‘Sir, I have no notion at all. She was there in the market, curled up in a ball under some straw in the bottom of a fine brass wire cage, and when I asked what was there the old woman said “Potto”. It would have been no satisfaction to anyone not to haggle a little, and I knocked off the equivalent of fourpence for no tail; but in the end she had a price that made her laugh with pleasure and she said I might have some little books and pictures into the bargain. She had been a Popish missionary’s housekeeper, you see, and she was selling what he had left. Everything had gone except these books and papers and the potto, which the people of all the nations in Whydah, even the Hausas, suspected of being a Roman fetiso, which might offend the local spirits. I carried her aboard the Cestos and just before I turned in I saw her looking at me with eyes like saucers, but she did not seem to like the sight, and she shrank back into the straw almost at once, though I offered her a piece of banana. That is all I know of her, except that she would have been boiled tomorrow if she had not found a customer.’
‘You would not have her with you, at all, in that elegant boat, dear Mr Whewell?’
‘Oh no. Movement seems to distress her, and we had to beat into a heavy head-sea: but I did bring the drawings and the books.’
The books were an Elzevier Pomponius Mela De situ orbis, a breviary worn almost to destruction and a thick notebook filled at one end with equivalents in various African languages and at the other with personal reflexions and what appeared to be drafts of letters. The drawings were painstaking, inexpert representations of the potto in different attitudes, tailless, anxious.
‘I am sorry to be disappointing,’ said Whewell, ‘but the squadron is running in at rather better than eight knots – there, over to starboard, you can see our brigs and schooners
– and in a few minutes I must hurry ahead with orders. All ships and vessels are to fire a royal salute of twenty-one guns.’
‘Why, for all love? This is not Oak-Apple Day or any other great occasion.’
‘In order to impress Whydah and the King of Dahomey:
and it can be justified as being the birthday of a member of the royal family – well, almost.
Mr Adams ran right through the book and came up with the Duke of Habachtsthal, who was born today: a close cousin, I believe. Anyhow, royal enough for the purpose.’
That ill-omened name was never wholly remote from Stephen’s thoughts, but today it had retreated farther than usual, and the sudden, wholly unexpected sound of it cast a singular damp upon his happiness.
Whewell set off for the Whydah road, leaving the drawings and other things by Stephen’s side. Presently he took up the notebook, and turning to the back he at once came upon a smaller drawing of both the potto and a creature very like it that he took to
be Lemur tardigradus, with the following text, apparently meant for a fellow-member of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost:
In her manners she is for the most part gentle, except in the cold season, when her temper seemed wholly changed: and her Creator who made her so sensible to cold, to which she must often have been exposed even in her native forests, gave her her thick fur, which we rarely see in animals in these tropical climates: to me, who not only constantly fed her, but bathed her twice a week in water accommodated to the seasons, and whom she clearly distinguished from others, she was at all times grateful; but when I disturbed her in winter, she was usually indignant, and seemed to reproach me with the uneasiness which she felt, though no possible precaution had been omitted to keep her in a proper degree of warmth. At all times she was pleased with being stroked on the head, and frequently suffered me to touch her extremely sharp teeth; but her temper was always quick, and when she was unreasonably disturbed, she expressed a little resentment, by an obscure murmur, like that of a squirrel.
From half an hour after sunrise to half an hour before sunset, she slept without intermission, rolled up like a hedgehog; and, as soon as she awoke, she began to prepare herself for the
labours of her approaching day, licking and dressing herself like a cat, an operation which the flexibility of her neck and limbs enabled her to perform very completely: she was then ready for a slight breakfast, after which she commonly took a short nap; but when she sun was quite set she recovered all her vivacity. A little before daybreak, when my early hours gave me frequent opportunities of observing her, she seemed to solicit my attention, and if I presented my finger to her, she licked or nibbled it with great gentleness, but eagerly took fruit when I offered it, though she seldom ate much at her morning repast; when the day brought back her night, her eyes lost their lustre and strength, and she composed herself for a slumber of ten or eleven hours.
The missionary’s writing was difficult to make out, irregular and trembling, the hand of a very sick or aged man, and by the time Stephen had come to the bottom of the page, the Bellona, her consort and all the inshore vessels had formed a line of parallel with the shore, lying to on the declining breeze at little more than point-blank range of the immense crowds blackening the strand. He had heard the usual orders, the hoarse cry of Meares the master gunner and his mate, and he knew that a salute was to be fired. Yet nothing had prepared him for the prodigious bellowing uproar that followed the Bellona’s first discharge. The people on the strand were equally surprised, or even more so, and several thousand fell flat, covering their heads.
The noise was not quite so great, nor the smoke-banks quite so dense, as they had been at Freetown, but the whole was more concentrated; and when Stephen could hear himself think again he felt that Jack Aubrey was probably right, and that the slave-trade as a whole had received a setback worth a thousand times the cost in powder (shot there was none). For the potto he was not greatly concerned. Creatures that lived within the zone of tropical storms, with the enormous thunder breaking just over their heads, could put up with anything the Royal Navy might be able to offer, particularly those that slept all day with their heads between their knees.
Certainly this was the case with the present potto. When Whewell and Square brought her aboard and carried her down
to Maturin’s little cabin on the orlop – he did not trust Jack not to talk loud and chuck her under the chin, which would not do until she was used to life aboard – he sat with her a great while by the light of a single purser’s dip. At about sunset she came out, looking nervous to be sure, as any country potto might in new surroundings, but neither shattered nor terrified. She would have nothing to do with his proffered banana, still less with a finger, but she washed to some extent- a very beautiful little creature – and a little before he left he saw one of the far too many local cockroaches walk into her cage. Her immense eyes glowed with an uncommon fire: she paused, motionless until it was within reach, and then seized it with both hands. Yet for eating the animal, which she did with every appearance of appetite, she used but one, and that the left.
‘Good night, dear potto,’ he said, locking the door behind him. His way led him through the after-cockpit, the midshipmen’s berth, at present filled with a dozen boys and young men, engaged in eating their supper, throwing pieces of biscuit and shouting at one another. They all leapt up at the sight of the Doctor – asked him how he did – said they were very happy to see him on his pins – but he must not overdo it, particularly so soon, and at his age – he must take care – with this blessed topgallant breeze off the land she was pitching into the swell like Leda’s swan – and the two senior master’s mates, Upex and Tyndall, insisted upon leading him up the ladder to the gundeck, each holding an elbow, so to the upper deck and thence to the quarterdeck, where he was considered safe and capable of walking aft, with the first lieutenant’s help, as far as the cabin.
‘Heavens, Stephen,’ cried Jack, ‘I thought you were asleep in the bed-place. I have been walking about on tiptoe and drinking my sherry in an undertone.’