Limekiller!

“Een Eedalgo,” he said, dolefully, “de monatee hahv no leg, mon. Becahs Eedalgo ees a smahl coun-tree, ahn every-teeng smahl. Every-teeng weak. Now, een Ahfrica, mon, de monatee does hahv leg.”

Key said, incredulous, but still respectful, “What you tell we, Coptain Cudgel? What? His last word, pronounced in the local manner of using it as a particular indication of skepticism, of criticism, of denial, seemed to have at least three Ts at the end of it; he repeated: “Whattt?”

“Yes, mon. Yes sah. Een Ahfrica, de monatee hahv leg, mon. Eet be ah poerful beast, een Ahfrica, come up on de lond, on.”

“Me no di hear dot befoah.”

“I tell you. Me di hear eet befoah. Een Ahfrica,” he repeated, doggedly, “de monatee hahv leg, de monatee be ah poerful beast, come up on de lond, mon, no lahf, mon —”

“Me no di lahf, sah —”

“— de w’ol’ people, dey tell me so, fah true.”

Alfonso Key gave his head a single shake, gave a single click of his tongue, gave Jack a single look.

Far down the street, the bell of the Church of Saint Benedict the Moor sounded. Whatever time it was marking had nothing to do with Greenwich Meridian Time or any variation thereof.

The weak, feeble old voice resumed the thread of conversation. “Me grahndy di tell me dot she grahndy di tell she. Motta hav foct, eet me grahndy di give me me name, b’y. Cudgel. Ahfrica name. Fah true. Fah true.”

A slight sound of surprise broke Limekiller’s silence. He said, “Excuse me, Captain. Could it have been ‘Cudjoe’. maybe?”

For a while he thought that the question had either not been heard or had, perhaps, been resented. Then the old man said, “Eet could be so. Sah, eet might be so. Lahng, lahng time ah-go. Me Christian name, Pe-tah. Me w’ol’ grahndy she say, ‘Pickney: you hahv ah Christian name, Pe-tah. But me give you Ahfrica name, too. Cahdjo. No fah-get, pickney? Time poss, time poss, de people dev ahl cahl me 'Cudgel,’ you see, sah. So me fah-get. Sah, hoew you know dees teeng, sah?”

Limekiller said that he thought he had read it in a book. The old captain repeated the word, lengthening it in his local speech. “Ah boook, sah. To t’eenk ahv dot. Een ah boook. Me w’own name een ah boook.” By and by he departed as silently as always.

In the dusk a white cloth waved behind the thin line of white beach. He took off his shirt and waved back. Then he transferred the groceries into the skiff and, as soon as it was dark and he had lit and securely fixed his lamp, set about rowing ashore. By and by a voice called out, “Mon, vhere de Hell you gveyn? You keep on to de right, you gveyn vine up een Sponeesh Hidalgo: mah to de lef, mon: mah to de lef!” And with such assistances, soon enough the skiff softly scraped the beach.

Mr. John Samuel’s greeting was, “You bring de rum?” The rum put in his hand, he took up one of the sacks, gestured Limekiller towards the other. “Les go timely, noew,” he said. For a moment, in what was left of the dimmest dimlight, Jack thought the man was going to walk straight into an enormous tree: instead, he walked across the enormous roots and behind the tree. Limekiller followed the faint white patch of shirt bobbing in front of him. Sometimes the ground was firm, sometimes it went squilchy, sometimes it was simply running water — shallow, fortunately — sometimes it felt like gravel. The bush noises were still fairly soft. A rustle. He hoped it was only a wish-willy lizard, or a bamboo-chicken — an iguana — and not a yellow-jaw, that snake of which it was said. but this was no time to remember scare stories about snakes.

Without warning — although what sort of warning there could have been was a stupid question, anyway — there they were. Gertrude Stein, returning to her old home town after an absence of almost forty years, and finding the old home itself demolished, had observed (with a lot more objectivity than she was usually credited with) that there was no there, there. The there, here, was simply a clearing. with a very small fire, and a ramada: four poles holding- up a low thatched roof. John Samuel let his sack drop. “Ahnd noew,” he said, portentously, “let us broach de rum.”

After the chaparita had been not only broached but drained, for the second time that day Limekiller dined ashore. The cooking was done on a raised fire-hearth of clay-and sticks, and what was cooked was a breadfruit, simply strewn, when done, with sugar; and a gibnut. To say that the gibnut, or paca, is a rodent, is perhaps — though accurate — unfair: it is larger than a rabbit, and it eats well. After that Samuel made black tea and laced it with more rum. After that he gave a vast belch and a vast sigh. “Can you play de bonjoe?" he next asked.

“Well… I have been known to try. ”