Not Less Than Gods Read Online Free PDF Page A

nerves. Or gin, if you prefer. Here.” He drew a sovereign from his pocket and held it out to the old man.
    Richardson went pale, affronted, but he took the money. “Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.”
    “There’s a good fellow. I’ll just go aboard the
Zagreus
. We’ll speak later.”
     
    Dr. Nennys was obliged to display a great many documents once he had gone aboard the
Zagreus
, but he had come prepared. In the end he was escorted down into the hold by a pair of very deferential Marines, who were so considerate as to bring a chair and set it in place for him outside what looked like a cupboard door.
    “Unlock it, if you please,” said Dr. Nennys. “And be so good as to leave the lantern.”
    “Yes, sir,” said the more talkative of the two. He obeyed and they took their leave. Dr. Nennys sat still a moment, observing the noisome surroundings, listening to the tidal wash against the ship’s hull. Then he reached out and opened the door.
    The space beyond was no more than a meter high and two meters long, slightly less than a meter deep. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax sat within, in chains fastened to an iron bolt in the bulkhead. He peered out at the lamp, blinking, for it blinded him as thoroughly as if it had been the sun at noon.
    Dr. Nennys looked closely. The hopeful boy he had remembered was gone. The young man in chains was a hulking giant, gaunt, unshaven, with bitterness and exhaustion smoldering in his pale eyes. For a moment Edward stared at Dr. Nennys, blank as a big animal. At last he turned his face away, baring long teeth.
    “Bell-Fairfax,” said Dr. Nennys, putting a world of sorrowful reproach into the name. “How has it come to this? You nearly killed your commanding officer.”
    “I ought to have killed him outright,” said Edward, and his voice was now a man’s voice, a dark tenor. “Since I’m to hang for it. Yes. That’s my only regret, that I couldn’t keep on beating his head against the deck until his skull split. D’you remember Scargill, sir, when we were at Overton? It was like that. Just exactly like that. I thought of stopping, but he was a bully, really a foul murdering little monkey in a uniform, I could see he wasn’t going to give over the flogging until he’d killed Price and, and I just thought,
Well, the world will be better off without a creature like this in it.
Shame they stopped me.”
    “My dear boy,” said Dr. Nennys, in affected tones. “And what of the noble ideals with which you entered Her Majesty’s Navy?”
    “What of them?” Edward grimaced. “I went in resolved to do my duty. Imagine my surprise on learning that my duty involved blowing the Chinese to fragments, and all because they had the temerity to refuse to buy British opium! But I did my duty, sir. I was commended by my captain and promoted.
    “Then I was given a command and sent to patrol the Ivory Coast, and my duty there was to stop any ships attempting to transport slaves from Africa. I was so happy, sir! An inarguably moral cause in which I might serve. I was to capture slave ships and bring them in as prizes, you see?”
    “And so you did,” said Dr. Nennys. “Zealously. We heard great things of you, my boy.”
    “But it wasn’t enough, sir. I couldn’t stop them. Ships I brought in were merely sold,
with their cargoes of slaves
, refitted and sent back about their business. I could name you upright British merchants, Christian men all, who worked hand in glove with the Portuguese!
    “So I began to set the blacks ashore, and burn the ships I took. Even this wasn’t enough. I led expeditions to the barracoons where slaves were embarked. I set them free there, too. I burned the warehouses and the smithies where chains were forged. Damn me, do you know, the blacks fought to defend them? I had half a dozen black kings complain to me about the destruction of their property.
    “One day a warship brought an admiral, and I was summoned aboard and made to give an account of myself. I