IN THE year 1799,Captain Amasa Delano,of Duxbury,in Massachusetts, commanding
a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor, with a valuable cargo,in the
harbour of St. Maria- a small,desert,uninhabited island towards the southern
extremity of the long coast of Chili.There he had touched for water.
On the second day,not long after dawn,while lying in his berth,his mate came
below, informing him that a strange sail was coming into the bay. Ships were
then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed,and went on deck.
The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm;
everything grey. The sea,though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed
fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in
the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey
fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled grey vapours among which they were
mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before
storms. Shadows present,foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.
To Captain Delano's surprise,the stranger,viewed through the glass, showed no
colours; though to do so upon entering a haven, however uninhabited in its
shores,where but a single other ship might be lying, was the custom among
peaceful seamen of all nations.Considering the lawlessness and loneliness of the
spot,and the sort of stories,at that day, associated with those seas, Captain
Delano's surprise might have deepened into some uneasiness had he not been a
person of a singularly undistrustful good nature, not liable, except on
extraordinary and repeated excitement, and hardly then,to indulge in personal
alarms,any way involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether,in view
of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies,along with a benevolent heart,
more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception,may be left
to the wise to determine.
But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first seeing the stranger
would almost, in any seaman's mind, have been dissipated by observing that the
ship,in navigating into the harbour,was drawing too near the land, for her own
safety's sake,owing to a sunken reef making out off her bow. This seemed to
prove her a stranger, indeed, not only to the sealer, but the island;
consequently, she could be no wonted freebooter on that ocean. With no small
interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her- a proceeding not much
facilitated by the vapours partly mantling the hull, through which the far matin
light from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; much like the sun-by this time
crescented on the rim of the horizon, and apparently, in company with the
strange ship, entering the harbour- which,wimpled by the same low, creeping
clouds, showed not unlike a Lima intriguante's one sinister eye peering across
the Plaza from the Indian loop-hole of her dusk saya-y-manta.
It might have been but a deception of the vapours, but, the longer the
stranger was watched,the more singular appeared her manoeuvres.Ere long it
seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no- what she wanted, or
what she was about. The wind, which had breezed up a little during the night,was
now extremely light and baffling,which the more increased the apparent
uncertainty of her movements.
Surmising, at last, that it might be a ship in distress, Captain Delano
ordered his whale-boat to be dropped, and, much to the wary opposition of his
mate, prepared to board her, and, at the least,pilot her in. On the night
previous,a fishing-party of the seamen had gone a long distance to some detached
rocks out of sight from the sealer,and, an hour or two before day-break, had
returned,having met with no small success. Presuming that the stranger might
have been long off soundings, the good captain put several baskets of the fish,
for presents, into his boat, and so pulled away. From her continuing too near
the sunken reef, deeming her in danger,calling to his men,he made all haste to
apprise those on board of their situation. But, some time ere the boat came up,
the wind, light though it was,having shifted,had headed the vessel off, as well
as partly broken the vapours from about her.
Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible on the
verge of the leaden-hued swells, with the shreds of fog here and there raggedly
furring her, appeared like a whitewashed monastery after a thunder-storm,seen
perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees. But it was no purely fanciful
resemblance which now, for a moment, almost led Captain Delano to think that
nothing less than a ship-load of monks was before him. Peering over the bulwarks
were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while,
fitfully revealed through the open port-holes, other dark moving figures were
dimly descried,as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters.
Upon a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified,and the true
character of the vessel was plain- a Spanish merchantman of the first class;
carrying Negro slaves,amongst other valuable freight,from one colonial port to
another. A very large,and,in its time,a very fine vessel, such as in those days
were at intervals encountered along that main; sometimes superseded Acapulco
treasure-ships,or retired frigates of the Spanish king's navy, which, like
superannuated Italian palaces, still,under a decline of masters,preserved signs
of former state.
As the whale-boat drew more and more nigh, the cause of the peculiar
pipe-clayed aspect of the stranger was seen in the slovenly neglect pervading
her. The spars, ropes,and great part of the bulwarks looked woolly, from long
unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her
ribs put together, and she launched, from Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones.
In the present business in which she was engaged, the ship's general model
and rig appeared to have undergone no material change from their original
warlike and Froissart pattern. However, no guns were seen.
The tops were large, and were railed about with what had once been octagonal
net-work, all now in sad disrepair. These tops hung overhead like three ruinous
aviaries, in one of which was seen perched, on a ratlin, a white noddy, a
strange fowl, so called from its lethargic somnambulistic character, being
frequently caught by hand at sea. Battered and mouldy, the castellated
forecastle seemed some ancient turret, long ago taken by assault, and then left
to decay. Towards the stern, two high-raised quarter galleries- the balustrades
here and there covered with dry, tindery sea-moss- opening out from the
unoccupied state-cabin,whose dead lights,for all the mild weather,were
hermetically closed and caulked- these tenantless balconies hung over the sea as
if it were the grand Venetian canal. But the principal relic of faded grandeur
was the ample oval of the shield-like stern- piece,intricately carved with the
arms of Castile and Leon,medallioned about by groups of mythological or
symbolical devices; uppermost and central of which was a dark satyr in a mask,
holding his foot on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure,likewise masked.
Whether the ship had a figure-head, or only a plain beak, was not quite
certain, owing to canvas wrapped about that part, either to protect it while
undergoing a refurbishing, or else decently to hide its decay. Rudely painted or
chalked, as in a sailor freak, along the forward side of a sort of pedestal
below the canvas,was the sentence," Seguid vuestro jefe"(follow your
leader);while upon the tarnished head -boards,near by,appeared,in stately
capitals,once gilt,the ship's name, "SAN DOMINICK, "each letter streakingly
corroded with tricklings of copper-spike rust;while,like mourning weeds,dark
festoons of sea-grass slimily swept to and fro over the name, with every
hearse-like roll of the hull.
As at last the boat was hooked from the bow along toward the gangway
amidship, its keel, while yet some inches separated from the hull, harshly
grated as on a sunken coral reef. It proved a huge bunch of conglobated
barnacles adhering below the water to the side like a wen; a token of baffling
airs and long calms passed somewhere in those seas.
Climbing the side, the visitor was at once surrounded by a clamorous throng
of whites and blacks, but the latter outnumbering the former more than could
have been expected,Negro transportation-ship as the stranger in port was. But,
in one language, and as with one voice, all poured out a common tale of
suffering; in which the Negresses, of whom there were not a few, exceeded the
others in their dolorous vehemence. The scurvy,together with a fever,had swept
off a great part of their number, more especially the Spaniards. Off Cape
Horn,they had narrowly escaped shipwreck; then, for days together, they had lain
tranced without wind; their provisions were low; their water next to none;their
lips that moment were baked.
While Captain Delano was thus made the mark of all eager tongues, his one
eager glance took in all the faces, with every other object about him.
Always upon first boarding a large and populous ship at sea, especially a
foreign one, with a nondescript crew such as Lascars or Manilla men,the
impression varies in a peculiar way from that produced by first entering a
strange house with strange inmates in a strange land. Both house and ship,the
one by its walls and blinds,the other by its high bulwarks like ramparts, hoard
from view their interiors till the last moment; but in the case of the ship
there is this addition: that the living spectacle it contains, upon its sudden
and complete disclosure, has, in contrast with the blank ocean which zones it,
something of the effect of enchantment. The ship seems unreal; these strange
costumes,gestures,and faces,but a shadowy tableau just emerged from the
deep,which directly must receive back what it gave.
Perhaps it was some such influence as above is attempted to be described
which, in Captain Delano's mind, heightened whatever, upon a staid scrutiny,
might have seemed unusual; especially the conspicuous figures of four elderly
grizzled Negroes, their heads like black, doddered willow tops, who, in
venerable contrast to the tumult below them,were couched sphynx-like,one on the
starboard cat-head,another on the larboard, and the remaining pair face to face
on the opposite bulwarks above the main-chains. They each had bits of unstranded
old junk in their hands, and, with a sort of stoical self-content, were picking
the junk into oakum, a small heap of which lay by their sides. They accompanied
the task with a continuous, low, monotonous chant; droning and drooling away
like so many grey-headed bag-pipers playing a funeral march.
The quarter-deck rose into an ample elevated poop,upon the forward verge of
which,lifted,like the oakum-pickers,some eight feet above the general throng,
sat along in a row, separated by regular spaces, the cross-legged figures of six
other blacks; each with a rusty hatchet in his hand, which, with a bit of brick
and a rag, he was engaged like a scullion in scouring; while between each two
was a small stack of hatchets, their rusted edges turned forward awaiting a like
operation. Though occasionally the four oakum-pickers would briefly address some
person or persons in the crowd below, yet the six hatchet-polishers neither
spoke to others, nor breathed a whisper among themselves, but sat intent upon
their task, except at intervals,when,with the peculiar love in Negroes of
uniting industry with pastime, two-and-two they sideways clashed their hatchets
together,like cymbals,with a barbarous din. All six, unlike the generality, had
the raw aspect of unsophisticated Africans.
But the first comprehensive glance which took in those ten figures, with
scores less conspicuous, rested but an instant upon them, as, impatient of the
hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in quest of whomsoever it might be that
commanded the ship.
But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case among his
suffering charge, or else in despair of restraining it for the time,the Spanish
captain,a gentlemanly,reserved-looking,and rather young man to a stranger's eye,
dressed with singular richness, but bearing plain traces of recent sleepless
cares and disquietudes, stood passively by, leaning against the main-mast, at
one moment casting a dreary, spiritless look upon his excited people,at the next
an unhappy glance toward his visitor. By his side stood a black of small
stature, in whose rude face, as occasionally, like a shepherd's dog, he mutely
turned it up into the Spaniard's, sorrow and affection were equally blended.
Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the Spaniard,
assuring him of his sympathies, and offering to render whatever assistance might
be in his power. To which the Spaniard returned,for the present,but grave and
ceremonious acknowledgments,his national formality dusked by the saturnine mood
of ill health.
But losing no time in mere compliments,Captain Delano returning to the
gangway, had his baskets of fish brought up; and as the wind still continued
light, so that some hours at least must elapse ere the ship could be brought to
the anchorage,he bade his men return to the sealer, and fetch back as much water
as the whaleboat could carry, with whatever soft bread the steward might have,
all the remaining pumpkins on board, with a box of sugar, and a dozen of his
private bottles of cider.
Not many minutes after the boat's pushing off, to the vexation of all, the
wind entirely died away, and the tide turning, began drifting back the ship
helplessly seaward. But trusting this would not last, Captain Delano sought with
good hopes to cheer up the strangers, feeling no small satisfaction that, with
persons in their condition he could- thanks to his frequent voyages along the
Spanish main- converse with some freedom in their native tongue.
While left alone with them, he was not long in observing some things tending
to heighten his first impressions;but surprise was lost in pity,both for the
Spaniards and blacks,alike evidently reduced from scarcity of water and
provisions;while long-continued suffering seemed to have brought out the less
good-natured qualities of the Negroes, besides,at the same time,impairing the
Spaniard's authority over them. But, under the circumstances,precisely this
condition of things was to have been anticipated. In armies, navies,cities,or
families- in nature herself- nothing more relaxes good order than misery. Still,
Captain Delano was not without the idea, that had Benito Cereno been a man of
greater energy,misrule would hardly have come to the present pass. But the
debility, constitutional or induced by the hardships, bodily and mental,of the
Spanish captain,was too obvious to be overlooked. A prey to settled dejection,
as if long mocked with hope he would not now indulge it, even when it had ceased
to be a mock, the prospect of that day or evening at furthest, lying at anchor,
with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and
befriend,seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared
unstrung,if not still more seriously affected. Shut up in these oaken
walls,chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed
him,like some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly
pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting his finger-nail,flushing,
paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of an absent or moody mind.
This distempered spirit was lodged, as before hinted, in as distempered a frame.
He was rather tall, but seemed never to have been robust,and now with nervous
suffering was almost worn to a skeleton. A tendency to some pulmonary complaint
appeared to have been lately confirmed. His voice was like that of one with
lungs half gone, hoarsely suppressed, a husky whisper. No wonder that, as in
this state he tottered about, his private servant apprehensively followed him.
Sometimes the Negro gave his master his arm, or took his handkerchief out of his
pocket for him; performing these and similar offices with that affectionate zeal
which transmutes into something filial or fraternal acts in themselves but
menial; and which has gained for the Negro the repute of making the most
pleasing body-servant in the world; one, too, whom a master need be on no
stiffly superior terms with, but may treat with familiar trust;less a servant
than a devoted companion.
Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general, as well as what seemed
the sullen inefficiency of the whites, it was not without humane satisfaction
that Captain Delano witnessed the steady good conduct of Babo.
But the good conduct of Babo,hardly more than the ill-behaviour of others,
seemed to withdraw the half-lunatic Don Benito from his cloudy languor. Not that
such precisely was the impression made by the Spaniard on the mind of his
visitor. The Spaniard's individual unrest was, for the present, but noted as a
conspicuous feature in the ship's general affliction. Still,Captain Delano was
not a little concerned at what he could not help taking for the time to be Don
Benito's unfriendly indifference toward himself. The Spaniard's manner, too,
conveyed a sort of sour and gloomy disdain,which he seemed at no pains to
disguise. But this the American in charity ascribed to the harassing effects of
sickness, since, in former instances,he had noted that there are peculiar
natures on whom prolonged physical suffering seems to cancel every social
instinct of kindness; as if forced to black bread themselves, they deemed it but
equity that each person coming nigh them should, indirectly, by some slight or
affront,be made to partake of their fare.
But ere long Captain Delano bethought him that,indulgent as he was at the
first, in judging the Spaniard, he might not, after all, have exercised charity
enough. At bottom it was Don Benito's reserve which displeased him; but the same
reserve was shown toward all but his personal attendant. Even the formal reports
which, according to sea- usage, were at stated times made to him by some petty
underling(either a white, mulatto or black),he hardly had patience enough to
listen to, without betraying contemptuous aversion. His manner upon such
occasions was,in its degree,not unlike that which might be supposed to have been
his imperial countryman's, Charles V., just previous to the anchoritish
retirement of that monarch from the throne.
This splenetic disrelish of his place was evinced in almost every function
pertaining to it. Proud as he was moody,he condescended to no personal mandate.
Whatever special orders were necessary, their delivery was delegated to his
body-servant, who in turn transferred them to their ultimate destination,
through runners,alert Spanish boys or slave boys, like pages or pilot-fish
within easy call continually hovering round Don Benito. So that to have beheld
this undemonstrative invalid gliding about, apathetic and mute, no landsman
could have dreamed that in him was lodged a dictatorship beyond which, while at
sea,there was no earthly appeal.
Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed as the involuntary victim
of mental disorder. But, in fact,his reserve might, in some degree, have
proceeded from design. If so, then in Don Benito was evinced the unhealthy
climax of that icy though conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all
commanders of large ships, which, except in signal emergencies, obliterates
alike the manifestation of sway with every trace of sociality; transforming the
man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which,until there is call for
thunder, has nothing to say.
Viewing him in this light, it seemed but a natural token of the perverse
habit induced by a long course of such hard self-restraint, that,
notwithstanding the present condition of his ship, the Spaniard should still
persist in a demeanour, which, however harmless-or it may be, appropriate- in a
well-appointed vessel, such as the San Dominick might have been at the outset of
the voyage,was anything but judicious now. But the Spaniard perhaps thought that
it was with captains as with gods: reserve, under all events,must still be their
cue. But more probably this appearance of slumbering dominion might have been
but an attempted disguise to conscious imbecility- not deep policy, but shallow
device. But be all this as it might, whether Don Benito's manner was designed or
not,the more Captain Delano noted its pervading reserve,the less he felt
uneasiness at any particular manifestation of that reserve toward himself.
Neither were his thoughts taken up by the captain alone. Wonted to the quiet
orderliness of the sealer's comfortable family of a crew,the noisy confusion of
the San Dominick's suffering host repeatedly challenged his eye. Some prominent
breaches not only of discipline but of decency were observed. These Captain
Delano could not but ascribe, in the main,to the absence of those subordinate
deck-officers to whom, along with higher duties, is entrusted what may be styled
the police department of a populous ship. True, the old oakum-pickers appeared
at times to act the part of monitorial constables to their countrymen,the
blacks; but though occasionally succeeding in allaying trifling outbreaks now
and then between man and man, they could do little or nothing toward
establishing general quiet. The San Dominick was in the condition of a
transatlantic emigrant ship, among whose multitude of living freight are some
individuals,doubtless,as little troublesome as crates and bales; but the
friendly remonstrances of such with their ruder companions are of not so much
avail as the unfriendly arm of the mate. What the San Dominick wanted was, what
the emigrant ship has, stern superior officers. But on these decks not so much
as a fourth mate was to be seen.
The visitor's curiosity was roused to learn the particulars of those mishaps
which had brought about such absenteeism, with its consequences; because, though
deriving some inkling of the voyage from the wails which at the first moment had
greeted him,yet of the details no clear understanding had been had. The best
account would,doubtless, be given by the captain. Yet at first the visitor was
loth to ask it, unwilling to provoke some distant rebuff. But plucking up
courage, he at last accosted Don Benito, renewing the expression of his
benevolent interest,adding,that did he(Captain Delano)but know the particulars
of the ship's misfortunes, he would, perhaps,be better able in the end to
relieve them. Would Don Benito favour him with the whole story?
Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with,
vacantly stared at his visitor, and ended by looking down on the deck. He
maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost equally
disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him,
walking forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for the desired information.
But he had hardly gone five paces, when with a sort of eagerness Don Benito
invited him back, regretting his momentary absence of mind,and professing
readiness to gratify him.
While most part of the story was being given, the two captains stood on the
after part of the main-deck, a privileged spot, no one being near but the
servant.
"It is now a hundred and ninety days, "began the Spaniard, in his husky
whisper, "that this ship, well officered and well manned, with several cabin
passengers- some fifty Spaniards in all- sailed from Buenos Ayres bound to Lima,
with a general cargo, Paraguay tea and the like- and, "pointing forward,"that
parcel of Negroes,now not more than a hundred and fifty, as you see, but then
numbering over three hundred souls. Off Cape Horn we had heavy gales. In one
moment, by night,three of my best officers,with fifteen sailors,were lost,with
the main-yard; the spar snapping under them in the slings,as they sought,with
heavers, to beat down the icy sail. To lighten the hull, the heavier sacks of
mata were thrown into the sea, with most of the water-pipes lashed on deck at
the time. And this last necessity it was, combined with the prolonged detentions
afterwards experienced, which eventually brought about our chief causes of
suffering. When-"
Here there was a sudden fainting attack of his cough,brought on,no doubt, by
his mental distress. His servant sustained him,and drawing a cordial from his
pocket placed it to his lips. He a little revived.But unwilling to leave him
unsupported while yet imperfectly restored, the black with one arm still
encircled his master,at the same time keeping his eye fixed on his face, as if
to watch for the first sign of complete restoration,or relapse,as the event
might prove.
The Spaniard proceeded, but brokenly and obscurely, as one in a dream.
-"Oh, my God!rather than pass through what I have,with joy I would have
hailed the most terrible gales;but-"
His cough returned and with increased violence;this subsiding,with reddened
lips and closed eyes he fell heavily against his supporter.
"His mind wanders. He was thinking of the plague that followed the gales,
"plaintively sighed the servant; "my poor,poor master!"wringing one hand, and
with the other wiping the mouth."But be patient, Senor," again turning to
Captain Delano, "these fits do not last long; master will soon be himself."
Don Benito reviving, went on; but as this portion of the story was very
brokenly delivered,the substance only will here be set down.
It appeared that after the ship had been many days tossed in storms off the
Cape, the scurvy broke out, carrying off numbers of the whites and blacks. When
at last they had worked round into the Pacific, their spars and sails were so
damaged, and so inadequately handled by the surviving mariners, most of whom
were become invalids, that,unable to lay her northerly course by the wind, which
was powerful, the unmanageable ship for successive days and nights was blown
northwestward,where the breeze suddenly deserted her,in unknown waters, to
sultry calms. The absence of the water-pipes now proved as fatal to life as
before their presence had menaced it. Induced, or at least aggravated, by the
more than scanty allowance of water, a malignant fever followed the scurvy; with
the excessive heat of the lengthened calm,making such short work of it as to
sweep away,as by billows,whole families of the Africans,and a yet larger
number,proportionally,of the Spaniards, including, by a luckless fatality, every
officer on board. Consequently,in the smart west winds eventually following the
calm,the already rent sails having to be simply dropped, not furled,at need,had
been gradually reduced to the beggar's rags they were now. To procure
substitutes for his lost sailors, as well as supplies of water and sails, the
captain at the earliest opportunity had made for Baldivia, the southermost
civilized port of Chili and South America; but upon nearing the coast the thick
weather had prevented him from so much as sighting that harbour. Since which
period, almost without a crew, and almost without canvas and almost without
water,and at intervals giving its added dead to the sea,the San Dominick had
been battle-dored about by contrary winds, inveigled by currents,or grown weedy
in calms. Like a man lost in woods,more than once she had doubled upon her own
track.
"But throughout these calamities, "huskily continued Don Benito, painfully
turning in the half embrace of his servant, "I have to thank those Negroes you
see, who,though to your inexperienced eyes appearing
unruly,have,indeed,conducted themselves with less of restlessness than even
their owner could have thought possible under such circumstances."
Here he again fell faintly back. Again his mind wandered: but he rallied,and
less obscurely proceeded.
"Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters would be
needed with his blacks; so that while, as is wont in this transportation, those
Negroes have always remained upon deck- not thrust below, as in the Guineamen-
they have, also,from the beginning, been freely permitted to range within given
bounds at their pleasure."
Once more the faintness returned- his mind roved- but, recovering, he
resumed:
"But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own
preservation,but likewise to him,chiefly,the merit is due,of pacifying his more
ignorant brethren,when at intervals tempted to murmurings."
"Ah, master, "sighed the black,bowing his face,"don't speak of me; Babo is
nothing;what Babo has done was but duty."
"Faithful fellow!"cried Captain Delano."Don Benito,I envy you such a
friend;slave I cannot call him."
As master and man stood before him, the black upholding the white, Captain
Delano could not but bethink him of the beauty of that relationship which could
present such a spectacle of fidelity on the one hand and confidence on the
other. The scene was heightened by the contrast in dress,denoting their relative
positions. The Spaniard wore a loose Chili jacket of dark velvet;white small
clothes and stockings, with silver buckles at the knee and instep; a
high-crowned sombrero,of fine grass;a slender sword,silver mounted,hung from a
knot in his sash; the last being an almost invariable adjunct, more for utility
than ornament,of a South American gentleman's dress to this hour. Excepting when
his occasional nervous contortions brought about disarray, there was a certain
precision in his attire, curiously at variance with the unsightly disorder
around; especially in the belittered Ghetto,forward of the main-mast,wholly
occupied by the blacks.
The servant wore nothing but wide trousers, apparently, from their coarseness
and patches, made out of some old top-sail;they were clean, and confined at the
waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which, with his composed, deprecatory air at
times, made him look something like a begging friar of St. Francis.
However unsuitable for the time and place, at least in the blunt thinking
American's eyes, and however strangely surviving in the midst of all his
afflictions,the toilette of Don Benito might not,in fashion at least, have gone
beyond the style of the day among South Americans of his class. Though on the
present voyage sailing from Buenos Ayres, he had avowed himself a native and
resident of Chili,whose inhabitants had not so generally adopted the plain coat
and once plebeian pantaloons; but, with a becoming modification, adhered to
their provincial costume, picturesque as any in the world. Still, relatively to
the pale history of the voyage, and his own pale face, there seemed something so
incongruous in the Spaniard's apparel, as almost to suggest the image of an
invalid courtier tottering about London streets in the time of the plague.
The portion of the narrative which, perhaps,most excited interest, as well as
some surprise,considering the latitudes in question,was the long calms spoken
of,and more particularly the ship's so long drifting about. Without
communicating the opinion, of course,the American could not but impute at least
part of the detentions both to clumsy seamanship and faulty navigation. Eyeing
Don Benito's small, yellow hands, he easily inferred that the young captain had
not got into command at the hawse-hole but the cabin-window,and if so,why wonder
at incompetence, in youth, sickness, and aristocracy united? Such was his
democratic conclusion.
But drowning criticism in compassion, after a fresh repetition of his
sympathies, Captain Delano having heard out his story, not only engaged, as in
the first place, to see Don Benito and his people supplied in their immediate
bodily needs,but,also,now further promised to assist him in procuring a large
permanent supply of water, as well as some sails and rigging; and, though it
would involve no small embarrassment to himself, yet he would spare three of his
best seamen for temporary deck officers; so that without delay the ship might
proceed to Concepcion,there fully to refit for Lima,her destined port.
Such generosity was not without its effect, even upon the invalid. His face
lighted up; eager and hectic, he met the honest glance of his visitor. With
gratitude he seemed overcome.
"This excitement is bad for master, "whispered the servant, taking his
arm,and with soothing words gently drawing him aside.
When Don Benito returned, the American was pained to observe that his
hopefulness, like the sudden kindling in his cheek,was but febrile and
transient.
Ere long, with a joyless mien, looking up toward the poop,the host invited
his guest to accompany him there, for the benefit of what little breath of wind
might be stirring.
As during the telling of the story, Captain Delano had once or twice started
at the occasional cymballing of the hatchet-polishers, wondering why such an
interruption should be allowed, especially in that part of the ship, and in the
ears of an invalid; and, moreover,as the hatchets had anything but an attractive
look, and the handlers of them still less so,it was,therefore,to tell the
truth,not without some lurking reluctance, or even shrinking, it may be, that
Captain Delano, with apparent complaisance, acquiesced in his host's invitation.
The more so, since with an untimely caprice of punctilio, rendered distressing
by his cadaverous aspect, Don Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnly insisted
upon his guest's preceding him up the ladder leading to the elevation; where,
one on each side of the last step, sat four armorial supporters and sentries,
two of the ominous file. Gingerly enough stepped good Captain Delano between
them, and in the instant of leaving them behind, like one running the gauntlet,
he felt an apprehensive twitch in the calves of his legs.
But when, facing about, he saw the whole file, like so many organ- grinders,
still stupidly intent on their work, unmindful of everything beside,he could not
but smile at his late fidgeting panic.
Presently, while standing with Don Benito,looking forward upon the decks
below,he was struck by one of those instances of insubordination previously
alluded to. Three black boys, with two Spanish boys, were sitting together on
the hatches, scraping a rude wooden platter, in which some scanty mess had
recently been cooked.Suddenly, one of the black boys, enraged at a word dropped
by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and though called to forbear by
one of the oakum- pickers, struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from
which blood flowed.
In amazement,Captain Delano inquired what this meant. To which the pale
Benito dully muttered,that it was merely the sport of the lad.
"Pretty serious sport, truly, "rejoined Captain Delano."Had such a thing
happened on board the Bachelor's Delight, instant punishment would have
followed."
At these words the Spaniard turned upon the American one of his sudden,
staring, half-lunatic looks; then, relapsing into his torpor,
answered,"Doubtless,doubtless,Senor."
Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this helpless man is one of those paper
captains I've known, who by policy wink at what by power they cannot put down? I
know no sadder sight than a commander who has little of command but the name.
"I should think,Don Benito,"he now said,glancing toward the oakum- picker who
had sought to interfere with the boys, "that you would find it advantageous to
keep all your blacks employed, especially the younger ones,no matter at what
useless task,and no matter what happens to the ship. Why, even with my little
band, I find such a course indispensable. I once kept a crew on my quarterdeck
thrumming mats for my cabin,when,for three days,I had given up my ship-
mats,men,and all- for a speedy loss,owing to the violence of a gale in which we
could do nothing but helplessly drive before it."
"Doubtless,doubtless,"muttered Don Benito.
"But, "continued Captain Delano, again glancing upon the oakum- pickers and
then at the hatchet-polishers,near by,"I see you keep some at least of your host
employed."
"Yes,"was again the vacant response.
"Those old men there, shaking their pows from their pulpits, " continued
Captain Delano, pointing to the oakum-pickers, "seem to act the part of old
dominies to the rest, little heeded as their admonitions are at times. Is this
voluntary on their part, Don Benito, or have you appointed them shepherds to
your flock of black sheep?"
"What posts they fill, I appointed them, "rejoined the Spaniard in an acrid
tone,as if resenting some supposed satiric reflection.
"And these others,these Ashantee conjurors here,"continued Captain Delano,
rather uneasily eyeing the brandished steel of the hatchet- polishers, where in
spots it had been brought to a shine,"this seems a curious business they are
at,Don Benito?"
"In the gales we met, "answered the Spaniard, "what of our general cargo was
not thrown overboard was much damaged by the brine. Since coming into calm
weather, I have had several cases of knives and hatchets daily brought up for
overhauling and cleaning."
"A prudent idea,Don Benito. You are part owner of ship and cargo,I
presume;but not of the slaves,perhaps?"
"I am owner of all you see, "impatiently returned Don Benito, " except the
main company of blacks, who belonged to my late friend, Alexandro Aranda."
As he mentioned this name,his air was heart-broken,his knees shook; his
servant supported him.
Thinking he divined the cause of such unusual emotion, to confirm his
surmise, Captain Delano, after a pause, said, "And may I ask, Don Benito,
whether- since awhile ago you spoke of some cabin passengers- the friend, whose
loss so afflicts you, at the outset of the voyage accompanied his blacks?"
"Yes."
"But died of the fever?"
"Died of the fever.- Oh,could I but-"
Again quivering,the Spaniard paused.
"Pardon me, "said Captain Delano slowly, "but I think that, by a sympathetic
experience, I conjecture, Don Benito,what it is that gives the keener edge to
your grief. It was once my hard fortune to lose at sea a dear friend, my own
brother, then supercargo. Assured of the welfare of his spirit, its departure I
could have borne like a man;but that honest eye,that honest hand- both of which
had so often met mine- and that warm heart; all,all- like scraps to the dogs- to
throw all to the sharks! It was then I vowed never to have for fellow-voyager a
man I loved,unless,unbeknown to him,I had provided every requisite,in case of a
fatality, for embalming his mortal part for interment on shore. Were your
friend's remains now on board this ship, Don Benito,not thus strangely would the
mention of his name affect you."
"On board this ship? "echoed the Spaniard. Then, with horrified gestures, as
directed against some spectre, he unconsciously fell into the ready arms of his
attendant, who, with a silent appeal toward Captain Delano, seemed beseeching
him not again to broach a theme so unspeakably distressing to his master.
This poor fellow now, thought the pained American,is the victim of that sad
superstition which associates goblins with the deserted body of man, as ghosts
with an abandoned house. How unlike are we made!What to me, in like case, would
have been a solemn satisfaction, the bare suggestion,even,terrifies the Spaniard
into this trance.Poor Alexandro Aranda! what would you say could you see your
friend-who, on former voyages, when you for months were left behind, has, I dare
say, often longed, and longed,for one peep at you- now transported with terror
at the least thought of having you anyway nigh him.
At this moment, with a dreary graveyard toll,betokening a flaw,the ship's
forecastle bell, smote by one of the grizzled oakum-pickers, proclaimed ten
o'clock through the leaden calm; when Captain Delano's attention was caught by
the moving figure of a gigantic black,emerging from the general crowd below, and
slowly advancing toward the elevated poop. An iron collar was about his neck,
from which depended a chain, thrice wound round his body; the terminating links
padlocked together at a broad band of iron,his girdle.
"How like a mute Atufal moves,"murmured the servant.
The black mounted the steps of the poop,and,like a brave prisoner, brought up
to receive sentence,stood in unquailing muteness before Don Benito,now recovered
from his attack.
At the first glimpse of his approach, Don Benito had started, a resentful
shadow swept over his face; and,as with the sudden memory of bootless rage,his
white lips glued together.
This is some mulish mutineer, thought Captain Delano,surveying,not without a
mixture of admiration,the colossal form of the Negro.
"See,he waits your question,master,"said the servant.
Thus reminded, Don Benito, nervously averting his glance, as if shunning, by
anticipation, some rebellious response, in a disconcerted voice,thus spoke:
"Atufal,will you ask my pardon now?"
The black was silent.
"Again, master,"murmured the servant,with bitter upbraiding eyeing his
countryman."Again,master;he will bend to master yet."
"Answer, "said Don Benito, still averting his glance, "say but the one word
pardon,and your chains shall be off."
Upon this, the black, slowly raising both arms,let them lifelessly fall, his
links clanking, his head bowed; as much as to say, "No, I am content."
"Go,"said Don Benito,with inkept and unknown emotion.
Deliberately as he had come,the black obeyed.
"Excuse me, Don Benito, "said Captain Delano, "but this scene surprises
me;what means it,pray?"
"It means that that Negro alone, of all the band, has given me peculiar cause
of offence. I have put him in chains;I-"
Here he paused; his hand to his head, as if there were a swimming there,or a
sudden bewilderment of memory had come over him;but meeting his servant's kindly
glance seemed reassured,and proceeded:
"I could not scourge such a form. But I told him he must ask my pardon. As
yet he has not. At my command, every two hours he stands before me."
"And how long has this been?"
"Some sixty days."
"And obedient in all else?And respectful?"
"Yes."
"Upon my conscience,then,"exclaimed Captain Delano,impulsively,"he has a
royal spirit in him,this fellow."
"He may have some right to it, "bitterly returned Don Benito; "he says he was
king in his own land."
"Yes, "said the servant, entering a word, "those slits in Atufal's ears once
held wedges of gold; but poor Babo here, in his own land,was only a poor slave;a
black man's slave was Babo,who now is the white's."
Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities, Captain Delano turned
curiously upon the attendant,then glanced inquiringly at his master;but,as if
long wonted to these little informalities,neither master nor man seemed to
understand him.
"What,pray,was Atufal's offence,Don Benito?"asked Captain Delano;" if it was
not something very serious, take a fool's advice,and,in view of his general
docility, as well as in some natural respect for his spirit,remit his penalty."
"No, no, master never will do that, "here murmured the servant to himself,
"proud Atufal must first ask master's pardon. The slave there carries the
padlock,but master here carries the key."
His attention thus directed, Captain Delano now noticed for the first time
that, suspended by a slender silken cord, from Don Benito's neck hung a key. At
once, from the servant's muttered syllables divining the key's purpose, he
smiled and said: "So,Don Benito-padlock and key- significant symbols,truly."
Biting his lip,Don Benito faltered.
Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such native simplicity as to be
incapable of satire or irony, had been dropped in playful allusion to the
Spaniard's singularly evidenced lordship over the black;yet the hypochondriac
seemed in some way to have taken it as a malicious reflection upon his confessed
inability thus far to break down, at least, on a verbal summons, the entrenched
will of the slave. Deploring this supposed misconception,yet despairing of
correcting it, Captain Delano shifted the subject;but finding his companion more
than ever withdrawn, as if still slowly digesting the lees of the presumed
affront above-mentioned, by-and-by Captain Delano likewise became less
talkative, oppressed, against his own will, by what seemed the secret
vindictiveness of the morbidly sensitive Spaniard. But the good sailor himself,
of a quite contrary disposition, refrained, on his part,alike from the
appearance as from the feeling of resentment, and if silent, was only so from
contagion.
Presently the Spaniard, assisted by his servant, somewhat discourteously
crossed over from Captain Delano; a procedure which, sensibly enough, might have
been allowed to pass for idle caprice of ill-humour, had not master and man,
lingering round the corner of the elevated skylight, begun whispering together
in low voices. This was unpleasing. And more: the moody air of the
Spaniard,which at times had not been without a sort of valetudinarian
stateliness, now seemed anything but dignified; while the menial familiarity of
the servant lost its original charm of simple-hearted attachment.
In his embarrassment,the visitor turned his face to the other side of the
ship. By so doing, his glance accidentally fell on a young Spanish sailor, a
coil of rope in his hand, just stepped from the deck to the first round of the
mizzen-rigging. Perhaps the man would not have been particularly noticed, were
it not that, during his ascent to one of the yards, he, with a sort of covert
intentness, kept his eye fixed on Captain Delano, from whom, presently, it
passed, as if by a natural sequence,to the two whisperers.
His own attention thus redirected to that quarter, Captain Delano gave a
slight start. From something in Don Benito's manner just then, it seemed as if
the visitor had, at least partly, been the subject of the withdrawn consultation
going on- a conjecture as little agreeable to the guest as it was little
flattering to the host.
The singular alternations of courtesy and ill-breeding in the Spanish captain
were unaccountable, except on one of two suppositions- innocent lunacy,or wicked
imposture.
But the first idea, though it might naturally have occurred to an indifferent
observer,and,in some respects,had not hitherto been wholly a stranger to Captain
Delano's mind, yet,now that,in an incipient way, he began to regard the
stranger's conduct something in the light of an intentional affront,of course
the idea of lunacy was virtually vacated. But if not a lunatic, what then? Under
the circumstances, would a gentleman, nay, any honest boor,act the part now
acted by his host?The man was an impostor. Some lowborn adventurer, masquerading
as an oceanic grandee; yet so ignorant of the first requisites of mere
gentlemanhood as to be betrayed into the present remarkable indecorum. That
strange ceremoniousness, too, at other times evinced, seemed not
uncharacteristic of one playing a part above his real level. Benito Cereno- Don
Benito Cereno- a sounding name. One,too,at that period,not unknown, in the
surname,to supercargoes and sea captains trading along the Spanish Main, as
belonging to one of the most enterprising and extensive mercantile families in
all those provinces; several members of it having titles; a sort of Castilian
Rothschild, with a noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of
South America. The alleged Don Benito was in early manhood,about twenty-nine or
thirty.To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a
house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the
Spaniard was a pale invalid.Never mind. For even to the degree of simulating
mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been known to attain. To think
that,under the aspect of infantile weakness, the most savage energies might be
couched- those velvets of the Spaniard but the velvet paw to his fangs.
From no train of thought did these fancies come; not from within, but from
without;suddenly,too,and in one throng,like hoar frost;yet as soon to vanish as
the mild sun of Captain Delano's good-nature regained its meridian.
Glancing over once again toward Don Benito- whose side-face, revealed above
the skylight, was now turned toward him- Captain Delano was struck by the
profile, whose clearness of cut was refined by the thinness incident to
ill-health, as well as ennobled about the chin by the beard. Away with
suspicion. He was a true off-shoot of a true hidalgo Cereno.
Relieved by these and other better thoughts, the visitor, lightly humming a
tune, now began indifferently pacing the poop, so as not to betray to Don Benito
that be had at all mistrusted incivility, much less duplicity; for such mistrust
would yet be proved illusory, and by the event; though, for the present,the
circumstance which had provoked that distrust remained unexplained.But when that
little mystery should have been cleared up, Captain Delano thought he might
extremely regret it, did he allow Don Benito to become aware that he had
indulged in ungenerous surmises. In short, to the Spaniard's black-letter text,
it was best,for a while,to leave open margin.
Presently, his pale face twitching and overcast,the Spaniard,still supported
by his attendant, moved over toward his guest,when,with even more than usual
embarrassment, and a strange sort of intriguing intonation in his husky
whisper,the following conversation began:
"Senor,may I ask how long you have lain at this isle?"
"Oh,but a day or two,Don Benito."
"And from what port are you last?"
"Canton."
"And there,Senor,you exchanged your seal-skins for teas and silks, I think
you said?"
"Yes. Silks,mostly."
"And the balance you took in specie,perhaps?"
Captain Delano,fidgeting a little,answered-
"Yes;some silver;not a very great deal,though."
"Ah- well. May I ask how many men have you on board,Senor?"
Captain Delano slightly started,but answered:
"About five-and-twenty,all told."
"And at present,Senor,all on board,I suppose?"
"All on board, Don Benito, "replied the captain now with satisfaction.
"And will be to-night,Senor?"
At this last question, following so many pertinacious ones,for the soul of
him Captain Delano could not but look very earnestly at the questioner, who,
instead of meeting the glance, with every token of craven discomposure dropped
his eyes to the deck; presenting an unworthy contrast to his servant, who, just
then, was kneeling at his feet adjusting a loose shoe-buckle; his disengaged
face meantime, with humble curiosity,turned openly up into his master's downcast
one.
The Spaniard,still with a guilty shuffle,repeated his question:
"And- and will be to-night,Senor?"
"Yes,for aught I know,"returned Captain Delano,-"but nay,"rallying himself
into fearless truth, "some of them talked of going off on another fishing party
about midnight."
"Your ships generally go- go more or less armed,I believe,Senor?"
"Oh, a six-pounder or two,in case of emergency,"was the intrepidly
indifferent reply, "with a small stock of muskets, sealing-spears, and
cutlasses,you know."
As he thus responded, Captain Delano again glanced at Don Benito, but the
latter's eyes were averted; while abruptly and awkwardly shifting the subject,
he made some peevish allusion to the calm, and then, without apology, once more,
with his attendant, withdrew to the opposite bulwarks,where the whispering was
resumed.
At this moment, and ere Captain Delano could cast a cool thought upon what
had just passed, the young Spanish sailor before mentioned was seen descending
from the rigging. In act of stooping over to spring inboard to the deck,his
voluminous,unconfined frock,or shirt,of coarse woollen, much spotted with tar,
opened out far down the chest, revealing a soiled under-garment of what seemed
the finest linen,edged, about the neck,with a narrow blue ribbon,sadly faded and
worn. At this moment the young sailor's eye was again fixed on the whisperers,
and Captain Delano thought he observed a lurking significance in it, as if
silent signs of some freemason sort had that instant been interchanged.
This once more impelled his own glance in the direction of Don Benito, and,
as before, he could not but infer that himself formed the subject of the
conference. He paused. The sound of the hatchet- polishing fell on his ears. He
cast another swift side-look at the two. They had the air of conspirators. In
connection with the late questionings, and the incident of the young sailor,
these things now begat such return of involuntary suspicion, that the singular
guilelessness of the American could not endure it. Plucking up a gay and
humorous expression,he crossed over to the two rapidly,saying:"Ha, Don Benito,
your black here seems high in your trust; a sort of privy- counsellor,in fact."
Upon this, the servant looked up with a good-natured grin, but the master
started as from a venomous bite. It was a moment or two before the Spaniard
sufficiently recovered himself to reply; which he did, at last,with cold
constraint:"Yes,Senor,I have trust in Babo."
Here Babo,changing his previous grin of mere animal humour into an
intelligent smile,not ungratefully eyed his master.
Finding that the Spaniard now stood silent and reserved, as if involuntarily,
or purposely giving hint that his guest's proximity was inconvenient just
then,Captain Delano,unwilling to appear uncivil even to incivility itself, made
some trivial remark and moved off;again and again turning over in his mind the
mysterious demeanour of Don Benito Cereno.
He had descended from the poop, and,wrapped in thought,was passing near a
dark hatchway, leading down into the steerage, when, perceiving motion there,he
looked to see what moved. The same instant there was a sparkle in the shadowy
hatchway,and he saw one of the Spanish sailors, prowling there,hurriedly placing
his hand in the bosom of his frock,as if hiding something. Before the man could
have been certain who it was that was passing, he slunk below out of sight. But
enough was seen of him to make it sure that he was the same young sailor before
noticed in the rigging.
What was that which so sparkled? thought Captain Delano. It was no lamp- no
match- no live coal. Could it have been a jewel? But how come sailors with
jewels? - or with silk-trimmed undershirts either? Has he been robbing the
trunks of the dead cabin passengers? But if so, he would hardly wear one of the
stolen articles on board ship here. Ah,ah - if now that was, indeed, a secret
sign I saw passing between this suspicious fellow and his captain awhile since;
if I could only be certain that in my uneasiness my senses did not deceive
me,then-
Here, passing from one suspicious thing to another, his mind revolved the
point of the strange questions put to him concerning his ship.
By a curious coincidence, as each point was recalled, the black wizards of
Ashantee would strike up with their hatchets, as in ominous comment on the white
stranger's thoughts. Pressed by such enigmas and portents, it would have been
almost against nature, had not, even into the least distrustful heart,some ugly
misgivings obtruded.
Observing the ship now helplessly fallen into a current, with enchanted
sails, drifting with increased rapidity seaward; and noting that, from a lately
intercepted projection of the land, the sealer was hidden, the stout mariner
began to quake at thoughts which he barely durst confess to himself. Above all,
he began to feel a ghostly dread of Don Benito. And yet when he roused himself,
dilated his chest, felt himself strong on his legs, and coolly considered it-
what did all these phantoms amount to?
Had the Spaniard any sinister scheme,it must have reference not so much to
him (Captain Delano) as to his ship (the Bachelor's Delight) . Hence the present
drifting away of the one ship from the other,instead of favouring any such
possible scheme, was, for the time at least, opposed to it. Clearly any
suspicion, combining such contradictions, must need be delusive. Beside, was it
not absurd to think of a vessel in distress- a vessel by sickness almost
dismanned of her crew- a vessel whose inmates were parched for water- was it not
a thousand times absurd that such a craft should, at present, be of a piratical
character; or her commander, either for himself or those under him, cherish any
desire but for speedy relief and refreshment? But then, might not general
distress, and thirst in particular, be affected? And might not that same
undiminished Spanish crew,alleged to have perished off to a remnant, be at that
very moment lurking in the hold?On heart- broken pretence of entreating a cup of
cold water,fiends in human form had got into lonely dwellings, nor retired until
a dark deed had been done. And among the Malay pirates, it was no unusual thing
to lure ships after them into their treacherous harbours, or entice boarders
from a declared enemy at sea, by the spectacle of thinly manned or vacant decks,
beneath which prowled a hundred spears with yellow arms ready to upthrust them
through the mats. Not that Captain Delano had entirely credited such things. He
had heard of them- and now, as stories, they recurred. The present destination
of the ship was the anchorage. There she would be near his own vessel. Upon
gaining that vicinity,might not the San Dominick,like a slumbering
volcano,suddenly let loose energies now hid?
He recalled the Spaniard's manner while telling his story. There was a gloomy
hesitancy and subterfuge about it. It was just the manner of one making up his
tale for evil purposes, as he goes. But if that story was not true, what was the
truth? That the ship had unlawfully come into the Spaniard's possession? But in
many of its details, especially in reference to the more calamitous parts, such
as the fatalities among the seamen,the consequent prolonged beating about,the
past sufferings from obstinate calms, and still continued suffering from thirst;
in all these points, as well as others,Don Benito's story had been corroborated
not only by the wailing ejaculations of the indiscriminate multitude, white and
black, but likewise- what seemed impossible to be counterfeit- by the very
expression and play of every human feature, which Captain Delano saw. If Don
Benito's story was throughout an invention, then every soul on board,down to the
youngest Negress, was his carefully drilled recruit in the plot: an incredible
inference. And yet, if there was ground for mistrusting the Spanish captain's
veracity,that inference was a legitimate one.
In short,scarce an uneasiness entered the honest sailor's mind but, by a
subsequent spontaneous act of good sense, it was ejected. At last he began to
laugh at these forebodings; and laugh at the strange ship for,in its aspect
someway siding with them,as it were;and laugh,too,at the odd-looking blacks,
particularly those old scissors-grinders, the Ashantees; and those bed-ridden
old knitting-women, the oakum-pickers; and, in a human way, he almost began to
laugh at the dark Spaniard himself,the central hobgoblin of all.
For the rest, whatever in a serious way seemed enigmatical,was now
good-naturedly explained away by the thought that, for the most part, the poor
invalid scarcely knew what he was about; either sulking in black vapours, or
putting random questions without sense or object. Evidently,for the present,the
man was not fit to be entrusted with the ship. On some benevolent plea
withdrawing the command from him,Captain Delano would yet have to send her to
Concepcion in charge of his second mate, a worthy person and good navigator- a
plan which would prove no wiser for the San Dominick than for Don Benito;
for-relieved from all anxiety, keeping wholly to his cabin- the sick man, under
the good nursing of his servant, would probably,by the end of the passage, be in
a measure restored to health and with that he should also be restored to
authority.
Such were the American's thoughts. They were tranquillizing. There was a
difference between the idea of Don Benito's darkly preordaining Captain Delano's
fate, and Captain Delano's lightly arranging Don Benito's. Nevertheless,it was
not without something of relief that the good seaman presently perceived his
whale-boat in the distance. Its absence had been prolonged by unexpected
detention at the sealer's side, as well as its returning trip lengthened by the
continual recession of the goal.
The advancing speck was observed by the blacks. Their shouts attracted the
attention of Don Benito, who, with a return of courtesy, approaching Captain
Delano, expressed satisfaction at the coming of some supplies,slight and
temporary as they must necessarily prove.
Captain Delano responded; but while doing so, his attention was drawn to
something passing on the deck below: among the crowd climbing the landward
bulwarks,anxiously watching the coming boat,two blacks,to all appearances
accidentally incommoded by one of the sailors,flew out against him with horrible
curses, which the sailor someway resenting, the two blacks dashed him to the
deck and jumped upon him, despite the earnest cries of the oakum-pickers.
"Don Benito,"said Captain Delano quickly,"do you see what is going on
there?Look!"
But, seized by his cough,the Spaniard staggered,with both hands to his face,
on the point of falling. Captain Delano would have supported him, but the
servant was more alert, who, with one hand sustaining his master, with the other
applied the cordial. Don Benito, restored, the black withdrew his support,
slipping aside a little, but dutifully remaining within call of a whisper. Such
discretion was here evinced as quite wiped away, in the visitor's eyes, any
blemish of impropriety which might have attached to the attendant, from the
indecorous conferences before mentioned; showing, too,that if the servant were
to blame,it might be more the master's fault than his own,since when left to
himself he could conduct thus well.
His glance thus called away from the spectacle of disorder to the more
pleasing one before him, Captain Delano could not avoid again congratulating Don
Benito upon possessing such a servant, who, though perhaps a little too forward
now and then, must upon the whole be invaluable to one in the invalid's
situation.
"Tell me, Don Benito,"he added,with a smile-"I should like to have your man
here myself- what will you take for him?Would fifty doubloons be any object?"
"Master wouldn't part with Babo for a thousand doubloons,"murmured the black,
overhearing the offer,and taking it in earnest,and,with the strange vanity of a
faithful slave appreciated by his master, scorning to hear so paltry a valuation
put upon him by a stranger. But Don Benito,apparently hardly yet completely
restored,and again interrupted by his cough,made but some broken reply.
Soon his physical distress became so great,affecting his mind,tool
apparently, that, as if to screen the sad spectacle,the servant gently conducted
his master below.
Left to himself, the American,to while away the time till his boat should
arrive, would have pleasantly accosted some one of the few Spanish seamen he
saw;but recalling something that Don Benito had said touching their ill conduct,
he refrained,as a shipmaster indisposed to countenance cowardice or
unfaithfulness in seamen.
While, with these thoughts, standing with eye directed forward toward that
handful of sailors- suddenly he thought that some of them returned the glance
and with a sort of meaning. He rubbed his eyes,and looked again; but again
seemed to see the same thing.Under a new form, but more obscure than any
previous one,the old suspicions recurred,but, in the absence of Don Benito, with
less of panic than before. Despite the bad account given of the sailors,Captain
Delano resolved forthwith to accost one of them. Descending the poop,he made his
way through the blacks, his movement drawing a queer cry from the oakum-pickers,
prompted by whom the Negroes,twitching each other aside,divided before him; but,
as if curious to see what was the object of this deliberate visit to their
Ghetto, closing in behind, in tolerable order, followed the white stranger
up.His progress thus proclaimed as by mounted kings -at-arms, and escorted as by
a Caffre guard of honour, Captain Delano, assuming a good-humoured, off-hand
air, continued to advance; now and then saying a blithe word to the Negroes, and
his eye curiously surveying the white faces, here and there sparsely mixed in
with the blacks,like stray white pawns venturously involved in the ranks of the
chessmen opposed.
While thinking which of them to select for his purpose, he chanced to observe
a sailor seated on the deck engaged in tarring the strap of a large block,with a
circle of blacks squatted round him inquisitively eyeing the process.
The mean employment of the man was in contrast with something superior in his
figure. His hand, black with continually thrusting it into the tar-pot held for
him by a Negro, seemed not naturally allied to his face, a face which would have
been a very fine one but for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness had aught
to do with criminality could not be determined; since,as intense heat and
cold,though unlike, produce like sensations, so innocence and guilt, when,
through casual association with mental pain,stamping any visible impress,use one
seal - a hacked one.
Not again that this reflection occurred to Captain Delano at the time,
charitable man as he was. Rather another idea. Because observing so singular a
haggardness to be combined with a dark eye,averted as in trouble and shame,and
then,however illogically,uniting in his mind his own private suspicions of the
crew with the confessed ill-opinion on the part of their captain, he was
insensibly operated upon by certain general notions, which, while disconnecting
pain and abashment from virtue,as invariably link them with vice.
If, indeed, there be any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain
Delano, be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now he fouls
it in the pitch. I don't like to accost him. I will speak to this other,this old
Jack here on the windlass.
He advanced to an old Barcelona tar, in ragged red breeches and dirty
night-cap, cheeks trenched and bronzed, whiskers dense as thorn hedges. Seated
between two sleepy-looking Africans, this mariner, like his younger shipmate,
was employed upon some rigging-splicing a cable- the sleepy-looking blacks
performing the inferior function of holding the outer parts of the ropes for
him.
Upon Captain Delano's approach,the man at once hung his head below its
previous level; the one necessary for business. It appeared as if he desired to
be thought absorbed, with more than common fidelity, in his task. Being
addressed,he glanced up,but with what seemed a furtive, diffident air,which sat
strangely enough on his weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear,instead
of growling and biting,should simper and cast sheep's eyes. He was asked several
questions concerning the voyage- questions purposely referring to several
particulars in Don Benito's narrative- not previously corroborated by those
impulsive cries greeting the visitor on first coming on board. The questions
were briefly answered, confirming all that remained to be confirmed of the
story. The Negroes about the windlass joined in with the old sailor, but, as
they became talkative,he by degrees became mute,and at length quite glum, seemed
morosely unwilling to answer more questions, and yet, all the while, this ursine
air was somehow mixed with his sheepish one.
Despairing of getting into unembarrassed talk with such a centaur, Captain
Delano, after glancing round for a more promising countenance, but seeing
none,spoke pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him;and so, amid various
grins and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling a little strange at first, he
could hardly tell why, but upon the whole with regained confidence in Benito
Cereno.
How plainly, thought he, did that old whiskerando yonder betray a
consciousness of ill-desert. No doubt,when he saw me coming,he dreaded lest
I,apprised by his captain of the crew's general misbehaviour,came with sharp
words for him, and so down with his head. And yet- and yet, now that I think of
it, that very old fellow, if I err not, was one of those who seemed so earnestly
eyeing me here awhile since. Ah, these currents spin one's head round almost as
much as they do the ship. Ha, there now's a pleasant sort of sunny sight;quite
sociable,too.
His attention had been drawn to a slumbering Negress, partly disclosed
through the lace-work of some rigging, lying, with youthful limbs carelessly
disposed, under the lee of the bulwarks,like a doe in the shade of a woodland
rock. Sprawling at her lapped breasts was her wide-awake fawn,stark naked,its
black little body half lifted from the deck, crosswise with its dam's;its
hands,like two paws,clambering upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually
rooting to get at the mark; and meantime giving a vexatious half-grunt, blending
with the composed snore of the Negress.
The uncommon vigour of the child at length roused the mother.She started up,
at distance facing Captain Delano. But, as if not at all concerned at the
attitude in which she had been caught,delightedly she caught the child up,with
maternal transports,covering it with kisses.
There's naked nature, now;pure tenderness and love,thought Captain
Delano,well pleased.
This incident prompted him to remark the other Negresses more particularly
than before. He was gratified with their manners; like most uncivilized women,
they seemed at once tender of heart and tough of constitution; equally ready to
die for their infants or fight for them. Unsophisticated as leopardesses; loving
as doves. Ah! thought Captain Delano, these perhaps are some of the very women
whom Mungo Park saw in Africa,and gave such a noble account of.
These natural sights somehow insensibly deepened his confidence and ease. At
last he looked to see how his boat was getting on; but it was still pretty
remote. He turned to see if Don Benito had returned; but he had not.
To change the scene, as well as to please himself with a leisurely
observation of the coming boat,stepping over into the mizzen-chains he clambered
his way into the starboard quarter-galley; one of those abandoned
Venetian-looking water-balconies previously mentioned; retreats cut off from the
deck. As his foot pressed the half-damp,half -dry sea-mosses matting the place,
and a chance phantom cat's-paw-an islet of breeze, unheralded,unfollowed- as
this ghostly cat's-paw came fanning his cheek, his glance fell upon the row of
small, round dead- lights, all closed like coppered eyes of the coffined, and
the state- cabin door, once connecting with the gallery, even as the dead-lights
had once looked out upon it, but now caulked fast like a sarcophagus lid, to a
purple-black, tarred-over panel, threshold, and post; and he bethought him of
the time,when that state-cabin and this state-balcony had heard the voices of
the Spanish king's officers, and the forms of the Lima viceroy's daughters had
perhaps leaned where he stood- as these and other images flitted through his
mind, as the cat's-paw through the calm, gradually he felt rising a dreamy
inquietude, like that of one who alone on the prairie feels unrest from the
repose of the noon.
He leaned against the carved balustrade, again looking off toward his boat;
but found his eye falling upon the ribboned grass, trailing along the ship's
water-line, straight as a border of green box; and parterres of sea-weed,broad
ovals and crescents,floating nigh and far, with what seemed long formal alleys
between, crossing the terraces of swells, and sweeping round as if leading to
the grottoes below. And overhanging all was the balustrade by his arm, which,
partly stained with pitch and partly embossed with moss, seemed the charred ruin
of some summer-house in a grand garden long running to waste.
Trying to break one charm, he was but becharmed anew. Though upon the wide
sea, he seemed in some far inland country; prisoner in some deserted chateau,
left to stare at empty grounds,and peer out at vague roads,where never wagon or
wayfarer passed.
But these enchantments were a little disenchanted as his eye fell on the
corroded main-chains. Of an ancient style, massy and rusty in link,shackle and
bolt,they seemed even more fit for the ship's present business than the one for
which probably she had been built.
Presently he thought something moved nigh the chains. He rubbed his eyes, and
looked hard. Groves of rigging were about the chains;and there, peering from
behind a great stay, like an Indian from behind a hemlock, a Spanish sailor,a
marlingspike in his hand,was seen,who made what seemed an imperfect gesture
toward the balcony-but immediately,as if alarmed by some advancing step along
the deck within, vanished into the recesses of the hempen forest,like a poacher.
What meant this? Something the man had sought to communicate, unbeknown to
any one, even to his captain?Did the secret involve aught unfavourable to his
captain? Were those previous misgivings of Captain Delano's about to be
verified?Or,in his haunted mood at the moment,had some random, unintentional
motion of the man,while busy with the stay, as if repairing it,been mistaken for
a significant beckoning?
Not unbewildered, again he gazed off for his boat. But it was temporarily
hidden by a rocky spur of the isle. As with some eagerness he bent forward,
watching for the first shooting view of its beak, the balustrade gave way before
him like charcoal. Had he not clutched an outreaching rope he would have fallen
into the sea. The crash, though feeble, and the fall, though hollow, of the
rotten fragments,must have been overheard. He glanced up. With sober curiosity
peering down upon him was one of the old oakum-pickers, slipped from his perch
to an outside boom; while below the old Negro- and, invisible to him,
reconnoitring from a port-hole like a fox from the mouth of its den- crouched
the Spanish sailor again. From something suddenly suggested by the man's air,
the mad idea now darted into Captain Delano's mind: that Don Benito's plea of
indisposition,in withdrawing below,was but a pretence: that he was engaged there
maturing some plot, of which the sailor, by some means gaining an inkling, had a
mind to warn the stranger against; incited, it may be, by gratitude for a kind
word on first boarding the ship. Was it from foreseeing some possible
interference like this,that Don Benito had,beforehand,given such a bad character
of his sailors, while praising the Negroes;though,indeed,the former seemed as
docile as the latter the contrary? The whites, too,by nature, were the shrewder
race. A man with some evil design, would not he be likely to speak well of that
stupidity which was blind to his depravity, and malign that intelligence from
which it might not be hidden? Not unlikely, perhaps. But if the whites had dark
secrets concerning Don Benito, could then Don Benito be any way in complicity
with the blacks? But they were too stupid. Besides,who ever heard of a white so
far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost, by leaguing in
against it with Negroes? These difficulties recalled former ones. Lost in their
mazes, Captain Delano, who had now regained the deck, was uneasily advancing
along it,when he observed a new face: an aged sailor seated cross-legged near
the main hatchway. His skin was shrunk up with wrinkles like a pelican's empty
pouch; his hair frosted; his countenance grave and composed. His hands were full
of ropes, which he was working into a large knot. Some blacks were about him
obligingly dipping the strands for him, here and there, as the exigencies of the
operation demanded.
Captain Delano crossed over to him, and stood in silence surveying the
knot;his mind,by a not uncongenial transition,passing from its own entanglements
to those of the hemp. For intricacy such a knot he had never seen in an American
ship,or indeed any other. The old man looked like an Egyptian priest, making
Gordian knots for the temple of Ammon. The knot seemed a combination of
double-bowline-knot,treble-crown-knot,
back-handed-well-knot,knot-in-and-out-knot,and jamming-knot.
At last, puzzled to comprehend the meaning of such a knot, Captain
Delano,addressed the knotter:-
"What are you knotting there,my man?"
"The knot,"was the brief reply,without looking up.
"So it seems;but what is it for?"
"For some one else to undo, "muttered back the old man, plying his fingers
harder than ever,the knot being now nearly completed.
While Captain Delano stood watching him,suddenly the old man threw the knot
toward him, and said in broken English, - the first heard in the ship,-
something to this effect-"Undo it,cut it,quick."It was said lowly, but with such
condensation of rapidity,that the long,slow words in Spanish, which had preceded
and followed, almost operated as covers to the brief English between.
For a moment, knot in hand, and knot in head, Captain Delano stood
mute;while,without further heeding him,the old man was now intent upon other
ropes. Presently there was a slight stir behind Captain Delano. Turning, he saw
the chained Negro, Atufal, standing quietly there. The next moment the old
sailor rose, muttering, and, followed by his subordinate Negroes, removed to the
forward part of the ship, where in the crowd he disappeared.
An elderly Negro,in a clout like an infant's,and with a pepper and salt
head,and a kind of attorney air,now approached Captain Delano. In tolerable
Spanish,and with a good-natured,knowing wink,he informed him that the old
knotter was simple-witted, but harmless;often playing his old tricks. The Negro
concluded by begging the knot, for of course the stranger would not care to be
troubled with it. Unconsciously, it was handed to him. With a sort of conge, the
Negro received it,and turning his back ferreted into it like a detective Custom
House officer after smuggled laces. Soon, with some African word, equivalent to
pshaw, he tossed the knot overboard.
All this is very queer now, thought Captain Delano,with a qualmish sort of
emotion; but as one feeling incipient seasickness,he strove,by ignoring the
symptoms, to get rid of the malady. Once more he looked off for his boat. To his
delight, it was now again in view,leaving the rocky spur astern.
The sensation here experienced, after at first relieving his uneasiness, with
unforeseen efficiency, soon began to remove it. The less distant sight of that
well-known boat- showing it, not as before, half blended with the haze, but with
outline defined, so that its individuality,like a man's,was manifest;that
boat,Rover by name,which, though now in strange seas, had often pressed the
beach of Captain Delano's home, and,brought to its threshold for repairs,had
familiarly lain there, as a Newfoundland dog; the sight of that household boat
evoked a thousand trustful associations,which,contrasted with previous
suspicions, filled Him not only with lightsome confidence, but somehow with half
humorous self-reproaches at his former lack of it.
"What, I, Amasa Delano- Jack of the Beach,as they called me when a lad- I,
Amasa; the same that,duck-satchel in hand,used to paddle along the waterside to
the schoolhouse made from the old hulk;-I,little Jack of the Beach, that used to
go berrying with cousin Nat and the rest; I to be murdered here at the ends of
the earth,on board a haunted pirate -ship by a horrible Spaniard? - Too
nonsensical to think of! Who would murder Amasa Delano? His conscience is
clean.There is some one above. Fie,fie,Jack of the Beach!you are a child
indeed;a child of the second childhood,old boy;you are beginning to dote and
drool,I'm afraid."
Light of heart and foot, he stepped aft, and there was met by Don Benito's
servant, who,with a pleasing expression,responsive to his own present feelings,
informed him that his master had recovered from the effects of his coughing
fit,and had just ordered him to go present his compliments to his good guest,
Don Amasa, and say that he (Don Benito) would soon have the happiness to rejoin
him.
There now, do you mark that? again thought Captain Delano, walking the poop.
What a donkey I was. This kind gentleman who here sends me his kind compliments,
he, but ten minutes ago,dark-lantern in hand,was dodging round some old
grind-stone in the hold, sharpening a hatchet for me, I thought. Well,
well;these long calms have a morbid effect on the mind, I've often heard, though
I never believed it before. Ha! glancing toward the boat; there's Rover;a good
dog;a white bone in her mouth. A pretty big bone though, seems to me.-What?
Yes,she has fallen afoul of the bubbling tide-rip there. It sets her the other
way, too, for the time. Patience.
It was now about noon, though, from the greyness of everything, it seemed to
be getting toward dusk.
The calm was confirmed. In the far distance, away from the influence of land,
the leaden ocean seemed laid out and leaded up, its course finished,soul
gone,defunct. But the current from landward,where the ship was, increased;
silently sweeping her further and further toward the tranced waters beyond.
Still, from his knowledge of those latitudes,cherishing hopes of a breeze,
and a fair and fresh one, at any moment,Captain Delano,despite present
prospects, buoyantly counted upon bringing the San Dominick safely to anchor ere
night. The distance swept over was nothing;since, with a good wind, ten minutes'
sailing would retrace more than sixty minutes' drifting. Meantime, one moment
turning to mark Rover fighting the tide-rip, and the next to see Don Benito
approaching, he continued walking the poop.
Gradually he felt a vexation arising from the delay of his boat; this soon
merged into uneasiness; and at last, his eye falling continually, as from a
stage-box into the pit, upon the strange crowd before and below him, and
by-and-by recognizing there the face- now composed to indifference- of the
Spanish sailor who had seemed to beckon from the main-chains,something of his
old trepidations returned.
Ah, thought he- gravely enough- this is like the ague: because it went off,it
follows not that it won't come back.
Though ashamed of the relapse, he could not altogether subdue it; and so,
exerting his good nature to the utmost,insensibly he came to a compromise.
Yes, this is a strange craft; a strange history, too, and strange folks on
board. But- nothing more.
By way of keeping his mind out of mischief till the boat should arrive, he
tried to occupy it with turning over and over, in a purely speculative sort of
way, some lesser peculiarities of the captain and crew. Among others,four
curious points recurred.
First, the affair of the Spanish lad assailed with a knife by the slave boy;
an act winked at by Don Benito. Second, the tyranny in Don Benito's treatment of
Atufal, the black; as if a child should lead a bull of the Nile by the ring in
his nose. Third, the trampling of the sailor by the two Negroes; a piece of
insolence passed over without so much as a reprimand. Fourth,the cringing
submission to their master of all the ship's underlings, mostly blacks; as if by
the least inadvertence they feared to draw down his despotic displeasure.
Coupling these points,they seemed somewhat contradictory. But what
then,thought Captain Delano,glancing toward his now nearing boat,-what then?
Why,this Don Benito is a very capricious commander.But he is not the first of
the sort I have seen; though it's true he rather exceeds any other. But as a
nation- continued he in his reveries-these Spaniards are all an odd set; the
very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it. And yet,
I dare say,Spaniards in the main are as good folks as any in
Duxbury,Massachusetts. Ah,good!At last Rover has come.
As, with its welcome freight, the boat touched the side,the oakum- pickers,
with venerable gestures, sought to restrain the blacks,who,at the sight of three
gurried water-casks in its bottom, and a pile of wilted pumpkins in its bow,
hung over the bulwarks in disorderly raptures.
Don Benito with his servant now appeared; his coming, perhaps, hastened by
hearing the noise. Of him Captain Delano sought permission to serve out the
water, so that all might share alike, and none injure themselves by unfair
excess. But sensible,and,on Don Benito's account, kind as this offer was, it was
received with what seemed impatience;as if aware that he lacked energy as a
commander,Don Benito,with the true jealousy of weakness, resented as an affront
any interference. So, at least,Captain Delano inferred.
In another moment the casks were being hoisted in,when some of the eager
Negroes accidentally jostled Captain Delano, where he stood by the gangway;so
that,unmindful of Don Benito,yielding to the impulse of the moment, with
good-natured authority he bade the blacks stand back; to enforce his words
making use of a half-mirthful, half-menacing gesture. Instantly the blacks
paused, just where they were, each Negro and Negress suspended in his or her
posture, exactly as the word had found them- for a few seconds continuing
so-while, as between the responsive posts of a telegraph, an unknown syllable
ran from man to man among the perched oakum-pickers. While Captain Delano's
attention was fixed by this scene,suddenly the hatchet-polishers half rose,and a
rapid cry came from Don Benito.
Thinking that at the signal of the Spaniard he was about to be massacred,
Captain Delano would have sprung for his boat,but paused,as the oakum-pickers,
dropping down into the crowd with earnest exclamations, forced every white and
every Negro back, at the same moment, with gestures friendly and familiar,almost
jocose,bidding him, in substance, not be a fool. Simultaneously the
hatchet-polishers resumed their seats, quietly as so many tailors, and at once,
as if nothing had happened, the work of hoisting in the casks was resumed,
whites and blacks singing at the tackle.
Captain Delano glanced toward Don Benito. As he saw his meagre form in the
act of recovering itself from reclining in the servant's arms, into which the
agitated invalid had fallen, he could not but marvel at the panic by which
himself had been surprised on the darting supposition that such a commander, who
upon a legitimate occasion, so trivial, too, as it now appeared, could lose all
self-command,was,with energetic iniquity,going to bring about his murder.
The casks being on deck,Captain Delano was handed a number of jars and cups
by one of the steward's aides, who,in the name of Don Benito, entreated him to
do as he had proposed:dole out the water. He complied, with republican
impartiality as to this republican element, which always seeks one level,
serving the oldest white no better than the youngest black;excepting,indeed,poor
Don Benito,whose condition,if not rank, demanded an extra allowance. To him, in
the first place, Captain Delano presented a fair pitcher of the fluid; but,
thirsting as he was for fresh water, Don Benito quaffed not a drop until after
several grave bows and salutes: a reciprocation of courtesies which the sight-
loving Africans hailed with clapping of hands.
Two of the less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin table, the
residue were minced up on the spot for the general regalement. But the soft
bread,sugar,and bottled cider,Captain Delano would have given the Spaniards
alone, and in chief Don Benito; but the latter objected; which
disinterestedness,on his part,not a little pleased the American; and so
mouthfuls all around were given alike to whites and blacks; excepting one bottle
of cider, which Babo insisted upon setting aside for his master.
Here it may be observed that as,on the first visit of the boat,the American
had not permitted his men to board the ship, neither did he now;being unwilling
to add to the confusion of the decks.
Not uninfluenced by the peculiar good humour at present prevailing, and for
the time oblivious of any but benevolent thoughts, Captain Delano, who from
recent indications counted upon a breeze within an hour or two at furthest,
despatched the boat back to the sealer with orders for all the hands that could
be spared immediately to set about rafting casks to the watering-place and
filling them. Likewise he bade word be carried to his chief officer, that if
against present expectation the ship was not brought to anchor by sunset, he
need be under no concern, for as there was to be a full moon that night, he
(Captain Delano) would remain on board ready to play the pilot, should the wind
come soon or late.
As the two captains stood together, observing the departing boat- the servant
as it happened having just spied a spot on his master's velvet sleeve, and
silently engaged rubbing it out- the American expressed his regrets that the San
Dominick had no boats;none,at least, but the unseaworthy old hulk of the
long-boat, which, warped as a camel's skeleton in the desert, and almost as
bleached, lay pot-wise inverted amidships,one side a little tipped,furnishing a
subterraneous sort of den for family groups of the blacks, mostly women and
small children; who,squatting on old mats below,or perched above in the dark
dome, on the elevated seats, were descried,some distance within,like a social
circle of bats, sheltering in some friendly cave; at intervals, ebon flights of
naked boys and girls, three or four years old, darting in and out of the den's
mouth.
"Had you three or four boats now,Don Benito,"said Captain Delano," I think
that,by tugging at the oars,your Negroes here might help along matters some.-
Did you sail from port without boats,Don Benito?"
"They were stove in the gales,Senor."
"That was bad. Many men, too, you lost then. Boats and men.- Those must have
been hard gales,Don Benito."
"Past all speech,"cringed the Spaniard.
"Tell me, Don Benito, "continued his companion with increased interest, "tell
me, were these gales immediately off the pitch of Cape Horn?"
"Cape Horn?- who spoke of Cape Horn?"
"Yourself did, when giving me an account of your voyage, "answered Captain
Delano with almost equal astonishment at this eating of his own words, even as
he ever seemed eating his own heart, on the part of the Spaniard."You yourself,
Don Benito, spoke of Cape Horn, "he emphatically repeated.
The Spaniard turned, in a sort of stooping posture, pausing an instant, as
one about to make a plunging exchange of elements, as from air to water.
At this moment a messenger-boy, a white, hurried by,in the regular
performance of his function carrying the last expired half-hour forward to the
forecastle, from the cabin time-piece,to have it struck at the ship's large
bell.
"Master, "said the servant, discontinuing his work on the coat sleeve, and
addressing the rapt Spaniard with a sort of timid apprehensiveness, as one
charged with a duty,the discharge of which,it was foreseen,would prove irksome
to the very person who had imposed it, and for whose benefit it was
intended,"master told me never mind where he was, or how engaged, always to
remind him,to a minute,when shaving- time comes. Miguel has gone to strike the
half-hour after noon. It is now,master. Will master go into the cuddy?"
"Ah- yes, "answered the Spaniard, starting,somewhat as from dreams into
realities; then turning upon Captain Delano,he said that ere long he would
resume the conversation.
"Then if master means to talk more to Don Amasa,"said the servant," why not
let Don Amasa sit by master in the cuddy, and master can talk, and Don Amasa can
listen,while Babo here lathers and strops."
"Yes, "said Captain Delano,not unpleased with this sociable plan," yes,Don
Benito,unless you had rather not,I will go with you."
"Be it so,Senor."
As the three passed aft, the American could not but think it another strange
instance of his host's capriciousness, this being shaved with such uncommon
punctuality in the middle of the day. But he deemed it more than likely that the
servant's anxious fidelity had something to do with the matter; inasmuch as the
timely interruption served to rally his master from the mood which had evidently
been coming upon him.
The place called the cuddy was a light deck-cabin formed by the poop,a sort
of attic to the large cabin below. Part of it had formerly been the quarters of
the officers; but since their death all the partitionings had been thrown down,
and the whole interior converted into one spacious and airy marine hall; for
absence of fine furniture and picturesque disarray, of odd appurtenances,
somewhat answering to the wide, cluttered hall of some eccentric bachelor squire
in the country, who hangs his shooting-jacket and tobacco-pouch on deer antlers,
and keeps his fishing-rod,tongs,and walking-stick in the same corner.
The similitude was heightened, if not originally suggested, by glimpses of
the surrounding sea; since, in one aspect, the country and the ocean seem
cousins-german.
The floor of the cuddy was matted. Overhead, four or five old muskets were
stuck into horizontal holes along the beams. On one side was a claw-footed old
table lashed to the deck;a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre
crucifix attached to the bulkhead. Under the table lay a dented cutlass or
two,with a hacked harpoon,among some melancholy old rigging,like a heap of poor
friar's girdles. There were also two long, sharp-ribbed settees of malacca
cane,black with age,and uncomfortable to look at as inquisitors' racks, with a
large,misshapen arm-chair, which, furnished with a rude barber's crutch at the
back, working with a screw, seemed some grotesque Middle Age engine of torment.
A flag locker was in one corner, exposing various coloured bunting, some rolled
up, others half unrolled, still others tumbled. Opposite was a cumbrous
washstand, of black mahogany,all of one block, with a pedestal, like a font, and
over it a railed shelf, containing combs, brushes, and other implements of the
toilet. A tom hammock of stained grass swung near; the sheets tossed,and the
pillow wrinkled up like a brow, as if whoever slept here slept but illy, with
alternate visitations of sad thoughts and bad dreams.
The further extremity of the cuddy, overhanging the ship's stern, was pierced
with three openings,windows or port-holes,according as men or cannon might peer,
socially or unsocially, out of them. At present neither men nor cannon were
seen, though huge ring-bolts and other rusty iron fixtures of the wood-work
hinted of twenty-four-pounders.
Glancing toward the hammock as he entered,Captain Delano said,"You sleep
here,Don Benito?"
"Yes,Senor,since we got into mild weather."
"This seems a sort of dormitory, sitting-room, sail-loft, chapel, armoury,
and private closet together,Don Benito,"added Captain Delano, looking around.
"Yes, Senor; events have not been favourable to much order in my
arrangements."
Here the servant, napkin on arm, made a motion as if waiting his master's
good pleasure. Don Benito signified his readiness, when, seating him in the
malacca arm-chair, and for the guest's convenience drawing opposite it one of
the settees, the servant commenced operations by throwing back his master's
collar and loosening his cravat.
There is something in the Negro which, in a peculiar way, fits him for
avocations about one's person. Most Negroes are natural valets and
hair-dressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castanets, and
flourishing them apparently with almost equal satisfaction. There is,too,a
smooth tact about them in this employment, with a marvellous, noiseless, gliding
briskness, not ungraceful in its way, singularly pleasing to behold, and still
more so to be the manipulated subject of. And above all is the great gift of
good humour. Not the mere grin or laugh is here meant. Those were unsuitable.
But a certain easy cheerfulness, harmonious in every glance and gesture; as
though God had set the whole Negro to some pleasant tune.
When to all this is added the docility arising from the unaspiring
contentment of a limited mind, and that susceptibility of blind attachment
sometimes inhering in indisputable inferiors, one readily perceives why those
hypochondriacs, Johnson and Byron- it may be something like the hypochondriac,
Benito Cereno- took to their hearts, almost to the exclusion of the entire white
race,their serving men,the Negroes, Barber and Fletcher. But if there be that in
the Negro which exempts him from the inflicted sourness of the morbid or cynical
mind, how, in his most prepossessing aspects, must he appear to a benevolent
one? When at ease with respect to exterior things, Captain Delano's nature was
not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so. At home, he had often taken
rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watching some free man of colour at
his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably
he was on chatty, and half-gamesome terms with him. In fact, like most men of a
good, blithe heart,Captain Delano took to Negroes, not philanthropically, but
genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.
Hitherto the circumstances in which he found the San Dominick had repressed
the tendency. But in the cuddy, relieved from his former uneasiness, and,for
various reasons,more sociably inclined than at any previous period of the day,
and seeing the coloured servant, napkin on arm, so debonair about his master,in
a business so familiar as that of shaving,too,all his old weakness for Negroes
returned.
Among other things, he was amused with an odd instance of the African love of
bright colours and fine shows, in the black's informally taking from the
flag-locker a great piece of bunting of all hues,and lavishly tucking it under
his master's chin for an apron.
The mode of shaving among the Spaniards is a little different from what it is
with other nations. They have a basin, specially called a barber's basin, which
on one side is scooped out, so as accurately to receive the chin, against which
it is closely held in lathering; which is done, not with a brush, but with soap
dipped in the water of the basin and rubbed on the face.
In the present instance salt-water was used for lack of better;and the parts
lathered were only the upper lip, and low down under the throat,all the rest
being cultivated beard.
These preliminaries being somewhat novel to Captain Delano he sat curiously
eyeing them, so that no conversation took place, nor for the present did Don
Benito appear disposed to renew any.
Setting down his basin, the Negro searched among the razors,as for the
sharpest, and having found it, gave it an additional edge by expertly stropping
it on the firm,smooth,oily skin of his open palm;he then made a gesture as if to
begin, but midway stood suspended for an instant,one hand elevating the
razor,the other professionally dabbling among the bubbling suds on the
Spaniard's lank neck. Not unaffected by the close sight of the gleaming steel,
Don Benito nervously shuddered, his usual ghastliness was heightened by the
lather,which lather,again, was intensified in its hue by the sootiness of the
Negro's body. Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar,at least to Captain
Delano, nor,as he saw the two thus postured,could he resist the vagary,that in
the black he saw a headsman, and in the white, a man at the block. But this was
one of those antic conceits, appearing and vanishing in a breath,from
which,perhaps,the best regulated mind is not free.
Meantime the agitation of the Spaniard had a little loosened the bunting from
around him,so that one broad fold swept curtain-like over the chair-arm to the
floor,revealing,amid a profusion of armorial bars and ground-colours- black,blue
and yellow- a closed castle in a blood- red field diagonal with a lion rampant
in a white.
"The castle and the lion,"exclaimed Captain Delano-"why,Don Benito, this is
the flag of Spain you use here. It's well it's only I, and not the King, that
sees this, "he added with a smile, "but"-turning toward the black, -"it's all
one, I suppose, so the colours be gay, "which playful remark did not fail
somewhat to tickle the Negro.
"Now, master, "he said, readjusting the flag,and pressing the head gently
further back into the crotch of the chair; "now master,"and the steel glanced
nigh the throat.
Again Don Benito faintly shuddered.
"You must not shake so,master.- See,Don Amasa,master always shakes when I
shave him. And yet master knows I never yet have drawn blood, though it's
true,if master will shake so,I may some of these times.Now, master, "he
continued."And now, Don Amasa, please go on with your talk about the gale, and
all that, master can hear,and between times master can answer."
"Ah yes, these gales,"said Captain Delano;"but the more I think of your
voyage, Don Benito,the more I wonder,not at the gales,terrible as they must have
been,but at the disastrous interval following them. For here, by your account,
have you been these two months and more getting from Cape Horn to St. Maria,a
distance which I myself,with a good wind, have sailed in a few days. True, you
had calms,and long ones,but to be becalmed for two months, that is, at
least,unusual. Why,Don Benito,had almost any other gentleman told me such a
story, I should have been half disposed to a little incredulity."
Here an involuntary expression came over the Spaniard, similar to that just
before on the deck,and whether it was the start he gave,or a sudden gawky roll
of the hull in the calm, or a momentary unsteadiness of the servant's hand;
however it was, just then the razor drew blood, spots of which stained the
creamy lather under the throat; immediately the black barber drew back his
steel,and remaining in his professional attitude, back to Captain Delano, and
face to Don Benito, held up the trickling razor,saying,with a sort of half
humorous sorrow,"See,master, - you shook so- here's Babo's first blood."
No sword drawn before James the First of England, no assassination in that
timid King's presence, could have produced a more terrified aspect than was now
presented by Don Benito.
Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, so nervous he can't even bear the sight
of barber's blood; and this unstrung,sick man,is it credible that I should have
imagined he meant to spill all my blood, who can't endure the sight of one
little drop of his own?Surely,Amasa Delano,you have been beside yourself this
day. Tell it not when you get home, sappy Amasa. Well, well, he looks like a
murderer,doesn't he?More like as if himself were to be done for. Well, well,
this day's experience shall be a good lesson.
Meantime, while these things were running through the honest seaman's
mind,the servant had taken the napkin from his arm,and to Don Benito had said:
"But answer Don Amasa,please,master,while I wipe this ugly stuff off the
razor,and strop it again."
As he said the words, his face was turned half round, so as to be alike
visible to the Spaniard and the American, and seemed by its expression to
hint,that he was desirous,by getting his master to go on with the
conversation,considerately to withdraw his attention from the recent annoying
accident. As if glad to snatch the offered relief, Don Benito resumed,
rehearsing to Captain Delano, that not only were the calms of unusual duration,
but the ship had fallen in with obstinate currents and other things he added,
some of which were but repetitions of former statements, to explain how it came
to pass that the passage from Cape Horn to St. Maria had been so exceedingly
long, now and then mingling with his words,incidental praises,less qualified
than before, to the blacks,for their general good conduct.
These particulars were not given consecutively,the servant now and then using
his razor,and so,between the intervals of shaving,the story and panegyric went
on with more than usual huskiness.
To Captain Delano's imagination,now again not wholly at rest,there was
something so hollow in the Spaniard's manner, with apparently some reciprocal
hollowness in the servant's dusky comment of silence, that the idea flashed
across him, that possibly master and man, for some unknown purpose, were acting
out,both in word and deed,nay,to the very tremor of Don Benito's limbs, some
juggling play before him. Neither did the suspicion of collusion lack apparent
support, from the fact of those whispered conferences before mentioned. But
then, what could be the object of enacting this play of the barber before him?
At last, regarding the notion as a whimsy, insensibly suggested, perhaps,by the
theatrical aspect of Don Benito in his harlequin ensign,Captain Delano speedily
banished it.
The shaving over,the servant bestirred himself with a small bottle of scented
waters, pouring a few drops on the head,and then diligently rubbing; the
vehemence of the exercise causing the muscles of his face to twitch rather
strangely.
His next operation was with comb, scissors and brush; going round and
round,smoothing a curl here,clipping an unruly whisker-hair there, giving a
graceful sweep to the temple-lock, with other impromptu touches evincing the
hand of a master; while, like any resigned gentleman in barber's hands, Don
Benito bore all,much less uneasily,at least, than he had done the razoring;
indeed, he sat so pale and rigid now, that the Negro seemed a Nubian sculptor
finishing off a white statue-head.
All being over at last, the standard of Spain removed, tumbled up, and tossed
back into the flag-locker, the Negro's warm breath blowing away any stray hair
which might have lodged down his master's neck; collar and cravat readjusted; a
speck of lint whisked off the velvet lapel; all this being done;backing off a
little space,and pausing with an expression of subdued self-complacency, the
servant for a moment surveyed his master, as, in toilet at least, the creature
of his own tasteful hands.
Captain Delano playfully complimented him upon his achievement; at the same
time congratulating Don Benito.
But neither sweet waters,nor shampooing,nor fidelity,nor sociality, delighted
the Spaniard. Seeing him relapsing into forbidding gloom,and still remaining
seated, Captain Delano, thinking that his presence was undesired just then,
withdrew, on pretence of seeing whether,as he had prophesied,any signs of a
breeze were visible.
Walking forward to the mainmast, he stood awhile thinking over the scene, and
not without some undefined misgivings,when he heard a noise near the cuddy, and
turning, saw the Negro, his hand to his cheek. Advancing,Captain Delano
perceived that the cheek was bleeding. He was about to ask the cause, when the
Negro's wailing soliloquy enlightened him.
"Ah, when will master get better from his sickness; only the sour heart that
sour sickness breeds made him serve Babo so; cutting Babo with the razor,
because, only by accident, Babo had given master one little scratch;and for the
first time in so many a day,too. Ah,ah,ah," holding his hand to his face.
Is it possible, thought Captain Delano; was it to wreak in private his
Spanish spite against this poor friend of his, that Don Benito, by his sullen
manner, impelled me to withdraw?Ah,this slavery breeds ugly passions in man!Poor
fellow!
He was about to speak in sympathy to the Negro, but with a timid reluctance
he now re-entered the cuddy.
Presently master and man came forth; Don Benito leaning on his servant as if
nothing had happened.
But a sort of love-quarrel,after all,thought Captain Delano.
He accosted Don Benito, and they slowly walked together. They had gone but a
few paces, when the steward-a tall, rajah-looking mulatto, orientally set off
with a pagoda turban formed by three or four Madras handkerchiefs wound about
his head, tier on tier-approaching with a salaam,announced lunch in the cabin.
On their way thither,the two captains were preceded by the mulatto, who,
turning round as he advanced, with continual smiles and bows, ushered them in, a
display of elegance which quite completed the insignificance of the small
bare-headed Babo,who,as if not unconscious of inferiority, eyed askance the
graceful steward. But in part,Captain Delano imputed his jealous watchfulness to
that peculiar feeling which the full-blooded African entertains for the
adulterated one. As for the steward,his manner,if not bespeaking much dignity of
self-respect, yet evidenced his extreme desire to please;which is doubly
meritorious, as at once Christian and Chesterfieldian.
Captain Delano observed with interest that while the complexion of the
mulatto was hybrid,his physiognomy was European;classically so.
"Don Benito, "whispered he, "I am glad to see this usher-of-the- golden-rod
of yours; the sight refutes an ugly remark once made to me by a Barbados planter
that when a mulatto has a regular European face, look out for him;he is a devil.
But see,your steward here has features more regular than King George's of
England; and yet there he nods, and bows, and smiles; a king, indeed- the king
of kind hearts and polite fellows. What a pleasant voice he has,too?"
"He has,Senor."
"But,tell me,has he not,so far as you have known him,always proved a good,
worthy fellow? "said Captain Delano,pausing,while with a final genuflexion the
steward disappeared into the cabin; "come, for the reason just mentioned,I am
curious to know."
"Francesco is a good man, "rather sluggishly responded Don Benito, like a
phlegmatic appreciator,who would neither find fault nor flatter.
"Ah, I thought so. For it were strange indeed, and not very creditable to us
white-skins, if a little of our blood mixed with the African's, should,far from
improving the latter's quality,have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic acid
into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps,but not the wholesomeness."
"Doubtless,doubtless,Senor,but"- glancing at Babo-"not to speak of Negroes,
your planter's remark I have heard applied to the Spanish and Indian
intermixtures in our provinces. But I know nothing about the matter,"he
listlessly added.
And here they entered the cabin.
The lunch was a frugal one. Some of Captain Delano's fresh fish and pumpkins,
biscuit and salt beef, the reserved bottle of cider, and the San Dominick's last
bottle of Canary.
As they entered, Francesco, with two or three coloured aides, was hovering
over the table giving the last adjustments. Upon perceiving their master they
withdrew, Francesco making a smiling conge, and the Spaniard, without
condescending to notice it,fastidiously remarking to his companion that he
relished not superfluous attendance.
Without companions, host and guest sat down, like a childless married
couple,at opposite ends of the table,Don Benito waving Captain Delano to his
place, and, weak as he was,insisting upon that gentleman being seated before
himself.
The Negro placed a rug under Don Benito's feet, and a cushion behind his
back, and then stood behind, not his master's chair, but Captain Delano's. At
first, this a little surprised the latter. But it was soon evident that, in
taking his position,the black was still true to his master;since by facing him
he could the more readily anticipate his slightest want.
"This is an uncommonly intelligent fellow of yours, Don Benito, " whispered
Captain Delano across the table.
"You say true,Senor."
During the repast, the guest again reverted to parts of Don Benito's
story,begging further particulars here and there. He inquired how it was that
the scurvy and fever should have committed such wholesale havoc upon the
whites,while destroying less than half of the blacks. As if this question
reproduced the whole scene of plague before the Spaniard's eyes, miserably
reminding him of his solitude in a cabin where before he had had so many friends
and officers round him, his hand shook, his face became hueless, broken words
escaped; but directly the sane memory of the past seemed replaced by insane
terrors of the present. With starting eyes he stared before him at vacancy.For
nothing was to be seen but the hand of his servant pushing the Canary over
towards him. At length a few sips served partially to restore him. He made
random reference to the different constitutions of races, enabling one to offer
more resistance to certain maladies than another. The thought was new to his
companion.
Presently Captain Delano, intending to say something to his host concerning
the pecuniary part of the business he had undertaken for him, especially- since
he was strictly accountable to his owners- with reference to the new suit of
sails, and other things of that sort; and naturally preferring to conduct such
affairs in private, was desirous that the servant should withdraw; imagining
that Don Benito for a few minutes could dispense with his attendance. He,
however,waited awhile; thinking that, as the conversation proceeded, Don
Benito,without being prompted,would perceive the propriety of the step.
But it was otherwise. At last catching his host's eye, Captain Delano, with a
slight backward gesture of his thumb, whispered, "Don Benito,pardon me,but there
is an interference with the full expression of what I have to say to you."
Upon this the Spaniard changed countenance; which was imputed to his
resenting the hint, as in some way a reflection upon his servant. After a
moment's pause,he assured his guest that the black's remaining with them could
be of no disservice; because since losing his officers he had made Babo (whose
original office, it now appeared, had been captain of the slaves) not only his
constant attendant and companion, but in all things his confidant.
After this,nothing more could be said;though,indeed,Captain Delano could
hardly avoid some little tinge of irritation upon being left ungratified in so
inconsiderable a wish, by one, too, for whom he intended such solid services.
But it is only his querulousness,thought he;and so filling his glass he
proceeded to business.
The price of the sails and other matters was fixed upon. But while this was
being done, the American observed that, though his original offer of assistance
had been hailed with hectic animation,yet now when it was reduced to a business
transaction, indifference and apathy were betrayed. Don Benito,in fact,appeared
to submit to hearing the details more out of regard to common propriety, than
from any impression that weighty benefit to himself and his voyage was involved.
Soon,his manner became still more reserved. The effort was vain to seek to
draw him into social talk. Gnawed by his splenetic mood,he sat twitching his
beard, while to little purpose the hand of his servant, mute as that on the
wall,slowly pushed over the Canary.
Lunch being over, they sat down on the cushioned transom; the servant placing
a pillow behind his master. The long continuance of the calm had now affected
the atmosphere. Don Benito sighed heavily,as if for breath.
"Why not adjourn to the cuddy, "said Captain Delano;"there is more air
there."But the host sat silent and motionless.
Meantime his servant knelt before him,with a large fan of feathers. And
Francesco, coming in on tiptoes, handed the Negro a little cup of aromatic
waters, with which at intervals he chafed his master's brow, smoothing the hair
along the temples as a nurse does a child's. He spoke no word. He only rested
his eye on his master's, as if, amid all Don Benito's distress, a little to
refresh his spirit by the silent sight of fidelity.
Presently the ship's bell sounded two o'clock; and through the cabin-windows
a slight rippling of the sea was discerned; and from the desired direction.
"There,"exclaimed Captain Delano,"I told you so,Don Benito,look!"
He had risen to his feet, speaking in a very animated tone, with a view the
more to rouse his companion. But though the crimson curtain of the stern-window
near him that moment fluttered against his pale cheek, Don Benito seemed to have
even less welcome for the breeze than the calm.
Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, bitter experience has taught him that
one ripple does not make a wind, any more than one swallow a summer. But he is
mistaken for once. I will get his ship in for him, and prove it.
Briefly alluding to his weak condition,he urged his host to remain quietly
where he was, since he(Captain Delano)would with pleasure take upon himself the
responsibility of making the best use of the wind.
Upon gaining the deck, Captain Delano started at the unexpected figure of
Atufal,monumentally fixed at the threshold,like one of those sculptured porters
of black marble guarding the porches of Egyptian tombs.
But this time the start was, perhaps, purely physical. Atufal's presence,
singularly attesting docility even in sullenness, was contrasted with that of
the hatchet-polishers, who in patience evinced their industry; while both
spectacles showed, that lax as Don Benito's general authority might be,
still,whenever he chose to exert it,no man so savage or colossal but must,more
or less,bow.
Snatching a trumpet which hung from the bulwarks, with a free step Captain
Delano advanced to the forward edge of the poop, issuing his orders in his best
Spanish. The few sailors and many Negroes, all equally pleased, obediently set
about heading the ship toward the harbour.
While giving some directions about setting a lower stu'n'-sail, suddenly
Captain Delano heard a voice faithfully repeating his orders. Turning, he saw
Babo, now for the time acting, under the pilot, his original part of captain of
the slaves. This assistance proved valuable. Tattered sails and warped yards
were soon brought into some trim. And no brace or halyard was pulled but to the
blithe songs of the inspirited Negroes.
Good fellows, thought Captain Delano, a little training would make fine
sailors of them. Why see, the very women pull and sing, too.These must be some
of those Ashantee Negresses that make such capital soldiers, I've heard. But
who's at the helm? I must have a good hand there.
He went to see.
The San Dominick steered with a cumbrous tiller, with large horizontal
pulleys attached. At each pulley-end stood a subordinate black, and between
them, at the tiller-head, the responsible post, a Spanish seaman, whose
countenance evinced his due share in the general hopefulness and confidence at
the coming of the breeze.
He proved the same man who had behaved with so shamefaced an air on the
windlass.
"Ah, - it is you, my man, "exclaimed Captain Delano-"well, no more
sheep's-eyes now; - look straight forward and keep the ship so. Good hand,I
trust?And want to get into the harbour,don't you?"
"Si Senor, "assented the man with an inward chuckle, grasping the tiller-head
firmly. Upon this, unperceived by the American, the two blacks eyed the sailor
askance.
Finding all right at the helm, the pilot went forward to the forecastle,to
see how matters stood there.
The ship now had way enough to breast the current. With the approach of
evening,the breeze would be sure to freshen.
Having done all that was needed for the present, Captain Delano, giving his
last orders to the sailors, turned aft to report affairs to Don Benito in the
cabin; perhaps additionally incited to rejoin him by the hope of snatching a
moment's private chat while his servant was engaged upon deck.
From opposite sides, there were,beneath the poop,two approaches to the cabin;
one further forward than the other, and consequently communicating with a longer
passage. Marking the servant still above, Captain Delano, taking the nighest
entrance-the one last named, and at whose porch Atufal still stood- hurried on
his way,till,arrived at the cabin threshold, he paused an instant, a little to
recover from his eagerness. Then,with the words of his intended business upon
his lips, he entered. As he advanced toward the Spaniard,on the transom,he heard
another footstep, keeping time with his. From the opposite door, a salver in
hand,the servant was likewise advancing.
"Confound the faithful fellow, "thought Captain Delano; "what a vexatious
coincidence."
Possibly, the vexation might have been something different,were it not for
the buoyant confidence inspired by the breeze. But even as it was, he felt a
slight twinge, from a sudden involuntary association in his mind of Babo with
Atufal.
"Don Benito,"said he,"I give you joy;the breeze will hold,and will increase.
By the way, your tall man and time-piece, Atufal, stands without. By your
order,of course?"
Don Benito recoiled, as if at some bland satirical touch,delivered with such
adroit garnish of apparent good-breeding as to present no handle for retort.
He is like one flayed alive, thought Captain Delano; where may one touch him
without causing a shrink?
The servant moved before his master, adjusting a cushion; recalled to
civility, the Spaniard stiffly replied: "You are right. The slave appears where
you saw him, according to my command;which is,that if at the given hour I am
below,he must take his stand and abide my coming."
"Ah now,pardon me,but that is treating the poor fellow like an ex- king
denied. Ah,Don Benito,"smiling,"for all the license you permit in some things,I
fear lest,at bottom,you are a bitter hard master."
Again Don Benito shrank; and this time,as the good sailor thought, from a
genuine twinge of his conscience.
Conversation now became constrained. In vain Captain Delano called attention
to the now perceptible motion of the keel gently cleaving the sea; with
lack-lustre eye, Don Benito returned words few and reserved.
By-and-by, the wind having steadily risen, and still blowing right into the
harbour,bore the San Dominick swiftly on. Rounding a point of land,the sealer at
distance came into open view.
Meantime Captain Delano had again repaired to the deck, remaining there some
time. Having at last altered the ship's course, so as to give the reef a wide
berth,he returned for a few moments below.
I will cheer up my poor friend,this time,thought he.
"Better and better,Don Benito,"he cried as he blithely re-entered;" there
will soon be an end to your cares,at least for awhile. For when, after a long,
sad voyage, you know,the anchor drops into the haven,all its vast weight seems
lifted from the captain's heart. We are getting on famously, Don Benito. My ship
is in sight.Look through this side- light here; there she is; all a-taunt-o!The
Bachelor's Delight,my good friend. Ah, how this wind braces one up.Come, you
must take a cup of coffee with me this evening. My old steward will give you as
fine a cup as ever any sultan tasted. What say you,Don Benito,will you?"
At first,the Spaniard glanced feverishly up,casting a longing look toward the
sealer, while with mute concern his servant gazed into his face. Suddenly the
old ague of coldness returned, and dropping back to his cushions he was silent.
"You do not answer. Come, all day you have been my host; would you have
hospitality all on one side?"
"I cannot go,"was the response.
"What?it will not fatigue you. The ships will lie together as near as they
can, without swinging foul. It will be little more than stepping from deck to
deck; which is but as from room to room. Come, come,you must not refuse me."
"I cannot go,"decisively and repulsively repeated Don Benito.
Renouncing all but the last appearance of courtesy, with a sort of cadaverous
sullenness, and biting his thin nails to the quick, he glanced, almost glared,
at his guest;as if impatient that a stranger's presence should interfere with
the full indulgence of his morbid hour. Meantime the sound of the parted waters
came more and more gurglingly and merrily in at the windows; as reproaching him
for his dark spleen; as telling him that, sulk as he might, and go mad with
it,nature cared not a jot; since, whose fault was it,pray?But the foul mood was
now at its depth,as the fair wind at its height.
There was something in the man so far beyond any mere unsociality or sourness
previously evinced,that even the forbearing good-nature of his guest could no
longer endure it. Wholly at a loss to account for such demeanour,and deeming
sickness with eccentricity,however extreme, no adequate excuse, well
satisfied,too,that nothing in his own conduct could justify it, Captain Delano's
pride began to be roused. Himself became reserved. But all seemed one to the
Spaniard. Quitting him, therefore,Captain Delano once more went to the deck.
The ship was now within less than two miles of the sealer. The whale-boat was
seen darting over the interval.
To be brief, the two vessels, thanks to the pilot's skill,ere long in
neighbourly style lay anchored together.
Before returning to his own vessel, Captain Delano had intended communicating
to Don Benito the practical details of the proposed services to be rendered.
But, as it was, unwilling anew to subject himself to rebuffs, he resolved, now
that he had seen the San Dominick safely moored, immediately to quit her,
without further allusion to hospitality or business. Indefinitely postponing his
ulterior plans,he would regulate his future actions according to future
circumstances. His boat was ready to receive him; but his host still tarried
below. Well,thought Captain Delano,if he has little breeding,the more need to
show mine. He descended to the cabin to bid a ceremonious, and, it may be,
tacitly rebukeful adieu. But to his great satisfaction,Don Benito, as if he
began to feel the weight of that treatment with which his slighted guest had,
not indecorously,retaliated upon him,now supported by his servant, rose to his
feet, and grasping Captain Delano's hand, stood tremulous; too much agitated to
speak. But the good augury hence drawn was suddenly dashed, by his resuming all
his previous reserve, with augmented gloom, as, with half-averted eyes, he
silently reseated himself on his cushions. With a corresponding return of his
own chilled feelings,Captain Delano bowed and withdrew.
He was hardly midway in the narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel, leading from
the cabin to the stairs, when a sound, as of the tolling for execution in some
jail-yard, fell on his ears. It was the echo of the ship's flawed bell,striking
the hour,drearily reverberated in this subterranean vault. Instantly, by a
fatality not to be withstood, his mind, responsive to the portent,swarmed with
superstitious suspicions. He paused. In images far swifter than these sentences,
the minutest details of all his former distrusts swept through him.
Hitherto, credulous good-nature had been too ready to furnish excuses for
reasonable fears. Why was the Spaniard, so superfluously punctilious at times,
now heedless of common propriety in not accompanying to the side his departing
guest?Did indisposition forbid? Indisposition had not forbidden more irksome
exertion that day. His last equivocal demeanour recurred. He had risen to his
feet, grasped his guest's hand, motioned toward his hat; then, in an instant,all
was eclipsed in sinister muteness and gloom. Did this imply one brief, repentant
relenting at the final moment, from some iniquitous plot, followed by
remorseless return to it?His last glance seemed to express a calamitous, yet
acquiescent farewell to Captain Delano for ever. Why decline the invitation to
visit the sealer that evening? Or was the Spaniard less hardened than the Jew,
who refrained not from supping at the board of him whom the same night he meant
to betray? What imported all those day-long enigmas and contradictions, except
they were intended to mystify, preliminary to some stealthy blow? Atufal, the
pretended rebel, but punctual shadow, that moment lurked by the threshold
without. He seemed a sentry, and more. Who, by his own confession,had stationed
him there?Was the Negro now lying in wait?
The Spaniard behind- his creature before: to rush from darkness to light was
the involuntary choice.
The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed Atufal, and stood
unarmed in the light. As he saw his trim ship lying peacefully at her anchor,
and almost within ordinary call;as he saw his household boat, with familiar
faces in it, patiently rising and falling on the short waves by the San
Dominick's side; and then, glancing about the decks where he stood, saw the
oakum-pickers still gravely plying their fingers; and heard the low, buzzing
whistle and industrious hum of the hatchet-polishers, still bestirring
themselves over their endless occupation; and more than all, as he saw the
benign aspect of Nature, taking her innocent repose in the evening; the screened
sun in the quiet camp of the west shining out like the mild light from Abraham's
tent; as his charmed eye and ear took in all these, with the chained figure of
the black, the clenched jaw and hand relaxed. Once again he smiled at the
phantoms which had mocked him, and felt something like a tinge of
remorse,that,by indulging them even for a moment,he should,by implication, have
betrayed an almost atheistic doubt of the ever- watchful Providence above.
There was a few minutes' delay, while, in obedience to his orders, the boat
was being hooked along to the gangway. During this interval,a sort of saddened
satisfaction stole over Captain Delano,at thinking of the kindly offices he had
that day discharged for a stranger. Ah, thought he, after good actions one's
conscience is never ungrateful, however much so the benefited party may be.
Presently, his foot, in the first act of descent into the boat, pressed the
first round of the side-ladder, his face presented inward upon the deck. In the
same moment, he heard his name courteously sounded; and, to his pleased
surprise, saw Don Benito advancing- an unwonted energy in his air,as if,at the
last moment,intent upon making amends for his recent discourtesy. With
instinctive good feeling, Captain Delano, revoking his foot,turned and
reciprocally advanced. As he did so, the Spaniard's nervous eagerness increased,
but his vital energy failed; so that, the better to support him, the
servant,placing his master's hand on his naked shoulder, and gently holding it
there, formed himself into a sort of crutch.
When the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the hand of the
American, at the same time casting an earnest glance into his eyes,but,as
before,too much overcome to speak.
I have done him wrong, self-reproachfully thought Captain Delano; his
apparent coldness has deceived me; in no instance has he meant to offend.
Meantime,as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might too much
unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it. And so, still
presenting himself as a crutch, and walking between the two captains, he
advanced with them toward the gangway; while still,as if full of kindly
contrition, Don Benito would not let go the hand of Captain Delano,but retained
it in his,across the black's body.
Soon they were standing by the side, looking over into the boat, whose crew
turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a moment for the Spaniard to relinquish
his hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano lifted his foot, to overstep the
threshold of the open gangway; but still Don Benito would not let go his hand.
And yet, with an agitated tone, he said,"I can go no further;here I must bid you
adieu. Adieu,my dear, dear Don Amasa. Go- go! "suddenly tearing his hand
loose,"go,and God guard you better than me,my best friend."
Not unaffected,Captain Delano would now have lingered;but catching the meekly
admonitory eye of the servant, with a hasty farewell he descended into his
boat,followed by the continual adieus of Don Benito, standing rooted in the
gangway.
Seating himself in the stern, Captain Delano,making a last salute, ordered
the boat shoved off. The crew had their oars on end.The bowsman pushed the boat
a sufficient distance for the oars to be lengthwise dropped. The instant that
was done, Don Benito sprang over the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain
Delano; at the same time, calling towards his ship, but in tones so frenzied,
that none in the boat could understand him. But, as if not equally obtuse,three
Spanish sailors, from three different and distant parts of the ship, splashed
into the sea,swimming after their captain,as if intent upon his rescue.
The dismayed officer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant. To
which,Captain Delano,turning a disdainful smile upon the unaccountable Benito
Cereno,answered that,for his part,he neither knew nor cared;but it seemed as if
the Spaniard had taken it into his head to produce the impression among his
people that the boat wanted to kidnap him."Or else- give way for your lives, "he
wildly added, starting at a clattering hubbub in the ship, above which rang the
tocsin of the hatchet-polishers; and seizing Don Benito by the throat he
added,"this plotting pirate means murder! "Here, in apparent verification of the
words, the servant,a dagger in his hand,was seen on the rail overhead, poised,in
the act of leaping,as if with desperate fidelity to befriend his master to the
last; while, seemingly to aid the black, the three Spanish sailors were trying
to clamber into the hampered bow. Meantime, the whole host of Negroes, as if
inflamed at the sight of their jeopardized captain,impended in one sooty
avalanche over the bulwarks.
All this, with what preceded, and what followed,occurred with such
involutions of rapidity,that past,present,and future seemed one.
Seeing the Negro coming, Captain Delano had flung the Spaniard aside, almost
in the very act of clutching him, and,by the unconscious recoil,shifting his
place,with arms thrown up,so promptly grappled the servant in his descent, that
with dagger presented at Captain Delano's heart,the black seemed of purpose to
have leaped there as to his mark. But the weapon was wrenched away, and the
assailant dashed down into the bottom of the boat,which now,with disentangled
oars,began to speed through the sea.
At this juncture,the left hand of Captain Delano,on one side,again clutched
the half-reclined Don Benito, heedless that he was in a speechless faint, while
his right foot, on the other side, ground the prostrate Negro;and his right arm
pressed for added speed on the after oar,his eye bent forward,encouraging his
men to their utmost.
But here, the officer of the boat, who had at last succeeded in beating off
the towing Spanish sailors, and was now, with face turned aft,assisting the
bowsman at his oar,suddenly called to Captain Delano, to see what the black was
about; while a Portuguese oarsman shouted to him to give heed to what the
Spaniard was saying.
Glancing down at his feet,Captain Delano saw the freed hand of the servant
aiming with a second dagger- a small one, before concealed in his wool- with
this he was snakishly writhing up from the boat's bottom, at the heart of his
master,his countenance lividly vindictive, expressing the centred purpose of his
soul; while the Spaniard, half- choked, was vainly shrinking away, with husky
words, incoherent to all but the Portuguese.
That moment, across the long benighted mind of Captain Delano, a flash of
revelation swept, illuminating in unanticipated clearness Benito Cereno's whole
mysterious demeanour, with every enigmatic event of the day, as well as the
entire past voyage of the San Dominick.He smote Babo's hand down, but his own
heart smote him harder. With infinite pity he withdrew his hold from Don Benito.
Not Captain Delano, but Don Benito,the black,in leaping into the boat,had
intended to stab.
Both the black's hands were held, as, glancing up toward the San Dominick,
Captain Delano,now with the scales dropped from his eyes,saw the Negroes, not in
misrule, not in tumult, not as if frantically concerned for Don Benito, but with
mask tom away, flourishing hatchets and knives, in ferocious piratical revolt.
Like delirious black dervishes,the six Ashantees danced on the poop.Prevented by
their foes from springing into the water,the Spanish boys were hurrying up to
the topmost spars,while such of the few Spanish sailors,not already in the sea,
less alert, were descried, helplessly mixed in, on deck, with the blacks.
Meantime Captain Delano hailed his own vessel, ordering the ports up, and the
guns run out. But by this time the cable of the San Dominick had been cut; and
the fag-end,in lashing out,whipped away the canvas shroud about the beak,
suddenly revealing, as the bleached hull swung round toward the open ocean,
death for the figurehead,in a human skeleton;chalky comment on the chalked words
below,"Follow your leader. "
At the sight, Don Benito, covering his face, wailed out: "'Tis he, Aranda!my
murdered,unburied friend!"
Upon reaching the sealer, calling for ropes, Captain Delano bound the Negro,
who made no resistance, and had him hoisted to the deck. He would then have
assisted the now almost helpless Don Benito up the side; but Don Benito, wan as
he was, refused to move,or be moved,until the Negro should have been first put
below out of view.When, presently assured that it was done,he no more shrank
from the ascent.
The boat was immediately despatched back to pick up the three swimming
sailors. Meantime, the guns were in readiness,though,owing to the San Dominick
having glided somewhat astern of the sealer, only the aftermost one could be
brought to bear. With this,they fired six times; thinking to cripple the
fugitive ship by bringing down her spars. But only a few inconsiderable ropes
were shot away. Soon the ship was beyond the guns' range, steering broad out of
the bay; the blacks thickly clustering round the bowsprit, one moment with
taunting cries toward the whites, the next with up-thrown gestures hailing the
now dusky expanse of ocean- cawing crows escaped from the hand of the fowler.
The first impulse was to slip the cables and give chase. But, upon second
thought, to pursue with whale-boat and yawl seemed more promising.
Upon inquiring of Don Benito what firearms they had on board the San
Dominick,Captain Delano was answered that they had none that could be
used;because,in the earlier stages of the mutiny,a cabin-passenger, since
dead,had secretly put out of order the locks of what few muskets there were. But
with all his remaining strength, Don Benito entreated the American not to give
chase, either with ship or boat; for the Negroes had already proved themselves
such desperadoes,that,in case of a present assault, nothing but a total massacre
of the whites could be looked for. But,regarding this warning as coming from one
whose spirit had been crushed by misery,the American did not give up his design.
The boats were got ready and armed. Captain Delano ordered twenty- five men
into them. He was going himself when Don Benito grasped his arm."What! have you
saved my life,Senor,and are you now going to throw away your own?"
The officers also, for reasons connected with their interests and those of
the voyage, and a duty owing to the owners, strongly objected against their
commander's going. Weighing their remonstrances a moment, Captain Delano felt
bound to remain; appointing his chief mate- an athletic and resolute man, who
had been a privateer's man, and, as his enemies whispered, a pirate- to head the
party. The more to encourage the sailors, they were told, that the Spanish
captain considered his ship as good as lost; that she and her cargo, including
some gold and silver, were worth upwards of ten thousand doubloons.Take her, and
no small part should be theirs. The sailors replied with a shout.
The fugitives had now almost gained an offing. It was nearly night; but the
moon was rising. After hard, prolonged pulling, the boats came up on the ship's
quarters, at a suitable distance laying upon their oars to discharge their
muskets. Having no bullets to return, the Negroes sent their yells. But, upon
the second volley,Indian-like,they hurtled their hatchets. One took off a
sailor's fingers. Another struck the whale-boat's bow, cutting off the rope
there, and remaining stuck in the gunwale, like a woodman's axe.Snatching
it,quivering from its lodgment, the mate hurled it back.The returned gauntlet
now stuck in the ship's broken quarter-gallery,and so remained.
The Negroes giving too hot a reception, the whites kept a more respectful
distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtling hatchets,they,with a
view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought to decoy the blacks
into entirely disarming themselves of their most murderous weapons in a
hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly flinging them, as missiles, short of the mark,
into the sea. But ere long perceiving the stratagem, the Negroes desisted,
though not before many of them had to replace their lost hatchets with
handspikes;an exchange which,as counted upon,proved in the end favourable to the
assailants.
Meantime, with a strong wind, the ship still clove the water; the boats
alternately falling behind, and pulling up, to discharge fresh volleys.
The fire was mostly directed toward the stern,since there,chiefly, the
Negroes, at present, were clustering. But to kill or maim the Negroes was not
the object. To take them,with the ship,was the object. To do it, the ship must
be boarded; which could not be done by boats while she was sailing so fast.
A thought now struck the mate. Observing the Spanish boys still aloft,high as
they could get,he called to them to descend to the yards, and cut adrift the
sails. It was done. About this time,owing to causes hereafter to be shown, two
Spaniards, in the dress of sailors and conspicuously showing themselves, were
killed; not by volleys, but by deliberate marksman's shots;while,as it
afterwards appeared,during one of the general discharges, Atufal, the black, and
the Spaniard at the helm likewise were killed. What now, with the loss of the
sails, and loss of leaders,the ship became unmanageable to the Negroes.
With creaking masts she came heavily round to the wind; the prow slowly
swinging into view of the boats, its skeleton gleaming in the horizontal
moonlight, and casting a gigantic ribbed shadow upon the water. One extended arm
of the ghost seemed beckoning the whites to avenge it.
"Follow your leader! "cried the mate;and,one on each bow,the boats boarded.
Sealing-spears and cutlasses crossed hatchets and handspikes. Huddled upon the
long-boat amidships, the Negresses raised a wailing chant,whose chorus was the
clash of the steel.
For a time, the attack wavered; the Negroes wedging themselves to beat it
back;the half-repelled sailors,as yet unable to gain a footing, fighting as
troopers in the saddle, one leg sideways flung over the bulwarks, and one
without, plying their cutlasses like carters' whips. But in vain. They were
almost overborne, when,rallying themselves into a squad as one man, with a
huzza, they sprang inboard;where,entangled, they involuntarily separated again.
For a few breaths' space there was a vague, muffled,inner sound as of submerged
sword-fish rushing hither and thither through shoals of black-fish. Soon, in a
reunited band,and joined by the Spanish seamen, the whites came to the surface,
irresistibly driving the Negroes toward the stern. But a barricade of casks and
sacks, from side to side,had been thrown up by the mainmast. Here the Negroes
faced about, and though scorning peace or truce, yet fain would have had a
respite. But, without pause, overleaping the barrier, the unflagging sailors
again closed. Exhausted,the blacks now fought in despair. Their red tongues
lolled,wolf-like,from their black mouths.But the pale sailors' teeth were
set;not a word was spoken;and, in five minutes more,the ship was won.
Nearly a score of the Negroes were killed. Exclusive of those by the
balls,many were mangled;their wounds- mostly inflicted by the long -edged
sealing-spears- resembling those shaven ones of the English at Preston Pans,
made by the poled scythes of the Highlanders. On the other side,none were
killed,though several were wounded;some severely, including the mate. The
surviving Negroes were temporarily secured,and the ship, towed back into the
harbour at midnight, once more lay anchored.
Omitting the incidents and arrangements ensuing, suffice it that, after two
days spent in refitting, the two ships sailed in company for Concepcion in
Chili,and thence for Lima in Peru;where,before the vice- regal courts, the whole
affair, from the beginning, underwent investigation.
Though, midway on the passage, the ill-fated Spaniard,relaxed from
constraint, showed some signs of regaining health with free-will; yet, agreeably
to his own foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, he relapsed, finally
becoming so reduced as to be carried ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and
plight,one of the many religious institutions of the City of Kings opened an
hospitable refuge to him, where both physician and priest were his nurses, and a
member of the order volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, by
night and by day.
The following extracts,translated from one of the official Spanish documents,
will, it is hoped, shed light on the preceding narrative,as well as, in the
first place,reveal the true port of departure and true history of the San
Dominick's voyage, down to the time of her touching at the island of Santa
Maria.
But, ere the extracts come, it may be well to preface them with a remark.
The document selected, from among many others, for partial translation,
contains the deposition of Benito Cereno; the first taken in the case. Some
disclosures therein were, at the time, held dubious for both learned and natural
reasons. The tribunal inclined to the opinion that the deponent,not undisturbed
in his mind by recent events, raved of some things which could never have
happened. But subsequent depositions of the surviving sailors, bearing out the
revelations of their captain in several of the strangest particulars,gave
credence to the rest. So that the tribunal, in its final decision, rested its
capital sentences upon statements which, had they lacked confirmation, it would
have deemed it but duty to reject.
I, DON JOSE DE ABOS AND PADILLA,His Majesty's Notary for the Royal Revenue,
and Register of this Province, and Notary Public of the Holy Crusade of this
Bishopric,etc.
Do certify and declare, as much as is requisite in law,that,in the criminal
cause commenced the twenty-fourth of the month of September, in the year
seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, against the Senegal Negroes of the ship San
Dominick, the following declaration before me was made.
Declaration of the first witness,DON BENITO CERENO.
The same day,and month,and year,His Honour,Doctor Juan Martinez de Dozas,
Councillor of the Royal Audience of this Kingdom,and learned in the law of this
Intendancy, ordered the captain of the ship San Dominick, Don Benito Cereno, to
appear; which he did in his litter, attended by the monk Infelez; of whom he
received, before Don Jose de Abos and Padilla, Notary Public of the Holy
Crusade, the oath,which he took by God, our Lord, and a sign of the Cross;under
which he promised to tell the truth of whatever he should know and should be
asked;- and being interrogated agreeably to the tenor of the act commencing the
process,he said,that on the twentieth of May last,he set sail with his ship from
the port of Valparaiso, bound to that of Callao; loaded with the produce of the
country and one hundred and sixty blacks, of both sexes, mostly belonging to Don
Alexandro Aranda, gentleman,of the city of Mendoza; that the crew of the ship
consisted of thirty-six men, beside the persons who went as passengers; that the
Negroes were in part as follows:
[Here, in the original, follows a list of some fifty names, descriptions, and
ages, compiled from certain recovered documents of Aranda's, and also from
recollections of the deponent, from which portions only are extracted.]
-One,from about eighteen to nineteen years,named Jose,and this was the man
that waited upon his master, Don Alexandro,and who speaks well the Spanish,
having served him four or five years; ... a mulatto,named Francesco, the cabin
steward,of a good person and voice,having sung in the Valparaiso churches,
native of the province of Buenos Ayres, aged about thirty-five years.... A smart
Negro, named Dago,who had been for many years a gravedigger among the Spaniards,
aged forty-six years.... Four old Negroes, born in Africa, from sixty to
seventy, but sound, caulkers by trade, whose names are as follows: - the first
was named Muri, and he was killed(as was also his son named Diamelo);the second,
Nacta; the third, Yola,likewise killed;the fourth,Ghofan;and six full- grown
Negroes, aged from thirty to forty-five, all raw, and born among the
Ashantees-Martinqui, Yan, Lecbe, Mapenda,Yambaio,Akim;four of whom were killed;
. . . a powerful Negro named Atufal,who,being supposed to have been a chief in
Africa, his owners set great store by him.... And a small Negro of Senegal,but
some years among the Spaniards,aged about thirty, which Negro's name was Babo;
... that he does not remember the names of the others, but that still expecting
the residue of Don Alexandro's papers will be found, will then take due account
of them all, and remit to the court; ... and thirty-nine women and children of
all ages.
[After the catalogue,the deposition goes on as follows:]
. . . That all the Negroes slept upon deck,as is customary in this
navigation, and none wore fetters,because the owner,his friend Aranda, told him
that they were all tractable; . . . that on the seventh day after leaving port,
at three o'clock in the morning, all the Spaniards being asleep except the two
officers on the watch, who were the boatswain, Juan Robles, and the
carpenter,Juan Bautista Gayete,and the helmsman and his boy,the Negroes revolted
suddenly,wounded dangerously the boatswain and the carpenter, and successively
killed eighteen men of those who were sleeping upon deck,some with handspikes
and hatchets, and others by throwing them alive overboard, after tying them;
that of the Spaniards upon deck, they left about seven, as he thinks,alive and
tied, to manoeuvre the ship, and three or four more who hid themselves remained
also alive.Although in the act of revolt the Negroes made themselves masters of
the hatchway, six or seven wounded went through it to the cockpit, without any
hindrance on their part;that in the act of revolt,the mate and another
person,whose name he does not recollect, attempted to come up through the
hatchway, but having been wounded at the onset, they were obliged to return to
the cabin; that the deponent resolved at break of day to come up the
companionway, where the Negro Babo was, being the ringleader, and Atufal,who
assisted him,and having spoken to them, exhorted them to cease committing such
atrocities, asking them, at the same time, what they wanted and intended to do,
offering,himself,to obey their commands;that,notwithstanding this,they threw, in
his presence, three men, alive and tied, overboard;that they told the deponent
to come up, and that they would not kill him; which having done, the Negro Babo
asked him whether there were in those seas any Negro countries where they might
be carried, and he answered them, No,that the Negro Babo afterwards told him to
carry them to Senegal,or to the neighbouring islands of St. Nicholas; and he
answered,that this was impossible,on account of the great distance,the necessity
involved of rounding Cape Horn, the bad condition of the vessel, the want of
provisions, sails, and water;but that the Negro Babo replied to him he must
carry them in any way; that they would do and conform themselves to everything
the deponent should require as to eating and drinking; that after a long
conference,being absolutely compelled to please them, for they threatened him to
kill all the whites if they were not,at all events, carried to Senegal,he told
them that what was most wanting for the voyage was water; that they would go
near the coast to take it,and hence they would proceed on their course;that the
Negro Babo agreed to it; and the deponent steered toward the intermediate ports,
hoping to meet some Spanish or foreign vessel that would save them; that within
ten or eleven days they saw the land, and continued their course by it in the
vicinity of Nasca; that the deponent observed that the Negroes were now restless
and mutinous,because he did not effect the taking in of water,the Negro Babo
having required,with threats,that it should be done, without fail, the following
day; he told him he saw plainly that the coast was steep, and the rivers
designated in the maps were not be found, with other reasons suitable to the
circumstances; that the best way would be to go to the island of Santa
Maria,where they might water and victual easily,it being a desert island,as the
foreigners did;that the deponent did not go to Pisco,that was near,nor make any
other port of the coast,because the Negro Babo had intimated to him several
times, that he would kill all the whites the very moment he should perceive any
city, town, or settlement of any kind on the shores to which they should be
carried; that having determined to go to the island of Santa Maria,as the
deponent had planned,for the purpose of trying whether,in the passage or in the
island itself, they could find any vessel that should favour them,or whether he
could escape from it in a boat to the neighbouring coast of Arruco; to adopt the
necessary means he immediately changed his course, steering for the island; that
the Negroes Babo and Atufal held daily conferences,in which they discussed what
was necessary for their design of returning to Senegal, whether they were to
kill all the Spaniards,and particularly the deponent;that eight days after
parting from the coast of Nasca,the deponent being on the watch a little after
day-break, and soon after the Negroes had their meeting,the Negro Babo came to
the place where the deponent was, and told him that he had determined to kill
his master, Don Alexandro Aranda, both because he and his companions could not
otherwise be sure of their liberty, and that, to keep the seamen in
subjection,he wanted to prepare a warning of what road they should be made to
take did they or any of them oppose him; and that, by means of the death of Don
Alexandro, that warning would best be given; but, that what this last meant, the
deponent did not at the time comprehend, nor could not, further than that the
death of Don Alexandro was intended;and moreover, the Negro Babo proposed to the
deponent to call the mate Raneds, who was sleeping in the cabin, before the
thing was done, for fear, as the deponent understood it, that the mate, who was
a good navigator,should be killed with Don Alexandro and the rest; that the
deponent, who was the friend,from youth of Don Alexandro,prayed and conjured,but
all was useless; for the Negro Babo answered him that the thing could not be
prevented,and that all the Spaniards risked their death if they should attempt
to frustrate his will in this matter,or any other;that,in this conflict, the
deponent called the mate, Raneds, who was forced to go apart, and immediately
the Negro Babo commanded the Ashantee Martinqui and the Ashantee Lecbe to go and
commit the murder;that those two went down with hatchets to the berth of Don
Alexandro; that, yet half alive and mangled,they dragged him on deck;that they
were going to throw him overboard in that state, but the Negro Babo stopped
them, bidding the murder be completed on the deck before him, which was
done,when,by his orders, the body was carried below, forward;that nothing more
was seen of it by the deponent for three days; . . . that Don Alonzo Sidonia,an
old man, long resident at Valparaiso, and lately appointed to a civil office in
Peru, whither he had taken passage, was at the time sleeping in the berth
opposite Don Alexandro's; that, awakening at his cries, surprised by them, and
at the sight of the Negroes with their bloody hatchets in their hands,he threw
himself into the sea through a window which was near him, and was drowned,
without it being in the power of the deponent to assist or take him up; . . .
that, a short time after killing Aranda,they brought upon deck his
german-cousin,of middle-age, Don Francisco Masa, of Mendoza, and the young Don
Joaquin, Marques de Aramboalaza, then lately from Spain,with his Spanish servant
Ponce,and the three young clerks of Aranda, Jose Mozairi, Lorenzo Bargas, and
Hermenegildo Gandix, all of Cadiz; that Don Joaquin and Hermenegildo Gandix,the
Negro Babo for purposes hereafter to appear,preserved alive; but Don Francisco
Masa, Jose Mozairi,and Lorenzo Bargas,with Ponce,the servant, beside the
boatswain,Juan Robles,the boatswain's mates,Manuel Viscaya and Roderigo Hurta,
and, four of the sailors, the Negro Babo ordered to be thrown alive into the
sea, although they made no resistance, nor begged for anything else but
mercy;that the boatswain, Juan Robles, who knew how to swim, kept the longest
above water,making acts of contrition, and, in the last words he uttered,
charged this deponent to cause mass to be said for his soul to our Lady of
Succour;... that, during the three days which followed,the deponent,uncertain
what fate had befallen the remains of Don Alexandro, frequently asked the Negro
Babo where they were, and,if still on board,whether they were to be preserved
for interment ashore, entreating him so to order it; that the Negro Babo
answered nothing till the fourth day, when at sunrise, the deponent coming on
deck,the Negro Babo showed him a skeleton,which had been substituted for the
ship's proper figure-head, the image of Christopher Colon, the discoverer of the
New World;that the Negro Babo asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether,
from its whiteness, he should not think it a white's; that, upon his covering
his face, the Negro Babo,coming close,said words to this effect:"Keep faith with
the blacks from here to Senegal, or you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow
your leader,"pointing to the prow;... that the same morning the Negro Babo took
by succession each Spaniard forward, and asked him whose skeleton that was, and
whether, from its whiteness,he should not think it a white's; that each Spaniard
covered his face; that then to each the Negro Babo repeated the words in the
first place said to the deponent; . . . that they(the Spaniards) ,being then
assembled aft,the Negro Babo harangued them, saying that he had now done all;
that the deponent(as navigator for the Negroes) might pursue his course,warning
him and all of them that they should, soul and body, go the way of Don Alexandro
if he saw them(the Spaniards) speak or plot anything against them(the Negroes) -
a threat which was repeated every day; that,before the events last mentioned,
they had tied the cook to throw him overboard, for it is not known what thing
they heard him speak, but finally the Negro Babo spared his life,at the request
of the deponent; that a few days after, the deponent,endeavouring not to omit
any means to preserve the lives of the remaining whites, spoke to the Negroes
peace and tranquillity, and agreed to draw up a paper, signed by the deponent
and the sailors who could write,as also by the Negro Babo,for himself and all
the blacks, in which the deponent obliged himself to carry them to Senegal,and
they not to kill any more,and he formally to make over to them the ship, with
the cargo, with which they were for that time satisfied and quieted.... But the
next day, the more surely to guard against the sailors' escape, the Negro Babo
commanded all the boats to be destroyed but the long-boat, which was
unseaworthy, and another, a cutter in good condition, which, knowing it would
yet be wanted for lowering the water casks, he had it lowered down into the
hold.
[Various particulars of the prolonged and perplexed navigation ensuing here
follow, with incidents of a calamitous calm, from which portion one passage is
extracted,to wit:]
-That on the fifth day of the calm, all on board suffering much from the
heat, and want of water,and five having died in fits,and mad, the Negroes became
irritable, and for a chance gesture, which they deemed suspicious- though it was
harmless- made by the mate, Raneds,to the deponent,in the act of handing a
quadrant,they killed him;but that for this they afterwards were sorry, the mate
being the only remaining navigator on board,except the deponent.
-That omitting other events, which daily happened, and which can only serve
uselessly to recall past misfortunes and conflicts, after seventy-three days'
navigation,reckoned from the time they sailed from Nasca, during which they
navigated under a scanty allowance of water, and were afflicted with the calms
before mentioned, they at last arrived at the island of Santa Maria, on the
seventeenth of the month of August, at about six o'clock in the afternoon, at
which hour they cast anchor very near the American ship, Bachelor's Delight,
which lay in the same bay, commanded by the generous Captain Amasa Delano;but at
six o'clock in the morning, they had already descried the port,and the Negroes
became uneasy, as soon as at distance they saw the ship, not having expected to
see one there; that the Negro Babo pacified them, assuring them that no fear
need be had;that straightway he ordered the figure on the bow to be covered with
canvas,as for repairs,and had the decks a little set in order; that for a time
the Negro Babo and the Negro Atufal conferred; that the Negro Atufal was for
sailing away,but the Negro Babo would not, and,by himself,cast about what to
do;that at last he came to the deponent, proposing to him to say and do all that
the deponent declares to have said and done to the American captain;... that the
Negro Babo warned him that if he varied in the least, or uttered any word, or
gave any look that should give the least intimation of the past events or
present state,he would instantly kill him, with all his companions, showing a
dagger, which he carried hid, saying something which, as he understood it, meant
that that dagger would be alert as his eye; that the Negro Babo then announced
the plan to all his companions, which pleased them; that he then, the better to
disguise the truth, devised many expedients, in some of them uniting deceit and
defence; that of this sort was the device of the six Ashantees before named, who
were his bravos; that them he stationed on the break of the poop, as if to clean
certain hatchets(in cases, which were part of the cargo),but in reality to use
them,and distribute them at need, and at a given word he told them that,among
other devices,was the device of presenting Atufal, his right-hand man, as
chained,though in a moment the chains could be dropped; that in every particular
he informed the deponent what part he was expected to enact in every device, and
what story he was to tell on every occasion, always threatening him with instant
death if he varied in the least; that, conscious that many of the Negroes would
be turbulent, the Negro Babo appointed the four aged Negroes, who were caulkers,
to keep what domestic order they could on the decks; that again and again he
harangued the Spaniards and his companions, informing them of his intent,and of
his devices,and of the invented story that this deponent was to tell,charging
them lest any of them varied from that story;that these arrangements were made
and matured during the interval of two or three hours, between their first
sighting the ship and the arrival on board of Captain Amasa Delano; that this
happened at about half-past seven in the morning, Captain Amasa Delano coming in
his boat, and all gladly receiving him; that the deponent, as well as he could
force himself, acting then the part of principal owner,and a free captain of the
ship, told Captain Amasa Delano,when called upon,that he came from Buenos Ayres,
bound to Lima, with three hundred Negroes; that off Cape Horn, and in a
subsequent fever, many Negroes had died; that also, by similar casualties, all
the sea officers and the greatest part of the crew had died.
[And so the deposition goes on, circumstantially recounting the fictitious
story dictated to the deponent by Babo, and through the deponent imposed upon
Captain Delano; and also recounting the friendly offers of Captain Delano, with
other things, but all of which is here omitted. After the fictitious, strange
story, etc., the deposition proceeds:]
-That the generous Captain Amasa Delano remained on board all the day, till
he left the ship anchored at six o'clock in the evening, deponent speaking to
him always of his pretended misfortunes,under the fore-mentioned
principles,without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him
the least hint, that he might know the truth and state of things;because the
Negro Babo,performing the office of an officious servant with all the appearance
of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment;that
this was in order to observe the deponent's actions and words, for the Negro
Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there were thereabout some
others who were constantly on the watch, and likewise understood the Spanish;
... that upon one occasion,while deponent was standing on the deck conversing
with Amasa Delano,by a secret sign the Negro Babo drew him (the deponent) aside,
the act appearing as if originating with the deponent;that then,he being drawn
aside,the Negro Babo proposed to him to gain from Amasa Delano full particulars
about his ship,and crew,and arms;that the deponent asked"For what?"that the
Negro Babo answered he might conceive;that,grieved at the prospect of what might
overtake the generous Captain Amasa Delano,the deponent at first refused to ask
the desired questions, and used every argument to induce the Negro Babo to give
up this new design; that the Negro Babo showed the point of his dagger; that,
after the information had been obtained, the Negro Babo again drew him
aside,telling him that that very night he(the deponent) would be captain of two
ships instead of one, for that, great part of the American's ship's crew being
to be absent fishing, the six Ashantees, without any one else,would easily take
it;that at this time he said other things to the same purpose; that no
entreaties availed; that before Amasa Delano's coming on board, no hint had been
given touching the capture of the American ship;that to prevent this project the
deponent was powerless; . . . -that in some things his memory is confused, he
cannot distinctly recall every event;... -that as soon as they had cast anchor
at six of the clock in the evening, as has before been stated, the American
captain took leave to return to his vessel; that upon a sudden impulse, which
the deponent believes to have come from God and his angels, he, after the
farewell had been said,followed the generous Captain Amasa Delano as far as the
gunwale, where he stayed, under the pretence of taking leave, until Amasa Delano
should have been seated in his boat; that on shoving off, the deponent sprang
from the gunwale, into the boat, and fell into it,he knows not how,God guarding
him;that-
[Here,in the original,follows the account of what further happened at the
escape, and how the"San Dominick"was retaken,and of the passage to the coast;
including in the recital many expressions of"eternal gratitude"to the"generous
Captain Amasa Delano."The deposition then proceeds with recapitulatory
remarks,and a partial renumeration of the Negroes,making record of their
individual part in the past events,with a view to furnishing, according to
command of the court, the data whereon to found the criminal sentences to be
pronounced. From this portion is the following:]
-That he believes that all the Negroes, though not in the first place knowing
to the design of revolt, when it was accomplished, approved it.... That the
Negro, Jose, eighteen years old, and in the personal service of Don Alexandro,
was the one who communicated the information to the Negro Babo, about the state
of things in the cabin, before the revolt;that this is known,because,in the
preceding midnight, lie used to come from his berth, which was under his
master's, in the cabin,to the deck where the ringleader and his associates
were,and had secret conversations with the Negro Babo,in which he was several
times seen by the mate;that,one night,the mate drove him away twice;... that
this same Negro Jose, was the one who,without being commanded to do so by the
Negro Babo, as Lecbe and Martinqui were, stabbed his master,Don Alexandro,after
he had been dragged half-lifeless to the deck;... that the mulatto steward,
Francesco,was of the first band of revolters,that he was, in all things, the
creature and tool of the Negro Babo;that,to make his court, he, just before a
repast in the cabin, proposed,to the Negro Babo,poisoning a dish for the
generous Captain Amasa Delano;this is known and believed, because the Negroes
have said it; but that the Negro Babo, having another design, forbade Francesco;
. . . that the Ashantee Lecbe was one of the worst of them; for that, on the day
the ship was retaken, he assisted in the defence of her, with a hatchet in each
hand,with one of which he wounded,in the breast,the chief mate of Amasa Delano,
in the first act of boarding;this all knew;that,in sight of the deponent,Lecbe
struck,with a hatchet,Don Francisco Masa when,by the Negro Babo's orders, he was
carrying him to throw him overboard, alive; beside participating in the murder,
before mentioned, of Don Alexandro Aranda, and others of the
cabin-passengers;that,owing to the fury with which the Ashantees fought in the
engagement with the boats, but this Lecbe and Yan survived;that Yan was bad as
Lecbe;that Yan was the man who, by Babo's command, willingly prepared the
skeleton of Don Alexandro, in a way the Negroes afterwards told the deponent,but
which he, so long as reason is left him,can never divulge;that Yan and Lecbe
were the two who, in a calm by night, riveted the skeleton to the bow; this also
the Negroes told him; that the Negro Babo was he who traced the inscription
below it; that the Negro Babo was the plotter from first to last;he ordered
every murder,and was the helm and keel of the revolt; that Atufal was his
lieutenant in all; but Atufal,with his own hand, committed no murder; nor did
the Negro Babo; ... that Atufal was shot, being killed in the fight with the
boats, ere boarding; ... that the Negresses, of age, were knowing to the revolt,
and testified themselves satisfied at the death of their master, Don
Alexandro;that, had the Negroes not restrained them,they would have tortured to
death, instead of simply killing, the Spaniards slain by command of the Negro
Babo; that the Negresses used their utmost influence to have the deponent made
away with; that, in the various acts of murder,they sang songs and danced- not
gaily, but solemnly; and before the engagement with the boats,as well as during
the action,they sang melancholy songs to the Negroes,and that this melancholy
tone was more inflaming than a different one would have been, and was so
intended; that all this is believed,because the Negroes have said it.
-That of the thirty-six men of the crew- exclusive of the passengers(all of
whom are now dead) ,which the deponent had knowledge of- six only remained
alive, with four cabin-boys and ship-boys, not included with the crew; . ...
-that the Negroes broke an arm of one of the cabin-boys and gave him strokes
with hatchets.
[Then follow various random disclosures referring to various periods of time.
The following are extracted:]
-That during the presence of Captain Amasa Delano on board, some attempts
were made by the sailors, and one by Hermenegildo Gandix, to convey hints to him
of the true state of affairs; but that these attempts were ineffectual, owing to
fear of incurring death, and furthermore owing to the devices which offered
contradictions to the true state of affairs; as well as owing to the generosity
and piety of Amasa Delano,incapable of sounding such wickedness;... that Luys
Galgo, a sailor about sixty years of age, and formerly of the king's navy,was
one of those who sought to convey tokens to Captain Amasa Delano; but his
intent, though undiscovered, being suspected,he was,on a pretence, made to
retire out of sight, and at last into the hold, and there was made away with.
This the Negroes have since said; . .. that one of the ship-boys feeling, from
Captain Amasa Delano's presence, some hopes of release, and not having enough
prudence, dropped some chance-word respecting his expectations, which being
overheard and understood by a slave-boy with whom he was eating at the time,the
latter struck him on the head with a knife, inflicting a bad wound, but of which
the boy is now healing; that likewise, not long before the ship was brought to
anchor, one of the seamen, steering at the time, endangered himself by letting
the blacks remark a certain unconscious hopeful expression in his countenance,
arising from some cause similar to the above;but this sailor, by his heedful
after conduct,escaped;... that these statements are made to show the court that
from the beginning to the end of the revolt,it was impossible for the deponent
and his men to act otherwise than they did;... -that the third
clerk,Hermenegildo Gandix,who before had been forced to live among the seamen,
wearing a seaman's habit,and in all respects appearing to be one for the time;
he,Gandix,was killed by a musket-ball fired through a mistake from the American
boats before boarding;having in his fright ran up the mizzen-rigging,calling to
the boats-"don't board,"lest upon their boarding the Negroes should kill him;
that this inducing the Americans to believe he some way favoured the cause of
the Negroes, they fired two balls at him,so that he fell wounded from the
rigging, and was drowned in the sea;... -that the young Don Joaquin,Marques de
Aramboalaza,like Hermenegildo Gandix, the third clerk, was degraded to the
office and appearance of a common seaman; that upon one occasion, when Don
Joaquin shrank,the Negro Babo commanded the Ashantee Lecbe to take tar and heat
it, and pour it upon Don Joaquin's hands; ... -that Don Joaquin was killed owing
to another mistake of the Americans, but one impossible to be avoided,as upon
the approach of the boats, Don Joaquin, with a hatchet tied edge out and upright
to his hand,was made by the Negroes to appear on the bulwarks; whereupon, seen
with arms in his hands and in a questionable attitude, he was shot for a
renegade seaman; . . . -that on the person of Don Joaquin was found secreted a
jewel, which, by papers that were discovered, proved to have been meant for the
shrine of our Lady of Mercy in Lima; a votive offering, beforehand prepared and
guarded, to attest his gratitude, when he should have landed in Peru, his last
destination,for the safe conclusion of his entire voyage from Spain;... -that
the jewel, with the other effects of the late Don Joaquin, is in the custody of
the brethren of the Hospital de Sacerdotes,awaiting the decision of the
honourable court; . .. -that,owing to the condition of the deponent, as well as
the haste in which the boats departed for the attack, the Americans were not
forewarned that there were, among the apparent crew,a passenger and one of the
clerks disguised by the Negro Babo; . . . -that, beside the Negroes killed in
the action, some were killed after the capture and re-anchoring at night, when
shackled to the ring-bolts on deck;that these deaths were committed by the
sailors, ere they could be prevented. That so soon as informed of it, Captain
Amasa Delano used all his authority, and, in particular with his own hand,
struck down Martinez Gola,who,having found a razor in the pocket of an old
jacket of his, which one of the shackled Negroes had on, was aiming it at the
Negro's throat; that the noble Captain Amasa Delano also wrenched from the hand
of Bartholomew Barlo, a dagger secreted at the time of the massacre of the
whites,with which he was in the act of stabbing a shackled Negro, who, the same
day, with another Negro, had thrown him down and jumped upon him; . . . that,
for all the events, befalling through so long a time, during which the ship was
in the hands of the Negro Babo, he cannot here give account; but that,what he
has said is the most substantial of what occurs to him at present, and is the
truth under the oath which he has taken; which declaration he affirmed and
ratified,after hearing it read to him.
He said that he is twenty-nine years of age,and broken in body and mind;that
when finally dismissed by the court,he shall not return home to Chili, but
betake himself to the monastery on Mount Agonia without; and signed with his
honour, and crossed himself, and, for the time, departed as he came, in his
litter, with the monk Infelez, to the Hospital de Sacerdotes.
BENITO CERENO.
DOCTOR ROZAS.
If the deposition of Benito Cereno has served as the key to fit into the lock
of the complications which preceded it, then, as a vault whose door has been
flung back, the San Dominick's hull lies open to- day.
Hitherto the nature of this narrative, besides rendering the intricacies in
the beginning unavoidable, has more or less required that many things,instead of
being set down in the order of occurrence, should be retrospectively, or
irregularly given; this last is the case with the following passages,which will
conclude the account:
During the long, mild voyage to Lima, there was,as before hinted,a period
during which Don Benito a little recovered his health, or, at least in some
degree, his tranquillity. Ere the decided relapse which came, the two captains
had many cordial conversations- their fraternal unreserve in singular contrast
with former withdrawments.
Again and again, it was repeated,how hard it had been to enact the part
forced on the Spaniard by Babo.
"Ah, my dear Don Amasa, "Don Benito once said,"at those very times when you
thought me so morose and ungrateful- nay when, as you now admit,you half thought
me plotting your murder- at those very times my heart was frozen; I could not
look at you, thinking of what, both on board this ship and your own, hung, from
other hands, over my kind benefactor. And as God lives, Don Amasa, I know not
whether desire for my own safety alone could have nerved me to that leap into
your boat, had it not been for the thought that, did you, unenlightened,return
to your ship, you, my best friend, with all who might be with you, stolen upon,
that night, in your hammocks, would never in this world have wakened again. Do
but think how you walked this deck, how you sat in this cabin, every inch of
ground mined into honey-combs under you. Had I dropped the least hint, made the
least advance toward an understanding between us, death, explosive death- yours
as mine- would have ended the scene."
"True, true, "cried Captain Delano,starting,"you saved my life,Don
Benito,more than I yours;saved it,too,against my knowledge and will."
"Nay, my friend,"rejoined the Spaniard,courteous even to the point of
religion, "God charmed your life, but you saved mine. To think of some things
you did- those smilings and chattings, rash pointings and gesturings. For less
than these, they slew my mate, Raneds;but you had the Prince of Heaven's safe
conduct through all ambuscades."
"Yes, all is owing to Providence, I know;but the temper of my mind that
morning was more than commonly pleasant, while the sight of so much suffering-
more apparent than real- added to my good nature, compassion, and charity,
happily interweaving the three. Had it been otherwise, doubtless, as you hint,
some of my interferences with the blacks might have ended unhappily enough.
Besides that, those feelings I spoke of enabled me to get the better of
momentary distrust,at times when acuteness might have cost me my life, without
saving another's. Only at the end did my suspicions get the better of me, and
you know how wide of the mark they then proved."
"Wide, indeed, "said Don Benito, sadly; "you were with me all day; stood with
me, sat with me, talked with me, looked at me, ate with me, drank with me; and
yet, your last act was to clutch for a villain, not only an innocent man, but
the most pitiable of all men. To such degree may malign machinations and
deceptions impose. So far may even the best men err, in judging the conduct of
one with the recesses of whose condition he is not acquainted. But you were
forced to it;and you were in time undeceived. Would that, in both respects, it
was so ever, and with all men."
"I think I understand you;you generalize,Don Benito;and mournfully enough.
But the past is passed;why moralize upon it?Forget it. See,yon bright sun has
forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new
leaves."
"Because they have no memory, "he dejectedly replied;"because they are not
human."
"But these mild trades that now fan your cheek, Don Benito,do they not come
with a human-like healing to you? Warm friends, steadfast friends are the
trades."
"With their steadfastness they but waft me to my tomb, Senor, "was the
foreboding response.
"You are saved, Don Benito, "cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished
and pained; "you are saved;what has cast such a shadow upon you?"
"The Negro."
There was silence,while the moody man sat,slowly and unconsciously gathering
his mantle about him,as if it were a pall.
There was no more conversation that day.
But if the Spaniard's melancholy sometimes ended in muteness upon topics like
the above, there were others upon which he never spoke at all; on which, indeed,
all his old reserves were piled.Pass over the worst and, only to elucidate,let
an item or two of these be cited. The dress so precise and costly, worn by him
on the day whose events have been narrated, had not willingly been put on.And
that silver-mounted sword, apparent symbol of despotic command, was not,indeed,a
sword,but the ghost of one. The scabbard,artificially stiffened,was empty.
As for the black- whose brain, not body, had schemed and led the revolt, with
the plot- his slight frame, inadequate to that which it held, had at once
yielded to the superior muscular strength of his captor, in the boat. Seeing all
was over,he uttered no sound,and could not be forced to. His aspect seemed to
say: since I cannot do deeds, I will not speak words. Put in irons in the hold,
with the rest, he was carried to Lima. During the passage Don Benito did not
visit him. Nor then,nor at any time after,would he look at him.Before the
tribunal he refused. When pressed by the judges he fainted.On the testimony of
the sailors alone rested the legal identity of Babo. And yet the Spaniard would,
upon occasion,verbally refer to the Negro,as has been shown;but look on him he
would not,or could not.
Some months after, dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule,the black met
his voiceless end. The body was burned to ashes;but for many days, the head,that
hive of subtlety,fixed on a pole in the Plaza,met, unabashed,the gaze of the
whites;and across the Plaza looked toward St. Bartholomew's church, in whose
vaults slept then, as now,the recovered bones of Aranda; and across the Rimac
bridge looked toward the monastery, on Mount Agonia without; where, three months
after being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did,
indeed, follow his leader.
-THE END-
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