NZINGA, a cannibal Neeger, formerly King of the Congo, now house-slave to Mr. van Underdevater

JEHOSHAPHATSTOPCOCK, the Earl of BRIMSTONE, an enthusiast

TOMRUNAGATE, a discharged soldier turned Vagabond

THEREV.YAHWEHPUCKER, a Dissident divine

EUGENESTOPCOCK, son of Lord Brimstone, a Captain of Foot

FRANCISBUGGERMY, Earl of Suckmire, a foppish courtier

DODGE ANDBOLT, two of Tom Runagate’s accomplices

WOMEN:

MISSLYDIA VANUNDERDEVATER, the daughter and sole heiress of Mr. van Underdevater, recently returned from a Venetian finishing-school

LADYBRIMSTONE, wife to Jehoshaphat Stopcock

MISSSTRADDLE, Tom Runagate’s companion

SCENE:

SUCKMIRE, a rural estate in Kent

SCENE:a Cabin in a Ship at Sea. Thunder heard, flashes of Lightning seen.

Enter Mr. van Underdevater in dressing-gown, with a lanthorn.

VANUND: Boatswain!

Enter Nzinga wet, with a Sack.

NZINGA:Here, master, what-

VANUND: Odd’s bodkins! Have you fallen into the tar-pot, boatswain?

NZINGA:It is I, Master-your slave, My Royal Majesty, by the Grace of the tree-god, the rock-god, river-god, and diverse other gods who have slipped my mem’ry, of the Congo, King.

VANUND: So it is. What have you in the bag?

NZINGA:Balls.

VANUND: Balls! Sink me! You have quite forgot your Civilizing Lessons!

NZINGA:Of ice.

VANUND: Thank heavens.

NZINGA:I gathered ’em from the deck-where they are falling like grape-shot-and for this you thank heaven?

VANUND: Aye, for it means the boatswain is still in possession of all his Parts. Boatswain!

Enter LYDIA in dressing-gown, dishevelled.

LYDIA:Dear father, why do you shout for the boatswain so?

VANUND: My dear Lydia, I would fain pay him to bring this infernal storm to an end.

LYDIA:But father, the boatswain can’t stop a tempest!

VANUND: Perhaps he knows someone who can.

NZINGA:I know a weather-god in Guinea who can-and at rates very reasonable, as he will accept payment in rum.

VANUND: Rum! You take me for a half-wit? If this is what the weather-god does when he is sober -

NZINGA:Cowrie-shells would do in a pinch. If master would care to despatch My Majesty on the next southbound boat, My Majesty would be pleased to broker the transaction-

VANUND: You prove yourself a shrewd man of commerce. I am reminded of when I traded the holes in a million cannibals’ ears, for the eyes of a million potatoes, and beat the market at both ends of the deal-

More thunder.

VANUND: Too, slow, too slow! Boatswain!

Enter Lord Brimstone.

LORDBRIMSTONE:Here, here, what is this bawling?

LYDIA:Lord Brimstone-your servant.

VANUND: The price of ending this tempest is too high, the market in Pagan Deities too remote-

LORDB: Then why, sir, do you call for the boatswain?

VANUND: Why, sir, to tell him to be of good courage and to remain firm in the face of danger.

LYDIA:Oh, too late, father!

VANUND: What mean you, child?

LYDIA:When the boatswain heard you, he lost what firmness he had, and fled in a panic.

VANUND: How do you know it?

LYDIA:Why, he upset the hammock altogether, and tumbled me onto the deck!

VANUND: Lydia, Lydia, I have spent a fortune sending you to that school in Venice, where you have been studying to become a virtuous maiden-

LYDIA:And I have studied hard, Father, but it is ever so difficult!

VANUND: Has all that money been wasted?

LYDIA:Oh, no, Father, I learned some lovely songs from our dancing-master, Signore Fellatio.

Sings.*

VANUND: I’ve heard enough-Boatswain!

Enter Lady Brimstone.

LADYBRIMSTONE:My lord, have you found who is making that dreadful noise yet?

LORDB: M’lady, it’s that Dutchman.

LADYB: So much for idle investigations -what have you done about it, my lord?

LORDB: Nothing, my lady, for they say that the only way to quiet one of these obstreperous Dutchmen is to drown him.

LADYB: Drown-why, my lord-you’re not thinking of throwing him overboard-?

LORDB: Every soul aboard is thinking of it, M’lady. But with a Dutchman it isn’t necessary, as they live below sea-level to begin with. ’Tis merely a question of getting the sea to go back where the Good Lord put it in the first place-

LADYB: And how d’you propose to effect that, my lord?

LORDB: I have been conducting experiments on a novel engine to make windmills turn backwards, and pump water down-hill -

LADYB: Experiments! Engines! I say the way to put Dutchmen under water’s with French gunpowder and English courage!

Whatever the actor playing Lord Brimstone said was like expectorating into the River Amazon. For the true SCENEof these events was Neville’s Court*on a spring evening, and the true Dramatis Personae a roll that would’ve consumed many yards of paper and drams of ink to set it out fully. The script was an unpublished masterwork of courtly and collegiate intrigue, comprising hundreds of more or less clever lines being delivered-mostly sotto voce -at the same instant, producing a contrapuntal effect quite intricate but entirely too much for young Daniel Waterhouse to grasp. He had been wondering why persons such as these bothered to go to plays at all, when every day at Whitehall provided more spectacle-now he sensed that they did so because the stories in the theatre were simple, and arrived at fixed conclusions after an hour or two.

Heading up the cast of tonight’s performance was King Charles II of England, situated on the upper floor of Trinity’s miserable wreck of a library, where several consecutive windows had been opened up and converted into temporary opera-boxes. The Queen, one Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess with a famously inoperative womb, was seated to one side of His Majesty, pretending to understand English as usual. The guest of honor, the Duke of Monmouth (King Charles’s son by his mistress Lucy Walter), was on the other side. The windows flanking the King’s contained various elements of his court: one was anchored by Louise de Keroualle, the Duchess of Portsmouth and the King’s mistress. Another by Barbara Villiers, a.k.a. Lady Castlemaine, a.k.a. the Duchess of Cleveland, former lover of John Churchill, and the King’s mistress.

Moving outwards from the three central windows, there was one all filled up with Angleseys: Thomas More Anglesey and his nearly indistinguishable sons, Philip, now something like twenty-seven years old, and Louis, who was twenty-four, but looking younger. For protocol dictated that, as the Earl of Upnor was visiting his alma mater, he had to wear academic robes. Though he’d mobilized a squadron of French tailors to liven them up, they were still academic robes, and the object infesting his wig was unmistakably a mortarboard.

Balancing this Anglesey-window was a window all crowded with Comstocks, specifically the so-called Silver branch of that race: John and his sons Richard and Charles foremost, all dressed likewise in robes and mortarboards. Unlike the Earl of Upnor they seemed comfortable dressed that way. Or at least had until the play had begun, and the character of Jehoshaphat Stopcock, Lord Brimstone, had come tottering out dressed precisely as they were.

The King’s Comedians, performing on a temporary stage that had been erected in Neville’s Court, had decided to plow onwards in spite of the fact that no one could hear a word they were saying. “Lord Brimstone” seemed to be upbraiding his wife about something-presumably, her reference to “French gunpowder,” as opposed to “English,” which, on some other planet, might have been a rhetorical figure, but here seemed very much like a stab at John Comstock. Meanwhile, most of the audience-who, if they had the good fortune to be seated, were seated on chairs and benches arranged in the corner of Neville’s Court, beneath the windows of King and Court-were trying to break out into the opening stanza of “Pikes on the Dikes,” the most widely plagiarized song in England: a rousing ditty about why it was an excellent idea to invade Holland. But the King held out one hand to silence them. Not that he was lacking in belligerence-but down on the stage, “Lydia van Underdevater” was delivering a line that looked like it was meant to be funny. And the King didn’t like it when the buzz of Intrigue drowned out his Mistress.