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1 1856 BENITO CERENOHerman Melville Melville, Herman (1819-1891) - An American author who used his experiences at sea as the basis for his writings. Melville received little literary attention during his career, and it was not until thirty years after his death that he began to be recognized as one of America’s greatest writers. Benito Cereno (1856) - The story of an African slaver, generally thought to be the best of Melville’s shorter works. It is a parable of slavery, written at the dawn of the civil war, about a black crew’s desire for freedom.
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BENITO CERENO
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;
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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 loophole 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 fishingparty 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
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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 pipeclayed 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 sternpiece, 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.
5 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
6 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.
7 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 longcontinued suffering seemed to have brought out the less goodnatured 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
8 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 9 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 bodyservant, 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.
10 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 deckofficers 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
11 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 passengerssome 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.
12 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
13
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 decknot
thrust below, as in the Guineamenthey have, also, from the
beginning, been freely permitted to range within given bounds at
their pleasure.” Once more the faintness returned- his mind rovedbut,
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.
14
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.
15
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 organgrinders,
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
16
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 shipmats, 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 oakumpickers
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
17
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, whethersince
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
18
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 oakumpickers,
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
19
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
20
digesting the lees of the presumed affront above-mentioned, byand-
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
21
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 goodnature
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 illhealth, 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
22
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.
23
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 undergarment
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 privycounsellor,
in fact.” Upon this, the servant looked up with a goodnatured
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
24
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 lampno 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,
25
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 heartbroken
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 counterfeitby
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
26
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 goodnaturedly 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 oakumpickers.
“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
27
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
28
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 nightcap, cheeks trenched and bronzed, whiskers dense as
thorn hedges. Seated between two sleepy-looking Africans, this
29
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 voyagequestions
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
30
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 mizzenchains
he clambered his way into the starboard quarter-galley; one
of those abandoned Venetian-looking waterbalconies 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’spaw 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 purpleblack,
tarred-over panel, threshold, and post; and he bethought
him of the time, when that statecabin 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 stoodas
31
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 waterline, 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
32
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 dencrouched
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
33
double-bowline-knot, treble-crown-knot, back-handed-well-knot,
knot-in-and-outknot, 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.
34
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 wellknown 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.
35
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 stagebox 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
36
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 oakumpickers,
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 goodnatured authority he bade
the blacks stand back; to enforce his words making use of a halfmirthful,
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.
37
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
hatchetpolishers 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 selfcommand,
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.
38
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 boatthe
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.
39
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 halfhour
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.
40
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 torn 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
41
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 Byronit
may be something like the hypochondriac, Benito Cerenotook 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
42
informally taking from the flaglocker 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.
43
“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,
44
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.
45
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 selfcomplacency,
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!
46
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 tierapproaching
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 bareheaded 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-thegolden-
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
47
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
48
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 ownerswith
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.
49
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.
50
But this time the start was, perhaps, purely physical. Atufal’s
presence, singularly attesting docility even in sullenness, was
contrasted with that of the hatchetpolishers, 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’seyes 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.
51
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
52
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 lacklustre 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
53
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 cush54
ions. 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 jailyard, 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 oakumpickers
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
55
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 advancingan
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.
56
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.
57
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.
58
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 torn 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.
59
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
60
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
61
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 sealingspears- 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 freewill;
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.
62
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
63
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 fullgrown
Negroes, aged from thirty to forty-five, all raw, and born
among the AshanteesMartinqui, 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,
64
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
65
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
66
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
67
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
68
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.
69
[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
70
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,
71
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 cabinpassengers; 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
72
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 slaveboy
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 him
self 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
73
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.
74
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 conversationstheir
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 sufferingmore
apparent than real- added to my good nature, compassion, and
charity, happily interweaving the three. Had it been otherwise,
75
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.
76
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
Speedy deletion nomination of User:Melong412
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