Quicksilver

HOURS, OR A DAYor two, might’ve passed.

“So, then, I suppose I’m meant to believe that you and dear Mummy were originally taken from the mud-flats simply in hopes that Mummy would pass the sniff-test.”

“’Twas thought she had passed it-but the officer who administered that olfactory examination was deceived-his sensorium overwhelmed-by-”

“By the miasma of those Qwghlmian mud-flats and guano-mountains. My God, it is the worst thing I have ever heard-to think I feared that you would be appalled by my story.” Jack waved his arms in the air, gaining the attention of an approaching friar, and shouted: “Which way is Massachusetts? I’m become a Puritan.”

“Later in the voyage, finally, the Personage had his way with poor Mummy on one or two occasions, but only because no other choices were available to him, and we did not pass near any more remote settlements where women could be easily abducted.”

“Well, c’mon, let’s have it-what’d he do in that carpeted castle?”

Eliza then became uncharacteristically shy. Now, by this time they were several days out of Vie

They overtook the nuns shortly and left them behind. “Now you can say it,” Jack said. But Eliza just set her jaw and gazed into the distance.

A quarter of an hour later they passed the actual nu

The high points of Eliza’s story were, in sum, curiously synchronized with the appearance of nu

Reviewing his memories of the last few days’ journey from Vie

“Next stop: the Barbary Coast. As we’d proven unsatisfactory to the Personage, we were added to the general pool of European slaves there-some tens of thousands of ’em.”

“Damn, I’d no idea!”

“Their plight is ignored by all Europe!” Eliza said, and Jack realized too late he’d set her off. A torrential rant ensued. If only her head was still wrapped in those fake bandages-some tightening and knotting and his troubles would be over. Instead, by paying out the reins Jack was able to lead the noble horse, which he’d named, or re-named, Turk, from a distance, much as the Corsair-ship in Eliza’s ridiculous fable had towed the unspeakable fish-boat. Snatches and fragments of the Rant occasionally drifted his way. He learned that Mummy had been sold into the harem of an Ottoman military official at the Qasbah of Algiers, and in her copious spare time had founded the Society of Brita

They were close to Linz. Monasteries, nu

“Now, when you started that sentence,” Jack observed, “you were telling me about the procedure for amending the bylaws of the Society of Brita

“Why should you care about my feelings?”

“Now has it never occurred to you that you might be better off in a nu

Clearly it hadn’t, but now it did. A most lovely consternation flooded into her face, and she turned her head, slightly, toward the nu

“Oh, I’ll hold up my end of the partnership. Years of dangling from hanged men’s feet taught me the value of honest dealings.” Jack stopped talking for a moment to stifle his mirth. Then, “Yes, the advantages of being on the road with Half-Cocked Jack are many: no man is my master. I have boots. A sword, axe, and horse, too. I ca

“Why then did you say I might be better off there?” Eliza said, nodding toward the great nu

“Well, some would say I should’ve mentioned this to you earlier, but: you’ve taken up with a man who can be hanged on arrival in most jurisdictions.”

“Ooh, you’re an infamous criminal?”

“Only some places-but that’s not why.”

“Why then?”

“I’m of a particular type. The Devil’s Poor.”

“Oh.”

“Shames me to say it-but when I was drunk and battle-flushed I showed you my other secret and so now I’ve no way, I’m sure, to fall any lower in your esteem.”

“What is the Devil’s Poor? Are you a Satan-worshipper?”

“Only when I fall in among Satan-worshippers. Haw! No, it is an English expression. There are two kinds of poor-God’s and the Devil’s. God’s poor, such as widows, orphans, and recently escaped white slave-girls with pert arses, can and should be helped. Devil’s poor are beyond help-charity’s wasted on ’em. The distinction ‘tween the two categories is recognized in all civilized countries.”

“Do you expect to be hanged down there?”

They’d stopped on a hill-top above the Danube’s flood-plain. Linz was below. The departure of the armies had shrunk it to a tenth of its recent size, leaving a scar on the earth like the pale skin after a big scab has fallen away. “Things will be loose there just now-many discharged soldiers will be passing through. They can’t all be hanged-not enough rope in Austria for that. I count half a dozen corpses hanging from trees outside the city gate, half a dozen more heads on pikes along the walls-low normal, for a town of that size.”