Flashman and the Mountain of Light, Flash For Freedom!, Flashman and the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser

Author:George MacDonald Fraser [George MacDonald Fraser]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

I blame myself. If there is one thing that can make me randier than usual, it is danger safely past, and with a creature like Cassy to occupy me I don’t give a thought to anything else. She, for her part, was probably still so distraught that she was ready to abandon herself altogether—she said later that she had never willingly made love to a man before, and I believed her. I suppose if you’ve been a good-looking female slave, used to being hauled into bed by a lot of greasy planters whether you like it or not, it sours you against men, and when you meet a fine upstanding lad like me, who knows when to tickle rather than slap—well, you’re grateful for the change, and make the most of it. But whatever the reasons, the upshot was that Mr and Mrs Montague spent that night and the rest of next day in passionate indulgence, never bothering about the world outside, and that was how I came adrift yet again.

Of course, a moralist would say that this was to be expected: he would doubtless point out that I had fornicated my way almost continuously along the Mississippi valley, and draw the conclusion that all my trials arose from this. I don’t know about that, as a general statement, but I’ll agree that if I hadn’t made such a beast of myself in Cassy’s case I would have avoided a deal of trouble.

What with sleeping and dallying, it was late on the next afternoon before I tumbled out to dress myself and take a turn on the promenade; it was a splendid sunny day, the good ship Missouri was booming along in great style, and I was in that sleepy, well-satisfied state where you just want to lean on the rail, smoking and watching the great river roll by, with the distant bank half hidden in haze, and the lumber rafts and river craft sweeping down, their crews waving, and the whistles tooting overhead. Cassy wouldn’t come out, though; she decided that the less she was seen the better, until we were up among the free states, which was sensible.

Well, thinks I, you’ve had some bad luck, my boy, but surely it’s behind you now. Charity Spring and his foul ship, the nosey-parkering Mr Lincoln, the Yankee Navy—they were all a long way south. I could smile at the ludicrous figure of George Randolph, although he had brought me catastrophe enough at the time; the abominable Mandeville and his shrew of a wife, the terror of the slave-cart, and the anxieties of Memphis—all by and done with. Up the Ohio to Louisville and then Pittsburgh, a quick trip to New York, and then it would be England again, and not before time. And Flashy the Vampire could go to work on his father-in-law—I was looking forward to that, rather.

I wondered, as I watched the brown water swirling by, what would become of Cassy. If she’d been a woman of

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