Oroonoko

by Aphra Behn

  But they were no sooner arrived at the place where all the slaves receive their punishments of whipping, but they laid hands on Caesar and Tuscan, faint with heat and toil; and surprising them, bound them to two several stakes, and whipped them in a most deplorable and inhumane manner, rending the very flesh from their bones; especially Caesar, who was not perceived to make any moan or to alter his face, only to roll his eyes on the faithless governor, and those he believed guilty, with fierceness and indignation. And, to complete his rage, he saw every one of those slaves, who, but a few days before, adored him as something more than mortal, now had a whip to give him some lashes, while he strove not to break his fetters, though, if he had, it were impossible. But he pronounced a woe and revenge from his eyes that darted fire, which was at once both awful and terrible to behold.

  When they thought they were sufficiently revenged on him, they untied him, almost fainting with loss of blood from a thousand wounds all over his body, from which they had rent his clothes, and led him bleeding and naked as he was, and loaded him all over with irons, and then rubbed his wounds, to complete their cruelty, with Indian pepper, which had like to have made him raving mad, and, in this condition made him so fast to the ground that he could not stir if his pains and wounds would have given him leave. They spared Imoinda, and did not let her see this barbarity committed towards her lord, but carried her down to Parham and shut her up, which was not in kindness to her, but for fear she should die with the sight or miscarry, and then they should lose a young slave, and perhaps the mother.

  You must know, that when the news was brought on Monday morning, that Caesar had betaken himself to the woods and carried with him all the Negroes, we were possessed with extreme fear, which no persuasions could dissipate, that he would secure himself till night, and then, that he would come down and cut all our throats. This apprehension made all the females of us fly down the river to be secured, and while we were away, they acted this cruelty. For I suppose I had authority and interest enough there, had I suspected any such thing, to have prevented it, but we had not gone many leagues but the news overtook us that Caesar was taken and whipped like a common slave. We met on the river with Colonel Martin, a man of great gallantry, wit and goodness, and whom I have celebrated in a character of my new comedy by his own name, in memory of so brave a man. He was wise and eloquent, and, from the fineness of his parts, bore a great sway over the hearts of all the colony. He was a friend to Caesar, and resented this false dealing with him very much. We carried him back to Parham, thinking to have made an accommodation; when we came, the first news we heard was that the governor was dead of a wound Imoinda had given him, but it was not so well. But it seems he would have the pleasure of beholding the revenge he took on Caesar, and before the cruel ceremony was finished, he dropped down, and then they perceived the wound he had on his shoulder was by a venomed arrow, which, as I said, his Indian mistress healed by sucking the wound.

  We were no sooner arrived but we went up to the plantation to see Caesar, whom we found in a very miserable and inexpressable condition, and I have a thousand times admired how he lived, in so much tormenting pain. We said all things to him that trouble, pity and good nature could suggest, protesting our innocence of the fact, and our abhorrence of such cruelties; making a thousand professions and services to him, and begging as many pardons for the offenders, till we said so much that he believed we had no hand in his ill treatment, but told us, he could never pardon Byam. As for Trefry, he confessed he saw his grief and sorrow for his suffering, which he could not hinder, but was like to have been beaten down by the very slaves for speaking in his defence. But for Byam, who was their leader, their head – and should, by his justice and honour, have been an example to them – for him he wished to live, to take a dire revenge of him, and said, It had been well for him if he had sacrificed me, instead of giving me the contemptible whip. He refused to talk much, but begging us to give him our hands, he took them and protested never to lift up his to do us any harm. He had a great respect for Colonel Martin and always took his counsel like that of a parent, and assured him, he would obey him in anything but his revenge on Byam. Therefore, said he, for his own safety, let him speedily dispatch me, for if I could dispatch myself, I would not, till that justice were done to my injured person, and the contempt of a soldier. No, I would not kill myself, even after a whipping, but will be content to live with that infamy, and be pointed at by every grinning slave till I have completed my revenge; and then you shall see that Oroonoko scorns to live with the indignity that was put on Caesar. All we could do could get no more words from him, and we took care to have him put immediately into a healing bath to rid him of his pepper, and ordered a chirurgeon* to anoint him with healing balm, which he suffered, and in some time he began to be able to walk and eat. We failed not to visit him every day, and, to that end, had him brought to an apartment at Parham.

  The governor was no sooner recovered, and had heard of the menaces of Caesar, but he called his council, who (not to disgrace them, or burlesque the government there) consisted of such notorious villains as Newgate never transported, and possibly originally were such, who understood neither the laws of God or man, and had no sort of principles to make them worthy the name of men. But at the very council table would contradict and fight with one another, and swear so bloodily that it was terrible to hear and see them. (Some of them were afterwards hanged when the Dutch took possession of the place; others sent off in chains.) But calling these special rulers of the nation together, and requiring their counsel in this weighty affair, they all concluded that (damn them) it might be their own cases; and that Caesar ought to be made an example to all the Negroes to fright them from daring to threaten their betters, their lords and masters, and, at this rate, no man was safe from his own slaves, and concluded, nemine contradicente,* that Caesar should be hanged.

  Trefry then thought it time to use his authority, and told Byam, his command did not extend to his lord’s plantation, and that Parham was as much exempt from the law as Whitehall; and that they ought no more to touch the servants of the Lord – (who there represented the king’s person) than they could those about the king himself; and that Parham was a sanctuary, and though his lord were absent in person, his power was still in being there, which he had entrusted with him, as far as the dominions of his particular plantations reached, and all that belonged to it; the rest of the country, as Byam was lieutenant to his lord, he might exercise his tyranny upon. Trefry had others as powerful, or more, that interested themselves in Caesar’s life, and absolutely said, he should be defended. So turning the governor and his wise council out of doors (for they sat at Parham-House), we set a guard upon our landing place, and would admit none but those we called friends to us and Caesar.

  The governor having remained wounded at Parham till his recovery was completed, Caesar did not know but he was still there; and indeed, for the most part, his time was spent there for he was one that loved to live at other people’s expense, and if he were a day absent, he was ten present there, and used to play, and walk, and hunt, and fish, with Caesar. So that Caesar did not at all doubt, if he once recovered strength, but he should find an opportunity of being revenged on him. Though, after such a revenge, he could not hope to live, for if he escaped the fury of the English mobile,* who perhaps would have been glad of the occasion to have killed him, he was resolved not to survive his whipping; yet he had, some tender hours, a repenting softness which he called his fits of coward, wherein he struggled with love for the victory of his heart which took part with his charming Imoinda there, but, for the most part, his time was passed in melancholy thought and black designs. He considered, if he should do this deed, and die either in the attempt or after it, he left his lovely Imoinda a prey, or at best a slave, to the enraged multitude; his great heart could not endure that thought. Perhaps, said he, she may be first ravaged by every brute, exposed first to their nasty lusts, and then a shameful death. No, he could not live a moment
under that apprehension, too insupportable to be borne. These were his thoughts, and his silent arguments with his heart, as he told us afterwards; so that now resolving not only to kill Byam, but all those he thought had enraged him, pleasing his great heart with the fancied slaughter he should make over the whole face of the plantation. He first resolved on a deed that (however horrid it first appeared to us all), when we had heard his reasons, we thought it brave and just. Being able to walk, and, as he believed, fit for the execution of his great design, he begged Trefry to trust him into the air, believing a walk would do him good; which was granted him, and taking Imoinda with him, as he used to do in his more happy and calmer days, he led her up into a wood, where, after (with a thousand sighs and long gazing silently on her face, while tears gushed, in spite of him, from his eyes), he told her his design first of killing her, and then his enemies, and next himself, and the impossibility of escaping, and therefore he told her the necessity of dying. He found the heroic wife faster pleading for death than he was to propose it when she found his fixed resolution, and, on her knees, besought him not to leave her a prey to his enemies. He (grieved to death) yet pleased at her noble resolution, took her up, and embracing her with all the passion and languishment of a dying lover, drew his knife to kill this treasure of his soul, this pleasure of his eyes. While tears trickled down his cheeks, hers were smiling with joy she should die by so noble a hand and be sent in her own country (for that is their notion of the next world) by him she so tenderly loved and so truly adored in this; for wives have a respect for their husbands equal to what any other people pay a deity, and when a man finds any occasion to quit his wife, if he love her, she dies by his hand, if not, he sells her, or suffers some other to kill her. It being thus, you may believe the deed was soon resolved on, and it is not to be doubted but the parting, the eternal leave-taking of two such lovers, so greatly born, so sensible, so beautiful, so young and so fond, must be very moving, as the relation of it was to be afterwards.

  All that love could say in such cases being ended, and all the intermitting irresolutions being adjusted, the lovely, young and adored victim lays herself down before the sacrificer, while he, with a hand resolved and a heart breaking within, gave the fatal stroke, first cutting her throat, and then severing her yet smiling face from that delicate body, pregnant as it was with the fruits of tenderest love. As soon as he had done, he laid the body decently on leaves and flowers, of which he made a bed, and concealed it under the same coverlid of Nature, only her face he left yet bare to look on. But when he found she was dead and past all retrieve, never more to bless him with her eyes and soft language, his grief swelled up to rage; he tore, he raved, he roared like some monster of the wood, calling on the loved name of Imoinda. A thousand times he turned the fatal knife that did the deed toward his own heart, with a resolution to go immediately after her, but dire revenge, which was now a thousand times more fierce in his soul than before, prevents him, and he would cry out, No, since I have sacrificed Imoinda to my revenge, shall I lose that glory which I have purchased so dear, as the price of the fairest, dearest, softest creature that ever Nature made? No, no! Then, at her name, grief would get the ascendant of rage, and he would lie down by her side, and water her face with showers of tears, which never were wont to fall from those eyes. And however bent he was on his intended slaughter, he had not power to stir from the sight of this dear object, now more beloved and more adored than ever.

  He remained in this deploring condition for two days, and never rose from the ground where he had made his sad sacrifice. At last, rousing from her side, and accusing himself of living too long now Imoinda was dead, and that the deaths of those barbarous enemies were deferred too long, he resolved now to finish the great work; but offering to rise, he found his strength so decayed that he reeled to and fro like boughs assailed by contrary winds, so that he was forced to lie down again and try to summon all his courage to his aid. He found his brains turned round, and his eyes were dizzy, and objects appeared not the same to him [as] they were wont to do; his breath was short, and all his limbs surprised with a faintness he had never felt before. He had not eaten in two days, which was one occasion of his feebleness, but excess of grief was the greatest; yet still he hoped he should recover vigour to act his design, and lay expecting it yet six days longer, still mourning over the dead idol of his heart, and striving every day to rise but could not.

  In all this time you may believe we were in no little affliction for Caesar and his wife. Some were of opinion he was escaped never to return; others thought some accident had happened to him. But however, we failed not to send out a hundred people several ways to search for him. A party of about forty went that way he took, among whom was Tuscan, who was perfectly reconciled to Byam. They had not gone very far into the wood, but they smelt an unusual smell, as of a dead body, for stinks must be very noisome that can be distinguished among such a quantity of natural sweets as every inch of that land produces. So that they concluded they should find him dead, or somebody that was so. They passed on towards it, as loathsome as it was, and made such rustling among the leaves that lie thick on the ground by continual falling that Caesar heard he was approached; and though he had, during the space of these eight days, endeavoured to rise, but found he wanted strength, yet looking up and seeing his pursuers, he rose and reeled to a neighbouring tree, against which he fixed his back. And being within a dozen yards of those that advanced and saw him, he called out to them, and bid them approach no nearer if they would be safe, so that they stood still, and hardly believing their eyes that would persuade them that it was Caesar that spoke to them, so much was he altered. They asked him, what he had done with his wife? for they smelt a stink that almost struck them dead. He, pointing to the dead body, sighing, cried, Behold her there. They put off the flowers that covered her with their sticks, and found she was killed, and cried out, O monster! that hast murdered thy wife. Then asking him, why he did so cruel a deed, he replied, he had no leisure to answer impertinent questions. You may go back, continued he, and tell the faithless governor, he may thank fortune that I am breathing my last, and that my arm is too feeble to obey my heart in what it had designed him. But his tongue faltering and trembling, he could scarce end what he was saying. The English taking advantage of his weakness, cried, Let us take him alive by all means. He heard them; and, as if he had revived from a fainting or a dream, he cried out, No, gentlemen, you are deceived, you will find no more Caesars to be whipped, no more find a faith in me. Feeble as you think me, I have strength yet left to secure me from a second indignity. They swore all anew, and he only shook his head, and beheld them with scorn. Then they cried out, Who will venture on this single man? Will nobody? They stood all silent while Caesar replied, Fatal will be the attempt to the first adventurer, let him assure himself, and, at that word, held up his knife in a menacing posture. Look ye, ye faithless crew, said he, it is not life I seek, nor am I afraid of dying, and, at that word, cut a piece of flesh from his own throat, and threw it at them, yet still I would live if I could till I had perfected my revenge. But oh! it cannot be. I feel life gliding from my eyes and heart, and, if I make not haste, I shall fall a victim to the shameful whip. At that, he ripped up his own belly, and took his bowels and pulled them out with what strength he could, while some, on their knees imploring, besought him to hold his hand. But when they saw him tottering, they cried out, Will none venture on him? A bold English cried, Yes, if he were the Devil (taking courage when he saw him almost dead), and, swearing a horrid oath for his farewell to the world, he rushed on. Caesar with his armed hand met him so fairly, as stuck him to the heart, and he fell dead at his feet. Tuscan seeing that, cried out, I love thee, O Caesar! and therefore will not let thee die, if possible. And, running to him, took him in his arms, but, at the same time, warding a blow that Caesar made at his bosom, he received it quite through his arm, and Caesar having not the strength to pluck the knife forth, though he attempted it, Tuscan neither pulled it ou
t himself nor suffered it to be pulled out, but came down with it sticking in his arm, and the reason he gave for it was, because the air should not get into the wound. They put their hands across, and carried Caesar between six of them, fainted as he was and they thought dead or just dying; and they brought him to Parham, and laid him on a couch, and had the chirurgeon immediately to him, who dressed his wounds and sewed up his belly, and used means to bring him to life, which they effected. We ran all to see him; and, if before we thought him so beautiful a sight, he was now so altered that his face was like a death’s head blacked over, nothing but teeth and eye-holes. For some days we suffered nobody to speak to him, but caused cordials to be poured down his throat, which sustained his life, and in six or seven days he recovered his senses. For you must know, that wounds are almost to a miracle cured in the Indies, unless wounds in the legs which rarely ever cure.