It was at that moment when I had the first vague thought that would change things between us. I suddenly wondered if he was slipping into some kind of disguise. After a while this led to a far more unsettling thought, that I might somehow be an unwitting part of it. Years later, in biographies by his widow, Isabel, by his niece Georgiana Stisted, and by a man named Thomas Wright, there were references to the nature of his intelligence work in India. He alludes to this in his own early books: how he would pass among the people as one of them, having fluently learned their language in a few weeks or even days, darkened his skin, made himself up to look the part, and ply his secret service work. And already in print, of course, was his account of the epic journey, in the flawless disguise of an Arab, to Mecca and Medina. Richard could be anyone, and this fact led to a disturbing new thought. Could he now be spying on my country—was that what this journey was? Had he been sent here to assess the likelihood of civil war, when it might come, and how England could exploit it? Such a mission made chilling sense. On the surface, relations between England and the United States had been warm enough since our last war had ended in 1814, but it was common knowledge that many in the British government still seethed with anger and wished us ill. Lord Palmerston, for one, had never forgiven us for that last defeat, when he had been secretary of war. Now that he was prime minister, was he plotting, after all these years, to get his revenge, and was Burton the advance scout for his ambitions?
I felt a great anger come over me at such a thought, and I decided to confront Richard and have it out. I was ready to declare our brief friendship finished if he had undertaken such a deception, and to catch the next steamer north out of Wilmington. But when the moment came, I wavered. As we sat over dinner, I tried and failed to formulate the question, which could result in a grave insult and ruin a friendship that might in fact be innocent. Burton had said or done nothing specific to justify my suspicion: only what he always did, as he said himself. By the end of the evening I had decided to say nothing. But I remained uneasy and several times I caught him watching me, as if he had read my thoughts and suddenly knew what I suspected.
There was one incident worth noting in the tavern that night. It almost seems superfluous but its importance came to bear much later. We were sitting with a small group of new acquaintances near the bar when a large, boisterous man named Jedro Fink joined our group. He was clearly a Yankee hater, already well fortified with ale, and the more he drank, the more he seemed to take offense at whatever I said. It was my accent: no one could ever mistake me for anything but a Northerner. Once in the general babble, the phrase “Yankee dogs” floated over my head, and when I looked, his bleary eyes were fixed on mine.
Richard had also consumed a vast amount of ale but his eyes were clear. I gave him an apologetic look and began seeking an out. At the first lull in the conversation I said, “I think I’ll retire, gentlemen,” but our Yankee hater said, “What’s your hurry, mate, are we not good enough for Yanks to drink with?”
I felt two sharp stabs, anger and fear. I had never been in any kind of fight, and what frightened me most was not the prospect of being hurt but the spectacle of being beaten in front of the crowd. Still, I could not let this pass. I said, “That’s an offensive thing to say, sir,” and I steeled myself for whatever might come. But in the same moment Richard said, “I think I’ll join you, Charlie. It is getting late.”
The fellow across the table smirked as we pushed back our chairs.
Richard leaned forward. “You have something else to say, mate?”
The man scoffed again and Burton said, “Be careful, sir.”
Fink made as if to laugh. “Maybe you’re the one who should be careful. In case you don’t know it, we have harsh ways of settling things here when insults arise.”
Burton smiled warily out of his deeply scarred cheeks. “No one’s been insulted…yet. We can all still go to bed and be on our way in the morning.”
“That’s true enough.” Fink pushed himself back, slightly but ominously, from the table. “Unless we choose not to.”
The smile faded from Burton’s face. “That would be unfortunate, but it would be your choice. And I believe under your own code I would have the choice of weapons in any dispute that can’t be resolved. And for what that’s worth, I would choose swords.”
Fink sat back. “What the hell, who carries a sword around?”
“I do.”
They stared at each other. “Well, I don’t have one,” Fink said.
“I could provide a pair. If the occasion arose. Which it hasn’t. Yet.”
Suddenly the man laughed, not derisively as he had before but with a tavern laugh, in uneasy fellowship. Burton remained stoic, waiting.
“You’re all right with me, mate. It’s a good thing for all of us that we know where lines are drawn, eh?”
And on that nervous note, we went upstairs.
In the hallway, I said, “I would have fought him if it came to that.”
“I know you would. I never had any doubt.”
“You don’t have to hold my hand, Richard. It’s important that you know that.”
“I do know it. And I apologize if that’s how it appeared.”
“Of course it is. How else would it appear? You don’t have any swords at all.”
“No. But he didn’t know that.”
“My God, what if he had called you on it?”
“Then the matter would have become far more serious, and the choice of weapons would have passed to him.”
In my room I lay awake staring up at the black ceiling. All my thoughts of the afternoon came flooding back, and my anger returned with great, yawning doubts about the nature of our journey. I saw Richard on my ceiling and he was always making his notes. These I had assumed were for a new book but now I wondered what he was actually writing in that notebook. I felt our friendship had been seriously compromised—perhaps, maddeningly, by nothing more than my own imagination—and I knew then that at some point it must be discussed. I dreaded Richard’s reaction, for in fact I did not know him well enough to initiate a talk of such sensitivity. I personally had never held any grudge against England, I had accepted Richard with wholehearted delight as my friend, but my years in the War Department had given me access to certain intelligence and rumors that had received little or no attention in the press. Now in my dark room all this intrigue swirled across the canvas of the ceiling. The sun never sets on empire, I thought, calling up an old quotation; the sun never sets on England. The only reason we are not serving the queen today is because of those long-dead boys in places like Bunker Hill and Saratoga and New Orleans. Were we really at peace now? Friction between our nations had never actually ceased since 1815, and Palmerston, that old devil, always seemed to be at the root of it. In his forty-year political career he had never ceased agitating. I could almost feel his acrimony invading my room, disrupting my sleep, and now I remembered incidents from my reading, from reports that had circulated through our government. I knew that years ago England had arbitrarily seized our ships and had forced our boys to serve in her navy. I had heard she had given aid and support to our Indians, encouraging them to attack our frontier settlements. Everyone knew how she had tried to keep Texas out of the Union, and there had been persistent rumors that she had helped finance Mexico’s war against us. It was certainly no secret that England had had serious designs on South America since our Revolution, and she had always resented and tried to undermine our Monroe Doctrine. Why should she now turn timid when the upstart nation that so seriously rankled her was heading into deep trouble?