When he was dead, we ate. His body lay beneath us. We devoured great mouthfuls of the mush with our hands. We had eaten almost nothing for two days.

We divided the sausage and ate it in one bite each.

Our gruesome repast was completed in two or three minutes; at which point, Bono asked, in a voice abruptly blanched, “Where’s Clippinger?”

Indeed, the man was gone.

Bono swore. We took up our guns again, wiping our hands upon the table to rid them of mush. We set out in search of our Serjeant, whispering his name.

The yard was dark. Fireflies played over the field. I progressed down toward the water, believing that Clippinger had perhaps gone in search of a boat. I did find a scow overturned by the water’s edge, but could not find Clippinger himself.

I was sensible of the possibility that our Serjeant was fled and had deserted, this being by far the most likely occasion for his disappearance; for, I reflected, he had little to return to, did he travel back with us to Gwynn’s Island. He had not our dire incentive for the success of that Regiment — a noncommissioned officer in a hated regiment in a precarious fastness only a few hundred feet from a growing and volatile enemy.

From my first sensations at the thought of his desertion — a relief that we might not have him in our company longer — there quickly followed the transports of unease, and then desperation, for I reasoned that, did he wish to desert, he should have to deliver to the rebels some token of his new fidelity — and a party of black men who had just committed the murder of a white man would be no unwelcome prize to lay at the feet of our persecutors. This, I reasoned, surely, was why he had slipped away so quickly. So ran my logic; and having seized upon these probabilities, logic gave way to steep fear.

I made my way swiftly back toward the house to find my companions and abandon this place.

Upon reaching the house, I saw that the door into the kitchen was open, and thinking to find the members of my party within, I gathered myself and stepped cautiously in.

Here found I Clippinger. He was with the daughter of the murdered man.

I cannot describe the scene.

She was upon the table, weeping; Clippinger had out his knife, and as he labored with her, he whispered to her not to scream, lest her father hear — though Clippinger knew full well that her father was beyond all hearing.

The girl perceived me in the gloom and cried out. Clippinger turned from his work, clutching his breeches. Observing me, he started; and then, seeing it was an ally, smiled and said a thing I shall in no way repeat.

I said nothing.

Having spoken, he turned back to his prize. Again, the table walked shuddering upon the floor.

I stepped toward him, and he withdrew. He stepped away from the girl. He spake to me again, this time in warning.

I did not reply; he threatened.

I drove my bayonet deep between neck and head. He fell backward, but could not dislodge himself from my weapon. His blood, it seemed, filled the room.

My hands could no longer support the gun with him upon its tip; they dropped, and he fell against the wall and then slid to the floor. I believe he was, by the time he reached the ground, lost to all sensation. His corpse continued to bleed.

The earth of the floor was brushed in pretty patterns; flowers and vines picked out in dirt to ornament the rude kitchen.

The girl and I regarded each other for a moment. Our looks were full of hatred, not for any deed, but for the witnessing of deeds.

I did not speak to her, nor she to me. I turned to find Olakunde in the doorway.

He and I left her. We left her to make her way past the body of him who had assaulted her; we abandoned her before she discovered the body of her father.

We went out into the yard, which was full of flat night; we heard an urgent whisper from the side of a shed, where we found Bono awaiting us.

“Where’s Clippinger?” he hissed in fury. “Where is that whoreson?”

I opened my mouth to speak; but only silence issued forth. Again I assayed a response; this time, there was a low growl, a hideous, rasping gargle in the throat.

Bono said, “You seen him?”

I could not speak. Tears or something similar interfered.

Olakunde stepped forward. He said, “Died in battle.”

Bono looked from one of us to the other, taking in the full dimensions of this scene. He asked no questions, but came and put his hand on my arm.

In the house, the girl began sobbing and screaming for her father. She believed him still alive. We did not wish to hear her find him.

We went to the riverside, where lay the boat. We set it upon the Rappahannock and cast off. We were free of the land.

Bono rowed us far out into the middle of the river, and then let the current take us. We drifted between the banks.

I saw on the shores all of the farms where slumbered slave and master alike. I observed their ordered fields beneath the moon. I saw the vast systems required for their industry: the river upon which we floated, where ketches carried bricks for the construction of house, dairy, and kiln, and shallops drifted, heaped with hay; and where busied the fleet involved in gathering grain and tobacco and conducting crops out to the Bay and beyond, to the open sea.

As if in a vision, I saw the coasters and Guinea-men upon the ocean, plying the waters for transmission of goods. I saw the West Indies, where bonded men slashed at the cane, that we might eat our sugar dainties; and the East Indies, where sepoys walked the walls of fortresses and Redcoats in full woolens charged a Newar’s army, screaming beneath the blaring sun, and thus secured our tea.

I saw Africa, all the places told of in Olakunde’s tales: I saw the fortresses of Accra, the forest states of the Gold Coast, the markets of Algiers, the entrepôts of the grasslands where translators bartered for Ashanti cloth, for the girls of Mahi, for amulets and Awka metalwork, for kola nut and potash. I saw the great herds of the Fulani; and the camel caravans of the Tuareg, laden with salt, leading slave coffles through the bright desert to the Ottoman kingdoms of the north, sand keening off the dunes. I saw the slave-weavers of the Sudan; the child-warriors of the Moroccan sultan; Efik musketeers scampering at dawn into Ibo villages while women screamed alarm; forest wars declared simply to render up captives for sale. And upon these scenes remote did rum distilleries here depend, and teahouses in Philadelphia, and Carolina rice plantations, the account books of Liverpool and the fine equipages of London, Parisian silk-sellers and the seamstresses of New-York, the Customs House on Boston wharves, the proud estates on the Rappahannock.

All these things saw I; and I saw that everything hath its price, and all are in fluctuation, no value solid, but all cost as they are appraised for use; and there is use for all, and constant and relentless exchange. How much, asked Slant, is a man’s life worth? A pregnant child upon the docks doth cost less than a fine dress she might wear two years later; and luxury is earned by being wrested. (And the women walk upon the lawn, arm-in-arm, as the gardeners stoop before them with blooms.)

And I saw the Earth as the sun rose; and it was a world of fire, of particle, spark, and æther consumed and exchanged, no solid place to stand; and we were creatures of fire, loops and bright coils devouring as we could in serpentine chase, exhausting until ourselves extinguished; and all shed superficies, and clutched to renew, and preyed upon all.

Within me, a small, still voice urged, It need not be thus; but what could that signify? For I am hungry, and must devour to live.

We passed down the Rappahannock, and at dawn, came to the Bay.