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 out 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.
When he was well enough to speak, we talked to him, and asked him some questions about his wife, and the reasons why he killed her. And he then told us what I have related of that resolution and of his parting, and he besought us, we would let him die, and was extremely afflicted to think it was possible he might live. He assured us, if we did not dispatch him, he would prove very fatal to a great many. We said all we could to make him live, and gave him new assurances, but he begged we would not think so poorly of him, or of his love to Imoinda, to imagine we could flatter him to life again; but the chirurgeon assured him, he could not live, and therefore he need not fear. We were all (but Caesar) afflicted at this news, and the sight was ghashly. His discourse was sad; and the earthy smell about him was so strong that I was persuaded to leave the place for some time (being myself but sickly, and very apt to fall into fits of dangerous illness upon any extraordinary melancholy). The servants and Trefry and the chirurgeons promised all to take what possible care they could of the life of Caesar, and I, taking boat, went with other company to Colonel Martin’s, about three days’ journey down the river; but I was no sooner gone than the governor taking Trefry about some pretended earnest business a day’s journey up the river, having communicated his design to one Banister, a wild Irishman and one of the council, a fellow of absolute barbarity, and fit to execute any villainy, but was rich. He came up to Parham, and forcibly took Caesar, and had him carried to the same post where he was whipped, and causing him to be tied to it, and a great fire made before him, he told him, he should die like a dog as he was. Caesar replied, this was the first piece of bravery that ever Banister did, and he never spoke sense till he pronounced that word, and, if he would keep it, he would declare, in the other world, that he was the only man, of all the whites, that ever he heard speak truth. And turning to the men that had bound him, he said, My friends, am I to die, or to be whipped? And they cried, Whipped! no, you shall not escape so well. And then he replied, smiling, A blessing on thee, and assured them they need not tie him, for he would stand fixed like a rock, and endure death so as should encourage them to die. But if you whip me, said he, be sure you tie me fast.
He had learned to take tobacco, and when he was assured he should die, he desired they would give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted which they did, and the executioner came and first cut off his members and threw them into the fire. After that, with an ill-favoured knife, they cut his ears and his nose, and burned them; he still smoked on, as if nothing had touched him. Then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe. But at the cutting off the other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the ghost without a groan or a reproach. My mother and sister were by him all the while but not suffered to save him, so rude and wild were the rabble, and so inhuman were the justices who stood by to see the execution, who after paid dearly enough for their insolence. They cut Caesar in quarters, and sent them to several of the chief plantations. One quarter was sent to Colonel Martin, who refused it, and swore he had rather see the quarters of Banister and the governor himself than those of Caesar, on his plantations; and that he could govern his Negroes without terrifying and grieving them with frightful spectacles of a mangled king.
Thus died this great man, worthy of a better fate and a more sublime wit than mine to write his praise. Yet, I hope, the reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his glorious name to survive to all ages, with that of the brave, the beautiful and the constant Imoinda.
FINIS.
- BOCCACCIO · Mrs Rosie and the Priest
- GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS · As kingfishers catch fire
- The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
- THOMAS DE QUINCEY · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
- FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Aphorisms on Love and Hate
- JOHN RUSKIN · Traffic
- PU SONGLING · Wailing Ghosts
- JONATHAN SWIFT · A Modest Proposal
- Three Tang Dynasty Poets
- WALT WHITMAN · On the Beach at Night Alone
- KENKŌ · A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
- BALTASAR GRACIÁN · How to Use Your Enemies
- JOHN KEATS · The Eve of St Agnes
- THOMAS HARDY · Woman much missed
- GUY DE MAUPASSANT · Femme Fatale
- MARCO POLO · Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
- SUETONIUS · Caligula
- APOLLONIUS OF RHODES · Jason and Medea
- ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · Olalla
- KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS · The Communist Manifesto
- PETRONIUS · Trimalchio’s Feast
- JOHANN PETER HEBEL · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog
- HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN · The Tinder Box
- RUDYARD KIPLING · The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
- DANTE · Circles of Hell
- HENRY MAYHEW · Of Street Piemen
- HAFEZ · The nightingales are drunk
- GEOFFREY CHAUCER · The Wife of Bath
- MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
- THOMAS NASHE · The Terrors of the Night
- EDGAR ALLAN POE · The Tell-Tale Heart
- MARY KINGSLEY · A Hippo Banquet
- JANE AUSTEN · The Beautifull Cassandra
- ANTON CHEKHOV · Gooseberries
- SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
- JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
- CHARLES DICKENS · The Great Winglebury Duel
- HERMAN MELVILLE · The Maldive Shark
- ELIZABETH GASKELL · The Old Nurse’s Story
- NIKOLAY LESKOV · The Steel Flea
- HONORÉ DE BALZAC · The Atheist’s Mass
- CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN · The Yellow Wall-Paper
- C. P. CAVAFY · Remember, Body …
- FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY · The Meek One
- GUSTAVE FLAUBERT · A Simple Heart
- NIKOLAI GOGOL · The Nose
- SAMUEL PEPYS · The Great Fire of London
- EDITH WHARTON · The Reckoning
- HENRY JAMES · The Figure in the Carpet
- WILFRED OWEN · Anthem For Doomed Youth
- WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART · My Dearest Father
- PLATO · Socrates’ Defence
- CHRISTINA ROSSETTI · Goblin Market
- Sindbad the Sailor
- SOPHOCLES · Antigone
- RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA · The Life of a Stupid Man
- LEO TOLSTOY · How Much Land Does A Man Need?
- GIORGIO VASARI · Leonardo da Vinci
- OSCAR WILDE · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
- SHEN FU · The Old Man of the Moon
- AESOP · The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
- MATSUO BASHŌ · Lips too Chilled
- EMILY BRONTË · The Night is Darkening Round Me
- JOSEPH CONRAD · To-morrow
- RICHARD HAKLUYT · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
- KATE CHOPIN · A Pair of Silk Stockings
- CHARLES DARWIN · It was snowing butterflies
- BROTHERS GRIMM · The Robber Bridegroom
- CATULLUS · I Hate and I Love
- HOMER · Circe and the Cyclops
- D. H. LAWRENCE · Il Duro
- KATHERINE MANSFIELD · Miss Brill
- OVID · The Fall of Icarus
- SAPPHO · Come Close
- IVAN TURGENEV · Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
- VIRGIL · O Cruel Alexis
- H.
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