earliest boyhood of a scientific
bent, has made an exhaustive study of the human dermis, taking samples of
about so—” (he held his thumb and forefinger perhaps a half an inch apart)
“—from financiers and flatboatmen, priests and prostitutes alike. Some of his
samples were taken in the grandest houses of New Orleans; a sizable number
come from his own slaves. Immediately on taking a ‘cutting,’ as he terms it, he
places it in a solution of one part saltpeter to two parts extract of albumen.” He
paused to examine his glovetips. “A preservative solution, he informs me. I
wonder if either of you can guess what happens next.”
Bixby and I remained speechless. The cub made a great show of interest in
the river.
“No guesses?” said the visitor, in a voice that made it clear that he’d
expected none. “Permit me to enlighten you!” His round cheeks puckered with
excitement. “Mr. Trist has found, in every case, that the sample sheds a fine—
one might almost say, a negligible—layer of particles into the astringent mixture,exposing a fundamental pigment that is blacker than the night your
mothers, gentlemen, were so fortunate as to conceive you.”
This was too much for Bixby at last. “Nay, sir—; nay. I will not
tolerate—”
“Tut, tut!” the little man said, holding up a finger. “We are each of us a
darky, gentlemen; science has spoken. Au revoir!”
He hopped nimbly from the bench, snatched up his cane and disappeared
down the ladder. Bixby immediately turned the whole of his attention to the
e forts of his cub, not so much as twirling his whiskers at me for the
remainder of the run.
Picture my surprise when I discovered, that same afternoon, that I’d been
exchanging pleasantries with the notorious slave bandit Thaddeus Murel, and
furthermore that he owned the boat, from the boiler to the watch on Bixby’s
fob!
The Punch-Line.
ISLAND 37 WAS THE CRADLE OF THE TRADE, Virgil says. But the Trade had no need of a cradle any longer.
The island was a much-fabled port of call—; not every steam-boat would put in there. When the state of Louisiana was chartered, it laid claim “to the mid-point of the river,” and the state of Mississippi “to the channel”—; a simple enough division, on the face of it. Six years later, however, a rogue thumb of current carved a long, flat sliver out of the Mississippi mainland, well out into the river but short of the mid-point by half a mile. The new-born island belonged as much to one state as to the other, and owed allegiance, by law, to neither. It was a country to itself.
Decades passed, and the residents of the thirty-seventh island upstream from New Orleans—an overnight passage by steam-ship— grew down-right cozy in their solitude. The absence of law, not to mention tax-collectors, made it a haven for fugitives of every stripe. For the Redeemer, of course, it was paradise itself. In no time at all 37 had become his play-pen, and he—as a matter of course—had become its Lord Regent. He had no further need to scour the country-side for suckers, he was fond of declaring—; on 37 the suckers came to him, and they came politely.
The sailing-bell rang behind me and the
Vesuvius
hove off. The pilot’s name was Henderson—a Scotchman—and he’d been a share-holder from the beginning. The Redeemer had got ahold of him the same way he’d gotten all of us—: partly by blind chance, partly by design, feeling his way like a crawdad toward his present empire.
No-one was waiting to meet me on the freshly white-washed pier, which didn’t surprise me much—: it was going on six, and the fleshpots at the top of the bluff would be packed to overflowing. The neat white shacks along the water glowed prettily against the bank, their shuttered porches flickering like paper lamps—; here and there a sullen-faced boy or an old woman would nod to me as I passed. For all one could see or hear from the landing itself, 37 was a sweet-water hamlet like any
bent, has made an exhaustive study of the human dermis, taking samples of
about so—” (he held his thumb and forefinger perhaps a half an inch apart)
“—from financiers and flatboatmen, priests and prostitutes alike. Some of his
samples were taken in the grandest houses of New Orleans; a sizable number
come from his own slaves. Immediately on taking a ‘cutting,’ as he terms it, he
places it in a solution of one part saltpeter to two parts extract of albumen.” He
paused to examine his glovetips. “A preservative solution, he informs me. I
wonder if either of you can guess what happens next.”
Bixby and I remained speechless. The cub made a great show of interest in
the river.
“No guesses?” said the visitor, in a voice that made it clear that he’d
expected none. “Permit me to enlighten you!” His round cheeks puckered with
excitement. “Mr. Trist has found, in every case, that the sample sheds a fine—
one might almost say, a negligible—layer of particles into the astringent mixture,exposing a fundamental pigment that is blacker than the night your
mothers, gentlemen, were so fortunate as to conceive you.”
This was too much for Bixby at last. “Nay, sir—; nay. I will not
tolerate—”
“Tut, tut!” the little man said, holding up a finger. “We are each of us a
darky, gentlemen; science has spoken. Au revoir!”
He hopped nimbly from the bench, snatched up his cane and disappeared
down the ladder. Bixby immediately turned the whole of his attention to the
e forts of his cub, not so much as twirling his whiskers at me for the
remainder of the run.
Picture my surprise when I discovered, that same afternoon, that I’d been
exchanging pleasantries with the notorious slave bandit Thaddeus Murel, and
furthermore that he owned the boat, from the boiler to the watch on Bixby’s
fob!
The Punch-Line.
ISLAND 37 WAS THE CRADLE OF THE TRADE, Virgil says. But the Trade had no need of a cradle any longer.
The island was a much-fabled port of call—; not every steam-boat would put in there. When the state of Louisiana was chartered, it laid claim “to the mid-point of the river,” and the state of Mississippi “to the channel”—; a simple enough division, on the face of it. Six years later, however, a rogue thumb of current carved a long, flat sliver out of the Mississippi mainland, well out into the river but short of the mid-point by half a mile. The new-born island belonged as much to one state as to the other, and owed allegiance, by law, to neither. It was a country to itself.
Decades passed, and the residents of the thirty-seventh island upstream from New Orleans—an overnight passage by steam-ship— grew down-right cozy in their solitude. The absence of law, not to mention tax-collectors, made it a haven for fugitives of every stripe. For the Redeemer, of course, it was paradise itself. In no time at all 37 had become his play-pen, and he—as a matter of course—had become its Lord Regent. He had no further need to scour the country-side for suckers, he was fond of declaring—; on 37 the suckers came to him, and they came politely.
The sailing-bell rang behind me and the
Vesuvius
hove off. The pilot’s name was Henderson—a Scotchman—and he’d been a share-holder from the beginning. The Redeemer had got ahold of him the same way he’d gotten all of us—: partly by blind chance, partly by design, feeling his way like a crawdad toward his present empire.
No-one was waiting to meet me on the freshly white-washed pier, which didn’t surprise me much—: it was going on six, and the fleshpots at the top of the bluff would be packed to overflowing. The neat white shacks along the water glowed prettily against the bank, their shuttered porches flickering like paper lamps—; here and there a sullen-faced boy or an old woman would nod to me as I passed. For all one could see or hear from the landing itself, 37 was a sweet-water hamlet like any
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