking him.

"Base conniver!" Ebenezer whispered fiercely. "What have you done now?"

"Stay, Master Eben!" the valet whispered back, glancing miserably about to judge the peril of his position. But the other patrons, if they had observed the scene at all, were watching with the idlest curiosity and amusement: they showed no signs of understanding the confrontation. "Let's leave this place ere ye speak another word! I've much to tell ye!"

"And I thee," the poet replied unpleasantly. "So thou'rt afraid somewhat for your welfare, Master Laureate?"

"With reason," Bertrand admitted, still glancing about. "But more for your own, sir, and for your sister Anna's!"

Ebenezer gripped the man's wrists. "Curse your heart, man! What do you know of Anna?"

"Not here!" the valet pleaded. "Come to my room upstairs, where we may speak without fear."

" 'Tis yours to fear, not mine," Ebenezer said, but permitted Bertrand to lead the way upstairs. The valet was clothed from wig to slippers, he observed, with articles from his trunk, all now much the worse for wear and want of cleaning; but the man himself, though blear-eyed with sleep and trepidation, had clearly much improved his lot by playing laureate. He was well fleshed out, and dignified even in his dishevelment — unquestionably a more prepossessing figure than his master. By the time they entered Bertrand's room, the only furnishings of which were a bed, a chair, and a pitcher-stand, Ebenezer could scarcely contain his indignation.

But the valet spoke first. "How is't thou'rt here, sir? I thought ye were a prisoner at Malden."

"You knew!" Ebenezer paled. "You knew my wretched state and exploited it!" His anger so weakened him that he was obliged to take the chair.

"Pray hear my side of't," Bertrand begged. " 'Tis true I played your part at first from vanity, but anon I was obliged to — will-I, nill-I — and since I heard of your imprisonment, my only aim hath been to do ye a service."

"I know thy services!" the poet cried. " 'Twas in my service you gambled away my savings aboard the Poseidon and got me a name for seducing the ladies into the bargain!"

But Bertrand, little daunted, insisted on explaining his position more fully. "No man wishes more than I," he declared, "that I had stayed behind in London with my Betsy and let my poor cod take its chances with Ralph Birdsall — Better a shive lost than the whole loaf, as they say. But Fate would have it otherwise, and — "

"Put by thy whining preamble," his master ordered, "and get on with thy lying tale."

"What I mean to say, sir, there I was, half round the globe from my heart's desire, abused and left to drown by the cursed pirates, and farther disappointed at the loss of my ocean isle — "

"The loss of your ocean isle!"

"Aye, sir — what I mean is, 'tis not every day a man sees seven golden cities slip through his fingers, as't were, to say nothing of my fair-skinned heathen wenches, that would do whatever dev'lish naughty trick might cross my fancy, and fetch me cakes and small-beer by the hour — "

"Go to, go to, thou'rt slavering!"

"And there was my noble Drakepecker, bless his heart — big and black as a Scotland bull, and man enough to crack the Whore o' Babylon, but withal as meek a parishioner as any god could boast — that ye lightly gave away to nurse an ill-odored salvage — "

" 'Sheart, man, pass o'er the history and commence thy fabrication! I was there!"

With this assertion Bertrand declared he had no quarrel. "The sole aim of my relating it," he said, "is to help ye grasp the pity of my straits what time the swine-girl told us this was Maryland, and I was obliged to fall from Heav'n to Hell, as't were."

"Be't thy pitiful straits or thy craven neck," the poet responded, "I'll do my grasping without thy help. As for the swine-girl — " He hesitated, thought better of announcing his marriage, and demanded instead that the servant begin with his arrival in St. Mary's City nearly three months previously and account for his subsequent behavior in a fashion as brief and clear as such a concatenation of chicaneries might permit.

"My one wish is to do that very thing, sir," Bertrand protested. " 'Tis that first pose alone I beg forgiveness for, and thought to whiten by this preamble — the rest is deserving more of favor than reproof, and I shall lay it open to ye as readily as I did to your poor sister, and would to Master Andrew himself, that first sent me to ye in Pudding Lane for no other purpose in the wide, wicked world — "

"Than what?" Ebenezer cried. "Than stealing my name and office to do a Councillor out of his daughter? May the murrain carry me off if I do not flay an honest English sentence from your hide!"

"— than advising and protecting ye," Bertrand said, and when his master made as if to spring upon him he retreated to the other side of the bed and hastened to tell his story. The revelation that they were in Maryland instead of Cibola, he explained, and consequently that he was no longer a deity but only a common servant, had so filled him with dejection that when on orders from Timothy Mitchell he had gone with another servant to fetch Ebenezer's trunk, he could not resist the temptation to pose as poet laureate, only for the term of the errand. He had therefore declared to his companion that he himself was in reality Ebenezer Cooke and the man at Captain Mitchell's his servant, and that they had exchanged roles temporarily as a precautionary measure. However, he had continued, their reception in the Province had been cordial enough, and the disguise was no longer necessary. They had then fetched the trunk in the name of Ebenezer Cooke, and after securing the night's lodgings for master and man, Bertrand had struck out on his own to make the most of his short-term office.

"All went well," he sighed, "until the hour I left Vansweringen's place, up the street. The sun was still high, and I was somewhat dagged with rum; whilst I stood a moment to take my bearings a fine young lady comes a-weeping up pretty as ye please, throws her arms about my neck, and cries out 'Darling Ebenezer!' 'Twas Lucy Robotham, that same tart that plagued me so on the Poseidon and that had thought me long since murthered by the pirates!"

For old times' sake, Bertrand went on, he had bought dinner at Vansweringen's for Miss Robotham, whose father was in St. Mary's to sit with the Council, and when she removed her coat to eat he had observed, to his surprise, that she was pregnant. Upon his interrogating her (Ebenezer winced at the thought) she burst into fresh tears and confessed that on reaching Maryland she had been deceived into marrying the Reverend Mr. George Tubman, the same whose speculative talents had impoverished half the Poseidon's passengers, and had been by him impregnated in the rectory of Port Tobacco parish, only to learn not long after that their marriage was illegal, the Reverend Mr. Tubman having neglected to divorce his first wife in London. Colonel Robotham had arranged at once for annulment of the marriage and had further applied to the Bishop for proceedings of suspension against both Tubman and the Reverend Mr. Peregrine Cony, who he averred had knowingly licensed his colleague's bigamous union, but the Colonel's influence in the Province had as yet been unable to provide another husband for Lucy or retard the growing signs of her condition, which along with the reputation she had got for promiscuity had all but removed her from the gentlemen's list of eligible maidens.

"I saw then the reason for her joy at finding me alive," the valet said, "and I made a great show of sympathy, albeit I'd not have married her as Bertrand Burton, much less as Eben Cooke! A house already made, as the saying goes, but a wife to make. Yet I kept my feelings hid, nor showed by word or deed that I had grasped her scurvy trick. On the contrary, I played the gallant Laureate with right good will, the better to learn what else the wench had up her sleeve."

"And so resume where you had left off on the Poseidon, I doubt not."

Bertrand raised his finger. "I'll not deny we had some sport ere the day was done," he said righteously. "I had been the De'il's own time 'twixt drinks, as't were and longed to see again that famous emblem Lucy boasts. 'Tis all in freckles, b'm'faith, and — "

"I know, I know," Ebenezer said impatiently. " 'Tis the likeness of Ursa Major, and the rest."

Bertrand clucked his tongue before the memory. "Besides, there is an uncommon pleasure in lasses lately got with child — "

"Nay, i'God, you sicken me!"

"In any case," the valet finished with a shrug, "I reasoned 'twas no more than the doxy's due, that had done ye out o' your money with her crooked odds and wagers."

"I say!" cried Ebenezer. "Speaking of wagers — "

"Say no more," Bertrand interrupted with a smile. "The selfsame query was on my mind from the instant I beheld her, and directly the time befitted, I asked her straight who had won that last monster of a ship's pool, wherein I'd wagered the whole o' Cooke's Point to regain the money I had lost before. At first she'd not reply, but when I offer'd her my belt athwart her hams — as I was wont to swat sweet Betsy what times she'd tease — why, then I wrung the truth from her, which was, that she herself, by collusion with Tubman and that whoreson Captain Meech, had won the prize!"

"I' Christ!"

The winnings, Bertrand went on, had then been divided between the three partners, and Tubman had increased his share by the impregnation and marriage (respectively, it now turned out) of Miss Robotham. As soon as the conveyances of property were effected he had disclosed the bigamous nature of the match, hoping thereby to rid himself of the girl; but he had reckoned without the ire of his new father-in-law, who had promptly exposed the business and taken the legal action mentioned earlier.

"But what of the property?" Ebenezer demanded. "Doth Tubman hold title to it yet?"

The valet smiled. "To the most he did, at the time I speak of, and to the most he doth yet, for aught I know to the contrary. But aside from my own wager, all his winnings were in cash or chattels, such as horses, pirogues, and hogsheads o' sot-weed. Cooke's Point was the only proper estate he won — "

"God curse you for wagering it!"

Bertrand raised his eyebrows. "Haply 'twas not such a folly after all, sir. The wretch had ne'er before won such a prize, and more especially as he thought us murthered by the pirates, he was afraid to press his claim, for fear the courts would learn the evil of his ways."

" 'Twould but improve his chances if they did," Ebenezer said, but there was relief in his tone. "An honest wight fares ill in a Maryland court. Go on."

In consequence, Bertrand declared, the Reverend Mr. Tubman had contented himself with what winnings he could collect as gentleman's debts from the bettors themselves, out of court, and in an effort to appease Colonel Robotham's wrath on the occasion of the annulment, had reconveyed to Lucy his note of title to Cooke's Point, not many days prior to her encounter with the note's original author.

"She was as doubtful as Tubman how the courts might rule on't," said the valet. " 'Twas her hope I'd make over the deed to her as a gentleman ought, particularly in the light of her condition, but when I gave no signs of such intent, she could no more than weep and threaten."

His next move, he explained, had been to send the other servant back to Captain Mitchell as Timothy had directed and make plans to ferry himself and his freight to Malden. However, reckoning that his master would allow for unforeseen delays and complications in securing and transporting the trunk, he had lingered another day in St. Mary's as the guest of Colonel Robotham, and another and another after that, loath to relinquish the charms of office and Lucy's desperate favors. During this period his host and mistress had alternately cajoled and threatened him: their primary goal was to unite by marriage the house of Cooke and Robotham, and solve thereby all their problems with one stroke; alternatively they vowed to carry the matter into court, despite the uncertain legality of their claim, in hopes that with Cooke's Point for dowry even a pregnant tart could find a willing spouse of decent lineage. But since neither party could bargain from a position of clear strength, the argument was confined to subtle hints and equivocal negations, and Bertrand, having dispatched the trunk some days before, had enjoyed a week of such leisurely diversions and delights as most valets taste only in their dreams.

At week's end, however, he had heard from an unimpeachable barman in Vansweringen's that a man called Eben Cooke, on the Eastern Shore, had signed over his whole estate to a common cooper — whether in some saintly spirit of justice, in satisfaction of some dark and sinister obligation or merely in error was much debated — and that, the conveyance being apparently legal, Cooke himself had fallen mortally ill and was being cared for on his lost estate, in return for marrying the cooper's whore of a daughter.

"This news near felled me," the valet said. "No man doubted I was really Eben Cooke — for ye must grant, sir, whate'er thy principles, I've a knack for playing poet — but they expected me to fly to Dorset at once and turn both the cooper and the rascally impostor out. What's more, 'twas terrible to hear what had befallen ye, and more terrible yet to think of ye lying at death's door, as't were, and obliged to marry some unwashed coney of a serving maid — "

Ebenezer held up his hand. "Forego thy wondrous pity," he said. "I'm sure it soured your dinner at the Colonel's and made you a zestless lover for Miss Lucy."

"It did no less," Bertrand admitted. "Though of course I durst not give the slightest outward sign of't."

"Of course not."

Instead, declared Bertrand, he had confessed to Colonel Robotham that the same traitors to the King who had arranged to have him kidnaped and murdered by pirates were attempting to work his ruin in the Province, lest by the power of his pen he expose their seditious plots to the light of day. It was in anticipation of their schemes that he had sent his man before him to reconnoiter in the guise of Laureate — that same amanuensis who had served him thus, unasked, on earlier occasions — little dreaming that the stratagem would so misfire. The Colonel then, eager to oblige his guest in any way he could, offered to intercede at once with Governor Nicholson, who had a perfect hatred even of debate, to say nothing of insurrection; but Bertrand proposed a quite different plan of attack, so agreeable to the Robothams that as one they laid down their euchre-hands and tearfully embraced him.

"I wait in mortal fear to hear it," said the poet.

" 'Twas as simple as it was effective," the valet sighed, "- or so it seemed at the time I hatched it. I proposed to keep the matter entre nous — "

"Entre nous? Marry, thou'rt learning to scheme in French!"

Bertrand blushed. " 'Tis a word Lucy uses whene'er she means to have profit at some other wight's expense. My plan, I say, was to keep the matter entre nous until I knew more of your plight and how I best might aid ye; I saw no merit in discovering my true name and rank to the Robothams, nor in risking my disguise by taking my troubles to the Governor. I declared I'd given ye the power of attorney, the better to carry out your pose at Laureate, and that this power lent the cooper's title to Cooke's Point a certain slender substance, if 'twere contested in a biased court; for albeit the grant was made by a false Laureate (so I told the Colonel), yet the impostor was my legal agent and proxy, empowered to do my business in my name."

"I swear, thou'rt as grand a casuist as Richard Sowter!" Ebenezer said. Bertrand beamed.

" 'Tis but the giblet-sauce and dressing to what followed, sir: on the heels of't I proposed to marry Mistress Lucy on the instant and offered as my reason that, though her claim as such had no more law in't than a bumswipe, yet 'twas prior to any the traitors might shark up; if I was to support it as author of the note, husband of the claimant, and bona fide Laureate o' Maryland, 'twould cany the day in the Devil's own assizes!"

"Marry come up!" the poet exclaimed. "You meant to steal my estate to go with my name and office!"

" 'Twas stolen already," Bertrand reminded him. "I meant to steal it back to its rightful owner, if I could, whereupon I'd declare my actual name, and Lucy Robotham could go hang for all she'd be my legal wife!" The Colonel, he added, had been pleased with this proposal, and Lucy more than pleased; the marriage had been solemnized at once and consummated beyond cavil, and although he had not been able, as he had hoped, to enter on Lucy's note a clause of relinquishment in favor of her husband, nonetheless he considered Cooke's Point saved.

"I am staggered by this duplicity!" Ebenezer said. "Where is this miserable creature you've deceived, and her poor father? How is't thou'rt cowering in this tavern instead of lording it at Malden?"

"Colonel Robotham hath been on business up the country these two months," Bertrand sighed, "and his daughter hath been with him at my behest. I declared she was in danger from the traitors and must stay with her father at least till her confinement; but the truth of't was, I had been living at the Colonel's whole expense and would be revealed an arrant pauper the day he left. 'Twas my good fortune Lucy had a few pounds saved, that she entrusted to my keeping: 'twas just enough to buy my food and drink, and pay the hire of this verminous chamber." In vain, he said, had he endeavored to learn more news of Ebenezer's plight and to set in motion the legal strategy he had devised: his hands were tied for lack of money and influence until the Colonel's return.

"And in any case, the game is o'er," he concluded gloomily. "Colonel Robotham will return next week to Talbot, and if he doth not learn the truth from your father, he must guess it when he sees the state I'm in. Or else Master Andrew himself will search me out here when he learns thou'rt not at Malden — I had ne'er escaped him this last time had your sister not forewarned me he was coming — "

"Where did you find Anna, and where is she now?"

" 'Twas she found me," said Bertrand, "the very day she stepped ashore in Maryland. She came to find you in this room, where all St. Mary's knows the Laureate hath been quartered, and at first I scarcely knew her, she hath aged so."

Ebenezer winced.

"She was as taken aback at sight of me as was I at sight of her. I told her what I knew of your straits, without mentioning my own, and for all I begged her not to rush in recklessly, there was naught for't but she cross the Bay that afternoon, traitors or no, and either nurse ye back to health or be murthered at your graveside."

"Dear, darling Anna!" Ebenezer cried, and blushed when he recalled Burlingame's discourse of the morning. "What happened then?"

"She found passage in a sloop for the Little Choptank River," said Bertrand. "I spoke to her captain later below stairs, and he told me she'd gone ashore at a place called Tobacco Stick, his closest anchorage to Cooke's Point. Neither I nor any soul else, to my knowledge, hath farther news of her than that."

"Merciful God! No farther news?" A thought occurred to him, so monstrous that the gorge rose in his throat: William Smith was most certainly angry over his flight from Malden in violation of his indenture-bond, and Joan Toast more wrathful still at having been abandoned; suppose poor Anna had fallen into their clutches, and they had taken revenge on her for her brother's deeds!

"Heav'n save her!" he gasped to Bertrand, rising weakly from the chair. "They might have forced her into whoredom! This very minute, for aught we know, some greasy planter or great swart salvage — "

"Hi, sir! What is't ye say?" Bertrand ran alarmed to pound his master on the back, who had fallen into a fit of retching.

"Hire us a boat," Ebenezer ordered, as soon as he caught his breath. "Well set out for Malden this instant, and hang the consequences!" Without mentioning his desertion of Joan Toast, he explained as briefly as he could to the astonished servant the fallen state of Malden, the circumstances of his departure, his rescue by Henry Burlingame, the enormous conspiracy afoot in the Province, and the particular danger awaiting Anna whether or not Andrew arrived before her at Cooke's Point. "I'll tell you more the while we're crossing," he promised. "We daren't lose a minute!"

"I know a captain we might hire," Bertrand ventured, "and I'd as well be murthered by your cooper as by Colonel Robotham when he finds me, but in truth I've no more than a shilling left of Lucy's money. ."

His anger at the man fired anew by this reminder, Ebenezer was ready to chide him further for his abuse of Lucy Robotham, but brought himself up short with a shiver of mortification. "I've money enough," he grumbled, and offered no explanation of its source.

At the waterside they found the captain Bertrand had in mind, and despite the lateness of the afternoon and the unpromising weather, that gentleman agreed, for the outrageous price of three pounds sterling, to carry them to Cooke's Point in his little fishing boat. As they were about to step aboard Ebenezer remembered his scheduled rendezvous at the Statehouse.

"I'faith, I well-nigh forgot — I must leave word for Henry Burlingame, that hath gone to ask John Coode for aid." He smiled at Bertrand's surprise. " 'Tis too long a tale to tell now, but I will say this: that Tim Mitchell who sent you hither was not Captain Mitchell's son at all — 'twas Henry Burlingame."

"Ye cannot mean it!" The valet's face was horror-struck.

"No Christian soul else," the poet affirmed.

"Then ye have more need of prayers than messages," said Bertrand. "God help us all!"

"What rot is this?"

"Your friend need look no farther than his glass to find John Coode," the valet declared. "He is John Coode!"

4: The Poet Crosses Chesapeake Bay, but Not to His Intended Port of Call

" 'Tis gospel truth, I swear't!" Bertrand insisted. "There is no better place for news than a St. Mary's tavern, and I've had eyes and ears wide open these several months. 'Twas common knowledge amongst his hirelings that Tim Mitchell was John Coode in disguise, and now ye've told me your Master Burlingame was Tim Mitchell — b'm'faith, I should have guessed ere now! 'Tis in the very stamp and pattern of the man!"

Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis an assertion not lightly to be matched for implausibility." Nevertheless, he showed no indignation, as he had on other occasions when the valet had aspersed his former tutor.

"Nay, sir, believe me; 'tis as clear as a schoolboy's sums! Only think: Where did ye first hear of this fiend John Coode?"

"From Lord Baltimore, ere I left," Ebenezer replied. "That is — "

"And when did Coode commence his factions and rebellions in the Province? Was't not the very year Burlingame came hither? And is't not true that whene'er Master Burlingame is in England, he tells ye Coode is there too?"

"But Heav'n forfend — "

"D'ye think Master Burlingame could pass for two minutes as Coode with Slye and Scurry, much less make a three-month crossing in their company? 'Tis past belief!"

"Yet he hath a wondrous talent for disguise," the poet protested.

"Aye and he doth, b'm'faith! From all I've heard from yourself and others, he hath posed as Baltimore, Coode, Colonel Sayer, Tim Mitchell, Bertrand Burton, and Eben Cooke, to mention no more, and hath ne'er been found out yet! But what's the chiefest talent of John Coode, if not the same? Hath he not played priest, minister, general, and what have ye? Is't not his wont to travel always incognito, so that his own lieutenants scarce know his natural face?"

"But he was six years my tutor! I know the man!" Even as he made it, Ebenezer realized the vast untruth of this declaration. Although he continued to shake his head as in disbelief, at their ferryman's suggestion he abandoned the idea of returning to the inn to leave a message, and the fishing sloop made way down the St. Mary's River.

" 'Tis all shifting and confounded!" he complained shortly afterwards, when he and Bertrand had retreated from the weather to a tiny shelter-cabin behind the mast. He was thinking not only of Burlingame and the transvaluation of Lord Baltimore and Coode which his former tutor had argued so persuasively that morning (and which, after Bertrand's announcement, seemed most self-incriminating), but for that matter Bertrand, John McEvoy, and virtually everyone else. "No man is what or whom I take him for!"

"There's much goes on." the valet nodded darkly, "that folk like thee and me know naught of. Things are de'il the bit what they seem."

"Why, i'Christ — " Ebenezer gave himself over to exasperated conjecture. "How do I know 'tis Burlingame I've traveled with in the first place, when he alters everything from face to philosophy every time I re-encounter him? Haply Burlingame died six years ago, or is Baltimore's prisoner, or Coode's, and all these others are mere impostors!"

" 'Tis not impossible," Bertrand admitted.

"And this war to the death 'twixt Baltimore and Coode!" Ebenezer laughed sharply. "How do we know who's right and who's wrong, or whether 'tis a war at all? What's to keep me from declaring they're in collusion, and all this show of insurrection's but a cloak to hide some dreadful partnership?"

" 'Twould not surprise me in the least, if ye want to know. I've never trusted that Jacobite Baltimore, any more than I've trusted Mr. Burlingame."

"Jacobite, you say? 'Sheart, what an innocent rustic thou'rt become! Think you King William's not secretly as much in league with James as he is with Louis and the Pope o' Rome? Is't not a well-known fact that More history's made by secret handshakes than by all the parliaments in the world?"

"There's much would surprise an honest man, if he just but knew't," the valet murmured, but he shifted uneasily and stared out at the lowering sky.

"I'faith, thou'rt a greater sage than Socrates, fellow! These sayings of yours should be writ in gold leaf on the entablatures of public buildings, lest any wight forget! What is't but childish innocence keeps the mass o' men persuaded that the church is not supported by the brothel, or that God and Satan do not hold hands in the selfsame cookie-jar?"

"Ah. now, sir, ye go too far!" Bertrand's tone was hushed. "Some things ye know as clear as ye know your name."

Ebenezer laughed again, in the manner of one possessed by fever. "Then you really believe 'tis Eben Cooke thou'rt speaking to? How is't you never guessed I was John Coode?"

"Nay, sir, go to!" the servant pleaded. "Thou'rt undone by thy misfortunes and know not what ye speak! Prithee go to!"

But the poet only leered the more menacingly. "You may fool others by playing some looby of a servingman, but not John Coode! I know thou'rt Ebenezer Cooke, and you'll not escape murthering this time!"

"I'll tell the captain to fetch us back to St. Mary's City at once, sir." Bertrand whined, "and summon a good physician to bleed ye. 'Tis late in the day for a crossing anyhow, and marry, look yonder at the whitecaps on the Bay! Rest and sleep — rest and sleep'll make ye a new man by tomorrow, take my word for't. Only look astern, sir: there's a proper hurricane blowing up! I'll speak to the captain — "

"Nay, man, come back; I'll tease no more." He closed his eyes and rubbed them with thumb and forefinger. " 'Twas just — Ah well, I had a picture in my mind, that I'd forgot till now, and I thought — " He paused to pinch himself unmercifully on the forearm, grunted at the pain of it, and sighed.

"Please, sir, 'tis a frightful storm coming yonder! This wretched toy will go down like stone!"

"And you think we're really here, then, and can drown? This thing I spoke of, that had just jumped to mind — 'twas back in Pudding Lane last March — marry, it seems five years ago! I had been offered a sort of wager with Ben Oliver, an obscene business, and had flee to my room for very mortification — "

" 'Sheart, feel how she rolls and pitches, sir, now we're clear o' land!"

The poet ignored his man's terror. "When I was alone again in my room, I had a perfect fit of shame; I longed to go back and play the man with Joan Toast in the winehouse, but I'd not the courage for't, and in the midst of my brooding I fell asleep there at my writing table."

The roll of the boat threw Bertrand to his knees; his face went white.

" 'Tis all very well, sir, all very well indeed: but I must shout to the captain to turn back! We can fetch Miss Anna another time, when the weather's clear!"

Ebenezer declared they would fetch her now, and went on with his reminiscence. "The thing I just recalled," he said, "was how Joan Toast waked me by knocking on my door, and how I was so amazed to see her, and still so full of sleep, I could not tell to save my life whether 'twas a dream or not. And I remember reasoning clearly 'twas doubtless a cruel dream, for naught so wondrous e'er occurred in natural life. All my joys and tribulations commenced with that knock on the door, and so fantastical are they, I wonder if I am not still in Pudding Lane, still wrapped in sleep, and all this parlous history but a dream."

"Would Heav'n it were, sir!" cried the valet. "Hear that wind, i'Christ, and the sky already dark!"

"I have had dreams that seemed more real," Ebenezer said, "and so hath Anna, many's the time. There was a trick we knew as children: when the lions of Numidia were upon us or we'd fallen from some Carpathian cliff, we'd say, 'Tis but a dream, and now I'll wake: 'tis but a dream, and now I'll wake — and sure enough, we'd wake in our beds in St. Giles in the Fields! Why, we were even wont to wonder, when we talked at night betwixt our two bedchambers, whether all of life and the world were not just such a dream; many and many's the time we came nigh to trying our magical chant upon't, and thought we'd wake to a world where no people were, nor Earth and Sun, but only disembodied spirits in the void." He sighed. "But we ne'er durst try — "

"Try't now, sir," Bertrand pleaded, "ere we're drowned past saying charms! I'God, sir, try't now!"

The poet laughed, no longer feverishly. " 'Twould do you no good in any case, Bertrand. The reason we never tried it was that we knew only one of us could be The Dreamer of the World — that was our name for't — and we feared that if it worked, and one of us awoke to a strange new cosmos, he'd discover he had no twin save in his dream. . What would it profit you if I saved myself and left you here to drown?"

But Bertrand fell to pinching himself ferociously and bawling " 'Tis but a dream, and now I'll wake! 'Tis but a dream, and now I'll wake!"

His concern for the safety of the boat was justified. The sudden half-gale that had blown up from the southwest was piling seas in the open water of the Chesapeake as formidable as any the poet had seen, except during the storm off Corvo in the Azores, and instead of the Poseidon's two hundred tons and two dozen crewmen, his life was riding this time in a gaff-rigged sloop not forty feet long, manned by one white man and a pair of husky Negroes. Already the light was failing, though it could be no later than five in the afternoon; the prospect of sailing through some fifty miles of those seas in total darkness seemed truly suicidal, and at length, despite the urgency of his desire to find Anna, he asked the Captain — a grizzled gentleman by the name of Cairn — whether they had not better return to St. Mary's.

" 'Tis what I've been trying to do this past half hour," the Captain replied sourly, and explained that even with his jib and topsail struck and his mainsail triple-reefed, he had been unable to sail close-hauled back into the Potomac, which lay to windward; so strong were the frequent gusts that the minimum sail required for tacking was enough to dismast or capsize the sloop. The only alternative had been to drop anchor, and even this, according to the Captain, was but a temporary expedient: had the bottom been good holding ground, the anchor pendant would have parted at the first gust; as it was they were dragging to leeward at a great rate and would soon be beyond the depth of the pendant entirely.

"Yonder's Point Lookout," he said, indicating an obscure and retreating point of land in the very eye of the wind. " 'Tis the last land ye'll see this day, if not forever."

Ebenezer felt cold fear. " 'Sbody! D'you mean 'tis over and done with us?"

Captain Cairn cocked his head. "We'll heave to and rig a sea anchor: after that 'tis God's affair."

Thus delivered of his sentiments, he and the Negroes bent a little trysail onto the mainmast to keep the bow to windward and replaced the useless iron grapple with a canvas sea anchor, which, so long as the tide was ebbing towards the ocean, would retard the vessel's northeastern leeway. There was nothing else to be done: when the work was finished the Captain lashed the tiller and took shelter with his passengers in the cabin, which, unfortunately for the crew, had room enough for just three people. Point Lookout very soon vanished, and as if its disappearance had been a signal, darkness closed in immediately, and the wind and rain seemed to increase. The sloop was flung high by each black sea and fell with a slap into the trough behind; the sea anchor, though of value in preventing the boat from broaching to, caused her to nose rather deeply and ship a quantity of water at the bow, which the Negroes were obliged to bail out with a crude wooden bilge pump.

"Poor devils!" Ebenezer sympathized. "Should we not spell them at the pumps and give them some respite in the cabin?"

"No need," the Captain replied. "Three hours shall see the end of't, one way or another, and 'twill keep 'em from freezing in the meantime." What he meant, the poet learned on further interrogating him, was that if the storm did not blow itself out, change direction, or sink them, the present rate and course of their leeway would carry them across the Bay in three hours or so and bring them stern-foremost to the Eastern Shore.

"Then marry come up, we've hope after all, have we not?" Even Bertrand, who had been chattering with cold and fright, displayed some cheer at this announcement.

"Ye've hope o' drowning near shore, at least," the Captain said. "The surf will swamp her in a trice and haply break her up as well."

The valet moaned afresh, and Ebenezer's cheeks and forehead tingled. Yet though the prospect of drowning horrified him no less now than it had when he walked the pirates' plank off Cedar Point, about a dozen miles northwest of their present position, the prospect of death itself, he noted with some awe, held no more terrors. On the contrary: while he would not have chosen to die, especially when Anna's welfare was so uncertain, the thought of no longer having to deal with the lost estate, his father's wrath, and the sundry revelations and characters of Henry Burlingame, for example, was sweet. Delicious Death! Not in broodiest night hours of his growth, when in anguish or fascination he would cease to breathe, hold still his brain, and hear the blood rumble in his ears while he strove dizzily and in vain to suspend the beating of his heart — not even then had cool Oblivion seemed more balmy.

Except to grunt at occasional extraordinary crashes of water or lurches of the boat, no one was much inclined during the period that followed to speak aloud to anyone else. The storm, though uneven in its violence, showed no signs of abating, and could at any moment have swamped or capsized them without warning in a sea too cold and rough for the ablest swimmer to survive more than twenty minutes. Yet thanks to the sea anchor, the indefatigable Negroes at the pump, and an apparent general seaworthiness about the hull, not to mention blind Providence, the vessel remained hove to and afloat through gust after gust, sea after sea — and slipped steadily, if not apparently, to leeward all the while. After a time — which to Ebenezer could as reasonably have been twenty as two hours — the Captain left off stroking his beard and raised his head attentively.

"Hark!" He raised a hand for silence. "D'ye hear that, now?" He threw open the door, stepped onto the deck, and, at the risk of swamping, ordered the Negroes to suspend for a moment both their pumping and the rhythmical chantey with which they paced and lightened their labor. Ebenezer strained his ears, but though the open door amplified the noises of the storm and admitted no small quantity of rain and cold air into the bargain, he could detect no novel sound, nor could he see anything at all.

The Captain bade the crew resume their pumping, without musical accompaniment, and thrust his dripping head into the cabin.

"There's land not far to leeward," he announced. "Ye can hear the surf astern." And upon repeating his cheerless prophecy of some hours before, that one way or another their ordeal would soon be over, he disappeared into the darkness forward.

Then, despite Bertrand's protests that he would rather drown where he sat than outside in the cold and wet, Ebenezer insisted that they too leave the cabin, the better to swim for their lives when the boat went down or broke up in the surf. The rainfall, they found, had considerably diminished, so that the entire length of the boat was visible; but the wind howled as fiercely as ever, blowing the tops from the huge black seas that crashed and shuddered about the hull. And now their new peril was identified, Ebenezer could hear it too — the more profound and rhythmical thundering of invisible breakers to leeward.

Up forward the Captain cut loose the sea anchor, whose efficacy had waned with the run of the tide, and cast the grapple in its place — not with any serious hope of its holding fast on the reckless bottom of the marsh country, but merely to hold his vessel's bow into the wind and delay as long as possible her reaching the breakers. Then he joined his passengers aft and, stroking his beard afresh, listened with them to the ominous rumble astern.

"Why can't we let go the anchor and ride the waves ashore?" the poet inquired. "It seems to me I've read of such a practice."

The Captain shook his head. "Your square stern yaws in a following sea, don't ye know, and wants the proper lift as well: the first good sea would either broach ye to or poop ye." He did not trouble himself to define the latter catastrophe, but advised all hands to divest themselves of boots, coats, wigs, and waistcoats, and to take positions more or less amidships.

"Not I," the valet objected. " 'Tis ten yards the less to swim if I jump here astern."

The Captain shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Stay there, then, and be damned t'ye: we can use your weight to keep her trim. But I'll not answer for't if the whole ship breaks on your idle skull!"

Seeing the flaw in his reasoning, Bertrand grew so ready in the Captain's service that, not content to stop amidships, he moved on the extreme bow of the sloop and might even have attempted the sprit had not one of the Negroes added the complementary caution, perhaps as a tease, that too much weight forward would put the vessel down at the head, already hampered by the drag of the grapple and pendant, and jeopardize her rising to the sea.

"Stay, listen!" the Captain interrupted. "D'ye hear?"

Again they strained their ears. "Naught but the storm and yonder surf, as before," Ebenezer said.

"Aye, but not astern now; 'tis off the larboard quarter!"

Facing aft, he pointed about forty-five degrees to the right, to which invisible location, sure enough, the sound of breakers had moved, although they were apparently much nearer than before.

"What doth it mean?" Ebenezer demanded. "Hath the wind shifted?"

"Not a point," said the Captain. " 'Tis sou'-sou'west, and should have brought us to Hooper's Island square astern. Haply 'tis just some cove or bend o' the shoreline — " He broke off his musing to send one of the Negroes aft, to listen for surf to starboard or astern. But only to eastwards could they hear it, and then east-southeastwards, and then dead south-eastwards, as it moved from the quarter to the larboard beam; and though at first its apparent proximity had increased at a fearful rate, now that the sound was abreast of them it grew no louder, while astern the storm raged on as it had in the middle of the Bay. Clearly, whatever land that surf broke on they were leaving to larboard.

" 'Twas the run o' the tide in the sea anchor," Captain Cairn declared thoughtfully. "It hath dragged us something eastwards of our sternway — which is to say, something south of Hooper's Island. My guess is, 'tis Limbo Straits we're in, and yonder surf is a marsh called Bloodsworth Island. If it is in sooth — I'Christ now, let me think!" He tugged ferociously at his beard, while Ebenezer and Bertrand watched with awe. "No surf astern yet, or to starboard?" he demanded again of the Negroes, and was answered in the negative. The breakers to larboard were still moving slowly forward; now the sound reached them from due south — about four points off the larboard bow — and had diminished somewhat in volume, as had the seas in height.

"Is't our ruin or our salvation?" asked the poet, at the same time endeavoring to remember where it was that he had previously encountered the name of the straits.

"It could be either," said the Captain. "If that be Bloodsworth Island yonder, why, there is a cove in the top of't called Okahanikan, just abeam, where we might run for shelter; or we can drift through Limbo Straits and take our chances with the surf on the Dorset mainland. Ye can see the waves are something smaller now we're past that point o' land; if yonder's Okahanikan and we leave't to windward, ye'll soon see 'em large again as e'er they were before. ."

"Then prithee let us run for't!" Bertrand begged.

"On the other hand," the Captain concluded, with a great tug of the whiskers, "if we run for't and it isn't Okahanikan, or we miss the deepest part of't, we're as good as run aground and swamped."

"I say let's try it," Ebenezer urged. "As well risk drowning as freeze for certain." Indeed, stripped of his boots and outer garments, he had never been so cold. His great jaw chattered; he hugged himself and pumped his legs on the pitching deck. He recalled an observation made winters before by Burlingame: once when the twins had marveled at a tale of the tropical heat endured by Magellan or some other voyager of the horse latitudes, their tutor had observed that, given a covering of clothes and ample water, the severest heat is simply more or less uncomfortable and can be dealt with, but cold is in its essence inimical to life. The image of equatorial climate has at its center those swarming beds of procreation, the great rain forests; but to think of what lies above the Arctic Circle is to think of Chaos, oblivion, the antithesis of life. Even thus (so Burlingame had declared to his charges) do men speak of the heat of passions, and refer to various sentiments and social relationships approvingly as warm, forasmuch as the metabolism of life itself is warm; but fear, contempt, despair, and deepest hatred — not to mention facts, logic, analysis, and formality of dress or manner — however involved they may be in the human experience of living, have forever in the nostrils of the race some effluvium of the grave and are described in mankind's languages by adjectives of cold. In sum (Ebenezer remembered Henry concluding with a smile and raking up the fire in his converted summer-house with the ramrod of a Spanish musket on the wall), hot days may well elicit sweat and curses, but chill winds cut through the greatcoats and farthingales of time, knife to the primal memory of the species, shiver that slumbering beast in the caves of our soul, and whisper "Danger!" in his hairy ear. The surf now was a muffled thunder well forward. The Captain ordered the triple-reefed jib and mainsail up and took the helm himself. The Negroes having their hands full with sheets and gaff-halyards, he stationed both passengers forward, Bertrand to take soundings with a pole (the sloop itself, chine-bottomed, drew less than three feet of water, and the keel only two or three more) and Ebenezer to watch and listen for trouble ahead. The luff of the sails cracked like pistol-fire in the wind, and the heavy boom whipped back and forth over the deck. When the anchor pendant had been shortened until the grapple barely held the bow to windward, the Captain put the helm up hard and close-hauled the jib: the bow fell off at once to larboard, both sails filled with a snap that heeled the sloop far over and bid fair to take out her mast, and the anchor was desperately weighed. For a moment the fearful forces hung in balance: surely, Ebenezer thought, the ship must capsize or broach to, or the mast let go, or the shrouds, or the chain plates, or the sails. But as the next great wave rolled under, the Captain eased the helm; the bow pointed just a shade nearer the wind's eye, and to the accompaniment of cheers from the crew, the sloop righted herself to a reasonable angle of heel, took the next crest fairly at forty-five degrees, and gained steerageway due southwards on a sluggish starboard tack.

Almost at once they found themselves in comparatively calm water, though the wind howled as furiously as ever; clearly they were in the lee of whatever land they'd raised, and while their troubles were by no means over, they were temporarily relieved of the danger of losing their ship from under them. Moreover, with the island, or whatever, to break the wind, they were able to proceed with greater caution and control: almost at once, on their southerly bearing, Bertrand touched bottom with his pole and bawled the news aft — indeed, the sound of the wind in reeds and trees could be plainly heard in the darkness ahead. The Negroes at once slacked off the sheets, and the sloop was brought over on a broad reach paralleling the apparent shoreline, with just enough way to steer by. For ten minutes the soundings remained constant, at between nine and ten feet of water, and the trees howled steadily off the starboard beam. Then this land-sound became more general — seemed, in fact, almost to enclose them everywhere but astern — and at the first brush of the keel against the bottom, heard and felt by none besides Captain Cairn, he ordered the anchor dropped and came up into the wind.

"Dear Heav'n!" Ebenezer cried. "Can it be we're safe?"

"Only the wittol can know he is no cuckold," said the Captain, repeating a proverb Ebenezer had heard before, "and only a dead man is safe from death." Nevertheless he stroked his beard with obvious relief and admitted that, barring a shift in the direction of the wind, there seemed to be no reason why they could not ride out the night at anchor.

" 'Tis some manner of cove, right enough," he declared when the vessel was properly secured, "else we'd hear more sea astern, instead of trees. Whether Okahanikan or some other we'll learn anon."

There being, incredibly to Ebenezer, nothing further to do until daybreak, all hands put on the clothes they had discarded some time before and made shift to warm and rest themselves. The chore of standing watch for changes in the weather or other perils was assigned to the exhausted crew until Ebenezer protested that the Negroes had already labored valiantly and prodigiously the whole night through, and volunteered to give up his place in the cabin to them and stand watch with Bertrand in their stead.

"Ye may do as ye please," the Captain replied. "Keep a lookout lest we drag anchor, and take soundings astern if we swing with the tide. For the rest, don't wake me unless the wind comes round and blows into the cove."

Having made these injunctions, he retired, but the Negroes, despite Ebenezer's invitation, made no move to follow after. They had followed the conversation as impassively as if they understood not a word of it, and indeed, judging from their reticence, their difficulties with the English language, and the bashfulness — manifested by averted smiles, great rolls of the eyes, and much shifting of their feet — with which they declined his offer of shelter, the poet concluded that despite their seamanship they were not long out of the jungles. This impression was strengthened not long after, when he commenced his watch with Bertrand: the Negroes spread on the deck between them a spare jibsail, folded once leech to luff, and commencing one at the head and one at the foot rolled themselves up in it against the weather. The adroitness with which they performed this feat gave it an air of outlandish ritual, and when it was done and they lay face to face as snug and immobile as scroll-pins, they entertained themselves for a time with a chuckling, husky-whispered colloquy in some exotic tongue — unintelligible to the Englishmen save for the often-repeated name of their supposed anchorage, Okahanikan, and another recurrent word which (though Ebenezer was not so certain on this head) Bertrand declared with much emotion to be Drakepecker. So moved was he by this conviction, in fact, that he expressed his determination to inquire at once of the Negroes whether they knew any more than he of Drakepecker's welfare and whereabouts and was restrained only by Ebenezer's reminder that their fellow castaway had been clearly a fugitive of some sort, the less said about whom, the better for his safety. The valet was obliged to grant the prudence of this counsel; reluctantly he took up his watch in the vessel's stern, alee of the cabin, where Ebenezer, on his first circuit of the deck a quarter hour later, found him wrapped in a bit of canvas himself, and already asleep.

" 'Sheart, what a hawk-eyed sentry!" He moved to rouse the man, but checked himself and decided to stand the watch alone so long as all went well. He had, at the hour of their departure from St. Mary's, little but contempt and mild disgust for Bertrand, nor had he now, assuredly, any new cause for affection. That he felt it — or at least the absence of its contraries — not only for the valet but also for Henry Burlingame, he could attribute only to the violence of the storm, and more especially to the purgative ordeal of three hours' dancing on the doormat of extinction.

He strolled forward again. The rain had stopped entirely, and though the wind held strong it came now in quick gusts, the intervals between which were mild. But the best sign of all that the storm had blown its worst was the break-up of the lowering blanket of cloud into a heavy black scud that first opened holes for the gibbous moon to breach, then gave way, broke ranks, and fled across its face before the whips of wind like the ragtag of an army in retreat. For the first time since nightfall, Ebenezer could see beyond the white sprit of the sloop: the inconsistent moon disclosed that they were indeed in a cove, a marshy one of ample dimension. The island into which it made was ample too (so much so, that for all the poet could tell it might as reasonably have been the mainland), entirely flat, and, as best one could discern in that light, entirely marshy, its landscape relieved only by the loblolly pine trees, alive and black or dead and silver, that rose in lean clumps here and there from the marsh grass. It was a prospect by no means picturesque, but under the pale illumination stark and beautiful. Ebenezer even thought it serene, for all its bending to the wild wind, just as he felt the Island of his spirit, though by no means tranquil, to be peculiarly serene despite the buffet of past fortune and the sea of difficulties with which it was beset.

So did he savor this reflection, and the spiritual peace from which it had originated, that for a considerable period he was oblivious to wind, weather, and the passage of time; had the tide swung the ship onto a sand bar, or the wind moved round the compass, the change would have escaped his notice. What aroused him, finally, was a sound from the marsh to larboard; he started, saw that the moon had risen a great way into the sky, and wondered whether to rouse the others. But when the sound came again his fears were allayed: it was a hooting chirrup as of doves or owls, some creature of the marsh as glad as he to see the storm pass over.

"Too-hoo!" The call came a third time, louder and more clear, and "Too-hoo!" came a clear reply — not from the adjacent marsh but from the deck immediately at Ebenezer's back. He thrilled with alarm, spun about to see what bird had perched on the vessel's rail, and was seized at once by the Negro crewmen, who had noiselessly unrolled themselves from the jibsail. One pinioned his arms and held fast his mouth before he was able to cry out; the other held a rigging-knife against his throat and called out over the side, "Too-hoo! Too-hoo!" — whereupon, as if materialized spontanetously in the reeds, three canoes slid out of hidden waterways nearby, and half a minute later, to the poet's expressible terror, a party of silent savages was swarming over the rail and creeping with great stealth towards the cabin.

5: Confrontations and Absolutions in Limbo

What with every military advantage — arms, numbers, and absolute surprise — the strange war party of Indians was not long in attaining its objective, which seemed to be the capture of the sloop with all hands. Bertrand and the Captain were wakened with spearheads at their throats and brought forward, the former inarticulate with fright, the latter bellowing and sputtering — first at his captors, then at Ebenezer for not sounding some alarm, and finally and most violently, when he grasped the situation, at the treacherous members of his crew.

"I'll see ye drawn to the scaffold and quartered!" he declared but the Negroes only smiled and turned their eyes as if embarrassed by his threats. The leader of the party spoke sharply in an incomprehensible tongue to one of his lieutenants, who relayed it in another, equally strange language to the Negro sailors, and was answered in the same manner; during their colloquy Ebenezer observed that, though the boarders were dressed almost identically in deerskin match-coats and hats of beaver, racoon, or muskrat, nearly half their number were not Indians at all, but Negroes. The Captain remarked this fact as well and began at once to rail at them for fugitives and poltroons, but his audience gave no sign of understanding. Apparently satisfied that there were no more passengers aboard the sloop and no more vessels in the cove, the raiders then bound their captives at wrist and ankle, handed them bodily over the rail, and obliged them to lie face-down, one to a canoe, throughout a brief but circuitous passage into the marsh, which, like the earlier phases of the coup, was executed in total silence. Presently the canoes were secured to a clump of wax myrtles, the ropes around the prisoners' ankles were exchanged for a longer one that tethered them by the neck in a line, and the party proceeded on foot down a path as meandering as the waterway, and so narrow that even single file it was hard to avoid misstepping into the muck on either side.

"This is outrageous!" Ebenezer complained. "I never dreamed such things still happened in 1694, in the very bosom of the Province!"

"Nor I," the Captain replied, from his post in the van of the prisoners. "Nor e'er heard tell of an Indian town on Bloodsworth Island. I'Christ, 'tis naught but marsh from stem to stern, and not dry ground enough to stand on."

"God save us!" Bertrand groaned — his first words since he'd fallen asleep some hours before. "They'll scalp our heads and burn us at the stake!"

"Whatever for?" the poet inquired. "We've done 'em no injury, that I can see."

" 'Tis e'er the salvages' wont," his valet insisted. "Ye've but to run afoul of one in your evening stroll, and bang! he'll skin your pate as ye'd skin a peach! Why, 'tis still the talk in Vansweringen's how a wench named Kersley was set upon by Indians in Charles County, year before last: she was crossing a field of sot-weed 'twixt her own house and her father's, with the sun still shining and a babe on her arm besides, but ere she reached her husband's door she had been scalped, stuck with a knife, and swived from whipple to Whitsuntide! And again, not far from Bohemia Manor — "

"Be still," the Captain snapped, "ere your own tales beshit ye."

" 'Tis all quite well for you to take your scalping without a word," Bertrand replied undaunted. " 'Twas you steered us hither in the first place — "

"I! 'Sblood and 'sbody, sir, 'tis thy good fortune the salvage hath belayed my two hands, else I'd have thy scalp myself!"

"Gentlemen!" Ebenezer interposed. "Our case is grave enough without such talk! 'Twas I that hired the passage; you may hold me answerable for everything if 'twill ease your minds to do so, though it strikes me we'd do better to give over wondering who got us into this pickle and bend our minds instead to getting out."

"Amen," the Captain grunted.

"Still and all," Bertrand said disconsolately, "I must hold Betsy Birdsall to some account, for had she not rescued me last March in such a deuced clever manner, I'd not be trussed up here like a trout on a gill string."

"Really!" the Captain cried. "Thou'rt unhinged!"

"Stay, prithee stay," Ebenezer pleaded. Since the Captain's first sharp words to Bertrand, the poet's brow had been knitting, and his admonitions were made distractedly. Now he asked the Captain, "Was't not the Straits of Limbo we entered yonder cove from, or did I mishear you?"

"That was my guess, sir," the older man said, "unless the tide fetched us down as low as Holland or Kedge's Straits, which I doubt."

"But if not, the name of the strait is Limbo? And is there a river mouth not far hence, with an Indian name?"

"A hatchful of 'em," the Captain replied, not greatly interested, "and they all have salvage names: Honga, Nanticoke, Wicomico, Manokin, Annamessex, Pocomoke — "

"Wicomico! Aye, Wicomico — 'tis the name Smith mentioned in his Historie!"

The Captain muttered something exasperated, and to avoid being thought deranged by fear like his servant, Ebenezer explained in the simplest way possible what he had been grasping for since the first mention of Limbo Straits and had recalled only with the help of the word beshit: that Captain John Smith of Virginia, almost ninety years previously, had discovered those same straits during his voyage of exploration up the Chesapeake; had, like themselves, encountered a furious storm therein and suffered the additional discomforts of a diarrhetic company; had in consequence of his ordeal bestowed the name Limbo on the place; and finally had been made prisoner, with all his party, by a band of warlike Indians — perhaps the grandfathers of their present captors!

"Ye don't tell me," the Captain said. Neither did Bertrand appear to be overwhelmed by the coincidence, for when to his single inquiry, "Prithee, what came of 'em?" his master confessed that he had not the slightest idea, the valet relapsed into gloom.

But once Ebenezer had wrested the Secret Historie from his memory he could not but marvel at the parallel between John Smith's experience and their own. Moreover, the existence of the Historie itself attested that Smith and at least some of his party had escaped or been freed by their captors. His reflections were interrupted at this point by their arrival at the Indians' town, an assemblage of mean little huts arranged in a thick circle upon an island of relatively high ground. There seemed to be well over a hundred in all, dome-shaped affairs of small logs and thatched twigs; surrounded as they were by the marsh, they resembled nothing so much as a colony of muskrat houses, the more since their occupants were cloaked and capped with fur. The citizenry appeared to be sleeping: except for a single hidden sentry who challenged their approach with a "Too-hoo!" from his post in a nearby brush clump, and was answered in kind, the town was as still as one deserted.

" 'Tis passing queer," the Captain grumbled. "Never saw an Indian town without a pack o' curs about."

But if the silence of the village was disconcerting, what broke it a few moments later was nothing less than extraordinary: they had passed through the ring of dwellings to a clearing or open court in the center of the town, and during a whispered colloquy between the leader and his black lieutenant there came from a hut not far away a sudden wailing that raised the poet's hackles. Through his fancy, in half a second, passed the various Indian cruelties he had learned of from Henry Burlingame: how they bit the nails from their victims' fingers, twisted the fingers themselves from the hands, drove skewers into the remaining stumps, pulled sinews from the arms, tore out the hair and beard, hung hot hatchets around the neck, and poured hot sand on scalped heads.

"Marry come up!" breathed the Captain, and Bertrand's teeth began to chatter. The wail changed pitch and tone and changed again a moment afterwards, and again, but not until the wailer drew fresh breath and recommenced did the prisoners grasp the nature of the sound.

"Dear God in Heav'n!" Ebenezer gasped. " 'Tis someone singing!"

And monstrous unlikelihood through it was, the prisoners recognized the sound to be in truth the voice of a singing man — a tenor, to be exact. This in itself was wonder enough; far more incongruous was the fact that his words (viewed retrospectively from this understanding) were not in a savage tongue at all, but in clear King's English: I. . saw. . my-y la-a-dy weep was the line he'd sung, and, having drawn his breath, he continued: And Sor-row proudt. . to be advanced so. .

"B'm'faith, 'tis another Englishman!"

"So much the worse for him," the Captain replied, "but no better for us."

"In those fair eyes," the singer went on, "in those. . fair eyes. ."

"I wonder he hath the spirit to sing," Bertrand marveled, "or his jailer's leave."

This latter, at least, it seemed he did not have after all, for in the course of his next asseveration — "Where all perfections keep. ." — he broke into an unmelodious cursing, the substance of which was that if the so-and-so salvages couldn't let a poor condemned so-and-so sing a so-and-so song without poking their pigstickers into his so-and-so B-flat, they had better cut his so-and-so throat that instant, and be damned to them.

"I swear," Ebenezer said, "I have heard that voice before!"

"Haply 'tis the ghost of your Captain What-ye-may-call-him," the Captain suggested sourly.

"Nay, i'God — " If he had intended to say more, he was prevented from doing so by the Indians, who, their parley finished, gave a jerk on the neck-tether and led the prisoners toward the very hut which held the disgruntled tenor. At its entrance they were unstrung and refettered individually as for the canoe-passage; throughout the operation Ebenezer squinted his face and shook his head incredulously, and when upon another armed Indian's emerging from the hut the tenor at once began his song afresh, the poet moaned again "I'God!" and trembled all over.

Two men then laid hold of Bertrand, who stood nearest the entrance to the hut, forced him to his knees, and with the assistance of a spearpoint obliged him to crawl through the little doorway, whinnying protests and pleas for clemency. The Captain too, now that imprisonment was at hand, let go a fresh torrent of threats and mariner's oaths, to no avail: down upon his knees he went, and through the dark hole after Bertrand.

"I say!" the original tenant complained, breaking off his song at the ruckus. "This is too much! What is't now? 'Sheart! Did I hear an honest English curse there? Hallo, another!" Ebenezer's turn had come to scramble after. "D'ye mean we've enough for four-man shove-ha'penny? Who might you gentlemen be, to come calling so late in the day?"

"A pair of travelers and an innocent shipmaster," the Captain answered, "blown hither by the storm and betrayed by two black devils of a crew!"

"Ah, there's your crime," the other prisoner said. The hut was dark, so that although in its small interior the Englishmen lay like logs in a woodbox, they could not see their companions even faintly. Their jailer, after receiving instructions from the Indian leader, remained on guard outside, and the raiding party dispersed.

"What crime?" the Captain protested. "I've ne'er laid an angry hand on the rascals since the day I bought "em!"

" 'Tis enough ye bought 'em," replied the tenor. "More than enough. I ne'er bought or sold a black man in my life, nor harmed a red — how could I, i'faith, that's but a runaway redemptioner myself? — but 'twas enough I matched the color of them that did."

"What is this talk of slaves and colors?" Bertrand demanded. "D'ye mean they'll scalp poor hapless servingmen like myself?"

"Worse, friend."

"What could be worse?" the valet cried.

"By'r voice I'd judge ye sing a faltering bass," the other declared. "But if they do the trick they've set their minds to, well all be warbling descants within the week."

Of the three new prisoners only Ebenezer grasped the meaning of this prediction; yet though horrified by it, he was too disconcerted, even confounded, by his prior astonishment to interpret the figures for his comparisons. Their host, however, the invisible tenor, did so at once in plainest literal English, to the consternation of Bertrand and the Captain.

"I've not been in this wretched province many months," said he, "but I know well the Governor hath enemies on every side — Jacobites and John Coode Protestants within, Andros to the south, and the Frenchman to the north — so that he lives in daily fear of insurrection or invasion. Yet his greatest peril is one he little dreams of: the complete extermination of every white-skinned human being in Maryland!"

"Fogh!" cried the Captain. "They're but one town against a province!"

"Far from it," the tenor replied. "Few white men know this town exists, but it hath lain hid here many a year; 'tis the headquarters, as I gather, for a host of mutinous salvage chiefs, and a haven for runaway Negroes. All the disaffected leaders are smuggling in this week for a general council of war, and ourselves, gentlemen, will be eunuched and burnt for their amusement."

At this news Bertrand set up such a howling that their guard thrust in his head, jabbed randomly in the dark with the butt end of his spear, and muttered threats. The tenor replied with cheerful curses and remarked, when the guard withdrew, "I say, there were three of ye came in, but I've heard only two speak out thus far: is the other wight sick, or fallen a-swoon, or what?"

" 'Tis not fright holds my tongue, John McEvoy," the poet said with difficulty. " 'Tis shock and shame!"

The other prisoner gasped. "Nay, i'faith! 'Tis past belief! Ah! Ah! Too good! Ah, marry, too wondrous good! Tell me 'tis not really Eben Cooke I hear!"

"It is," Ebenezer admitted, and McEvoy's wild laughter brought new threats from the guard.

"Oh! Ah! Too good! The famous virgin poet and reformer o' London whores! 'Twill be a joy to see you roasting by my side. Aha! Oh! Oh!"

"It ill becomes you to rejoice," the poet replied. "You set out a-purpose to ruin my life, but whate'er injury or misfortune you've suffered at my hands hath been no wish of mine at all."

"Marry!" Bertrand exclaimed. "Is't the pimp from Pudding Lane, sir, that tattled to Master Andrew?"

"I take it ye gentlemen know each other," the Captain said, "and have some quarrel betwixt ye?"

"Why, nay," McEvoy answered, "no quarrel at all; 'tis only that I made his fortune — albeit by accident — and out of gratitude he hath wrecked my life, hastened my death, and ruined the woman I love!"

"Yet not a bit of't by design, and scarce even with knowledge," Ebenezer countered, "whereas 'twill please you to know your revenge hath surpassed your evillest intentions. I have suffered at the hands of rogues and pirates, been deceived by my closest friend, swindled out of my estate, and obliged to flee forever in disgrace from my father; what's more, in following me here, my sister hath been led into Heav'n knows what peril, while poor Joan Toast — " Here he was overwhelmed with emotion and lost his voice.

"What of her?" snapped McEvoy.

"I will say only what I presume you saw at Malden: that she hath suffered, and suffers yet, inconceivable tribulations and indignities, in consequence of which she is disfigured in form and face and cannot have long to live."

McEvoy groaned. "And ye call me to blame for't, wretch, when 'twas you she followed? I'Christ, if my hands were free to wring your neck!"

"I have a burthen of guilt, indeed," Ebenezer admitted. "Yet but for your tattling to my father you'd ne'er have lost her; or, if you had, 'twould've been to Pudding Lane and not to Maryland. In any case, she'd not have been raped by a giant Moor and infected with the pox, or ruined by opium, or whored out nightly to a barnful of salvages!"

At the pronouncement of each of these misfortunes McEvoy moaned afresh; hot tears coursed from the poet's eyes, ran cold across his temples and into his ears.

"Whate'er thy differences, gentlemen," the Captain put in, " 'tis little to the purpose to air 'em this late in the day. All our sins will soon enough be rendered out, and there's an end on't."

"Aiee!" Bertrand wailed.

"True enough," McEvoy sighed. "The man who won't forgive his neighbor must needs have struck a wondrous bargain with his own conscience."

"The best of us," Ebenezer agreed, "hath certain memories in the night to make him sweat for shame. Once before, in Locket's, I forgave you for your letter to my father; yet 'twas a bragging sort of pardon, inasmuch as what you'd done had seemed to make my fortune. Now I have lost title, fortune, love, honor, and life itself, let me forgive you again, McEvoy, and beg your own forgiveness in return."

The Irishman concurred, but admitted that since Ebenezer had at no time set about deliberately to injure either him or Joan Toast, there was little or nothing to be forgiven.

"Not so, friend — i'Christ, not so!" The poet wept, and related as coherently as he could his trials with Captain Pound, the rape of the Cyprian, his bargain with the swine-girl, the loss of his estate, and his obligatory marriage to Joan Toast. In particular he dwelt upon his responsibility in Joan's downfall, her solicitude during his protracted seasoning, and the magnanimity of her plan for their flight to England, until not only himself and McEvoy, but the whole imprisoned company were sniffling and weeping at her goodness.

"For reward," Ebenezer went on, "she asked no more than that I give her my ring for hers, to make her feel less a harlot, and that she be given the honor of providing for me in London — "

"As she did for me," McEvoy reverently interposed.

The Captain sniffled. "She is a Catholic saint of a whore!"

"And to think I spoke so freely to her at Captain Mitchell's," Bertrand marveled, "when we thought her but a scurfy wench of a pig-driver!"

"Stay, sirs," Ebenezer demanded sadly; "you have not heard the beginning of my shame. D'you think, when she made this martyr's proposition, I refused to hear of't, but ordered her off to England on her own six pounds and promised to rejoin her when I could? Or did I, at the very least, go down on my knees before such charity and kiss the hem of her ragged dress? Imagine the very worst of me, sirs: d'you suppose I merely thanked her with great feeling, let her whore up her boat fare from the Indians in the curing-house, and sailed off with her to be her pimp in London?"

"God forgive ye if ye did," the Captain murmured.

"Should God forgive me thrice o'er," said Ebenezer, "I would bear still a weight of guilt sufficient to drag ten men to Hell. The fact is, gentlemen, I accepted the six pounds, sent her off to the curing-house — and fled alone to the bark in Cambridge! What say you to that, McEvoy?"

"Forgiven, forgiven!" cried the Irishman. "And God save us all! Methinks the fire that cooks our flesh will be cool beside the flames that roast our souls!"

Some minutes passed in silence while the company reflected on the story and their fate. Presently, in a calmer voice, Ebenezer asked McEvoy what ill fortune had led him to Bloodsworth Island. The query elicited a number of great sighing curses, after which, and several false starts, McEvoy offered the following explanation:

"I am but two-and-twenty, sirs, as near as one can reckon that hath not the faintest notion of his birth date; but i'faith, I've been an old man all my life! My earliest memory is of singing for ha'pennies by Barking Church, for a legless wretch named Patcher that called himself my father; I was half dead o' cold and like to faint away from hunger — for de'il the crust I'd see of a loaf old Patcher bought with my earnings! — and the reason I recall it, I had to sing myself alive, as't were, or fall down in the snow, yet I durst not unclench my teeth lest they ruin the song with chattering. Old Patcher must needs have been a music-master, for whene'er I strayed a quaver out o' key he'd cane me into tune with his hickory-crutch. Many's the lutist that can play with his eyes closed, but I'll wager 'tis a rare tenor can sing a com-all-ye with his jaws shut fast!

"Yet sing 'em I did, and true as gospel, nor did I e'er lament my plight or rail at Patcher in my mind; in sooth, 'twas not his cruelty made me vow to be shed of him but his mistakes upon the lute he played to accompany my songs! Some winters later, when I was stronger and he weaker, we were working Newgate Market in a blizzard; Patcher's fingers were that benumbed, he played as I might with the toes o' my feet, and the sound so offended my ear, I flew into a passion, snatched up the hickory-crutch, and laid him low with a clout aside the head. So doth the pupil repeat his lesson!"

"You killed him, then?" asked Ebenezer.

"I did not tarry to find out," McEvoy laughed. "I snatched up his lute and fled. But Newgate Market was near deserted, and the weather freezing, and though I begged my way through London for many a year after, singing the songs he taught me and playing on his lute, I ne'er saw old Patcher again. Thus ended my apprenticeship: I joined the ranks of those who get their living from the streets, a journeyman musician and master beggar, and my own man from that day to this."

"Unhappy child!"

McEvoy sniffed. "So speaks the virgin poet."

"Nay, John; for all your trials you were still an innocent amongst the wolves."

"Say rather a whelp amongst his elders, and no mean hand at wolfing. My virginity I lost to the whores that nursed my boyish ailments, but innocence I never lost, nor fear nor faith in God and man — for the reason one cannot lose what he never hath possessed. I played in taverns for my bed and board, and whene'er I wanted money — but 'tis no news to the Laureate that your true artist need not be handsome to please the ladies; his talent serves for face, place, and grace together, and for all he hath been sired by a legless beggar upon a drunken gutter-tart, if his art hath power to stir he may be wined and dined by dukes and spread the knees of young marquesas! In short, when I grew fond of inventing melodies, I invested in the love of wealthy women — "

"Invested!" cried Bertrand, who to this point had expressed no interest in the tale.." 'Tis a rare investment that pays cash dividends on no capital!"

"Nay, don't mistake me," McEvoy said seriously. "Time was my capital, the precious mortal time one wastes a-wooing; and my return was time as well — hours bought from singing for my supper, and from doing the hundred mean chores a poor man doth for himself perforce. 'Twas an investment like any other, and I chose it for a proper tradesman's reason: it paid a higher return on my capital than did aught else, in mortal time."

"Yet you must own 'twas something callous," ventured the poet.

"No more than any honest business," McEvoy insisted. "If hearts were injured, why, the wounds were self-inflicted; I promised naught, and kept my promise, and there's an end on't."

"But surely Joan Toast — "

"I have said naught o' Joan Toast," the Irishman reproved. " 'Tis the wives and daughters o' the rich I did my business with, that call their pandering patronage, and are much given to fornication in the noble cause of Art. Joan Toast was a penceless guttersnipe like myself — and an artist as well, in her way, only her instruments were different from my own."

"Ha! Well said!" cried Bertrand. Ebenezer made no comment.

"I was eighteen when first I met her: she had been hired to service a certain debauched young peer, whose wife, not to be outdone, hired me to play the same game with herself. The four of us sat down to pheasant and Rhenish, for all the world like two pairs o' newlyweds, which much pleased his lordship's fancy; in sooth, as the wine got hold of him he made a series of lewd proposals, each more unnatural than the one before. And since perversion, like refinement, is an arc, the which, if ye but extend it far enough, returns upon itself, by the evening's end naught tickled the wretch so much as the thought of taking his wife to bed! Joan Toast and I were turned out together, and as we'd done no more than eat a meal to earn our hire, we made a night of't in her little room near Ludgate. E'en then, at seventeen, she was the soul o' worldliness: fresh and full of spirit as a blooded colt, but her eyes were old as lust, and in her gestures was the history of the race. Small wonder his lordship craved her: she was the elixir of her sex, and who swived her swived no woman, but Womankind!

"We stayed some days there in her chamber, sending out for food till our hire was spent; when we went down again together to the street, 'twas with a certain pact between us, that lasted till the night o' your wager with Ben Oliver."

"In plain English," remarked the Captain, "ye was her pimp."

"In plainer," McEvoy replied without hesitation, "we twain were to the arts o' love like the hands o' the lutist to his music: together, at our proper work, we could set Heaven's vaults a-tremble; all else was the common business of survival, to be got o'er by whatever means were most expedient. I'd no more have quarreled with her arrangements than I'd quarrel with the sum o' history, or cavil at the patterns of the stars."

"For all that," Bertrand remarked, "thou'rt no nearer Maryland now than when ye started, and this night shan't last forever."

"Let him tell on," the Captain said. " 'Tis either a tale or the Shuddering Fearfuls in straits like these."

"Aye, John, tell on," Ebenezer encouraged. "How is't you knew Joan Toast had followed me? And how is't you fell into Tom Tayloe's hands?"

"Tayloe! Ye've heard o' Tom Tayloe and me?"

Ebenezer explained the circumstances of his acquaintanceship with the corpulent seller of indentured servants. McEvoy was vastly amused; indeed, he laughed as heartily at the news of Tayloe's indenture to the cooper William Smith as if he were hearing the story in Locket's instead of a prison-hut, and the Captain was moved to observe, "Methinks 'tis he should be merry, not you, sir; he hath the better bargain after all!"

"Aye and he hath," Ebenezer agreed. "But e'en were we not here in the very vestibule of death, 'twould ill become us to jest at the man's bad luck."

McEvoy laughed again. "What humanists death hatches out of men! Ye have forgot what a worthless wretch Tom Tayloe was, that preyed on masters and servants alike!"

"A wretch he might have been," the poet allowed, "and deserving of your prank; but his time is no less mortal than our own, and to rob him of four years of't is to carry the jest too far." He sighed. "I'Christ, when I think of the weeks and years I've squandered! Precious mortal time! I begrudge every day I spend not writing verse!"

"And I every night I slept alone in London," Bertrand said fervently.

"As for that," the Captain put in, "what matter if a man lives seven years or seventy? His years are not an eyeblink to eternity, and de'il the way he spends 'em — whether steering ships or scribbling verse, or building towns or burning 'em — he dies like a May fly when his day is done, and the stars go round their courses just the same. Where's the profit and loss o' his labors? He'd as well have stayed abed, or sat his bum on a bench."

Although Ebenezer stirred uneasily at these words, remembering his state of mind at Magdalene College and in his room in Pudding Lane, he nevertheless reaffirmed his belief in the value of human time, arguing from the analogy of precious stones and metals that the value of commodities increases inversely with their supply where demand is constant, and with demand where supply is constant, so that mortal time, being infinitesimal in supply and virtually infinite in demand, was therefore infinitely precious to mortal men.

"Marry come up!" McEvoy cried impatiently. "Ye twain remind me of children I saw once at St. Bartholomew's Fair, queued up to ride in a little red pony cart. ."

He did not bother to explain his figure, but Ebenezer understood it immediately, or thought he understood it, for he said, "Thou'rt right, McEvoy; there is no argument 'twixt the Captain and myself. I recall the day my sister and I turned five and were allowed an extra hour 'twixt bath and bed. Mrs. Twigg would set her hourglass running there in the nursery; we could do whate'er we wished with the time, but when the sand had run 'twas off to bed and no lingering. I'faith, what a treasure that hour seemed: time for any of a hundred pleasures! We fetched out the cards, to play some game or other — but what silly game was worth such a wondrous hour? I vowed I'd build a castle out of blocks, and Anna set to drawing three soldiers upon a paper — but neither of us could pursue his sport for long, for thinking the other had chosen more wisely, so that anon we made exchange and were no more pleased. We cast about more desperately among our toys and games — whereof any one had sufficed for an hour's diversion earlier in the day — but none would do, and still the glass ran on! Any hour save this most prime and measured we had been pleased enough to do no more than talk, or watch the world at work outside our nursery window, but when I cried 'Heavy, heavy hangs over thy head,' to commence a guessing game, Anna fell straightway to weeping, and I soon joined her. Yet e'en our tears did naught to ease our desperation; indeed, they but heightened it the more, for all the while we wept, our hour was slipping by. Now bedtime, mind, we'd ne'er before looked on as evil, but that sand was like our lifeblood draining from some wound; we sat and wept, and watched it flow, and the upshot of't was, we both fell ill and took to heaving, and Mrs. Twigg fetched us off to bed with our last quarter hour still in the glass."

"Which teaches us — ?" questioned McEvoy.

"Which teaches us," Ebenezer responded sadly, "that naught can be inferred to guide our conduct from the fact of our mortality. Nonetheless, if Malden were mine, I'd set Tom Tayloe free."

"But in the meanwhile I may laugh at him all I please," McEvoy added, "which — philosophy be damned — is what I'd do in any case. D'ye want to hear my tale or no?"

Ebenezer declared that he did indeed, although in fact his interest in McEvoy's adventures waned with every speeding minute of the night, and he felt in his heart that his digression had been considerably more germane to their plight.

"Very well, then," the Irishman began; "the fact of't is, I had at first no mind at all to come to Maryland. When Joan Toast left me I knew we were over and done — 'tis her wont to give all or naught, as well ye know — yet no folly is too immense for the desperate lover, nor any contrary fact so plain that Hope cannot paint it to his colors. To be brief, I feared she'd follow ye off to Maryland, and in order to intercept her I took lodgings in the posthouse, put on my grandest swagger, and gave out to all and sundry I was Ebenezer Cooke, the Laureate of Maryland. ."

' 'Sheart, another!" Ebenezer cried. "Maryland hath an infestation of laureate poets!"

" 'Twas a wild imposture," McEvoy said good-humoredly. "Heav'n knows what I meant to do if Joan Toast sought me out! But in any case my tenure was wondrous brief: I had scarce raised a general toast to the Maryland muse ere a gang of bullies burst in with some tale of a stolen ledger-book, and being told I was Master Eben Cooke the poet, they straightway hauled me off to jail."

"La, now!" laughed Bertrand. "There's a mystery cleared, sirs, that hath plagued me these many months whene'er I thought of't! When I came to the posthouse to hide from Ralph Birdsall's knife — that I wish I'd suffered, and been a live eunuch instead of a dead one! — what I mean, when I asked about for the Laureate, I heard he'd been fetched off to prison. 'Twas that very tragedy inspired me to take his place and flee to Plymouth; yet when Master Eben found me on the Poseidon, he vowed he'd ne'er been set upon by Ben Bragg's men and thought me a liar. Doth this news not absolve me, sir?"

"No fear of that," replied the poet. " 'Tis too late in the day for aught but general absolution. There are some small lacunae yet, as't were, in the text of your pretty tale — but let them go. What did you then, McEvoy? I pray you were not held long for my little theft."

"Only till the following morn," McEvoy said, "when Bragg came round and saw he'd hooked the wrong fish. By then I'd lost my taste for farther nonsense; I resolved to quit my search for Joan and commence the mighty labor of forgetting her. I returned to my old pursuits among the wealthy, but though I had some small success at first, my years with Joan had spoiled me: the ladies felt a small scorn in my rutting, belike, or heard some certain coldness in my voice. . In any case I was soon unemployed and anon was driven to lute it on the street-corners for my living, by Botolph's Wharf and the Steel Yard, and Newgate Market, where my life began. What I earned I spent on whores, to no avail: when a man hath lain a thousand nights with his beloved and no other, he knows her from crown to sole with all his senses — every muscle, every pore, every sigh; every action of her limbs and heart and mind he knows as he knows his own. Put some other wench beside him in the dark: her mere displacement of the air he feels at once as an alien thing; the simple press of her on the pallet is foreign to his senses; her very breathing startles him, so different in pitch and rhythm! She puts out an ardent hand: his flesh recoils as from some brute-o'-the-forest's paw. They come together: i'Christ, how clumsy! — their arms, that would embrace, knock elbows or can find no place to lie; their legs entangle, that would entwine; their chins and noses will not fit. He would caress her: he pokes her ribs instead, or scratches her with a hangnail. Some amorous word or gesture takes him by surprise: he is unmanned, or like a green recruit, shoots his bolt ere the issue is fairly joined. In short, though he hath been to his beloved a master lutesman upon his lute, now he finds he hath bestrode a violincello, whereof he knows not gooseneck from f-hole; he hits no string aright, fingers blindly to no purpose, and in the end hath but a headache from his plucking."

The whole company, despite their position, were amused by this apostrophe; but the Irishman resumed his discourse in a sober voice:

"Seeing that whores were not my medicine, I turned to rum and soaked myself to oblivion each night. My hands grew clumsy on the lute, my voice thickened and cracked, my ear went dull, and every night required more rum than the night before; so that anon I could not beg enough to drink on, and had perforce to turn to theft to gain my ends. Then one night — 'twas a full three months after your departure — a sailorman gave me a shilling to sing Joan's Placket Is Torn for him, and when I had done, declared himself so pleased that he filled me with rum at his own expense. 'Twas my guess he had some queer design — and little I cared, so he let me drink my fill! But I was wrong. ."

"God help ye, then," the Captain muttered. "I can guess the rest: Ye was spirited off?"

"I fell senseless in some inn near Baynard's Castle," McEvoy said, "and woke fettered in the 'tweendecks of a moving ship. At first I had no notion whither we sailed or to what end I had been kidnaped, but anon some among us, that went unfettered, declared they were redemptioners bound for Maryland and explained 'twas not uncommon for a certain sort of captain to fill out his cargo with wharf rats like myself and the half-dozen others who had waked to find themselves leg-ironed to a ship.

"Presently the first mate made us a speech, whereof the substance was that we were in his debt for being saved from our old profligacy and ferried without charge to a land where we might build our lives anew, and that any man of us who honored this obligation and pledged himself to act accordingly would be freed of his leg iron then and there. All the rest were glad enough to swear whatever lying pledge he pledged 'em, but when I saw that this pious first mate was the very wretch who had undone me the night before, I let fly such a grapeshot of curses that he ruined my mouth with his boot and swore he'd starve me into virtue or into Hell ere the voyage was done.

"Now a man like me, that hath been an orphan beggar all his life and feels neither shame nor poverty, is as free a man as any thou'rt like to find, and 'tis no wonder he grows most jealous of his liberty. 'Tis true I'd been jailed not long since for petty stealing, and once ere that when I posed as Laureate; but both times 'twas my own misdoings brought me to jail, and since by liberty is meant one's rights, 'tis no loss of liberty to be justly jailed for crime. Contrariwise, 'tis a gross offence against liberty to be fettered against one's wishes and for no just cause, and the wights who swore that scandalous oath to shed their leg irons, so far from gaining any liberty thereby, did but surrender the dearest liberty of all — the right to rail against injustice."

"There is much wisdom in what you say," Ebenezer remarked, considerably impressed by McEvoy's words and humbled anew, not only by his suspicion that under similar circumstances he would not have displayed such integrity, but also by his conviction — no less disquieting for its present irrelevancy — that McEvoy was far more worthy of Joan Toast than was he, and had been so from the beginning.

"Wise or foolish, 'twas my sentiment in the matter," McEvoy said, "and albeit I tasted the whoreson's leather oft and oft in the days that followed, at least 'twas ne'er by licking his boots I learnt the flavor. He did not quite starve me to death as he had promised, whether because he took such pleasure in kicking me or because he was loath to let me perish unrepentant. I was moved from the 'tweendecks into the hold lest I start a mutiny by my example, and I ne'er saw daylight again till the end of the voyage, when they fetched me up on deck to sell with the rest."

"Whereupon," Ebenezer put in, "if Tayloe told me aright, you straightway leaped into the river and made for your liberty — but they fished you out."

"Aye, and saved my life, for I learned too late I had not strength enough to swim ten strokes. And on reflection it seemed a fair choice to go with Tayloe; I judged his brains to be as swinish as his manner, and guessed 'twould be no great matter to outwit him at the proper moment. I only wish my friend Dick Parker had been less rash — but I've not told ye about Dick Parker, have I? No matter: we swim in an ocean of story, but a tumblerful slakes our thirst. Besides, the night's nigh done, is't not? To conclude, then, gentlemen; I bartered Tom Tayloe for a horse, as Eben hath told — and a foundered jade at that, but worth a score o' servant-brokers — and since I'd learnt I was in Maryland I resolved to ride out privily to Cooke's Point, merely to satisfy myself that Joan was there and happy in her choice." He laughed. "La, what rot is that? I rode out in hopes she'd had her fill of innocence! I knew my wretched case would move her to pity and I prayed she might mistake that pity for love. 'Twas a desperate piece o' wishing and proved false in two respects: her plight, I found, was far more wretched than mine, but neither pox nor opium nor cruelty, nor the face o' death itself — how much less pity! — could turn her from her course once she had set it.

"I did not tarry: Tom Tayloe, I supposed, would turn the country inside out to find the fugitive that gulled him. I resolved to make my way to Virginia, if I could find it, or Carolina, and haply join some crew o' pirates. To this end I joined company with a runaway Negro slave that had been chained with me in the ship's hold — one o' Parker's chief lieutenants, he was, named Bandy Lou, that had learnt a mickle English. 'Twas his idea we make for Bloodsworth Island, which he had heard was a-swarm with fugitives like ourselves. We didn't know they love a white man as the Devil loves holy water, and when we learned it, 'twas all too late: Bandy Lou they welcomed as a brother, but me, for all his pleadings, they trussed up and put aside against the day — "

"Hi there!" the Captain interrupted. "What's that I hear?"

McEvoy left his sentence unfinished, and the prisoners strained to listen. From far off in the marshes came a series of sharp cries, like the cawing of a crow, and the guard outside their hut responded in kind.

"Some new arrivals to the grand Black Mass," McEvoy murmured. "They've been coming in every night this week."

The signal cries were repeated, and then in the distance the prisoners could hear a deep, rhythmical mutter, as of many men rumbling a soft chant as they marched. The sentry outside sprang up and cried to the slumbering village some terse announcement, which effected an immediate stir among the huts. People chattered and bustled about the square; sharp orders were issued; new logs clumped and crackled on the fire; and the chant grew clearer and stronger all the while.

"I'faith, 'tis like no Indian song I've heard before," the Captain whispered.

"Nay, 'tis a black man's chanting, by the pitch and rhythm of't," McEvoy replied. "I heard Dick Parker and Bandy Lou sing the like of't in the ship's hold, and the Africans hereabouts have done the same for the last few nights. 'Sheart, but it makes the hackles rise! 'Tis no good news for us, me-thinks."

"Why is that?" Ebenezer asked sharply.

"They have been waiting for their two chief men to smuggle across the Bay," McEvoy said. "One is the leader of the blacks, and the other's the strongest of the salvage kings that the Governor hath unseated. That much I know from Bandy Lou, that whispered to me some days back through the wall of this hut. They've ne'er been reckless enough to sing so loud before: I'll wager 'tis their majesties have come to town, and the circus is ready to start."

And indeed, as the new arrivals filed into the common, the villagers took up the chant, cried out wild cries, beat drums to mark the rhythm, and — as best the prisoners could judge from sound alone — commenced some vigorous dance around the fire. Bertrand sucked his breath and moaned, and Ebenezer began to tremble involuntarily in every limb. Not even McEvoy could quite preserve his self-control: he fell to intoning oaths and curses in a hissing whisper, like paternosters recited with teeth on edge.

Only Captain Cairn remained calm. " 'Twere folly to wait for their tortures," he declared soberly. "We're all dead men at the end of the chapter, why should we suffer ten times o'er for their heathen pleasure?"

"What is't you propose?" Ebenezer demanded. "Suicide? Methinks I'd gladly take my own life and have done with't."

"We've no means to do the job ourselves," the Captain said. "But it may be still in our hands to die fast or a piece at a time. If they carry us out bodily there's no hope, but if they string us together by the neck and free our feet to walk, as they did before, we must make a run for't, all together, and pray they'll stop us with spears and arrows."

" 'Twould never work," McEvoy scoffed. "They'd simply overhaul us and fetch us back to their carving-knives."

Bertrand wailed.

"Besides," McEvoy added, "I am a Catholic, albeit no model parishioner, and I shan't destroy myself in any case."

"Then here's a better plan," said the Captain, "that ye may help us in with no harm to your faith. Our hands and feet are bound, but we have still the movement of our knees: let Mr. Cooke's man place his neck 'twixt his master's legs, and me place my neck 'twixt yours, and we twain be throttled without delay to end our miseries. Then do ye the same for Mr. Cooke, when he hath done, and thou'rt left to be murthered as ye wish by the Indians. What say ye to that?"

"I'God!" whispered Ebenezer; yet appalled though he was by the old man's proposal, he could scarcely deny that being strangled was less painful than being emasculated and burnt alive.

As it turned out, he was not obliged to choose; the celebration presently subsided, and day dawned to find the prisoners still unmolested. Too anxious to feel much relief, they regarded one another silently — McEvoy, Ebenezer observed, had lost a quarter of his weight and some of his teeth, and had of necessity grown a beard — nor were they ever again as talkative as they had been that first night. The days passed — two, seven, ten — and though the prisoners were never once permitted out of the hut, they could hear the daily-increasing activity in the town.

"I'faith, 'tis like the Convocation o' Cardinals!" McEvoy declared.

No one mentioned the Captain's proposal again, but it must have been on everyone's mind as it was on Ebenezer's, for when one early morning they heard their guard approached by some manner of delegation, as one man they sucked in their breaths and went rigid.

"Make haste!" the Captain urged. "They've come to fetch us!"

"Then fetch us they shall," McEvoy grumbled. "I'm not a murtherer."

Just then the hide-flap door of the hut was thrown open: cold air rushed in, and the dancing light of the fire, and against the grey-white dawn they could see the stiff black shapes of men.

"You, then, in the name o' God!" The Captain twisted towards Ebenezer, and his voice grew shrill. "I beg ye, sir; throttle me now, this instant, ere they lay hands on usl Here, quickly, for the love o' Christ!"

He wrenched himself across Bertrand toward the poet's trembling knees. Ebenezer had no voice to say him nay; he could only shake his head. But even had he been both willing and able, there was not time to do the deed: the black silhouettes closed in, bent over them; black hands laid hold of their ankles and legs; black voices chuckled and grunted. One by one the terrified white men were dragged outside by the heels.

6: His Future at Stake, the Poet Reflects on a Brace of Secular Mysteries

The courtyard or common enclosed by the Indian town was patchy with thin, wet snow, which had also whitened the tops of all the mound-shaped dwellings. The air was raw and saturated, but not bitter cold; in fact, a mass of temperate air had moved over the Bay, with the result that a great fog enveloped the island. Swirls of mist swept out of the marsh, given voice by invisible gulls, and were blown with a falling cry toward the straits.

Despite the fog and the early hour, Ebenezer could see a great number of people all about, some in Scotch cloth and English woolens, but most in hides and furs and matchcoats. The women were making small fires near their huts and preparing food for the morning meal; the men, for the most part, were occupied with tobacco and conversation around several larger fires in the common itself, Negroes and Indians together: there was a rustle of general talk, as well as much parleying by signs and gestures. In the center of the court the little watch fire of the night had been so fueled with resinous pine that its blaze, flashing orange upon the fog, seemed more ceremonial than useful. The heat of it had melted the snow in a sizeable circle, about whose perimeter were ranged a solemn score of dignitaries, black and red; and just outside the quadrants of their circle, four separate parties of men were raising twelve-foot posts in hip-deep holes.

When the prisoners were all on their feet, a grinning Negro from the deputation that had fetched them out stepped up to McEvoy and said in English, "No more nights in there, ha?" He rolled his eyes towards the prison-hut.

"Thou'rt a black imp o' Satan," McEvoy grumbled. "I would ye'd jumped to the fishes with Dick Parker!"

The Negro — whom Ebenezer took to be McEvoy's erstwhile companion Bandy Lou — flashed his teeth in amusement and gave sharp orders to his men, who cut the thongs from the prisoners' ankles and led them towards the posts. The poet's knees began to fail; his jailers were obliged to support as well as direct him. The hum of conversation on every side changed to a murmur and died away; except for the crackling fires the common was silent, and dark faces regarded the white men coldly as they passed. The men at the central fire turned round at their approach, and a much-painted elder among them nodded towards the nearest of the posts just being tamped into position.

"You be judged by three kings," the smiling Negro repeated to McEvoy. "Others stay here."

None of the prisoners spoke. It appeared that the dread triumvirate was not at the fireside after all, for the Irishman was led toward a larger specimen of muskrat-house across the common. Ebenezer and Bertrand were bound each to a post by the ankles and wrists; the feel of his position brought the poet near to swooning, so clearly did it recall the legion of martyred men. How many millions had been similarly bound since the race began, and for how many reasons put to the unspeakable pain of fire? But he strove to put by the swoon, in hopes of resummoning it when he would need it more desperately.

The Captain, meanwhile, had been obliged to stand by while the third and fourth posts were being raised and tamped. He stood quietly, head bowed, as though resigned to the horrors ahead his guards, absorbed in plumbing the massive posts, ignored him. Suddenly he leaped behind and away from them and struck out across the common. A shout went up; men scrambled to their feet, snatched their spears, and hurried after him. Ebenezer craned his neck to watch, expecting to see the old man run through, but the Indians held back. The Captain ran for a gap between two council-fires, and was faced with a wall of spears held at the ready, he hesitated, spun about, and was confronted with a similar wall. This time, as if abandoning some tenuous hope of escape and returning to his original purpose, he thrust out his chest and lunged straight for the spears; but their bearers drew back and merely blocked his way with their arms and shafts. He wheeled again, his arms still bound behind, and hopped in another direction, with the same result. The ranks closed now in a large circle around him. and it being quite clear that he could not escape even to the marsh, they began to laugh at his furious endeavor. Again and again the old man rushed at the spears, at length, unable to screw up his desperate resolve again, the Captain gave a cry and fell His tormentors dispersed, still chuckling, the guards returned him to the post, now ready to accommodate him, and began piling twigs and branches at the feet of all three.

His skin awash, Ebenezer looked away and saw McEvoy reappear from the royal palace with his smiling escort. The Irishman's face was winced up in a curious expression — whether anger, abhorrence, or fear, Ebenezer could not tell, but he assumed when he saw his companion made fast to the one remaining post that the curious "judgment" had not been a pardon.

However, he was mistaken. " 'Tis the Devil's own wonder of a happenstance!" McEvoy cried over to him. in a voice as strange and twisted as his expression. "They fetched me before their three kings for sentencing, and two of 'em were scurfy salvages, but the third was my friend Dick Parker, the wight I was chained in the hold with! I thought he was drowned and forgot, but i'faith, he's the king o' these black heathen! This scoundrel Bandy Lou hath known it these many days and said naught of't; he was Dick Parker's chief lieutenant back in Africa!"

Ebenezer was unable to marvel at this coincidence; indeed, he wondered whether McEvoy had not been deranged by fear. Could a sane man relate such trifles while his pyre was a-building round his feet?

Only then did he observe that though his own pyre was completed, as were those of Bertrand and the senseless Captain, not a twig had been laid at McEvoy's post, nor did the guards seem about to fetch any.

"God help me, Eben!" the Irishman shouted. "They mean to turn me loose! Dick Parker hath spared me!" His eyes ran with tears. "As God is my witness," McEvoy cried on, "I begged and pled for ye, Eben, by whate'er friendship had been 'twixt Dick Parker and myself. Ye was my brother, I told him, and dear as life to me; but the others were for burning the four of us, and 'twas all Dick Parker could manage to spare me. As't is I must watch ye suffer there all this day and tomorrow, till their council's done, and then see ye burnt!"

"The pimp hath bartered our skins to save his own!" Bertrand yelled from his post across the way.

"Nay, I swear't!" McEvoy protested. "Whate'er hath been betwixt us in the past, 'tis all behind us; ye mustn't believe I hold aught against ye, or biased your case with Dick Parker!"

"I believe you," Ebenezer said. He had in fact felt a moment of wrath at McEvoy's news; would he, after all, have left London in the first place had not McEvoy betrayed him? But he soon overcame his anger, for despite the extremity of his position, or perhaps because of it, he was able to see that McEvoy had only been following his principles honestly, as had Ebenezer his own; one could as easily blame old Andrew for reacting so strongly, Joan Toast for occasioning the wager, Ben Oliver for proposing it, Anna for crossing alone to Maryland, Burlingame for — among other things — persuading him to disembark in St. Mary's, or Ebenezer himself, who by any of a hundred thousand acts might have altered the direction of his life. The whole history of his twenty-eight years it was that had brought him to the present place at the present time; and had not this history taken its particular pattern, in large measure, from the influence of all the people with whom he'd ever dealt, and whose lives in turn had been shaped by the influence of countless others? Was he not, in short, bound to his post not merely by the sum of human history, but even by the history of the entire universe, as by a chain of numberless links no one of which was more culpable than any other? It seemed to Ebenezer that he was, and that McEvoy was not more nor less to blame than was Lord Baltimore, for example, who had colonized Maryland, or the Genoese adventurer who had discovered the New World to the Old.

This conclusion, which the poet reached more by insight than by speculation, was followed by another, whose logic ran thus: The point in space and time whereto the history of the world had brought him would be nothing perilous were it not for the hostility of the Indians and Negroes. But it was their exploitation by the English colonists that had rendered them hostile; that is to say, by a people to whom the accidents of history had given the advantage — Ebenezer did not doubt that his captors, if circumstances were reversed, would do just what the English were doing. To the extent, then, that historical movements are expressions of the will of the people engaged in them, Ebenezer was a just object for his captors' wrath, for he belonged, in a deeper sense than McEvoy had intended in his remark of some nights past, to the class of the exploiters; as an educated gentleman of the western world he had shared in the fruits of his culture's power and must therefore share what guilt that power incurred. Nor was this the end of his responsibility: for if it was the accidents of power and position that made the difference between exploiters and exploited, and not some mysterious specialization of each group's spirit, then it was as "human" for the white man to enslave and dispossess as it was "human" for the black and red to slaughter on the basis of color alone; the savage who would put him to the torch anon was no less his brother than was the trader who had once enslaved that savage. In sum, the poet observed, for his secular Original Sin, though he was to atone for it in person, he would exact a kind of Vicarious Retribution; he had committed a grievous crime against himself, and it was himself who soon would punish the malefactor.

Grasping the pair of insights was the labor of but as many seconds, and though they moved him as had few moments in his spiritual autobiography, all he said to Bertrand and McEvoy was, "In any case, 'tis too late to split the hairs of responsibility. Look yonder."

He indicated with his brows the direction of the hut from which McEvoy had been lately escorted. The eyes of the assemblage had turned that way as well, and their conversation dwindled. The three kings had issued forth to render judgment: as best Ebenezer could distinguish through the mists, one was a strapping Negro, one an equally robust red man, and the third, also an Indian, an aged, decrepit fellow who moved with a great deal of difficulty on the arms of his younger colleagues. All three were dressed elaborately by comparison with their subjects: their garments were fringed, tasseled, and colorfully worked with shell-beads; their faces were striped and circled with puccoon; their necks hung with bear's teeth and cowries; the Indians wore headdresses of beadwork and turkey feathers, while the Negro's was wrought of two bull's horns mounted in fur. The two stalwarts held each in his free hand a bone-tipped javelin; the ancient one bore in his right a sort of scepter or ceremonial staff topped with the pelt of a muskrat, and in his left a sputtering pitch-pine torch.

The pace made their approach more somber. McEvoy regarded them wide-eyed over his shoulder; Bertrand began to make moan. Ebenezer blushed with fear; he pressed his lips fast, but the rest of his features ticked and twitched.

Closest to the triumvirate was McEvoy: they confronted him sternly; the Negro raised his spear and made some sort of pronouncement, which his subjects received with an uncertain murmur, and then the younger of the Indian chiefs apparently repeated it in his tongue, for his statement met with a like response. Ebenezer remarked some displeasure in the old chief's face, and great satisfaction in the countenance of McEvoy's companion Bandy Lou, who stood nearby. The party moved next to the bearded Captain, who had just begun to stir and roll his head. Again some sentence was rendered in two languages with upraised spears: the old chief's smile and the assemblage's shouted approval made its meaning clear, and the poet shuddered.

Next came Bertrand, who turned his head away and squinted shut his eyes. The younger of the Indian kings regarded him coldly; the older with malevolent pleasure as he nodded to something the Negro was leaning to whisper in his ear. All eyes were on the great black king, who in both of the previous instances had passed sentence first; he ended his colloquy with the old man, lifted his javelin, and began his pronouncement even as he raised his eyes to the prisoner's face.

But he stopped in mid-sentence and rushed forward to turn Bertrand's face towards his own. Ebenezer's muscles tightened: since the Negro had retained his spear but let go the old chief's arm most uncourteously, the poet rather expected to see Bertrand run through on the instant for the crime of averting his head. Nor were his fears allayed when the Negro gave a cry, snatched a bone knife from the belt of a nearby lieutenant, and leaped toward the valet with the weapon held back. His fellow chiefs frowned; the nearer spectators drew back in alarm, and their consternation mounted when, instead of ending the prisoner's life or dismembering him where he hung, the black king sliced all the thongs and fetters, kicked away the knee-high faggots, and flung himself prostrate at the reeling prisoner's feet!

"Master Eben!" the valet bawled, drawing back against the post. The old chief barked, and the younger made what appeared to be a sharp query, to which the Negro king replied in the Indian tongue, his voice heavy with emotion. The common had gone silent as a church. The Indian king frowned more severely, summoned lieutenants to support his ancient colleague, and strode as quickly as dignity permitted, not toward Bertrand but toward the much-distraught prisoner who had yet to be confronted with his judgment. He had advanced only a pace or two when Ebenezer recognized — under the war paint, regalia, and newly regained health — the ailing fugitive of the cliffside cave.

"Dear Christ, now I see't!" he cried. "Bertrand! 'Tis Quassapelagh and Drakepecker! Yon Dick Parker of McEvoy's is your Drakepecker, and here's Quassapelagh come to save me!"

Indeed, when the Indian had looked well into Ebenezer's face, his eyes lost their sternness, and at his command two guards stepped forward to release the poet's bonds.

"I set you free and beg your pardon," Quassapelagh said gravely. " 'Tis well no harm was done the man who saved my life."

Like Bertrand, Ebenezer was too overwhelmed to speak. His eyes welled with tears; he reeled and laughed hoarsely, shook his head, and looked to McEvoy as though in disbelief. The old chief, meanwhile, had not ceased to rail: he apparently understood no more of these marvels than did his subjects or the other two prisoners. Quassapelagh bowed slightly to Ebenezer, suggested that the poet remain where he was for a few minutes more, and returned to pacify the old man. The Negro king too, whom to everyone's dismay Bertrand had embraced upon realizing his identity, now disengaged himself and joined the council. It was clear from the tenor of their discourse that the old chief objected strenuously to freeing the prisoners; after a few moments Quassapelagh summoned Ebenezer, snatched his left hand, and muttered, "You have the ring Quassapelagh gave you?"

The poet fetched from his pocket the fishbone ring, thanking Providence and Joan Toast that he had exchanged his silver seal for it after all. Quassapelagh first showed the ring to the old chief and then, with some half-defiant proclamation, lifted it high for the crowd to view. At the same time Dick Parker, or Drakepecker, issued orders to Bandy Lou, who stood beaming nearby, and all the prisoners except the Captain were hustled back to the jail-hut before the old man had a chance to launch fresh protests.

"I'faith!" Ebenezer laughed tensely. "What a palace this hut seems now!"

On the common, where the mists had been brightened but not dispelled by the rising sun, there was considerable commotion. Peering between the legs of the guards outside their hut, Ebenezer saw the three leaders move off again towards the building from which they had appeared; the old one, clearly by no means pacified, was now supported by two Indians with headgear similar to his own.

" 'Tis a Holy Writ miracle!" cried McEvoy, his eyes and mouth still wincing with astonishment. "Nay, a miracle atop a miracle! How is't Dick Parker is alive, and knows ye? Marry, he fell on his belly as if your man here was a god!"

"I was no less, thank ye," Bertrand said proudly, "and a better parishioner no god could wish for! Hath he not risen to the top of the heap, though! Did ye see him stand up for me to the old tyrant, as bold as ye please?"

For McEvoy's benefit Ebenezer recounted the story of their freeing Drakepecker from his bonds, discovering the fugitive Quassapelagh ill of a festered wound, and leaving the black man to minister to his needs.

" 'Twas for that he gave us the fishbone rings, albeit he said naught of their meaning. What doth it signify, and how came a poor slave like Drakepecker to be a king?"

McEvoy could throw no light on the meaning of the ring. "As for the wight ye call Drakepecker, though, he is the same I spoke of before, that I called Dick Parker. The boat that spirited me off from London took him aboard in Carolina along with Bandy Lou and two score other slaves, to sell in Maryland. They had all been snatched from some African town not long before, and this Dick Parker was their king. The first mate chained him and Bandy Lou in the hold for the same reason I was there." The Irishman grinned. "Dick Parker was after raising a mutiny; the mate was for murthering him, but the captain thought if they could flog his spirit out, they could use him to keep the others from making trouble. Twice a day they laid the lash on him, and he'd spit on the sailor that tied him to the foremast and spit on the sailor that untied him after. O'er and again I advised him, through Bandy Lou, to put by his pride till he was sold and settled, and then escape and help the others; he'd reply my counsel was the best for Bandy Lou and the other lieutenants, but a king that was bought and sold was no king at all. If I declared no dead king ever won a battle, he'd reply 'twas not in the lion to play the jackal's part, and a dead king could still be a living example to his subjects. He gave orders to Bandy Lou to do as I advised, and the next time they fetched Dick Parker up for flogging he spat on the mate himself. 'Twas then they heaved him o'er the side, bound hand and foot. Half the slaves were sold in Anne Arundel Town next day, and the other half, along with us redemptioners, in Oxford the day after that. How the wight managed to stay afloat I'll never know."

Ebenezer shook his head, remembering the stripes on the Negro's back when they had discovered him on the beach. "So now he's king of the runaway slaves, and Quassapelagh king of the disaffected salvage Indians! Heav'n help the English if they carry out their plan!"

"Devil take 'em, I say," McEvoy replied, "they have it coming." Both he and Bertrand declared their intention to beg or steal passage back to London as soon as possible, so that they might wish the rebels success without wishing their own ill fortune. Ebenezer had not lost sight of his late reflections at the stake; yet though he could sympathize with the plight of the slaves and Indians and affirm the guilt even of white men who, like himself, had condoned that plight merely in effect, by not protesting it, he could by no means relish the idea of a wholesale massacre. On the contrary, with his two near-executions to dulcify it, life tasted uncommonly sweet to the poet just then, and he shuddered at the thought of anyone's being deprived of it.

"We must find a way to save the Captain," he declared. "He hath less reason to be here than any of us, since 'twas neither search nor flight that brought him." And he added, though he quite understood the limitations of the statement, "If he dies, 'tis I must answer for't, inasmuch as I hired him to ferry me to Malden and paid him extra to leave at once despite the weather and the time of day."

Both McEvoy and the valet protested this assumption of responsibility and McEvoy asserted further that though he had every wish for the old man's safety, he was not prepared to sacrifice or even jeopardize his own for it.

"In any case," Bertrand offered, " 'tis too early for tears and cheers alike. If Drakepecker hath his way we may all go free; if not, we may burn yet."

His companions agreed, and they fell to speculating on the office and influence of the ancient Indian who had been so loath to see them freed. McEvoy called in the African named — as best their English speech could approximate — Bandy Lou, who replied to their several questions with a huge, invincible smile whether his information was cheering, distressing, or indifferent.

Who was the old Indian king?

"He is the Tayac Chicamec, King of the Ahatchwhoops, and for four-and-eighty summers an enemy to Englishmen. This is his island."

Upon Ebenezer's inquiring about the division of power between the three kings and the jurisdiction of each, Bandy Lou replied that Quassapelagh was a sort of commander-in-chief of all the disaffected Indians on the western side of the Chesapeake, Chicamec held the same post on the Eastern Shore, and Drepacca was the king of the runaway Negroes. He went on to assert very candidly that, while in theory the three were invested with equal authority, it was Quassapelagh, the Anacostin King, who wielded the greatest actual power, not only because the chieftains under him — Ochotomaquath of the Piscataways, Tom Calvert of the Chopticoes, and Maquantah of the Mattawomans, for example — were more numerous, influential, and belligerent than were Chicamec's lieutenants, but also because some of the latter — such as the son of the Emperor Umacokasimmon, Asquas, whom Governor Copley had deposed as leader of the Nanticokes in favor of the complaisant Panquas and Annoughtough — were more disposed to follow the younger, more vigorous Quassapelagh than their aged commander-in-chief. Moreover, the lion's share of potential power, according to Bandy Lou, was held by Drepacca, for although there were many more belligerent Indians than runaway Negroes, Quassapelagh's authority was limited necessarily to the Province, and the allegiance of his subjects, except for a small group of Piscataways, was directed primarily to the several tribal chieftains and only indirectly to the Anacostin King himself. Drepacca, on the other hand, had in a very short time become the direct and undisputed leader of every fugitive African in the area and the inspiration of thousands still enslaved; furthermore, he had not the obstacles of tribal geography and rival leadership to contend with: Negroes from various African tribes were distributed indiscriminately among the provinces by the slave market, and Drepacca, so far as anyone knew, was the only royalty among them. In consequence of these facts, together with his quick intelligence (he had learned the Piscataway dialect in three weeks from Quassapelagh), his formidable personal appearance, and the advantage his being neither white nor Indian gave him in negotiations with the French and the northern nations, the sphere of Drepacca's influence grew daily more extensive and might well encompass soon the entire Negro population of America, whose number increased with every ship from the western coast of Africa. One guessed, from the unbounded pride in his voice, that Bandy Lou had already crowned his master Emperor of America. Ebenezer shivered.

"More power to him," McEvoy said grimly. "If Dick Parker's as strong as all that, we've naught to fear from this Tayac Chuckaluck, or Chicken-neck, or whatever. Wouldn't ye say so, Bandy Lou? 'Tis a brace of big men against one little one."

Ah, now, the smiling Negro cautioned, things were not so simple as that, for while Chicamec held in truth a great deal less power, actual or potential, than did either of his confederates, he was known to Indians all up and down the provinces as an ancient foe of the white man: he was virtually a legend among them; his name for three decades had been synonymous with uncompromising resistance; and in addition his little town of Ahatchwhoops was the hardest core of armed and organized English-haters in the Province, and his island the safest and most nearly central location anyone knew of for a general headquarters. In short, though but a figurehead, he was an extremely valuable one, and his colleagues deferred to him in all but the most important matters of policy — the more readily since nine tenths of the rebels' power was in their hands.

"I'faith!" cried Bertrand. "D'ye mean they might let him burn us after all?"

"I do hope not," said Bandy Lou agreeably. One of the other guards called to him in dialect from outside, and he added, his smile unchanged in magnitude or character: "Come now, and we shall learn."

7: How the Ahatchwhoops Doe Choose a King Over Them

For the second time that morning, then, Ebenezer, Bertrand, and McEvoy were escorted onto the misty common. Though there was light aplenty now, the sky remained overcast, and the foggy salt marsh scarcely less gloomy than before. The cooking fires were out, the women occupied with various housekeeping chores, and most of the men, presumably, out on the marshes and waterways replenishing the supply of seafood and wildfowl. A few dozen, whom Ebenezer took to be minor chieftains and their lieutenants, still sat with their pipes about the larger council-fires, engaged in debate; it was not difficult to guess, from the stony countenances that followed the prisoners' march across the common, what had been the subject of their discussion.

Less apprehensive than before, the poet was able to look about him with greater interest and detachment. He remarked, for example, that the village was considerably larger than he had estimated: the muskrat-house dwellings numbered more nearly three hundred than one hundred, and work-parties of Negroes were constructing new ones around the whole periphery of the town. Indeed, the supply of high ground was exhausted, and the builders were obliged to resort to various expedients; at one edge of the village was a flat-topped mountain of oystershells — piled up, one gathered, by generations of Ahatchwhoops in the days before building lots were at such a premium — which the Negroes were busily shoveling into the adjacent marsh, both to create new ground and to clear the old; in other places the huts were being erected on low pilings in the marsh itself, a curious combining of African and Indian architectures. Again, the poet observed for the first time the disproportion of sexes in the population: even allowing for the exaggeration of fear, he judged that nearly a thousand men had thronged the common that morning — seven hundred at the very least, of whom surely no more than two hundred had arrived with Quassapelagh and Drepacca — whereas the women, unless great numbers of them had been granted the unlikely privilege of sleeping late into the morning, could be counted more easily in dozens than in hundreds. Yet there seemed to be no shortage of children; indeed, the spaces between the huts fairly swarmed with little savages, whose great number and various pigmentation suggested to Ebenezer not only polyandry but a cultural alliance in spheres more intimate than either politics or architecture.

This time the party did not stop at the stakes, but proceeded directly to the royal hut on the opposite side from the jail. To the old Captain, who regarded them as sullenly from his stake as did the chieftains from their councils, Ebenezer called, "Never fear, old man, we shan't betray you. 'Tis all of us or none."

"In a pig's arse," muttered Bertrand beside him, and McEvoy added flatly, "Ye may stake your own fortunes where ye please, but not McEvoy's. If he dies on my account I'll mourn him sorely, but if I die on his I'll hate his guts." As for the Captain himself, either he did not hear the poet's encouragement, or was too unhinged by fear to comprehend it, or simply discounted it, for his expression remained unchanged.

At the entrance to the royal hut Bandy Lou said with his great smile, "We stop here. You go there," and pointed to the hide-flap doorway. The prisoners hesitated, each reluctant to take the initiative, and then Ebenezer, his jaw clenched tight, pushed the flap aside and led them in.

Except for its size and the more numerous hides which served as rugs and wall-hangings alike, Chicamec's palace was little different from his jail. Along the rear wall stood a line of guards, spears in hand. A small fire burned in a circle of rocks in the center of the floor; behind it, tight-lipped and evil-eyed, sat the wrinkled king himself, flanked by his two unsmiling confederates. The Englishmen faced them uneasily, uncertain whether to sit or remain standing, bow or stand still, speak or be silent. In the absence of Bandy Lou, Ebenezer looked to Quassapelagh for instructions, but it was Drepacca who addressed them, apparently having added a fluency in English to the catalogue of his assets.

"It is the wish of Drepacca," he declared sternly, "that the four white men go free; or that, if one must die, it be the old man; or that, if only one may live, it be one of the two who saved Drepacca's life."

McEvoy scowled; Ebenezer and Bertrand avoided each other's eyes.

"It is the wish of Quassapelagh," Drepacca resumed, "that the old man and the red-haired singer die, and you twain be spared; or that, if only one may live, it be the tall one who still wears the Ring of Brotherhood."

"I say!" McEvoy protested; Bertrand's face fell. A guard lowered his spear to the ready, and the Irishman said no more.

"It is the wish of Chicamec," continued the African king, "that every man of white skin on the face of the earth be deprived of his privy member and put to spear. But he allows the tall one is a brother of Quassapelagh and must be spared." He looked at Bertrand, and though neither his tone nor his expression lost its sternness, he said, "I regret that you have lost Quassapelagh's ring, and that I once knelt to you as a god instead of making you my brother in the manner of my people. But I have told Chicamec that you and the tall one saved my life, and that who kills you must kill Drepacca first. Chicamec has made no answer to this, and so you will go free — mind you do not smile, or he will guess my words and strike you dead at any cost."

To McEvoy he said, "You are my friend and the friend of Bandalu, and I would not see you die. But the anger of Chicamec is great, and he grants brotherhood only to those who have saved the life of one of us. You must bid your friends farewell."

"Nay, 'sheart!" McEvoy cried; the guard moved closer, and Chicamec's eyes grew dark. "What I mean," McEvoy continued in a calmer voice, "if thou'rt such a friend as ye claim, and have such a gang as Bandy Lou says ye have behind ye, why is't ye let this bloody old flitch be judge and jury? Turn us all loose, and be damned to him!"

Quassapelagh, whose frown had deepened at the Irishman's choice of words, spoke up in reply. "Quassapelagh and Drepacca are strong, but our strength is not on the island of Chicamec. If the Ahatchwhoops fight the people of Drepacca, our cause will lose a mighty ally and a mighty king. Chicamec will not make war to kill brothers of Drepacca and Quassapelagh, but to kill any other white man, Chicamec will make war. You must die."

"Then so must I!" Ebenezer said suddenly. His brow furrowed and unfurrowed at a great rate, his hands twitched about, and his nose was a thing alive. Quassapelagh and Drepacca turned to him with surprise; Bertrand and McEvoy with incredulity. "Either the four of us will go free, or the four of us will die!" declared the poet. "It is my fault these men are here, and I shan't permit myself to be saved without all three of them." He looked accusingly at Drepacca. "Perhaps Drepacca doth not defend his own, but Eben Cooke doth, friends or no."

"I beg my brother to think again," Quassapelagh said, maintaining his stern composure for Chicamec's benefit. "If I must, I shall strike you senseless to spare your life."

But Ebenezer had apparently foreseen this possibility. "Not a bit of't," he replied at once, his voice exhilarated by the rashness of his move. "Not a bit of't, dear Quassapelagh; the moment you say even one of us must die I'll leap and throttle Chicamec yonder, and his bullies will spear me like a pincushion. Nay, don't warn 'em off, or I'll spring this instant."

"I'faith, Eben!" cried McEvoy. "Save yourself; there's naught else for't!"

"Our friend speaks wisely as well as generously," Drepacca added. "Do not throw four lives away instead of two."

"Say no more on't!" Ebenezer ordered briskly. His face was flushed and his voice uneven, and his heart pounded hot blood through his limbs. "Will ye spare your brother's people or put him to the spear? Yea me or nay me, and have done with't!" He swayed on his feet, arms swinging free, as if ready to make good his threat. Chicamec's glance sent two guards closer with upraised spears. Drepacca and Quassapelagh exchanged flickers of their eyes.

"No answer, brothers?" The poet's voice grew shrill. "Adieu, then, Brother Quassapelagh! Good luck to you, and bad luck to your murtherous schemes! Adieu, Brother Drepacca, adieu, adieu! 'Tis a pity you ne'er met my friend Henry Burlingame: you twain would get on famously!"

He went so far as actually to cock his muscles for the leap across the fire, and paused only because Chicamec caught up the name Henry Burlingame and unleashed a torrent of interrogation at Quassapelagh, in which the name was repeated several times.

"Wait, brother!" Quassapelagh called sharply, and attended the rest of his elder colleague's excited query while Ebenezer, the moment of his courage past, reeled and sweated in his stance.

"The Tayac Chicamec believes you spoke a certain name just then, and would have you speak it another time."

"A name? Aye, 'twas Henry Burlingame!" Ebenezer laughed like one deranged and leaned over toward the old king, on whose face was the piercing, great-eyed frown of an osprey or fishhawk. "Henry Burlingame!" he shouted again, and tears dropped down his cheeks. "You've heard of him, have you, murtherer? Or is it thou'rt Burlingame in disguise, and here's another of thy famous pranks?" Hysteria brought him to the edge of a swoon; his jaw slacked open, and he, was obliged to sit heavily on the ground before he fell.

Another sharp query from Chicamec.

"Who is this Henry Burlingame?" translated the Anacostin King. "A friend of yours?"

Ebenezer nodded affirmatively, unable to speak.

"One of these here?" Quassapelagh asked. "No? In the white man's towns, then?"

The affirmative brought more excited Indian-talk from old Chicamec, in reply to which, when it had been translated for his benefit, Ebenezer explained that Burlingame was his former teacher, a man of some forty summers by his own best guess, made in ignorance of his actual birth date, birthplace, and parentage.

One last inquiry Chicamec made, without recourse to language: his whole frame shaking with consternation, he fetched a charred stick out of the fire, drew with it upon a clean deerhide mat the symbol III, and raised his terrible questioning stare to the poet again.

"Ay, that's the one," Ebenezer sighed, too weary in spirit to share the troubled surprise of the others. "Henry Burlingame the Third." And then, "I say, Quassapelagh, how is't he knows my Henry?" For it had only just occurred to him that in all his tutor's years of adventure and intrigue, it had been Burlingame's policy never to employ the name he was raised by. The question was duly translated, but instead of answering directly, the ancient Indian — the malevolence of whose countenance was supplanted altogether by fierce astonishment — directed two guards to fetch a carved and decorated chest from one end of the hut and place it directly before the bewildered poet.

"The Tayac Chicamec bids you open the chest," said Drepacca.

Ebenezer did so, and was surprised to see nothing evidently breathtaking among the contents, which so far as he could discern without rummaging about, consisted of a number of black garments (whose obviously English manufacture led him to observe that the little chest itself, beneath its Indian decoration, was the sort used by seamen and travelers, not by savages), four corked glass bottles of what seemed to be nothing but water, and on top of all what looked like an old octavo notebook, bound in stained and battered calf.

Chicamec spoke through the Anacostin King.

"There is a — " Quassapelagh looked to Drepacca for assistance with the translation.

"Book," the African said. "A book, there on the top."

"Book," Quassapelagh repeated. "Chicamec bids my foolhardy brother open the book and read its signs." And he added in the same translator's tone, "It is the hope of Quassapelagh that my brother will read some charm therein to cure his madness."

The poet picked up the volume as directed, whereupon the line of guards behind Chicamec fell as one man to their knees, as though before some holy relic. But Ebenezer found it to be in fact a species of English manuscript-book, penned in the regular calligraphy of a gentleman, but with ink too crusty and crude to be European. It bore on the front page the unassuming title How the Ahatchwhoops Doe Choose a King Over Them and commenced with what appeared on quick scanning to be a description of the Dorchester marshes, perhaps the same island on which the tribe now lived.

" 'Tis most intriguing, I concede," the poet said impatiently to Quassapelagh, "but i'faith, this is no time. . i'Christ, now. ." He interrupted himself to reread, incredulously, the opening line — Being then our armes bownd, and led like kine to the Salvage towne, some miles inland, I had leisure to remark the countrie-side, through w^ch we travell'd — and embarrassment, apprehension, and all gave way to recognition.

"John Smith's Secret Historie!" he exclaimed. " 'Sheart, then 'twas no coincidence. ." He was thinking of the Straits of Limbo, but his eyes had moved already to the next passages of the Historie; his jaw dropped lower, and his sentence was destined never to be completed, for the substance of the manuscript, and more especially of the Tayac Chicamec's tale that followed after, were as amazing as anything in Ebenezer's life.

For the benefit of his mystified companions he read aloud as follows:

"It doth in sooth transcend the power of my pen, or of my fancie, to relate the aspect of this place, so forsaken & desolate & ill-appearing withal; a sink-hole it is, all marshie and gone to swamp. Water standeth hereabouts in lakes & pooles, forsooth there is more water than drie land, but most of the grownd is a mixture of the twain, for that the tyde doth rise & fall, covering & discovering grand flatts of mud thereby, and Isles bearing naught but greene reedes & pine-scrubb. When that the tyde runneth out, smalle pooles remaineth everiewhere, the w^ch do straightway sower & engender in there slyme more meskitoes, then there are beades in a nunnerie, and each meskitoe hungrie as a priest. Add thereto, the entire countrie is flatt, and most belowe the level of the sea, so that the eye doth see this drearie landscape endlesslie on everie hand; the aire is wett & noisome to the lights; the grownd giveth way beneathe the foot; and the water is too fowle & brynie to drink. It is forsooth Earths uglie fundament, a place not fitt for any English man, and I here venture, no matter how that the countrie neare to hand, such as our owne Virginia, doth prosper in yeers to come, yet will no person but a Salvage ever inhabit this place through w^ch we march'd, except he be a bloudie foole, or other manner of ass.

"As for those same Salvages, that had us prisoner (thanks to the idiocie of my Nemesis & rivall L^d Burlingame, that fatt clott-poll, as I have earlier discryb'd), they were a fitt reflection of there countrie, being more smalle in stature & meane in appearance, then those others we had incounter'd. ."

Ebenezer looked up uncertainly from his reading, but the faces of Quassapelagh and Drepacca showed no reaction to the words.

"Moreover," he read on, "they seem'd less wont to speake, for that, upon my enquiring of them, What nation were they? my captor hard by responded merelie, Ahatchwhoop, w^ch signifyeth, in the tongue of Powhatans people, that foule aire, that riseth on a mans stomacke, after he hath eate a surfitt of food, and I c^d not determine, whether my Salvage design'd to answer my querie, or meant thereby an insult, or other like barbaritie; he w^d saye no more. None the less I was pleas'd, that they spoke a tongue resembling Powhatans, for that were I able to converse with them, so much greater was our chance of slipping there halter. For alle there silence, they did use us civillie, and harm'd not any of our companie, while that we march'd. I reflected, that did they meane to kill us, they had done so lightlie upon the shoar whereon we were ambuscado'd, but they did not. Verilie, they c^d be sparing of our lives, onelie to take them anon. But to dye on the morrowe, is better by a daye then to dye now, and therefor I did breathe easier, while keeping still alert for a meanes of escaping injurie at there hands.

"At length we arriv'd at there town, the w^ch was the rudest I had yet seene, being little save a dozen hovells of sticks & mudd, thrown up on a patch of drie grownd, that rose a hand or two from the swamp. At our approach, eight or tenne more Salvages issu'd from the hutts, ag'd and feeble men in the mayn, and with them the women of the trybe, about 15 in number, and uglie as the Devill. Also, a host of scurvie doggs, that snapp'd & bitt at us from everie quarter.

"One great fatt Salvage there was, who coming from a hutt, did greet the leader of those that led us thither, with a long harangue, the summe whereof, as I did grasp it, was, that he was no whitt pleas'd at our being fetch'd to the towne. Whereto the leader of our captors (a smalle Salvage, but lowd of mowth) reply'd, that the speaker was not yet Werowance, w^ch is to say, King, and ought therefore to hold his peece until that the contest was done. That he had captur'd the white-skinn'd men, our selves, whom he took to be Susquehannocks, to joyn in the contest, the Susquehannocks being greate workers of wonders, and famous warriors. Now, I knewe not what was the contest thus spoken of, nor who was the fatt Salvage, nor yet the smalle one our captor. But I had heard telle, from King Hicktopeake, brother of Debedeavon the Laughing King of Accomack, of those same Susquehannocks, to witt: that they were a great nation far to the North, neare to the head of that vast Baye whereon we sayl'd. That they were much fear'd by the other Salvages, as warriors & feerce hunters. It seem'd to me not a sorrie thing, then, to be mistaken for a Susquehannock by our captors, and so did not trouble my selfe to undeceive them.

"More argument ensu'd, betwixt the Salvages, they being each readie to give commands to the other, and each loath to obey any, so that I wonder'd, Where was there King? For it seem'd to me, these heathen had either two Kings, or none at all. Just then, a Salvage wench did appeare, from out a hutt, and bearing a vessell of water upon her head, did carrie it across to another hutt hard by. She was, I sweare, the comliest Salvage ever I saw, slight of stature, and prettie of face & forme, and being uncloth'd above the waist, her bubbs did lift most fetchinglie what tyme she rais'd her armes to steadie the vessell. At her appearance, the two Salvages gave over there debate, and gaz'd after, as did my selfe & all my partie, for that she was of such surpassing beautie. Directlie she was gone, they fell againe to quarrelling, over where we s^hd be lodg'd, and under what guard, and w^d have leapt upon each other, had I not interfear'd, and speaking in Powhatans tongue, declar'd my selfe C^apt J^no Smith of Virginia, and offer'd them, that we returne to our barge, there being no handie place for us to sleep, and make our waye in peece as best we might. We had no wishe, said I, to impose upon there hospitallitie, or trouble them in the matter of bedd & board. This I spoke in jest, knowing full well, we were where we were not by there invitation, but as haplesse prisoners. The Salvages were amaz'd, that I spoke a tongue w^ch they c^d grasp, and I, in turn, was much surpriz'd, when that the fatt Salvage, so far from shewing displeasure at my proposall, took it up on the instant, and w^d have us begone. But the other w^d have none of it, we must needs staye for the contest on the morrowe. More dispute follow'd, and at last we were put all in a hut, with scarce room to lie flatt, and the smalle Salvage him selfe, with divers of his troup, sat guard.

"My companie, understanding naught of all this discourse, were greatlie out of sorts, and grows'd & compleyn'd much, for that they knewe not what w^d be our fate, or whether we s^hd live or dye. Add to w^ch, we had been taken in the morning, and it was then twylight, but naught had we been given to eate, nor had any of the Salvages eat food, all the daye. Methought this was passing queere, for that the meanest of gaolers is seldom that cruell, that he will not give his charges some thing wherewith to staye there grumbling gutts. Despite w^ch, I was little troubl'd in my owne mind, inasmuch as from what I had learnt, in converse with our captors, our straits were at worst uncertain. Our keepers seem'd scarce to know them selves what to doe with us, and there confusion I mark'd as a good signe, together with the faction & dispute w^ch I had witness'd. For where faction is amongst the enemie, the battle is halfe won. Therefore I made my men a little speach, intreating them to be of good heart, and comport them selves as men. But my intreaties were in vaine, they wish'd them selves back in Jamestowne, or better in London, and curs'd the voiage that had brought them hither. Burlingame, as I had foreseen, was lowdest in his compleynts, for all it was he, in my estimation, that by his cowardice had brought us to this passe. I had no love for him, that had done all in his power to thwart me & my explorations, and stir up unrest against me in Jamestowne. I heartilie wish'd him in London, or at the bottom of the Baye, and told him as much. He onelie glar'd at me, and spoke no more, but I guess'd it was in his mind, s^hd I taunt him farther, to tell the companie some scurvie lie, about Pocahontas & my selfe, as he had oft threaten'd, and so I left him alone. Yet I did reflect, that such a state c^d not persist, but must be remedy'd soon, for that faction doth lead still to mutinie, and without my guidance, I was certain all w^d perish at the hands of the Salvages, in there follie & ignorance, ere they regayn'd Jamestowne by them selves.

"Greatlie tyr'd from the dayes adventures, and weak for want of food, they all were soon asleep, maugre there feares & compleynts, and left to my selfe, I undertook to ingage our guard, the smalle lowd Salvage, in conversation, purposing to learn more of our fate, and peradventure to gayn his favour, or to promote the faction I had observ'd.

"This tyme my luck was better than theretofore; whether by reason that onelie the twain of us were awake, or that he sought to allie me to his cause, the Salvage spake readilie & cordiallie in answer to my queries. I ask'd him, What was his name? to w^ch he reply'd, it was Wepenter, w^ch is to say, a cookold, and he was so call'd, for his wyfe being taken from him to the bedd of the old Werowance, or King. On farther questioning him, I learn'd that this same King, called Kekataughtassapooekskunoughmass (w^ch is to say, Ninetie Fish), had latelie dy'd, and I guess'd it was this same Wepenter, that in jealousie did murther him. The towne then left without a King, and the old King having no heirs save his single concubyne, the Salvages must needs choose a new Werowance from there number, and this they design'd to doe on the morrowe, by a singular means.

"All the Ahatchwhoops are exceeding smalle in stature, and for that reason doe hugelie envie men of large size, and heavie. They believe, that the more a man can eat, the bigger he will become, and the heavier there King, the more secure will be there towne, against its enemies. Therefore, whenever that a King doth dye with no male heirs, all the Ahatchwhoops doe assemble for a feast, and him who doth prove the grandest glutton thereat, they doe call King over them, and bestowe upon him a new name, signifying the achievement whereby he gayn'd the throne. Thus was the old Werowance called Kekataughtassapooekskunoughmass, for that he did eate ninetie fish on the daye he became there King. And thus, I guess, the folk were fitlie call'd, Ahatchwhoops, for all the rise of belliegass, that must attend the feasting.

"Such was there curious custom, and when I had learnt it, my owne plight, and that of my companie, grewe somewhat more cleare, albeit I was not certain yet, Why we were held prisoner? But with more speach, I soon learn'd, that there were in the towne two men who were desirous of the throne. Of these one was the King's assassin, even that same Wepenter, with whom I spoke, and he wish'd to be King, if onelie to regayne to him selfe his wyfe, the old Kings concubyne, that once gone into by the last King, c^d then lie onelie with the next. Wepenters rivall was that same fatt Salvage, that had erst harangu'd us, and he was call'd Attonceaumoughhowgh, or Arrowe-targett, for that he was so fatt, and withall an easie marke to hitt. This Attonce too did lust after Wepenters wyfe, that was call'd Pokatawertussan, or Frye-bedd, for the surpassing heate wherewith she did disport in matters of love.

"Now were it a simple contest in gluttonie, betwixt this Attonce & this Wepenter, then Wepenter w^d loose the daye perforce, for that he was but smalle, and Attonce exceeding large of bellie & appetite. But any Salvage, it was there custom, c^d enter the lists by proxie, if willing proxie he c^d find, and s^hd his champion then win the field, they w^d share the throne & the favours of the Queene, but the proxie w^d have no power to command. Thus had they alter'd antient practice, to the end they c^d believe that the fattest man maketh the best King, and yet avoyd the consequences of there belief.

"It was by virtue of this custom, that Wepenter & his fellowes had lay'd hold of us, that we being strange in appearance, and sayling such a curious vessell, he took us for wonder-workers, and was desirous of choosing from our number one to playe his proxie on the morrowe. He declar'd it was Attonces troup, that had shot arrowes from the shoar to drive us off, what tyme milord Burlingame had leagu'd the Gentlemen behind him, to force us ashoar in quest of bellie-timber. Maugre my contention, that the look of the land was hostile. And Wepenter had call'd us Susquehannocks, merely to frighten his rivall out of appetyte.

"These & many other things I learn'd from this Wepenter, who then read me his conditions, on hearing I was Captain of the companie. To witt: that I was to be his proxie at the approaching feast. That s^hd I best Attonce in the matter of gluttonie, all my companions w^d be freed, and we w^d rule the towne conjoyntlie, and share the bedd of Pokatawertussan. That if, on the contrarie, I was beat by Attonce, then I & all my companie must needs dye forthwith at Attonces hands, for such was the custom amongst the Ahatchwhoops.

"I reply'd, that I was honour'd by his choyce, but poynted out I was slight of girth, and temperate of appetyte, not given to feats of gluttonie. Therefore, if he w^d have a proxie, I suggested he choose not me, but examine our companie, and of there number choose the fattest & most gluttonous of aspect, for his proxie. This Wepenter did on the instant, and regarding all my souldiers & Gentlemen, while that they slept, stopt at length over Burlingame, even as I had design'd, and seeing that greate mountaine of dung, spread out & snoring like unto a swine in the wallow, Wepenter did make me a sign, this was his choyce. I commended his wisdome, and assur'd him, that with such a proxie, his victorie was certain, and he w^d have at Pokatawertussan on the morrow. Thereupon we smoak'd severall pypes of tobacco by the fyre, and talk'd through the night of many an idle thing.

"When that I saw the dawn grow light without the hutt, I did wake Burlingame, ere the rest of the companie arose, and address'd him boastfullie in this wise. That I had deflowr'd Pocahontas before his eyes, and had farther layn with Hicktopeakes Queene, what tyme he had abandon'd her for harlot. He then enquir'd, in a fearsome choler, Wherefore had he to heare these things again? to w^ch I answer'd that even as I had out-done him in manlinesse on these occasions, so was I about to doe againe, for that there was that morn to be a contest, whereof the winner s^hd lie at his pleasure with a comelie Salvage wench, the dead Kings concubyne. On hearing these tydings, Burlingame grew much arows'd, and with much cursing & gnashing of teeth, did vilifye me, and at length resorted to his antient threat, even that s^hd I not stand aside this tyme, and lett him futter the Salvage in my stead, he w^d straightwaye noyse about, in Jamestowne & the London C^o my employer, the truth anent Pocahontas & Hicktopeakes Queene. I did replye, that I car'd not a whitt for all his threats (albeit in sooth things w^d goe hard, did my enemies get wind of his foule storie). Besides w^ch, I declar'd I had no choyce in the businesse, for that the entyre companie, and the Salvage troup as well, had perforce to enter the lists, it being the wont of these Ahatchwhoops, thus to make a pryze of there comeliest lassies. He enquir'd, What manner of contest was it? and upon my telling him, that he won the mayd, who eat the hugest quantitie of food, he was entyrelie pleas'd, and did sweare, he w^d eat twice over what any Salvage c^d, & thrice what I or any of our companie might eate. That he was insatiable of appetyte, and had eat no food for two daies, and hence was certain to win the faire mayd. I did rejoyn, that tyme w^d prove his boast, but for my selfe, all I car'd was that some one of our companie be victor, and not the great fatt Salvage of yesterdaye, for else we s^hd ail be put to the speere. Moreover, that s^hd he win the test, and so save all our lives, not onelie w^d he enjoye the prettie peece with all my blessing, but I w^d let bye-gones be bye-gones, and never againe bragg of my conquests, or his owne deficiencie. Farther, that I w^d arrange matters with Pocahantas, that he s^hd trye her favours, when once we return'd to Jamestowne.

"These words fell sweet on the eares of Burlingame. He did growe doublie hott, for thinking of them. When I recall'd to him then, what was our fate s^hd Attonce win the daye, he reply'd, that he worry'd not a beane. That he c^d eate any Englishman or heathen under the table. And he smack'd his greate stomacke with his hand, whereupon it set up such a clamour, one had guess'd all the feends of Hell therein. These things we spoke in English, that Wepenter might not heare & guesse my ruse.

"Somewhile after, our companie was awake, and the souldiers & Gentlemen compleyning of there bellies, that they had naught to eate. The Salvages did gather without the hutt, and a greate fyre built, and we were led outside by Wepenter, and seated in a half-circle, he behind Burlingame. Across from us satt down Attonce, all fatt and uglie he was, and with him a score of his cohorts, in another half-circle upon the grownd. Came then from a hutt hard by, Pokatawertussan, and sat down betwixt the half-circles, on a kind of rugg, to see who s^hd be her next bedd-fellowe. She was that same mayde, who on the day just past had quieted all harangue, merelie by raysing her armes & walking bye. Half cladd she was, and bedawb'd with puckoone paynt, after the manner of Salvage wenches, and so surpassing faire & tight withal, I had neare wish'd my selfe greate of gutt, to win her favours. At sight of her, Attonce let goe a mightie hollowing, and Burlingame, like the rest of us save onelie me, all naked, for that our shirts had mended our sayle in the storme, and our breeches flung to the fishes after our siege of fluxes & grypes in Limbo Strait, he was so taken with her, that he shook all over, and slaver'd over his lipps & sundrie chinnes. He whisper'd to me, not to tell the others what we were about, that they w^d not contend with him, and I agreed with a right good will, for that I desir'd no man save Burlingame to win.

"Attonce then commenc'd to slapp his bellie with his hands, to the end he might arowse a grander lust for food, and seeing him, Burlingame did likewise, untill the rumbling of there gutts did eckoe about the swamps like the thunder of vulcanoes. Next Attonce, sitting cross-legged, did bump his buttockes up & down upon the earthe, farther to appetyze him selfe; Burlingame also, that he give his foe no quarter, and the verie grownd shudder'd beneath there awful bummes. Burlingame then blubber'd his lipps & snapt the joynt-bones of his fingers, and Attonce likewise. Attonce op'd & shutt his jawes with greate rapiditie, and also Burlingame. And thus they did goe on, through many a ceremonie, whetting there hungers, whilst our companie sat as amaz'd, not knowing what they witness'd, and the Salvages clapt there hands & daunc'd about, and Pokatawertussan look'd all lustilie from one to the other.

"At length, from everie hutt in the towne, the women and old men brought forth the sundrie dishes of the feast, that had been some daies preparing. To each of us was given a platter of divers foods, and onelie one, w^ch shew'd, though it was sufficient to fill us with comfort, that none of us were reckon'd as contenders, save onelie Burlingame & Attonce, before whom they set dish after dish. For houres thereafter, while that the rest watch'd in astonishment, the two gluttons match'd dish for dish, and herewith is the summe of what they eat:

Of keskowghnoughmass, the yellowe-belly'd sunne-fish, tenne apiece.

Of copatone, the sturgeon, one apiece.

Of pummahumpnoughmass, fry'd star-fish, three apiece.

Of pawpeconoughmass, pype-fishes, four apiece, dry'd.

Of boyl'd froggs, divers apiece, assorted bulles, greenes, trees, & spring peepers.

Of blowfish, two apiece, frizzl'd & blow'd.

Of terrapin, a tortoise, one apiece, stew'd.

Also oysters, crabbs, trowt, croakers, rock-fish, flownders, clamms, maninose, & such other sea-food as the greate Baye doth give up.

They next did eate:

Of mallard, canvas-backe, & buffle-head ducks, morsels & mix'd peeces in like amounts.

Of hooded mergansers, one apiece, on picks as is there wont.

Of pypers, one apiece, dry'd & pouder'd.

Of cohunk, a taystie goose, half apiece.

Of snypes, one apiece, bagg'd.

Of black & white warblers, one apiece, throttl'd.

Of rubie-throated humming-birds, two apiece, scalded, pickl'd, & intensify'd.

Of gross-beeks, one apiece, bill'd & crack'd.

Of browne creepers, one apiece, hitt.

Of long-bill'd marsh wrenns, a bird, one apiece, growsl'd & disembowell'd.

Of catt birds, one apiece, dyc'd & fetch'd.

Of growse, a legg apiece, smother'd naturall.

Also divers eggs, and bitts & bytes of turkie and what all.

The fowles done, they turn'd to meat, and eat:

Of marsh ratts, one apiece, fry'd.

Of raccoon, half a one apiece, grutted.

Of dogg, equall portions, a sort of spaniell it was.

Of venison, one pryme apiece, dry'd.

Of beare-cubb, a rasher each, roasted.

Of catamount, a haunch & griskin apiece, spitted & turn'd.

Of batts, two apiece, boyl'd, de gustibus & cet.

No rabbitts. While that they eat of these severall meats, there were serv'd to them vegetables, to the number of five: beanes, rockahominy (w^ch is to say, parch'd & pouder'd mayze), eggplant (that the French call aubergine), wild ryce, & a sallet of greene reedes, that was call'd Attaskus. Also berries of divers sorts, but no frutes, and the whole wash'd downe with glue-broth and greate draughts of Sawwehonesuckhanna, w^ch signifyeth, bloudwater, a mild spirits they distill out in the swamp.

"The while this wondrous feast was being eat, Wepenter did pownd & stryke Burlingame upon the backe & bellie, to settle his stomacke, and Attonces aides did likewise him smite. After that each course was done, they did both ope there mowths wide, and Wepenter thrust his finger downe Burlingames crawe, & Attonce his owne likewise, or else have recourse to a syrup call'd hipocoacanah, so that they did vomitt what was eat, and cleare the holds for more. The Salvages did leap & daunce the while, and Pokatawertussan twist & wrythe for verie lust upon the rugg, at two such manlie men.

"When at last this Attonce did get him selfe to his redd berries, w^ch was the final dish, that the Salvages had prepar'd, and he did put one in his mawe, and drop out two therefrom, for want of room, his lieutenant smote him one last blow upon the gutt, whereat Attonce did let flie a tooling fart and dy'd upon the instant where he sat. And was too stuff'd, to fall over. Then did the Salvages on our side crie out, Ahatchwhoop, Ahatchwhoop, signifying, that Attonce was disqualify'd from farther competition. But albeit he was dead, our Burlingame was not yet victor, for that the twain had eat to a draw as far as to there final berrie. It wanted onelie for Burlingame to take but a single swallow more, and our lives were sav'd. We hollow'd at him, we cry'd & intreated, but Burlingame onelie sat still, his eyes rownd, his face greene, his cheeks blown out, his mowth fill'd with berries, and for all our exhortation, c^d not eat another bite. Here I leapt up from where I sat, and snatching the last boyl'd batt out of the caldron, pry'd open his jaws & thrust it in. Then held shutt his mowth, and delivering him a stout rapp on the head, did cause him to swallow it down.

"So clearlie then was Burlingame the victor, that Wepenter sprang upon him, and rubb'd his nose against Burlingames, and fetch'd him a loving patt upon the bellie. Whereat Burlingame did heave up what he had eat, and so befowl'd Wepenter therewith, the Salvage must needs hie him selfe to the river-shoar & wash. All the people then declar'd Burlingame Werowance, or King, but he was too ill to grasp there words.

"It being by this tyme nightfall, for that the feast had lasted all the daie, Burlingame was carry'd in state to the old Kings hutt, and there install'd, not able to move, and Pokatawertussan follow'd after, all a tremble. Wepenter meanwhile, did exact allegiance from those Ahatchwhoops, that had been with Attonce, and bade them fetch awaye the dead mans carcase, and w^ch still sat, for buriall. I told my companie, that we were free men, and w^d make sayle on the morrow, at w^ch tydings they shew'd good humour, though they grasp'd little of what had pass'd.

"When that the sunne rose, we wak'd, and taking provisions a plentie, the gift of Wepenter, made readie to return to our barge, and pick up the broken thread of our journie. This Wepenter was in fine good spirits, and upon my asking, Wherefore? he reply'd, that neare midnight, while that he slept, Pokatawertussan had come to his hutt, albeit she was by custom bound to lye the first night with the proxie. I wonder'd thereat, and Burlingame joyning us at the last minute, even as we left downe the path to the shear, I ask'd him, Had Pokatawertussan earn'd her name? Whereupon he curs'd me ardentlie, and said, That the last boyl'd Batt had so undone him, he knew not where he was the whole night long. That he had not been able even to see any Salvage trollop, how much the less doe a mans work upon her. He was surpassing wroth with me, for having thrust the Batt upon him, and maugre my protestation, that I had spar'd the lott of us therebye, he vow'd afresh to tell his tailing tale on me, and write letters to the London C°, & cet. . I responded, that I had made a pact with him, that s^hd he win, he c^d doe whatsoever he w^d, and turning, led my companie downe the path. Burlingame follow'd, in all innocence, till that, to his surprize, the Salvages lay'd hands on him, and maugre his whoops and hollowings, bore him back to the Kings hutt, to reign over them with Wepenter for ever.

"My souldiers and Gentlemen much alarm'd thereat, I made them a speach, that they s^hd be of good hearte. That the Salvages had demanded Burlingame as tribute for our libertie, and being so few & unarm'd, we had naught for it, but deliver him up & go in peece, onelie bearing his memorie for ever in our heartes. This counsell at length prevayl'd, albeit the companie shew'd great sadnesse, more especiallie the Gentlemen thereof, and we wav'd to Wepenter as we went downe to the barge. For the favour of Princes, even amongst the Salvages, is a slipperie boone, lightlie granted, and as lightlie withdrawn, and we wish'd onelie to retayne it, untill that we were safe againe in our barge, and awaye from this scurvie, barbarous countrie. Whither (God wot) I shall never return, nor yet (God grant) any other Englishman.

"And may He smyte me dead here where I sit, in the sternsheets of our trustie barge, if any word of these adventures passe my lipps, or those of my Companie (the w^ch I have this daye sworn to silence), or ever appeare in my greate Generall Historie, for:

When one must needs Companions leave for dead,

'Tis well the Tale thereof were left unread."

8: The Fate of Father Joseph FitzMaurice, S.J., Is Further Illuminated, and Itself Illumines Mysteries More Tenebrous and Pregnant

When Ebenezer looked up, still agape, from the couplet at the foot of the Secret Historie, Chicamec commanded him, through Drepacca, to return the volume to the chest, and the guards, who had knelt throughout the lengthy reading, rose to their feet and carried the chest back to its corner. Both Bertrand and McEvoy were surprised to hear the name Burlingame in the manuscript, but knowing nothing of the current Henry Burlingame's past or the contents of the manuscripts relative to this one — and having the sentence of death upon their heads — they were more bewildered than astonished by the narrative. Ebenezer, on the other hand, was bursting with curiosity, but before he could formulate a proper question, the old chief demanded to hear again the poet's description of his former tutor.

"What is his aspect?" Quassapelagh translated. "Tell of his skin and the rest."

"I'faith — " Ebenezer frowned in recollection. "His skin is not so fair as McEvoy's, yonder, nor yet so dark as Bertrand's; 'tis near in hue to my own, I'd venture. As for his face — i'Christ, he hath so many — let me say only that in stature he is slighter than any of us, a quite short fellow, in fact, but his want of height is the less apparent forasmuch as he hath a deep chest and good shoulders, and his neck and limbs are stout. Ah, yes, and his eyes — they are dark, and have at times the glitter of a serpent's."

Chicamec nodded with satisfaction to hear these things; his next question caused the Anacostin King to narrow his eyes, and Drepacca to smile the briefest of royal smiles.

"The Tayac Chicamec desires to know about your friend. ." He searched for words, and the old chief, as though to assist him, held up one of his little fingers grasped at the second joint. Quassepelagh went on determinedly, "He wishes to know about the part — "

"They call it the privy member," offered Drepacca. Quassapelagh did not acknowledge the assistance but relied on it to make his message clear. "Whether it is of that small size, nor ever is moved by love to manly proportion?"

Ebenezer blushed and replied that, quite to the contrary, Burlingame was to be censured more for excess than for defect of carnal resources; that he was, in fact, the embodiment of lust, a man the catalogue of whose conquests surpassed all reasonable bounds in respect not only of length, but as well of manner and object.

The Tayac received this news without surprise or disappointment and merely inquired more particularly whether Ebenezer himself had been present at any of these deplorable activities.

"Of course not," the poet said, a little annoyed, for he found the whole inquiry as uncomfortable as it was distasteful.

But surely the brother of Quassapelagh had observed with his own eyes the instrument of his teacher's lechery?

"I have not, nor do I wish to! What is the end of these questions?"

Drepacca listened to his elder colleague and then declared to Ebenezer, "This man of whom you speak is Henry Burlingame Three; the fat Englishman of the book" — he pointed toward the chest in the corner — "is Henry Burlingame One, the father of the father of your friend."

"In truth? 'Sheart, 'twas what Henry hoped for from the first, but ne'er could prove!" He laughed ironically. "What joy it is, to gladden a friend's heart with news like this! But when Henry was my friend I'd naught to give him; now I have these wondrous tidings and no friend to give them to, for — " He was about to say that Burlingame had betrayed not only him but the cause of justice; he checked himself upon reflecting that, to say the least, he was no longer certain whether justice lay with Baltimore or John Coode, assuming the real existence of those gentlemen, and whether in fact it was Burlingame or Reality that had betrayed him, or the reverse, or simply he who had betrayed himself in some deep wise. "The truth of't is," he declared instead, and realized the truth of his proposition as he articulated it, "my friend hath passed into realms of complexity beyond my compass, and I have lost him."

This sentiment proved incapable of translation, even by the knowledgeable Drepacca, who first interpreted it to mean that Burlingame was dead.

"No matter" — the poet smiled — "I love him still and yearn to tell him what I've found. But stay — we have the grandsire and grandson, it appears, but what came between? And how is't Henry was found floating in yonder Bay? Ask the Tayac Chicamec who was Burlingame Two, and what came of him."

Drepacca had no need to relay the question, for at the words Burlingame Two old Chicamec, who had been listening intently, grunted and nodded his head.

"Henry Burlingame Two." He pronounced the words clearly, with no trace of Indian accent, and tapped his thumb against his shrunken chest. "Henry Burlingame Two."

Even as Ebenezer protested his incredulity, he saw in the high cheekbones and bright reptilian eyes the ghost of a resemblance to his friend. "Ah, nay!" he cried. "Say rather he is the son of Andrew Cooke; tell me his name is Ebenezer, the Laureate of Maryland — 'twere as easy to believe! Nay, gentlemen: 'tis beyond the Bounds; outside the Pale!"

Be that as may, Chicamec replied in effect, he was the father of Henry Burlingame III, whom he himself had set afloat to drown. He went on to tell a most surprising tale for which Quassapelagh, clearly his favorite, provided a running translation, deferring with reluctance to Drepacca at the more difficult passages:

"The Tayac Chicamec is a mighty foe of white men!" he began. "Woe betide the white-skinned traveler who sets foot on this island while even one Ahatchwhoop dwells here! For the Ahatchwhoops will not be sold into slavery like the people of Drepacca, nor traffick for English guns and English spirits like the people of Annoughtough and Panquas, nor yet flee their homes and hunting-places — "

"Like the people of Quassapelagh," Drepacca obliged.

"Rather will they put to the torch every white man who stumbles into their midst, and lead the great war-party that shall drive the English Devils into the sea, or else die fighting here upon their island, under the white man's guns!"

Here Ebenezer interrupted. "You must ask the Tayac Chicamec the reason for his wrath, Quassapelagh: I judge from yonder journal-book that his people have suffered small harm from the English these four-score years. He hath not one tenth the grievance of Quassapelagh or Drepacca, yet he shews ten times their spleen."

"My brother asks a barbed question," said Quassapelagh with a smile. "I shall put it to the Tayac Chicamec without the barbs."

He did so, and with the typical indirection of the savage, Chicamec ordered the chest brought out again in lieu of immediate reply. This time he took out the journal himself — the guards knelt down at once and lowered their eyes — and held it grimly at arm's length.

"This is The Book of English Devils," he said through Quassapelagh. "Its tale you know: how my godlike father, the Tayac Henry Burlingame One, did best the great Attonceaumoughhough as champion for Wepenter, and drove off the English Devils from our land."

"Nay, one moment — " the poet protested, but thought better of it at once. "I mean to say, he was in sooth a mighty man."

"He drove out the English Devils upon their ship," Chicamec resumed, "and then pursued them himself along the shore, for it was his vow that he would follow them to their next encampment and there destroy the lot. He crossed to the northern mainland by canoe and ran all day along the shore of the marshy Honga, up whose reaches the unwary Devils sailed. And when these Devils put ashore to make their camp, then did the Tayac Burlingame spring to kill them, with no weapon save his hands. But Wepenter had mistrusted the courage and godlike prowess of the white-skinned Werowance and had followed after with a war-party, and for this sin the gods bound fast my father's limbs with invisible thongs, so that the Devils slew Wepenter and divers others, and made good their escape before my father could destroy them. But in their haste they left behind this book, in which was writ the Tayac Burlingame's mighty deeds, and he preserved it to remind all future ages of Ahatchwhoops that the English are the seed of those same Devils, and must be slain on sight.

"Now you must know that my heavenly father was a man of no common parts in carnal matters; but as the storm-god stores his strength for many moons and then in a night lays waste the countryside, so the Tayac Henry Burlingame One had a---"

"A member," Drepacca offered, for the second time that day.

"It was no greater than a puppy's, nor more useful, nor did he go into the Queen Pokatawertussan for three full nights after the Feast. But on the fourth, so say our legends, he summoned her to the bed, and performed the Rites of the Holy Eggplant, after which he got a child in her so mightily, she ne'er left her bed again, and died in bringing me forth!

"For twenty-six summers thereafter," Chicamec's tale continued, "the Ahatchwhoops lived in peace under my father's rule. Our fishermen brought us stories of English Devils far to the south, and divers times we saw their great white ships go up the Bay, yet never did they put ashore on our island or the nearby mainland. And great was my father's wrath against them: when my mother the Queen Pokatawertussan was in travail, he vowed to her he'd slay their child ere its cord was cut, if it was born white. And he named me Henry Burlingame Two, but called me by an Ahatchwhoop name, Chicamec. Every day he would read The Book of English Devils, and farther inflame the Ahatchwhoops to murther any white man who fell into their hands. In my twenty-sixth year he died, and with his last breath told our people that the Tayac Chicamec would guard their town against the English Devils, and he swore me to a mighty oath, that I would slay any white-skinned man who came among us, even from the wombs of my wife and concubines.

"Loud were the wails of the Ahatchwhoops upon his passing, and when I became Werowance in his stead, I prayed for a sign of favor from the gods. At once a terrible storm crashed all about us and blew hither a medicine-man from amongst the English Devils, all senseless and half drowned — by which sign we knew the gods favored my reign and my cause. Lest any of our number doubt he was a Devil and take him for a human like ourselves, I held forth our totem for him to reverence, and being a Devil, he spat upon it. Thereupon we offered him the privileges of the damned and burnt him next day in yonder court, as you all — save the brother of Quassapelagh — shall burn."

"Stay, prithee!" cried Ebenezer, whose mind had been wrestling with dates and recollections. "Captain Smith made his voyage in 1608, and you murthered this English Devil in your twenty-sixth year: I say, Quassapelagh, ask him whether that chest yonder did not belong to this medicine-man he speaks of. ."

The question was translated and answered affirmatively.

"I'faith, then — one more question: hath the Tayac Chicamec any other sons besides my friend Henry Burlingame?" He strove to recall the tales he'd heard from the Jesuit Thomas Smith and from Mary Mungummory. "Hath he a son now dead called Charley. . Moccassin? Mackinack? Nay, not that. . 'twas Mattassin, I believe."

At mention of this name Chicamec's face went hard, and his reply, according to Quassapelagh, was, "The Tayac Chicamec hath no sons."

Ebenezer was sorely disappointed. "Ah well, no matter, then; 'tis only a curious coincidence of events."

"Quassapelagh's brother doth mistake us," Drepacca put in pleasantly. "The Anacostin King hath Englished Chicamec's words, but not his meaning." He turned to Ebenezer. "In truth the Tayac Chicamec hath sons, but they both deserted him to live among the English, and he hath disowned them. One was the man you mentioned, whose name I shan't repeat: he slew a family of English and was hanged."

"Then I'm right!" the poet exulted. "This medicine-man was a Jesuit missionary, and yonder are his soutanes and holy-water! And 'sbody — " His imagination leaped to new connections. "Doth it not follow that Burlingame is half-brother to this murthering Mattassin?"

No one else in the hut, of course, was in a position to appreciate these revelations. The second mention of Charley Mattassin's name elicited strong rebuke from Chicamec.

"Methinks you should be proud of him," Ebenezer ventured. " 'Tis true his victims were Dutch and not English, but they were white-skinned in any case."

"Take care, Brother," warned Quassapelagh. "I shall tell the Tayac Chicamec that you apologize for calling Mattassin his son."

This done, the old chief went on with his story, and for the first time an emotion other than wrath and malevolence could be noticed in his tone:

"For many summers the Tayac Chicamec had denied himself the joys of a wife and sons," Quassapelagh translated. "His heavenly father Henry Burlingame One had given him to know that his seed was mixed, and had farther sworn him to destroy any white-skinned issue; therefore, to spare himself the pain of putting a child of his own to the spear, he chose to live and die without the solace of a family.

"Now it happened that the medicine-man English Devil had lain with divers women of the Ahatchwhoops on the night before he died — as is the privilege of a man condemned, except he be a prisoner of war like yourself — and had got three of them with child. The issue of the third was a daughter, more red than her father and more white than her mother, and the Ahatchwhoops took the child and made to drown her in the Chesapeake; but the Tayac Chicamec stayed their hands, observing to them that the skin of the girl-child was of the same hue as his own. He took her to his empty hut and raised her as his daughter, and this was a mighty sin against the gods, but the Tayac Chicamec knew it not.

"Thus it was that the child of the Devil was reared as a princess amongst the Ahatchwhoops, and grew more beautiful to behold with every circuit of the seasons, so that all the young men of the town became her suitors and applied to the Tayac Chicamec for her hand. But evil spirits put a torch to the Tayac's heart, and albeit he was then in his forty-fourth summer, and she in her fifteenth, he was possessed with love for her and desired her for his own. The fire mounted to his head, and caused him to believe that inasmuch as the blood of the Princess was mixed in the same manner as his own, he could father sons upon her whose skins would have the color of their parents'. To this end he sent away the suitors and revealed to the Princess that albeit he had raised her as his own, she was not in fact the daughter of his loins, and he meant to have her for his Queen. Greatly did the girl protest, whether because she had some favorite amongst the young men of the town or because she was wont to think of the Tayac Chicamec as her father; but such is the power of the vengeful gods, her tears were merely fuel for the Tayac's passion, and he who had lived long years without a wife grew. ."

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 grand-sire 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!

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 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'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 camino 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!"

From a distance the driver had seemed to be a man, but now they saw it to be a dumpy, leather-faced woman in the hat and deerskin coat of a fur-trapper. The light was poor, but even in the dark Ebenezer would have known her at once.

"I'God, what chance is this?" He laughed incredulously and stepped close to convince himself. "Is't Mary Mungummory I see?"

"No other soul," Mary answered cheerily. "Get up with ye now, and tell me whither thou'rt bound."

They climbed to the wagon-seat readily, glad to rest their legs, and McEvoy named their destination and intent.

Mary shook her head. "Well, lads, 'tis your own affair where ye sleep, but take care; 'tis a cruel and cranky wight owns yonder barn. Thou'rt free to sleep back in the wagon, if ye wish to; I've no end o' quilts and coverlets back there, and nobody to use 'em till we reach Church Creek. Giddap, Aphrodite!"

She whipped up her white mare, and they proceeded up the road.

"Mary Mungummory!" Ebenezer cried again. " 'Tis a proper miracle! How is't thou'rt here in this Avernus of a marsh?"

" 'Tis the fundament o' Dorset, right enough," the woman admitted, "but it's on my regular route nonetheless. Just now I'm out o' girls," she explained to McEvoy, who plainly did not know what to make of her, "but there's one in Church Creek I've heard is ripe for whoring."

"Ah Mary!" laughed Ebenezer, still astonished. "Thou'rt the person I've yearned all day to see, and you have forgot me! What news I have to tell you!"

"There's many a lad yearns to see this wagon down the lane," Mary observed, but peered at her passenger more closely. "Why, praise God, now! Is't Eben Cooke the poet? I declare it is, and your poor wife told me ye'd flown to England!"

McEvoy frowned, and the poet blushed with shame. "You've seen Joan?"

Mary clucked her tongue. "I saw her this very week, near dead o' pox and opium — to say naught o' her broken heart. Didn't I tell her to come in the wagon with me and let me give her a cure? Not that there's aught can save her now, but 'twould keep the salvages off her, at the least. Ah, Mister Cooke, ye did wrong by that girl, that asked such a trifle of ye. Are ye bound for Malden, to take your medicine like a man?"

"I–I am," Ebenezer said miserably, "just as soon as I'm free to. There's much I must tell you, Mary, as we go along. . But i'faith, I've lost my manners! John McEvoy, this is Mary Mungummory."

"The Traveling Whore o' Dorset," Mary added proudly, shaking hands in the masculine fashion with McEvoy.

"So she calls herself," Ebenezer declared, "but she is the most Christian lady in the Province, I swear." He then introduced McEvoy as an old and dear friend from London, and though he could scarcely wait to tell Mary about the coming Indian uprising, her late lover Charley Mattassin's brothers, and the urgent mission to which he was committed, his curiosity and bad conscience led him first to inquire further about the state of things at Malden.

Mary cocked her head and clucked her tongue again. "There's much hath changed since ye ran off: all manner o' queer goings-on, that nor Joan Toast nor any soul else seems to know the sense of — myself included, that left my girls and bade Bill Smith adieu as soon as Tim Mitchell disappeared."

"Is my father there, do you know? Andrew Cooke? And what of the cooper?"

"There's a wight that calls himself Andrew Cooke, all right," Mary said. "Whether he's your father is past Joan's proving, and mine, that ne'er laid eyes on him in England. He is a hard-hearted wretch in my case, I swear! Bill Smith's there too, and still hath title to the place, albeit I hear there's every sort o' lawsuits on the fire. But i'Christ, I'll say no more; there's much afoot, that ye'll learn of better for yourself." She chuckled. "What a stir 'twill make when you walk in!"

"One question more," begged Ebenezer. "I must know whether my sister Anna is there with Father."

"Ye mean to say ye do have a sister?" Mary glanced at him thoughtfully and urged the mare on through the twilight.

"You have news of her? Where is she?"

"Nay," Mary answered, "I've not heard aught of her. The truth is, this wight that calls himself your father told Bill Smith's lawyer — ye recall that blaspheming thief Dick Sowter? — told Sowter ye was the only heir to Cooke's Point: no brothers or sisters. Then when some fellow recollected ye was born twins, he changed his story and swore the other twin died o' the Plague."

"This is fantastic!" Ebenezer pressed the woman for a description of this Andrew Cooke; the detail of the withered right arm convinced him it was his father, but she could shed no light on the strange assertions.

"Ye'll see what's what soon enough, I'll wager," she repeated. By this time their intended lodging was far behind them, and marshy ground began to appear once more not far from the road. A cold wind sprang up in the gathering darkness.

"Marry, I've much to tell you!" the poet cried with new enthusiasm. "I scarce know where to commence!"

"Why, then, think it out tonight and start fresh in the morning," Mary replied. With her whip she pointed to a lighted window in the distance. "Vender's where we'll stop: 'tis an old friend o' mine lives there."

"I'God, don't put me off! If aught I said distressed you, prithee forgive me for't; but what I have to say concerns you as well as me."

"Indeed, sir? How might that be?"

Ebenezer hesitated. "Well — did you know Charley Mattassin had a brother?"

She regarded him pensively. "Aye, a salvage down on Bloodsworth Island. What do ye know of him?"

Ebenezer laughed distractedly. "There's so much to tell! Stay, now — did you know he had two brothers, and Henry Burlingame — that is to say, Tim Mitchell, that I said had the same strange character as your Charley--- I'm all entangled! Tell me this, Mary: when did you last see Tim Mitchell, and where is he now?"

Full of wonder, Mary replied that she had not seen Tim Mitchell for weeks, even months; it was rumored, in fact, that he had not been Captain Mitchell's son at all, but an impostor of some sort, the agent of certain powerful and unidentified interests hostile to the equally powerful and unidentified syndicate in which Captain Mitchell was a major figure. Tim's disappearance had been the occasion for great alarm and mutual suspicion among Captain Mitchell, William Smith, and the other operatives in the organization, but for Mary herself, by her own admission, it had been a stroke of good fortune, for he had been a hard taskmaster for her girls at Malden.

"Then you don't know where he is?" Ebenezer interrupted. "I must find him within a fortnight, or I and three companions will die — nay, I'll explain in time. Know, Mary, that the man you called Tim Mitchell is really Henry Burlingame the Third, son of the Tayac Chicamec of the Ahatchwhoops and brother to Charley Mattassin and Cohunkowprets, whom we must find also or perish! All we know of him is that he was sent on a mission by his father, as was Mattassin before him, and like Mattassin he was detained by some English Calypso — " He smiled in order to indicate to Mary that he had not betrayed her confidence to McEvoy. "This was some days or weeks ago, I gather, and the Tayac hath not seen him since. I hoped you might have heard rumors in the County of a half-breed salvage turned proper Englishman."

"Dear Heav'n!" Mary threw back her head and closed her eyes. "Did ye say he plays the Englishman, Mister Cooke?"

"That is the story as Chicamec heard it. The man took an English name, an English wife, and an English house."

"What did ye say was his English name?" Mary's voice was husky; her face quite white.

"I've no idea. Cohunkowprets, so we're told, means Bill-of-the-Goose. What ails you, Mary? Have you seen him, then?"

Mary turned Aphrodite stiffly into the lane of the lighted cabin, and the occupant stepped outside with a lantern to meet them.

"Nay, Mister Cooke, I've not seen him, but I have heard tell of a half-breed named Rumbly: Billy Rumbly — "

"You have? Marry come up, John, this sainted lady will save me once again!" He squeezed her plump arm, but instead of her usual meaty laugh she gave a groan and shrank from his cordiality.

"What in the name of Heaven is wrong with you, Mary?" he demanded. Already their host for the night recognized the sailcloth-covered wagon and called his greetings down the lane.

"No time to tell ye now," the woman muttered. "I'll spin the tale for ye tomorrow morning on our way to Church Creek — that's where this Billy Rumbly's said to live, and I was bound for his place ere ever I met ye yonder on the road."

"Bound for there — " Ebenezer's laugh rang over the marsh. "D'you hear that, John? This woman's an angel of God, I swear! Not only hath she heard of Lord Cohunkowprets; she means to pay him a call!"

Mary shook her head slowly. "Go to, go to, Mister Cooke. Go to." They were close enough to the lantern of their host for Ebenezer to see the consternation on her face, and though he could not imagine what so alarmed her, his heart turned cold.

"D'ye not recall who I am, and what business I have in Church Creek? I am the Traveling Whore o' Dorset, Mister Cooke, and the trollop I lately got wind of, that may wish to join my traveling company — Whoa, Aphrodite! Whoa, girl! — I have a notion — just a notion, mind ye now — this tart may be your sister. ."

10: The Englishing of Billy Rumbly Is Related, Purely from Hearsay, by the Traveling Whore o' Dorset

Supplicate, cajole, and threaten as he might, Ebenezer could not prevail upon Mary Mungummory to speak farther on the subject of Anna's whereabouts and circumstances. She saluted their host, a buck-skinned, thin-grinned, begrizzled old hermit of a fur-trapper, and would not hear the poet's desperate expostulations.

The old fellow held up his lantern and was clearly pleased at what its light disclosed, for he sprang about like a frog, croaking for joy.

"Mary Mungummory! I swear 'tis old Mary at that!"

Mary grunted. "Did ye look to see Helen o' Troy in the Dorset marsh this time of the night?" She talked over-loudly, as one would to a man partially deaf. Her voice was rough with affection, and whether he grasped the allusion or not, the old man hopped and snorted appreciatively. He climbed up onto the side of the wagon and peeked inside as Mary drove Aphrodite up to his cabin.

"Don't strain your eyes, ye old lecher," she shouted. "The cupboard's bare till I reach Church Creek." She changed the subject quickly. "These here are friends o' mine, Harvey, down on their luck. If ye'll stand dinner and lodging for the three of us, I'll make it up to ye next time around."

"What fiddle is this?" Harvey cried. "D'ye think I'd not ha' took after ye, had ye not turned in my lane? I looked at the moon three nights ago, and I thought: 'tis time Mary's wagon came by." He sprang off the wagon the instant it stopped at his cabin. "Come inside and thaw, now; there's partridge and duck a-plenty, and cider to drown the lot o' ye!"

"We thank ye," McEvoy said loudly. Ebenezer was too distraught to acknowledge the man's charity with more than a nod; when their host ran ahead to open the cabin door, the poet whispered a final fierce entreaty to Mary to relieve his tortured fancy with explanation.

"There's no more Christian man in Dorset than Harvey Russecks," she declared, ignoring him. "And few with less cause to feel kindness for his fellow creatures. He's a brother to Sir Harry Russecks in Church Creek."

Her tone implied that this last assertion was intended to be revealing, but to Ebenezer, yawning and shivering with frustration as they entered the rude log cabin, it meant nothing at all.

"I'll just spit us a brace o' partridge on the fire," Harvey declared. "Haply ye'll pass the cider-jug round, Mary; old Harvey's got no cups to offer ye gentlemen." He fussed about like a new bride, and soon two birds were roasting over the pine logs in the fireplace. There was only one chair in the cabin, but the wood floor boasted two black-bear pelts, as warm and easy a seat as one could ask.

"If ye don't know the miller Harry Russecks," Mary went on, "thou'rt among the blest." She addressed herself to Ebenezer; when the poet looked away, wincing at the irrelevancy of her discourse, she flared her nostrils and turned to McEvoy instead. "This Harry Russecks is the lyingest, cheatingest, braggingest bully ye'll e'er mischance upon; thinks he's a London peer, doth the wretch, and browbeats his neighbors to call him 'Sir Harry' all the while he gives 'em short weight on their flour and meal. Truth is, he's no more a nobleman than his brother Harvey here, that's the son of a common house-servant and not ashamed to own it. Tis Mrs. Russecks is an orphan child o' the peerage — the miller's wife, and as fine a woman as her husband is the contrary. The bitter part is, her father was the gentleman that the miller's father served, but fortune used her so ill their positions turned arsy-turvy: she was a starving orphan and Harry a prosperous miller, and he married her a-purpose to tickle his vanity."

"Ye don't say!" McEvoy shook his head in polite wonder and glanced uncomfortably from Ebenezer to their host, who pottered about, oblivious to the narrative.

"He can't hear me, never fear," Mary assured him. "Poor devil had both his ears boxed till the drums cracked, as I hear, and ye can lightly guess who boxed 'em."

"The miller?" McEvoy asked.

Mary pressed her lips and nodded. "Both brothers grew up with the lady I mentioned, and the story hath it they both were in love with her from the first, but Harvey was too shy and respectful o' place to do aught but wet-dream of her, e'en when she was a-beggaring, while Harry's lust was public as the moon. 'Twas when Harry wed her that Harvey took to living here in the marsh, and some years after, when he scolded Sir Harry for abusing the girl and putting on airs, the bully boxed his ears and well-nigh ground him into corn-meal."

The Irishman clucked his tongue.

"How she came to be orphaned is a story in itself," Mary went on doggedly. "She's a lady o' spirit, is Roxie Russecks, and don't think she comes fawning at the great lout's beck and call! Why, I could tell ye one or two things she had contrived — "

"No more!" Ebenezer cried, clutching his ears. Even the hard-of-hearing trapper turned round. "I thank you humbly for your hospitality!" Ebenezer shouted to him. "And I've no wish to appear ungracious or ungrateful for't! But Miss Mungummory here hath news of my long-lost sister, and I shall perish of anxiety if she keeps it from me any longer."

Harvey looked questioningly at Mary. "What is't ails the wight?"

"He's not the only poor wretch on tenterhooks," Mary snapped. "He hath news of his own close to my heart, but the tales are long and mazy, and here's no place to spin 'em out. Let him wait till we're on the road."

But the trapper joined his protests to Ebenezer's.

"No pleasure pleasures me as doth a well-spun tale, be't sad or merry, shallow or deep! If the subject's privy business, or unpleasant, who cares a fig? The road to Heaven's beset with thistles, and methinks there's many a cow-pat on't. As for length, fie, fie!" He raised a horny finger. "A bad tale's long though it want but an eyeblink for the telling, and a good tale short though it take from St. Swithin's to Michaelmas to have done with't. Ha! And the plot is tangled, d'ye say? Is't more knotful or bewildered than the skein o' life, that a good tale tangles the better to unsnarl? Nay, out with your story, now, and yours as well, sir, and shame on both o' ye thou'rt not commenced already! Spin and tangle till the Dogstar sets i' the Bay; a tale well wrought is the gossip o' the gods, that see the heart and point o' life on earth; the web o' the world; the Warp and the Woof. . I'Christ, I do love a story, sirs!"

Even Mary was plainly impressed by her old friend's eloquence, and though her scowl only darkened as he concluded, it was the scowl no longer of recalcitrance but of grudging assent, and she agreed that tales would be told when the partridge was finished.

"The fact of't is," she said loudly to Harvey, "you may have as much to say as any of us. 'Tis the half-breed Rumbly we're interested in, amongst other matters. Master Cooke here can start us off, that hath some mysterious business with the wight, and then we'll each add what we can. But not till the birds are done."

Harvey Russecks's face brightened at the name Billy Rumbly, and squinted a bit at the mention of Ebenezer's surname. "Thou'rt the poet chap that gave away his property?"

"The same," Ebenezer replied, no longer embarrassed by this identification. "You all may wait for your dinners if you wish; since I'm to start, I'll start right now, listen who will, and tell you why not only my life but the life of every white-skinned person in the Province may depend on my finding a salvage called Cohunkowprets, within the month, and persuading him to listen to humane reasoning." He proceeded to tell them about the capture of his party on Bloodsworth Island: the grand conspiracy of fugitive Negroes and disaffected Maryland Indians; his relationship with Drepacca and Quassapelagh, and the peculiar status of the Tayac Chicamec in the triumvirate. As briefly as the complexity of the subject permitted he described the history of Chicamec's antagonism towards the English, the ironic fates of his three sons, and the consequent insecurity of his present position in the conspiracy. Mary Mungummory and Harvey Russecks hung astonished on the tale; had not McEvoy been already familiar with the greater portion of it and thus able to devote his attention at times to other matters, the two partridges would have burned untended on the spit.

"Marry sir, do I have't aright?" he asked incredulously. "Ye must deliver Cohunkowprets or the other wight to Bloodsworth Island within the month, or else the salvages will burn the two hostages?"

"They'll burn the three of us," Ebenezer affirmed. " 'Tis my fault they're on Bloodsworth Island."

Both his listeners glanced questioningly at McEvoy, who lowered his eyes to the food and said — in a voice surely too low for the trapper to catch — "I owe Mister Cooke my life; that's true enough. God knows whether I'm hero enough not to renege on the debt."

"The fact is," Ebenezer concluded, "we're all of us like to lose our scalps anon, when the war commences, and there's reason to think 'twill commence when this same month of mine expires. They seemed quite indifferent whether I spread the news of their plot; 'tis as if they feel our militia's not a match for them."

"They're right enough there," declared their host. "Copley and Nicholson both refused help to New York, e'en when the Schenectady folk were murthered, and 'tis folly to look for help from Andros in Virginia or the Quaker William Penn: they'd like naught better than to see us butchered by the salvages and Negroes, for all they might be next at the block themselves." He shook his head. "The worst of't is, an honest man can't hate the wretches for't. When a poor wight's driven from his rightful place, and pushed, and pushed — to say naught o' being clapped in hobbles and sold off the block like a dray-horse — i'faith, 'tis only natural he'll fight the man that's pushing him, if he hath any spirit left in him. I've no great wish to lose my scalp, sirs, but I swear I'm half on the Indians' side o' the question."

"As am I," Mary agreed.

"And I," said Ebenezer; "not alone because there's justice in their cause, but because there's a deal of the salvage in all of us. But as you say, 'twere better to keep one's scalp than lose it. 'Tis for that reason I must find Chicamec's sons: Burlingame I know is a very Siren for persuasion, and this Cohunkowprets, if he hath in sooth embraced the English cause. . my plan is to apply to his new loyalties, if I can contrive it; send him back to the Ahatchwhoops as a penitent prodigal; let him assume his place as prince of the bloody realm, where he can do his best to influence Quassapelagh and Drepacca, and haply forestall the massacre. 'Tis a chancy gambit, but desperate cases want desperate physic; and until Mary, or the twain of you, tell your tales, I know naught of Cohunkowprets save that he deserted his people to woo some English woman, just as his brother Mattassin before him — "

He stopped and blushed. "Forgive me, Mary."

The woman waved his apology away and sighed a corpulent sigh. "Naught to forgive, Mister Cooke. I feel no shame at loving Charley Mattassin, nor any regret nor anger at his end. If I could believe his brother was like him — Nay no matter! We'll learn soon enough, and in any case — " She paused, and a little tremor shook her. "I'm minded of some old scoundrels Charley read about in his Homer and his Virgil, and the two of us were wont to chuckle at — their names are gone, but one was the father of Achilles and the other of Aeneas — "

Ebenezer supplied the names Peleus and Anchises; he was surprised anew at the extent, not only of the Indian's late forays into Western culture but also of Mary's pertinent recollections, and McEvoy, who knew nothing of the curious relationship, was flabbergast.

"Those were the wights," Mary affirmed. "Each had bumped his bacon with a goddess, and the twain of 'em were ruined for life by't. No doubt 'twas a bargain at the price, but there are bargains a soul can't afford but once. D'ye see my point?"

They did — Ebenezer and the trapper in any case — and Mary went on.

"Now mind, I'm not saying this Billy Rumbly is Mattassin's brother: I've ne'er laid eyes on him, as Harvey hath, and Charley ne'er spoke overmuch about his family. But what I've heard o' the wretch and his English woman I can fathom to the core. There's something in't of what Mister Cooke declared just now — that there's a piece o' the salvage in us all. 'Tis that and more: the dark of 'em hath somewhat to do with't, I know. What drives so many planters' ladies to raise their skirts for some great buck of a slave, like the Queen in The Thousand and One Nights? Methinks 'tis an itch for all we lose as proper citizens — something in us pines for the black and lawless Pit."

She had been looking at the pine logs on the fire; now she straightened her shoulders, rubbed her nose vigorously as if it itched, and sniffed self-consciously. "But that's no tale, is it, Harvey?"

"Not a bit of't," Harvey replied. " 'Tis a great mistake for a taleteller to philosophize and tell us what his story means; haply it doth not mean what he thinks at all." But the trapper was clearly impressed by Mary's analysis, as were Ebenezer and McEvoy.

" 'Tis what I thought of, in any case," she said good-naturedly, "when Roxie Russecks told me about Billy Rumbly and the Church Creek Virgin."

Ebenezer bit his lip, and Mary hurried into the story.

"Just a fortnight ago or thereabouts this woman came to Church Creek, all alone, with no baggage or chattels save what little she could carry, and went from house to house looking for lodgings. She was a spinster of thirty or so, so I hear't, and declared she was new out of England; gave her name as Miss Bromly of London."

"Dear Heav'n!" Ebenezer cried. "I know that girl! She was our neighbor when we lived on Plumtree Street!" He laughed aloud with sharp relief. "Aye, there's the answer! She spoke of me, and ye took her for my sister! What business hath Miss Bromly in Maryland?"

"Hear me out," Mary answered darkly. "As I say, she gave her name as Miss Meg Bromly, but when folk asked her what her business was in Church Creek, and how long she meant to hire lodgings, she had no ready reply. Some took her for a runaway redemptioner; others thought she was the mistress o' some planter, that meant to keep her in Church Creek; others yet believed she was got in the family way and either turned out by her father or sent to the country for her confinement — albeit she showed no signs of't in the waist. 'Tis rare to find a maiden lady of thirty years anywhere, but especially in the Plantations, and rarer yet to find one traveling alone, without servants or proper baggage, and not e'en able to state her business plainly. Add to this, she was nowise ugly or deformed, and spoke as civil as any lady — she could have had her choice o' husbands for the asking, I daresay — 'tis small wonder the ladies she applied to, whate'er their views, all took her for a bad woman, either a whore already or a whore-to-be, and had naught to do with her. As for the men, they slavered and drooled after her like boars to a salt young sow, and if any doubted she was a whore, they doubted no more when she took rooms at Russecks's inn: 'tis no inn, really, but a common store and tavern that blackguard of a miller owns — Harvey's brother. There's an upstairs to't, no more than a loft walled off into stalls with pallets; 'tis where my girls set up shop when we're in the neighborhood, ere we go on to Cambridge and Cooke's Point.

"Well, she stood them off as haughty as ye please, but they reckoned she was holding out for a higher price. Finally they asked her to name her hire, whereupon she drew a little pistol from her coat and replied, she'd charge a man his life just to lay hands on her, and King William himself couldn't buy her maidenhead. With that she went up into the loft, and no man in the room durst follow her. Thenceforth they called her the Virgin o' Church Creek, merely for a tease, inasmuch as they all believed she was the mistress of Governor Nicholson, or John Coode, or some other important man. She came and went whene'er she pleased, and no man touched her. Now and again she'd make enquiries of 'em, whether they knew aught of the state o' things at Malden, on Cooke's Point, and o' course they knew Malden to be the fleshpot o' Dorset County, so they took her all the more surely for a fashionable whore.

" 'Twas only a few days later, so Roxie told me, this half-breed Indian buck came into Church Creek. As a rule, the salvages travel in pairs when they come to town, but this wight was alone; he strode into Russecks's store as bold as ye please, put a coin on the table, and called for rum!"

"Ah, that can't be Cohunkowprets, can it, John?" Ebenezer asked McEvoy. "I doubt he knew English enough to order rum."

But McEvoy was not so certain. "He might have learned from Dick Parker, ye know; Dick Parker himself learned decent English in two or three months."

"And Charley Mattassin in less time yet," Mary added, and continued her narration. "This salvage was so fierce-looking, Harry Russecks gave him his rum with no argument, and he drank it off like water. 'Twas plain he'd never tasted liquor before, for he gagged and choked on't, but when 'twas down he called for another to follow the first. (All this is my Charley to the letter, Mister Cooke — bold as brass and bound to learn all in a single gulp.) By this time the men saw a chance for some sport with him. They poured him his rum and asked his name, which he gave as Bill-o'-the-Goose — "

"That's it!" Ebenezer and McEvoy cried out at once.

"The Tayac Chicamec told us Cohunkowprets means Goosebeak" Ebenezer explained. "Why he bears the name I shan't tell here, only that — " He blushed. "I shall say this, Mary, you declared his manner resembled Mattassin's; know then, that save for the lighter hue of his skin, Bill-o'-the-Goose is the likeness of his brother in every particular of his person."

Mary's eyes filled with tears. " 'Sheart, then he is in sooth poor Charley's brother!" She shook her head. "How clear I see it in his behavior, now I know it to be so! Why, marry come up, 'tis Charley and I all over again, after a fashion!"

Bill-o'-the-Goose, she went on tearfully to say, had not got into his second glass of rum before Miss Bromly, the Church Creek Virgin, happening to pass through the room on her way outdoors from her quarters, encountered him face to face. Until that moment she had preserved through all their catcalls and lubricities the iciest demeanor; but by the testimony of every man present in Russecks's tavern, when she beheld the Indian she drew back, shrieked out some unintelligible name, and tottered for some moments on the verge of a swoon; yet when a patron made to assist her she regained her composure as quickly as she had lost it, drove the Samaritan back by reaching under her cape — where the whole town knew she carried her famous pistol — and made her exit with a tight-lipped threat to the company. Bill-o'-the-Goose, like all the others, had stared after her and was the first to speak when she was gone.

"Bill-o'-the-Goose no longer wishes to be Bill-o'-the-Goose," he had declared. "You tell Bill-o'-the-Goose what ordeals he must brave to be an English Devil."

These, Mary Mungummory swore, were his very words as reported to her. Everyone agreed on the context of his statement; they remembered it so exactly because Bill-o'-the-Goose had had difficulty finding an English word for the initiation rites to which, in many Indian nations, young men were subjected as prerequisites to official manhood. A trapper present had at length supplied the word ordeal, to the great delight of the company when they grasped the Indian's meaning.

"Ye say ye want to become an Englishman?" one of them had asked gleefully.

"Yes."

"An English Devil, ye say?" had asked another.

"Yes."

"And ye want to know what tests a salvage has to pass ere we look on him as our brother?" demanded the miller.

"Yes."

The men had exchanged glances then and found unanimous design in one another's eyes. By tacit agreement the miller had proceeded with the sport.

"Well now," he had said thoughtfully, "first off ye must show yourself a man o' means; we want no ne'er-do-wells about — unless they're pretty as the Virgin, eh, gentlemen?"

The Indian had been unable to follow this speech, but when he was made to understand that they wished him to show his money he produced five pounds in assorted English currency — acquired no man knew where — and a quantity of wompompeag, all of which the miller Russecks had promptly pocketed.

"Now, then, ye must have a proper English name, mustn't he, lads?"

It was short work for the men to change Bill-o'-the-Goose into Billy, but the problem of a fitting surname required much debate. Some, impressed by the stench of the bear-grease with which their victim was larded, held out for Billy Goat; others, with his naïveté in mind, preferred William Goose. While they deliberated, Bill-o'-the-Goose drank down his rum — with less difficulty than before — and was commanded to take another on the grounds that a proper subject of Their Majesties should be able to put away half a rundlet of Barbados without ill effect. It was this third drink, and the solemnity with which the Indian, already gripping the table-edge to steady himself, had raised his glass like a ceremonial grail, that had inspired the miller with a third suggestion.

"He hath the makings of a proper rummy, hath our Bill," he had remarked, and added when the Indian gave up just then — in the manner of all the Ahatchwhoops — a raucous, unstifled belch: "Hi, there, he's nimbly with the spirit already!"

And since no man present cared to defend his own preference in the matter against the miller's, Bill-o'-the-Goose's new English name became Billy Rumbly, and was bestowed on him with much blasphemous mumbo-jumbo and a baptism of cider vinegar.

"Then they shaved off his hair," Mary said, and Ebenezer guessed that in earlier tellings of the story her voice had been marked by nothing like its present bitterness; "shaved it off to the scalp, poured another glass o' rum in his guts, and told him no civil English gentleman e'er reeked o' bear-fat. There was naught for't, they declared, but he must hie himself down to the creek — in mid-December, mind — strip off his clothes, wade out to his neck, and swab himself sweet with a horse-brush they provided. 'Twas the miller's idea, o' course — br-r-r, how I loathe the bully! — and they packed Billy off to crown their pranks, never dreaming they'd see him again; if he didn't freeze or drown, they reckoned, he'd be shocked fair sober by the creek and skulk away home."

In fact, however, she said, they laughed not half an hour at their wit before the butt of it reappeared, returned the horse-brush, and called for more rum: his skin was rubbed raw, but every trace of the bear-grease was gone, and his liquor as well, and he showed no sign of chill or other discomfort. While they marveled, Billy pressed them to set him his next ordeal, and by unhappy coincidence Miss Bromly chose this moment to re-enter the tavern from wherever she had been, cross the room in disdainful silence, and disappear up the stairway to her loft. Even so, nothing further might have come of it, it was Billy who undid himself by demanding to know whose woman she was.

"Why, Billy Rumbly, that's the Church Creek Virgin," the miller had answered. "She's nobody's woman but her own, is that piece yonder."

"Now she is Billy Rumbly's woman," the Indian had declared, and had drawn a knife from his belt. "How doth an English Devil take a wife? What man must I fight? Where is the Tayac to give her to me?"

Not until then had the men drawn their breath at the vistas of new sport that lay before them. Not surprisingly, it was Harry Russecks who had spoken first.

"Ye say — ye claim the Church Creek Virgin for your wife?"

At once Billy had moved on him with the knife. "Is she your woman? Do you speak for her?"

"Now, now," the miller had soothed, "put up your knife, Billy Rumbly, and behave like a decent Englishman, or she'll have naught of ye. So she's to be Mrs. Billy Rumbly, is she? Well, now!" And after repeating his earlier assertion, that Miss Bromly had none to answer to but her own good conscience, Russecks declared his huge satisfaction with the match, a sentiment echoed by the company to a man.

"But don't ye know, Billy Rumbly," he had continued, " 'tis not just any Englishman deserves a lass like the Virgin Bromly. Ye know the — what-d'ye-call-'em, Sam? Ordeals: that's the rascal! — ye know the ordeals of an English bridegroom, don't ye, lad?"

As all had hoped, Billy Rumbly confessed his entire ignorance of English nuptial rites and was enlightened at once by Russecks, who spoke in a solemn and supremely confidential tone:

"In the first place, ye dare not approach an English virgin with marriage in mind till ye have at least a dozen o' drams to fire your passion. They loathe a sober lover like the pox, do our London lassies! In the second place ye must say nary a word: one word, mind ye, and your betrothal's at an end! D'ye follow me, Billy Rumbly? 'Tis a custom with us English Devils, don't ye know, to see to't no shitten pup-dogs get our women. No talk, then; ye must come upon her privily, like a hunter on a doe — i'Christ, won't she love ye for't if ye can catch her in ambuscado and take her maidenhead ere she knows what wight hath climbed her! For there's the trick, old Billy, old Buck: our laws declare a man must take his bride as a terrier takes his bitch, will-she, nill-she, and the more she fights and hollows, the more she honors ye in the rape! Is't not the law o' the land I'm reading him, friends?"

Now the others had entertained nothing more serious than a prank, so they all claimed afterwards to their wives; their only thought was to have some sport with a drunken Indian at the expense of the high-and-mighty Miss Bromly. But whether because they dared not gainsay Sir Harry or because his plan was altogether too attractive to resist, they affirmed, with little nods and murmurs, that such indeed were the customs of the English. As Billy took to himself the requisite rum, they told themselves and subsequently their wives that a man with twelve drams of Barbados in his bowels was no more dangerous than a eunuch to any woman's honor; when he had done they made way solemnly for Sir Harry, who with final hushed injunctions led him reeling to the stairway and watched him tiptoe up in drunken stealth.

"Marry, and to think," groaned Mary, interrupting her narrative, " 'twas Mattassin's golden likeness they made a fool of! 'Tis like — oh, God! — 'tis as if ye made a pisspot o' the Holy Grail!"

" 'Twas a heartless prank," Ebenezer agreed, "but not alone for Bill-o'-the-Goose! 'Tis poor Meg Bromly I fear for."

"Let's get on with't," their host suggested. "I've heard what I've heard, but there's many a change been rung on the tale of Billy Rumbly these few days. Gets so a wight collects 'em, like tusk-shells on a string."

" 'Twas Roxie Russecks I heard it from," Mary said, "as honest a gossip as ever spread the news, and she had it from Sir Harry not five minutes after it happened. Henrietta heard the shot all the way from the mill and ran outside to see whence it came — for all Sir Harry wallops her just for showing her face at the window. But when she saw folks running to her father's tavern-shop she had perforce to fetch her mother to get the news, and the Indian was gone in a trail o' blood when Roxie got there. ."

"The shot!" Ebenezer broke in. "Did you say Miss Bromly shot him?"

Mary raised a fat forefinger. "I said the poor salvage was wounded and gone, with his own sweet blood to mark his path: that's all I said."

"But who else — "

"When Roxie got to the tavern," she pressed on, "there was blood on the ground, blood on the gallery, blood all over the floor. The men were fair sobered, ye may wager, but too shamed to look her in the eye; as for Harry, that was braying like a jackass at his prank, she could get no sense from him at all. 'I'Christ, i'Christ!' was all he'd say. 'Did ye see the fool a-hopping and a-croaking like a new-gelt frog?' Then off he'd bray and say no more."

"Miss Bromly!" Ebenezer demanded. "I must know what happened to Miss Bromly! Was't she that shot the poor wretch?"

" 'Twas the Church Creek Virgin," Mary said tersely. "The truth is, she had reckoned from the first that if Sir Harry himself did not try for her maidenhead one day or another, he'd send some drunken lecher to try it for him; hence the pistol, always charged and ready to fire. 'Twas in her coat whene'er she set foot down the stairway, and while she slept, she kept it hid beneath her pallet, whence she could snatch it at the first step on the stairs. The trouble was, even a drunken salvage is still a salvage to the core; Billy Rumbly crept upstairs with no more noise than a Wiwash hunter stalking game, and the first she knew of her danger was when he laid his knife against her throat!"

McEvoy clucked his tongue. "How did she manage to fetch the pistol?"

"There's the rub of't." Mary smiled. "The walls were broached beyond defense, and naught was left to her but to open the gates, surrender the castle, and take vengeance against the invader whilst he plundered."

"Ah God!" cried Ebenezer. "D'you mean the poor girl lost her honor after all?"

"Not yet, though every man thought so, as I did when I heard the tale from Roxie, and wondered how Billy Rumbly was not unstarched by the rum. But ye forget, Mr. Cooke, what we know now: he is Mattassin's brother, and by your own statement shares my Charley's one defect: he carries his manhood not under breeches but in his fancy, where rum is more a virtue than a burthen." Mary shivered again. "Nay, now I think on't, 'tis all in what ye mean by the word: no brother o' Charley's could ever take her in the usual way, and belike she hath her maidenhead yet; but I know well he was at her honor from the first instant, and since she was obliged to let him fetch her to the pallet, ye may be sure her precious honor was well tattered by the time she got there. Then, of course, she snatched out her pistol and aimed to murther him. Howbeit, her shot was low, from what I gather; it cut him inside the thigh and sent him packing like a wounded rabbit. E'en then Sir Harry couldn't end his wretched game: he must chase after poor Billy Rumbly all the way outside and hollow 'Ye wasn't man enough, damn ye, Bill! Try her again in a fortnight!' "

"But Miss Bromly. ." said the poet.

"That's the end o' my tale," Mary said firmly, "till Harvey tells his part of't: when Roxie learned the nature of her husband's prank she flew upstairs to look after Miss Bromly and found her lying like a lass well-ravished upon the pallet, with the pistol still a-smoking in her hand. And for all her erstwhile lordly airs, she ran to Roxie like a child to its mother, weeping and a-hollowing enough for two, and declared that albeit she was virgin as ever, the salvage had taken a host of liberties with her person, insomuch that she was like to perish of shame. 'Tis not surprising Roxie disbelieved her — as did I when I heard of't anon — and said, 'Now, now, Miss Bromly, what's done is done, and feigning shan't undo it; thou'rt no virgin now, if in sooth ye were before, but I'm convinced thou'rt no trollop either. Come live with me and my daughter at the mill,' she said, 'and we'll teach ye how a woman can have sport at no cost whate'er to her purse, her pride, or her precious reputation.' "

"Ah, Mary," cautioned their host, who must have been reading her lips, "don't tell tales, now."

Mary replied that Mr. Cooke she knew to be a perfect gentleman, and since McEvoy knew none of the parties involved, she saw no harm in quoting Mrs. Russecks's speech. "Ye know full well she's my dearest friend as well as yours, Harvey, and I love Henrietta like a daughter. These gentlemen have heard already what a beast Sir Harry is; 'twere as well they knew this much more to go with't — that Roxie and Henrietta have the spirit and wit to pull the wool o'er the great swine's eyes at every turn."

The trapper was still not entirely pacified, but Ebenezer, though the mixed metaphor made him wince, acknowledged the unknown women's right to their peccadilloes, in order to bring Mary back to her story.

"Aye, Miss Bromly," Mary sighed, "that Roxie tells me I might persuade now to learn my trade."

Ebenezer could not restrain his bitterness. "Is that your notion of a grand and charitable woman, that takes a poor girl in to make a whore of her? Unhappy Miss Bromly! Methinks your Mrs. Russecks is no better than her husband!"

"Gently, gently, Mr. Cooke," Mary said calmly. "Ye forget 'tis not to Sir Harry's mill I'm bound to fetch her, but to the house of her English husband, Mr. Rumbly. ."

"I'God!"

"Let me finish, now. The girl was that distracted by her rape, or whate'er ye choose to call it, she commenced to gibber like a bedlamite. Her name was not Meg Bromly at all, she declared, but Anna Cooke o' Cooke's Point, the sister o' the Laureate Poet, and the salvage that attacked her was no salvage at all, but her childhood tutor — "

"Marry, I see it!" cried the poet. "She hath been Anna's friend and mine since we were children in Plumtree Street; some business hath brought her to Maryland, and she had planned to call on me at Malden until she heard of my disgrace and Father's wrath. Aye, 'tis clear! She durst not go near the infamous place, but took lodgings in Church Creek while she made enquiries about me. I'faith, another lost soul upon my conscience! Poor, poor Miss Bromly; how Anna would fly to aid you if she knew!"

As a matter of fact, Ebenezer's feelings were mixed: he was unspeakably relieved to think that the Church Creek Virgin had not been his sister, but distressed at the same time, not only because it had been his sister's friend but also because this fact rendered Anna lost as ever. Now he blanched, for a new thought struck him.

"Nay, 'tis worse yet! Why would Miss Bromly be in Maryland at all, if not as Anna's companion? Aye, 'sheart, they traveled together — what could be more likely? — and when they heard how things fared at Malden, or when my father caught up with Anna and made her stay with him, Miss Bromly took it upon herself to seek me out. That's it, I'm certain: either Joan Toast made no mention of me, or they disbelieved her! 'Sheart, 'sheart, miserable girl! How many more will be brought low on my account? And now, whether 'tis that she seeks pity by desperate subterfuge or that the shock of rape hath deranged her, she calls herself by her best friend's name, and thinks 'tis Henry Burlingame hath undone her!"

" 'Tis a fact she sometimes calls her husband Henry," Mary allowed. "Roxie said as much."

"Stay, now," McEvoy said. "Ye left the wench in her loft-room, a-babbling to the Russecks woman, and now she's wife to the wight that leaped her, and that she pistoled! Ye've o'er-skipped some piece o' the tale, lass, have ye not?"

"That I have, sir," Mary nodded, "for 'tis Harvey's to tell. When the girl had done a-gibbering she fell a-swoon in Roxie's arms and was fetched senseless to Henrietta's chamber in the millhouse. For three days Roxie nursed her like an ailing child, and on the fourth she disappeared. No man hath laid eyes on her from that day to this save Harvey here. ."

11: The Tale of Billy Rumbly Is Concluded by an Eye-Witness to His Englishing. Mary Mungummory Poses the Question, Does Essential Savagery Lurk Beneath the Skin of Civilization, or Does Essential Civilization Lurk Beneath the Skin of Savagery? — but Does Not Answer It

Mary finished speaking and looked expectantly at Harvey Russecks, as did Ebenezer and John McEvoy. But because her last remark had been delivered in a voice lower than that with which she had told the story and had been directed specifically to McEvoy, the trapper missed it and smiled vacantly back at them.

"Tell 'em, Harvey," she prompted. "What happened whilst the Church Creek Virgin was a-swoon at Roxie's, and the rest of it?"

"Aye, that's true," Harvey laughed, not yet conceiving exactly what she said. Ebenezer concluded that the older man's mind must have been wandering, for he had caught up the earlier remark about Mrs. Russecks at once. " 'Twas when I went out on the trap line in the morning — ice all over the marsh, don't ye know, and muskrats frozen in the snares — I spied a campfire down the line and walked over to't to thaw my finger-joints; there lay this salvage with the bloody breeches, his head all shaved and his body cold as death. 'Twas my first thought he was dead, and another two hours had proved me right; but I felt some life in his veins beat yet and resolved to fetch him here and do what I could for him. The wound I found no great matter, for all the blood; I washed and bound it, and forced some hot broth on the fellow directly he could open his mouth. B'm'faith, what a stout wretch he proved! As nigh as the very latch-string to death's doorway, and an hour later he had his senses again, if not his strength. When I'd won his trust he told me his tale as best he grasped it, and inasmuch as I'd heard o' the Church Creek Virgin and knew my brother's humor besides, it wanted small philosophy to guess the rest.

"I told him he'd been the butt of a low prank (the which he saw plainly when I explained it) and offered to ask for the five pounds sterling Harry had robbed him of; he thanked me kindly, in the plainest English I e'er heard salvage speak, and declared the whole of't was mine for rescuing him, if I could get it. Now ye dare not refuse a salvage's gift, lest he think thou'rt insulting him, and so I declared I'd take two shillings for my trouble and deliver the rest to him. All the while we spoke he had been casting his eyes about the room, and anon he asked me, Would I sell him my house? and Would five pounds purchase it? I replied 'twas not worth it by half, but I'd no mind to sell, and as he showed such eagerness to live in an English cabin I told him of an old one I owned near Tobacco Stick Bay, not far from Church Creek, that was falling to ruin for lack o' tenants, and declared he could live in't without rent if he'd trouble himself to repair it. Ye might think that an odd piece o' charity on such short acquaintance, but this half-breed had an air about him — I've not the words for't, sirs. 'Twas as if. . d'ye know those stories o' kings and princes that prowl the streets in Scotch cloth? Or Old Nick posing as a mortal man to bargain for souls? He was uncommon quick in his mind, was this salvage, and gave me to feel that had he been reared English from the cradle he'd have been another Cromwell, or what ye will. 'Tis no mystery to me Miss Bromly took him for her tutor in disguise; with a fortnight's practice he could pass for a don of Oxford, I am sure of't, and two years hence for a sunburnt Aristotle! There's many a man I have no use for, gentlemen, and it struck me from the first this salvage would play me false if need be, to gain his ends; but he had that power of attraction — how doth a man speak of it? Will-ye, nill-ye, ye felt that if his purpose and yours weren't one, ye had your own shortsightedness to blame for't, and if he sold ye short, 'twas that your stuff was the stuff o' pawns and not o' heroes. To this hour he hath done me no injury, but that day I was driven to forgive him in advance, in my heart, for aught he might do me!"

"Ah," Ebenezer said.

"In any case, he slept here that night, and next morning I found him gone. My first thought was, he had set out to revenge himself on my brother — " The trapper blushed, but his eyes narrowed. "God forgive me or not, as't please Him: I made no move to warn Harry of his danger, but went out to my line o' traps as usual. There was a frost that morning, I remember, and over by Raccoon Creek, on a stretch o' high ground betwixt the fresh marsh and the salt, I commenced to see bear tracks along the path, and even a bear stool so fresh 'twas not e'en froze, but lay a-steaming in the path. Not long after, near the end o' the line, I saw moccasin-prints with the bear tracks, and inasmuch as they were not half an hour old, I took the trouble to follow 'em out.

"Anon the trail led me to a little stand o' hardwoods, and I could hear Mr. Bear a-grumbling up ahead. I had no weapon on me save my skinning-knife, and so I crept toward the sound as quiet as I could manage. 'Twas no great trick to find him, he was growling so; I came on a little clearing and there he was, a fat black rascal that hadn't bedded down for the winter. He was a male, not quite full-grown — on his hind legs he would've stood as high as your shoulder — and he was worrying a rotten piece o' log to get the grubs on't. I'd just commenced to wonder where the salvage had got to, when a hand came down on my shoulder, and there stood Billy Rumbly himself, looking wise and cheerful as ye please. He led me farther down wind and out of earshot and told me he meant to kill the bear unless I laid a claim on't.

" 'Why, Billy,' says I, ' 'tis not likely I'll take on a bear with a skinning-knife so long as I'm sober, and I'd urge no fellow man to try such tricks.' For I saw he had no weapons on him save his two hands. But he only smiled and declared he'd show me a trick he'd learnt from some western salvages, that were said to use it as a test o' courage when two men quarreled o'er some squaw's favors. I judged 'twould be worth the watching, nor was I mistaken — nay, i'Christ, 'twas the oddest piece o' hunting I'll behold in my life!

"The first thing he did was find two straight saplings, one no thicker than your thumb and the other twice as thick, and snapped 'em off low in a certain way so that the break was a hand's-breadth long. I offered him my knife to point 'em, but he declared 'twas a breach o' the rules to use a knife or any weapon thrown from the hands, and made the best of't by peeling back splinters from the break. One sapling he made a rough spear from by stripping off the branches, and the other he broke off short for a kind of dagger; then we crept to the clearing, where Mr. Bear was scratching his back against a tree, and for all the frost had scarce commenced to melt, Billy fetched off all his clothes, picked up his sticks, and stepped into the clearing dressed in naught but the rag-strip bandage on his thigh."

Ebenezer observed that Mary had set her jaw and closed her eyes.

"The bear left off scratching and watched him make some salvage sort o' prayer. But when Billy moved toward him he ambled off round the edge of the clearing. Billy set out at a run, hollowing some gibberish or other, but instead o' turning on him or running down the path, the bear made for a stout young oak near the middle o' the clearing and commenced to climb. I stepped out and called 'Bad luck, Billy,' for I never doubted the chase was done; but the bear was scarce off the ground ere Billy was climbing after him, pole in hand and dagger 'twixt his teeth, and never a care how the rough bark flayed him as he climbed! At the first branches, twice your height, the bear stopped to look down, and grumbled and waved his forepaw. Billy shinnied up close and poked as best as he could without a proper purchase, but he got no more than a growl for his pains. I offered to fetch him a longer pole, and learned 'twas a breach o' his murtherous rules to take help from any wight soever or change weapons once ye've touched the bear — I'll own I felt then, and feel yet, he was hatching these customs as he went along, but he followed 'em like Holy Orders.

"In lieu of changing weapons, he changed his plan o' battle and commenced to jab at the bear's face, taking care the brute didn't catch the pole in his teeth or strike it out o' his hand. I guessed 'twas his object to drive the bear farther up the trunk and gain the branches for himself, where he could do more damage with his spear, but instead the animal moved around the trunk to protect his face, and hung his great hindquarters over Billy's head. Yet so far from giving o'er the bout or scrambling away, Billy seemed as pleased as if 'twas just what he'd designed: he gave a whoop and thrust his pole as far as ever, where I need not mention! The bear gave a squeal and tried to get at the spear with his forepaws, but Billy thrust deeper; he climbed a little distance up the trunk and was undone the more by slipping back, and at length he fell, with such a hollowing as ye never heard. In that same instant Billy was on him; he drove the short stake in his throat and sprang away ere I myself had grasped the fact that the bear was down.

"By the time I found a tree o' my own to hide behind, the bear was on his feet and thrashing after the pole, that stuck out behind. All the while, Billy stood empty-handed in plain view, not three yards off, and goaded the bear to attack him; when he did, Billy led him five times round the oak tree, and the poor brute fell down dead."

"Marry!" said McEvoy. " 'Tis as brave a trick as I've heard of!"

"And as gory," Ebenezer added, speaking loudly for the trapper's benefit. " 'Tis a wondrous tale, Mr. Russecks, and yet — you must pardon my rudeness — I cannot but wonder what this feat hath to do with my poor friend Miss Bromly."

"Nay, friend, there's naught to pardon," Harvey replied. "I wondered the same myself, the while I watched, why it was he had set out half mended to match his strength with a bear's, when all the evening past he had talked o' naught save the laws and customs o' the English. He had been that eager and quick a scholar, ye'd have thought he was training for a place in Court — but look at him now, astride o' his kill to drink the hot blood ere the beast's fair dead! The very type and essence of the salvage!

"But I had not long to wonder. When Billy had drunk his fill he went to the creek and washed his body from top to toe, for the tree-bark had cut him as raw as a keelhauled sailor, and he was dirty and a-sweat besides. E'en now the rules he'd set himself were in force; he would have none o' my skinning-knife, but commenced to flay the carcass with an oyster-shell from the creek, and albeit he allowed me to make a fire, he stayed naked as Adam till his work was done. 'Twere a half-day's labor to flay out such a beast with a wretched shell, and I feared he'd catch his death ere the chore was done; but he made me a gift o' both hide and meat, declaring he craved nor the one nor the other, and flayed no more o' the carcass than was required to lay back a deal o' fat. This he gouged by the gobbet onto a foot-square piece o' the pelt, the which he had reserved for himself, and then skewered o'er the fire till it commenced to render. His object, I saw, was to lard himself with bear-grease from heel to hair, as is the wont of salvages from time to time, and as he worked I began to fear that betwixt this bear-hunt and the happenings of the day before, there was a certain dark connection. Nor was I wide o' the mark, for when he was greased as a griskin and reeking like Old Ned's lamp, he gorged himself on the balance o' the fat and then took up his oystershell and gelded the bear — "

Ebenezer and McEvoy expressed their bewilderment, but Mary, who had been so withdrawn throughout that one wondered whether she was entranced or asleep, now opened her eyes and sighed a knowing, compassionate sigh. " 'Twas what I expected, and less than I hoped for, Harvey. And Roxie is mistaken — 'twere a waste o' time for me to see her, don't ye think? Ah well, in any case the story's clear."

"Haply 'tis clear to you," complained the poet, "but I grasp naught of't."

" 'Tis no deep mystery," the trapper declared. "What the bull hath always signed to civil folk, the male bear signifies to the salvage Indian. But not only do they look on him as the emblem o' virility; they hold farther that his carcass is great medicine in matters o' love. Hence the manner of his killing, that Billy had explained before, and hence that larding with his hibernation-fat, the which they say feeds the fires o' love as it warms the bear in winter months. As for the other, 'tis widely believed in the salvage nations that if a man lay hold of a buck-bear's privates, bind 'em up in a pouch o' the uncured pelt, and belt 'em so with a bearhide thong that they hang before his own, then his potency will be multiplied by the bear's, and Heav'n help the first poor wench that crosses his path! I asked him, 'Is't the Church Creek girl thou'rt bound for?' And albeit he would not answer me directly, he smiled a dev'lish smile and said 'twould please him if I'd pay him a call some day or two hence, when he and Mrs. Rumbly had found my cabin on Tobacco Stick Bay and set up housekeeping! By's speech ye'd take him for a merry English gentleman; yet there he stood like the living spirit o' salvage lust! Much as I feared for the poor girl's honor, I pled with Billy Rumbly to move with caution, inasmuch as I supposed she'd be on her guard to shoot him dead. But he said, 'No English pistol e'er killed a bear,' and went his way."

"Now 'tis plain," McEvoy said. "He carried her off and keeps her hid in the cabin ye spoke of! How is't the sheriff hath made no move to find her?"

" 'Tis also plain thou'rt innocent of provincial justice," Ebenezer put in bitterly. "Only the virtuous run afoul of Maryland law."

"Nay, now, ye put your case too strongly," said the trapper. "Our courts are sound as England's in principle; but 'tis a wild and lawless bailiwick they deal with — frauds and pirates and whores and adventurers, jailbirds and the spawn of jailbirds. I don't wonder the courts go wrong, or a judge or two sells justice o'er the bar; at least the judges and courts are there, and we'll make their judgments honest when we've the power to make 'em stick — which is to say, when the spirit o' the folk at large is curbed and snaffled."

Ebenezer's cheeks tingled, not alone because he felt that he had in fact overstated his indictment: his day in the Cambridge court still rankled in his memory, and the price of it drew sweat from all his pores; but his wholesale rancor had got to be something of a disposition, and he had been alarmed to recognize, as the trapper spoke, that he fell into it of late, on mention of certain subjects, more from habit than from honest wrath. So grossly had Maryland used him, he had vowed to smirch her name in verse to his children's children's children; could such outrages dwindle to the like of actors' cues? It was by no progress of reason that he reached this question, but by a kind of insight that glowed in his mind as the blush glowed in his face. By its troubled light, in no more time than was required for him to murmur, "I daresay" to Harvey Russecks, he beheld the homeless ghosts of a thousand joys and sorrows meant to live in the public heart till the end of time: feast days, fast days, monuments and rites, all dedicated to glories and disasters of a magnitude that dwarfed his own, and all forgotten, or rotely observed by a gentry numb to the emotions that established them. A disquieting vision, and no less so to the poet was his response to it. Not long since, he would have gnashed his spiritual teeth at the futility of endeavor in such a world. Not improbably he would have railed at human fickleness in allegorical couplets: the Heart, he would have declared, is a faithless Widow: at the deathbed of her noble Spouse (whether Triumph or Tragedy) she pledges herself forever to his memory, but scarcely has she donned her Weeds before some importuning Problem has his way with her; and in the years that follow, for all her ceremonious visits to the tomb, she shares her bed with a parade of mean Vicissitudes, not one of them worthy even of her notice. Now, however, though such fickleness still stung his sensibilities (which is to say his vanity, since he identified himself with the late Husband), he was not sure but what it had about it a double Tightness: "Time passes for the living," it seemed to say, "and alters things. Only for the dead do circumstances never change." And this observation implied a judgment on the past, its relation to and importance in the present; a judgment to which he currently half assented. But only half!

The trapper resumed. " 'Twas just a few days later I saw Billy again, coming out of Trinity Church — aye, I swear't, just a Sunday since! He was knee-hosed and periwigged like any gentleman, not a trace o' bear-grease on him, and for all some folk misdoubted what to make of him, the rector and he shook hands at the door and spoke their little pleasantries cordial as ye please! When I drew nigh I heard him chatting with a brace o' sot-weed planters in better English periods than ye'll hear in the Governor's Council. His companions were two of the same that had tricked him before, but ye'd ne'er have guessed it from their manner: the one was inviting him to join the church, and the other was arguing with him about next year's sot-weed market.

" 'This here's Mr. Rumbly,' they said to me, 'as decent a Christian gentleman as ever shat on sot-weed.' At sight o' me Billy smiled and bowed, and said, 'I've already had the honor, thankee, gentlemen: Mr. Russecks was generous enough to lend me one of his cabins against the day I raise a house of my own.' We twain shook hands most warmly, and, do ye know, I was the envy of no fewer than half a dozen souls round about, so jealous were they grown already of his favor! Billy declared he had a call or two to pay, after which he wished I'd take dinner at his cabin, and when he'd strolled off, his courtiers gathered round me like fops round a new-dubbed knight. From them I learned that the Church Creek Virgin had set out one day from Roxanne's house and disappeared, nor was heard from after till the day Billy Rumbly came to town, dressed in English clothes, and declared she was his bride. Some said he had made a prisoner of her, and told stories of seeing him torture her over the hearth fire, but others that had spied on him declared she could leave the cabin when she pleased and stayed with him of her own will. To them that took the liberty of calling for a proper Christian wedding, he replied that naught would please him more, but his wife was content with the Indian ceremony he'd performed himself and would have no other, nor would he oblige her against her will.

"In any case, albeit 'twas but a short time since that first appearance, and there was still some talk against him here and there, Billy seemed to have won the heart of every woman in Church Creek and the respect of nearly all the men. He hath great plans for improving everything from the sot-weed market to the penal code, as I hear't, and albeit no man would speak out and say't — me being a Russecks, ye know — 'twas clear they looked to Billy to stand up to my brother Harry soon or late. They have changed allegiance well-nigh to a man; Billy's too strong and full o' plans, and Sir Harry too jealous of his power, for the twain not to come to grips. What's more, rumor hath it 'twas Harry drove Miss Bromly to run off, from trying to have his way with her, and everyone reasoned Billy would have satisfaction of the wretch when the right time came.

"On our way to the cabin — I forgot to tell ye I was the first wight he'd invited into his house and was envied the more for't — on the way out there I told Billy frankly what I'd heard of him and asked him to sort out fact from fancy, but he was so full of his own questions about everything under the sun, he made me no proper answer. Why could not the tobacco-planters form a guild, he wanted to know, to bargain with the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations? Who was Palestrina, and did I think a man of forty was too old to learn the harpischord? Why did Copernicus suppose the sun stood still, when it and its planets might be moving together through space? If a Christian ascetic comes to take pleasure in mortifying the appetites, must he not gratify them to mortify them, and mortify them to gratify them, and did this not fetch him to a standstill?"

Mary Mungummory shook her head. "So like my Charley, rest his soul! Had the De'il's own packsack o' questions, and no man's answers pleased him!"

Ebenezer pressed the trapper for tidings of Miss Bromly. " 'Tis e'er the lot of the innocent in the world, to fly to the wolf for succor from the lion! Innocence is like youth," he declared sadly, "which is given us only to expend and takes its very meaning from its loss."

" 'Tis that makes it precious, is't not?" asked McEvoy with a smile.

"Nay," Mary countered, " 'tis that proves its vanity, to my way o' thinking."

" 'Tis beyond me what it proves," Ebenezer said. "I know only that the case is so."

Russecks then went on to say that he had found the cabin (which already he had ceased to think of as his own) in excellent repair, its windows newly equipped with real glass panes and the grounds around it clear of brush. In the dooryard stood a recently constructed sundial, perhaps the only one in the area, and atop one gable was a platform used by its builder for readier observation of the stars and planets.

"He'd mentioned along the way that he'd shot a young buck the night before and was waiting till Monday, like a proper Christian, to butcher it, but when we rode around the cabin I spied a salvage woman up to her elbows in the bloody carcass, cleaving off steaks and rump-roasts. She was dressed in dirty deerskin like the old squaws wear; her hair was coarse and tangled, and her brown skin greasy as a bacon-flitch. Her back was turned to us as we rode in, and she paid us no heed at all. 'Twas on my mind to twit Billy for her industry — tell him 'twas a merry bit o' Jesuitry, don't ye know, setting heathens to break the Sabbath for him — but ere ever I got the words out he addressed her in the salvage tongue, and I saw when she faced round 'twas no Indian woman at all. I could only gather, she was the famous Church Creek Virgin!"

Ebenezer and McEvoy registered their astonishment.

"I'faith, sirs," Russecks proceeded, "it doth give a civil man pause when first he lays eyes upon a salvage, for't carries him back to view the low origin of his history: yet by how much rarer is the spectacle of one of his kind fallen back to the salvage condition, by so much more confounding is't to behold, for it must drive home to him how strait and treacherous is the climb to politeness and refinement — so much so, that one breath of inattention, as't were, may send the climber a-plummet to his former state. And in the civillest among us, don't ye know — in Mister Cooke the poet there, or who ye will — this precious cultivation — 'sheart, sirs, on sight of one like Billy Rumbly's wife. .!" He paused and started over. "What I mean, sirs, 'tis like the cultivation of our fields, so't seems to me: 'tis all order and purpose — and wondrous fruits doth it bring forth! — yet 'tis but a scratch, is't not, on the face of unplumbable deeps? Two turns o' the spade cuts through't to the untouched earth, and under that lies a thousand miles o' changeless rock, and deeper yet lie the raging fires at the core o' the world!

"The sensible man, I say, is bound to reflect on these things when he sees one of his own gone salvage like the Church Creek Virgin. She was dressed in Indian garb, as I said before, and pig-dirty from head to foot. She'd browned her skin with dye, so't appeared, and basted it with bear-fat, which with the dirt and deer-blood gave her a splendid salvage stink, e'en in the cold out-o'-doors. Never a glance did she cast to me, but stared always at Billy like a good retriever, and at his command she gave o'er hacking the buck and plodded off with two steaks to broil for dinner."

The interior of the cabin, Russecks went on to say, he had found as clean as the housekeeper was not, who in the heat from the fireplace grew redolent as a tan yard; throughout the afternoon, when dinner was done, she had sat stolidly on the hearthrug, Indian fashion, grinding meal in an earthenware mortar, and had spoken only in grunts and monosyllables when Billy addressed her. Yet though her manner and condition were slavelike, at no time had the trapper observed anything suggestive of coercion or intimidation.

"In sum," he said, "she was an English lass no longer, but a simple salvage squaw. 'Tis my guess he sought her out in his bear-grease and magical loin-pouch and did such deeds o' salvage love and ravishment that she gave o'er the reins of her mind for good and all."

"Thou'rt off the mark," Mary said flatly. " 'Tis that he made such a conquest with his amorous lore, the girl renounced her Englishness on the spot for ever and aye. I know 'tis thus."

"Ah, but I loathe the monster nonetheless!" Ebenezer said. "E'en granting our innocence was given us to lose, still and all — any, rather therefore- its whole meaning is in the terms of its surrender, is't not? To have it wrested will-ye, nill-ye, ravished away — " He tried to envision the struggle: he fancied himself in the position of Miss Bromly, forced upon her back among the cold briars of the forest; the knife was at his neck, his coats were flung high, the wind bit his thighs and private parts; and over him, naked and greased, hung a swart, ferocious savage with the face and herpetonic eyes of Henry Burlingame. "God damn him for't! How the wretch must gloat in his victory!"

"How's that?" Russecks showed some surprise. "Gloat, ye say? Ah, well, now, he didn't gloat, ye know. Nay, friend, ye forget Billy Rumbly hath climbed a far greater distance than the lass hath sunk; aye, e'en higher by far than the station she left, I'll wager! Such a civil, proper gentleman as he could ne'er take pleasure in such a victory; yet 'twas the conquest, as I see't, that raised him up. The fact is, sirs, his wife is a constant shame to him: he entreats her to clean herself and dress like an English lady; he yearns to join the Church and have a Christian wedding; naught would please him more than to set sail tonight for Rome, or an English university. But she will none of't; she wallows in her filth and salvage ways, and poor Billy is too much the man of honor now either to desert her or to force her against her will!"

Mary Mungummory shook her head. "How well I know her heart and his as well! I wonder again what I wonder nightly as I watch the circus in my wagon: is man a salvage at heart, skinned o'er with Manners? Or is salvagery but a faint taint in the natural man's gentility, which erupts now and again like pimples on an angel's arse?"

For Ebenezer, at least, absorbed in recollection of certain violences in his past, the question was by no means without pertinence and interest; neither he nor the other men, however, ventured a response.

12: The Travelers Having Proceeded Northward to Church Creek, McEvoy Out-Nobles a Nobleman, and the Poet Finds Himself Knighted Willy-Nilly

Soon after Harvey Russecks had concluded his story the company retired for the night on corn-husk mattresses provided by the host, which, with a plentiful supply of blankets from Mary's wagon, afforded Ebenezer and McEvoy the most comfortable night's lodging they had enjoyed for some time. The poet, however, was kept sleepless for hours by thoughts of Miss Bromly, his sister, the gravity of his mission, and the story he had just heard. Next morning as they breakfasted on platters of fried eggs and muskrat — a dish they found more pleasing to the tongue than to the eye — he declared, "I had cause enough before to find this Cohunkowprets, or Billy Rumbly, for he may be the means of sparing my conscience the burthen of two English lives; but now I've heard what state Miss Bromly hath fallen to, purely out of loyalty to my sister, 'tis more urgent than ever I seek the fellow out and try to save her. One ruined life the more on my account, and I'll go mad with responsibility!"

"Nay, friend," McEvoy urged, "I respect your sentiments, Heav'n knows, but think better of't! Thou'rt bound to save our hostages from Chicamec at any cost to yourself, so ye declared, and ye've shamed me into the same tomfoolish honor: d'ye think this Rumbly fellow's likely to oblige us if he sees thou'rt after wooing his wife away? And if he turns his back on us — i'faith! — 'twill not be two, but two hundred thousand lives ye may answer for; with Dick Parker and that other wight to general 'em, not all the militia in America can put down the slaves and Indians!"

"I tremble to think of't," said Mary Mungummory from her station at the cook-fire. "Don't forget, Mr. Cooke, what-e'er foul play brought the girl to her present pass, 'tis of her own will she stays there." Suddenly she gave an irritated sigh and called on an imaginary tribunal to witness the poet's wrongheadedness. "Marry, sirs, the world's about to explode, and he concerns himself with one poor slut's misfortunes!"

Ebenezer smiled. "Who's to say which end of the glass is the right to look through? One night when Burlingame and I were watching the stars from St. Giles in the Fields, I remarked that men's problems, like earth's mountains, amounted to naught from the aspect of eternity and the boundless heavens and Henry answered, 'Quite so, Eben: but down here where we live they are mountainous enough, and no mistake!' In any case, I mean to do what I can for Miss Bromly. I've no mind to prosecute Billy Rumbly for rape — 'twere a vain ambition in a Maryland court! — and he'll not object to my solicitude, if I have his case aright from Mr. Russecks."

It was still early when they bade the trapper good-bye and set out in Mary's wagon for Church Creek; though the journey took five hours, the sun was scarcely past the meridian when they arrived at the little settlement.

"Yonder's an inn," McEvoy said; he indicated a neat frame structure some distance ahead.

"Aye, there we'll go, like it or not," Mary said, " 'tis Sir Harry's place." She explained that Harry Russecks flew into a dangerous temper when visitors to the town failed to appear before him and state their business. "He knows mine well enough, and ye twain need say no more than that I'm ferrying ye to Cambridge on business for the Governor."

"I say, he is a high-handed rascal!" Ebenezer cried. "What right hath he to pry into everyone's affairs?"

"Ah, well," Mary replied, "for one thing, he can carry five hundred-weight o' grain upon his back, so they say, and break a man's neck as ye'd break a barleystraw. For another, he owns the inn, the mill over yonder on the creek, and half the planters hereabouts." The mill, she went on to say, like most in the Province, had been built originally at Lord Baltimore's order and financed in part with funds from the provincial treasury; hence the government maintained an interest in its operation. Harry Russecks was aware of this fact, but St. Mary's City being so far removed from Church Creek, and the Governor's Council having so many pressing problems to engage its attention and such feeble machinery of enforcement, he did not scruple to exploit his monopoly in every way. What with charging extortionate fees for grinding, and regularly purloining a capful of grain out of each bushel, he had early become a man of means; subsequently he had built the inn and taken to making loans on acreage collateral to the tobacco-planters in the area, so that, regardless of the market, he made large profits every year. If the tobacco price was good, his loans were repaid with interest, his milling fees went up, and his tavern was filled with celebrating planters; if the market fell, he increased his landholdings with forfeited collateral, ground grain as always for his neighbors' daily bread, and sold the planters rum to drown their sorrows in. It was not surprising, then, that he was presently the wealthiest man in the area and one of the wealthiest in the Province: such was the power of his position in Church Creek that he had secured to be his wife the only truly noble lady for miles around, by what arrangements the townsfolk could only conjecture; one and all were obliged to address him by his false title even as he robbed them at the mill, to leap clear whenever he brandished the sword which he affected, even at the grindstones, as an emblem of his rank, and in general to submit without protest to his poltroonery.

"Sir Harry respects naught in the world save patents o' nobility," she concluded, "nor fears any man in the Province — save a brace o' commissioners from St. Mary's, that some folk think have been dispatched to inspect the mills and ferries."

Drawing up before the inn they saw upon its sign a curious armorial device in bold colors: on a field azure, between flanches sable with annulets or (or roundlets square-pierced to look like millstones), a fleur-de-lis gules beset from alow and aloft by hard crabs armed natural. Their examination of it was cut short by a great commotion within the place it advertised: there was a crash of crockery, a woman shrieked, "Ow! Ow" a man's voice cried, and another roared out "I'll crack thy skull, John Hanker! Arrah! Hold still, dammee, whilst I fetch ye a good one!" From the door burst a young colonial, clutching his bare head in both hands and running for his life. At his heels pumped a shaggy bull of a man, black-haired, open-shirted, squint-eyed and mottled; in his right hand he waved a sword (no gentleman's rapier, but a Henry Morgan cutlass fit to quarter oxen with) and in his left he clutched by the arm a distraught young woman — the same, they soon heard, whose shriek had announced the scene. Had his pursuer not been thus encumbered, the young man would have lost more than just his periwig; even with this handicap the wild-haired swordsman — whom Ebenezer understood to be the miller Russecks himself — came within an ace of adding homicide to the catalogue of his sins.

"Yah! Run, Hanker!" he bellowed, giving over his pursuit. "Come to Church Creek again, I grind ye to hogswill!"

" 'Twas only in sport, Father!" cried the girl. "Don't go on so!" Now that the crisis was past she seemed more embarrassed than alarmed.

" 'Sheart!" McEvoy murmured to Ebenezer. "There's a handsome lass!"

The miller turned on her. "I know thy sports! D'ye think I didn't see where he laid his drunken paw, and you smiling him farther? All dogs pant after the salt bitch! Dammee if I don't unsalt ye, and thy quean of a mother into the bargain!" With the flat of his cutlass he caught her a swat upon the rump.

"Aiee!" she protested. "Thou'rt a devil out o' Hell!"

"And thee a goose out o' Winchester!" Again he swung, and clapped her smartly along the leg. Ebenezer flushed, and McEvoy sprang to his feet as though ready to leap to the damsel's aid from his perch on the wagon seat. But though the girl protested loudly at her punishment, her complaints were anything but abject.

"Ow! I swear to Christ I'll murther ye in your sleep!"

"Not till I've done basting ye, ye shan't!"

The third blow was aimed where the first had struck, but by dint of wrenching about and biting the miller's wrist, the girl caught it on her hip and broke free as well.

"Hi! Now try and clout me, damn your eyes!" She did not run off at once, but lingered a moment to taunt him from a distance. "Look at him wave his sword, that he bought to beat helpless women with! A great ass is what he is!"

"And thee a whore!"

"And thee a cuckold! La, what a time we'll have, when Billy-Boy takes the scalp off ye!"

The miller roared and charged towards her, but the girl scampered off and led him in a circle around the wagon. When he gave up after a few moments, apparently resigned from past experience to her nimbleness, she halted as well, bright-eyed and panting. Her nostrils tightened; her chin dimpled with scorn. She spat in his direction.

"Buffoon!" With a toss of ash-blond curls she turned her back on him and marched down the street towards the mill; her father sashed his weapon with a grunt and trudged after, but in the manner of a skulking bodyguard rather than that of an assailant.

"Henrietta Russecks," Mary chuckled. "Ain't she the lively one, though?"

But the men were appalled by the scene. It was some moments before Ebenezer could find voice for his indignation, and then he railed at length against the miller's spectacular ungallantry. McEvoy expressed even greater outrage, and added for good measure a panegyric on the young lady.

"Mother o' God, what spirit, Eben! How she gave the great bully as good as she got! Nor quailed for an instant! Nor shed a tear for his bloody bastinadoes! I here swear to Heav'n I'll see her free o' that beast, if I must murther him myself!"

Ebenezer showed some surprise at his companion's vehemence, and McEvoy blushed.

"Think what ye will," he grumbled, "and be damned t'ye! She hath the face o' Helen and the soul of Agamemnon, hath that girl! Fire and fancy, what Ben Oliver was wont to call the chiefest female virtues; oh, 'tis a rare, rare thing!"

"Best not toy with Henrietta," Mary warned cordially. "Ye saw what befell young Hanker yonder, for no more'n a pat. La, the rector o' Trinity Church himself couldn't court Sir Harry's daughter without a patent out o' peerage."

McEvoy sniffed and furrowed up in thought.

They decided to go directly to the mill, where, in addition to announcing their presence to Russecks, Mary could consult the miller's wife for further news of Billy Rumbly and his bride. On the way, for McEvoy's benefit, she chattered on about Henrietta: the girl was four-and-twenty and of the same lively temper as her mother, who had been a famous beauty in her youth and could still turn the head of any young man with an eye for pulchritude seasoned by experience. It was well past time for the daughter to be wed, but so jealous was the miller of the title he had appropriated from his wife, he would permit Henrietta no husband from among the youth of the place; he held out for a suitor of noble birth. And though with every passing year the task of chaperonage grew more difficult — especially since Mrs. Russecks, so far from sharing her husband's sympathies, not only allied herself with Henrietta in the cause of love but was prepared to join her daughter in any amorous adventure they could contrive.

"Yet for all their ingenuity and the wiles of a score of would-be lovers, Sir Harry hath managed to keep his eye on 'em day and night. When he's at the inn, they are his barmaids, more often than not; when he's at the mill, they are his grist-girls. They even sleep all in a room, with Sir Harry's cutlass hanging ready at the bedpost. Only once in all these years have the pair of 'em got free of him — and marry, 'twas a fortnight folk still talk about!"

When they were still a hundred feet from the mill — which from the look of it served also as the family house — Harry Russecks stepped outside and glared at them, arms akimbo. At the same time they saw in an upstairs window the figures of two women regarding them with interest. Mary Mungummory returned their wave, but Ebenezer shivered.

"And ye say he fears these mill commissioners like the plague?" McEvoy mused. Suddenly he laid his hand on Mary's arm. "I say, thou'rt a good sort, Mary; will ye aid me in a little lark? And you as well, Eben? I owe ye my life already; will ye stand me farther credit?" All he wished to do, he explained to his skeptical companions, was give the boorish miller a draught of his own prescription; if he failed, none would be the worse for it, and if he succeeded —

"I'Christ, but let's put it to the test!" he said hurriedly, for they were almost within earshot of the miller. "State thy own affairs as always, Mary, and say ye know no more of us than that ye picked us up along the road after the storm. Nay, more: ye suspect there is more to us than meets the eye, inasmuch as we've been uncommon secretive from the first, and chary o' stating our names and business."

" Twill ne'er succeed, lad," Mary warned, but her eyes twinkled already at prospect of a prank.

"Prithee, John," Ebenezer whispered, "we've no time for frivolous adventures! Think of Bertrand and Captain Cairn — "

He could protest no more for fear of being overheard, and McEvoy's expression was resolute. The Irishman's sudden interest in the miller's daughter struck him not only as a conventional impropriety and a breach of their solemn trust, but also as a sort of infidelity to Joan Toast, despite the fact that Joan had clearly abandoned McEvoy for himself, and that he himself had been unfaithful to her in a sense by far less honorable than the sexual. He held his peace and waited miserably to see what would develop.

"Afternoon, Sir Harry!" Mary called, and clambered down from the wagon. "Just passing through, and came to pay my respect to Roxie."

The miller ignored her. "Who are they?"

"Them?" Mary glanced back in surprise, as if just noticing her passengers. "Ah, them ye mean! They're two wights I found near Limbo Straits after the storm." In a voice just audible to the poet she added, "Said they had business in Church Creek, but they'd not say what. Is Roxie in?"

"Aye, but ye'll not see her," the miller declared, still glaring at the two men. "Thou'rt no fit company for a lady, e'en though she be a bitch o' perdition. Get on with ye!"

"Just as ye say." She waited as McEvoy climbed down, followed by Ebenezer. "If ye have any business farther north," she told them with a wink, " 'twould be no chore for me to ferry ye. I'll be yonder by the inn till tomorrow or next day."

"Most charitable of ye, madame," said McEvoy with a short bow. "And I thank ye for service both to ourselves and to His Majesty. 'Twill not be long till we reward ye more tangibly."

"Who are ye?" Russecks demanded. "What's your business in Church Creek?"

McEvoy turned, and so far from being intimidated, he surveyed the miller from head to toe with exaggerated suspicion.

"Speak up, dammee!"

Ebenezer saw the black beard commence to twitch in anger and was tempted to end the hoax before it was irrevocably launched, but before he could muster his courage McEvoy spoke.

"Did I hear this lady address you as Sir Harry?"

"Ye did, save ye be deef as well as cock-proud."

McEvoy looked accusingly at Mary. "Is't some strange humor of thine, madame, or a prank betwixt the twain o' ye, to pretend this glowering oaf is Sir Harry Russecks?"

From above, where the ladies had opened the casement to listen, came a gasp and a titter; even staunch Mary was taken aback by the Irishman's daring.

"How?" shouted the miller. "Doth he say I'm not Sir Harry?" His hand flew to the hilt of his cutlass.

"Nay, Ben, don't draw!" McEvoy cried to Ebenezer, who trembled nearby. "What, ye left your short-sword in the wagon?" He threw back his head and laughed; everyone, the miller and his women included, stood dumfounded.

" 'Tis well for thee, little miller," McEvoy said grimly, and went so far as to tweak the fellow's beard. "My friend Sir Benjamin had pricked thy gizzard in a trice, as he hath pricked two hundred like ye in the service of His Majesty. Now take us to Sir Harry, and no more impertinence, else I'll bid him flog the flour out o' thy hide."

"If ye please, sir," Mary broke in, plainly relishing the miller's discomfiture: "This is Sir Harry Russecks, on my life, sir, flour or no — yonder's his wife and daughter, sir, that will swear to't."

The ladies at the window merrily confirmed the fact, but McEvoy feigned some lingering doubt.

"If thou'rt Sir Harry Russecks, how is't thou'rt got up as a clownish laborer in the mill?"

"What's that ye say? Why, don't ye know, sirs — " He appealed to Mary for aid.

"Why, 'tis Sir Harry's little whim, sir," Mary declared. " 'Tis the mill first earned his bread, ere he married Mrs. Russecks, and he's not one to forget his humble birth, is good Sir Harry."

"Aye, aye, that's it; she hath hit the mark fair." For all his relief at the explanation, Russecks appeared not entirely happy with the reference to his birth. "Did ye — did I hear ye say thou'rt in the King's employ, sirs?"

"In a manner o' speaking, aye," McEvoy declared. "But I'd as well tell ye plainly at the outset, our commission went down with crew and pinnace in the storm, and till a new one comes from St. Mary's ye have the right to bar us from the premises an it please ye."

The miller's eyes widened. "Thou'rt Nicholson's commissioners?"

McEvoy refused either to affirm or deny the identification, declaring that until his authority was legal he thought the wisest course would be to speak no further of it.

"In any case," he said in a tone less stern, " 'tis not alone on Nicholson's business I travel. My name's McEvoy — Trade and Plantations when I'm home in London — Sir Jonathan at Whitehall is my father."

"Ye don't tell me!" marveled the miller, not yet entirely free of suspicion. "I can't say I have the pleasure o' knowing a Sir Jonathan McEvoy at Whitehall."

"To our discredit, I'm sure." McEvoy made a slight bow. "But I shan't lose hope that Mrs. Russecks may redeem us by acquaintance with the name."

This thrust evoked another response from the upstairs window; when McEvoy raised his eyes to the ladies, Mrs. Russecks (who Ebenezer saw was indeed the full-blown beauty Mary claimed her to be) nodded archly, and smiling Henrietta made an eager curtsy.

McEvoy gestured towards Ebenezer. "This formidable fellow is my friend Sir Benjamin Oliver, that thanks to his wondrous eye and stout right arm is belike the youngest member o' the peerage. Ladies, I give ye Sir Benjamin: a lion on the battlefield and a lambkin in the drawing-room!"

Ebenezer blushed both at the imposture and the characterization, but bowed automatically to the ladies.

"The fact is," McEvoy went on, "Sir Benjamin's father is visiting the plantations on business of his own, and I'm showing my bashful friend here the countryside. Needless to say, he hath heard of Mrs. Russecks's family in England."

"Ye do not say!" The miller wiped his nose proudly with a forefinger. "Heard o' Mrs. Russecks's family in England! Oh Roxie, did ye hear what the gentleman said? Our family's the talk o' the English peerage! Come down here!"

Mrs. Russecks lost no time in greeting the visitors at the door.

"This here's my wife Roxanne," the miller said proudly. "The noblest damned lady on the Eastern Shore."

"Enchanté," McEvoy said, and to Ebenezer's horror, embraced the woman in a loverlike fashion and kissed her ardently.

"Out upon't!" cried the miller, drawing his sword. "I say, dammee, give o'er! What in thunder d'ye do there, 'pon my soul?"

McEvoy released his bewildered partner, feigning annoyance and surprise. "Whate'er is thy husband alarmed at, Madame? Can it be he's ignorant of the Whitehall Salute? Have ye not schooled him in the customs o' the court?"

Mrs. Russecks, still taken aback by the sudden embrace, managed to confess the possibility that she herself might be out of touch with the very latest fashions in behavior at Whitehall.

"I'll have his lewd head!" the miller threatened, raising the sword.

"My dear friend," McEvoy said, serene and patronizing, "at court 'tis the practice for every proper gentleman to embrace a lady thus on first meeting her; only a bumpkin or a cad would insult her with a sniveling bow." He went on to declare, before Russecks could object, that while he quite appreciated the difficulty provincial gentlemen must have in keeping up with London society, he considered it therefore of the first importance that they maintain an open mind and a humble willingness to be instructed.

"Now put away your sword, that no gentleman should raise without cause, and be so kind as to present us to your daughter."

Russecks hesitated, clearly torn between his desire to keep up with the fashions of the court and his reluctance to deliver Henrietta into the visitors' embraces. But his wife took the matter out of his hands.

"Henrietta, bestir thyself!" she scolded through the doorway. "The gentlemen will think thou'rt uncivil!"

The girl appeared at once from behind the jamb, curtsied to both men, and prettily presented herself to McEvoy for her Whitehall Salute, which the Irishman executed with even more élan than before. At the same time Mrs. Russecks went up to Ebenezer and said, "We're most delighted to have the privilege, Sir Benjamin," so that he was obliged to do the same whether he would or no, and again with the eager-eyed, ash-blond daughter who came after, still flushed from McEvoy's kiss, while the miller looked on in helpless consternation.

Mary Mungummory beamed. "I'll just be yonder at the inn if there's aught ye should want o' me," she called.

"Then ye may stable your horse right now and pay me her day's keep in advance," Russecks said crossly.

Mary did as she was told and left, but not before Ebenezer observed an exchange of glances between her and Mrs. Russecks. At a moment when her husband was boasting to McEvoy that he collected a day's stabling charge on every horse brought into Church Creek for more than half a day, Mrs. Russecks had looked at Mary as if to ask, "Can it be that this brash young man has actually deceived my husband?" and further, "Do I dare believe his intentions are what they seem?" Mary's response had been a wink so large and lecherous as to set the poet tingling with apprehension.

13: His Majesty's Provincial Wind- and Water-Mill Commissioners, With Separate Ends in View, Have Recourse on Separate Occasions to Allegory

McEvoy now expressed a desire to be shown the operation of the mill, explaining that though Heaven knew he himself had seen enough of them in the past several weeks, his friend Sir Benjamin, who had been raised in London, might find the device amusing.

"Aye, indeed so, young sirs," Russecks agreed. " 'Twill be a pleasure to show ye! Roxanne, you and Henrietta begone, now, whilst I take the gentlemen through my mill."

"Oh prithee, Father," Henrietta protested, " 'twill be a lark for us to go with ye! We're not afraid to climb ladders with the gentlemen, are we, Mother?"

"Nay, dammee!" cried the miller. "Get ye gone, ere I raise a welt athwart thy — "

"Not another word," McEvoy said firmly. " 'Tis the mark of a well-born lady to crave a bit of adventure now and again, don't ye think? My arm, Miss Henrietta, an it please ye." The girl took his arm at once, and Mrs. Russecks Ebenezer's, and any further expostulations from the miller McEvoy prevented by a series of pointed questions about the establishment.

"How is't a gentleman stoops to milling?" he wanted to know as they entered the building.

"Ah, well, sir — " Russecks laughed uncomfortably.

" 'Tis as Mary said — Miss Mungummory yonder, what I mean — ye might say I run it purely for the sport of't, don't ye know. 'Tis beneath my station, I grant ye, but a man wants something to fill his time, I always say."

"Hm."

Walking behind them, Ebenezer saw the Irishman reach boldly around Henrietta's back with the arm opposite Russecks and give the girl a sportive poke in the ribs. He blanched, but Mrs. Russecks, who saw the movement as plainly as had he, only squeezed his arm and smiled. As for Henrietta, she showed surprise but not a trace of indignation at the cavalier advance; when her escort repeated it — simultaneously asking the miller why, if his work was in the nature of an avocation, he charged such wondrously profitable fees for doing it — she was hard put to stifle her mirth. She caught his hand; he promptly and unabashedly scratched her palm, and Mrs. Russecks, instead of unleashing maternal wrath upon the seducer as the poet expected, sighed and dug her nails into the flexor of his arm.

"Stay," McEvoy said, cutting into the miller's explanation that what revenue came from the mill was turned to community improvements such as his inn and the tobacco storehouse he was constructing farther down the creek. "I've an urgent private question, if ye please."

With a mischievous expression he whispered loudly into Russecks's ear that he sorely needed to know whether the improvements of the place included a jakes, and if so, where a man might find it in a hurry.

"Why, marry, out in the back, sir," the astonished miller answered, "or thou'rt free to piss in the millrace, e'en as I do. What I mean — "

"Enough: ye quite overwhelm me with hospitality. I'll use your millrace and fore'er be in your debt. Adieu, all; on with the tour! I'll o'ertake ye presently."

Thus abruptly he left them, followed by the ladies' marveling eyes; when he returned a few minutes later he clapped Russecks on the back, called him a poet and philosopher for having hit on that wondrous virtue in a millrace, and with the other hand treated Henrietta to a surreptitious carnival of tweaks, pats, pokes, and pinches, so that she seemed ever on the verge of swooning from mirth, titillation, and the effort it required to betray nothing to her father.

"Isn't he the bold one?" Mrs. Russecks whispered to Ebenezer. The poet was mortified to observe the lady's respiration quicken, and guessed she envied her daughter's having drawn the more adventurous partner. But for all his desire to question Mrs. Russecks closely on the matter of Miss Bromly, he had no taste for adulterous flirtation, nor would have even had the circumstances been less perilous and less remote from their pressing business with Billy Rumbly. His body stiffened, and when Mrs. Russecks, aping Henrietta's behavior with McEvoy, slipped a playful hand into his breeches pocket as they moved single file along a catwalk near the grain hopper, his blood ran cold. He was immensely relieved when they came out at the rear of the mill, facing the stable.

"There now, sirs," Harry Russecks said, "ye'll agree there's not a better-kept mill in the Province, will ye not, nor a better run?"

"As to the first, ye may not be far wide o' the mark," McEvoy allowed. "As to the second — but stay, I vowed I'd have none o' business till my papers reach me. I will say, 'twas fine sport to poke about in there; I have toured many a Maryland mill, but none so pleasurably."

The miller spat proudly. "D'ye hear that, Roxie? Ha'n't I always held 'twas no disgrace for a gentleman to know his way around a mill?"

McEvoy went on, turning his eyes brazenly to Henrietta. "I was taken in particular by a handsome hopper I spied whilst we were climbing to the loft. From what I could see, 'twas scarce broke in."

Ebenezer's heart sank, and even Henrietta blushed at the figure, but the miller seemed not to grasp it, for he cried, "Now there's a sharp-eyed fellow, 'pon my word! I made that hopper myself, sir, not long since, and I'm passing proud of't. 'Tis a pity ye didn't just run a hand in, to get the beauty of the lap-joints."

"A pity in sooth," McEvoy agreed. "Ye may bank on't I'll not miss the chance again."

Emboldened by the possibilities of the metaphor, Henrietta insisted that no mere stroke of the hand could disclose the real excellence of the device, which lay in the way it performed its intended function; only by running his own grist through would Mr. McEvoy ever truly appreciate it. The Irishman joyfully replied that nothing would please him more, although he'd heard complaints from local planters about the fee.

"They're liars, all!" cried Russecks. "Let 'em try to find the likes o' that machinery in the county ere they grouse and tattle!"

Here Mrs. Russecks joined the conversation in support of her husband. "That little hopper's not the only marvel o' the place. Haply you were too distracted to remark them, Mr. McEvoy, but the millstones themselves are most unusual."

"Aye, that's a fact, sir," Russecks said eagerly. "Ye might have seen 'em plainly from the ladderway. They've been in daily use for near two-score years, have those millstone's, and they're better every year."

Mrs. Russecks declared that Sir Benjamin had been better situated than Mr. McEvoy to view these marvels, and added that their ever-increasing excellence only demonstrated the truth of an axiom in the trade: The older the millstones, the finer the grind.

"To be sure," Henrietta put in tartly, "it wants an uncommon shaft to fit such stones; the one Father's using is nigh worn out."

Ebenezer set his teeth. He looked about for a means of ending the double-entendre, and noticed that the stall where Mary had put Aphrodite was empty.

"I say, Miss Mungummory's mare is gone; can it be she drove on without us?"

"Nay, she'd never leave so soon," Mrs. Russecks said. "We'd not had time to talk yet."

The miller declared there was nothing to be concerned about, but McEvoy insisted on seeking out Mary at the inn to make certain the mare had not strayed. Very soon he returned with Mary in tow, making a great show of anger and alarm.

"Really, Sir Harry!" he cried. "Is't your practice to let folks' horses wander loose, after you've extorted your gouging fee from 'em?"

For a moment the miller forgot his role: his face darkened, and his hand went to his sword. "Gently there, young pup, or I'll soon — "

"Where is that horse, sir?" McEvoy pressed. "Sir Benjamin and I owe this lady our lives for bringing us out o' the marsh in her wagon, as I've already apprised Governor Nicholson. D'ye think well stand by and see her lose her mare from your negligence?"

"Ah, my poor Aphrodite!" Mary lamented.

"My negligence!" the miller shouted.

"Aye, thine, as proprietor of the stables. Draw your sword, fellow, if ye dare! 'Twill be no cowering planter ye face, but one o' King William's deadliest."

"Nay, go to, gentlemen, go to!" the miller pleaded. "D'ye think I turned the mare loose a-purpose? Ye were in plain sight o' me all the while!"

Ebenezer suddenly understood what had happened, and his heart sank.

"I made no such charge," McEvoy said. "Nonetheless, thou'rt answerable for the horse. A true gentleman would ne'er permit the thing to happen, much less weasel out of't. Am I right, Mrs. Russecks?"

Though she seemed not quite to understand the Irishman's motives, Mrs. Russecks agreed that caring for the property of his guests is a first concern of the proper gentleman. For a moment Russecks seemed about to strike her.

"Dammee, sirs, nobody's more a gentleman than I am! I'm the biggest bloody gentleman in Church Creek!"

"Then find Aphrodite," McEvoy snapped, "or ye'll answer to the Governor himself."

"Find her! Marry, lad, that nag could be halfway to Cambridge by now!"

" 'Tis a consideration as would ne'er deter your honest gentleman, I believe."

"Please, sir!" Mrs. Russecks took McEvoy's arm. "Don't be hard on my husband in St. Mary's! Do but take a pot of tea with us, you and Sir Benjamin, and I'm sure he'll have the mare back ere sunset."

"Ere sunset!" Russecks cried. "I've not said I'd go chasing after the beast to begin with! What I mean — God's blood, then, I'll find the cursed animal! But I must have help."

"I'll search with ye," Mary volunteered at once. "I know Aphrodite's ways, and I'll ne'er rest easy till we track her down."

Now the miller was by no means pleased by this arrangement, but though his face plainly registered reluctance, he permitted Mary to lead him off towards a woods behind the stable. Ebenezer watched them go with fainting spirit.

"Methinks I'll help them search," he ventured.

McEvoy laughed. "Nay, ladies, tell me truly: is Sir Benjamin England's greatest coward or her greatest tease? I know for a fact he hath fathered a regiment o' bastards, but to hear the scoundrel ye'd take him for a virgin."

"Stay, John; 'tis time to end disguises."

"Time enough," McEvoy agreed quickly, but instead of revealing their true identities and stations, he confessed that he himself had set Miss Mungummory's mare a-wandering, what time he'd feigned a visit to the millrace; he'd already freely said as much to Mary, who, by no means disturbed at the news, had told him Aphrodite would go at once to a certain farm not far away, where she'd often been stabled, and had offered to lead Harry Russecks on a two-hour chase before they found her.

"There's a queen among women," Mrs. Russecks declared. "So, then, gentlemen: let us go to our tea, since my husband hath such nice feeling for responsibility." She took Ebenezer's arm; McEvoy had already encircled Henrietta's waist and drawn her to his side.

"Really, Mrs. Russecks," the poet said desperately, "there is a pressing business I wish to discuss with you — "

"There, now, Mr. McEvoy!" the miller's wife teased. "Your friend is as importunate as yourself! Marry, in my youth men were more subtle — for better or worse."

"Nay, you refuse to understand!" Ebenezer protested. "I'm not what you think I am at all!"

"So I begin to grasp, young rascal!"

"Pray, hear me — "

"Peace, Sir Benjamin," McEvoy laughed, but Ebenezer saw alarm in his eyes. "Thou'rt embarrassing Henrietta with your forwardness. Out on't, Madame Russecks, methinks we'd best forego the tea, to spare your lovely daughter farther blushes; by'r leave, I'll ask her to take me once again through the mill, to inspect more closely what I only glimpsed before."

To this bald proposition Mrs. Russecks only replied, "I'm not disposed to keep a man from His Majesty's business, sir; yet if on the grounds of your commission you decide to try the machinery as well as inspect it, I ask you to bear in mind two things. ."

"Anything, madame: 'tis thine to command."

"First, then, albeit we have your statement for't that you've inspected many a mill before, you must remember that this one is unaccustomed to inspection. 'Tis very dear to me, e'en precious, sir; for all my husband claims it as his own, 'tis not o' his making at all, but came to him with my dowry, as't were. Moreover, we've our reputation to think of, and albeit 'tis a perfectly harmless thing thou'rt commissioned to, if 'twere generally known what thou'rt about, certain ill-minded gossips would make a scandal of't. In sum, inspect and try what ye will, Mr. McEvoy, but be gentle and discreet as becomes an officer of the King."

McEvoy bowed, "I pledge my life on't, lady."

"And you, Henrietta," Mrs. Russecks said more sternly. "Bear in mind that the mill is a perilous place for novices."

"Methinks I know my way around it well enough, Mother!"

"Very well, but mind your step and stay alert for trouble." With this advice the couple left, and Mrs. Russecks turned to Ebenezer with a proud smile.

"Fetch me into the house, Sir Benjamin, and we'll attend to the pressing business that so distracts you."

Ebenezer sighed; it was chilly outside, and he was blind neither to Mrs. Russecks's beauty nor to her flattering invitation. Nevertheless, as soon as they were seated in her parlor he declared that he was not Sir Benjamin Oliver nor any other knight, and that neither he nor his companion were traveling in any official capacity.

"As for my actual identity, I am ashamed of't, but I'll tell it readily — "

"Indeed you shan't!" Mrs. Russecks commanded, with some heat. "Methinks thou'rt younger in the ways of the world than becomes thy years! Do you take me for a whore, sir, that swives all comers in the stews?"

"Prithee, nay, ma'am!"

"You've seen what a gross, unmannered bully is my husband," she went on sharply. "Once in my youth I grew to despise the race of men, and to loathe in myself those things that aroused their lust and mine: 'twas in contempt of life I married Harry Russecks, so that every time he forced me like a slavering brute of the woods, he'd strengthen twice over my opinion of his sex."

"Mercy, ma'am! I scarce know what to think! Many's the time I've pitied woman's lot, and reviled men's coarseness; yet a man is nine parts nature's slave in such matters, methinks, and in any case I assure you not all men are so coarse as your husband." He stopped, covered with confusion by the unintended insult. "What I mean to say — "

"No matter." Mrs. Russecks's face softened; she smiled and laid her hand upon Ebenezer's. "What you just told me, I knew in my heart all along, and soon saw the folly of my marriage. Yet I was and still am victim of another folly, that I got like a family illness from my father: I was too proud to renounce a grand course once I'd embarked on't, e'en though I saw 'twould lead to naught but pain and revulsion. In lieu of admitting my blunder and leaving the Province, I resolved to make the best of't; I vowed I'd lose no opportunity to redeem myself for scorning good men along with bad. That, sir, explains your presence here, and what you no doubt took to be immodest encouragement on our part — I feel more pity for Henrietta than for myself, inasmuch as 'twas none of her choice to live with such a jealous and vigilant despot. Yet albeit I own we've behaved like tarts, sir, I beg you remember that we're not: 'twas to a knight I opened my door and e'en good Guinevere played harlot for a knight! To tell me now thou'rt only Ben the factor's son, or Slim Bill Bones the sailor — 'twere less than delicate, Sir Benjamin, were it not?"

While speaking she played distractedly with Ebenezer's hand, stroking down each bony finger-top with her index nail; at the end she raised her excellent brown eyes, furrowed her brows in whimsical appeal and smiled a little crooked smile. Ebenezer's cheeks burned; his nose and eyebrows jerked and twitched.

"Dear lady — " It was time to make a move; he must embrace her at once, or throw himself upon his knees to protest his ardor — but though the feelings so at odds within his breast were strangely different from those he'd known in other passionate impasses, he was unable to bring himself to do what the moment called for. "I beg you, madam: take no offense — "

Mrs. Russecks drew back. Bewilderment was followed at once in her expression by disbelief, which gave way in its turn to wrath.

"Prithee, don't misunderstand — "

" 'Tis not likely I shall, d'ye think?" she said furiously. "Or will you tell me thou'rt a Christian saint disguised, that hath such a nice regard for husband's honor!"

"He is a boor," Ebenezer assured her. "What horns he wears, he hath more than earned by's callous — "

"Then the truth is plain," she snapped. "Your friend stole the filly and left you to ride the foundered jade!"

"Nay, madam, b'm'faith! I've no wish to change places with McEvoy, believe me!"

"Hear the wretch! He finds the pair of us sour to's taste, nor scruples to tell us so to our faces! And you call my husband callous?"

Up to this point Ebenezer had spoken gently, even timidly, in his fear of wounding the lady's pride. But among the curious new emotions that possessed him was a strange self-assurance, such as he'd never felt before in a woman's presence. He scarcely bothered to wonder where he had acquired it, but on the strength of it caught her hand, held it fast against her efforts to wrench free, and pressed it against his chest. "Feel my heart!" he ordered. "Is that the pulse of a Christian saint? Can you believe I sit here coldly?"

Mrs. Russecks made no reply; an uncertain, irritated disdain took the place of her initial anger.

Ebenezer spoke on, still clasping her hand. "Thou'rt no child, Mrs. Russecks; surely you can see you have possessed me with desire! Nay, only twice in my life have I burned so, and both times — i'Christ, the memory scalds me with remorse! — both times I came within an ace of committing rape upon the woman I loved! And 'sblood, thou'rt handsome — by far the comeliest lady I've seen in Maryland! Thou'rt the masterwork whereof your Henrietta's but a copy!"

In the face of these protestations, the miller's wife could maintain but a pouting remnant of her ire. "What is't unmans you then?" She could not restrain a smile, or Ebenezer a blush, when even as she spoke she noticed that he was in a condition far from unmanly. "Or better, since I see for a fact thou'rt ardent, what holds you back? Is't fear of my husband?"

Ebenezer shook his head.

"Then where's the rub?" Her voice began to show fresh irritation. "Is't that ye fear I'm poxed like many another strumpet? 'Tis a wondrous prudent ravisher, i'faith, that asks his victims for a bill o' health!"

"Stay, you slander yourself, madam! I swear to Heav'n this is the rarest opportunity of my life: who wins thy favors wins a splendid prize; the world must regard him with awe and envy! 'Twere a rare, a singular pleasure to accept so sweet a gift; 'tis a rare and singular pain to say you nay, and would be e'en if my rejection were no insult — " He paused and smiled. "Dear lady, you little dream the whole and special nature your appeal bears for me!"

His manner was so cordial, his compliment so curious, that Mrs. Russecks's face softened again. Once more she demanded an explanation, and even threatened in a vague way to denounce the poet to her husband as an impostor if he would not be candid with her, but her tone was more coaxing than annoyed.

"You upbraid yourself for having been forward," Ebenezer said, "and declare I contemn you for't; yet the truth is, lady, thou'rt but the more my conqueror for seizing the initiative. I admire your grace, I savor your beauty, but beyond both — How can I phrase it? Methinks you've tact and wisdom enough to deal with my own blundering innocence, which else would make a fiasco of our adventure. ."

"Ah, now, Sir Benjamin, this is no ravisher I hear speaking!"

"Nay, hear me out! I'll not disclose my name, if you must have it so, but there's a thing you must know. 'Tis a thing I'd hide from one less gentle, lest she wound me with't; but you, lady — ah, belike 'tis folly, but I've an image of you surprised, charmed, e'en delighted at the fact — yet infinitely tender and, above all, appreciative. Aye, supremely appreciative, as I should be if — " Bemused by the picture in his mind, Ebenezer would have detailed it further, but the miller's wife cut him short, declaring candidly that her curiosity was now a match for her ardor, and should he deny her satisfaction of the one as well as the other, he must watch her perish upon the spot and suffer the consequences.

"Heav'n forfend." The poet laughed, still marveling at the ease with which he could speak. "The simple truth of't is, my dear Mrs. Russecks, for all my twenty-eight years of age, I am as innocent as a nursling, and have vowed to remain so."

His prediction regarding the effect of this announcement on the miller's wife was in some measure borne out: she studied his face for evidence of insincerity, and apparently finding none, asked in a chastened voice, "Do you mean to tell me — and thou'rt no priest?"

"Not of the Roman or any other church," Ebenezer declared. He went on to explain to her how at the outset, being a shy ungainly fellow, he had come to regard his innocence as a virtue rather from necessity; how not a year past (though it seemed decades!) he had elevated it, along with a certain artistic bent of his, to a style of life, even identifying it with the essence of his being; and how through a year of the most frightful tribulation, and at a staggering expense not only of property but perhaps of human lives, he had managed to preserve it intact. It had been some while since he'd been obliged to consider seriously the matter of his innocence, and though to enlarge upon its virtues and shudder verbally at the prospect of its loss had become second nature for him, he was surprised to find himself dissociated emotionally from his panegyric; standing off, as it were, and listening critically. Indeed, when Mrs. Russecks asked with sharp interest for an explanation of this wondrous innocence, he was obliged to admit, both to her and to himself, that he could call himself innocent no longer except with regard to physical love.

But the lady was not yet satisfied. "Do you mean you've no notion of what your friend and Henrietta have been about this last half hour?"

Ebenezer blushed, not alone at the reference to the other couple, but also at the realization (which he readily confessed to Mrs. Russecks) that even in the physical sense his innocence had come to be limited to the mere technical fact of his virginity — which fact itself (though he would not elaborate further) was not so unqualified as he might wish.

"The truth of't is, then," Mrs. Russecks persisted, "this precious Innocence you cling to hath been picked at and pecked at till you've scarce a tit-bit of't left."

"I must own that is the case, more's the pity."

"And doth that wretched tatter mean so much?"

Ebenezer sighed. The critical listener in his soul had posed that very question not many moments earlier, during his speech, and had observed by way of answer a startling fact: his loss of the quality of innocence, it suddenly seemed, had been accompanied by a diminution of the value that he placed on it; although he still sang its praises from witless force of habit, he had been astonished to remark, in these moments of dispassionate appraisal, what slight emotion he truly felt now at the thought of losing it altogether. Thus his sigh, and the slight smile with which he replied, "In sooth I have grown indifferent to't, lady. Nay, more: I am right weary of innocence."

"La, then speak no farther!" Her voice was husky, her eyes bright; she held out both her hands for him to take. "Hither with thee, and an end to innocence!"

But though he took her hands to show her that his own were a-tremble with desire and appreciation, Ebenezer would not embrace her.

"What I prized before hath all but lost its point," he said gently, "and when I think that soon or late 'twill come, this end you speak of, as sure as death will come, and belike in circumstances by no means so pleasurable as these, why, then I wonder: What moral doth the story hold? Is't that the universe is vain? The chaste and consecrated a hollow madness? Or is't that what the world lacks we must ourselves supply? My brave assault on Maryland — this knight-errantry of Innocence and Art — sure, I see now 'twas an edifice raised not e'en on sand, but on the black and vasty zephyrs of the Pit. Wherefore a voice in me cries, 'Down with't, then!' while another stands in awe before the enterprise; sees in the vanity of't all nobleness allowed to fallen men. 'Tis no mere castle in the air, this second voice says, but a temple of the mind, Athene's shrine, where the Intellect seeks refuge from Furies more terrific than e'er beset Orestes — "

"Enough!" Mrs. Russecks protested, but not incordially. "Since 'tis plain you'll have none of me, I withdraw my invitation. But don't expect me to fathom this talk of Pits and Castles: speak your piece in Church Creek English, else I'll never know in what wise I'm insulted!"

Ebenezer shook his head. "Here's nobility in sooth, that is rendered gracious by rejection! And here's a paradox, for this same grace that lends me courage to make clear my resolve, at the same time deals it a nigh-to-mortal blow!"

"Go to; 'tis a plain account I crave, not flattery."

Thus assured, Ebenezer declared that although to present her then and there with the final vestige of his innocence would be a privilege as well as a joy, he was resolved to deny himself a pleasure which, however sublime, would be devoid of a right significance.

"When erst I entered the lists of Life," he said, "Virginity was a silken standard that I waved, all bright and newly stitched. 'Tis weatherblast and run now, and so rent by the shocks of combat e'en its bearer might mistake it for a boot rag. Notwithstanding which, 'tis a banner still, and hath earned this final dignity of standards: since I must lose it, I'll not abandon it by the way, but surrender it with honor in the field."

The poet himself was not displeased by this conceit, which he judged to be acceptably free from insult as well as lucid and sincere. Whether the miller's wife shared his good opinion, however, he never did learn, for even as he prepared to question her she sprang up white-faced from the couch, having heard an instant before be did the sound of running footfalls up the path.

"Pray God to spare you for the day of that surrender," she said, in a voice quite shaken with fright. "Here is my husband at the door!"

14: Oblivion Is Attained Twice by the Miller's Wife, Once by the Miller Himself, and Not at All by the Poet, Who Likens Life to a Shameless Playwright

Mrs. Russecks's fright, so out of keeping with her character, provoked such terror in Ebenezer that at sight of the miller rushing in with sword held high, he came near to suffering again the misfortune he had suffered at the King o' the Seas in Plymouth.

"Mercy, my dear!" Mrs. Russecks cried, umning to her husband. "Whatever is the matter?"

"Go to, don't I'll have thy whoring head along with his!"

He endeavored to push her aside in order to get at the cowering poet, but she clung to him like a vine upon an oak, so that he could only hobble across the parlor.

"Stay, Harry, thou'rt mistaken!" she pleaded. "What're thy suspicions, God smite me dead if there hath been aught 'twixt this man and me!"

" 'Tis I shall smite!" the miller cried. "Commissioner or no, there's guilt writ plain athwart his ugly face!"

"As Heav'n is my witness, sir!" Ebenezer pleaded, "Madame Russecks and I were merely conversing!" But however true the letter of his protest, his face indeed belied it. He leaped for safety as the miller swung.

"Hold still, dammee!"

The miller paused to fetch his wife so considerable a swat with the back of his free hand that she gave a cry and fell to the floor. "Now we'll see thy liquorous innards!"

Ebenezer strove to keep the parlor table between himself and dismemberment.

"Let him go!" Mrs. Russecks shrieked. " 'Tis the other one you must find, ere he swive Henrietta!"

These words undoubtedly saved the poet's life, for Harry Russecks had flung over the table with one hand and driven him into a corner. But the mention of Henrietta, whom he had apparently forgotten, drove the miller nearly mad with rage; he turned on his wife, and for an instant Ebenezer was certain she would suffer the fate he had temporarily been spared.

"He fetched her into the woods," Mrs. Russecks said quickly, "and vowed he'd murther her if Sir Benjamin or myself so much as blinked eye at him!"

Like a wounded boar at scent of his injurer, the miller gave a sort of squealing grunt and charged outdoors.

"Make haste to the mill!" Mrs. Russecks cried to Ebenezer. "Bid Henrietta slip into the woods where Harry and I can find her, and you and your friend hide yourselves in Mary's wagon!"

The poet jumped to follow her instructions, but upon stepping outside, just a few seconds behind the miller, they saw the plan foiled before their eyes. Mary Mungummory, leading the lost Aphrodite, had run puffing and panting into the dooryard just as the miller charged out again; at the same moment, though Ebenezer could not see them from the front steps of the house, either McEvoy or Henrietta or both must have peered out from the mill to see what the commotion was about, for although Russecks was headed in the general direction of the woods, Mary, knowing nothing of the ruse, dropped Aphrodite's halter and ran as best she could toward the mill, calling "Go back! Here comes Sir Harry!" The miller wheeled about and lumbered after. A scream came from the mill and was answered by another from Mrs. Russecks, who ran a few steps as though to intercept her husband and then, stumbling or swooning, fell to the ground.

Ebenezer found himself running also, but with no idea at all what to do. He was still somewhat closer to the mill door than was Russecks and could doubtless have headed him off, but with no weapons of his own such a course would have been suicidal as well as ineffective. Yet neither could he simply stand by or look to his own escape while McEvoy, and perhaps the girl too, were done to death. Therefore he simply trotted without object into the yard, and when Russecks charged past without a glance, he turned and followed a safe ten yards behind.

Mary, meanwhile, had disappeared, but as soon as Russecks entered the mill (whence issued at once fresh screams from Henrietta) she trundled from around the corner, most distraught.

"God's blood, Mister Cooke, I did all a body could, but the farther we went, the more jealous he grew, till he swore he'd go no farther for the King himself! Nay, don't go in, sir; 'tis your life! Ah, Christ, yonder lies Roxie, done to death!"

She hurried off to the fallen Mrs. Russecks, whom she supposed to have been run through and Ebenezer, ignoring her advice, proceeded quickly into the mill. Already Russecks had started up the ladder that led to the catwalk and grain hopper; McEvoy was scrambling from the upper rungs of the second ladder, which led from the hopper to the loft; and near the edge of the loft itself stood pretty Henrietta, incriminated by the petticoats in which she stood and screamed.

"Ha! Ye'll run no farther!" the miller shouted from the platform, and Ebenezer realized that the lovers were trapped.

"Throw down the ladder!" he cried to McEvoy. The Irishman heard him and leaped to follow his counsel just as Russecks began to climb. But although the ladder was neither nailed nor tied in place, its stringers had been wedged between two protruding floor-joists of the loft, too tightly for McEvoy to free them by hand from his position. The miller climbed with difficulty to the second rung, the third, and the fourth, holding the cutlass in his hand and watching his quarry's struggle.

Now on the platform himself, Ebenezer watched with fainting heart. "Throw something down, John! Knock him off!"

McEvoy looked wildly about the loft for a missile and came up with nothing more formidable than a piece of cypress studding, perhaps three feet long and three inches on a side. For a moment he stood poised to hurl it; Russecks halted his climb and waited to dodge the blow, growling and jeering. Then, thinking better of it, McEvoy fitted one end of the stud behind the topmost rung of the ladder, and using the edge of the loft for a fulcrum, pulled back upon the other with all his weight. There was a loud crack; Ebenezer caught his breath: but apparently neither rung nor lever had broken, for McEvoy placed a foot against each stringer-top for mechanical advantage and heaved back again. Another crack: Ebenezer saw the ladder move out an inch or so, and the miller, uncertain whether to rush for the top or climb down before he fell, gripped the sides more tightly and cursed. The new angle of the lever afforded McEvoy less of a purchase and tended to lift as well as push the ladder, but Henrietta sprang to his assistance, and on the third try their effort succeeded in freeing the ladder from the joists. Its slight inclination kept it from falling backwards at once, and in the moment required for McEvoy to pull it over sideways, the miller jumped safely to the platform.

McEvoy laughed. "Love conquers all, Your Majesty! Murther us now, sir!"

Russecks picked himself up and shook his sword at the loft. "Well done, dammee; what keeps me down will keep ye up, and we shall see how soon ye choke on your damned love! There's many a keep taken by siege that hath withstood the worst assaults!"

Ebenezer had observed all this from the far end of the same platform on which the miller now stood. That his own position was far from safe did not occur to him; his whole attention was directed to the lovers, and when he recalled that McEvoy knew nothing of Mrs. Russecks's abduction-story, his sudden vision of a stratagem bunded him to more prudent considerations.

"Prithee, sir!" he cried to the miller, in a voice loud enough for them to hear and be advised by. "Don't tempt his anger, I beg you, while he hath your daughter in his clutches! Howe'er he hath wronged you, 'tis better he go free than that he murther Henrietta before your eyes, or work lewd tortures on her as desperate men are wont — "

He got no farther; whether Russecks had heard his earlier suggestions to McEvoy or now noticed his presence for the first time, he was clearly of the same mind no longer about the poet's innocence. He turned on him, brandishing the cutlass, and said, "Who gives a man horns must beware of a goring!"

Ebenezer lost no time fleeing down the nearby ladder to the ground and racing for the front doorway, where he saw Mary and the miller's wife anxiously looking on. But however distraught, Mrs. Russecks still had her wits about her; before Ebenezer reached the door she ran in towards the fallen ladder.

"Now, Henrietta! Climb down while he chases Sir Benjamin!"

Her order was so public and premature, its object must have been merely to divert her husband. If so, it succeeded at once: the miller stopped half across the platform and glared from her to the loft.

"I'll quarter the lot o' ye!"

Ebenezer spied against the wall a hooked iron rod, like a fireplace poker, and snatching it up, hastened to Mrs. Russecks's defense.

"Go to the inn," he ordered Mary, "fetch all the folk this wretch hath bullied!"

"Bravo!" McEvoy shouted from the loft. "Let him run ye round the millstones, Eben, till I scramble down; 'tis one against all the rest of us, and I've a sickle here to match his bloody meat-axe!"

So saying he hurled his piece of studding at the miller, tucked the newfound sickle into his belt, and swung his legs around one of two wooden pillars supporting the loft, ready to climb down at the first opportunity. Mary disappeared on her errand, and Mrs. Russecks, with a wary eye on her husband, struggled to raise the fallen ladder. Russecks himself, though untouched by McEvoy's missile, seemed driven to the verge of apoplexy by his own wrath. After some moments of indecision he fixed his attention upon Ebenezer, who trembled at the hatred in his face.

" 'Twill not be two against one for long!" He advanced two steps towards the end of the platform and then, seeing Ebenezer prepare to flee, turned back to the middle and commenced to climb the railing. It was evidently his intention either to jump or to climb down upon the millstones themselves in order to prevent Ebenezer from playing the part of Hector around the walls of Troy.

"Ah, nay!" Mrs. Russecks cried at once, and before her husband could let go the railing she sprang to pull the lever that engaged the millstone shaft with that of the waterwheel outside. The great top stone rumbled and turned, and Russecks jerked himself up, his footing removed from under him.

"God dammee!" he bellowed almost tearfully. "God dammee one and all!"

Holding on with his free hand, he threw his leg back over the rail to regain the platform and was undone: as he swung himself over, the great scabbard at his inside hip caught momentarily between the rails; to free it he drew back his abdomen and endeavored to hold on with the finger ends of his cutlass-hand. They slipped at once, and being either unwilling or unable to let go his sword and snatch for a new grip, he tumbled backwards. Both women screamed, and Ebenezer's nerves tingled. The fall was short, the attitude deadly: Russecks's bootheels were still at the level of the platform when his head struck the millstone below.

"Smite him!" McEvoy called to Ebenezer. But there was no need to, for the miller's head and shoulders rolled off the stone and he lay senseless on the ground. Henrietta waxed hysterical; her mother, on the other hand, screamed no more after the first time, but calmly pushed the clutch-lever to disengage the stone and only then inquired of Ebenezer, "Is he dead?"

The poet made a gingerly examination. The back of the miller's head was bloody where it had struck, but he was respiring still.

"He seems alive, but knocked quite senseless."

Mary Mungummory peered cautiously through the doorway. "Heav'n be praised, the blackguard's dead! Not a coward would come to help, for all he hath abused 'em, and Master Poet hath turned the trick himself!"

"Nay," said McEvoy, on the ground at last, "he tricked himself, did Sir Harry, and he's not dead yet." He took up the cutlass and held it to the miller's throat. "With your permission, Mrs. Russecks. ."

But though the miller's wife showed no emotion whatever regarding his accident, she would not permit a coup de grâce. "Fetch down my daughter, sir, an it please you, and we'll put my husband to bed."

All the company showed surprise, and all but Ebenezer indignation as well.

"The scoundrel might come to his senses any minute and have at us again!" McEvoy protested.

"I trust you and Sir Benjamin will be well out of Church Creek ere he comes to."

"What of thyself, lady?" Ebenezer asked.

"And Henrietta!" McEvoy protested.

Mrs. Russecks replied that for all his threats, her husband would do no worse than beat the two of them, and they had lived through many such beatings before.

" 'Tis all very fine if ye've a taste for birch," McEvoy said shortly, "but the devil shan't lay a finger on Henrietta! I'll fetch her out o' the county if need be!"

"Henrietta may stay or leave as she pleases," Mrs. Russecks declared.

Mary Mungummory regarded the witless miller and shook her head. "I cannot fathom ye, Roxanne! I'd have swore ye'd rejoice to see the beast dead, as every soul else in Church Creek would! Sure, thou'rt not o' that queer sort that lust after floggings, are ye? Or haply thou'rt of such soft stuff e'en a wounded viper moves ye to pity?"

Mrs. Russecks waved an irritated hand at her friend. "I loathe him, Mary. He is the grossest of men and the cruellest; he hath made a torture of my life, and poor Henrietta's. I wed him knowing full well 'twould be so, and God hath fitly punished me for that sin; 'tis not for me to terminate the punishment."

Ebenezer was moved by this speech, but at the risk of offending her he ventured to point out that she had not scrupled to commit adultery in the past.

"What doth that serve to prove," she demanded sharply, "save that mortals sometimes stray from the path of saints? 'Tis true I've played him false with pleasure; 'tis likewise true I rejoiced to see him fall (albeit 'twas not my motive when I pulled the lever), and would rejoice thrice o'er to see him in the grave. But 'twill ne'er be I that puts him there or gives any soul leave to murther him."

Mary sniffed. " 'Sheart, is this Roxie Russecks I hear, or Mary Magdalene? At least don't nurse the scoundrel back to health, if ye've any love left for the rest o' mankind."

But Mrs. Russecks stood firm and ordered Henrietta — now properly attired and rescued from the loft — to help her carry the still-senseless miller to his chamber. The girl looked uncertainly to McEvoy, whose eyes challenged her, and refused to obey.

"I pray ye'll forgive me, Mother, but I shan't lift a finger to save him. I hope he dies."

Her mother frowned for just an instant; on second thought she smiled and declared that if Henrietta intended to "place herself under the protection" of Mr. McEvoy, the two of them could depart immediately with her blessing and should do so before Russecks regained consciousness; then, to the surprise of Ebenezer and McEvoy, she added something in rapid, murmuring French, of which the poet caught only the noun dispense de bans and the adverb bientôt. Henrietta blushed like a virgin and replied first in clearer French that while she had reason to believe McEvoy actually admired her à la point de fiançailles, she had no intention of becoming his mistress until she had further knowledge of his station in life. "For the present," she continued in English, "I mean to stay here with you and share your misfortunes, but dammee if I'll do aught to hasten their coming!"

"Well spoken!" Mary applauded. "No more will I, Roxie."

"Nor I," McEvoy joined in. "Neither will I run off like a mouse ere the cat awakes. I mean to stand guard outside his chamber with this sword, if ye will permit me — or on the edge o' yonder woods if ye will not — and the hour he lays a wrathful hand on Henrietta shall be his last on earth, if it be not mine."

" 'Tis past my strength to carry him alone," Mrs. Russecks entreated Ebenezer. "I beg you to help me, sir."

Feeling partly responsible for the miller's condition, Ebenezer agreed. The brief exchange in French had set his mind strangely abuzz, so that he scarcely heard the protests of the others until Mary happened to say, as they left the mill, "Whence sprang this nice concern for the devil's health, Roxie? There was a time you abandoned him right readily to be murthered!"

" 'Twas that time taught me my lesson," Mrs. Russecks replied, "else I'd ne'er have ransomed him. If they had thrown him to the sharks, methinks I'd have ended my own life as well."

A number of villagers had gathered between the inn and the mill to learn the outcome of the fight; on catching sight of the vanquished miller they sent up a cheer, whereupon Mrs. Russecks dispatched Mary to warn them that their joy was in some measure premature. The rest of the party entered the house; Henrietta and McEvoy remained in the parlor, while Mrs. Russecks and the poet carried their burden to the master's bedroom. The miller showed no signs at all of recovering from his coma, even when his wife set to work washing and bandaging his injury.

"I shall bind up his head and fetch him a physician," she sighed. "If he lives, he lives: if he dies, he dies. In any case I am your debtor for humoring my wishes." She paused noticing the poet's distracted countenance. "Is something amiss, sir?"

"Only my curiosity," Ebenezer answered. "If you fancy yourself in my debt, dear lady, prithee discharge it by allowing me one bold question: were you and your daughter once captured by a pirate named Thomas Pound?"

The woman's alarm made clear the answer. She looked with new eyes at Ebenezer and marveled as though to herself, "Aye, but why did it not occur to me before? Your weathered clothes and story of a shipwreck — ! But 'tis nigh six years ago you captured us, 'twixt Jamestown and St. Mary's — howe'er could you recall it?"

"Nay, madam, I am no pirate," Ebenezer laughed, "nor ever was; else 'twere not likely I'd be yet a virgin, do you think?"

Mrs. Russecks colored. "Yet surely our shame is not the talk of England, and thou'rt not a native of the Province. How is't you know the story?"

" 'Tis more famous than you imagine," the poet teased. "I swear to you I heard it from my tutor, in the coach to Plymouth."

"Nay, sir, don't shame me farther! Speak the truth!"

Ebenezer assured her that he had done just that. "This tutor is an odd and formidable fellow, that hath been equally at home in Tom Pound's fo'c'sle and Isaac Newton's study; to this hour I know not whether he is at heart a fiend or a philosopher. 'Tis in search of him and his salvage brother I came hither, for reasons so momentous I tremble to tell them, and so urgent — ah well, you shall judge for yourself anon, when I explain. This man, dear lady, you were once of wondrous service to, albeit you knew it not, and in consideration of that service he saved your life and honor from the pirates. Have you e'er heard tell of Henry Burlingame?"

Mrs. Russecks crimsoned further; looking to assure herself that neither her husband nor the couple in the parlor had overheard, she closed the bedroom door. Ebenezer apologized for his ungallantry and begged forgiveness on grounds of the great urgency of his mission, adding that Henry Burlingame (which, he gave her to understand, was actually the name of her saviour and quondam lover) had surely not told the story to anyone else, and that he had expressed nothing but the fondest and most chivalrous opinions of both Mrs. Russecks and her daughter. The miller's wife glanced uneasily toward the door.

"Let me assure you farther," Ebenezer said. "You need not be anxious after Henrietta's honor: McEvoy knows naught of this."

"Methinks he hath learned already she is no virgin, for all that's worth," Mrs. Russecks said candidly. "But I must tell you, Mister — Benjamin- albeit 'tis an empty point of honor and bespeaks no merit for us whatsoever, thy tutor is a most uncommon sort of lover, such as I've ne'er heard tell of before or since, and 'tis quite likely you have a wrong conception of our adventure. ."

Ebenezer lowered his eyes in embarrassment and admitted that he had indeed been misled on that matter — and not alone with regard to the two ladies present — until quite recently, when the curious truth about Burlingame had been discovered to him.

"I'God, lady, such a deal I have to tell you! Burlingame's quest, that you yourself played no small role in! My own enormous errand, wherein you may play yet another role! What a shameless, marvelous dramatist is Life, that daily plots coincidences e'en Chaucer would not dare, and ventures complications too knotty for Boccacce!"

Mrs. Russecks concurred with this sentiment and expressed her readiness to hear the full story once she'd had a private word with Henrietta to spare her daughter unnecessary alarm. "Methinks my husband will not soon be dangerous, and whate'er this weighty quest of thine, I'm sure it can wait till morning. Twill make a pleasant evening's telling, Sir Benjamin."

"Ah, then, may we not have done with pseudonyms at last?" He boldly put his arm about Mrs. Russecks's waist. "I am no more Sir Benjamin Oliver than McEvoy is His Majesty's Commissioner of Provincial Wind- and Water-Mills; did you not hear Mary call me 'Mister Poet?' "

He felt the miller's wife stiffen and removed his arm, assuming that she was not pleased by the familiarity; to cover his embarrassment he pretended that it was his vocation which disturbed her. "Ah, now, is a poet less attractive than a knight? What if peradventure he bore a pompous title, like Laureate of Maryland?"

Mrs. Russecks averted her eyes. "You replace one disguise with another," she said tersely.

"Nay, I swear't! I am Ebenezer Cooke, that once pretended to the title Laureate of Maryland."

The miller's wife seemed not so much skeptical as angry. "Why do you lie to me? I happen to know for a certainty that the Laureate of Maryland is living in Malden this minute with his father, and doth not resemble you in any particular."

Ebenezer laughed, though somewhat disconcerted by her manner. " 'Tis no surprise to me if certain evil men have hired a brace of new impostors; their motives still appall me, but I've grown used to their methods. But look me straight in the face, my dear Roxanne: I swear by all that's dear to me, I am Ebenezer Cooke of St. Giles in the Fields and Malden."

Mrs. Russecks turned to him a drained, incredulous face. "Dear Heav'n, what if we — " She turned to the door, laid her hand upon the knob, and swooned to the floor as senseless as her husband.

15: In Pursuit of His Manifold Objectives the Poet Meets an Unsavaged Savage Husband and an Unenglished English Wife

Henrietta and McEvoy came quickly at Ebenezer's summons, and with the assistance of Mary Mungummory Mrs. Russecks was put to bed in Henrietta's room. When, a little later, she was revived by salts of ammonia, she demanded, through Mary, that Ebenezer leave her house immediately and never return.

"Thou'rt a sly deceiver, Eben!" McEvoy teased, though he was as mystified by the demand as were the others. "What is't ye tried to do in the chamber yonder?"

"I swear to Heav'n I have done naught!" the poet protested. "Prithee, Mary, tell her I shall go instantly, but I must know in what wise I offended her, and crave her pardon for't!"

Mary delivered the message and came back to report that Mrs. Russecks would neither explain her demand nor give ear to any apologies. "She said 'The man hath done naught amiss, but I cannot bear him in my house' — her very words! De'il take me if I've e'er seen the like of't, have you, Henrietta?"

The girl agreed that such passionate unreasonableness was quite out of character for her mother.

Ebenezer sighed. "Ah well, then I must leave at once and find a bed somewhere. Prithee think no ill of me, Miss Russecks, and do endeavor to learn what lies behind all this, for I shan't rest easy till I've heard and redressed it." In the morning, he went on to say, he would find some means of traveling to Tobacco Stick Bay; whether his double mission there met success or failure, he would soon return to Church Creek, where he profoundly hoped to find Mrs. Russecks relenting enough, if not to forgive, at least to explain his faux pas. "You had best remain here," he told McEvoy. "If the twain of us go, Billy Rumbly might think he's being threatened."

"Did you say Billy Rumbly?" Henrietta asked.

"He did," Mary affirmed, "but ye must swallow your curiosity till Mr. McEvoy and I can tell ye the tale." To Ebenezer she said, " 'Tis you must forgive poor Roxie, Mr. Cooke; this wretched afternoon hath o'erwrought her. As for tomorrow, ye must allow me to take ye in the wagon. I greatly wish to see this Billy Rumbly my own self, for what reasons I scarce need say, and 'tis not impossible I may be able to help persuade him to our cause."

Ebenezer gratefully accepted both her offer and a loan of two pounds sterling, his own resources being exhausted. He charged Mary to inform him at once of any change in Mrs. Russecks's attitude or the miller's condition, and departed. He walked alone to the inn, much troubled in spirit, and was received almost as a hero by a number of villagers who lingered there for news from the mill. Ebenezer's announcement that as yet Russecks showed no improvement was greeted with ill-disguised rejoicing, and the innkeeper himself, an employee of the miller, insisted that the poet take supper and lodging at the house's expense.

During the meal Ebenezer pondered Mrs. Russecks's strange behavior. The only theory he could devise to account for both her knowledge of the state of things at Malden and her strong adverse reaction to his name was the not unlikely one that Russecks was affiliated with William Smith the cooper and Captain Mitchell's sinister traffic in vice. At length he mustered courage to approach the innkeeper.

"I say, friend, have you heard of Eben Cooke, that was wont to call himself Laureate of Maryland?"

"Eben Cooke?" The man's face brightened. "Why, that I have, sir; he's the wight that runs the Cooke's Point whorehouse with Bill Smith."

The poet's heart tingled; it appeared that his inference had some truth in it. "Aye, that's the man. But you've ne'er laid eyes on him, have you?"

"Indeed, Sir Benjamin, I've met the man but once, some days since — "

Ebenezer frowned, for he had been about to reveal himself. "You say you've met him?"

"Aye, that I did, sir, just once, in the very spot thou'rt standing now. An average-looking fellow he was, naught to set him off. Folks claimed he was looking for a wench that had run off from Malden — one o' the friskers, don't ye know — but I'll own he made no mention of't to me."

The innkeeper grinned. " 'Twas the Virgin he was after, we all knew well, and had he come a few days sooner we'd have steered him to her. But by then she was Lady Rumbly, don't ye know, and de'il the man of us would lead him to Billy's wife, for all she's a simple whore. 'Twas lucky Sir Harry wasn't about. ." In defense of his characterization of Miss Bromly, which Ebenezer questioned, the innkeeper reaffirmed his conviction that she was a fugitive prostitute from Malden. The poet did not insist the contrary, both because he wished not to alienate the innkeeper and because he was suddenly struck by an alarming notion: could it be that the Church Creek Virgin was not really Miss Bromly at all, but poor Joan Toast? Certain features of the story definitely argued for the notion: the girl's competent defense of her chastity (had not Joan, on the night he abandoned her, proposed a life of mutual celibacy in London?), her general independence and toughness of spirit (which surely did not suggest the demure Miss Bromly), her understandable confusion of Billy Rumbly with Henry Burlingame, and, alas, even her final succumbing to abduction by an Indian. But perhaps the most revealing detail of all was that hysterical moment when "Miss Bromly" had insisted that her name was Anna Cooke: that Joan, driven mad with despair, should identify herself not only in the tavern but in her own mind with the person whose ring she wore, the person of whom she could very probably have learned to be supremely jealous — this struck him with a force like that of certainty, and his conscience groaned at the blow.

But his immediate objective, however trifling by comparison, made it necessary to postpone these reflections. He changed his mind about revealing his true identity and came to his point by a different route. " 'Tis not really Eben Cooke I am concerned with; I merely wished to test whether thou'rt a man of the world, so to speak. Now I am a stranger to this province, friend, but 'tis said a bachelor need no more sleep alone here than in London, thanks to a string of gay establishments like Malden. 'Tis only natural a man should wonder whether a genial house such as this. ."

He allowed the innkeeper to complete the clause; the fellow's eyes were merry, but he shook his head.

"Nay, worse luck, Sir Benjamin; old Sir Harry ne'er durst make a regular stews o' the place for fear some clever Jack might roger Henrietta for a whore."

The poet reluctantly abandoned his theory — somewhat relieved, however, that the inn was not really a brothel, for he scarcely knew how he would have retreated otherwise from his inquiry.

"All the same, I'd not have ye think there's no sport to be had in Church Creek," the innkeeper continued. "How would it strike ye if I should say that the lady ye must apply to is the selfsame lady ye rode in with this noon?"

"Nay!"

"I swear't!" The innkeeper beamed triumphantly. "Her name is Mary Mungummory, the Traveling Whore o' Dorset — she's but the Mother Superior now, ye understand — and I'll wager the price of admission she can find some manner o' — Hi, there! Speak of the devil!"

Ebenezer followed the man's eyes and saw that Mary had just entered the room and was looking worriedly about. He caught her eye, and as she approached his table the innkeeper excused himself, saluted her cordially, and declared with a wink that Sir Benjamin had business to discuss with her.

"I feigned to mistake this inn for a brothel," Ebenezer explained as soon as they were able to talk, and told her briefly of his hypothesis and its failure.

"I might have spared ye that fiction, had ye asked me," Mary said. "I vow, Mr. Cooke, I don't know what hath possessed poor Roxie!"

"Is she worse, then?"

"She is cousin-german to a Bedlamite!" The miller himself, she went on to say, was no better or worse than before, but Mrs. Russecks, so far from regaining her composure after Ebenezer's departure, had grown steadily more distracted and unreasonable: she fell by turn into fits of cursing, weeping, and apathy; Mary's attempts to divert her with stories of Henry Burlingame and Billy Rumbly had only provoked fresh outbursts; Henrietta herself had been screamed at and banished from the chamber.

"Methinks 'twas not you that set her off," Mary asserted, "else why would she treat Henrietta so harshly? What's more, she seems as wroth with herself as with any soul else; she tears her hair, and rakes her cheeks, and curses the day of her birth! Nay, Mr. Cooke, I am more persuaded than ever 'tis the shock o' the day's events hath fair unhinged her, naught more mysterious; but I fear this night she'll fling away the pins and ne'er hinge back."

Ebenezer was not convinced, but he could offer no more plausible hypothesis. He called for two glasses of beer, and when Mary had finished relating her news to the other patrons, he told her of his firm belief that the Church Creek Virgin was in fact Joan Toast. She scoffed at the notion at first, then listened in amazement, perplexity, and mounting concern.

"There's naught I can say to rebut ye," she admitted finally, "albeit I can't see why she pitched on the name Meg Bromly. Still, 'tis as good as another, I daresay."

"I am convinced 'tis she!" the poet declared, and tears started in his eyes. " 'Sheart, Mary, what miseries have I not brought on that girl? Would God I might fly to her this night and beg for retribution! Would Heav'n — "

An expression of horror on Mary's face arrested him; looking beyond him while he spoke as had the innkeeper, she too had seen someone come in, and her reaction was frightening to behold. Ebenezer's flesh crawled.

"Is't Harry Russecks?" he whispered.

"Dear Christ!" moaned Mary, and, expecting the worst, Ebenezer turned to see for himself. The new arrival was not Harry Russecks, but a slight statured gentleman whom the other patrons rose to greet. The poet's heart sprang up; he moved his mouth to call "Henry!" and realized just in time to check himself that this man was not the "Nicholas Lowe" Burlingame but the Burlingame of St. Giles, grown fifteen years older and tanned by the Maryland sun: that is to say, not Burlingame at all…

" 'Tis my Charley Mattassin come from the dead!" Mary cried aloud.

"Nay, Mary," Ebenezer whispered. " 'Tis Billy Rumbly!"

Everyone in the room was startled by the outburst. Rumbly himself broke off his salutations and looked over with a puzzled smile. Two of his friends murmured something, but he ignored them and came towards the poet's table, where, still smiling, he bowed slightly to Ebenezer and addressed the ashen-faced woman.

"I beg your pardon, madam, but I must know whether you did not speak the name Charley Mattassin just then." His voice, Ebenezer observed, was of the same timbre as Burlingame's, but the accent was more continental than English.

"Thou'rt the breathing image o' thy brother!" Mary replied, and began to weep unashamedly. The other patrons came over to see what was the trouble; Billy Rumbly politely requested that they permit him to learn for himself, and they retired.

"May I sit down with you, sir? I thank you. Now, my dear lady — "

"Pray let me explain, sir," Ebenezer ventured. " 'Tis a most happy coincidence that brought you hither tonight!"

"I quite agree," said Billy Rumbly. "As for explanation, there may be no call for one: my dear lady, can it be thou'rt Miss Mungummory?"

Mary's astonishment was followed immediately by apprehension. "Now, Mr. Rumbly, ye mustn't think hard o' me; I swear — "

"That you had naught to do with Mattassinemarough's death? Let me swear, Miss Mungummory, that none save Mattassin had aught to do with Mattassin's death. He destroyed himself — I appreciate that fact — and for all his fits of contrary passion, I know he died with your image in his heart." He smiled. "But say, how is't you knew I was his brother? Merely by reason of a certain likeness betwixt us?"

Mary was still too taken aback to muster a coherent answer, and so Ebenezer declared, "We've heard the tale of your adventures from the trapper Harvey Russecks, sir — "

"Dear Harvey! A consummate gentleman! Then thou'rt aware I was formerly called Cohunkowprets, the Bill-of-the-Goose; yet that doth not quite account for all."

"My business will explain the rest," Ebenezer said. "I am in Church Creek expressly to deliver you a message from the Tayac Chicamec."

For the first time, Billy Rumbly's composure was ruffled: his brow contracted, and his eyes flashed in a way that chilled the poet's blood, so often had he seen that angry flash in Burlingame's eyes.

"The Tayac Chicamec hath no messages that I care to hear," he said dangerously.

"Haply not, sir," the poet granted at once, "yet I must tell you that as a gentleman you cannot refuse to hear me: I swear to you that the lives of every man, woman, and child of this province are in your hands!"

Billy Rumbly fixed his attention on the glass of beer brought to him by the innkeeper; his anger seemed to have hardened into stubbornness.

"You speak of the coming war. I do not think of it."

Ebenezer had anticipated this difficulty; he sighed as though resigned to the Indian's obduracy. "Very well, sir, I shan't trespass farther on your good nature. I only hope my friendship with your brother Burlingame will make him less unreasonable than you."

The remark had its intended effect: Billy grabbed his hand and stared open-mouthed at him, as if scarcely daring to believe his ears.

"What cruel stratagem of my father's is this?"

"The stratagem is mine, sir, to persuade you to hear me out on a number of urgent matters; but what I said is nonetheless true. As 'twas my pleasure to inform the Tayac Chicamec, your younger brother, Henry Burlingame Third, is neither dead nor lost; he was my tutor in England for six years and at present is not many miles from this spot." Despite his fear of alienating the man, who rather intimidated him as well, his terrific responsibilities caused Ebenezer suddenly to lose patience. "Damn you, sir, put by your skepticism; 'tis mankind's side I'm on, not Chicamec's! Do you know this ring? Aye, 'tis the ring of Quassapelagh, that he gave me for saving his life whilst he was hiding in the cliffs. Ah, you've heard that tale before? Then you know that the wight I left to serve him also owed his life to me — a trussed-up Negro slave named Drepacca, that I believe hath been a friend of yours! Do you think I'll beg you to save my companions' lives by leading that monstrous rebellion? I come here with a plan, sir, not a plea; a plan to save both English and Ahatchwhoops!" He paused to regain his self-control and concluded in a calmer tone, "What's more, I wish to speak with you as one gentleman to another with regard to your wife, who I have reason to believe is a woman very precious to me; and if after all this you need still more evidence of my good intention, know that we may speak here at length without fear of interruption by your enemy the miller Russecks: he is lying this moment at death's doorsill after a bout with me and my companion this afternoon."

Billy Rumbly was flabbergast. "Great Heavens, sir, you leave me breathless! My father, my wife, my long-lost brother — thou'rt setting my world a-spin!" He laughed. " 'Tis clear I misapprehended you, and I humbly beg your pardon, Mr. — "

"Cooke; Ebenezer Cooke, of Malden." The poet was relieved to observe that the name apparently meant nothing to Billy Rumbly.

"Mr. Cooke, sir." The Indian shook his hand warmly. "May I say at the outset, Mr. Cooke, that gossip to the contrary notwithstanding, my wife is as dear to me as you declare she is to you, and her condition (which I gather thou'rt aware of) is a matter of gravest concern to me. In fact, 'twas to seek advice from Mrs. Russecks on that subject I drove hither this evening — for which praise God!"

Mary, having by this time got the better of her emotions, explained that Mrs. Russecks was indisposed and excused herself to return to the patient's bedside.

"If ye still mean to call on Mrs. Rumbly," she said to Ebenezer, "we'll ride out first thing in the morning."

"Nay," Billy Rumbly protested, "you must be my guest tonight, sir, and tell me these wonders at your leisure; I shan't have it otherwise! And you, Miss Mungummory, if you really must go now, take my sympathies and regards to Mrs. Russecks and tell her I'll consult her another time; but you and I must speak together very soon about Mattassin — tomorrow, perhaps? I've much to ask and much to tell!"

Almost too carried away to speak, Mary managed some sort of acknowledgment and left the inn. Billy watched her intently until she was gone and then shook his head.

"I'll wager she was beautiful once! And even now, despite all — I don't presume to understand her, Mr. Cooke, but I quite understand my brother, I believe." He turned to the poet with a smile. "Now, sir, what say you? If your business with regard to my wife is not to duel for her affections, let's out at once for Tobacco Stick Bay; 'tis but four miles down the road, and I've a fair team to fetch us. Astonishing, this business about my brother!"

Ebenezer was altogether charmed. He had not suspected how deep was his anxiety at the prospect of encountering Billy Rumbly until now, when the man's amiability removed it. It was like meeting Henry Burlingame again after a long and discouraging separation — but a Burlingame whose formidability was not ambivalent; whose benevolence was unequivocal; in short, the gay, efficient Burlingame who had come to his rescue once in Magdalene College. There still remained the task of inducing him to save Bertrand and Captain Cairn, and the rather more ticklish problem of what to do about Joan Toast; but in the presence of Billy Rumbly — his princely animation, his mannered power — Ebenezer could not feel pessimistic, much less despairing. On the contrary, his flagging spirits soared; his face grew flushed with the ardor of gratitude, the warmth of reciprocal good feeling. While he donned his greatcoat, Billy Rumbly (who had never removed his own) declared to the house that Miss Mungummory's earlier commotion had been due to a simple case of mistaken identity: she had taken him for his late brother, Charley Mattassin, the misguided fellow who had been hanged for the murder of Mynheer Wilhelm Tick and family. Ebenezer was surprised at the man's candor, but Billy apparently knew his audience: although the revelation shocked them, their murmurs seemed commiserative rather than hostile.

"Now," Billy cried, "having blessed your wives with some gossip, let me bless you gentlemen with a dram!" When the drinks were distributed among the admiring patrons, he purchased in addition a "rundlet for the wagon," declaring that the day Sir Harry Russecks broke his head must not go uncelebrated. This sentiment was affirmed with loud hurrahs, and when the two men made their good nights and mounted Billy's wagon, Ebenezer felt himself envied by everyone in the tavern.

They paused briefly at the mill, where he introduced McEvoy to the object of their mission, announced his current plans, and learned that while Mrs. Russecks had finally been got to sleep, there was no change whatever in the miller's condition; then they set off westward along a dark and narrow path. The night was still and frosty; through the trees the poet spied the great triangle of Deneb, Vega, and Altair, though the constellations to which they belonged were obstructed from view.

"Our little drive takes half an hour," Billy said. "If I may request it, spare me the message from my father till later, as I can estimate its substance out of hand. But I must hear about this gentleman who claims to be my brother, and methinks 'twere better we spoke our minds on the subject of my wife ere we arrive. Yet stay: we durst not essay these weighty matters with dry throats; the first thing to do is take Lady Rundlet's maidenhead!"

"Marry," Ebenezer laughed, "thou'rt more a twin than a common brother to Henry Burlingame! How of't have I burned to hear some news he had for me, or tell him news of my own, and been obliged to sit through a chine of pork ere he'd give me satisfaction!"

They sampled the rundlet, and the good white Jamaica scalded the poet's innards most gratifyingly. Both the Indian and himself had availed themselves of lap robes, which, together with the rum and the absence of wind, kept them as comfortable as if the month were April instead of latest December. The team stepped leisurely in the frozen path, and the wagonwheels creaked and crunched with a pleasing sharpness. Ebenezer permitted his body to rock with the motion of the springs; the task of relating once again the story of Burlingame's quest and his own intricate history had previously appalled him, but in these circumstances it seemed a pleasant labor. He sighed as he commenced, but it was the sigh of a man certain that his story will give its bearers unusual pleasure. Making no mention of his doubts, reservations, disappointments, and astonishments, he told of Burlingame's rescue by Captain Salmon; his boyhood as sailorman, gypsy minstrel, and Cambridge scholar; his tenure at St. Giles in the Fields and the twins' affection for him; his adventures in the provinces as political agent and unwilling pirate; his rescue of the Russecks ladies; his vain endeavors to discover his parentage; and the poet's recent solution of that mystery.

"The question," he asserted near the end of his relation, "was who came 'twixt Sir Henry and Henry the Third, and how my friend came to be lightskinned as any Englishman, when neither Sir Henry's Privie Journall nor Captain John Smith's Secret Historie referred to any Lady Burlingame. E'en that last installment of the Historie, that your people call The Book of English Devils, did not resolve these questions, inasmuch as any offspring of Sir Henry and Pokatawertussan must needs be a blend of English and Ahatchwhoop — as is the Tayac Chicamec, in fact."

" 'Tis as much a mystery now as erst, for all I grasp it," Billy confessed. "Yet I have no doubts this fellow is in sooth my brother. Miraculous!"

"Aye, and no less so is the chance that gave me the key." He told of his visit with Burlingame to the Jesuit Thomas Smith, who had entertained them with the tale of Father FitzMaurice. "When I spied Father Joseph's chests in the house of the Tayac Chicamec and learned the King had wed that martyr's offspring, I had the answer: 'tis by decree of the Law of Averages their union should have issue not alone like thyself, who have the same commingled blood as both thy parents, but also pure-blooded Indian and pure-blooded English, in equal number. In short, Mattassin and Henry Burlingame."

"What a gift you have presented me!" Billy exclaimed quietly. "A brother, to replace poor Mattassin! I am forever in your debt, sir! But what is his trade at present, that hath plied so many in the past, and where might I find him? For I mean to seek him out at once, whether in Cambridge Maryland or Cambridge England."

With his imminent plea for Billy's assistance in mind, Ebenezer replied that Burlingame was still very much engaged in provincial politics as an agent for Lord Baltimore, in whose service he had jeopardized his life time and again for the cause of justice. It was difficult to praise as anti-revolutionary a man who had lately changed allegiance to John Coode (and who for all Ebenezer knew might be the arch-rebel and insurrectionist himself), but the poet reasoned that Billy Rumbly would be more likely to assent to a plan of which he believed his long-lost brother would approve.

"As to where he is now, I am not certain, for his home is where'er the cause of civilization leads him. But my desire to find him is no less urgent than your own, for I know well he'd gamble his life to prevent a massacre." Here, though he had promised to save the story, he could not resist telling of the perilous circumstances under which he had learned about the coming attack, and of Chicamec's ransom terms for Bertrand and the aged sea-captain. "He wants a son with the power of Quassapelagh and Drepacca to lead the Ahatchwhoops in the insurrection. My prayer is that you or Henry, if not the twain of you, will deceive him in the name of peace and good will; take your place as King of the Ahatchwhoops and use your influence for the good of red man, black man, and white man alike. 'Twere not beyond question, methinks, if only you — "

"Ah, sir, your pledge, your pledge!" Billy held up his hand. "Let us proceed to the subject of my wife. Before you speak your business, may I assume thou'rt acquainted with the story of our — courtship?"

"Aye, from Harvey Russecks and from Mary Mungummory, who had it from Sir Harry's wife."

"Both excellent sources. Then you doubtless know I share your alarm at Miss Bromly's self-imposed degradation. I am not yet either a Christian or a legal denizen of the Province, sir, and thus cannot properly marry her as I wish to. But she would have none of't e'en were't possible; she wishes no more than the simple Ahatchwhoop rite I performed — the which neither I nor the laws of Maryland honor where one of the parties is English."

"Then in reality she is not your wife at all, save in the spirit of Common Law?"

Billy acknowledged that this was unhappily the case. "I freely own, what you know already, that I was prepared to ravish and abduct her after the old Ahatchwhoop manner. I hid in the woods near Sir Harry's mill and brought her to the window by means of certain noises, whereupon I revealed myself to her sight. The object of this is to terrify the victim, but so far from swooning away, Miss Bromly came out to me alone, and when I offered to attack her — ah well, 'tis enough to swear no attack was necessary: she came with me of her own choosing, and of her own choosing remains. Moreover, for all my pressing her to live like a proper gentlewoman, she hath transformed herself into a salvage — nay, worse: into a brute, that neither speaks nor grooms itself! You have heard tales that I torture her over the fire? I swear to you that I would not willingly harm a hair of her head, but she hath learned somewhere that Indian husbands are wont to truss a shrewish wife near a green-wood fire, to cure their ill temper, and she obliges me to rope and smoke her in like manner above the hearth."

Ebenezer clucked his tongue. "Alas, poor woman!"

Billy regarded him carefully and gave the reins a little snap. " 'Tis with reason I tell you these things, my friend. I would imagine there hath been some adverse sentiment regarding Miss Bromly and myself; for aught I know, despite your cordial air you may be her brother or her betrothed, come to take revenge for her abduction — she tells me naught of her former life or past connections." He did not mean to suggest, he went on to say, that he was devoid of responsibility in the affair: whatever Miss Bromly's past, it was he who had in ignorance assaulted her in Russecks's tavern and set out deliberately to ravish her afterwards; it was not impossible that her current state was a deranged one caused by the shock of his attacks. However, he dearly loved her and wished her well, and was willing to do anything to improve her condition or otherwise discharge his responsibility.

So disarmed was Ebenezer by the man's frank and friendly attitude that, though the thought of Joan's degradation stung him to tears, he could not muster anger against her abductor. "More virtuous men than I may call you to account," he said instead. "Only tell me this: doth the girl wear any sort of ring?"

"A ring? Aye, she hath one, that she kisses and curses by turns but will not speak of. 'Tis a silver seal of sorts: me-thinks 'twas designed to fend off evil spirits, for it hath the word ban or bane around the seal: B-A-N-N-E."

For a moment Ebenezer was puzzled: then he recognized the anagram. "Ah God, 'tis as I feared! I am more than the girl's betrothed, Mr. Rumbly; I am her husband and I came hither, among other reasons, to save her from your clutches! Howbeit, I am persuaded thou'rt even less to blame than you imagine: 'tis I, above all others, who am responsible for Joan Toast's sorry state — that is her true name, not Meg Bromly, and if you truly love and pity her, 'tis you should punish me, not vice versa." His former sense of well-being entirely flown, he apprised Billy of the history of his relationship with Joan Toast and his crowning injustice to her, which he attributed her flight from Malden and her current distracted state.

The Indian attended with great interest and sympathy. "You must forgive me if this question is improper, sir," he said, when the poet was finished. "I believe I understood you to say that albeit you married the woman thou'rt yet a virgin, did I not? Remarkable! And yet methinks you implied that Miss Toast, or Mrs. Cooke — how doth a gentleman say it? — that you are perhaps not the only man who hath enjoyed her companionship, and that some others, let us say, were not so tender of her honor as were you. . Is that correct, or have I misconstrued your words?"

Ebenezer smiled. "No need to step lightly, sir. In London she was a whore."

"I see," Billy murmured, but his frown suggested that he was not altogether satisfied on the matter. "And of course thou'rt quite certain of these things?"

The poet could not suppress a grim amusement. "Belike thou'rt new to the ways of cultivated ladies, sir: a clever tart may whore herself to the very gate of Hell and then sell Lucifer first go at her maidenhead."

"Indeed. And yet the ring seems certain proof. ." He allowed the sentence to trail off in vague perplexity. "Hi, here's an end to speculation: yonder stands my cabin."

The path had brought them out of the woods into a sizeable cleared field bounded on the north by a narrow bay. On the near end of the water-front stood a cabin, dimly lit, and several outbuildings. As they stabled the team and approached the house, Ebenezer grew increasingly nervous at the prospect of confronting Joan Toast; the most honorable course, he decided, was simply to present himself, humbly and without excuse, and leave the first reaction to her.

At the doorstep Billy Rumbly stopped and laid a hand on the poet's shoulder. "Let us quite understand each other, my friend: is it your intention to take my — that is, your wife, I suppose — is it your intention to take her from me for her own good?"

"That is my intention," Ebenezer admitted.

"By force, if need be?"

"I am neither armed nor inclined to violence, sir; my only weapon is persuasion, and 'tis not likely she'll even listen to me. Nor are you obliged to invite me in, under the circumstances; I'll not bring suit."

Billy chuckled. "Thou'rt a noble fellow! Very well, then, since we both love the woman and both feel answerable for her condition, let us both put her improvement above all personal considerations: we will put our separate cases and leave the choice to her. Belike she'll wash her hands of the twain of us!"

Ebenezer agreed, charmed anew by the civilization his host had acquired in so short time, and they entered the cabin. A single candle flickered near the door, and on the hearth the fire had burned to its last few coals; the room was obscure and chill.

"Yehawkangrenepo!" Billy called, and explained in an undertone, "She obliges me to call her by that name. Yehawkangrenepo!"

Now came a grunting and stirring from a straight-backed wooden bench before the fire; a woman sat up, her back to the door, and commenced rubbing her eyes and scratching in her wild dark hair. Her shift was ragged, filthy stuff, and she grunted and scratched about her person like a jackanapes picking fleas. Ebenezer felt faint at the wretched spectacle. The creature scratched her head again, rising from the bench as she did so, and the candle glinted briefly from her silver ring. The flash was barely perceptible, but it blinded the poet altogether to his resolve. He ran to throw himself at her feet.

"Joan Toast! Ah Christ, how I have wronged thee!"

At the sound of his voice the girl gasped; at sight of him lunging toward her she screamed and caught at the benchback for support. And then it was Ebenezer's turn to moan and stumble, for despite her changed appearance, the flickering candlelight, and the tears that made his vision swim, he saw when she turned that Billy Rumbly's mistress was neither Joan Toast nor Miss Meg Bromly, but his sister Anna.

16: A Sweeping Generalization Is Proposed Regarding the Conservation of Cultural Energy, and Demonstrated With the Aid of Rhetoric and Inadvertence

Whether from desuetude or access of surprise, after her initial scream Anna's voice quite failed her. Brother and sister embraced in vast, unselfconscious relief at having found each other again, but even as Ebenezer comforted himself with her name and explained to bewildered Billy Rumbly, between sniffs and sobs, that she was his twin sister and not his wife, he felt her stiffen in his arms. At once his memory surrendered to the dreadful things he had learned from Burlingame, as well as the story, now newly appalling, of the Ahatchwhoop prince's courtship. The embrace became awkward; he made no effort to detain her when she pushed free of him and collapsed in tears on the bench.

"She is in sooth your sister?" Billy asked.

The poet nodded. "You must try to understand," he said, speaking with difficulty. "This is a painful moment for both of us. . I can't explain just yet. ."

"There will be time," Billy said. "For the present, my company is burdensome to all; I shall bid you adieu and return in time for breakfast."

"Nay!" Anna suddenly found her voice. The tears had marked courses through the dirt on her face. "This man is my husband," she declared to Ebenezer.

"Quite so," the poet murmured. " 'Tis I must go."

"I shan't allow it," Billy said firmly. "Whate'er the breach betwixt you, 'tis a family matter and must be put right. In any case I've meant for some time to sleep in the barn: I have cause to believe a thief hath been pilfering from it lately." The pretext was unconvincing, but it went unchallenged. Billy laid his hand affectionately on Anna's head. "Prithee mend the family fences with forgiveness and good will; 'tis a great pity for brother and sister not to love each other. Nay, raise up your eyes! And you, sir: I am in your debt already for arousing this woman to speech, and more than thankful for the chance that hath enabled me to repay your gift of a brother with like coin. I beg you only to remember our agreement: in the morning you must tell me the news from Bloodsworth Island, and we shall see what is to be done on every head."

Anna hung her head and said nothing; Ebenezer too, though embarrassed by his own unwillingness to protest, was so eager for private conversation with his sister that he permitted Billy to make up the fire in the cabin and then leave for the cheerless barn. He scarcely dared look at Anna; the thought of her condition made him weep. For a while they sat on opposite ends of the bench and stared into the fire, occasionally sniffing or wiping their eyes.

"You have been to Malden?" he ventured at last. From the corner of his eye he saw her shake her head negatively.

"I met a Mr. Spurdance at the wharf in Cambridge. ."

"Then you know my disgrace. And you must have encountered. . my wife there too, since you have your ring again." His throat ached; the tears ran afresh, and he turned to Anna with great emotion. "I was obliged to marry her or perish of my seasoning, as our mother did; but 'twas not her doing, Anna; you mustn't think ill of her. 'Tis true she is a whore, but she followed me to Maryland out of love — "

Again he faltered, remembering Burlingame's assertion that Anna's motive was the same. " 'Tis on my account she hath the pox and is a slave to opium; she suffered unimaginable indignities to be with me, and nursed me back to health when I was ill, nor made any claim on me whatsoe'er — not e'en upon my chastity, I swear't! Her one wish, when all was lost, was that we fly together to London and live as brother and sister till her afflictions carried her off. And I, Anna — I betrayed that saintly woman most despicably! I stole away alone; abandoned her to die uncared for! 'Tis I you must despise, not poor Joan Toast!"

"Despise?" Anna seemed surprised. "How can I despise either of you, Eben? 'Twas through deception you lost Malden, and honor as well as necessity required your marriage. I wish you had not abandoned her — 'tis a hellish thing to be alone!" She found it necessary to pause for some moments after this observation. Then, speaking carefully and avoiding his eyes, she asked how it happened that he was not in London. Had he known she was in Maryland? Did he understand that she had loved Henry Burlingame for a dozen years and had come to Maryland hoping to marry him? Did he appreciate that it was Bertrand's terrible news, and Mr. Spurdance's, and Joan Toast's, and her despair at ever finding either Henry or her brother, and the shock of being assaulted by a savage who miraculously resembled Burlingame, that had brought her to her present state? She dissolved in tears of shame. Ebenezer took her hand, but made no attempt to answer the questions.

"My story will take hours to repeat," he said gently, "and I've been telling divers parts to divers people these two days till I am weary of't. I'faith, Anna, there is so much to say! You wept once when we were first separated for an evening, and declared we'd ne'er catch up to each other again — I little dreamt the full import of that remark! Now 'tis no matter of hours or rooms that parts us; 'tis as if we were on twin mountaintops, with what an abyss between! We shall span it ere we leave this cabin, though it take a week of explanation — how fine a gentleman Billy is to give us some hours to make beginnings! — but methinks 'twere better to hear first what passed 'twixt you and Joan, and what the state of things at Malden is, now Father's there, for the smallest detail of my story may want an hour's gloss." By way of example he declared that the resemblance of Billy Rumbly and Henry Burlingame was no more miraculous than that of any other pair of brothers. Anna was almost dumb struck; she pleaded for more information, but Ebenezer was adamant.

"Please," he said, "have you not seen Henry at all? I must know these things ere I commence."

"Not at all," Anna sighed, "nor hath anyone in Cambridge or St. Mary's City: the name is foreign to them." And resigning herself to the postponement of her questions, she told of her great loneliness in St. Giles, her growing fear that Burlingame would never succeed in discovering his parentage (which discovery, she declared, he had made prerequisite to their marriage), and her final determination to leave their father to his querulousness, join Ebenezer at Malden, and either persuade Burlingame to abandon his research or else assist him in whatever way she could.

At this point Ebenezer interrupted; turning her face to his he said, "Dearest Anna, don't feel shame in your brother's presence! This bridge of ours must have piers of love and candor; else 'twill fall." What was on his mind was the love which she was alleged to feel for him, and about which he thought it imperative to reach an understanding from the first; however, he suddenly recalled Burlingame's assertion that Anna herself was at most only dimly aware of her strange obsession and possibly altogether oblivious to it. Her look of bewilderment seemed to confirm this assertion. "What I mean," he added lamely, "matters once reached a pass where Henry judged it necessary to take me altogether into his confidence. . and in sooth, I have learned some things about him that you — " He could not go on; Anna blushed as deeply as he and veiled her eyes with her hand.

"And thou'rt aware that my husband resembles him in every particular," she said. "In short, I am no less virginal than thyself, and no more innocent."

"Let us speak no more of't!" Ebenezer begged.

"One more thing only." She removed her hand and regarded him seriously. Ebenezer felt certain that she was about to confess her unnatural passion — a prospect the more alarming because of his suspicion, vouched stoutly for by Burlingame, that to some extent he shared it — but instead she declared that he must not think her naïve with regard to Henry Burlingame. Hadn't she seen that he took his deepest pleasure in the two together? Hadn't he revolted her time and again at St. Giles by his amorous disquisitions on everything from asparagus-spears to bird dogs of both sexes? "Methinks 'tis easier to know another than to know thyself," she said. "There is little in Henry's character that is foreign to me." She smiled for the first time and blushed at a sudden recollection. "Dare I tell you something he neglected to? I asked him, ere the twain of you left London, wherefore you made so much of your virginity, when I longed so to have done with mine! And I said farther that were you he, the both of us would put an end to innocence."

Ebenezer shifted uncomfortably.

"His reply," Anna continued, watching Ebenezer's face, "was that you harbored in your breast a grand and secret passion for one woman that the world denied you, and had liefer remain a virgin than take second choice!"

"That is true to some extent," the poet granted. "Howbeit, 'twas not so much the world that denied me Joan Toast, as John McEvoy, and — "

"Stay, I did not finish. I shall confess, Eben, Henry's news inspired me with inordinate jealousy, albeit I knew we each would marry soon or late. 'Tis that we had been so close, you know. . In any case, I demanded the name of this lady who had writ such a patent on your heart, and why you'd ne'er confided in your own dear sister that once knew your every whim and thought. Henry answered that you yourself scarce realized who she was, but that e'en if you did, the force of custom would seal your lips, inasmuch as the object of your passion was — your sister!"

Ebenezer sat upright. "Henry said that? I'Christ, there is no end to the man's nefariousness! Do you know, Anna, he told me the selfsame thing about you? I had learned of your affair with him, you see — this was before I knew of his impotence — and I was aflame with rage and envy — "

He cut his sentence short, but its implication hung clearly between them. The room was filled at once with tension and embarrassment, of a different order from what they had felt before; their positions on the bench were suddenly awkward; on pretext of scratching her leg, Anna slipped her hand from under his and averted her eyes.

"So," she said, and was obliged to clear her throat. "It would seem there was a mustard seed of truth in what he said to us."

For a time they could speak no more. The silence was painful, but Ebenezer could imagine no way to terminate it. Fortunately, Anna came to the rescue: in a mild, deliberate voice, as if no digression had occurred, she resumed the narrative of her journey from St. Giles, employing without comment the proposition that her motive had been to join Henry Burlingame. The poet's heart glowed.

"I had heard naught of his activities since 1687, when you and I abandoned him in London. Then last spring he approached me as he did you later on the Plymouth coach, disguised as Colonel Peter Sayer. When I was finally persuaded of his true identity, he told me the tale of his adventures in the provinces, his discovery of certain references to a namesake in Virginia, and the political intrigues to which he was party."

Ebenezer questioned her closely on this last subject, confessing his doubts about Burlingame's good will towards him and, what was vastly more important, his misgivings about the virtuousness of Lord Baltimore's cause and the viciousness of Coode's. It was then necessary to waive his earlier agenda and tell of Henry's impostures of both Charles Calvert and John Coode, and the transfer of his allegiance from the former to the latter; Bertrand Burton's conviction that Burlingame himself was John Coode; the evidence suggesting that Coode, Lord Baltimore, Burlingame, and Andrew Cooke himself — or some combination thereof — were involved in the deplorable traffic in prostitutes and opium of which Anna had learned from Benjamin Spurdance; and finally, Ebenezer's own sweeping suspicion that both Baltimore and Coode either did not exist save in Burlingame's impostures, or else existed as it were abstractly, uninvolved in and perhaps even ignorant of the schemes and causes attributed to them.

Anna listened with interest, but professed no great surprise at Burlingame's behavior. "As to whether Lord Baltimore and John Coode are real or figmentary," she declared, "I cannot say, albeit 'twere hard to believe that so general an assumption hath no truth in't. Neither can I say with confidence whether the two are in sooth opposed or in league, or opposed in some matters and allied in others, or which hath the right on his side. But I have cause to think that insofar as Henry hath any genuine interest in these matters, his sympathies are with neither of those men; nor doth he truly contradict himself by declaring first for one and then for the other. The man he really admires and serves, I do believe, is Governor Nicholson."

"Nicholson!" Ebenezer scoffed. "He is neither this nor that, from what I hear: he is no Papist, yet he fought for James at Hounslow Heath; he was Edmund Andres's lieutenant, and so differed with him that the two despise each other yet; Lord Baltimore chose him to be commissioned Royal Governor, thinking Nicholson shared his sympathies, but albeit Nicholson seems concerned with prosecuting Coode, he governs as if Lord Baltimore did not exist — which, to be sure, he may not."

Even as he articulated his objection, Ebenezer grew more and more persuaded of the likelihood of Anna's new hypothesis, until arguments began to sound like evidence in its favor. Burlingame had early confided that his purpose was to play off Coode and Andros against Nicholson to Baltimore's benefit — that is to say, "both ends against the middle." But was not Nicholson truly the man in the middle, and Baltimore the extremist? From all the reports of his impatience with dreamers and radicals, his hardheadedness, daring, irascibility, and efficiency, Nicholson's character seemed much more likely to appeal to Burlingame that Charles Calvert's. Moreover, while not an idealist, Nicholson was (now that Ebenezer reflected on it) perhaps the only person of influence who had actually done anything to further the cause of culture and refinement, for example, in the Plantations: he had established the College of William and Mary during his tenure as lieutenant governor of Virginia, and had avowed his intention to found a similar institution in Anne Arundel Town, at public expense. Even the less creditable aspects of the man — his bastard origins, for instance, and that obscure erotic streak that alienated him from women and gave rise to rumors of everything from privateering to unnatural practices — Ebenezer could readily imagine to be attractive in Burlingame's eyes. In short, what began as a refutation ended as a complaint.

"Why could Henry not tell me this at the outset, as he told you?"

" 'Tis not mine to answer for him," Anna said soothingly, "but he did mistrust your enthusiasm, Eben — as well about virginity as about Lord Baltimore's commission. You know how he was wont to play devil's advocate at St. Giles; with Henry one never knows quite where one stands."

There was little in this explanation to console the poet, but he held his peace while Anna went on with the story of her passage to St. Mary's City and her discovery of Bertrand there posing as Laureate of Maryland, which Ebenezer had heard previously from Bertrand himself.

"I was obliged to put ashore at Church Creek," she said, "and hire a wagon-ride to Cambridge, whence I meant to make my way to Malden; but near the wharf at Cambridge I saw a wretched old beggar in conversation with some slattern of a woman, and albeit I had no idea who they were, I chanced to spy this ring on the woman's hand — "

"Ah, God!"

"She was showing it to the beggarman, and when he laughed at it she flew into a rage and cried, 'To Hell with ye, Ben Spurdance! He is my husband nonetheless, and for aught we know that villain may have been carrying him off!'" Upon recognizing the ring as her own, Anna said, she had understood from what Bertrand had told her that the frightful-looking woman must be her sister-in-law, and the reference to Ebenezer's being carried off by villains had greatly alarmed her. She had gone up to the pair and introduced herself, whereupon the woman, for all she had just been defending Ebenezer, now cursed him as a coward, a liar, and a pimp, flung the ring at Anna's feet, and left, declaring she must get back to Malden before the new whoremaster, Andrew Cooke, came looking for her. This news, together with the testimony of Mr. Spurdance that Ebenezer had deserted his bride and returned with some other gentleman to England, had caused Anna to swoon away; Mr. Spurdance had revived her and told her of the state of things at Malden: that the cooper William Smith had transformed it into a den of sundry vices; that Master Andrew had arrived there with a party of strangers the day before, much concerned over his daughter's whereabouts and distraught by the news that Ebenezer had lost the estate, and upon seeing how matters actually stood, had become so enranged as to fall victim to something like apoplexy. He was temporarily confined to bed, where he spent his time cursing mankind in general, but it was not yet clear whether he was actually unable to regain possession of the estate or whether his wrath was occasioned merely by the distracted state of his affairs; similarly, it was not known whether or in what respect he was himself involved in Captain William Mitchell's activities.

Ebenezer shook his head. "Marry, what is to become of it?" He described the circumstances of the court-trial at Cambridge wherein he had innocently granted Cooke's Point away, and explained that the other man who had boarded the Pilgrim with him was Burlingame himself. "But my tale must wait till yours is done, inasmuch as it brings us to Billy Rumbly and my reason for being here. What did you then? Return to Church Creek?"

"Aye," Anna said. "I durst not show myself at Malden till I learned more about Father's position, nor durst I remain in Cambridge, or he'd surely hear of't. I begged Mr. Spurdance to say naught of having seen me, and he promised to pass on whate'er he learned, inasmuch as he too hath no small interest in Cooke's Point. Then I took lodging in Church Creek under Meg Bromly's name, hoping I'd learn ere my money was gone that it was safe to go to Father, or else find some clue to Henry's whereabouts." The end of her story reduced her again to tears. "You know the rest. ."

Ebenezer did his best to comfort her, though he too was far from tranquil. The discovery that Ebenezer and Burlingame were not forever lost made Anna frightfully ashamed of her present condition, which only utter despair could justify. On the other hand, she would not repudiate Billy Rumbly.

"You must remember," Ebenezer said, "he is not your husband in the eyes of God or Maryland law, nor e'en by the custom of the Ahatchwhoops, inasmuch as the union hath not been consummated."

"I shall wed him properly now," Anna replied. "As for the matter of consummation, 'twere an overnice point in our case!"

Ebenezer declared his considerable affection for Billy, but averred that insomuch as Anna's condition at the time of choosing him had been far from responsible, she was under no moral obligation to maintain the connection. "Billy himself hath vouched for that: the 'bargain' you heard him allude to was our agreement that thou'rt free to leave or stay, whiche'er you choose. And Henry, after all — "

He pressed the point no farther, aware that his footing was precarious. And as he feared, although she chose not to remind him that her devotion to Burlingame was ambiguous, Anna declared very pointedly, "I have pledged myself to Billy, Eben; would you have me break my pledge? If e'er we part, 'twill be at his behest, not mine; I shall be as good a wife to him as I am able."

Much mortified, Ebenezer said no more; but the subject of his original mission in Church Creek suddenly seemed more crucial than ever to him. Since despite their weariness it was unlikely that either of them would be able to sleep, he proposed that he summon Billy in from the barn and devote the remainder of the night to exposing his plight and plans. It took no more than the assertion that innumerable lives were at stake to win Anna's approval of this proposal, and she insisted on fetching Billy herself.

She did not return at once; Ebenezer spent the uncomfortable interval sighing at the fire. Among his myriad reflections were a few that he readily identified as jealous, though he could not banish them: Why did he object, after all, to a marriage of Anna and Billy Rumbly, who appeared to have all the virtues and none of the vices of his brother?

When at last the two of them came in, Billy hurried to shake his hand.

"Your presence hath achieved what I could never," he declared with great emotion. "Whatever the outcome, my friend, I shall bless you for bringing her to herself."

He shook his head in awe at the spectacle of Anna washing her face and hands in the basin and deploring the state of her hair and clothes. Now that his mistress was a normal English girl, her presence, and Ebenezer's, seemed to intimidate him; he proposed to find them something to eat and was much abashed at Anna's insistence that preparing the food was not a husband's chore.

His discomfiture moved even Ebenezer to amusement and sympathy. "I'Christ, Anna, what can be done with this accursed salvage practice of eating a meal before every conversation?"

The absence of malice in his raillery had a magical effect: the others laughed, and Billy was put somewhat at ease; pipes were brought out; a bottle of wine was discovered in the sideboard. They dined in the best of humor on cold spareribs and muscatel. Anna recounted with much animation, for Billy's benefit, the salient points of the evening's conversation, and though her speech made Ebenezer wonder more than ever what had detained her so long outside, both men regarded her throughout with loving eyes.

"Anna Cooke of St. Giles in the Fields!" Billy marveled. "That wants some getting used to!"

The Indian's subdued, almost awkward voice and manner touched the poet deeply; he put down as unworthy the notion of somehow telling Billy about Anna's love for Burlingame. To divert his mind from it he posed to himself the question whether "cultural energy," so to speak, was conserved within a group after the fashion that physical energy, according to Professor Newton, was conserved within the universe. Was there, he wondered, some unreckoned law of compensation, whereby an access of cultivation on Billy's part reduced Anna to bestiality, and her improvement, which her paramour had so devoutly wished, necessarily brought him low? He decided that quite possibly there was, and lost interest in the question. As soon as the meal was done and fresh pipes were lit he sighed and said, "There was as pleasant an hour as I've spent since leaving London, but my pleasure is a guilty one: e'en as I stretch my legs here and McEvoy pays court to his new mistress, two hostages for our lives are shivering in a hut on Bloodsworth Island." He looked to Billy for approval. "With your permission, friend, I'll state my business now."

Billy shrugged his shoulders, so much in the manner of Burlingame that the wine-cup trembled in Anna's hands. "Methinks I can predict it," he said, and explained the situation unemotionally to Anna, ending with the history of his parentage and the fate of his two brothers. "My father is very old," he concluded, "and no match in strength and influence for Drepacca and Quassapelagh. Besides which, he hath been doubly unhappy in his sons, that not only are fated ne'er to carry on their line but seem driven as well to turn their backs upon their people and aspire to the very stars." Turning again to Ebenezer he said, "If I may hazard another guess, you and your party in some wise fell into my father's hands, and you saved your life by pledging to restore his long-lost son to him, or the son more lately lost, or both, to lead the Ahatchwhoops into battle. Is that the case?"

"That is the case," the poet admitted. "The Tayac Chicamec is much aggrieved by your defection, but what saved us was my news of Henry Burlingame. If 'tis not overbold of me to speak of such matters, your grandfather Sir Henry had clearly learnt some means of rising above his shortcomings on one occasion, inasmuch as he contrived to get your father on Pokatawertussan; now Chicamec believes that just as Sir Henry's defect was transmitted to his grandsons, so perhaps his magical remedy was transmitted as well — "

"The Rite of the Sacred Eggplant," Billy acknowledged with a smile. "Methinks 'tis but a vulgar superstition. In any case I know naught of't — worse luck!"

"Nay, but your brother Henry might, so Chicamec believes, inasmuch as he shares Sir Henry's blood and pigmentation."

"Whate'er this mystery of magical eggplants," Anna said carelessly, "if it hath the effect you mentioned, Henry Burlingame knows no more of't than doth Billy." At once she realized her slip, and crimsoned.

"Aye, that's plain enough," Ebenezer added quickly, "else he'd likely have a wife and family by this time, would he not?"

But it seemed clear that Billy had not missed the implication of Anna's remark. He said nothing — for one thing, Ebenezer deliberately gave him no opportunity — but his manner grew pensive, even brooding. No less than Anna, Ebenezer regretted the slip, for he sensed that it had damaged in advance the appeal he was about to make. Nevertheless he spoke on brightly, as if nothing had changed, only avoiding wherever possible any references to Burlingame.

"There is my plight," he declared, "e'en as you guessed it: if I fail to deliver Chicamec his son within thirty days — fewer than that, now — poor Bertrand and Captain Cairn will be dismembered and burnt at the stake — as well as I, for I have pledged myself to return if I fail, and I intend to."

"I am no longer an Ahatchwhoop," Billy muttered. "Had I wished to succeed my father I'd not have abandoned him. Nor do I see the virtue of trading the lives of your friends for those of all the white men in the Province."

"The war will come in any case," the poet insisted, "only Chicamec will have no hand in waging it. 'Tis not my object to deliver him a good general, but to prevent the war itself."

To this Billy replied, more sullenly yet, that for all he was a deserter, he had not sunk to the level of treason against his people.

" 'Tis not treason I have in mind," Ebenezer protested, not at all pleased with the way things were going. "My plan is not to betray the Ahatchwhoops, but to save them — "

Billy bristled. "Do you think your wretched militia is a match for Quassapelagh and Drepacca? By summer the Governor's scalp will hang from my father's ridgepole!"

"Please, sir, hear me out! If Drepacca makes his treaty with Monsieur Casteene and the Naked Indians, the English will be harried out of America, and 'twill be no chore to drive the French out after them; I grant that. But 'tis not the English case I plead: 'tis the case of humankind, of Civilization versus the Abyss of salvagery. Only think, sir: what you've acquired in less than a fortnight wanted two thousand years and more a-building; 'tis a most sweet liquor, is't not? Yet the mash whence man distilled it is two dozen centuries of toil and misery! What, will you drink your fill and throw away the flask, when your people hath such thirst? I grant the English have used you ill, but to drive them out is to drive yourself back into darkness."

Billy did not reply.

"All well, here is my plan," Ebenezer said resignedly. "Whilst I was in your father's town I marked a great rivalry betwixt Quassapelagh and Drepacca; they regard Chicamec as no more than a valuable figurehead, as't were, and vie with each other to dominate the triumvirate. But the fact is, neither hath the whole requirement of an emperor, do you think? Quassapelagh hath the loyalty of the Indians, but for all his virtues he falls short in cleverness and diplomacy; Drepacca is a brilliant fellow, but as yet hath little strength. ."

"Thou'rt a shrewd observer," Billy admitted. " 'Tis well for them the Tayac Chicamec is old, for he hath both wit and numbers in his favor."

"Precisely!" the poet exclaimed. "But he is old, and there's our opportunity! Thou'rt his son, and heir to both his genius and his influence; if he should abdicate in your favor, 'twould be no chore for you to play Quassapelagh and Drepacca against each other. Thou'rt the only one of the three who can rule alone. And i'faith, Billy, what blessing you could bring to your people! The power to make war would still be yours, and in the plain and public face of't any governor in his senses will put an end to oppressing you; violence will give way to honest negotiation, and our two peoples may borrow each the best of the other's culture — "

"Why do you not apply to your good friend Burlingame instead?" Billy interrupted. "Belike your sister could hit on some subtle means of persuading him."

"Ah, dear Billy!" Anna cried. "I've had no chance yet to explain — "

"Apply to Burlingame I shall," Ebenezer broke in, "but not to go to Chicamec. In the first place he is English by nurture and appearance, a stranger to your people, and ne'er could win their trust; in the second, he is close to Governor Nicholson and hath great influence in the provinces; he can do your cause more good in Anne Arundel Town than on Bloodsworth Island." He searched his mind desperately for additional arguments. " 'Sheart, Billy, 'tis not as if you must live there forever! When your position is secure there'll be no need for your people to hide; you can rule just as well from here and live as you live now. As for Anna, she hath declared already — "

"Enough," Billy commanded, and rose from the bench. "The house belongs to Harvey Russecks, not to me; and the woman, as I gather, belongs to my brother."

"Go to!" pleaded Anna. "I shan't leave you!"

"Then follow me to the town of Chicamec," Billy said coldly. "The Ahatchwhoop women will tear you to pieces." He made a bow to Ebenezer. "I congratulate you, sir, on achieving both of your objectives: your sister now understands that she is no Indian, and I that I am no Englishman. I shall go back to Bloodsworth Island in a very few days."

Anna burst into tears. "Nay, if thou'rt English no more, then you must own me for thy lawful wife!"

"On that point, Miss Cooke, the code of the Ahatchwhoops is quite clear: the Tayac may take as many outland concubines as he pleases, but the blood of his wife should be untainted. Good night."

Ebenezer entreated him not to leave, but Billy (who now demanded that they call him Cohunkowprets) was adamant. " 'Tis near dawn now, and we've yet to sleep," he said. "I shall spend today putting my friend's property in order; tomorrow we'll return to Church Creek and thence to Bloodsworth Island."

Forbidding Anna to follow him, he left the cabin, whereupon Anna fell into a fit of weeping and cursing her inadvertence. Ebenezer's own feelings were mixed: on the one hand he was genuinely sorry that Billy's pride had been so injured, and concerned lest his stratagem misfire on that account; overbalancing these considerations, however, were his joy at finding and in a sense rescuing his sister, as well as succeeding, so it appeared, in his mission to save the lives of his companions. It was no easy matter to calm Anna's distress, but he was assisted by their mutual fatigue; after what seemed like hours of soothing talk he put an end to her tears, and when the first grey light appeared she was asleep on the bench.

17: Having Discovered One Unexpected Relative Already, the Poet Hears the Tale of the Invulnerable Castle and Acquires Another

Throughout the afternoon and evening both Ebenezer and his sister did their best to regain Billy's friendship, but though his bitterness seemed to have passed, he held steadfastly to his position and virtually ignored their presence as he worked about the cabin. His taciturnity was not the only change in Billy: overnight, as it were, he had discarded his mufti and become an Indian again. His English clothes he had exchanged for matchcoat and buckskin breeches (just as Anna, when she awoke, had exchanged her ragged shift for a proper English costume); his movements were those of a woodsman rather than a planter; even his skin seemed magically to have darkened, as Anna's had quite literally lightened under her diligent scouring. It was a difficult day, and Ebenezer welcomed the coming of nightfall, when Billy again retired to the barn and he and Anna talked for hours between their separate pallets in the dark, much as they had done in childhood. Next morning Billy closed the cabin and outbuildings, hitched up the team, and drove them silently to Church Creek. He would not enter the little settlement himself, but stopped a quarter of a mile from the inn.

"I'll wait here for one hour by the sun," he announced — the first words he'd spoken in two days. "Stay with your sister and send your companion to me if you want the hostages to live."

In vain Ebenezer protested that he had promised Chicamec to return in person; that Anna would be perfectly safe with Mrs. Russecks if the miller was not entirely recovered; that to send McEvoy in his place would make him look and feel a coward.

"One minute of your hour is spent," Billy observed, and turned away; to Anna's farewell he made no reply at all.

It was Ebenezer's intention to approach the village with caution, lest Harry Russecks be up and about his business, but upon reaching the inn he saw McEvoy and a considerable number of others gathered in plain sight in the nearby churchyard. Anna drew a scarf about her face to avoid being recognized as the Church Creek Virgin, and they went over to the gathering.

"Eben!" McEvoy cried upon recognizing him. "Dear Christ, but it's good to see ye back! I feared the salvage had done ye to death for stealing his bride!" He noticed Anna and went pale. "Is't you, Joan?" he whispered.

Ebenezer smiled. " 'Twas a more eventful journey than I'd supposed, John: his bride was not Joan Toast but my sister Anna, who is his bride no longer."

"What in Heav'n!"

"There's no time to explain now." Ebenezer glanced at the activity around the church door. "Since thou'rt not in hiding, I gather that Sir Harry is still bedridden."

"Nay, Eben, no longer," McEvoy said seriously. "Thou'rt just in time to attend his funeral!" The miller, he declared, had never recovered from his comatose state and had expired during the night after his fall. Mrs. Russecks was no longer hysterical, but seemed indifferent to the point of numbness; one was not certain that she quite understood what had happened. Henrietta was of course subdued by her mother's reaction, but the villagers were openly relieved to be rid of the tyrant.

"I share their sentiments," Anna declared with feeling. "He was a beast! But I feel sorry for Mrs. Russecks and Henrietta, who were so kind to me. Where are they now, Mr. McEvoy?"

McEvoy answered that they were inside the church, where the funeral was about to commence, and suggested that the three of them go in also.

"You should go," Ebenezer said to Anna, "but you and I have more urgent business, John: Billy Rumbly waits for us round yonder bend, to go to Bloodsworth Island. We daren't detain him."

Anna excused herself to comply with her brother's suggestion, and Ebenezer explained the situation to McEvoy as rapidly as possible. "We can only pray that Billy will do his best to prevent the war," he said at the end, "but in the meantime we must rescue Bertrand and the Captain."

"Aye, but when then, Eben? Whither do we go from there?"

"Anna swears that Henry Burlingame is a lieutenant of Governor Nicholson's," the poet replied. "Whether he is or not, methinks we should go to Anne Arundel Town with all haste and apprise the Governor of the coming insurrection. Beyond that I cannot see." He hesitated, uncertain how to broach the subject of Billy's ultimatum; but McEvoy took the matter out of his hands.

" 'Twere best only one of us went, Eben, and the other stay here. We heard rumors yesterday that a famous pirate fellow called Every, or Avery, is passing through on his way to the head o' the Bay and hath been foraging for provisions along his route. 'Tis not likely he'd come so far from open water, but the folk are up in arms, and the ladies will want some protection. Besides, ye'll want to be with your sister, will ye not?"

"Ah, John — "

"Nay, not a word, now! Ye know how it burthens me to owe my life to ye, Eben; give me this chance to remit a little on account."

Ebenezer sighed and confessed that he was not in a position to protest, inasmuch as Billy seemed to bear him a grudge. He promised to look after Henrietta and vowed that if the hostages had not arrived safely in four days he would bring the Maryland militia to Bloodsworth Island. McEvoy decided to leave without more ado; Ebenezer went with him to Billy's wagon, full of misgivings, saw him off, and returned to the churchyard.

For all the villagers' excitement, the next few days were happy and almost tranquil for Ebenezer and Anna. Indeed, the pirate-scare (based on Governor Nicholson's announcement that "Long Ben" Avery's ship Phansie and Captain Day's brigantine Josiah had been sighted in Maryland waters) turned out to be a blessing in disguise. For one thing, the rumor of foraging privateers kept everyone indoors much of the time and thus, together with the diversion of Harry Russecks's death, spared Anna no end of embarrassment; by the same token it made it unnecessary for Ebenezer either to maintain the imposture of Sir Benjamin Oliver or to disclose his true identity. For another, although Henrietta, distressed as she was at the news of McEvoy's dangerous errand, was delighted to see "Miss Bromly" again and soon became fast friends with her, and although Anna and Mary Mungummory (who was also a houseguest) got on splendidly together, Mrs. Russecks seemed still much disturbed by the presence of the twins; Ebenezer sensed that she would probably not have taken them in as guests had not the other women insisted on male protection.

^^Her manner was strange and contradictory: in their company she was reserved, even slightly hostile, but whenever they ventured outside she seemed anxious for their safety and was clearly relieved when they returned uncaptured by pirates. There appeared to be little basis for Ebenezer's original fear that she abhorred him for his part in the miller's downfall; she accepted their condolence for her loss but admitted readily that all concerned, herself included, were better off for Sir Harry's demise, and insisted that neither Ebenezer nor McEvoy were in the least responsible for it. On the other hand, she would listen almost with irritation to the poet's account of his peregrinations since April last, and once when he was voicing his joy at being reunited with his sister, she left the room.

"I cannot fathom it," Anna said on that occasion. "She was so gracious before, and now — 'tis as if the sight of us gives her pain!"

"Nay, child," Mary Mungummory chuckled, "I've long since given up Roxie as a mystery. None but the good Lord knows how Harry's death hath touched her — she hath yet to tell me clearly why she married the brute to begin with!"

"We must be patient," Henrietta said. "Try to forgive her, Anna."

"La, 'tis we must be forgiven," Ebenezer protested. "Your mother's a judicious soul, and whate'er the affront we've given her, 'tis plainly no trifle."

Henrietta smiled. "Since we agree 'tis a mystery, let's alter the maxim to suit the case: Rien comprendre c'est pardonner — n'est-ce pas?"

And there the matter rested, though the poet saw a troubling ambiguity in the proverb.

By way of posthumous retribution for his boorishness, the villagers resolved that Sir Harry's grave remain forever anonymous; with the consent of Mrs. Russecks, who declared her intention, of removing to Anne Arundel Town in the near future, they dismantled the machinery of the tide-mill and, in lieu of inscribed granite, marked his resting place head and foot with the unadorned millstones. Henrietta, though she made no secret of her joy at being delivered from her father's despotism, visited the grave dutifully every day during this period, often accompanied by the twins. Mrs. Russecks would not go with them, pleading fear of the pirates; to get out of the house they were obliged to unbar the door, which she then barred behind them, and to re-enter they knocked three times and offered a password. Similar precautions were taken by most of the other villagers as well, on whom Sir Harry had been wont to press stories of his abuse at the hands of Captain Pound; on the way home from the churchyard one saw houses with every window boarded, and Henrietta declared that some people had nailed fast every door in their houses except one, which was kept heavily barred.

Now Ebenezer could scarcely believe that pirates would come so far upriver from the Chesapeake, nor had he ever heard of their assaulting a whole village in the English provinces; nevertheless, the responsibility for a houseful of women weighed heavily upon him — the more since he had no weapons except Sir Harry's old cutlass — and the general mood of alarm was contagious. On the third day of their visit, therefore, while taking tea with Anna, Henrietta, and Mary Mungummory, he suggested that they follow the example of the neighbors.

"After all, we're but one man with one sword; if the pirates really should come hither, they could have at us through two doors and a dozen windows."

For some reason this proposal amused Henrietta. " 'Twould make our house an invulnerable castle, would it not?"

"Very nearly, if you choose to think of't thus. Really, Henrietta, is't so humorous that I'm concerned for your safety?"

"Nay, Eben, 'tis not that at all. The fact is, our family hath had unhappy dealings with invulnerable castles in the past; otherwise my mother would be no orphan, and belike we'd not be named Russecks at all."

Everyone's curiosity was aroused by this remark; they demanded to hear the story.

"Ah, now, I've sworn not to speak of my family to Eben and Anna — " She smiled mischievously and whispered, "But if Mother's asleep I'll forswear myself — 'tis a marvelous tale!"

She tiptoed upstairs to Mrs. Russecks's chamber and returned with the news that her mother was still napping soundly. "Now I've no idea why all this hath suddenly become such a dark secret, but when Eben left us to ride out to Billy Rumbly's, Mother made me swear to say naught of her family in his presence. Since I'd not dream of going counter to her wishes, you must swear to me you'll keep her secret. Do you swear?"

They did, much amused by her casuistry, and Henrietta, assuming the manner of a storyteller, began what she called The Tale of the Invulnerable Castle, as follows:

"Once on a time there lived in Paris a certain Count named Cecile Edouard, who had the bad judgment to be born into a family of Huguenots. ."

Ebenezer suddenly frowned. "I say, Henrietta, have you e'er heard tell — "

"Ah, ah, ah!" the girl scolded. "Marry, Eben, thou'rt Laureate of this wretched province, and you know very well 'tis only a boor will interrupt a story!"

The poet laughed and withdrew his question, but his expression remained thoughtful.

"I was getting to the family scandal," Henrietta said with relish. "Maman wouldn't mind your knowing this; I've heard her tell it to others often enough, to mortify Papa when he bragged of her nobility. The fact is, albeit we know Monsieur Edouard was a bona fide count, his ancestry is lost to history, and there was a scandalous story among the workmen and servants at Edouardine — "

"Dear God, I was right!" Ebenezer cried. He half rose from his chair with excitement and then sat down again, his features dancing. "Tell me, Henrietta, was this man your — let me see — your grandfather? And was this Castle Edouardine here in Dorset County, not far from Cooke's Point?"

Henrietta feigned exasperation. "I declare, Anna, your brother must be taken in hand! What matter if you've heard the plot already?" she demanded of Ebenezer. "Dido knew the tale of Troy, but she had manners enough to hear't twice from Aeneas, nor e'er broke in with niggling questions."

"But you yourself don't realize — "

"Stop him, Anna, or I'll not say another word!" By now everyone was laughing at Ebenezer's frustration and Henrietta's mock anger, even the poet himself.

"Very well," he said, "I'll hold my peace. But I must warn you: if your tale goes whither I guess, I'll steal your thunder with a postscript more marvelous by half."

" 'Tis your privilege, and may the cleverest liar win. But will you swear to interrupt me no more, on pain of hearing me read my verses if you do? Good, then let's return to the family scandal. I said there was a story that Cecile's mother had been a Jewess, nor any rich one, either, but a common chambermaid or washwoman in a noble Roman house. In the same house there was a Greek who had once tutored the Marchese's children, but had been reduced to the post of footman because of his depravity; 'tis said he got the young Jewess with child ere he was sent packing, and that subsequently she contrived to make a conquest of the Marchese himself and prevailed upon him to raise her bastard son as his own, there in the palazzo." Henrietta pointed out that this story shed no light whatever on Monsieur Edouard's metamorphosis from Roman to Parisian, Catholic to Huguenot, and natural son to nobleman. Nevertheless, she insisted, its odd particularity had the ring of truth. As for the mysterious changes of status, she added mischievously, was not their own Governor Nicholson the Duke of Bolton's bastard, and had he not enjoyed transmogrifications of faith and place no less astonishing?

"Whate'er his origin," she went on, "we know for a fact he was neither a hypocrite on the one hand nor a martyr on the other; when the Huguenots continued to be persecuted even after the Edict of Nantes, he refused to become a Papist, but fled from Paris to London and joined Oliver Cromwell's army. Maman says he fought bravely in divers campaigns, but cannot recollect which ones. In any case he left the Lord Protector's service in 1655, as abruptly as he had joined it, and came to Maryland." She sighed. "Now here's a weak spot in my Edouardiad, that Eben will surely pounce upon: the voyage of your proper hero like Ulysses or Aeneas is always fraught with trials, but Cecile — albeit he did sail east to west, as a hero ought — crossed without incident. He must have got a fortune somewhere in his past, for he cargoed three ships with naught but furniture, carpetings, ironwork, plate, flatware, gewgaws, and oddments for the house he meant to raise in the Plantations. What's more, he brought his wife Sophie along and the rest of his ménage as well: fifteen servants and Maman, his only child, who was seven or eight years old. The Province was only twenty-odd years old itself at the time, and had surely never beheld such a Croesus as my grandfather. In 1659 the Lord Proprietary patented him six hundred acres on the Choptank, and he moved across the Bay with his company and baggage to build a house."

Ebenezer shook his head in wonderment, but not at Henrietta's narrative. "Nay, Eben, you must wait as you promised," she said. "What you've heard is merely the preface, and now the tale proper commences."

There was among Monsieur's servants, she declared, an old fellow known only as Alfred, who had been his master's valet as long as anyone could remember. This Alfred was said to know Cecile more intimately than did Madame Edouard herself, and his master loathed him. Cecile was not such a fool as to be unaware of his own character, but his position enabled him to punish others for his shortcomings; yet he dared not cashier the valet and have done with it, not only because Alfred knew so much about him, but also because the servant, despite his menial status, seemed to have been endowed with uncommon acumen and foresight. Thus Monsieur never failed to heed his valet's counsel, for he was, like many another man, wise enough to recognize good sense when exposed to it, if not wise enough to conjure it for himself; but poor Alfred was ill rewarded for his services, inasmuch as each time his advice was taken, his master's resentment towards him increased.

"Now Cecile fell to the task of raising his house with wonderful haste and gusto. He brought with him to Edouardine a shallop's-load of carpenters, cabinet-makers, masons, and even glaziers, though his window glass and mirrors were still en route from London. In six months, whilst the family and workmen lived in cabins, an imposing wooden edifice was raised, with a large central section and two wings. Ordinarily such an army could have built the house more quickly, but it happened that Monsieur Edouard was possessed of a marvelous fear of salvages; time and again he halted the progress of his house and set his men to building a stockade fence about the grounds, or clearing away more trees on his point of land, or constructing earthworks against Indian attacks. Just how numerous and belligerent were the salvages thereabouts no one knew at the time, but certainly Alfred could have pointed out to Monsieur in a moment that such defenses were of the wrong sort. Howbeit, as I said before, he was the perfect servant; he ne'er durst proffer advice unless asked for't, and Cecile was too engrossed in building his palisades, terrepleins, and demilunes, ever to question their utility. In sooth, Indians were observed in the neighborhood from time to time, and albeit their motives may have been naught more sinister than curiosity, still their presence sufficed to send Cecile into a fresh fit of crenelations, embrasures, and machicoulis.

"When at length the house was finished, save for the window glass, he loaded Sophie, Alfred, and himself into a small boat and bade another servant row them some hundred yards offshore, the better to view Edouardine from its noblest elevation.

" 'Well, Sophie,' Monsieur demanded (I mean to invent these colloquies for the sake of interest, if the Laureate hath no objection) — 'Well, now, Sophie,' he demanded, 'what do you say of Edouardine?' And Madame Edouard replied, ' "Tis lovely, mon cher.'

" 'Lovely, you say!' (Can't you see him turning red like Papa, and poor Sophie lowering her eyes?) 'Lovely, you say! C'est magnifique! Sans pareil! And my palissade! Why, we are invulnerable!' And then he demanded to know whether Alfred too regarded Edouardine as merely beau.

" 'The house is superb, Monsieur,' I can hear Alfred saying — very calmly, you know. 'It is truly elegant.'

" 'Eh? You think so? That's more to the mark!' "

Ebenezer, Anna, and Mary Mungummory applauded Henrietta's lively mimicking of the Count and his timid valet.

" 'But if Monsieur will observe — '

" 'What's that? Observe what?'

" 'I think of the salvage Indians, Monsieur. .'

" 'Ah, you think of them? Did you hear that, Sophie? He thinks of les sauvages, doth this Alfred! And do you suppose I think of aught besides, idiot? Small chance they have of broaching my palisade!'

" 'None whate'er, Monsieur; but I fear they would not need to broach it.'

" 'And how is that, pray? Do you fancy they have artillery?'

"Whereupon Alfred must have cleared his throat and said politely, 'I have heard, Monsieur, that these salvages make use of flaming arrows in siege. Despite your clearing the trees, they could very well (if they'd a mind to) stand off yonder in the forest and throw such arrows over the palisade onto the house — which then must surely take fire, inasmuch as 'tis made of wood. Monsieur would be obliged to use many men to put out the fire, and thus leave the palisade weakly manned: the salvages would be upon us in short order. Always assuming, of course, that they are hostile.'

" 'Ridiculous!' I daresay Cecile came nigh to striking the valet for having mentioned such a possibility. But next day the carpenters, that were making ready to return to St. Mary's City, found themselves engaged for another three months, for the purpose of rebuilding the house they had just completed. Moreover, their new job involved no carpentry at all, but laying bricks. First Monsieur sent a party to explore the beaches for clay; when they found a good bed he set half his crew to digging, shaping, and firing, and the other half to mixing mortar and laying the finished bricks. What he did, in effect, was erect a new house of brick to encase the wooden one, leaving all the doors and windows in their original locations. It wanted four months instead of three to complete the job, during which period Indians were remarked more frequently than before, in ones and twos. The finished manor even Maman remembers as a formidable affair.

"When the last brick was in place, Monsieur Edouard assembled all his workmen and servants before the house. Some weeks earlier, one of their number — I'll have more to say of him anon: he was an English redemptioner so jealous of his master's favor that he changed his name from James to Jacques- this fellow had found a salvage bow and arrows in the woods nearby, and now Cecile instructed him to secure a resinous pine knot to the shaft of an arrow, down by the head, and set it ablaze, after what was held to be the manner of the Indians.

" 'Now fire,' he ordered Jacques. 'Shoot the arrow at my house, s'il vous plait.' The redemptioner took aim and, being a reasonably good marksman, contrived to hit the great house some thirty feet distant. The arrow glanced off the bricks and fell to the ground.

" 'Voilà!' Cecile shouted in Alfred's ear. 'Can they harm us now?'

" 'I see no likelihood that they will, Monsieur. So long as the salvages have a care to aim only at the walls, we are as secure as the Bastille.'

" 'What new folly is this you've hatched?'

" 'Should they shoot from the woods, Monsieur,' Alfred ventured, 'as they assuredly would do, why then they must needs aim high, the more so since these fire-arrows are so heavy. Reason dictates that a high trajectory would be most likely to bring the arrows down upon the roof, and the roof is still made of wood."

"For some moments Cecile could not find his voice, and the fellow with the bow, who was envious of Alfred's position in the household, offered to put his theory to the test; but Cecile snatched away the bow and dismissed the company, calling them idlers and ne'er-do-wells. On the following day the men found themselves dispatched in search of slate, for the purpose of recovering the roof. .

"Now it happens that there is not a piece of roofing slate in the whole of Dorset; the men combed the countryside and the riverbanks for days and discovered naught but a few hunting Indians here and there. These they joyfully reported to their employer, who grew so frightened that he scarcely durst venture beyond his palissade, and cursed Alfred with every breath. Finally he ordered the workmen to cover the peaked roof with large, flat bricks. Under the additional weight the rafters commenced to buckle; it became necessary to fashion heavy piers from whole logs to support them. The job required another month and immeasurable bother, inasmuch as portions of the floors and partitions had to be removed to accommodate the piers. Upon its completion the house looked secure indeed, if somewhat grotesque: it was during this period that the laborers dubbed it The Castle in jest, and Monsieur Edouard, for once more flattered than annoyed, renamed his property Castlehaven. Again the company was assembled before the main entrance, and obliging Jacques lobbed a new fire-arrow onto the roof. It struck the tiles, rolled down the slope, and came to rest upon a cornice, where it burned out.

" 'Well, sir?' Cecile demanded, and none replied. Alfred looked away.

" 'I command you to say truthfully, on pain of flogging: is my castle invulnérable? My Jacques shall fire where'er you wish!"

" 'I have no love for floggings, Monsieur.'

" 'Then you must command him.'

"Jacques, I imagine, was so pleased that he could scarcely manage to light a new fire-arrow and draw the bow. 'Into a window,' Alfred murmured, 'any window. .' And he indicated with his arm the rows of open window frames on both floors of the house.

" 'Son of a harlot!' Cecile cried, and this time when he snatched the bow he took a cut at Alfred, who'd surely had his skull cracked had he not sprung back. The company dispersed, and Alfred was birched that night for the first time since, on his advice, the ménage Edouard had abandoned Paris. During the next week all the first-floor windows were bricked in, and those on the second floor were reduced to shuttered embrasures like cannon-ports. The absence of light and air made living downstairs intolerable, but so secure was Cecile in his fortress that he was actually smiling when he assembled everyone for the third time to witness his triumph over his servant.

" 'Have I left aught undone?'

" 'Naught, Monsieur, that I can imagine.'

" 'Ha, did you hear, mes amis? Monsieur Alfred hath assured me I am safe. I think he will detain you no longer. Make ready to depart.'

" 'Ah, Monsieur, I shouldn't dismiss them.'

"Cecile squeezed the valet's arm. 'Oh, you shouldn't, shouldn't you? And may your poor master hear the reason?'

" 'When the workmen are gone, Monsieur, you will have only your servants and yourself to defend the house: four men to a door. But the salvage, if he hath a fancy to attack us, will attack from every side — '

" 'Flog this man!' Cecile cried, and the fellow was dragged off by Jacques and the others. Then the overseer of the workmen enquired whether his men were free to go. 'Idiot!' Cecile thundered. 'Close up the doorways, all save one, and fix two stout crossbars to that!'

"In a day the final alterations were completed, and without risking another consultation with Alfred, Cecile sent the workmen back to St. Mary's City, where they doubtless still relate the tale of their curious labors. As soon as they were gone Monsieur entered his castle, inspected the three bricked-up doorways to make certain no cracks were left unsealed, swung the two great crossbars to and fro upon their pivots to assure himself of their adequacy, and ascended the dark stairs to his sitting-room — all the habitable rooms were perforce upstairs; only Cecile slept below, away from the window slits. He summoned Alfred to him.

" 'Is it not a pleasant thing to be altogether secure from the onslaughts of the salvage?'

"Alfred held his peace.

" 'Damn you, sir; speak up! Do we not rest here in a fortress in no way vulnerable?'

"Alfred went to one of the apertures and surveyed the scene below.

" 'Answer me! If there is a gap in my defenses (which of course there is not), I command you to tell me, or by our Lord I'll have you flayed alive!'

"Alfred was afraid to turn from the window, but he said, 'There is one, Monsieur.'

"Cecile sprang from his chair. 'Then tell me!'

" 'I should rather not, Monsieur, for the reason that it is irremediable."

" 'You have gone mad!' Monsieur Edouard whispered. 'Nay, I see it! You say these things to torment me; to make me spend myself into poverty! I see the plot, sir!' He demanded again to be told, but Alfred durst not speak. At that moment there was a sound at the front door: someone entered, and in the room the two men heard the crossbars swing into place and soft footsteps ascend the stair. Monsieur Edouard came near to swooning.

" 'The salvages are in the house! How shall we escape?'

"Alfred's expression was apologetic. 'Where many exits are,' he said, 'are many entrances, Monsieur. Where but one entrance is, there is no exit.'

"Then the voice of Madame Edouard came meekly from the stair. 'Cecile? Would you please have Alfred attend those crossbars? I find them difficult to close.'

"Her husband made no reply, and Sophie, who was used to such rebuffs, presently returned downstairs. Alfred, meanwhile, had gone once more to the embrasure, and now Monsieur Edouard, his heart still pounding, crept up behind and caught him under the shoulders. The servant was old and frail; the master middle-aged and robust: albeit the opening was none too large, Cecile soon had his valet squeezed through it, and Alfred's head was entirely smashed upon the new brick terrace below.

" 'He fell,' Cecile announced to the household shortly after, and no one questioned bun. That night Monsieur had his bedding shifted from the first floor up into the attic, under the rafters, where despite the poor ventilation he retired content beside the great hewn piers. Below, where the household slumbered, the single door was fastened with its double crossbars. Jacques, the new valet, assured his master that he was in every way invulnerable — and Cecile slept soundly."

Henrietta delivered the final sentence with her eyes closed and her voice sardonically hushed. There was a pause, and then Anna cried, "Is that the end, Henrietta?"

The girl pretended surprise. "Why of course it is! That is, the tale ends there — what could Homer add to't? As for the history, 'tis curious enough, but it hath the nature of an anticlimax. The Castle burned to the ground not long after, from the inside out, and my grandfather and grandmother burned with it. Maman was saved by Jacques, that some folk guessed had set the fire; he raised her in his own house till she married Papa, and pretended to be her uncle till the day he died. Don't you think a castle should last longer than that?"

The three listeners praised both the story itself and Henrietta's rendering of it; Ebenezer, in particular, was touched by her combination of spirit, beauty, and wit, and was surprised to discover among his feelings a certain envy for McEvoy.

" 'Twas a tale well told," he said, "and nicely pointed as one of Aesop's. Throw wide the doors and let the pirates in!" Henrietta reminded him of his promise to surpass it, and the poet's tone grew warm and serious. " 'Tis a chore that gives me pleasure, for it brings you closer to Anna and me than ever friendship could."

"Marry, then out with't!" Anna too regarded him wonderingly.

" 'Tis as rare and happy a turn as e'er the dice of Chance have thrown," Ebenezer said. "Your mother, Henrietta, is the same our father once saved from drowning in the Choptank! She — she was our wet nurse after Mother died a-bearing me and her own child died a-bearing, and till the fourth year of our life, when Father fetched us back to England, she was as much to us as any mother could be!" He finished his revelation with tears in his eyes.

"Dear Heav'n!" Mary whispered. "Is that true?" Anna and Henrietta clasped hands and regarded each other with astonishment.

Ebenezer nodded. "Aye, 'tis true, and haply it sheds some light upon Mrs. Russecks's shifting attitudes toward us. Father told me the story just before I left: Roxanne's uncle — that is to say, this rascal Jacques — must have been a man of Sir Harry's temper, inasmuch as he guarded her in the way Henrietta hath been guarded, and when Nature slipped through his defenses, as is her wont, he turned Roxanne out to starve." He related quickly what Andrew had told him of the rescue and Roxanne's unusual indenture-terms. "There were some lying rumors after Mother died that Roxanne had become his mistress," he concluded. "In part, 'twas to give these slanders the lie he left Cooke's Point for London. I recall his saying that Roxanne's 'uncle' had approached him with apologies and begged for her to come back to him; he was supposed to have arranged a good match for her."

Henrietta winced. "With Papa!" Mary shook her head and sighed.

"Aye," the poet affirmed. "This Jacques, evidently, was indebted to Harry Russecks and hoped thus to settle his obligations. To be sure, Roxanne had no need to consent; but she told me not long since that she had come to loathe all men, and wed Sir Harry in effect to mortify her sex and gratify this loathing. She was much attached to Anna and me, and I daresay she felt abandoned, in a sense. ."

"In every sense." Mrs. Russecks's voice came from the hallway stairs and was followed by the lady herself. Ebenezer rose quickly from his chair and apologized for speaking indiscreetly.

"Thou'rt guilty of nothing," Mrs. Russecks said, looking past him to her daughter. " 'Tis you that have been naughty, Henrietta, to tell tales out of school — " She got no farther, for Henrietta ran weeping to embrace her mother and beg forgiveness; yet it was clear that the girl's emotion was not contrition for any misdemeanor, but sympathy and love inspired by what she had learned. Mrs. Russecks kissed her forehead and turned her eyes for the first time, eager and yet pained, to the twins; she managed to control her feelings until Anna too was moved to embrace her, whereupon she cried "Sweet babes!" and surrendered to her tears.

There ensued a general chorus of weeping that for some minutes no other sound was heard in the millhouse. Everyone embraced everyone else in the spirit summed up by Ebenezer, the first to speak when the crest of the flood had passed and everyone was sniffling privately.

"Sunt lacrimae rerum," he declared, wiping his eyes.

But the day's surprises were not done. As soon as Mrs. Russecks had satisfied, for the moment, her hunger to embrace the twins and beg pardon for her previous aloofness — refraining, as did Ebenezer, from any illusion to her innocent attempt to seduce him, as well as to her own seduction by Anna's supposed lover Burlingame, either of which in itself could account for her distress — she joined them at the tea table and said to Ebenezer, "You made good your vow to surpass Henrietta's story with a postscript, Eben (I'God, how can my babies have grown so! And what trials have they not suffered!); but I believe I may yet snatch back the prize with a postscript of my own. To begin with, that 'vicious lying gossip' about your father and myself — 'twas gossip in sooth, and vicious, but it was no lie. For three years after poor Anne's death — that was their mother, Henrietta — Andrew and I mourned her together. But in the fourth year — i'faith, I loved him then, and hinted vainly at betrothal! — in the fourth year I was in sooth his mistress. Prithee forgive me for't!"

Both twins embraced her again and declared there was nothing to forgive. "On the contrary," Ebenezer said grimly, " 'tis my father needs forgiving. I see now what you meant by saying you were abandoned in every sense."

"Nay," Mrs. Russecks said, "there is more. ." She raised her eyes painfully to Mary, whose face suddenly changed from deep-frowned reflection to understanding. "Ah, God, Roxie!"

Mrs. Russecks nodded. "You have guessed it, my dear." She sniffed, took both of Henrietta's hands in hers across the table, and looked unfalteringly at her daughter as she spoke. "Twice in my life I've loved a man. The first was Benjy Long, a pretty farmer-boy that lived near Uncle Jacques: he it was I gave my maidenhead to, when I was sixteen, and anon conceived his child; he it was ran off to sea when I would not cross my guardian's wishes, nor have I heard of him from that day to this; and he it is, methinks, that still hath letters-patent to my heart — though I daresay he's either long since fat and married or long since dead!" She laughed briefly and then grew sad again. "Shall I prove to you that time is no cure for folly? Often and often, when Andrew left me and when Harry would abuse me, I'd pray to little Benjy as to God, and to this hour my poor heart falters when a stranger comes to call — " She smiled at Ebenezer. "Especially if he calls himself Sir Benjamin!"

"Ah, Christ, forgive me!" Ebenezer pleaded. Mrs. Russecks indicated with a gesture that there was nothing to pardon and returned her attention to Henrietta. "That was my first love. Andrew was the other, and far the greater, but merely to think of him drives me near to madness. ." She paused to recompose herself. "Let me put it thus, my dears: this second love affair was in essence the first, save for two important differences. One, as you know already, is that my lover abandoned me. ." She squeezed her daughter's hands. "The other is that this time the baby lived."

18: The Poet Wonders Whether the Course of Human History Is a Progress, a Drama, a Retrogression, a Cycle, an Undulation, a Vortex, a Right- or Left-Handed Spiral, a Mere Continuum, or What Have You. Certain Evidence Is Brought Forward, but of an Ambiguous and Inconclusive Nature

The import of Mrs. Russecks's last remark occasioned a new round of joyful and sympathetic embraces. Mrs. Russecks apologized to Ebenezer and Anna for having transferred her resentment to them, and they apologized in turn for their father's ungentlemanly behavior of two dozen years earlier; Henrietta begged her mother's retroactive forgiveness for all the times she had inveighed against her for marrying Russecks, and Roxanne begged reciprocal forgiveness for having conceived her out of wedlock as well as for the double injury of subjecting her to Sir Harry's maltreatment and obliging her to believe she was his daughter. Even Mary was included, for the well-kept secret had caused occasional misunderstandings on both sides during her long friendship with the miller's wife. There being no wine on the premises, when all were shriven and embraced, a new pot of tea was boiled for celebratory use, and, alternately shy and demonstrative, the new relatives talked long into the evening. For all her avowed hatred of Andrew Cooke, Roxanne was exceedingly curious about his life in England and his present highly questionable position; that night, moreover, Anna and Henrietta, who slept together, must each have taken the other completely into her confidence, for Ebenezer was surprised to observe next morning that they spoke freely of Henry Burlingame. At breakfast the three young people were in almost hilarious spirits: Ebenezer traded Hudibrastics with Henrietta, whom he found to have a real gift for satire, and Anna declared herself totally unconcerned about the future — as far as she was concerned, Roxanne was her mother too, and she would be content if she never saw Malden or her father again. Roxanne and Mary looked on joyfully, wiping their eyes on an apron-hem from time to time.

By midmorning it had been decided that the Russeckses would travel with the Cookes to Anne Arundel Town as soon as McEvoy returned from Bloodsworth Island; there Roxanne and Henrietta would remain until the miller's estate was sold, whereupon they (and, Henrietta hinted demurely, perhaps McEvoy) would sail for England and a new life. Ebenezer would carry his urgent message to Governor Nicholson and, if the situation warranted, plead for gubernatorial restitution of his estate on grounds that it was being used for activities subversive to the welfare of the Province; if his appeal bore no fruit or his father proved unrelenting, he and Anna would leave Maryland also as members of Roxanne's family, and he would endeavor to find employment in London. Henry Burlingame and Joan Toast, though they weighed heavily on the twins' minds, were provisionally excluded from their plans, since the whereabouts of the former and the attitude of the latter were uncertain.

Their spirits were lifted even higher by the appearance, shortly after noontime, of McEvoy and Bertrand, who announced that Captain Cairn was waiting with his sloop in the creek to ferry them anywhere in the world. McEvoy kissed Henrietta ardently, and her mother as well, and Bertrand embraced his master with speechless gratitude.

"Would ye fancy it?" McEvoy laughed. "Those wretches thought we'd left 'em stranded! When they saw me ride in with old Bill-o'-the-Goose they reckoned I'd been captured again, and commenced to give ye whatfor!" His face darkened for a moment, and while Bertrand professed his delight at seeing Miss Anna safe and sound, he confided to Ebenezer, " 'Twas all Dick Parker and the others could manage to get us out alive. Our friend Billy Rumbly hath gone salvage altogether, and would have had us murthered on the spot!"

Ebenezer sighed. "I feared as much. I suppose he'll inflame the Ahatchwhoops farther."

"Aye." McEvoy displayed a new fishbone ring of the sort that had saved Ebenezer. "Chicamec gave me this for retrieving his son, and Dick Parker gave another to Bertrand, but I'd not give a farthing for its protection when the war comes — and 'twill come sooner now than before, with Master Cohunkowprets at the helm. I mean to sail out o' this miserable province the minute I have my freight, and Henrietta's going with me if I have to kidnap her." He blushed, for his last remark had chanced to fall into a pause in the general conversation and was heard by all.

"I hope you shan't need such measures." Ebenezer laughed. "Nor is't likely I'd permit you to treat my sister so unchivalrously!" He proceeded to dumfound his companion with the news of his relationship to Henrietta and the party's plans for the immediate future.

"I vow and declare, Eben, ye frighten me!" He looked at Henrietta with awe. "Nay, methinks I should steal her away all the sooner, ere ye discover me for your brother as well!"

As soon as all the salutation had been got over. Mrs. Russecks suggested that Bertrand be dispatched to summon the Captain for dinner as well as for protection from the pirates, against whose rumored presence the village had taken such a posture of defense. The valet was much alarmed by this last disclosure, but McEvoy scoffed at the idea.

"If there were any pirates about, they'd have taken us ere now; we were the only ship in sight from Limbo Straits to Church Creek! In any case, the Captain's not likely to be aboard; he wanted to recruit himself a crew that knows more about crewing than Bertrand and myself."

Everyone except Bertrand and Mrs. Russecks joined McEvoy in minimizing the threat of piracy, and upon Mary's offering, at dinner, to oversee the closing of the millhouse and the sale of the inn (which latter property she herself expressed some interest in), the party resolved to set sail for Anne Arundel Town that same afternoon if possible.

"The sooner I leave Church Creek behind, the better," Henrietta said, and McEvoy, perhaps less than altruistically, observed that Billy Rumbly's defection made it even more urgent to apprise Nicholson of the situation at once.

"Nonetheless," Roxanne declared, "I can't help trembling at the thought of pirates. All of us here, save Mary, have been captured once before and cruelly used, and escaped by the skin of our teeth: 'tis not likely we'll be so lucky a second time."

"Aye," the poet agreed. "But by the same token 'tis less than likely such a catastrophe could befall the same party twice in's life." He went on, partly in good-natured irony and partly to divert the woman from her fears, to speak of sundry theories of history — the retrogressive, held by Dante and Hesiod; the dramatic, held by the Hebrews and the Christian fathers; the progressive, held by Virgil; the cyclical, held by Plato and Ecclesiasticus; the undulatory, and even the vortical hypothesis entertained, according to Henry Burlingame, by a gloomy neo-Platonist of Christ's College, who believed that the cyclic periods of history were growing ever shorter and thus that at some non-unpredictable moment in the future the universe would go rigid and explode, just as the legendary bird called Ouida (so said Burlingame) was reputed to fly in ever-diminishing circles until at the end he disappeared into his own fundament. "The true and proper cyclist," he averred, "ought not to fear being taken again by pirates, inasmuch as his theory will loose him from their clutches as before; if you fear we'll be recaptured and done to death, 'tis plain you believe the course of things to be a sort of downward spiral — whether right- or left-handed I can't determine without farther enquiry."

By dint of these and like sophistical cajolements Mrs. Russecks was quieted; after dinner the women's trunks and chests were loaded onto Mary's wagon and drawn by Aphrodite through the desolate little village to a landing down on the creek, where Captain Cairn's sloop was moored.

"Hallo, where is the Captain?" Ebenezer asked.

"He said we were to wait aboard for him if he had trouble finding a crew," McEvoy said. "Methinks he'll have trouble finding anyone in yonder village!"

When they had transferred their gear from the wagon to the deck, Mary Mungummory declared with a wink at Ebenezer that, her errand in Church Creek having failed in its object, she too must needs address herself to the task of finding a crew. If she was successful, she said, her regular circuit of the county would bring her to Cooke's Point a few days hence, where she promised to plead the poet's case to Joan Toast, inquire as to the whereabouts of Henry Burlingame, and relay any news to Anne Arundel Town. She wished them all success in their embassy to the Governor, for her own sake as well as theirs, and after an exchange of the most affectionate farewells — especially with Roxanne, Henrietta, and Ebenezer — she returned up the path towards the settlement.

Ebenezer surveyed the familiar deck. "Thank Heav'n the weather's fine; my last voyage on this ship was a harrowing one!" He noticed that Bertrand, who had been unusually subdued throughout the day, now looked quite downcast, and asked him teasingly whether he had seen the Moor Boabdil in the myrtle bushes.

" 'Sheart, sir," the valet complained, "I had almost as lief be back with old Tom Pound as travel about in Maryland."

"Why, how is that?"

Bertrand replied that though he was eternally obliged to his master for, among other things, effecting his release from Bloodsworth Island, it was really a matter of frying-pan into fire, for old Colonel Robotham would surely do him to death upon discovering that Miss Lucy was wed not to the Poet Laureate at all, but to a servingman, whose astrolabe had already taken the alnicanter of her constellation.

"You've done the lass a great injustice," Ebenezer admitted, "but I'm scarcely the man to reprove you for't, and the Colonel is far from blameless in the matter himself. Methinks a marriage under such false pretense can be annulled e'en after consummation, and I've no great fear of Lucy's claim to Malden; but I pity the poor tart for being twice deceived with a babe in her belly. 'Tis your affair, of course; yet I could wish — God's body!"

From the stern of the sloop, where McEvoy had taken the ladies to wait for the Captain's return, came a tumult of shrieks, squeals, and curses. Ebenezer hastened aft to investigate and found himself confronted by a man whose appearance from the tiny cabin set his knees a-tremble and prostrated Bertrand upon the deck: a stout little man dressed in black from beard to boots, with a pistol in one hand and an ebony stick in the other

"Well, marry come up!" the fellow marveled. "Will ye look who's here, Captain Scurry?"

His counterpart emerged onto the stern sheets, also brandishing a pistol and supporting himself on a stick. "I'cod, Captain Slye, we've a bloody crew to go with our pilot!" He drew closer and smiled evilly at Ebenezer. "I say, Captain Slye, 'tis the very wretch that fouled his drawers in the King o' the Seas!"

"The same," said Slye. "And that craven puppy yonder is our friend the false laureate, that bilked us for a carriage-ride to Plymouth!"

The two rejoiced in the most unpleasant manner imaginable at having accidentally caught up with three old acquaintances — they had already recognized McEvoy as the redemptioner who had so plagued them on their last crossing. Captain Cairn, his countenance stricken, appeared on deck at their order, and the party was assembled in the waist of the vessel.

"God forgive me!" the Captain cried to Ebenezer. "I went to sign me a crew, and these rogues set upon me!"

"Now, now," Captain Scurry admonished, "there's no way to speak o' thy shipmates, sir! Our friend Captain Avery lies yonder in the lee o' James Island and wants a pilot up the Bay, and inasmuch as Captain Slye and myself was steering southwards, we promised to find him one."

"What do you mean to do with us?" Ebenezer asked.

"What do?" echoed Captain Slye. "Ah well, sir, as thou'rt the Laureate o' Maryland — ah, ye thought your friend John Coode would not betray ye, eh? What would ye say if I told ye he weren't John Coode at all, but merely one o' Coode's lieutenants? D'ye think I'd not know my own wife's father? Mark the man's trembling! Methinks he'll smirch his drawers anon! What shall we do with the merry lot, Captain Scurry?"

His partner chuckled. "Now, we might eat 'em alive for supper, Captain Slye, or we might put a ball in each jack's belly. ."

"Set the women ashore," the poet said. "You've no quarrel with them."

Captain Scurry admitted that he had neither quarrel with nor appetite for any female on the planet, but that he would not impose his personal tastes upon Captain Avery and his crew, who having made a lengthy ocean crossing would not likely refuse the blandishments of three so toothsome ladies. He proposed to Captain Slye that the entire party, excluding Captain Cairn, be cargoed into the hold and their final disposition left to the pirates.

Having had no prior experience of privateers, Anna Cooke seemed merely dazed by what was taking place, but Roxanne and Henrietta clung to each other and redoubled their lamentations. To all entreaties the kidnapers replied with a sneer, and the prisoners were obliged to descend into the cramped and lightless hold of the sloop, which stank of oysters. McEvoy embraced Henrietta in an effort to comfort her, and Ebenezer did likewise Anna; Bertrand and Mrs. Russecks had to deal with their terrors unassisted, and it is surely to that latter's credit that she never once mentioned the downward-spiral theory of history, which was much on the anguished poet's conscience. Over their heads they heard Slye and Scurry agree to move the sloop from Church Creek out into Fishing Creek lest any villagers hear the prisoners' complaints, but to wait until nightfall before running down the Little Choptank to their rendezvous with Captain Avery.

A long while they languished in despair as black and exitless as their prison. Then when the sloop got under way Anna began to whimper, and her brother was moved to say, "What a wretched thing is happiness! How I contemn it! An interlude such as ours of the past few days — 'Sheart, 'tis a waterhole in the desert track of life! The traveler mistrusts his fortune; shocked by the misery he hath passed, sickened by the misery yet to come, he rests but fitfully; the dates lie like pebbles in his stomach; the water turns foul upon his tongue. Thus him whose fancy gives purpose to the journey; but on this path, who is no pilgrim is perforce a vagrant, and woe to us less blest! For us 'tis causeless martyrdom, ananabasis, and when Chance vouchsafes some respite she earns our anger, not our gratitude. Show me the happy man who is neither foolish nor asleep!"

If his companions understood this apostrophe, they did not respond to it. Anna proposed that the three women destroy themselves at the earliest opportunity rather than suffer mass ravishment by the pirates. " 'Tis not that I choose death to dishonor," she explained. "My virginity means naught to me, but inasmuch as they'll surely murther us after, I'd as lief die now and have done with't. If Eben will not throttle me, I mean to drown myself the moment they fetch us on deck."

"La, girl," Mrs. Russecks scoffed from across the black enclosure, "put such notions out o' thy pretty head! Suppose Henrietta and I had taken our lives when Tom Pound captured us? We'd not be here today!"

There was general, if grim, laughter at the unintended irony of this remark, but Mrs. Russecks insisted that anything — even ten years as a sea-going concubine — was endurable so long as one could hope for ultimate improvement. "We've no assurance they mean to murther us," she said. "I'faith, we're not even raped yet!"

Sensing that Anna's resolve was beginning to falter, Ebenezer pursued this point. "Do you recall when we read Euripides with Henry, how we contemned The Trojan Women out of hand? Hecuba we called a self-pitying frump, and Andromache either a coward or a hypocrite. 'If she loves her Hector so, how is't she lets wretched Pyrrhus make her his whore? Why not take her own life and save the family honor?' What unrelenting moralists children are! But I tell you, Anna, I contemn the woman no more. We praise the martyr; he is our shame and our exemplar; but who among us fallen will embrace him? What's more, there is a high moral in Andromache; her tears indict the bloody circus of man's lust; her sigh drowns out the shouts of a thousand heroes, and her resignation turns Hellas into Vanity Fair."

Ebenezer himself was not so persuaded by this argument as he hoped Anna would be. Committing suicide merely to escape pain he could not but regard as cowardly, though he understood and sympathized with such cowardice; suicide as a point of honor, on the other hand, like martyrdom, made him uneasy. The martyr, it seemed to him, was in a sense unnatural, since blind Nature has neither codes nor causes; it was from this point of view that Andromache, like Ecclesiasticus, appeared the more sophisticated moralist, and heroes of every stamp seemed drunkards or madmen. Yet the very un-Naturalness, the hubris, as it were, of heroism in general and martyrdom in particular were their most appealing qualities. Granted that the Earth, as Burlingame was fond of pointing out, is "a dust-mote whirling through the night," there was something brave, defiantly human, about the passengers on this mote who perished for some dream of Value. To die, to risk death, even to raise a finger for any Cause, was to pennon one's lance with the riband of Purpose, so the poet judged, and had about it the same high lunacy of a tilt with Manchegan windmills.

But if his words were not altogether heartfelt, his purpose was, and sensing that his arguments had had some effect on Anna, he returned to them several hours later when the sloop was under way again — presumably to James Island. "I beg you to think of one thing only: Reason aside, is there aught on earth you prize? Suppose us safe in Anne Arundel Town: what would you wish for then?"

"Some years of peace," Anna replied unhesitatingly. "I've no use any longer for estates or e'en for a husband, since — since Henry is denied me. What can they matter, after all that hath occurred? In time, perhaps, new goals may beckon, but just now I should wish to live some years in utter peace."

Ebenezer stirred. "How my heart responds to that ambition! But stay, there is no point: if aught in life hath value to us, we must not give o'er its pursuit."

He felt Anna tremble. " 'Tis not worth the cost!"

"Nor is aught else."

She wet his hand with tears. "If I must suffer what I shall, then I amend my wish: I wish we two were the only folk on earth!"

"Eve and Adam?" The poet's face burned. "So be it; but we must be God as well, and build a universe to hold our Garden."

Anna squeezed his hand.

"What I mean," he said, "we must cling to life and search each moment for escape. ."

Anna shook her head. "Anon they'll run you through and throw you to the fishes, and I. . Nay, Eben! This present hour is all our future, and this black cave our only Garden. Anon they'll tear our innocence from us. ."

He sensed her eyes upon him. "Dear God!"

Just then a shout came down from above, answered by another off in the distance: the rendezvous had been made.

"Make haste!" cried Anna.

The poet groaned. "You must forgive me — "

Anna shrieked and fled on hands and knees across the hold; a few minutes later, when the hatch-cover was lifted and a lantern held down the ladderway, Ebenezer saw her shuddering in the arms of Mrs. Russecks.

"Ah, now," said the lantern-bearer, "I do despise to be a spoilsport, but Captain Avery wishes to speak to the six of ye on deck. He hath offered to torture the ladies at once if ye do not come promptly and civilly, sirs."

After a moment's hesitation the prisoners complied, urged on by Henrietta and Mrs. Russecks. Night had fallen, and a strong, cold breeze had blown up out of the west; for all the turmoil in his head, Ebenezer was surprised to observe that the sloop had not anchored but only come up "in irons" some distance from the pirate ship, whose lights could be seen several hundred yards ahead. Slye and Scurry had picked up a small party, and the prisoners were instructed to stand fast amidships while the vessel was got under way again. The poet's heart lifted: could it be that they were not to be transferred to the other ship?

Captain Cairn, who happened to pass nearby, confirmed his hope. "I'm to pilot their Captain up the Bay," he murmured, "lest his ship be spied and taken." He could say no more, for the pirates sent him aft to tend the mainsheet. Captain Slye and Captain Scurry bid the prisoners a sneering farewell and departed in a dinghy to their own ship, which presumably lay with Avery's Phansie in the lee of the island. Darkness prevented Ebenezer from seeing his new captor, who from the helm of the sloop ordered one of his two lieutenants to mind the jib sheet and the other — a gaunt, blond-bearded youth who looked more like a rustic than a pirate — to guard the prisoners. When Ebenezer moved to put his arm about Anna's shoulders she recoiled as if he were a pirate himself.

"Stand off, there, matey," the guard threatened. "Leave that little chore to us."

The women huddled together in the lee of the mast: the two younger ones still sniffed and whimpered, but Mrs. Russecks, seeing that their ordeal was not yet upon them, regained composure enough to embrace and comfort them both. Whatever the pirate captain had on his mind, it was clearly not so pressing as Captain Scurry (who had summoned the prisoners from the hold) had led them to believe; for more than an hour the three men stood mute and shivering before their guard's pistols while the sloop bowled northwards on a broad reach up the Chesapeake. The wind was fresh, the Bay quite rough; the moonlight was occulted by an easting scud. At last a voice from the helm said, "Very well, Mr. Shannon, fetch the gentlemen aft."

Fearful of what lay ahead, Ebenezer yearned to kiss Anna one last time; he hesitated, and in the end decided not to risk the guard's displeasure, but all the way aft he railed inwardly against his own timidity. The small light of the binnacle showed Captain Cairn standing tensely at the helm and revealed the countenance of the notorious Long Ben Avery: a sad-eyed, beagle-faced fellow, not at all fearsome to behold, who wore a modest brown beard and curled mustachios.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said, scarcely raising his eyes from the compass. "I shan't detain ye long. Would ye say she lies abeam, Captain Cairn?"

"Off the starboard bow," the Captain grumbled. "If we don't run aground ye'll soon hear the surf to leeward."

"Excellent." The pirate captain frowned and sucked at his pipe. "Aye, there's the surf; thou'rt a rare good pilot, Captain Cairn! Now, gentlemen, I've but one question to put — Ah, damn this tobacco!" He drew at the pipestem until the coals glowed yellow. "There we are. 'Tis a simple question, sirs, that ye may answer one at a time, commencing with the tall fellow: are ye, or have ye ever been, an able seaman?"

The pirate called Mr. Shannon prodded Ebenezer with his pistol, but the poet wanted no urging to reply; his heart glowed like the pipe coals with hope at their captor's gentlemanly air. "Nay, sir, I'm but a poor poet, with no craft save that of rhyming and no treasure save my dear sister yonder, for whose honor I'd trade my life! Dare I ask your pledge as one gentleman to another, sir, that no harm will be offered those ladies?"

"Ask the second gentleman, Mr. Shannon."

The guard poked Bertrand.

"Nay, master, 'fore God I am no seaman, nor aught else in the world but a simple servingman that curses the hour of his birth!"

"Very good." Captain Avery sighed, still watching the binnacle. "And you, sir?"

"This is but the third time I've been on shipboard, sir," McEvoy declared at once. "The first was as a redemptioner, kidnaped out o' London by Slye and Scurry; the second was as a passenger on this very ship this morning. I swear to ye, I know not my forepeak from my aft!"

"Cleverly put," Captain Avery approved. "Then it seems I cannot enlist ye for my crew. Mr. Shannon, will ye escort these pleasant gentlemen o'er the taffrail?"

Ebenezer stiffened as if struck, and Bertrand fell to his knees; even Captain Cairn seemed not to realize for a second what had been said. The guard gestured towards the taffrail with one of his pistols and nudged the trembling valet with his boot.

"There's a little island to leeward," observed Captain Avery. "With some luck and the sea behind ye, ye might manage it. Count five, Mr. Shannon, and shoot any gentleman who lingers."

"One," said Mr. Shannon. "Two."

McEvoy gave a great oath and kicked off his boots. "Farewell, Eben," he said. "Farewell, Henrietta!" He sprang over the rail and splashed into the sea astern.

"Three." Mr. Shannon smiled at the remaining two as they also removed their boots. An inquiring female voice called back from the mast, but the question was lost on the wind. Bertrand gave a final whimper and vaulted overboard.

"Four."

Ebenezer hastened to the taffrail. Hoping against hope, he called to the pirate captain's back, "Do I have your pledge, sir? About the ladies?"

"I pledge to swive your pleasant ladies from sprit to transom," said Long Ben Avery. "I pledge to give every jack o' my crew his slavering fill o' them, sir, and when they're done I pledge to carve your little sister into ship's-beef and salt her down for the larboard watch. Fire away, Mr. Shannon."

Given another ten seconds Ebenezer might have run forward to die at Anna's side, but under the inpulse of the sudden command he sprang wildly over the rail and smacked face-first into the icy water. The triple shock of the threat, the fall, and the cold came near to robbing him of his senses; he retched with anguish, coughed salt water from his throat, and after some moments of frantic indirection, caught sight of the sloop's light receding into the darkness. The waves slapped and tossed him; merely to float, as he had done once before in similar straits, would be to perish of the cold in short order. Taking his bearings from the sloop and the direction of the seas, he thrashed out for the island allegedly to the east.

"Halloo!" he called, and imagined that he heard an answer up the wind. A thought as chilling as the Bay occurred to him: what if there was no island after all? What if Long Ben Avery had fired their hopes as a cruel jest? In any case, if there was an island, it would have to be close, or he was a dead man; the following seas pushed him in the right direction but diminished by half the effectiveness of his stroke, and the low temperature robbed him of breath.

He was encouraged, a minute or two later, by a positive cry ahead: "This way! I'm standing on bottom!"

"McEvoy?" he called joyfully.

"Aye! Keep swimming! Don't give up! Where's Bertrand? Bertrand!"

From ahead and somewhat to the right of the poet came another response; not long afterwards the three men were panting and shivering together on a dark pebbled beach.

"Praise God, 'tis a miracle!" Bertrand cried. "Twice drowned by pirates and twice washed safe on an ocean isle! Methinks we could walk down the strand a bit and find Drakepecker once again!"

But McEvoy and Ebenezer were too sickened by the plight of the women to rejoice at their own good fortune. The poet deemed it best to say nothing of Captain Avery's parting threat, since they were unable to prevent his carrying it out; even so, McEvoy vowed to devote the rest of his life to pursuing and assassinating the pirate.

By comparison with the air on their wet clothes, the Bay seemed tepid. "We must get out of the wind and make a fire," McEvoy said.

"We've no way to light one," Ebenezer pointed out listlessly. Now that he was safe, his mind was full of Anna's fate and their last interview; he began to wish that he had drowned.

"Then let's build a shelter, ere we freeze," McEvoy said.

They hurried up onto the island proper, which appeared to be only a few hundred feet across; there they found loblolly pines, a few scrubby myrtles, and much underbrush, but not much likely-looking material for a shelter; nor was the growth an adequate windbreak. The leeward slope of the island was somewhat more comfortable, though even there it was unthinkable that they could long survive soaking wet in a forty-mile winter wind.

"M-marry, sirs, l-look yonder!" Bertrand cried, shaking with cold. " 'Tis a light!"

Indeed, out over the water to the east of them shone what appeared to be the lighted windows of a house. The distance was hard to estimate, but unless the structure was very small, McEvoy judged, it lay three or four miles away. In the face of Ebenezer's previous objection he declared that they must build a fire at once, set fire to the entire island if need be, to attract rescuers; else they'd be dead before sunrise.

"Let's scour the island," he proposed. "If we hit on naught better, why, we'll claw out a trench and bury ourselves together under evergreen boughs. Methinks we must prance and swing our arms about."

They decided to search together, in order to utilize the sooner anything they might come across. One man on the beach, one on the brush line, and one at the edge of the heavier growth, they proceeded northwards up the lee shore of the island. But their search seemed vain: every stick of wood was wet, and no one yet had proposed any means of ignition should it have proved dry. Moreover, the growth thinned out as they approached the northern end of the island, which appeared to be half a mile or so in length.

Not far from the point, Bertrand, who had been patrolling the brush lines, called for them to come at once and behold another miracle. "Lookee here, what I came nigh to breaking my toes on!"

At his feet they saw a longish black shape, which on closer approach they recognized as a stranded dinghy.

"I'faith!" cried McEvoy, scrabbling inside to examine it. "There's even an oar! She must have blown hither in a storm!"

"I doubt she's seaworthy," Ebenezer warned, observing that several inches of water stood in the bilge. "But we might use her for a shelter."

"Nay," McEvoy protested. "She might be tight, Eben, else the water would have leaked out, would it not? I say let's make a try at yonder light! But stay — we've only one oar."

"There's a trick called sculling. ." Ebenezer offered doubtfully. "But i'Christ, John, listen to that chop — 'tis like the ocean! We'd drown in five minutes!"

"But if we manage it, we're safe," McEvoy reminded him. "If we stay here, belike we'll freeze to death ere sunrise, and e'en if we do not, who's to say we'll be rescued in the morning?"

They pondered the alternatives briefly, and the third course of sending one of their number to bring assistance to the others.

" 'Twill take one man to scull and another to bail," Bertrand ventured. "We'd as lief die together, as apart, hadn't we, sirs?"

"Then I say let's drown together instead o' freezing," said McEvoy. "What say ye, Eben?"

The poet started, and saw by his companion's grim smile that McEvoy had formed the question deliberately. For an instant he forgot the frightful cold: he was at table in Locket's, where the eyes of Ben Oliver, Dick Merriweather, Tom Trent, and Joan Toast had joined McEvoy's to render him immobile; again, as then, he felt the weight of choice devolve upon him, peg him out like a tan yard hide in all directions. It was a queer moment: he felt as must a seasoned Alpinist brought back to a crag whence he fell of old and barely survived; many another and more formidable he has scaled since without a tremor, but this one turns his blood to water. .

With some effort, Ebenezer threw off the memory. "I say we try for the house. Wind and waves are behind us, and for better or worse we'll have done with't in an hour."

However chilling this final observation, it spurred them to action. They overturned the dinghy to empty the bilge, dragged it down to the water, and launched it. McEvoy's reasoning proved correct: the water standing in the bilge had kept the chine- and keelson-seams tight. At Ebenezer's suggestion, who had learned something of rowing from Burlingame, Bertrand and McEvoy each equipped himself with half of a shingle discovered on the beach, both to assist in freeing out the water they were certain to ship and to help prevent the little boat from broaching to in the following seas.

Though he truly cared little now for his own safety, the burden of responsibility weighed heavy on the poet's heart. He knew so little about what he was doing, and they carried out his suggestions, on which their lives depended, as if he were Captain Cairn! But however meager his seamanship, it was apparently superior to Bertrand's and McEvoy's. And however great the burden, it was no longer an unfamiliar one: he grappled with it calmly, as with an old, well-known opponent, and wondered whether his sensibility had perhaps of late been toughened like the hands of an apprentice mason, by frequent laceration.

"Methinks 'twere best the twain of you sit forward, to keep the stern high. If sculling fails us, we'll paddle like salvages."

They clambered aboard, shivering violently from their new wetting; Ebenezer was able to pole out a hundred yards or so through shoal water before it became necessary to fit his oar between the transom tholes and commence sculling. Fortunately, the first mile or so was in the lee of the island; the relative stillness of the water gave him opportunity to get the knack of pitching the blade properly for thrust without losing his oar. But soon the island was too far behind to shelter them: the hissing seas rolled in astern — three, four, and five feet from trough to crest; as each overtook them the dinghy seemed to falter, intimidated, and then actually to be drawn backwards as if by undertow. Ebenezer would hold his breath — surely they would be pooped! But at the last instant the stern would be flung high and the dinghy thrust forward on the crest; the scanty freeboard disappeared; water sluiced over both gunwales; Bertrand and McEvoy bailed madly to keep afloat. Then the sea rushed on, and the dinghy would seem to slide backwards into the maw of the one behind. Each wave was a fresh terror; it seemed unthinkable that they should survive it, and even more that managing by some miracle to do so earned them not a second's respite. The helmsman's job was especially arduous and tricky: though the net motion of the dinghy was actually always forward, the approach of each new sea had the effect of sternway; instead of sculling, Ebenezer would be obliged to use the oar for a rudder to keep the boat from broaching to, and moreover would have to steer backwards, since the water was moving faster than the boat. Only at the crest could he scull for a stroke or two — but not a moment too long, or the dinghy would yaw in the next trough. The men were rapidly demoralized past speech; they toiled as if possessed, and when the moon broke the scud it lit three shocked faces staring wide-eyed at the monster overtaking them.

To turn back was out of the question, since even if some god should turn them around, they could make no windward headway. Yet after what seemed an hour of frantic labor and hairsbreadth escapes — perhaps actually no more than twenty minutes — the light ahead appeared no closer than before. What was worse, it seemed to have moved distinctly northward. It was Bertrand who first observed this distressing fact, and it moved him to speak for the first time in many minutes.

"Dear Father! What if it's a ship, and there's no land for miles?"

McEvoy offered an alternative hypothesis. "Belike the wind hath swung round a bit to the northwest. We may have to hike a few miles up the shore."

"There's e'en a happier possibility," Ebenezer said. "I scarce dare hope — But stay! Do you hear a sound?"

They paused in their work to listen and were nearly taken under by the next wave.

"Aye, 'tis a surf!" Ebenezer cried joyously. "Neither we nor the light have changed course; 'tis that we're almost upon it!" What he wanted to explain was that though from the island they had steered as directly for the light as they were able, their actual course was somewhat to the south of it; from four or five miles distance the error (perhaps a few hundred feet) had been too small to notice, but as they drew very near, the angle between their course and the light tended to increase towards ninety degrees. Before he could elaborate, however, a wave greater than usual tossed the stern high and to larboard and lifted the oar from its tholes.

"She's broaching to!" he warned.

The others paddled to no purpose with their shingles. Ebenezer slammed the oar back between the pins and attempted to bring the stern into the seas by putting the "tiller" end hard over to larboard, as he had grown used to doing under sternway. But his action was out of phase, for the crest had passed and left the dinghy momentarily wayless in the trough: the motion of the oar was in fact a sculling stroke, and had the effect of bringing the stern even farther around. The next wave struck them fair on the starboard quarter, broached them to, and filled the boat ankle deep with water; the one after that, a white-capped five-footer, took them square abeam, and they were flailing once more in the icy Chesapeake. This time, however, their ordeal was brief: their feet struck seaweed and mud at once, and they found themselves less than a dozen yards from shore. They scrambled in, knocked down time and again by the hip-high breakers, and gained the beach at last, scarcely able to stand.

"We must make haste!" McEvoy gasped. "We may freeze yet!"

As fast as they could manage, stumbling and panting, they moved up the shore towards their beacon, now plainly recognizable as the lighted windows of a good-sized house. Not far from it, where the beach met the lawn of the house, stood a tall loblolly pine, at the foot of which they saw a conspicuous white object, like a large vertical stone. Ebenezer's hackles tingled. "Ah God!" he cried and summoned the last of his strength to sprint forward and embrace the grave. The feeble moon sufficed to show the inscription:

Anne Bowyer Cooke

b. 1645 d. 1666

Thus Far Hath the Lord

Helped Us.

The others came up behind. "What is it?"

Ebenezer would not turn his head. "My journey's done," he wept. "I have come full circle. Yonder's Malden; go and save yourselves."

Astonished, they read the gravestone, and when entreaty proved vain, they lifted Ebenezer by main strength from the grave. Once upon his feet, he offered them no resistance, but the last of his spirit seemed gone.

"Had I ne'er been brought to birth," he said, pointing to the stone, "that woman were alive today, and my sister with her, and my father a gentleman sot-weed planter, and the three of them happy in yonder house."

Bertrand was too near freezing to offer a reply, if he had any, but McEvoy — who likewise shook from head to foot with cold — led the poet off by the arm and said, "Go to, 'tis like the sin o' Father Adam, that we all have on our heads; we ne'er asked for't, but there it is, and do we choose to live, why, we must needs live with't."

Ebenezer had been used to seeing Malden a-bustle with deplorable activity after dark, but now only the parlor appeared to be occupied; the rest of the house, as well as the grounds and outbuildings — he peered with awful shame in the direction of the curing-house — was dark and quiet. As they went up the empty lawn toward the front door, which faced south-westwards to the grave and the Bay beyond, McEvoy, as much to warm himself, no doubt, as to comfort Ebenezer, went on to declare through chattering teeth that the single light was a good sign: without question it meant that Andrew Cooke had put his house in order and was waiting with his daughter-in-law for news of his prodigal son. He would be overjoyed to see them; they would be clothed and fed, and alarms would be dispatched at once to Anne Arundel Town to intercept Long Ben Avery.

"Stay." Ebenezer shook his head. "Such fables hurt too much beside the truth."

McEvoy released his arm angrily. "Still the virgin," he cried, "with no thought for any wight's loss save his own! Run down and die on yonder grave!"

Ebenezer shook his head: he wanted to explain to his injured companion that he suffered not from his loss alone, but from McEvoy's as well, and Anna's, and Andrew's, and even Bertrand's — from the general condition of things, in sum, for which he saw himself answerable — and that the pain of loss, however great, was as nothing beside the pain of responsibility for it. The fallen suffer from Adam's fall, he wanted to explain; but in that knowledge — which the Fall itself vouchsafed him — how more must Adam have suffered! But he was too gripped by cold and despair to essay such philosophy.

They reached the house.

"We'd best have a look through the window ere we knock," Bertrand said. "I'Christ, what will Master Andrew say to me, that was sent to be your adviser!"

They went to the lighted window of the parlor, from which they heard the sounds of masculine laughter and conversation.

McEvoy got there first. "Some men at cards," he reported, and then a look of sudden pain came into his face. "Dear God! Can that be poor Joan?"

Bertrand hastened up beside him. "Aye, that's the swine-maid, and yonder's Master Andrew in the periwig, but — "

Now he too showed great distress. "God's blood and body, Master Eben! Tis Colonel Robotham!"

But Ebenezer was at the window sill by this time, and beheld for himself these wonders and others by far more marvelous. Joan Toast, so beridden and devoured by her afflictions that she looked a leprous Bedlamite, was hobbling with a pitcher of ale towards a green baize table in the center of the parlor, about whose circumference five gentlemen sat at cards: the lawyer, physician, and minister of the gospel Richard Sowter, who sucked on his pipe and called upon various saints to witness the wretched hand he was being dealt; the cooper (and dealer) William Smith, who smiled grandly at the table and with his pipestem directed Joan to fill Andrew Cooke's glass; Bertrand's portly, sanguine father-in-law from Talbot County, Colonel George Robotham, who seemed preoccupied with something quite other than lanterloo; Andrew Cooke himself, grown thinner and older-looking since Ebenezer had seen him last, but more sharp-eyed than ever, grasping his cards in his good left hand and glancing like an old eagle at the others, as if they were not his adversaries but his prey; and finally, most appalling of all, at Andrew's withered right arm, joking as merrily over his cards as if he were back in Locket's — Henry Burlingame, still in the character he called Nicholas Lowe of Talbot!

"Very well, gentlemen," the cooper declared, having dealt four hands. "I share the fortunes of Mr. Sowter, I believe."

"Put it the other way about," Burlingame remarked, "and there'll be more truth than poetry in't when we get to court."

Sowter shook his head in mock despair. "St. Dominic's sparrow, neighbors! If our case were half as feeble as this miscarriage, we'd get no farther than the courthouse jakes with't, I swear!"

"As we all know ye shan't in any case," Burlingame taunted amiably, "inasmuch as the only real case to argue is the size of your bribe."

"Ah, lads, go to," said Andrew Cooke. "This talk of bribes and miscarriages alarms the Colonel!" He smiled sardonically at Colonel Robotham. "Do forgive my son his over-earnestness, George: 'tis a famous failing of the lad's, as I daresay your daughter hath remarked."

Outside the window, Bertrand gasped. "D'ye hear that, Master Eben? He called that wight his son! An entire stranger!"

"There's something amiss," McEvoy agreed, "but they all seem peaceable enough." Without more ado he began to rap on the windowpanes. "Hallo! Hallo! Let us in or we're dead men!"

"Nay, i'Christ!" cried Bertrand, but he was too late; the startled players turned towards the window.

"Januarius's bubbling blood!"

"Look to't, Susan," the cooper ordered calmly, and Joan Toast set her pitcher on the sideboard.

"Ebenezer, my boy," said Andrew Cooke, "fetch thy pistol." Burlingame laid his cards face down on the baize and went to do as he was bid.

Joan Toast opened the door and thrust out a lantern. "Who is't?" she called listlessly.

"Run!" muttered Bertrand, and lit out across the lawn.

McEvoy drew back from the window and bit his underlip nervously. "What say ye, Eben?" he whispered. "Hadn't we best run for't?"

But the poet neither moved nor made reply, for the reason that at first sight of the strange assemblage in the parlor he had been dumfounded, brought back (or around, as the case may be) to that vulnerable condition of his youth which the cuisses of virginity, the cuirass of his laureateship, were donned to shield; and when in addition he had witnessed his father addressing Burlingame — incredibly! — as "my son" and "Ebenezer," he had been frozen on the instant where he stood, not by the Bay wind but by the same black breeze that thrice before — in Magdalene College, in Locket's, and in his room in Pudding Lane — had sighed from the Pit to ice his bones.

"Who is't?" Joan repeated.

McEvoy stepped from behind Ebenezer so that the light from the parlor window illumined his face.

" 'Tis I, Joan Toast," he said uncertainly. " 'Tis Eben Cooke and John McEvoy. ."

Joan made a sound and clutched at the doorjamb; the lantern slipped to the ground and was extinguished. A man's voice came from the vestibule behind her. "What the Devil!"

"Haply we'd better flee, after all," McEvoy suggested. But Ebenezer, no longer even shivering, stood transfixed in his original position.

19: The Poet Awakens from His Dream of Hell to Be Judged in Life by Rhadamanthus

For centuries upon centuries, so it seemed to Ebenezer, he had sojourned in the realm of Lucifer, where in penance for Lust and Pride he underwent a double torture: the first was to be transferred at short intervals from everlasting flames to the ice of Cocytus, frozen by the wings of the King of Hell himself; the second, less frequent but more painful, was to see commingled and transfused before his eyes the faces of Joan Toast and his sister Anna. Joan would bend near him, her face unmarred and spirited as it had been in London: her dress was fresh, her pox vanished; her eyes were bright and tender — indeed, her face was not hers at all, but Anna Cooke's! Then even as he watched his sister's face he saw her eyes go red and dull, her teeth rot in the gums, her flesh go raw with suppurating lesions — until at last, with Joan Toast's face, she became Joan Toast, whereupon the cycle would sometimes recommence. The metamorphosis invariably stole his breath; he would choke and cry out, thrash his arms and legs about in the fire or the ice, and gibber blasphemies as obscure as Pluto's "Papè Satan aleppe. ." It is not difficult to imagine, therefore, with what joy he found Anna quite unaltered when at length he opened his eyes and saw her sitting near his bed, reading a book. The very magnitude of his relief thwarted its expression; he fell at once into profoundest dreamless sleep.

Upon his second awakening he was more rational; he realized that he had been ill and delirious for some time — whether a day or a month he could not guess — and that now his fever was gone. It pleased him no end to see that his sister was still in attendance at his bedside, since now he was quite able to address her.

"Dearest Anna! How very kind of you to nurse me. ."

He spoke no further, both because his sister, weeping joyfully, rushed from her chair to embrace him, and because he suddenly understood how incredible it was that she should be there, apparently safe and sound!

"I'faith, where am I?" he whispered. "How is't thou'rt here?"

"Too great a story!" Anna sobbed. "Thou'rt home in Malden, Eben, and God be praised thou'rt back among the living!" Without releasing him she called through the open doorway, "Roxanne! Come quick! Eben's awake!"

"Roxanne as well?" Ebenezer closed his eyes to gather strength.

"Thou'rt weak, poor thing! Marry, if you but knew how I wept when I learned what Captain Avery had done, and how I yearned to die with you, and how I feared you'd perish here at Malden and spoil the miracle — i'God, 'tis too much to tell!"

Mrs. Russecks and Henrietta came in from the hall, neither evidently the worse for their ordeal, and when their initial rejoicing subsided, the poet learned the circumstances of their escape.

" 'Twas an act of God, nor more nor less," Mrs. Russecks declared simply. "How else account for't? Long Ben Avery is Benjamin Long of Church Creek, my first and long-lost lover!" Immediately after dispatching the three male prisoners, she said, the privateer had summoned the women aft for the avowed purpose of taking his pleasure, but as it turned out, they suffered no more than a few prurient remarks, for upon learning first her Christian name and then, in response to closer inquiry, her maiden surname, his attitude had changed altogether: he had apologized for having thrown the men overboard, expressed his hope that they would reach Sharp's Island safely, and at the risk of his own life changed course for the mouth of the Severn, where he had bid them adieu and returned to his own ship, leaving Captain Cairn to ferry them singlehanded to Anne Arundel Town!

"We don't know 'twas Benjamin Long," Henrietta admitted. "He'd not answer Mother's questions. But I can't account for his behavior otherwise — "

"Of course it was my Benjy," Mrs. Russecks said. "The dear boy ran off to sea thirty years ago and turned pirate. 'Twas purely out o' shame he'd not own up to't." On this point she was calmly impervious to argument, and despite the staggering unlikelihood of the coincidence, Ebenezer had to admit that he could think of no hypothesis to account more reasonably for Long Ben Avery's sudden charity. He sat up to embrace them all by turns, and his sister again and again, and then lay back exhausted. His sojourn in Hell, he now learned, had actually lasted four days, during which he had hung in the balance between life and death; McEvoy and Bertrand had also been bedridden from the effects of exposure, though not comatose. The former was now quite recovered, but Bertrand, whom they had not located in the barn until the morning after, was still in grave condition.

"Thank Heav'n they're alive!" Ebenezer exclaimed. "What of Father, and Henry Burlingame, and the cooper? Do I hear them belowstairs?" Indeed, from the rooms below came the sound of several men's voices, apparently in argument.

"Aye," Anna said. "The fact is they're all under house arrest till the matter of our estate is settled! Governor Nicholson is much alarmed about the rebellion and the opium traffic, and hath put Cooke's Point under a sort of martial law till your recovery. In the meantime, everyone accuses everyone else, and no man knows whose title is valid." Directly upon their arrival in Anne Arundel Town, she explained, Captain Cairn and they had gone to the Governor's house, roused him from bed despite the hour, and reported as much as they could piece together of their kidnaping, the activity on Bloodsworth Island, and the vicious enterprise of which Malden had apparently become a regional headquarters. Thanks to the mention of the John Smith papers and Captain Cairn's reputation as a sober citizen of St. Mary's, Governor Nicholson had accepted their report at face value: two armed pinnaces had been dispatched in pursuit of Captain Avery's Phansie, and the President of the Council himself, Sir Thomas Lawrence, had set out with the ladies for Cooke's Point before dawn, empowered by the Governor to act as his proxy in any matters involving the welfare of the Province.

"And marry," Henrietta laughed, "what a jolly time we've had since!" Andrew Cooke, she declared, had suffered a series of such great and ambivalent surprises that for a time they had feared for his sanity: to begin with, his joy at finding Ebenezer alive had given way at once to wrath and no small embarrassment — the latter occasioned by his having sworn to all and sundry that "Nicholas Lowe," who in truth had befriended him a fortnight previously and told him that Ebenezer was dead, was the real Ebenezer Cooke, and that the so-called Laureate of Maryland who had given Cooke's Point away was a gross impostor. How had his dismay been compounded, then, when in the space of twenty-four hours he had learned that his "son" was apparently a highly placed agent of the Governor's; that Anna had been captured and freed by the notorious Long Ben Avery; and — perhaps most disconcerting of all — that she had brought with her his old mistress Roxanne Edouard and a young lady alleged to be his natural daughter!

"Beside these wonders," Henrietta said, "such trifles as the Bloodsworth insurrection are beneath his attention! Really, Brother Eben, 'tis a droll fellow we have for a father!"

"Henrietta!" Mrs. Russecks scolded. "Let us hasten to tell Sir Thomas that Mister Cooke is himself again, and will soon be strong enough to speak with him." She kissed the poet quite maternally. "Thank God for that!"

Anna was greatly amused. "Henrietta is a marvelous tease," she said to Ebenezer when they were alone again. "Roxanne hath warned her not to call us brother and sister or speak of Father as her father, but she doth it nonetheless to provoke him." By Roxanne's own admission, she said, Andrew had not known when he left her in 1670 that she was carrying his child; she had refrained from telling him lest he marry her under coercion, and so had been doubly embittered when he returned her to her "uncle" in Church Creek. "But ah, he loved her," Anna declared. "You should have seen him when we came in! So overjoyed to see her, he scarce had eyes for me, yet so ashamed of having left her — i'faith, he was crucified by shame! He ne'er once questioned that Henrietta was his daughter, but for days now hath gone from begging the whole world's pardon to raging at the lot of us as vultures and thieves, come to do him out of Malden! 'Tis a pitiful sight, Eben: we must forgive him."

Anna seemed to have been altered by her late experience: her face was drawn and weary as before, but her voice and manner reflected a new serenity, an acceptance of things difficult to accept — in short, a beatitude, for like Mrs. Russecks she reminded Ebenezer of one to whom a miracle, a vision or mystic grace, has lately been vouchsafed. The memory of their last exchange in the hold of Captain Cairn's sloop brought the blood to his face; he closed his eyes for shame and gripped her hand. Anna returned the pressure as if she read his thoughts clearly, and went on in her quiet voice to declare that despite Roxanne's coolness to Andrew's contrition, and her assertion that Benjamin Long, or Long Ben Avery, was the only man who ever truly won her heart, Henrietta and Anna agreed that she had by no means lost her affection for their father, but was too wise to grant her pardon overhastily.

Ebenezer smiled and shook his head. He was frightfully weak, but he could feel the balm of his good fortune working magically to restore his strength.

"What of you and Henry, Anna?" he inquired. Anna lowered her eyes. "We have talked," she said, "- like this, with eyes averted. He was as confounded as Father when I walked in with Roxanne and Henrietta! He rejoiced at our safety and yearns to see you. I told him privily what I could of his father and brothers, and your fears for the safety of the Province; naturally he is ablaze with curiosity and cannot wait to set out for Bloodsworth Island — you know how Henry is — but he won't go till he talks to you. We've promised not to reveal his disguise, you know: even Sir Thomas calls him 'Mr. Lowe,' and Father thinks he's the finest fellow in the Province — he's supposed to be a friend of yours, that bemoans your loss and agreed to help Father get Malden back. The three of us, I suspect, will be much embarrassed by one another for some time. . our situation is so hopeless. ." She sniffed back a tear and made her voice more cheerful. "The others are quite delighted with each other, or at least resigned: Henrietta and John, Roxanne and Father; even Bertrand and the Robothams have a sort of truce: the Colonel still vows that Bertrand is you and presses his claim to Malden for fear of scandal, and Lucy, poor thing, hath not got long to her term and trembles at the thought of bearing a bastard. They know very well their claim's a fraud and they're as much to blame for't as Bertrand, but they're desperate, and Bertrand won't confess for fear the Colonel will murther him where he lies. 'Tis a splendid comedy."

Ebenezer heard the sounds of new excitement downstairs: his recovery had been announced.

"Tell me about my wife," he begged, and saw Anna try in vain to dissemble her shock at the deliberately chosen term.

"She hath not long to live. ."

"Nay!" Ebenezer raised up onto his elbow. "Where is she, Anna?"

"The sight of you and John McEvoy was too much for her," Anna said. "She swooned in the vestibule and was fetched off to bed — 'twas another grand moment for Father, you can fancy, the day he learned she was your wife (that he himself once paid six pounds to), and another when he learned she wasn't Susan Warren but the same woman you knew in London! He swears the match is null and void, and rants and rages; but withal he hath not abused her, if only because Henry — "

"No matter!" Ebenezer insisted; a number of people could be heard ascending the stairs. "Quickly, prithee, Anna! What is her condition?"

"The swoon was only the last straw on her back," Anna answered soberly. "Her — her social disease hath not improved, nor hath her need for devilish opium, nor hath her general health, that was long since spent out in the curing-house. Dr. Sowter hath examined her and declares she's a dying woman."

"I'God!" the poet moaned. "I must see her at once! I'll die before her!" Against Anna's protests he endeavored to get out of bed, but immediately upon sitting up grew dizzy and fell back on the pillow. "Poor wretch! Poor saintly, martyred wretch!"

His lamentations were cut short by a commotion of visitors led by Henrietta Russecks. First in were his father and Henry Burlingame.

"Dear Eben!" Henry cried, hurrying up to grasp both his hands. "What adventures are these you deserted me for?" He raised his head to Andrew, who stood uneasily on the other side of the bed. "Nay, tell me truly, Mr. Cooke: is't a bad son that saves a province?"

Ebenezer could only smile: his heart was full of sentiments too strong and various to permit reply. He and his father regarded each other silently and painfully. "I am heartily sorry, Father," he began after a moment, but his voice was choked at once.

Andrew laid his left hand on Ebenezer's brow — the first such solicitude in the poet's memory. "I told ye once in St. Giles, Eben: to beg forgiveness is the bad son's privilege, and to grant it the bad father's duty." To the room in general he announced, "The lad hath fever yet. State thy business and have done with't, Sir Thomas."

Three other men had come into the room: Richard Sowter, Colonel Robotham, and a courtly, white-wigged gentleman in his fifties who bowed slightly to Andrew and Ebenezer in turn.

"Thomas Lawrence, sir, of the Governor's Council," he said, "and most honored to meet you! Pray forgive me for imposing on your rest and recuperation, so well deserved, but none knows better than yourself how grave and urgent is our business — "

Ebenezer waved off the apology. "My sister hath apprised me of your errand, for which thank God and Governor Nicholson! Our peril is greater than anyone suspects, sir, and the sooner dealt with, the better for all."

"Excellent. Then let me ask you whether you think yourself strong enough to speak this afternoon to Governor Nicholson and myself."

"Nicholson!" Sowter exclaimed. "St. Simon's saw, sirs!" Andrew too, and Colonel Robotham, seemed disquieted by the Council President's words.

Sir Thomas nodded. "Mister Lowe here hath informed me that the Governor went to Oxford yesterday and, being notified of Mister Cooke's rescue, plans to cross to Malden today. We expect him hourly. What say you, sir?"

"I am quite ready and most eager to report to him," Ebenezer said.

"Very good. The Province is in your debt, sir!"

"I say — " Colonel Robotham had become quite florid; his round eyes glanced uneasily from Ebenezer to Andrew to Sir Thomas. "I've no doubt this lad's a hero and hath business of great moment with the Governor; I've no wish to seem preoccupied in selfish concerns or appear ungrateful to His Majesty's secret operatives, whose work requires them to assume false names — "

"Out on't, George!" snapped Andrew. "Mister Lowe here may well be the Governor's agent, or King William's, or the Pope's, for aught I know, but this lad is my son Eben and there's an end on't! Heav'n forgive me for conniving with Mister Lowe to deceive the lot o' ye, and Heav'n be praised for bringing my son back from the dead, Malden or no Malden!"

"Enough," Sir Thomas ordered. "I remind you, Colonel, that the Province hath no small interest in this estate; 'twas to look into it I came hither in the beginning. If the Governor's willing, haply we can hold a hearing on that question this very day, now Mister Cooke is with us." He further reminded the entire party, and especially Richard Sowter, that they were forbidden to leave the premises until the matter had been disposed of.

"By the organ of St. Cecilia!" Sowter protested. " 'Tis an infracture o' habeas corpus! Well hale ye to court, sir!"

"Your privilege," Sir Thomas replied. "In the meantime, don't leave Cooke's Point: Mister Lowe hath communicated with Major Trippe, and as of this morning we have militiamen on the grounds."

This news occasioned general surprise; Colonel Robotham tugged at his mustache, and Sowter invoked Saints Hyginus and Polycarpus against such highhandedness on the part of public servants. Sir Thomas then requested everyone to leave the room except Anna, who had established herself as her brother's nurse, and "Mister Lowe," who declared it imperative that he not leave the key witness's bedside for a moment. Andrew seemed reluctant. "We shall have much to say," Ebenezer consoled him, "and years to say't. Just now I'm dead for want of food and sleep."

"I'll fetch broth for ye," his father grunted, and went out.

Ebenezer sighed. "He must soon be told who you are, Henry; I am sick unto death of false identities."

"I shall tell him," Burlingame promised, "now I know myself. I'faith, 'tis miraculous, Eben! I can scarcely wait to lay hands on my father's book — what did he call it? The Book of English Devils! King of the Ahatchwhoops! Miraculous!" He held up a tutorial finger and smiled. "But not yet, Eben; nay, he oughtn't to know quite yet. My plan is to go to Bloodsworth Island as soon as possible — tomorrow, if we settle our business here today — and do what I can to pacify my father Chicamec and my brother — what was his name?"

Ebenezer smiled despite himself at his tutor's characteristic enthusiasm. "Cohunkowprets," he said. "It means 'Bill-o'-the-Goose.' "

"Cohunkowprets! Splendid name! Then I'll return here, pay court to your sister, and sue my good friend Andrew for her hand. If he consents, I'll tell him who I am and ask him again; if not, I'll go my way and ne'er disturb him with the truth. Is that agreeable to the twain of you?"

Ebenezer looked to his sister for reply. It was clear to him that her private conversations with Burlingame had dealt with matters more ultimate than The Book of English Devils; he felt sure that Henry knew all that had transpired not only between Anna and Billy Rumbly but also between Anna and himself. She caught her breath and shook her head, keeping her eyes down on the counterpane.

" 'Tis so futile, Henry. . Whate'er could come of it?"

"Nay, how can you despair after such a miracle as Eben's stumbling on my parentage? Only let him gain his feet again and he'll solve that other riddle for me: the Magic of the Sacred Eggplant, or whatever!" He gave over his raillery and added seriously, "I proposed to Eben not long since that the three of us take a house in Pennsylvania; since Nature hath decreed that I be thwarted, and Convention hath rejected your appeal, where's the harm in being thwarted together? Let us live like sisters of mercy in our own little convent — aye, I'll convert you to Cosmophilism, my new religion for thwarted seekers after Truth, and we'll invent a gross of spiritual exercises — "

He went on in this vein until both Ebenezer and Anna were obliged to laugh, and the tension among them was temporarily dispelled. But Anna would not commit herself on the proposal. "Let us attend to first things first: come back alive from Bloodsworth Island, neither scalped nor converted to their religion, and we shall see what's to be done with ourselves."

"What came of your pilgrimage to John Coode?" Ebenezer asked Burlingame,

"Ah, my friend, you've much to forgive me for! How can I excuse myself for having deceived you so often, save that I put no faith in innocence? And to plead this is but to offend you farther. ."

"No longer," Ebenezer assured him. "My innocence these days is severely technical! But what of Coode? Did you find him to be the savior you took him for?"

Burlingame sighed. "I ne'er found him at all." It had been his intention, he said, to establish himself as Coode's lieutenant (in the role of Nicholas Lowe), the better to learn what truth might lie in certain current rumors that Coode was organizing slaves and disaffected Indians for another rebellion, to be staged before Nicholson could institute proceedings against him on the evidence of the 1691 Assembly Journal. But in St. Mary's City, on the morning after the same stormy night that had carried Ebenezer to Bloodsworth Island, Burlingame had encountered Andrew Cooke himself, who he thought had crossed from Captain Mitchell's place to the Eastern Shore. By discreet inquiry, he learned that Andrew had fallen in with Colonel Robotham at Captain Mitchell's, and upon hearing the Colonel refer to Ebenezer as "my son-in-law in St. Mary's," had hastened to investigate as soon as he recovered from the shock.

"Well, friend," Burlingame went on, "I scarce knew what to think; I'd searched all night in vain for you and finally got word that Captain Cairn had sailed at dusk with the Laureate of Maryland and some long skinny fellow and was thought to be drowned in the storm. Your father had learned the state of things at Malden and was at his wit's end for loss of both his heirs and his estate." When it had seemed likely that Ebenezer was either dead or lost from sight, Burlingame had introduced himself to Andrew as Nicholas Lowe, "a steadfast friend of the Laureate," and declared further that it was he who had posed as Ebenezer, the better to cover his friend's escape. This news had redoubled Andrew's wrath; for some moments Burlingame had expected to be assaulted where he stood (in Vansweringen's Tavern). In order to pacify him, therefore, console him in some measure for his loss, and at the same time put himself in a better position to hear news of the twins and pursue his complex interests, Burlingame had made an ingenious proposal: he would continue to pose as Andrew's son; they would go to Cooke's Point together, declare both the grantor of Malden and the husband of Lucy Robotham to be impostors, and so refute the claims of colonel and cooper alike.

"Thus came we hither arm in arm, the best of friends, and save for one fruitless visit to Church Creek to chase down a rumor I caught wind of — you know the story? Is't not ironic? — save for that visit, I say, here we've sat to this day, waiting for word from you or Anna. As for the estate, Andrew and I threaten Smith and Sowter, and they threaten us in return, and of late the Colonel hath been threatening the lot of us; but no one durst go to court lest he lose his breeches, the case is such a tangle, or lest he find himself answerable for the whores and opium. What old Andrew's connection with them might be, if he hath any, e'en I can't judge."

"Thou'rt not John Coode thyself?" Anna asked half seriously.

Henry shrugged. "I have been, now and again; for that matter, I was once Francis Nicholson for half a day, and three Mattawoman tarts were ne'er the wiser. But this I'll swear: albeit 'tis hard for me to think such famous wights are pure and total fictions, to this, hour I've not laid eyes on either Baltimore or Coode. It may be they are all that rumor swears: devils and demigods, whichever's which; or it may be they're simple clotpolls like ourselves, that have been legend'd out of reasonable dimension; or it may be they're naught but the rumors and tales themselves."

"If that last is so," Ebenezer said, "Heav'n knows 'twere a potent life enough! When I reflect on the weight and power of such fictions beside my own poor shade of a self, that hath been so much disguised and counterfeited, methinks they have tenfold my substance!"

Burlingame smiled approval. "My lad hath gone to school with a better tutor than his old one! In any case, Francis Nicholson exists, that is neither a Coode nor a Calvert, and he counts Nick Lowe as the cleverest spy he knows. 'Twere indiscreet to press me farther."

There were still a number of questions on Ebenezer's mind, but at this point the cook — whom he recognized as the old Parisian trollop who had wept at his wedding — brought up his beef broth, and Burlingame took the opportunity to excuse himself.

"I must see to't the Governor's not murthered on your property, my dears." He kissed Anna lightly and unabashedly on the mouth, as husband kisses wife, and then, to the poet's surprise, kissed him also, but discreetly, upon the forehead, more as father might kiss son or, in more demonstrative latitudes, brother brother. "Thank almighty Zeus thou'rt back amongst the living!" he murmured. "Did I not once say there'd be great commotion at thy fall?"

Ebenezer protested with a smile that, ruined and spent though he was indubitably, as yet he was not officially among the fallen, nor did it appear likely that he would ever join their number. Burlingame responded with a characteristic shrug and departed.

"Heav'n knows our other problems are far more grave," Anna sighed, "but I cannot give o'er my concern for that man and for the three of us!"

"Will you marry him?" asked her brother.

Anna too shrugged her shoulders. "What is the use of't? As well go off with him, as I did with his brother, and live in sin." So peculiarly inapposite was the phrase, under the circumstances, that both twins had to smile. But then Anna shook her head. "What I most fear is that he'll not return from Bloodsworth Island."

This notion surprised Ebenezer. "You fear Billy Rumbly might do him in from jealousy? I'd not thought of that."

"Nay," said Anna. "Formidable as Billy may be, he is no match for Henry, and there's the danger."

Ebenezer saw her point and shivered: how slight and qualified were Henry's ties to the cause of Western Civilization (to say nothing of English colonialism!), than which his mind and interests were so enormously more complex that it seemed parochial by comparison! Had he not already been a pirate and perhaps an agent for Heaven knew what Satanic conspiracy? Had he not extolled the virtues of every sort of perversity, and pointed out to Ebenezer man's perennial fascination with violence, destruction, and rapine? It was by no means unthinkable that, whatever his present intention, Burlingame would remain on Bloodsworth Island to ally his wits with those of Drepacca and Quassapelagh; and with three so canny, potent adversaries — not to mention John Coode and the shadowy Monsieur Casteene — God help the English colonies in America!

The broth did wonders for his strength; when he had finished it he sent Anna to express his contrition to Joan Toast and beg her to allow him an interview.

"She refuses," Anna reported a minute later. "She says she hath no quarrel with me, but wishes to die without having to endure the sight of another man. Not e'en Dr. Sowter may come near her anymore."

As always upon hearing news of her, Ebenezer was stung to the heart with shame. Nevertheless he took it as a good sign that Joan had at least not sunk into apathy: where belligerence lingered, he declared to Anna, life lingered also, and while his wife lived he did not abandon the hope, not of winning her forgiveness, to which he felt no title, but of demonstrating in her presence the extent of his wretchedness at having deserted her. In the meantime he summoned McEvoy, who after commiserating with him for Joan's condition, shaking his head at the miraculous coincidence of Long Ben Avery's identity (which he said quite substantiated Ebenezer's charge that Life is a shameless playwright), and rejoicing at the ladies' safety, assisted the poet down the hall to the chamber he shared with Bertrand Burton.

"The poor wretch bolted, don't ye know, for fear Colonel Robotham and your father would have his arse, and what with Joan swooned away in the vestibule, and yourself froze up like marble, and all the stir and commotion, they ne'er found him till morning, near dead of cold. E'en so they meant to put him with the servants, but Mister Lowe and I persuaded 'em to bed him with me. I fear the cold hath got to him, poor devil."

They found the valet awake, but far from healthy. His cheeks, though fanned with fever to an unnatural red, were pinched and drawn; his nose was more sharp than ever, and angled like a Semite's at the bridge; his eyes, round as always, and protruding, looked lusterless past his beak like a sick owl's eyes. Just as Burlingame had hurried forward to Ebenezer's bedside, so now the poet hastened to his valet's.

"Poor fellow! You ought ne'er to have left us!"

Bertrand smiled wryly. "I ought ne'er to have left Pudding Lane, sir," he said, his voice half croak and half whisper. "Your servingman had better face his Ralph Birdsalls than play at Laureates and Advisers, whate'er his gifts. Hadn't we a lark, though, the day we were Drakepecker's gods and thought we'd found the golden city?"

Ebenezer wanted to protest that his servant was talking like a doomed man, but he checked himself lest the figure be read for a prophecy.

"Indeed, that was a splendid day," he agreed. "And we shall have many another, Bertrand, you and I." He assured his man that neither Andrew nor himself felt anything but solicitude for his infirmity, from which they all prayed for his swift recovery. "As for the Colonel, he hath cause enough to be wrathful, and Lucy's case is pitiful enough, but Heaven knows they brought it upon themselves! In any case, they shan't lay a hand upon you. Get you well, man, and advise me, or let me freight you back to Betsy Birdsall!"

But the valet was not to be drawn from his mood: he sighed and, rendered incoherent by his fever, spoke unintelligibly of ratafia, Great Bears, and women's wiles. He would express lucidly his chagrin at not having guessed Betsy Birdsall's scheme to save him by unmanning her husband, and almost in the same breath begin to rave about Cibola, the Fortunate Islands, and the Sunken Land of Buss.

"Ye must own," he said slyly at one point, "I had some knack for playing poet. ."

"No knack, i'faith," Ebenezer wept. "A very genius!"

Bertrand lapsed once more into mild delirium, and at Anna's suggestion the two men left him to be attended by her and Mrs. Russecks. Ebenezer returned to his own room for a short nap, after which, and a heartier refection than his first, he declared himself ready to report if need be to God Himself.

"Then I shall send for Governor Nicholson to come up," replied Burlingame. "He arrived while you slept and hath given everyone the vapors by refusing to hear a word about the estate ere he speaks with you. But I resolved to make him wait till you had done eating."

Despite his apprehension at meeting the Governor, Ebenezer had to smile. "Did I tell you that your brother hath that same maddening habit?"

"Nay, that's marvelous! I cannot wait to end this tiresome business and fly to him!"

On this ambiguous note Henry went belowstairs; he returned very shortly afterwards in the wake of Francis Nicholson, Royal Governor of the Province of Maryland, a man of Burlingame's brief height and robust frame, though a dozen years older and somewhat gone to stomach. He had the plum-velvet breeches, the great French periwig, the fastidious manicure, and the baby-pink face of a dandy; but his great jaw and waspish eyes, the snap of his voice and the brusqueness of his manner, belied all foppery. He strode into the room without asking leave, leaned heavily upon his silver-headed stick, and peered at the patient through his glasses with a mixture of eagerness, curiosity, and skepticism, as if Ebenezer were one of those stranded whales to which his royal commission gave him title, and he was not certain whether the oil would be worth the flensing. Burlingame stood by, amused; Sir Thomas Lawrence, catching up breathlessly to the others, closed the door behind him.

"Good evening to you, Your Excellency," Ebenezer ventured. "I am Ebenezer Cooke."

" 'Sheart, ye had better be!" cried the Governor. His air was curt but not unkind, and he laughed along with the others. "So this is Charles Calvert's laureate, that we hear such a deal about!"

"Nay, Your Excellency, 'twas ne'er an honest title — "

"The Governor will have his jest," interposed Sir Thomas. "Mister Lowe hath apprised us already of the circumstances of your commission, Mister Cooke, and the sundry trials and impostures wherewith it burthened you."

" 'Tis not a bad idea at that," declared Nicholson, "albeit I'll wager old Baltimore did it merely to play at being king. Only give me time to found myself a college in Annapolis — that's what I call Anna Arundel Town — just grant me a year to build a school there, and whether these penny-pinching clotpolls like it or no, we'll have ourselves a book or two in Maryland! Aye, and belike a poet may find somewhat to sing about then, eh, Nick?"

"I daresay," Burlingame replied, and added, upon the Governor's further inquiring, that he had established communication with a certain Virginia printer and, in accordance with Nicholson's directive, was endeavoring to hire the fellow away from Governor Andros to set up shop in Maryland. For a time it looked as if Ebenezer had been forgotten, but without transition the Governor turned to him — indeed, turned on him. so formidable was the man's usual expression — and demanded to hear without ado the details of "this fantastical story of slaves and salvages." His apparent skepticism put the poet off at first — he commenced the story falteringly and with misgivings, almost doubting its truth himself — but he soon discovered that the Governor's incredulity was only a mannerism. "Absurd!" Nicholson would scoff on being told that Drepacca was in communication with the northern chiefs, but his pink brow would darken with concern; by the time he called the story of Burlingame's true name and parentage "a bold-arsed fraud and turdsome lie," Ebenezer was able to translate the obscenities accurately to read "the damn'dest miracle I e'er heard tell of!" In short, though he protested his utter disbelief at every pause in the poet's relation, Ebenezer felt confident, as did Burlingame, that he accepted every word of it: not only the grand perils of the Negro-Indian conspiracy and the traffic in whores and narcotics, but also such details as the illicit trade in redemptioners practised by Slye and Scurry, the depredations of Andros's "coast guard" Thomas Pound (upon learning of which he rubbed his hands in delighted anticipation of embarrassing his rival), and the duplicity of the Poseidon's Captain Meech — whom, ironically, Nicholson had recently hired to cruise against illegal traders in the provincial sloop Speedwell.

"Sweet Mother o' Christ!" he swore at the end. "What a nest o' wolves and vipers I'm sent to govern!" He turned to his lieutenants. "What say ye, gentlemen: shall we make for Barbados and leave this scurfy province to the heathen? And you, you wretch!" He aimed his stick at Burlingame. "You go about posing as a proper Talbot gentleman, and all the while thou'rt a bloody salvage prince! Marry come up! Marry come up!"

Burlingame winked at Ebenezer. For some moments Governor Nicholson paced about the bedroom, stabbing at the floorboards with his stick. At length he stopped and glared at his Council President.

"Well, damn it, Tom, can we prosecute this Coode or not? 'Twill be one rascal the less to deal with, and then we can look to arming the militia." Aside to Ebenezer he confessed, "If the truth is known, we've more balls in our breeches than we have in the bloody armory."

Sir Thomas appealed to Burlingame for a reply and received a tongue-lashing from His Excellency for having to get his answers from "a red-skinned spy."

"We can prosecute whene'er we find him, sir," Burlingame declared, "but we'll need to choose our judges with care, and e'en so there's a chance he'll get off lightly." One portion of the 1691 Assembly Journal, the Province's most damning evidence against Coode and the "Protestant Associators," had yet to be retrieved, he explained; though its relevance to the tale of his own ancestry was presumably slight (it was that portion of Sir Henry Burlingame's Privie Journall which dealt, so William Smith had vaguely averred, with the Englishmen's escape from the Emperor Powhatan), its importance as evidence might be very great indeed. " 'Tis in the possession of that loutish cooper belowstairs," he concluded, "who will not part with't for love nor money. Howbeit, we may threaten it loose from him yet, and once I've seen it we shall look for the Reverend General Coode."

"We shall have it, right enough," Nicholson muttered, "ere this day is done. If I'm to be massacred by the heathen, I want to see that rascal Coode in Hell before me."

"There's a more worrisome business," said Burlingame. "You know as well as I that if the Negroes and salvages take a mind to, they can murther every white man in America by spring — more especially with three or four good generals." It was his intention, he said, to go in any case to Bloodsworth Island as soon as possible and present himself to the Tayac Chicamec and Cohunkowprets; there was every chance that they would doubt his identity, as he had no proof of it, but if by some miracle they should believe him, he would endeavor to depose his brother and set Quassapelagh and Drepacca against each other. Faction and intrigue, he was convinced, were the only weapons that could save the English until their position was stronger in America.

"Ye'll not live past your preamble," Nicholson scoffed. "The brutes are slow, but they're not stupid enough to bow to any Englishman that strolls in and declares he's their king."

"Ah, well, 'tis not a role that any Englishman could play. Not that I claim any special talent, sir — on the contrary, this role wants a most particular shortcoming, doth it not, Eben?"

He proceeded to describe quite candidly the congenital infirmity which he had inherited from Sir Henry Burlingame, his grandfather, and which he meant to employ by way of credentials on Bloodsworth Island. The Governor was astonished, sympathetic, and vulgarly amused by turns: he declared that the stratagem would surely fail nonetheless if the Indians had even one self-respecting skeptic in their number — "D'ye think old Ulysses would have scrupled to eunuch Sinon if he'd judged it to his purpose?" he demanded — but for the present, at least, he could offer no better proposal. He turned to Ebenezer, all the surliness gone for once from his face and manner, and asked, "Have ye aught else to tell me now, my boy? Ye have not? God bless ye, then, for your courage and reward ye for your trials: if thou'rt half as much a poet as thou'rt a man, ye deserve a better laureateship than Maryland's."

And having extended himself so vulnerably into sentiment, he retreated into character before the poet could find words to express his gratitude. "Now then, Tom, I want every wight and trollop on the premises assembled in the parlor, saving only that one poor devil that's mad with his fever. We'll hold us a fine court-baron here and now, as Charlie Calvert was wont to do when things grew tame, and rule on the patent to this estate ere moonrise."

"Very well, sir!" replied Sir Thomas. "But I must remind you what Judge Hammaker — "

"My arse to Hammaker, let him take a toast in't!" cried the Governor, and Ebenezer could not help recalling a certain libelous story once told him by Bertrand. "Stir thy stumps, there, Nicholas me lad — nay, what is't, now? Henry? I'Christ, a fit name for a codless Machiavell Ring in the parishioners to be judged, Henry Burlingame: Tom here shall play old Minos, and I'll be Rhadamanthus!"

20: The Poet Commences His Day in Court

Inasmuch as the question of Malden's ownership had been uppermost in everyone's mind for several days at least, it was not long before Governor Nicholson was able to call his extraordinary court to order in the front parlor. All the interested parties were present, including at least one who seemed to wish he was somewhere else: two troopers of the Dorchester County Militia, it was made known, had intercepted William Smith on the beach not far from the house, and the discomfort in his face belied his avowal that he had sought only a breath of fresh air. The two judges established themselves at the green baize table with their backs to the hearth and arranged the others in a large half circle about them; Henry Burlingame was equipped with paper and quill and stationed on Nicholson's left, opposite Sir Thomas, whence he surveyed the assembled company with amusement.

Ebenezer, who had taken the trouble to dress himself for the occasion, sat upon the arm of Anna's chair on the extreme right of the semicircle (as viewed from the judges' position); though he naturally desired that the title of Cooke's Point should be returned to his father, all this past anxiety had been washed out of him by the events and revelations of his recent past: his excitement was that of mere anticipation. In keeping with her new tranquility, Anna had brought a piece of needlework with her, which seemed to absorb her whole attention; one would have thought her altogether uninterested in the disposition of the estate. On her right sat Andrew Cooke, smoking his pipe so fiercely and steadily that the wreathing smoke seemed to come not from his mouth but through his pores. From time to time he cast great frowning glances at his children, as if afraid they might vanish before his eyes or change into someone else; for the rest, he stared impatiently ahead at the table and sipped at a glass of the rum that Nicholson had ordered served around.

Never once did he turn his eyes to the leather couch beside him, where sat Roxanne Russecks, Henrietta, and John McEvoy. There was gossip, Anna had reported to Ebenezer, of a reconciliation between the old lovers. Neither of them would speak of the matter directly — Roxanne protested her eternal devotion to the memory of Benjamin Long, and Andrew protested his to the memory of Anne Bowyer Cooke — but the miller's widow, for all her serenity, was uncommonly full of life; her brown eyes flashed and she seemed always to be relishing some private joke. And Andrew, when his daughter had assured him that neither she nor Ebenezer would consider his remarriage an affront to their mother's memory, had been covered with confusion, and advised Anna to look to her own betrothal before arranging his. Ebenezer had not realized thitherto that his father was not so hopelessly ancient after all, but a mere mid-fifty or thereabouts — no older to Burlingame, for example, than Burlingame was to the twins — and still quite virile-looking despite his greying beard, his withered arm, and his late ill-health.

Beside Roxanne, in the middle of the group, sat the reunited lovers Henrietta and John McEvoy, about whom there were no rumors at all: they made no secret of their feelings for each other, and everyone assumed that their betrothal would soon be announced. On their right along the other arc sat Richard Sowter, William Smith, Lucy Robotham, and the Colonel, her father, in that order — rather, all sat except Colonel Robotham, who fussed floridly hither and thither behind the chair in which his daughter scowled with shame. The cooper glowered at his shoes and nodded impatiently from time to time at whatever Sowter whispered him: he would not look at all towards Ebenezer, or towards the militiaman in Scotch cloth, musket at the ready, whom Nicholson had promoted to sergeant-at-arms five minutes previously.

For want of a gavel, the Governor rapped the edge of the table with his stick.

"Very well, dammee, this court-baron is called to order. Our trusted friend Nick Lowe hath devised a clever code for taking down the spoken word, and on the strength of't we here appoint him clerk of this court."

Ebenezer saw a manifold opportunity in the situation. "If't please Your Excellency — " he ventured.

"It doth not," snapped Nicholson. "Ye'll have ample time to speak thy piece anon."

" 'Tis with regard to the clerk," Ebenezer insisted. "In view of the extraordinary complexity of the business at hand, wherein the matter of identities hath such importance, methinks 'twere wise to establish a firm principle at the outset: that no actions be taken by the Court or testimony heard save under the true and bona fide identities of all concerned, lest doubt be cast on the legality of the Court's rulings. To this end I request Your Excellency to appoint and swear the clerk by's actual name."

Anna was understandably alarmed by this proposal, and the others — especially Andrew — were perplexed by it; but both Nicholson and Sir Thomas clearly appreciated the poet's strategy of establishing a precedent favorable to his case, and with a little nod Burlingame signaled his approval of Ebenezer's other intention.

"Unquestionably the wisest procedure," Nicholson agreed, and declared to the room: "Be't known that Nicholas Lowe is our good friend's nom de guerre, as't were, and we here appoint him clerk o' the court under his true name, Henry Burlingame the Third — do I have it right, Henry?"

Burlingame affirmed the identification with another nod, but his attention, like the twins', was on Andrew Cooke, who had gone white at mention of the name.

"Marry come up!" laughed McEvoy, unaware of the situation. "Is't really you, Henry? There's no end o' miracles these days! Did ye hear, Henrietta — "

Henrietta hushed him; Andrew had risen stiffly to his feet, glaring at Burlingame.

"As God is my witness!" he began, and was obliged to pause and swallow several times to contain his emotion. "I will see thee in Hell, Henry Burlingame — "

He advanced a step towards the table; Ebenezer moved forward and caught his arm.

"Sit down, Father: you've no just quarrel with Henry, nor ever did have. 'Tis I you must rail at, not Henry and Anna."

Andrew stared at his son's face incredulously, and at the hand that restrained him; but he made no move to go farther.

"Aye, go to, Andrew," said Mrs. Russecks. "Thou'rt the defendant in that affair, not the plaintiff. For that matter, a deceiver hath little ground to complain of deception."

"I quite agree!" said Colonel Robotham, and then cleared his throat uncomfortably under a whimsical look from Burlingame.

Nicholson rapped for order. "Ye may settle your private differences anon," he declared. "Be seated, Mister Cooke."

Andrew did as he was bade; Roxanne leaned over to whisper something in his ear, and Anna patted her brother's hand admiringly. Ebenezer's pulse was still fast, but a wink from Henry Burlingame wanned his heart. A moment later, however, it was his turn to be shaken: the French kitchen woman came to the door with a whispered message, which was relayed to the Governor by the militiamen who blocked her entry; it seemed to consist of two parts, the first of which he acknowledged with a nod, the second with an oath.

"Yell be pleased to know, Madame Russecks," he announced, "thy friend Captain Avery hath given us the slip and is on his way to Philadelphia, where I'm sure he'll find snug harbor and no dearth o' companions."

Roxanne replied that neither her old affection for Long Ben Avery nor her recent obligation to him blinded her to the viciousness of his piracies; she would thank His Excellency to recall that it was she who had reported Avery's whereabouts, and not to embarrass her by insinuations of a relationship that did not exist.

"I quite agree," said Andrew. Ebenezer and Anna exchanged glances of surprise, and the Governor, who seemed impressed by Roxanne's spirit, nodded his apologies.

"I am farther advised that one of our invalids hath requested to join us, and inasmuch as Mr. Burlingame believes her to be a material witness on sundry points, I shall ask him to assist the sergeant-at-arms in fetching her down ere we commence."

Andrew, Roxanne, Henrietta, John McEvoy — all looked soberly at Ebenezer, whose features the news set into characteristic turmoil. For some moments he feared another onset of immobility, but at sight of Joan, borne in on the arms of her escorts like some wretch fetched fainting from a dungeon, he sprang from the chair arm. "Ah God!"

All the men rose murmuring to their feet; Andrew touched his son's arm and cleared his throat once or twice by way of encouragement. It was indeed a disquieting sight: Joan's face and garments were free of dirt — Anna and Roxanne had seen to that — but her face was welted by disease, her teeth were in miserable condition, and her eyes — those brown eyes that had flashed so excellently in Locket's — were red and ruined. She was no older than Henrietta Russecks, but her malaise, together with her coarse woolen nightdress and tangled coiffure, made her look like a witch or ancient Bedlamite. McEvoy groaned at the spectacle, Lucy Robotham covered her eyes, Richard Sowter sniffed uncomfortably, and his client refused to look at all. Joan being too infirm to sit erect, she was wrapped in blankets on the couch by Henrietta, whose solicitude suggested that McEvoy had kept no secrets from her.

Not until she was settled on the couch did Joan acknowledge Ebenezer's anguished presence with a stare. "God help and forgive me!" the poet cried. He threw himself to his knees before the couch, pressed her hand to his mouth and wept upon it.

"Order! Order!" commanded Nicholson. "Ye may sit beside your wife if ye choose, Mister Cooke, but well ne'er have done with our business if we don't commence it. Whatever ill the wretch hath done ye, Mrs. Cooke, 'tis plain he's sorry for't. Do ye wish him to change place with Mrs. Russecks or leave ye be?"

"If wishes were buttercakes, beggars might bite," Joan replied, but though the proverb was tart, her voice was weak and hoarse. "I ne'er fared worse than when I wished for my supper."

"Whate'er ye please, then, Mister Cooke," the Governor said. "But smartly."

Mrs. Russecks drew Ebenezer to the place she had vacated, by Joan's head, and herself took the chair offered her by Andrew Cooke, who regarded his son gravely. Out of range of her eyes, Ebenezer retained Joan's spiritless hand in his own; he could not bear to look at the rest of the company, but to the left of him he heard Anna's needles clicking busily, and the sounds went into him like nails.

"Now," said Nicholson drily, "I trust we may get on with our business. The clerk will please give the oath to Andrew Cooke and commence the record."

"That man shan't swear me," Andrew declared. "I'd as lief take oath from the Devil."

"Any wight that won't stand forward and be sworn," Nicholson threatened, "forfeits his claim to his miserable estate here and now."

Andrew grudgingly took the oath.

"I object, Your Excellency," said Sowter. "The witness failed to raise his right hand."

"Objection be damned!" the Governor answered. "He can no more raise his hand than Henry here his cod, as any but a blackguard or addlepate might see. Now sit ye down, Mister Cooke: inasmuch as the lot of ye have some interest in the case and we've no regular courthouse to hear it in, I here declare this entire parlor to be our witness-box. Ye may answer from your seats."

"But St. Rosalie's kneebones, Your Excellency," Sowter protested. "Who is the accused and who the plaintiff?"

The Governor held a brief conference on this point with Sir Thomas Lawrence, who then announced that, owing to the unusual complexity of the claims and allegations, the proceedings would begin in the form of an inquest, to be turned into a proper trial as soon as issues were clarified.

" 'Tis no more than all of us were wont to do under the Lord Proprietary," he maintained. Sowter made no further objections, even when, as if to tempt him, Nicholson took the extraordinary step of administering the oath to everyone in the room simultaneously, obliging them to join hands in a chain from Burlingame, who held the Bible, and recite in. chorus.

"Now, then, Mister Andrew Cooke — " He consulted a document on the table before him. "Do I understand that on the fifth day of March, in 1662, you acquired this tract of land from one Thomas Manning and Grace his wife for the sum of seven thousand pounds of tobacco, and that subsequently ye raised this house on't?"

Andrew affirmed the particulars of the transaction.

"And is it true that from 1670 till September last this property was managed for ye by one Benjamin Spurdance?"

"Aye."

"Where is this Spurdance?" Nicholson asked Burlingame. "Oughtn't he to be here?"

"We're endeavoring to find him," Henry said. "He seems to have disappeared."

Andrew then testified, in answer to the Governor's inquiries, that on the first of April, at his orders, Ebenezer had embarked from Plymouth to take full charge of the plantation, and that for reasons of convenience he had given his son full power of attorney in all matters pertinent thereto.

"And did he then, in the Circuit Court at Cambridge last September, grant Cooke's Point free and clear to William Smith?"

"Aye and he did, by good St. Wenceslaus," Sowter put in firmly. "Your Excellency hath the paper to prove it."

"He was deceived!" Andrew snouted. "He had no idea 'twas Malden, and what's more he had no authority to dispose of the property!"

"I fail to see why not," Sowter argued. "What matter could be more pertinent to the business of a planter than disposing of his plantation?"

Here Colonel Robotham joined the battle. "This entire question is beside the point, Your Excellency! The wight that granted Cooke's Point to Smith was an arrant impostor, as Mr. Cooke himself hath admitted, and my daughter's claim hath priority in any case — the real Ebenezer Cooke lost the property on a shipboard wager to the Reverend George Tubman in June, and Tubman conveyed the title to my daughter ere ever this other hoax was perpetrated!"

"A bald-arsed lie!" cried Sowter, and Andrew agreed.

Nicholson stood up and pounded his stick on the floor. "That will quite do, dammee! The inquest is finished!"

Even Burlingame was astonished by this announcement.

" 'Tis scarce begun!" protested Andrew. "You've not heard aught of't yet!"

"Yell refrain from speaking out of order," said the Governor, "or be removed from this courtroom. We said at the outset that directly we found a clear defendant we'd end the inquest and commence the trial. The inquest is done."

Andrew beamed. "Then you agree I'm the true defendant, and 'tis for these thieves to prove their lying claims?"

"Not a bit of't," Nicholson answered. "I am the defendant — that is to say, the Province o' Maryland. We here confiscate the house and grounds together, dammee, and 'tis for the lot o' ye to show cause why we oughtn't to hold 'em in His Majesty's name."

"On what grounds?" Sowter demanded. " 'Tis a travesty o' justice!"

Nicholson hesitated until Burlingame, who was clearly delighted by the move, whispered something to him.

" 'Tis for the welfare o' the Province and His Majesty's plantations in America," he said then. "This house is alleged to be the center of a vicious traffic, which same traffic is alleged in turn to be managed by seditious and treasonable elements in the Province. 'Tis entirely within our rights as Governor to conficate the property of traitors and suspected traitors pending trial o' the charges against 'em."

"St. Sever's tan yard! There are no charges against anyone!"

"Quite so," the Governor agreed. " 'Twere unjust to bring so grave a charge in a special court and without a hearing. In short, the lot o' ye are under house arrest for sedition pending your hearing, and there'll be no hearing till we settle the title to this estate!"

Sir Thomas himself was plainly dazzled. "It hath no precedent!" the Colonel complained.

"On the contrary," Nicholson said triumphantly. " 'Tis the very trick Justice Holt employed for King William to snatch the charter o' Maryland from Baltimore."

The confiscation was promptly made official: Sir Thomas's status was changed from judge to counsel for the defense; Andrew, William Smith, and Lucy Robotham were named joint plaintiffs; and the case of Cooke et al. v. Maryland was declared open.

" 'Sheart, now!" laughed the Governor. "There's a piece o' courtsmanship to remember!" He then ruled that Colonel Robotham, as Lucy's counsel, should be heard first, since his claim antedated the others. The Colonel, much ill at ease, repeated the particulars of the gaming aboard the Poseidon, the final wager made prior to the Laureate's capture, by virtue of which the title to Cooke's Point passed to the Reverend George Tubman of Port Tobacco parish, the Reverend Tubman's marriage of Lucy (subsequently annulled as bigamous), her acquisition to the title of Cooke's Point, and finally her marriage to the Laureate himself.

Nicholson grunted. "Now see here, Colonel Robotham, thou'rt a responsible man, for all ye once served with Coode and Governor Copley; if I hadn't thought ye a friend o' Justice I'd ne'er have made ye Judge o' the Admiralty Court. Thou'rt an honest man and a just one: a credit to the wretched Province. ."

"I thankee, sir," muttered the Colonel. "Heav'n knows I crave naught save justice — "

"Then lookee yonder at that skinny fellow on the couch and admit he is no more thy daughter's husband than I am, nor is he the wight that made the wager with George Tubman!"

"I never said he was," protested the Colonel. "Andrew Cooke himself hath declared to all of us — "

"We know his lying declarations," Nicholson interrupted, "and we know as well as you do why he called Henry here his son."

This point Colonel Robotham granted freely. "He thought his son was dead and hoped to deceive me with an impostor. But if Your Excellency please, sir, my position is that a man who will disown his own son dead would as lief disown him alive, and as lief twice or thrice as once. My position, sir, is that when he learned how his son had gambled away his property, he conspired with Mister Lowe — or Burlingame, whiche'er it is — to defraud us; and that when my poor son-in-law appeared with his companions and Mister Burlingame was obliged to reveal himself, Mister Cooke callously bribed that wretch of a servant to pose in his place. I can produce witnesses a-plenty from the Poseidon to identify my daughter's husband as Ebenezer Cooke and that treacherous rascal as his valet; and they will swear, as I do now, that oft and oft on shipboard he would presume to his master's office."

The Governor shook his head. "I greatly fear, George, 'tis thy son-in-law upstairs that is the presumptuous servant. Much as I deplore the scandal of't, and pity ye the burthen of a short-heeled daughter, I am altogether convinced that this fellow here is the true Eben Cooke. In addition to the testimony of his father, his sister, and Mister Burlingame, I have here a sworn affidavit from Bertrand Burton, the man in yonder chamber, that Mister Burlingame had the foresight to acquire before the poor devil was o'erhauled by fever. I shall read it aloud and hand it round for your inspection."

He proceeded to read a confession, over Bertrand's signature, of the valet's several impostures of Ebenezer, his unauthorized wager with Tubman, and his fraudulent marriage to Lucy Robotham. Despite Ebenezer's overwrought condition, this gesture of atonement filled his heart.

" 'Tis but a farther deception!" the Colonel objected. "They have twisted a dying man's delirium to their ends!"

"Nay, George," Nicholson said gently. "He really is a servant named Bertrand Burton."

"Ah, marry!" Lucy moaned. Mrs. Russecks hurried to comfort her.

"But God's body!" The Colonel clenched his fists and snorted. "Behold my daughter, sir! Fraudulent or no, the match hath been consummated!"

"Beyond a reasonable doubt," the Governor agreed. "Methinks no Maryland court will dispute the match unless thy daughter sues for annulment, which is her clear prerogative. But her husband is Bertrand Burton, not Eben Cooke, and this Court here disallows her claim to any part o' this estate, either through marriage or through this forgery of Tubman's. D'ye have that, Burlingame?"

Henry nodded. Andrew and Richard Sowter smiled broadly at Colonel Robotham's defeat; and Ebenezer too, though he greatly pitied both father and daughter, felt relieved that at least one of the contenders was out of the field. The Governor advised the Colonel that he was free to leave or linger, as he pleased.

"I shall leave this instant," Colonel Robotham declared with great emotion, "least I commit murther on that lying lecher upstairs. God forgive him!"

Properly hospitable now that their quarrel was settled to his advantage, Andrew offered to see the Robothams to their carriage, but the Colonel refused the courtesy and escorted his tearful daughter from the room.

"So," said Nicholson with a sniff. "Now, may I assume we're all of a mind as to who is Eben Cooke and who is not? Excellent. Then as for the quarrel betwixt Mister Smith and Mister Andrew Cooke, methinks it hangs upon three main questions: a question o' law, a question o' fact, and another question o' law, in that order. Did Eben Cooke's power of attorney give him leave to dispose o' this estate? If so, did he dispose of it knowingly or in ignorance? And if in ignorance, is the conveyance nonetheless valid before the law? I ask ye now to address yourselves to the first question, gentlemen."

Andrew took the floor to plead that while in fact there was no stipulation in his son's commission specifically forbidding him to dispose of the estate, no reasonable man could question that such was the spirit of the thing — why would he apprentice the young man to Peter Paggen to learn the plantation trade, if he meant to dispose of his holdings in Maryland? But, he added, if anyone were carping enough to challenge his intent, he offered in evidence a transcript of his will and testament, prepared in 1693, wherein he bequeathed Cooke's Point to his children, share and share alike. Did that suggest to the Court that he meant for his son to dispose of the property? Andrew concluded with high indignation and a red face. When he was finished, Roxanne nodded her belief in the justice of his arguments and lent him her linen handkerchief to mop his brow.

"If't please Your Excellency," Sowter declared in his turn, "my client freely grants Andrew Cooke's intention; we have no doubt whate'er that the young man was not instructed to dispose of Cooke's Point. But good St. Abdon, sir, the question hath to do with authority, not with instruction: I submit that if young Mister Cooke's commission lawfully empowered him to dispose of the property, the question of paternal sanction is immaterial."

The Governor rubbed his nose and sighed. "The Court agrees."

Sowter then obtained further concession from the Court that if in the management of the estate Ebenezer had found it expedient to lease, sell, or grant away some small portion of it, his action would be fully authorized by the phrase "all matters pertinent thereto" — since, after all, the very sot-weed for the sale of which the plantation existed was part and parcel of the estate. And having won this point, he declared that what applied to a part applied to the whole; to infer some arbitrary limitation from the language of the commission would be patently absurd.

"If Mister Eben had the right to sell one leaf o' sot-weed," Sowter concluded, "he had the right to sell the whole estate."

By way of rebuttal, Andrew maintained that to interpret so broadly the phrase "all matters pertinent thereto" was in effect to contradict it, for if the attorney disposed of the whole estate, he by that gesture disposed of his power of attorney as well.

"Which in sooth he did!" laughed Sowter. "We ne'er disputed that!"

Nicholson consulted Burlingame and Sir Thomas. "I greatly fear," he then declared, "the Court must find for Mister Sowter on this first question. 'Tis common practice for an overseer with power of attorney to deed away portions of an estate to indentured servants, for example, in fulfillment of their bonds — 'twas just such a matter, as I recall, that Mister Spurdance was litigating with Mister Smith in the Cambridge Court. And albeit 'tis the custom of attorneys to consult the owners ere they make any large transaction, in the absence of any stipulation to the contrary the Court must rule that Eben Cooke was lawfully empowered to dispose o' the whole estate as he saw fit."

This was a hard blow for Andrew; Ebenezer was touched to observe more distress than anger in the look his father gave him.

"As to the second question," Nicholson proceeded grimly, "let me merely enquire whether there is any difference of opinion. 'Tis thy contention, is't not, Mister Cooke, that the boy granted away his legacy unwittingly to Mister Smith?"

"Aye," said Andrew. "Eben himself will swear to't, as will — " He hesitated, loath to pronounce Burlingame's name.

"As will the clerk o' this Court and this unfortunate young lady here, whom my boy was coerced by Mister Smith into marrying. Both were eyewitnesses to the grant. Moreover, Your Excellency may consult the records of the Circuit Court, session of September last — "

"I have already," the Governor said. "Mister Sowter, is't thy intent to dispute this question of fact, or do ye allow that the grantor was unaware o' the nature of his grant?"

"We have no mind to dispute that fact," Sowter replied. "Howbeit — "

"Nay, now, spare me thy howbeits for the nonce, sir. To proceed, then: Ebenezer Cooke was fully within his rights as Andrew Cooke's attorney to grant away Cooke's Point to William Smith, but 'tis agreed by all parties that he did so unaware that it was his own estate he granted. I now ask Ebenezer Cooke to describe in full the circumstances o' the grant, and then we'll have an end to the tawdry business."

The poet released Joan's hand long enough to do as he was bid: he reviewed as clearly as he could recall them the details of his journey to Cambridge with Henry Burlingame; their dispute concerning the relationship of innocence to justice; his indignation at the conduct of Judge Hammaker's court; his intervention in the case of Smith v. Spurdance and the several stipulations of his verdict thereon.

" 'Twas an outrage against Justice I sought innocently to rectify," he concluded. "Howbeit, when my innocence was stripped from me I saw I had not rectified but perpetrated injustice: not only did I grant what was not mine to grant — I mean morally — but in so doing I ruined a good and faithful man, Ben Spurdance; and indirectly, by giving this house to William Smith to turn into a den of viciousness, I ruined many another man as well, for which God forgive me."

"I see," Nicholson smiled drily. "And may the Court infer that your estimation of innocence hath been revised somewhat in consequence?"

Though he knew there was nothing malicious in the question, Ebenezer could not return the smile. "The Court may," he answered quietly, and resumed his seat. Seldom had he felt more dispirited about himself than now, when, with many of his perils behind him, he had leisure to contemplate the destruction wrought by his innocence. He scarcely took notice of the fact that it was Joan who took his hand this time; he stole a guilty glance at his sister, whose rueful eyes said plainly that the gesture had not escaped her.

Nicholson next requested a preliminary statement from both Andrew Cooke and Richard Sowter on the question of the validity of the grant.

"My contentions are three, sir," Andrew declared. "I hold in the first place that Judge Hammaker had no authority to delegate his office to my son, who hath no reading in the law, and thus that the sentence imposed on Spurdance was unlawful; second, that e'en if the sentence was lawful, the grant was not, being made unknowingly; and third, that e'en should an innocent grant be ruled binding, the conditions of my son's were not fulfilled. That is to say, Smith was ordered to find a husband for the girl Susan Warren, supposedly his daughter; but I hold, sir, that her marriage to my son is null and void, on the double grounds that he was coerced into wedding her and that her name is not Susan Warren but Joan Toast. The stipulations being therefore unsatisfied, the grant must be revoked."

Impressed as he was by the persuasiveness of his father's case, Ebenezer was greatly perturbed by this last contention. "A word, Your Excellency!" he pleaded.

"Not now," said Nicholson. "The floor is Mister Sowter's."

Sowter then declared his intention to show first, by legal precedent, that it was within Judge Hammaker's rights, under special circumstances, to delegate the authority of the Bench in effect, since in fact he never relinquished it at all: what he had done, in other words, was grant Ebenezer the privilege of pronouncing a sentence which he then ratified and so made lawful, but which he could as easily have overriden; it was in truth no more than a consultation that Hammaker availed himself of, as a judge will often consult an expert and disinterested third party before ruling on a difficult civil suit (furthermore, he added in an aside to Andrew, it must be allowed that Ebenezer was a disinterested party; otherwise the grant was made knowingly and could scarcely be challenged). In the second place, he meant to demonstrate both by reason and by precedent what no man familiar with torts would seriously question: that a lawful contract lawfully signed is binding, it being the responsibility of the signatories to apprise themselves of its terms. Moreover, it would be a mockery of justice to hold that a breach of contract committed by Ben Spurdance was more reprehensible than the same breach committed by Messrs. Cooke and son; if in the Circuit Court's opinion William Smith was due the whole of Malden (less one and a half acres) in redress of his grievances, then surely it was no less his due for the fact that 'Squire Cooke and not poor Spurdance happened to own it — Spurdance too, the Court was to remember, had power of attorney, and was thus acting in Andrew's behalf when he deprived the cooper of his just reward. As for that feeble casuistry regarding the marriage —

"If't please Your Excellency," Burlingame interrupted at this point. "I am dry of ink." He showed Nicholson the paper on which he had been transcribing testimony. "See there, how I was obliged to leave Mister Sowter's period half-writ? I beg Your Excellency's leave to forage for another pot of ink and a better quill as well."

At first the Governor's expression was as impatient as were Sowter's and Andrew Cooke's, but something in Burlingame's face — which Ebenezer too remarked, but Sowter was prevented by his position from observing — led him to examine the page of testimony.

"Ah, well, 'tis a bother, Henry, but there's no help for't — besides, I daresay I'm not the only man here that hath been tendered a subpoena by Dame Nature." He rapped the table-edge and stood up. "This Court stands in recess for half an hour or thereabouts. Leave the room as ye please, but not the house."

21: The Poet Earns His Estate

As soon as court was recessed Richard Sowter and William Smith retired to another room, whereupon Burlingame, so far from going in search of ink, admitted cheerfully that his pot was half full, but dispatched the militiaman to find more for appearance's sake.

"Why is't ye tricked us?" Andrew demanded. "I strenuously object!"

Burlingame shrugged. "To save Anna's dowry," he said mischievously. "I'd not want to lose my share of Cooke's Point."

"Nay, Henry," Anna scolded. "Go to!"

"I'll have somewhat to say to you anon, young lady," Andrew threatened. "Just now — "

"Just now we've a crisis on our hands, sir," Governor Nicholson broke in, "and not much time to make our plans."

"A crisis? Nonsense! You heard my arguments!"

"Aye, and Sowter's rebuttal, that leaves ye not a pot to piss in. Which vulgar trope reminds me — " He bowed to the ladies and excused himself.

"Nay, sir," urged Burlingame. " 'Tis important you hear this too."

"Ah, ah — " Nicholson waggled a finger. "I remind ye we have declared ourselves a court o' law, and 'tis popularly believed a judge should be impartial."

"As should a clerk," Andrew added sternly. "I'll win my case without thy assistance, Mister Burlingame."

"A fart for thy case!" cried Henry. "I care no more who owns this piece of dirt than doth Ebenezer, or thy daughter! 'Tis the Province I'm concerned with."

"Eh?" The Governor paused at the door. "How's that, Henry?"

Burlingame gathered all the men around the baize table for a conference.

" 'Tis about that portion of the Assembly Journal," he announced. "All of us here save you, Mister Cooke, are aware of its nature and importance — I shall ask you merely to accept His Excellency's word for't that without this document of Bill Smith's we may well lose a much graver case than this one, and belike the entire Province o' Maryland into the bargain! With the Journal complete we may yet not get our man, but at least we can prosecute."

"That is correct, sir," Nicholson assured Andrew. "But what of't, Henry?"

Burlingame smiled. "We've heard Mister Cooke's case and Mister Sowter's, sir, and you know as well as I that as they stand, Mister Cooke hath lost every point."

Andrew protested vigorously against this opinion, and Nicholson reminded Burlingame of the unethicality of asking a judge to commit himself before the pleadings were complete. But his smile suggested, to Ebenezer at least, that Andrew's case was perhaps by no means so strong as the poet had thought.

"Methinks I should tell you now, sir," Ebenezer said to his father, "I have no intentions of disavowing my marriage, whate'er the circumstances of't. Joan's state is my responsibility — " Here he waved away McEvoy's protests. "Nay, John, 'tis mine, and I'd not abandon her again for a thousand Maidens."

In vain did his father point out that she was a diseased and dying prostitute; in vain he turned from wrath to reasonableness to supplication, and returned to wrath. Ebenezer was adamant.

"Out on't, then!" his father cried at last. "Wed the whore a second time when our case is won, and be damned t'ye! All I beg is your leave to save Malden for ye!"

Now Ebenezer found himself caught between conflicting responsibilities and could see no way to reconcile them. It was a painful moment until Burlingame came to his rescue.

" 'Tis all beside the point in any case, gentlemen," Henry said. "If Sowter hath a brain in his thieving head he'll agree that the marriage is false (if you'll pardon me, Eben, 'tis as well your father knew the match hath ne'er been consummated). But the stipulation that required it was false for the same reason: Joan Toast isn't Susan Warren, and Susan Warren isn't Bill Smith's daughter, and there's an end on't! As for the other arguments, they simply hold no water; 'twill be light work for Sowter to rest his case on precedents. Do you agree, Tom? Thou'rt no judge now."

Sir Thomas Lawrence admitted that Andrew's case struck him as vulnerable and Sowter's relatively strong, but added that he thought Mister Cooke had overlooked the best line of attack. "If I were thy counsel," he told Andrew, "I'd appeal the extremity of the Circuit Court's ruling, not its legality. Admit that Spurdance was in the wrong, but plead for the damages to be lightened — say, to the terms of Smith's original indenture plus costs and a sop for's trouble."

Burlingame shook his head. "You don't see the problem, Tom. We don't want Sowter to win, but we dare not let him lose!"

"And why not, pray?" demanded Nicholson.

"For the best of reasons, sir," Burlingame replied calmly. "You and I and Sir Thomas know very well that this court hath no more law in't than a bawdyhouse."

Ebenezer expressed his astonishment, and Andrew openly charged Burlingame with prevarication; but Sir Thomas blushed, and Governor Nicholson scowled uncomfortably,

"Ah, well now, Henry!" He glanced angrily about the room. "I'll own 'tis not the sort o' thing a governor doth every Tuesday — but 'tis done, dammee! If I choose to find for Smith I'll find for Smith, and if for Cooke then Cooke, arguments and precedents be damned! I doubt our friend Sowter will appeal to the Lords Commissioners!"

"I'm sure he won't," Henry agreed. "But when Judge Hammaker learns that you sat yourself down in this parlor one evening and reversed the ruling of his Circuit Court, you may rest on't he'll make a noise in London! And wouldn't Andros love the sound of't!"

"No more!" growled Nicholson. "The point is clear enough." His tone bade no good for Andrew's prospects.

"Well, God's blood!" that gentleman exclaimed. "I'd have ye recall, sirs, that my voice is as loud as Hammaker's with the Lords Commissioners! If this court hath no jurisdiction, ye'll be no better off for ruling against me!"

"Quite so," Burlingame agreed with a smile, "now that I've shown ye the way. Besides, we want the rest of the Privie Journall as well as the estate, if not more so. Sowter knows his client's position is shaky — Smith's attempt to run away shows that — but he also knows there's some connection 'twixt me and the Cookes. He's not sure of his ground, particularly with regard to our vice and sedition charges, and methinks his only motive in defending Smith's claim is to give his man more bargaining power when the time comes to bargain."

Nicholson fumed and worried his stick. "Ye might have mentioned this ere we set up court, you know!"

" 'Twere premature," Burlingame declared. "We have got rid of the Colonel already, and 'twas quite within your rights to seize Cooke's Point for the nonce — well done, in fact."

"Thou'rt too gracious!"

"But you daren't hold the property for long on such a pretext, and you daren't release it by court order to either party. 'Tis hence I warned you to recess."

Nicholson wiped his brow. "Devil take all barristers and law-books! What a province I could have me without 'em! What do we do now?"

Burlingame shrugged. "What do all good barristers do when they have no case, sir? We settle out o' court!"

"Stay!" Ebenezer warned. "Here they are."

Richard Sowter and William Smith came in from the next room. The cooper did indeed look unsure of his ground, but his counsel was as breezy as ever.

"Did ye scare up some ink, Mister Clerk? Splendid! By St. Ludwig, 'twere a pity such eloquence as Mister Cooke's went unrecorded!"

The party around the table dispersed. Observing with some surprise that Anna had moved to the couch and was deep in conversation with Joan, Ebenezer returned with his father to his earlier place. So dispirited was Andrew by the progress of events that he offered no resistance when his son took his arm and directed him gently to a seat.

"By'r leave, Your Excellency," Sowter asked, "may I proceed with my statement?"

Burlingame, Ebenezer noticed, had been conferring in whispers with the Governor and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Now he sat back and winked at Ebenezer as if there was nothing at all to be concerned about!

"Ye may not," Nicholson grumbled.

Sowter's face clouded. "Your Excellency?"

"The Court will rule on thy client's claim some other time," the Governor said. "Just now I'm fetching the twain of ye to Anne Arundel jail. The charges are conspiracy, sedition, and high treason, and after what Tim Mitchell here hath told me, I quite expect to see ye hanged ere the year is out!"

The surprise brought even the sullen cooper to his feet. "Tim Mitchell!"

"Aye, gentlemen." Burlingame smiled. "Captain Billy's pride and pleasure, till his real son came along." His hands were busy as he spoke, and his appearance changed magically. Off came the powdered periwig, to be replaced by a short black hairpiece; from his mouth he removed a curious device which, it turned out, had held three artificial teeth in position. Most uncannily of all, he seemed able to alter at will the set of his facial muscles: the curve of his cheeks and the flare of his nose changed shape before their eyes; his habitually furrowed brow grew smooth, but crow's-feet appeared where before there were none. Finally, his voice deepened and coarsened; he drew in upon himself so as to seem at least two inches shorter; his eyes took on a craftier cast — Nicholas Lowe, in a few miraculous seconds, had become Timothy Mitchell.

" 'Sbody!" exclaimed Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the Governor himself — though one supposed he must have witnessed such transformations of his agent before — was moved to shake his head.

" 'Tis a page of Ovid!" Ebenezer marveled. The others made similar expressions of their awe — except Smith and Sowter, who were dumb struck.

"Now, Mister Smith," Burlingame said grimly, "methinks ye know what straits thou'rt in if I testify against ye — if ye do not, I give ye leave to consult Mister Sowter, that will keep ye company in jail for's misdemeanors."

The cooper seemed ready to do violence, but Sowter waved his hand resignedly.

"Ye quite agree we've dagged ye? Splendid! Then attend me closely: 'tis my intention to expose for prosecution the entire traffic in opium and whores, the which hath paid for all of John Coode's mischief and haply Baltimore's as well. Whoe'er hath had a finger in't" — he smiled at Andrew — "shall be brought to account, regardless of his station — "

"St. Louis's wig, man!" Sowter complained. "Jail us and have done with't, but spare us this pious gloating!"

"Patience, Dick." Henry raised his finger. " 'Tis but my preamble to a bargain. On the strength of my deposition His Excellency hath instructed Sir Thomas to proceed against Coode, Bill Mitchell, and every traitor of a whoremaster in his company — with the possible exception of yourselves."

Smith's eyes narrowed, and Sowter's expression became calculating as Burlingame offered to waive the charges against them in return for the cooper's portion of the Privie Journall, on whose verso was believed to be Coode's record of confiscations and prosecutions during his brief tenure of office. The cooper agreed at once to the exchange, but Sowter restrained him.

"Only think of the consequences, Bill!" he warned. "D'ye think we'll live out the month when John Coode learns ye've let go the papers? Besides, methinks His Excellency must set great store by 'em to make us such an offer; and What will fetch eleven pence, don't ye know, will as lightly fetch a shilling. ."

"Take 'em away, Sergeant," snapped Nicholson. "I'm sorry to disappoint ye, Henry, but I'll not dicker farther with traitors just to get your grandfather's diary."

"Stay!" Sowter cried at once. "We'll fetch ye the wretched papers! Only give us thy pledge in writing. ."

Nicholson shook his head. "I'm not such a fool."

"Welladay! Then this much, at least, sir: we'll have no profit in our bargain if John Coode murthers us; grant us safe conduct to Virginia, and ye may have the papers."

Again Burlingame conferred in whispers with the Governor and Sir Thomas.

"His Excellency advises me to authorize safe exit for ye," Henry declared, "but not as a term of our first agreement. We'll fetch ye out o' Maryland in the morning if Smith relinquishes all claim to this estate."

"God bless ye, sir!" Andrew cried.

" 'Sheart!" protested Sowter. "Ye'd bleed us dry!"

Nicholson grinned. "And 'twill not be Virginia we fetch ye to, either, but Pennsylvania. I've enemies enough in Virginia."

"What liars they are that call ye Papist!" William Smith exclaimed. "Thou'rt not even a proper Gentile!"

Sowter sighed. "We've no choice, Bill. Fetch the papers, and I'll draw up a conveyance."

The rest of the company cheered the news: Anna and Ebenezer embraced each other with relief; Andrew apologized stiffly to Burlingame and commended him for his strategy, as did Nicholson, Sir Thomas, and John McEvoy; Roxanne and Henrietta looked on approvingly. Only Joan Toast remained apathetic, and the sight of her blighted Ebenezer's joy.

The cooper left the room, under guard, and returned with a roll of yellowed papers, which Burlingame received eagerly. He and Sir Thomas made a cursory inspection of the verso and pronounced it sufficient evidence, when combined with the 1691 Assembly Journal, to institute proceedings against Coode and his associates. Then, while Sowter, Sir Thomas, and the Governor discussed the details of releasing Malden and ferrying the two men up the Bay to Pennsylvania, Burlingame took Ebenezer aside.

"D'ye recall the story I told ye on our way to Plymouth?" he asked excitedly. "How Sir Henry and Captain John were captured by Powhatan?"

Ebenezer smiled. "They struck some lewd bargain over the King's daughter, as I recall, but we ne'er learned the outcome of't. Is that the rest of the tale?"

"Aye, methinks our story is complete. Let's read it while Tom and the Governor attend those rascals."

And then and there, despite the general excitement in the room, they read together the second and final portion of Sir Henry Burlingame's Privie Journall, which began (where the first had left off) with the author and Captain John Smith incarcerated in the Emperor Powhatan's village waiting for dawn, at which time the Captain was pledged to gamble their lives against his ability to do what the ablest young men of the town had found impossible: relieve Pocahontas of her maidenhood.

Two burlie Guards were plac'd over us [had written Sir Henry} and commission'd to provide our everie wish, and to slay us s^hd we offer to escape. My Captain then commenc'd to regale me with accounts, endlesse & lubricious, of divers maidens in exotick lands, that he had deflowr'd, till that I grewe so wearie, I did feign sleep. But watch'd him privilie, the night through.

Neare midnight, believing me fast asleep, my Captain did ryse up from his bed (like mine, a fllthie pallet upon the grownd), and summon'd one of our Guards. Thereupon ensu'd a whisper'd colloquie, yet not so hush'd withal, but I heard the substance of it. Ever & anon he glanc'd to see, Whether I was asleep? And to all that were naught the wiser, so I was. But I kept one eye still a-squint, and both eares wide, and follow'd there conversation with passing ease. Smith declar'd, He was hungrie, the w^ch surpriz'd me not a little, seeing he had eate enough at the Emperours feest, to preserve the whole of Jamestowne through the Winter. He demanded to be brought food at once. The Salvage was loath to bestire him selfe, so it seem'd to me, the moreso when my Captain commenc'd to tell what dishes he crav'd; to witt: one egg-plant (that frute, that is call'd by some, Aubergine) with corne-floure wherein to cooke it, & water wherewith to drinke it downe. .

"An eggplant!" Burlingame murmured.

He did maintaine, that onlie thus did white men prepare the frute of the egg-plant. W^ch I knewe for a lye.

The Salvage did pleade the houre of night and the season of yeere, but upon my Captains pressing the matter (besides bribing him with some bawble from his wicked pockett), he at last consented to steale an egg-plant and floure from the common store near the Emperours howse. Then departing, he was absent some while, during w^ch my Captain pac'd about the hutt, as might a man, whose wife was in travaile, not forgetting to certain him selfe, now & againe, that my sleep was sound & undisturb'd.

Whenas the Salvage did returne, with 2 dry'd egg-plants & a dishful of floure, not to mention an earthen jugg of water, my Captain rewarded him with a second trinkett, and ask'd him to remove him selfe from the hutt, if it pleas'd him, and sett outside, for that white men (as he claim'd) never cook'd there food, but privilie. The Salvage did as he was bid, eager to contemplate his treasures, and left alone, my Captain straightway set to work upon the egg-plant, in the strangest manner I ever did behold. Forsooth, I was that amaz'd, that even some weeks thereafter, here in Jamestowne, what time I set to recording this narrative in my Journall-booke, it was no light matter to realize it was true. For had I not observ'd it my owne selfe, I had never believ'd it to be aught but the lewd construction of some dissolute fancie. Endlesse indeed, and beyond the ken of sober & continent men, are the practices and fowle receipts of those lustful persons, the votaries of the flesh, that still set Venus & Bacchus over chast Minerva, and studie with scholars zeale all the tricks and dark refynements of carnallitie! I blush to committ the thing to paper, even to these the privie pages of my Journall. W^ch it is my vow, no man shall lay eyes upon, while that I live.

"I say!" Burlingame exclaimed. "The rest of the page is gone, and part of the next! D'ye grasp what it is we have here, Eben?"

"You mean the matter of the Sacred Eggplant, that the Tayac Chicamec spoke of? 'Tis not impossible there's some connection. ."

"I know there is! I'Christ, what this could mean!"

They read on, Burlingame with an expression of voracious, almost painful eagerness, and Ebenezer with the first stirrings of unease.

For this reason [the narrative resumed after the break] it was to my grand chagrinn, that coming to my senses some houres later, I discover'd I had assum'd in fact, that state w^ch theretofore I had feign'd; to witt: a sownd & recklesse sleep. .

"God damn him!" Henry cried.

My repose was broken by the Salvage Guard & Keeper, and starting up, I found the Sunne alreadie risen. From without our hutt there came to my eares, the whooping & hollowing of many Salvages, and I guess'd, they were assembl'd for my Captains lustie tryall of there Princesse. My Captain, when I look'd at him, was fullie cloth'd, and no signs of the Aubergine or other things being apparent, I wonder'd whether the scene I had witness'd in the night just past, was a mere fantastick dreem, such as men are wont to suffer, when there death is neare to hand. .

"Then he did witness it," Ebenezer offered, "whate'er it was."

"But the page is gone!"

It is true, the Journall went on, that when we left the hutt, under the eye of our Salvage Guards, and were led to the publick square, my Captain shew'd some hardshipp in walking, as if loath to keep his leggs together; but this deflciencie c^d as well be attributed to feare (w^ch it is well known, can loose a mans hold upon his reins), as to any strange behaviour of the evening past. And this former seem'd the more likelie, for that the scene before us was aught but a consoling one.

Round about the court-yard, in a circle, stood the people of the towne, hollowing & howling in a fearsome manner. Within the large circle thus form'd was a smaller, made up of tenne or a dozen of the Emperours Lieutenants. These were greate brawnie Salvages, bedeck'd in feathers and paynted most grewsomelie, that donn'd in naught save these adornments, did leap and daunce about, issuing feerce screames, and brandishing there Tomahawkes. In the center of this smalle ring sat the Emperour Powhatan, rays'd above the crowd on a loftie chaire, and before him, upon a manner of altar stone, lay Pocahontas, stript & trust with throngs of hyde for the heethenish rites. Yet maugre the rudenesse of her position, the Princess seem'd not a whit alarm'd, but wore an huge smyle upon her face. Whereat I guess'd that this vile manner of presenting maidens for betrothal must be in common use among the Salvage nations, to such extent that, Habit being master of us all, they had got even to relish it, in there pagan sinfullnesse. W^ch notwithstanding, I was fill'd with trepidation, the more for that, marking the considerable manlinesse of those Salvages, that sprang about all nakedlie, and recalling the modest endowment of my Captain (that for all his boasting, I had seen privilie to be but passing well equipt for Venereal exercise), I sawe no hope of his making good where they had fail'd. Forsooth, I had been in his place, I s^hd not have been able to summon the most tryfling manlinesse, for knowing those evil Tomahawkes stood readie to breake my head at the first sign of deficiencie.

Directly they spy'd us, all the Salvages redoubl'd there commotion. The folk in the greate circle showted and clapt hands, the Lieutenant-Salvages leapt and hopt, even Pocahontas contriv'd to joggle about on her pedestall. W^ch movements, considering the manner wherein she was trust and tether'd, shew'd uncommon suppleness of limb, and readiness for whatever might ensue.

We were fetch'd into the small circle and station'd before the altar of Venus (to look whereon brought the blush to my cheeks), whereupon the Salvages lay'd hands upon my Captain, and with one jerk brought his breeches low. From where I stood, w^ch chanc'd to be behind him, the sight was unprepossessing enow, but the Salvages before all suddenlie put by there clamour. The Emperour shaded his eyes from the morning Sunne, the better to behold him, and Pocahontas, maugre her bonds (w^ch netted her as fast as those, that Vulcan fashion'd for his faithless spouse), this Pocahontas, I say, came neare to breaking her necke with looking, and the unchast smyle, that erst had play'd about her mowth, now vanish'd altogether.

My Captain then turning half around to see, Whether I was at hand? I at last beheld the cause of all this wonder, and as well the effect of his magick of the night past — the w^ch to relate, must fetch me beyond all bownds of taste & decencie, but to withhold, must betray the Truth and leave what follow'd veil'd in mystery. To have done then, my Captains yard stood full erect, and what erst had been more cause for pity than for astonishment, was now in verie sooth a frightful engine: such was the virtue of his devilish brewe, that when now his codd stood readie for the tilt, he rear'd his bulk not an inch below eleven, and well-nigh three in diameter — a weapon of the Gods! Add to w^ch, it was all a fyrie hue, gave off a scent of clove & vanilla, and appear'd as stout as that stone whereon its victim lay. A mightie sownd went up from the populace; the Lieutenants, that had doubtlesse been the Princesses former suitors, dropt to there knees as in prayer; the Emperour started up in his high seate, dismay'd by the fate about to befall his daughter; and as for that same Pocahontas, she did swoone dead away.

Straight leapt my Captain to his work, whereof I can bring myself to say naught save this: Mercifull, mercifull, the Providence, that kept the heethen maid aswoon, while that my Captain did what none had done before! And so inordinatelie withal, that anon the Emperour begg'd for an end to the tryall, lest his daughter depart from this life. He declar'd my Captain victorious, rescinded the decree of death hanging over us, dispers'd the companie, and had Pocahontas remov'd to his howse, where for three days thereafter she hung in the balance twixt life & death. A banquet was then prepar'd for us, whereat Powhatan express'd his intent to marrie his daughter to my Captain, inasmuch as no Salvage in his trybe c^d match his Virilitie. My Captain declyn'd, whereupon the Emperour wax'd wroth, and w^d have return'd us to our hutt, had not my Captain offer'd to instruct him in that mysterie, whereby he had so increas'd him selfe. This more than satisfy'd the Emperour, that s^hd have been long past such vanitie, and it was on the best of terms, that we set out at last for Jamestowne. With a troup of Salvages to assist us by the way.

Throughout the journie, as one might guess, my Captain bragg'd and strutted handsomelie. I was oblig'd to him for life, he declar'd, for that his deed had preserv'd the twain of us; and he offer'd to murther me, in some dark and dastard wise, if ever I noys'd about in Jamestowne the manner of our salvation. I c^d scarce protest, inasmuch he had in sooth preserv'd me, but it was bitter frute to eate, for that I must submitt to his browbeating and braggadocio without compleynt. In briefe, I was to feign I had been detain'd with Opecancanough, and my Captain alone led in unto the Emperour. Moreover, he made so bold as to shew me a written account of his salvation by Pocahontas, the w^ch he meant to include in his lying Historie: this version made no mention whatever of his scurrilous deflowring of the Princesse, but merelie imply'd, she was overcome by his manlie bearing & comelie face! It was this farce and travestie, then, wherein I was oblig'd to feign belief, and w^ch hath mov'd me, in hopes of pacifying my anguish'd conscience, to committ this true accounting to my Journall-booke. Whereon, I pray God, my Captain will never lay his lecherous eyes!

Here ended Sir Henry's Privie Journall except for one final entry, dated several weeks after his return to Jamestown and only a few months prior to his conscription for the fateful voyage up the Chesapeake:

March, 1608: Pocahontas, the Emperours daughter, having at long last regayn'd full possession of her health, is ever at the gates of the towne, with a retinue of her people, enquiring after my Captain. He shuns her as much as possible, albeit in her absence, and in his Historie, he makes the finest speaches in her praise. The truth is, he feares his fowle adventure will out, and I suspect he is torn betwixt his reluctance to wed her (and thus make an honest woman of her), and his desire once againe to sate his lust on her. For albeit the verie sownd of his voice doth sicken my stomacke, so do I loathe him, yet he cannot contain his lewd exployt, but must still catch privilie my eare, and declare that hers was the most succulent flowr ever he pluckt, & cet., & cet.

As for the Princesse, she still lingers at the gate, all wystfullie, and sends him, by her attendants, woven basketts of great dry'd egg-plants. .

"God's body!" Burlingame cried at the end. "Your Excellency, look here!"

Nicholson smiled from the green table, where he was completing the transaction with Sowter. "New matter against Coode, is't?"

"Coode be damned!" Burlingame replied. "Here, read it, sir! 'Tis all about the mysterious eggplant business I spoke of before! I'God, if only the recipe were there as well! 'Tis some encaustic, or aphrodisiac, don't ye think, Eben? That 'fyrie hue' sounds like phlogosis. . But marry, what is the trick? I could save this miserable Province with it!"

"Go to, ye lose me!" Nicholson protested, as mystified as everyone else except Ebenezer; but when the contents of the Journall and their significance were explained to him, his face grew grave. " 'Twere a risky adventure even so," he declared, referring to Burlingame's proposed embassy to Bloodsworth Island, "but with this eggplant trick to confound 'em. ."

"I could do it!" Burlingame insisted. "I'd be King of the Ahatchwhoops by the week's end if I had that recipe! Smith!" He turned upon the wondering cooper. "Where's the missing part of these papers? I swear you'll not leave the Province till we have it!"

To Ebenezer's surprise, before the cooper could protest his bewilderment, Joan Toast spoke up for the first time.

" 'Tis vain to threaten him," she said. "He hath no idea what you want, or where to find it. I stole those pages, and I mean to keep them."

Burlingame, Nicholson, and Sir Thomas all pleaded with her to surrender the missing passages, or at least to disclose the trick which Captain John Smith had employed to win the day in Virginia; they explained the gravity of the situation on Bloodsworth Island and Henry's strategy to forestall an insurrection — but to no avail.

"Look at me!" the girl cried bitterly. "Behold the fruits of lustfulness! Swived in my twelfth year, poxed in my twentieth, and dead in my twenty-first! Ravaged, ruined, raped, and betrayed! Woman's lot is wretched enough at best; d'ye think I'll pass on that murtherous receipt to make it worse?"

In vain then did Burlingame vow never to employ Smith's formula for carnal purposes, but only to demonstrate his identity to the Ahatchwhoops.

"The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be," Joan retorted. "The time will come when ye crave a child by Anna yonder, or some other. . I shan't e'en make the vile stuff for ye myself!"

"Then it is some potion he takes!" cried Henry. "Or is't a sort of plaster?"

Nicholson pounded his stick pn the floor. "We must know, girl! Name thy price for't!"

Joan laughed. "D'ye think to bribe the dead? Nay, sir, the Great Tom Leech bites sore enough, God knows; I'll not give him more teeth than he hath already! But stay — " Her manner suddenly became shrewd, like Sowter's. "I may name my price, ye say?"

"Within reason, of course," the Governor affirmed. "What ye ask must be ours to give."

"Very well, then," Joan declared. "My price is Malden."

"Nay!" Andrew cried.

"Nay, prithee!" pleaded Ebenezer, who until then had found the discussion as embarrassing as had Anna.

" 'Tis a hard price," Burlingame observed, regarding her curiously.

"Not for doing so great a disservice to my sex," Joan replied.

Now even McEvoy was moved to join the chorus of objections. "Whate'er will ye do with this estate, my dear?" he asked gently. " 'Tis of no use to ye now. If there is someone ye wish to provide for, why, peradventure the Governor can make arrangements."

Joan turned her face to him, and her expression softened, if her resolution did not. "Ye know as well as I there's no one, John. Why d'ye ask? Can it be ye've forgot the whoremonger's first principle?" For the benefit of the others she repeated it: "Ye may ask a whore her price, but not her reasons. My price is the title to Cooke's Point, forever and aye: ye may take it or leave it."

Nicholson and Burlingame exchanged glances.

"Done," said the Governor. "Draw up the papers, Tom."

"Nay, b'm'faith!" cried Andrew. " 'Tis unlawful! When Smith gave o'er his claim, the title reverted to me!"

"Not at all," said Burlingame. "It reverted to the Province."

"Damn ye, man! Whose side are ye on?"

"On the side of the Province, for the nonce," Henry answered. "Those pages are worth a brace of Maidens."

Andrew threatened to appeal to the Lords Commissioners, but the Governor was not to be intimidated.

"I've seldom stood on firmer ground than this," he declared. "When I move to save the Province ye may appeal to the King himself, for aught ye'll gain by't, and Godspeed. Where are the papers, Mrs. Cooke?"

Not until he heard the unfamiliar mode of address did Ebenezer have the least hint of Joan's motives. Now suddenly, though a hint was all he had, his backbone tingled; his heart glowed.

"Where are thine?" she demanded in reply, nor would she stir until Sir Thomas had conveyed the title to Cooke's Point into her possession. Then she calmly reached into her bodice and withdrew a tightly folded paper which, when she handed it to Burlingame for unfolding, proved to be three missing pages of the Journall.

" 'Sheart, Eben, look here!" Henry cried. "May he look, Joan?"

" 'Tis not mine to forbid," the girl said glumly, and seemed to relapse into her former apathy.

First [read the missing fragment] he pour'd a deale of water into the dish of floure, and worked the mess to a thick paste with his fingers. Then he set the remainder of the water, in its vessell, next the smalle fyre, w^ch the Salvage had been Christian enough to make us, against the cold. Whenas he sawe this water commence to steem and bubble, then drewe he from his pockett (w^ch forsooth must needs have been a spacious one!), divers ingredients, and added them to the paste. Of these I c^d name but few, forasmuch as I durst not discover to my Captain that my sleep was feign'd; but I did learn later from his boasting that it was a receipt much priz'd for a certain purpose (whereof I was as yet innocent) by the blackamoors of Africka, from whom he had learnt it. To witt: a quantitie of Tightening Wood (w^ch is to say, the bark of that tree, Nux vomica, wherefrom is got the brucine and strychnyne of apothecaries), 2 or 3 small dry'd pimyentoes (that the blackamoors call Zozos), a dozen peppercorns, and as many whole cloves, with 1 or 2 beanes of vanilla to give it fragrance. At the same time he boyl'd a second decoction of water mix'd with some dropps of oyl of mallow, to what end I c^d not guesse. These severall herbs and spyces, I s^hd add, he still carr'd on his person, not alone for their present employment, but as well to season his food, w^ch in his yeeres of fighting the Moors he had learnt to savour hott; and for this cause he did prevaile upon the masters of vessells, to fetch him such spyces from there ports of call in the Indies.

When that the paste was done, and the water fast aboyle in both vessells, my Captain busy'd him selfe with cutting the eggplant, and this in a singular wise. For it is the wont of men to lay hold of an Aubergine and slyce across the topp, to the end of making thinne rownd sections. But my Captain, drawing his knife from his waiste, did sever the frute into halves, splitting it lengthwise from top to bottom. Next he scor'd out a deep hollow ditch in either moietie, in such wise, but when the two halves were joyn'd, like halves of an iron-mould, the effect was of a deep cylindrick cavitie in the center, perhaps 3 inches in dyameter, and 7 or 8 in profunditie, for that it was an uncommon large egg-plant. All this I did observe with mounting curiositie, yet careful not to discover my pretence of sleep.

The strange brewes having cook'd a certain time, my Captain then remov'd them from the fyre. The first, that had in it all the spyces, he stirr'd and kneaded into the paste, till the whole took on the semblance of a plaister. He next disrob'd him selfe, and before my wondering eyes lay'd hands upon his member, drawing back that part, that the Children of Israel are wont to offer to Jehovah, and exposing the carnall glans. His codd thus bar'd (w^ch poets have liken'd to that Serpent, that did tempt Mother Eve in the Garden), he apply'd thereto the plaister, and lay'd it within the two halves of the egg-plant. There it linger'd some minutes, notwithstanding the ordeall must needs have been painfull, for all the spyce & hott things in the receipt. His face did wrythe & twist, as though it were straight into the fyre he had thrust his yard, and whenas he at last remov'd the Aubergine, and wash'd away the plaister with his oyl-of-mallow brewe, I c^d observe with ease that his part was burnt in sooth! Moreover, he did seem loath to touch it for feare of the payne thereby occasion'd.

Now albeit this spectacle was far from edifying, to a man of good conscience & morall virtue, I yet must own, I took greate interest in it, both by reason of naturall curiositie, as well as to gage for my selfe the depths of my Captains depravitie. For it is still pleasing, to a Christian man, to suffer him selfe the studie of wickednesse, that he may content him selfe (without sinfull pride) upon the contrast thereof with his owne rectitude. To say naught of that truth, whereto Augustine and other Fathers beare witnesse: that true virtue lieth not in innocence, but in full knowledge of the Devils subtile arts. .

Thus ended the fragment, having brought Sir Henry to his unintended sleep and rude awakening.

"I can do't!" Burlingame murmured. " 'Tis all I need!"

Ebenezer looked away, revolted not only by the narrative but by other, more immediate images. He observed that Anna too, though she had not read the Journall, was aware of its significance: her eyes were lowered; her cheeks aflame.

"Well, now," declared the Governor, rising from his place. "I think our business here is done, Tom. Fetch those rascals aboard my ship in the morning and see they're ferried to Pennsylvania."

The others stirred as well.

"La, Master Laureate!" Sowter jeered from across the room. "The party's done, and thou'rt still as penceless as St Giles!"

Andrew cursed, and Nicholson frowned uncomfortably.

"Thou'rt mistaken, Dick Sowter," Joan said from the couch.

Everyone turned to her at once.

"I've little time to live," she declared, "and a wife's estate passes to her husband when she dies."

Andrew gasped. "I'cod! D'ye hear that, Eben?"

All except Sowter and Smith rejoiced at this disclosure of her motive. Ebenezer rushed to embrace her, and Andrew wept for joy.

"Splendid girl! She is a very saint, Roxanne!"

But Joan turned away her face. "There remains but a single danger, that I can see," she said. "As hath been observed already today, a false marriage such as ours may be disallowed, and my bequests thus contested in the courts — inasmuch as it hath yet to be consummated."

The company fell silent; the twins drew back aghast.

"Dear Heav'n!" Roxanne whispered, and clutched at Andrew's arm. Burlingame's expression was fascinated.

The cooper laughed harshly. "Oh, my word! Ah! Ah! D'ye hear the wench, Sowter? She is the very Whore o' Babylon, and Cooke muyt swive her for's estate! Oh, ha! I'd not touch her with a sot-weed stick!"

"My boy — " Andrew spoke with difficulty to his son. "She hath — the social malady, don't ye know — and albeit I love Malden as I love my life, I'd ne'er think ill o' ye — "

"Stay," interrupted Burlingame. "Ye'll take her pox, Eben, but ye'll not die of't, me thinks: belike 'tis a mere dev'lish clap and not the French disease. Marry, lad, inasmuch as Malden hangs in the balance — "

Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis of no importance, Henry. Whate'er she hath, she hath on my account, by reason of our ill-starred love. I little care now for my legacy, save that I must earn it. 'Tis atonement I crave: redemption for my sins against the girl, against my father, against Anna, e'en against you, Henry — "

"What sins?" protested Anna, coming to his side. "Of all men on the planet, Eben, thou'rt freest from sin! What else drew Joan half round the globe, do you think, through all those horrors, if not that quality in you that hath ruined me for other men and driven e'en Henry to near distraction — "

She blushed, realizing she had spoken too much. "Thou'rt the very spirit of Innocence," she finished quietly.

"That is the crime I stand indicted for," her brother replied: "the crime of innocence, whereof the Knowledged must bear the burthen. There's the true Original Sin our souls are born in: not that Adam learned, but that he had to learn — in short, that he was innocent."

He sat on the edge of the couch and took Joan's hand. "Once before, this girl had shriven me of that sin, and I compounded it by deserting her. Whate'er the outcome, I rejoice at this second chance for absolution."

"Marry!" McEvoy said. "Ye mean to do't?"

"Aye."

Anna threw her arms about his neck and wept. "How I love you! The four of us will live here, and if Henry doth not stay on Bloodsworth Island — " Her voice failed; Burlingame drew her back gently from the couch.

Ebenezer kissed Joan's hand until at last she turned her haggard eyes to him.

"Thou'rt weary, Joan."

She closed her eyes. "Beyond imagining."

He stood up, still holding her hand. "I've not strength enough yet to carry you to our chamber. ." He looked about awkwardly, his features dancing. All the women were in tears; the men either shook their heads, like McEvoy and the Governor, or winced, like Andrew, or merely frowned a grudging awe, like Smith and Sowter.

"I claim the honor!" Burlingame cried, and the spell was broken. Everyone stirred himself to cover the general embarrassment: Andrew and John McEvoy busied themselves comforting their women; Sir Thomas and the Governor assembled their papers and called for tobacco; Smith and Sowter, accompanied by the sergeant-at-arms, left the room.

Burlingame lifted Joan in his arms. "Good night all!" he called merrily. "Tell cook we'll want a wedding breakfast in the morning, Andrew!" As he headed for the hallway he added with a laugh, "See to what lengths the fallen go, to increase their number! Come along, Anna; this errand wants a chaperon."

Blushing, Anna took Ebenezer's arm, and the twins followed their chuckling tutor up the stairs.

"Ah, well now!" their father's voice cried from the parlor. "We've a deal to drink to, lords and ladies!" And addressing the unseen servant in the kitchen he called "Grace? Grace! 'Sblood, Grace, fetch us a rundlet!"