Latest / Mystery & Suspense Book Collection / Benito Cerno - Herman Melville
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Section one of Benito Serena. In the year seventeen ninety nine,
- 0:06Speaker 1: Captain Amasdellino of Duxbury in Massachusetts, commending a large sealer
- 0:12Speaker 1: and general trader, lay at anchor with a valuable cargo
- 0:16Speaker 1: in the harbor of Saint Maria, a small desert uninhabited
- 0:20Speaker 1: island towards the southern extremity of the Long Coast of Chile.
- 0:25Speaker 1: There he had touched for water on the second day,
- 0:29Speaker 1: not long after dawn. While lying in his berth, his
- 0:32Speaker 1: mate came below, informing him that a strange sail was
- 0:36Speaker 1: coming into the bay. Ships were then not so plenty
- 0:40Speaker 1: in those waters as now. He rose, dressed and went
- 0:43Speaker 1: on deck. The morning was one peculiar to that coast.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Everything was mute and calm, everything gray. The sea, though
- 0:53Speaker 1: undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed and was
- 0:59Speaker 1: sleep at the surface, like waved lead that has cooled
- 1:03Speaker 1: and set in the smelter's mold. The sky seemed a
- 1:07Speaker 1: gray mantle. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin,
- 1:11Speaker 1: with flights of troubled gray vapors, among which they were mixed,
- 1:16Speaker 1: skimmed low and fitfully over the waters as swallows over
- 1:20Speaker 1: meadows before storms, shadows present foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.
- 1:27Speaker 1: To Captain Delano's surprise, the stranger, viewed through the glass,
- 1:32Speaker 1: showed no colors, though to do so upon entering a haven, however,
- 1:37Speaker 1: uninhabited in its shores, where but a single other ship
- 1:41Speaker 1: might be lying, was the custom among peaceful seamen of
- 1:45Speaker 1: all nations. Considering the lawlessness and loneliness of the spot,
- 1:51Speaker 1: and the sort of stories at that day associated with
- 1:54Speaker 1: those seas, Captain Delano's surprise might have deepened into some
- 1:59Speaker 1: uneasynes had he not been a person of singularly undistrustful
- 2:04Speaker 1: good nature, not liable except on extraordinary and repeated excitement,
- 2:09Speaker 1: and hardily then to indulge in personal alarms any way
- 2:13Speaker 1: involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether in
- 2:18Speaker 1: view of what humanity is capable such a trade implies,
- 2:22Speaker 1: along with a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and
- 2:26Speaker 1: accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left to the wise
- 2:30Speaker 1: to determine. But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first
- 2:36Speaker 1: seeing the stranger would almost in any seaman's mind, have
- 2:40Speaker 1: been dissipated by observing that the ship, in navigating into
- 2:44Speaker 1: the harbor, was drawing too near the land for her
- 2:48Speaker 1: own safety's sake. Owing to a sunken wreath making out
- 2:52Speaker 1: of her bow, this seemed to prove her a stranger, indeed,
- 2:56Speaker 1: not only to the sealer but the island. Consequently, she
- 3:00Speaker 1: could be no wanted freebooter in that ocean. With no
- 3:04Speaker 1: small interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her, a proceeding
- 3:09Speaker 1: not much facilitated by the vapors, partly mantling the hall,
- 3:13Speaker 1: through which the far matin light from her cabin streamed
- 3:16Speaker 1: equivocally enough much like the sun by this time crestened
- 3:21Speaker 1: on the rim of the horizon, and apparently in company
- 3:25Speaker 1: with the strange ship entering the harbor, which wimpled by
- 3:29Speaker 1: the same low creeping clouds, showed not unlike a lima
- 3:34Speaker 1: Intraguante's one sinister eye peering across the plaza from the
- 3:38Speaker 1: Indian loophole of her dusk saya Emnta. It might have
- 3:44Speaker 1: been but a deception of the vapors. But the longer
- 3:47Speaker 1: the stranger was watched, the more singular appeared her maneuvers.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Ere long it seemed hard to decide whether she meant
- 3:54Speaker 1: to come in or know what she wanted or what
- 3:58Speaker 1: she was about. The wind, which had breezed up a
- 4:01Speaker 1: little during the night, was now extremely light and baffling,
- 4:06Speaker 1: which the more increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements.
- 4:10Speaker 1: Surmising at last that it might be a ship in distress,
- 4:14Speaker 1: Captain Delano ordered his whale boat to be dropped, and,
- 4:18Speaker 1: much to the wary opposition of his mate, prepared to
- 4:21Speaker 1: board her and at the least pilot her in. On
- 4:25Speaker 1: the night previous, a fishing party of the seamen had
- 4:29Speaker 1: gone a long distance to some detached rocks out of
- 4:32Speaker 1: sight from the seiler, and an hour or two before
- 4:36Speaker 1: daybreak had returned, having met with no small success. Presuming
- 4:41Speaker 1: that the stranger might have been long off soundings, the
- 4:44Speaker 1: good captain put several baskets of the fish for presents
- 4:48Speaker 1: into his boat, and so pulled away from her, continuing
- 4:53Speaker 1: too near the sunken reef, deeming her in danger. Calling
- 4:57Speaker 1: to his men, he made all haste to apprise those
- 5:00Speaker 1: on board of their situation. But sometime ere the boat
- 5:04Speaker 1: came up. The wind light, though it was having shifted,
- 5:09Speaker 1: had headed the vessel off as well as partly broken
- 5:12Speaker 1: the vapors from about her. Upon gaining a less remote
- 5:17Speaker 1: view the ship, when made signally visible on the verge
- 5:20Speaker 1: of the leaden hued swells, with the shreds of fog
- 5:24Speaker 1: here and there, raggedly furring her, appeared like a whitewashed
- 5:28Speaker 1: monastery after a thunder storm scene perched upon some dun
- 5:32Speaker 1: cliff among the Pyrenees. But it was no purely fanciful resemblance,
- 5:37Speaker 1: which now for a moment almost led Captain Delano to
- 5:40Speaker 1: think that nothing less than a shipload of monks was
- 5:43Speaker 1: before him. Peering over the buldworks were what really seemed
- 5:48Speaker 1: in the hazy distance throngs of dark cows, while fitfully
- 5:53Speaker 1: revealed through the open portholes, other dark moving figures were
- 5:57Speaker 1: dimly descried as of black friar pacing the cloisters. Upon
- 6:03Speaker 1: a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified, and the
- 6:07Speaker 1: true character of the vessel was plain a Spanish merchantman
- 6:11Speaker 1: of the first class, carrying Negro slaves, amongst other valuable
- 6:15Speaker 1: freight from one colonial port to another. A very large
- 6:20Speaker 1: and in its time a very fine vessel, such as
- 6:23Speaker 1: in those days, were at intervals encountered along that main
- 6:27Speaker 1: sometimes superseded Acapulco treasure ships or retired frigates of the
- 6:32Speaker 1: Spanish King's Navy, which, like superannuated Italian palaces still under
- 6:38Speaker 1: a decline of masters, preserved signs of former state. As
- 6:44Speaker 1: the whale boat drew more and more nigh, the cause
- 6:48Speaker 1: of the peculiar pipe clayed. Aspect of the stranger was
- 6:51Speaker 1: seen in the slovenly neglect pervading her. The spars, ropes,
- 6:56Speaker 1: and great part of the bulwarks looked wooly from long
- 6:59Speaker 1: eend acquaintance with the scraper tar and the brush. Her
- 7:03Speaker 1: keels seemed laid, her ribs put together, and she launched
- 7:07Speaker 1: from Ezekiel's valley of dry bones. In the present business
- 7:12Speaker 1: in which she was engaged, the ship's general model and
- 7:15Speaker 1: rig appeared to have undergone no material change from their
- 7:19Speaker 1: original warlike in freus Art pattern, however, no guns were seen.
- 7:25Speaker 1: The tops were large and were railed about with what
- 7:28Speaker 1: had once been octagonal network, all in sad disrepair. The
- 7:34Speaker 1: tops hung overhead like three ruinous aviaries, in one of
- 7:38Speaker 1: which was seen perched on a ratlin, a white knotty,
- 7:43Speaker 1: a strange fowl so called from its lethargic somnambulistic character,
- 7:49Speaker 1: being frequently caught by hand at sea, battered in moldy.
- 7:53Speaker 1: The castellated forecastle seen some ancient turret long ago taken
- 7:58Speaker 1: by assault and then left to decay towards the stern
- 8:02Speaker 1: two high raised quarter galleys, the balustrades here and there
- 8:06Speaker 1: covered with dry tindery sea moss, opening out from the
- 8:09Speaker 1: unoccupied state cabin, whose dead lights, for all the mild
- 8:13Speaker 1: weather were hermetically closed and calked. These tenantless balconies hung
- 8:19Speaker 1: over the sea as if it were the Grand Venetian Canal.
- 8:23Speaker 1: But the principal relic of faded grandeur was the ample
- 8:28Speaker 1: oval of the shield like stern piece, intricately carved with
- 8:32Speaker 1: the arms of castile and leon, medallioned about by groups
- 8:36Speaker 1: of mythological or symbolical devices, uppermost and central of which
- 8:41Speaker 1: was a dark setter in a mask, holding his foot
- 8:45Speaker 1: on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure likewise mass.
- 8:50Speaker 1: Whether the ship had a figurehead or only a plain
- 8:53Speaker 1: beak was not quite certain, owing to canvas wrapped about
- 8:57Speaker 1: that part, either to protect it while under going a refurbishing,
- 9:01Speaker 1: or else decently to hide its decay, rudely painted or
- 9:05Speaker 1: chalked as in a sailor freak, along the forward side
- 9:09Speaker 1: of a sort of pedestal. Below the canvas was the
- 9:12Speaker 1: sentence seguid vethrojete follow your leader. While upon the tarnished
- 9:19Speaker 1: headboards near by appeared in stinately capitals, once gilt the
- 9:24Speaker 1: ship's name San Dominic, each letter streakingly corroded with tricklings
- 9:30Speaker 1: of copper spike rust, while like mourning weeds, dark festoons
- 9:36Speaker 1: of sea grass slimily swept to and fro over the
- 9:39Speaker 1: name with every hearse like roll of the hull. As
- 9:44Speaker 1: at last the boat was hooked from the bow along
- 9:47Speaker 1: toward the gangway amidship its keel. While yet some inches
- 9:52Speaker 1: separated from the hull harshly grated as on a sunken
- 9:56Speaker 1: coral reef, it proved a huge bunch of conglobated barn
- 10:00Speaker 1: adhering below the water to the side like a wind.
- 10:04Speaker 1: A token of baffling airs and long calms passed somewhere
- 10:08Speaker 1: in those seas. End of section one, Section two of
- 10:19Speaker 1: Benito Sereno. Climbing the side, the visitor was at once
- 10:25Speaker 1: surrounded by a clamorous throng of whites and blacks, but
- 10:29Speaker 1: the latter outnumbering the former more than could have been expected.
- 10:33Speaker 1: Negro transportationship, as the stranger in port, was but in
- 10:38Speaker 1: one language, and as with one voice, all poured out
- 10:42Speaker 1: a common tale of suffering, in which the negresses, of
- 10:46Speaker 1: whom there were not a few, exceeded the others in
- 10:49Speaker 1: their dolorous vehemence. The scurvy, together with a fever, had
- 10:54Speaker 1: swept off a great part of their number, more especially
- 10:58Speaker 1: the Spaniards off Cape Horn. They had narrowly escaped shipwreck.
- 11:04Speaker 1: Then for days together they had lain entranced without wind.
- 11:08Speaker 1: Their provisions were low, their water next to none. Their
- 11:12Speaker 1: lips that moment were baked. While Captain Delano was thus
- 11:16Speaker 1: made the mark of all eager tongues, His one eager
- 11:20Speaker 1: glance took in all the faces, with every other object
- 11:23Speaker 1: about him. Always, upon first boarding a large and populous
- 11:28Speaker 1: ship at sea, especially a foreign one with a nondescript crew,
- 11:33Speaker 1: such as Lascar's or Manilla men, the impression varies in
- 11:37Speaker 1: a peculiar way from that produced by first entering a
- 11:41Speaker 1: strange house with strange inmates in a strange land, both
- 11:46Speaker 1: house and ship. The one by its walls and blinds
- 11:49Speaker 1: the other by its high bulwarks, like ramparts, hoared from
- 11:53Speaker 1: view their interiors till the last moment. But in the
- 11:57Speaker 1: case of the ship, there is this addition that the
- 12:00Speaker 1: living spectacle it contains, upon its sudden and complete disclosure, has,
- 12:06Speaker 1: in contrast with the blank ocean which zones it, something
- 12:10Speaker 1: of the effect of enchantment. The ship seems unreal these
- 12:15Speaker 1: strange costumes, gestures, and faces, but a shadowy tableau just
- 12:20Speaker 1: emerged from the deep, which directly must receive back what
- 12:24Speaker 1: it gave. Perhaps it was some such influence as above,
- 12:28Speaker 1: as attempted to be described, which in Captain Delano's mind,
- 12:33Speaker 1: heightened whatever upon a staid scrutiny might have seemed unusual,
- 12:38Speaker 1: especially the conspicuous figures of four elderly grizzled negroes, their
- 12:44Speaker 1: heads like black dotted willow tops, who, in venerable contrast
- 12:49Speaker 1: to the tumult below them, were couched sphinx like, one
- 12:54Speaker 1: on the starboard cat head, another on the larboard, and
- 12:57Speaker 1: the remaining pair face to face on the opposite bulwarks
- 13:01Speaker 1: above the main chains. They each had bits of unstranded
- 13:06Speaker 1: old junk in their hands, and with a sort of
- 13:10Speaker 1: stoical self content, were picking the junkin to oakum, a
- 13:15Speaker 1: small heap of which lay by their sides. They accompanied
- 13:19Speaker 1: the task with a continuous, low, monotonous chant, droning and
- 13:24Speaker 1: drooling away like so many gray headed bagpipers playing a
- 13:28Speaker 1: funeral march. The quarter deck rose into an ample elevated
- 13:33Speaker 1: poop upon the forward verge of which lifted like the
- 13:39Speaker 1: oakum pickers, some eight feet above. The general throng sat
- 13:44Speaker 1: along in rows separated by irregular spaces, the cross legged
- 13:49Speaker 1: figures of six other blacks, each with a rusty hatchet
- 13:53Speaker 1: in his hand, which, with a bit of brick and rag,
- 13:58Speaker 1: he was engaged like a skull and scouring, while between
- 14:03Speaker 1: each two was a small stack of hatchets. Their rested
- 14:07Speaker 1: edges turned forward waiting alike operation. Though occasionally the four
- 14:13Speaker 1: oakum pickers would briefly address some person or persons in
- 14:17Speaker 1: the crowd below, Yet the six hatchet polishers neither spoke
- 14:21Speaker 1: to others, nor breathed a whisper among themselves, but sat
- 14:26Speaker 1: intent upon their task, except at intervals when with the
- 14:31Speaker 1: peculiar love in negroes of uniting industry with pastime. Two
- 14:36Speaker 1: and two, they sideways clashed their hatchets together like cymbals
- 14:40Speaker 1: with a barbarous din. All six, unlike the generality, had
- 14:46Speaker 1: the raw aspect of unsophisticated Africans, but the first comprehensive
- 14:52Speaker 1: glance which took in these ten figures with scores less conspicuous,
- 14:58Speaker 1: rested but an instant upon them. As impatient of the
- 15:02Speaker 1: hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in quest of whomsoever
- 15:06Speaker 1: it might be that commanded the ship, but as if
- 15:11Speaker 1: not unwilling to let nature make known her own case
- 15:14Speaker 1: among his suffering charges or else, in despair of restraining
- 15:19Speaker 1: it for the time, the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved looking,
- 15:24Speaker 1: and rather young man to a stranger's eye, dressed with
- 15:28Speaker 1: a singular richness, but bearing plain traces of sleepless cares
- 15:32Speaker 1: and disquietudes, stood passively by leaning against the mainmast, at
- 15:39Speaker 1: one moment, casting a dreary, spiritless look upon his excited people,
- 15:45Speaker 1: at the next an unhappy glance toward his visitor. By
- 15:49Speaker 1: his side stood a black of small stature, in whose
- 15:53Speaker 1: rude face, as occasionally like a shepherd's dog, he mutely
- 15:58Speaker 1: turned it up to the spa sorrow and affection were
- 16:02Speaker 1: equally blended. Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to
- 16:08Speaker 1: the Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies and offering to
- 16:13Speaker 1: render whatever assistance might be in his power, to which
- 16:16Speaker 1: the Spaniard returned for the present but grave and ceremonious
- 16:21Speaker 1: acknowledgments his national formality. Dusked by the saturnine mood of
- 16:27Speaker 1: ill health, but losing no time in mere compliments, Captain
- 16:32Speaker 1: Delano returned to the gangway, had his baskets of fish
- 16:36Speaker 1: brought up, and, as the wind still continued light so
- 16:40Speaker 1: that some hours at least must elapse ere the ship
- 16:43Speaker 1: could be brought to the anchorage, he bade his men
- 16:47Speaker 1: return to the sealer and fetch back as much water
- 16:50Speaker 1: as the whale boat could carry, with whatever soft bread
- 16:54Speaker 1: the stewart might have, all the remaining pumpkins on board,
- 16:59Speaker 1: with a box of sugar and a dozen of his
- 17:02Speaker 1: private bottles of cider. Not many minutes after the boat's
- 17:07Speaker 1: pushing off to the vexation of all, the wind entirely
- 17:11Speaker 1: died away, and the tide turning began drifting back. The
- 17:16Speaker 1: ship helplessly seaward, but trusting this would not last. Captain
- 17:22Speaker 1: Delano sought with good hopes, to cheer up the strangers,
- 17:26Speaker 1: feeling no small satisfaction that with persons in their condition,
- 17:31Speaker 1: he could, thanks to his frequent voyages along the Spanish main,
- 17:35Speaker 1: converse with some freedom in their native tongue. While left
- 17:40Speaker 1: alone with them, he was not long in observing some
- 17:43Speaker 1: things tending to heighten his first impressions, But surprise was
- 17:47Speaker 1: lost in pity, both for the Spaniards and blacks alike,
- 17:52Speaker 1: evidently reduced from scarcity of water and provisions, while long
- 17:57Speaker 1: continued suffering seemed to have brought out the least good
- 18:00Speaker 1: natured quality of the Negroes, besides at the same time
- 18:05Speaker 1: impairing the Spaniard's authority over them. But under the circumstances
- 18:11Speaker 1: precisely this condition of things was to have been anticipated
- 18:15Speaker 1: in armies, navies, cities, or families in nature herself. Nothing
- 18:20Speaker 1: more relaxes good order than misery. Still, Captain Delano was
- 18:24Speaker 1: not without the idea that had Benito Sereno been a
- 18:28Speaker 1: man of greater energy, misrule could hardly have come to
- 18:31Speaker 1: the present paths. But the debility constitutional or induced by
- 18:37Speaker 1: the hardships bodily and mental of the Spanish captain was
- 18:41Speaker 1: too obvious to be overlooked, a prey to settled dejection,
- 18:46Speaker 1: as if long mocked with hope, he would not now
- 18:49Speaker 1: indulge it, even when it had ceased to be a mock.
- 18:54Speaker 1: The prospect of that day or evening at furthest lying
- 18:58Speaker 1: at anchor, with plenty of water for his people and
- 19:01Speaker 1: a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in no
- 19:05Speaker 1: perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if
- 19:11Speaker 1: not more seriously affected, shut up in the oaken walls,
- 19:16Speaker 1: chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed him.
- 19:21Speaker 1: Like some hypochondriac abbot. He moved slowly about, at times
- 19:26Speaker 1: suddenly pausing, starting or staring, biting his lip, biting his finger,
- 19:32Speaker 1: nail flushing, paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of
- 19:37Speaker 1: an absent or moody mind. This distempered spirit was lodged,
- 19:44Speaker 1: as before hinted in as distempered a frame. He was
- 19:48Speaker 1: rather tall, but seemed never to have been robust, and now,
- 19:52Speaker 1: with nervous suffering, was worn almost to a skeleton. A
- 19:57Speaker 1: tendency to some pulmonary complaint appeared to have been lately confirmed.
- 20:04Speaker 1: His voice was like that of one with lungs half gone,
- 20:08Speaker 1: hoarsely suppressed, a husky whisper. No wonder that, as in
- 20:14Speaker 1: this state he tottered about, his private servant apprehensively followed him.
- 20:20Speaker 1: Sometimes the Negro gave his master his arm or took
- 20:23Speaker 1: his handkerchief out of his pocket for him, performing these
- 20:27Speaker 1: in similar offices with that affectionate zeal which transmutes into
- 20:32Speaker 1: something filial or fraternal, acts in themselves but menial, and
- 20:38Speaker 1: which has gained for the Negro the repute of making
- 20:41Speaker 1: the most pleasing body servant in the world one two,
- 20:46Speaker 1: whom a master need be on no stiffly superior terms with,
- 20:50Speaker 1: but may treat with familiar, trust less a servant than
- 20:54Speaker 1: a devoted companion. Marking the noisy indecary of the blacks
- 21:01Speaker 1: in general, as well as what seemed the sullen inefficiency
- 21:05Speaker 1: of the whites, it was not without humane satisfaction that
- 21:09Speaker 1: Captain Delaino witnessed the steady good conduct of Babo. But
- 21:14Speaker 1: the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill
- 21:17Speaker 1: behavior of others, seemed to withdraw the half lunatic Don
- 21:21Speaker 1: Benito from his cloudy languor not that such precisely was
- 21:26Speaker 1: the impression made by the Spaniard on the mind of
- 21:28Speaker 1: his visitor. The spaniard's individual unrest was for the present
- 21:34Speaker 1: but noted as conspicuous a feature in the ship's general affliction. Still,
- 21:40Speaker 1: Captain Delino was not a little concerned at what he
- 21:43Speaker 1: could not help taking, for the time to be Don
- 21:46Speaker 1: Benito's unfriendly indifference towards himself. The Spaniard's manner, too, conveyed
- 21:53Speaker 1: a note of sour and gloomy disdain, which he seemed
- 21:57Speaker 1: at no pains to disguise. But this the American in
- 22:01Speaker 1: charity ascribed to the harassing effects of sickness, since in
- 22:07Speaker 1: former instances he had noted that there are peculiar natures
- 22:11Speaker 1: on whom prolonged physical suffering seems to cancel every social
- 22:16Speaker 1: instinct of kindness. As if forced to black bread themselves,
- 22:20Speaker 1: they deemed it but equity that each person coming nigh
- 22:23Speaker 1: them should, indirectly, by some slighter affront, be made to
- 22:29Speaker 1: partake of their fare. But ere long Captain Delano bethought
- 22:33Speaker 1: him that indulgent, as he was at the first in
- 22:38Speaker 1: judging the Spaniard, he might not, after all have exercised
- 22:41Speaker 1: charity enough. At bottom, it was Don Benito's reserve which
- 22:45Speaker 1: displeased him, But the same reserve was shown towards all
- 22:49Speaker 1: but his personal attendant. Even the formal reports, which, according
- 22:53Speaker 1: to c Usage were at stated times made to him
- 22:56Speaker 1: by some petty underling, either a white Mula or black,
- 23:01Speaker 1: he hardly had patience enough to listen to without betraying
- 23:04Speaker 1: contemptuous aversion. His manner upon such occasions was, in its
- 23:09Speaker 1: degree not unlike that which might be supposed to have
- 23:12Speaker 1: been his imperial countrymen's Charles the Fifth, just previous to
- 23:17Speaker 1: the anchoritish retirement of that monarch from the throne. This
- 23:22Speaker 1: splenetic disrelish of his place was evinced in almost every
- 23:26Speaker 1: function pertaining to it. Proud as he was moody, he
- 23:30Speaker 1: condescended to no personal mandate. Whatever special orders were necessary,
- 23:36Speaker 1: their delivery was delegated to his body servant, who in
- 23:40Speaker 1: turn transferred them to their alternate destination through runners alert
- 23:45Speaker 1: Spanish boys or slave boys like Pages or pilot fish
- 23:49Speaker 1: with an easy call, continually hovering around Don Benito, so
- 23:54Speaker 1: that to have beheld this undemonstrative, invalid, gliding about, app
- 24:00Speaker 1: athetic and mute. No landsman could have dreamed that in
- 24:03Speaker 1: him was lodged a dictatorship beyond which, while at sea,
- 24:07Speaker 1: there was no earthly appeal. Thus the Spaniard regarded in
- 24:12Speaker 1: his reserve seemed as the involuntary victim of mental disorder.
- 24:18Speaker 1: But in fact his reserve might in some degree have
- 24:21Speaker 1: proceeded from design. If so, then in Don Benito was
- 24:26Speaker 1: invinced the unhealthy climax of that icy though conscientious policy
- 24:31Speaker 1: more or less adopted by all commanders of large ships, which,
- 24:36Speaker 1: except in signal emergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway
- 24:41Speaker 1: with every trace of sociality, transforming the man into a block,
- 24:46Speaker 1: or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until there is
- 24:50Speaker 1: call for thunder, has nothing to say. Viewing him in
- 24:54Speaker 1: this light, it seemed but a natural token of the
- 24:57Speaker 1: perverse habit induced by a law course of such hard
- 25:01Speaker 1: self restraint, that, notwithstanding the present condition of his ship,
- 25:06Speaker 1: the Spaniard should still persist in a demeanor which, however
- 25:10Speaker 1: harmless or it may be appropriate in a well appointed
- 25:13Speaker 1: vessel such as the San Dominic, might have been at
- 25:16Speaker 1: the outset of the voyage was anything but judicious now,
- 25:21Speaker 1: But the Spaniard perhaps thought that it was with captains,
- 25:25Speaker 1: as with gods, reserve under all events must still be
- 25:29Speaker 1: their cue. But more probably this appearance of slumbering dominion
- 25:35Speaker 1: might have been but an attempted disguise to conscious imbecility,
- 25:40Speaker 1: not deep policy, but shallow device. But be all as
- 25:45Speaker 1: this might, whether Don Benito's manner was designed or not.
- 25:49Speaker 1: The more Captain Delano noted its pervading reserve, the less
- 25:54Speaker 1: he felt uneasiness at any particular manifestation of that reserve
- 25:58Speaker 1: towards himself. Neither were his thoughts taken up by the
- 26:03Speaker 1: captain alone. Wanted to the quiet orderliness of the sealer's
- 26:08Speaker 1: comfortable family of a crew, the noisy confusion of the
- 26:11Speaker 1: Sandomic's suffering host repeatedly challenged his eye. Some prominent breaches,
- 26:18Speaker 1: not only of discipline but of decency were observed. These
- 26:23Speaker 1: Captain Delano could not but described, in the main to
- 26:26Speaker 1: the absence of those subordinate deck officers, to whom, along
- 26:30Speaker 1: with higher duties, is intrusted what may be styled the
- 26:34Speaker 1: police department of a populous ship. True, the old Oakum
- 26:39Speaker 1: pickers appeared at times to act part of monitorial constables
- 26:43Speaker 1: to their countrymen, the Blacks, But though occasionally succeeding in
- 26:48Speaker 1: allaying trifling outbreaks now and then between man and man,
- 26:52Speaker 1: they could do little or nothing towards establishing a general quiet.
- 26:57Speaker 1: The sand Dominic was in the condition of a transatlantic
- 27:01Speaker 1: immigrant ship, among whose multitude of living freight are some
- 27:06Speaker 1: individuals doubtless as little troublesome as crates and bales. But
- 27:11Speaker 1: the friendly remonstrances of such with their ruder companions are
- 27:15Speaker 1: of not so much avail as the unfriendly arm of
- 27:18Speaker 1: the mate. What the San Dominic wanted was what the
- 27:23Speaker 1: immigrant ship has stern superior officers. But on these decks
- 27:28Speaker 1: not so much as a fourth mate was to be seen.
- 27:32Speaker 1: End of Section two Section three of Benito Sereno. The
- 27:44Speaker 1: visitor's curiosity was roused to learn the particulars of those
- 27:48Speaker 1: mishaps which had brought about such absenteeism with its consequences, because,
- 27:55Speaker 1: though deriving some inkling of the voyage from the whales,
- 27:59Speaker 1: which at the first most moment had greeted him, yet
- 28:02Speaker 1: of the details no clear understanding had been had. The
- 28:06Speaker 1: best account would doubtless be given by the captain, Yet
- 28:10Speaker 1: at first the visitor was loath to ask it, unwilling
- 28:14Speaker 1: to provoke some distant rebuff, But plucking up courage, he
- 28:18Speaker 1: at last accosted Don Benito, renewing the expression of his
- 28:23Speaker 1: benevolent interest, adding that did he, Captain Delano, but know
- 28:28Speaker 1: the particulars of the ship's misfortunes, he would perhaps be
- 28:32Speaker 1: better able in the inn to relieve them. Would Don
- 28:36Speaker 1: Benito favor him with the whole story? Don Benito faltered, then,
- 28:43Speaker 1: like some somnambulist, suddenly interfered with vacantly stared at his visitor,
- 28:49Speaker 1: and ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained
- 28:53Speaker 1: this posture so long that Captain Delano, almost equally disconcerted
- 28:58Speaker 1: and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking
- 29:04Speaker 1: forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for the
- 29:07Speaker 1: desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces when
- 29:12Speaker 1: with a sort of eagerness, Don Benito invited him back,
- 29:15Speaker 1: regretting his momentary absence of mind and professing readiness to
- 29:20Speaker 1: gratify him. While most part of the story was being given,
- 29:25Speaker 1: the two captains stood on the after part of the
- 29:28Speaker 1: main deck, a privileged spot no one being near but
- 29:32Speaker 1: the servant. It is now one hundred and ninety days.
- 29:36Speaker 1: Began the Spaniard in his husky, whisper that this ship,
- 29:41Speaker 1: well officered and well manned, with several cabin passengers, some
- 29:46Speaker 1: fifty Spaniards in all, sailed from Buenos Aires, bound to
- 29:50Speaker 1: Lima with a general cargo Paraguay, Tea and the like,
- 29:55Speaker 1: and pointing forward that parcel of Negro, now not more
- 30:01Speaker 1: than one hundred and fifty, as you see, but then
- 30:04Speaker 1: numbering over three hundred souls. Off Cape Horn, we had
- 30:09Speaker 1: heavy gales in one moment. By night, three of my
- 30:13Speaker 1: best officers, with fifteen sailors, were lost, with the main yard,
- 30:18Speaker 1: the spar snapping under them in the slings as they
- 30:22Speaker 1: sought with heavers to beat down the icy sail to
- 30:26Speaker 1: lighten the hull. The heavier sacks of mata were thrown
- 30:30Speaker 1: into the sea, with most of the water pipes laughed
- 30:33Speaker 1: on deck at the time. And this last necessity, it
- 30:37Speaker 1: was combined with the prolonged detentions afterwards experienced, which eventually
- 30:43Speaker 1: brought about our chief causes of suffering. When here there
- 30:48Speaker 1: was a sudden fainting attack of his cough brought on
- 30:52Speaker 1: no doubt by his mental distress. His servants sustained him, and,
- 30:57Speaker 1: drawing a cordial from his pocket, placed it to his lips.
- 31:01Speaker 1: He a little revived, but unwilling to leave him unsupported,
- 31:06Speaker 1: while yet imperfectly restored the black with one arm still
- 31:10Speaker 1: encircled his master, at the same time keeping his eye
- 31:14Speaker 1: fixed on his face, as if to watch for the
- 31:17Speaker 1: first sign of complete restoration or relapse, as the event
- 31:21Speaker 1: might prove. The Spaniard proceeded, but brokenly and obscurely, as
- 31:27Speaker 1: one in a dream. Oh, my God, Rather than pass
- 31:32Speaker 1: through what I have with joy, I would have hailed
- 31:35Speaker 1: the most terrible gales. But his cough returned, and with
- 31:40Speaker 1: increased violence, this subsiding with reddened lips and closed eyes,
- 31:45Speaker 1: he fell heavily against his supporter. His mind wanders. He
- 31:51Speaker 1: was thinking of the plague that followed the gales. Plaintively
- 31:54Speaker 1: sighed the servant, My poor, poor master, wringing one hand
- 31:59Speaker 1: and with the other wiping the mouth. But to be patient,
- 32:03Speaker 1: signor again, turning to Captain Delano, These fits do not
- 32:07Speaker 1: last long. Master will soon be himself. Don Benito, reviving
- 32:14Speaker 1: went on, but as this portion of the story was
- 32:17Speaker 1: very brokenly delivered the substance only will here be set down.
- 32:22Speaker 1: It appeared that, after the ship had been many days
- 32:25Speaker 1: tossed in storms off the cape, the scurvy broke out,
- 32:30Speaker 1: carrying off numbers of the whites and blacks. When at
- 32:33Speaker 1: last they had worked round into the Pacific, their spars
- 32:37Speaker 1: and sails were so damaged and so inadequately handled by
- 32:41Speaker 1: the surviving mariners, most of whom were become invalids that,
- 32:47Speaker 1: unable to lay her northerly course by the wind which
- 32:50Speaker 1: was powerful, the unmanageable ship, for successive days at nights
- 32:55Speaker 1: was blown northwestward, where the breeze suddenly deserted her in
- 32:59Speaker 1: un waters to sultry calms. The absence of the water
- 33:04Speaker 1: pipes now proved as fatal to life, as before their
- 33:08Speaker 1: presence had menaced it, induced or at least aggravated by
- 33:13Speaker 1: the more than scanty allowance of water. A malignant fever
- 33:17Speaker 1: followed the scurvy, with the excessive heat of the lengthened calm,
- 33:22Speaker 1: making such short work of it as to sweep away,
- 33:25Speaker 1: as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and yet
- 33:30Speaker 1: a larger number proportionally of the Spaniards, including by a
- 33:34Speaker 1: luckless fatality every officer on board. Consequently, in the smart
- 33:41Speaker 1: west winds eventually following the calm, the already rent sails,
- 33:45Speaker 1: having to be simply dropped, not furled at need, had
- 33:50Speaker 1: been gradually reduced to the beggar's rags. They were now
- 33:55Speaker 1: to procure substitutes for his lost sailors, as well as
- 33:58Speaker 1: supplies of water and sails. The captain, at the earliest opportunity,
- 34:04Speaker 1: had made for Baldivia, the southernmost civilized port of Chile
- 34:09Speaker 1: and South America, but upon nearing the coast, the thick
- 34:13Speaker 1: weather had prevented him from so much as sighting that harbor.
- 34:18Speaker 1: Since which period, almost without a crew, and almost without canvas,
- 34:23Speaker 1: and almost without water, and at intervals giving its added
- 34:27Speaker 1: dead to the sea, the San Dominic had been battledored
- 34:31Speaker 1: about by contrary winds, inveigled by currents, or grown weedy
- 34:36Speaker 1: in calms, like a man lost in woods. More than
- 34:41Speaker 1: once she had doubled upon her own track. But throughout
- 34:45Speaker 1: these calamities, huskily continued Don Benito, painfully turning in the
- 34:51Speaker 1: half embrace of his servant. I have to thank those negroes,
- 34:55Speaker 1: you see who, though to your inexperienced eyes appear unruly,
- 35:01Speaker 1: have indeed conducted themselves with less of restlessness than even
- 35:06Speaker 1: their owner could have thought possible under such circumstances. Here
- 35:11Speaker 1: he again fell faintly back Again, his mind wandered, but
- 35:15Speaker 1: he rallied, and less obscurely proceeded. Yes, their owner was
- 35:21Speaker 1: quite right in assuring me that no fetters would be
- 35:23Speaker 1: needed with his blacks, so that while as his wont
- 35:27Speaker 1: in this transportation, those Negroes have always remained upon deck,
- 35:32Speaker 1: not thrust below as in the Guinea men. They have also,
- 35:37Speaker 1: from the beginning been freely permitted to range within given
- 35:41Speaker 1: bounds at their pleasure. Once More, the faintness returned, his
- 35:46Speaker 1: mind roved, but recovering, he resumed. But it is Babo
- 35:51Speaker 1: here to whom under God I own not only my
- 35:55Speaker 1: own preservation, but likewise to him. Chiefly the merit is
- 36:00Speaker 1: due of pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when, at intervals
- 36:05Speaker 1: tempted to murmurings. Ah, Master sighed the black, bowing his face.
- 36:11Speaker 1: Don't speak of me, Babo is nothing. What Babo has
- 36:15Speaker 1: done was but duty, faithful, fellow, cried Captain Delano don
- 36:21Speaker 1: Benito I envy you such a friend slave, I cannot
- 36:26Speaker 1: call him. End of Section three.
- 36:35Speaker 2: Chapter four. The blacks, as master and man stood before him,
- 36:42Speaker 2: the black upholding the white. Captain. Delano could not but
- 36:46Speaker 2: think of the beauty of that relationship, which could present
- 36:49Speaker 2: such a spectacle of fidelity on the one hand and
- 36:51Speaker 2: confidence on the other. The scene was heightened by the
- 36:55Speaker 2: contrast in dress to noting their relative positions. The Spaniard
- 36:59Speaker 2: wore loose the chili jacket of dark velvet, white small
- 37:02Speaker 2: clothes and stockings with silver buckles at the knee and
- 37:05Speaker 2: end step, a high crown, sombrero, fine grass, a slender sword,
- 37:10Speaker 2: silver mounted, hung from monotonous sash, the last being an
- 37:13Speaker 2: almost invariable adjunct, more for utility than ornament. Of a
- 37:16Speaker 2: South American general's dressed to this hour, excepting when his
- 37:21Speaker 2: occasional nervous contortions brought about disarray, there was a certain
- 37:25Speaker 2: precision in his attire, curiously at variance with the unsightly
- 37:29Speaker 2: disorder around, especially in the belittered ghetto forward of the mainmast,
- 37:34Speaker 2: wholly occupied by the Blacks. The servant wore nothing but
- 37:39Speaker 2: wide trousers, apparently from their coarseness in patches made out
- 37:42Speaker 2: of some old topsail. They were clean and confined to
- 37:45Speaker 2: the waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which, with
- 37:48Speaker 2: his composed, deprecatory air, at times made him look something
- 37:51Speaker 2: like a begging friar of Saint Francis. However unsuitable for
- 37:56Speaker 2: the time and place, at least in the blunt thinking
- 37:58Speaker 2: American's eyes, and however strangely surviving in the midst of
- 38:02Speaker 2: all his afflictions, the toilette of Don Benito might not,
- 38:06Speaker 2: in fashion at least have gone beyond the style of
- 38:08Speaker 2: the day among South Americans of his class, though on
- 38:12Speaker 2: the present voyage sailing from Buenos Aires, he had avowed
- 38:15Speaker 2: himself a native and resident of Chile, whose inhabitants had
- 38:18Speaker 2: not so generally adopted the plain coat and once plebeian pantaloons,
- 38:23Speaker 2: but with a becoming modification, adhered to their provincial costume,
- 38:26Speaker 2: picturesque as any in the world. Still relatively to the
- 38:30Speaker 2: pale history of the voyage and his own pale face,
- 38:33Speaker 2: there seemed something so incongruous in the Spaniards apparel as
- 38:37Speaker 2: almost to suggest the image of an invalid courtier tottering
- 38:40Speaker 2: about London streets in the time of the plague. The
- 38:44Speaker 2: portion of the narrative which perhaps most excited interest as
- 38:47Speaker 2: well as some surprise considering the latitudes in question, was
- 38:51Speaker 2: the long calms spoken of, and more particularly the ships
- 38:54Speaker 2: so long drifting about. Without communicating the opinion, of course,
- 38:58Speaker 2: the American could not but impute it part of the detentions,
- 39:01Speaker 2: both to clumsy seamanship and faulty navigation. Eyeing on Benito's
- 39:06Speaker 2: small yellow hands, he easily inferred that the young captain
- 39:09Speaker 2: had not got into command at the hall's hall, but
- 39:11Speaker 2: the cabin window, and if so, why wonder it incompetence
- 39:15Speaker 2: in youth, sickness and aristocracy united. Such was his democratic conclusion,
- 39:22Speaker 2: but drowning criticism and compassion. After a fresh repetition of
- 39:26Speaker 2: his sympathies, Captain Delano, having heard out his story, not
- 39:29Speaker 2: only engaged as in the first place, to see Don
- 39:32Speaker 2: Benito in his people supplied in their immediate bodily needs,
- 39:35Speaker 2: but also now further promise to assist him in procuring
- 39:39Speaker 2: a large permanent supply of water, as well as some
- 39:42Speaker 2: sails and rigging. And though it would involve no small
- 39:45Speaker 2: embarrassment to himself, yet he would spare three of his
- 39:48Speaker 2: best seamen for temporary deck officers, so that without delay,
- 39:52Speaker 2: the ship might proceed to Concepcion, there fully to refit
- 39:55Speaker 2: for Lima, her destined port. Such generosity view was not
- 40:00Speaker 2: without its effect. Even upon the invalid. His face lighted up.
- 40:04Speaker 2: Eager and hectic, he met the honest glance of his
- 40:06Speaker 2: visitor with gratitude. He seemed overcome. This excitement is bad
- 40:11Speaker 2: for master, whispered the servant, taking his arm and with
- 40:15Speaker 2: soothing words, gently drawing him aside. When Don Benito returned,
- 40:20Speaker 2: the American was pained to observe that his hopefulness, like
- 40:23Speaker 2: the sudden kindling in his cheek, was but febrile and transient.
- 40:27Speaker 2: Ere long with joyless mien. Looking up toward the poop,
- 40:31Speaker 2: the host invited his guest to accompany him there for
- 40:33Speaker 2: the benefit of what little breath of wind might be stirring.
- 40:37Speaker 2: As during the telling of the story, Captain Delano had
- 40:40Speaker 2: once or twice started at the occasional sembling of the
- 40:43Speaker 2: hatchet polishers, wondering why such an interruption should be allowed,
- 40:47Speaker 2: especially in that part of the ship, and in the
- 40:49Speaker 2: ears of an invalid, And moreover, as the hatchets had
- 40:52Speaker 2: anything but an attractive look, and the handlers of them
- 40:55Speaker 2: still less. So it was therefore to tell the truth,
- 40:58Speaker 2: not without some lurking reluctance, or even shrinking. It may
- 41:02Speaker 2: be that Captain Delano, with apparent complaisance, acquiesced in his
- 41:06Speaker 2: host's invitation, the more so since an untimely caprice of punctilio,
- 41:12Speaker 2: rendered distressing by his cadaverous aspect. Don Benito, with Castilian boughs,
- 41:17Speaker 2: solemnly insisted upon his guest preceding him up the ladder
- 41:20Speaker 2: leading to the elevation, where one on each side of
- 41:23Speaker 2: the last step sat four armorial supporters, and centuries two
- 41:27Speaker 2: of the ominous file gingerly enough stepped good Captain Delano
- 41:31Speaker 2: between them, and in the instant of leaving them behind,
- 41:34Speaker 2: like one running the gauntlet, he felt an apprehensive twitch
- 41:38Speaker 2: in the calves of his legs. But when facing about,
- 41:42Speaker 2: he saw the whole file, like so many organ grinders,
- 41:45Speaker 2: still stupidly intent on their work, unmindful of everything beside.
- 41:49Speaker 2: He could not but smile at his late fidgeting panic. Presently,
- 41:53Speaker 2: while standing with Don Benito, looking forward upon the decks below,
- 41:57Speaker 2: he was struck by one of those instances of insubordination,
- 42:00Speaker 2: and previously alluded to. Three black boys with two Spanish
- 42:04Speaker 2: boys were sitting together on the hatches, scraping a rude
- 42:07Speaker 2: wooden platter in which some scanty mess had recently been cooked. Suddenly,
- 42:12Speaker 2: one of the black boys, enraged at a word dropped
- 42:14Speaker 2: by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and,
- 42:17Speaker 2: though called to forbear by one of the oakum pickers,
- 42:20Speaker 2: struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from
- 42:22Speaker 2: which blood flowed. In amazement, Captain Delano inquired what this meant,
- 42:28Speaker 2: to which the pale benito dully muttered that it was
- 42:30Speaker 2: merely the sport of the lad, pretty serious sport. Truly
- 42:34Speaker 2: rejoined Captain Delano. Had such a thing happened on board
- 42:37Speaker 2: the Bachelor's delight, instant punishment would have followed. At these words,
- 42:42Speaker 2: the Spaniard turned upon the American one of his sudden, staring,
- 42:45Speaker 2: half lunatic looks, then, relapsing into his torpor, answered doubtless,
- 42:51Speaker 2: doubtless signor is it thought, Captain Delano, that this helpless
- 42:56Speaker 2: man is one of those paper captains I've known, who,
- 42:58Speaker 2: by policy wink at what by power they cannot put down.
- 43:02Speaker 2: I know no sadder sight than a commander who has
- 43:04Speaker 2: little of command but the name, I should think Don Benito,
- 43:09Speaker 2: he now said, glancing toward the oakum picker who had
- 43:11Speaker 2: sought to interfere with the boys, that you invited advantageous
- 43:15Speaker 2: to keep all your blacks employed, especially the younger ones,
- 43:18Speaker 2: no matter at what useless task, and no matter what
- 43:21Speaker 2: happens to the ship. Why, even with my little band,
- 43:24Speaker 2: I find such a course indispensable. I once kept a
- 43:27Speaker 2: crew on my quarter deck thrumbing mats for my cabin,
- 43:29Speaker 2: when for three days I had given up my ship, mats,
- 43:32Speaker 2: men and all for a speedy loss, owing to the
- 43:35Speaker 2: violence of a gale in which we could do nothing
- 43:37Speaker 2: but helplessly drive before it. Doubtless, doubtless, muttered Don Benito.
- 43:44Speaker 2: But continued Captain Dolano, again glancing upon the oakum pickers,
- 43:48Speaker 2: and then at the hatchet polishers nearby. I see you
- 43:51Speaker 2: keep some at least if your host employed. Yes, was
- 43:55Speaker 2: again the vacant response. Those old men there, shaking their
- 43:58Speaker 2: powers from their pulpits. Continued Captain Delano, pointed to the
- 44:01Speaker 2: oakum pickers, seem to act the part of old dominies
- 44:05Speaker 2: to the rest little heeded, as their admonitions are at times.
- 44:08Speaker 2: Is this voluntary on their part, Don Benito? Or have
- 44:10Speaker 2: you appointed them shepherds to your flock of black sheep?
- 44:14Speaker 2: What posts they feel I appointed them? Rejoined the Spaniard
- 44:18Speaker 2: in an acrid tone, as if resenting some supposed satiric reflection.
- 44:23Speaker 2: And these others, these are shanti condres. Here continued Captain Delano,
- 44:27Speaker 2: rather uneasily, eyeing the brandish steel of the hatchet polishers,
- 44:30Speaker 2: wherein spots it had been brought to a shine. This
- 44:34Speaker 2: seems a curious business there at, Don Benito, in the
- 44:38Speaker 2: Gales we met, answered the Spaniard. What of our general
- 44:41Speaker 2: cargo was not thrown overboard? Was much damaged by the brine?
- 44:45Speaker 2: Since coming into calm weather, I have had several cases
- 44:48Speaker 2: of knives and hatchets daily brought up for overhauling and cleaning.
- 44:53Speaker 2: A prudent idea, Don Benito, You are part owner of
- 44:56Speaker 2: ship and cargo, I presume, but not of the slaves.
- 44:58Speaker 2: Perhaps I am owner of all you see, impatiently returned
- 45:03Speaker 2: Don Benito, except the main company of blacks who belonged
- 45:07Speaker 2: to my late friend Alejandro Aranda. As he mentioned this name,
- 45:12Speaker 2: his air was heart broken, his knees shook. His servants
- 45:15Speaker 2: supported him, thinking he divined the cause of such unusual emotion.
- 45:20Speaker 2: To confirm his surmise, Captain Delano, after a pause, said,
- 45:24Speaker 2: and may I ask Don Benito, whether since a while
- 45:26Speaker 2: ago you spoke of some cabin passengers, the friend whose
- 45:30Speaker 2: lawso afflicts you at the outset of the voyage, accompanied
- 45:32Speaker 2: his blacks. Yes, but died of the fever. Died of
- 45:39Speaker 2: the fever. Oh could I but again, quivering, the Spaniard paused.
- 45:45Speaker 2: Pardon me, said Captain Delano slowly. But I think that
- 45:49Speaker 2: by a sympathetic experience, I conjecture, Don Benito, what it
- 45:53Speaker 2: is that gives the keener edge to your grief. It
- 45:57Speaker 2: was once my hard fortune to lose at sea, you,
- 45:59Speaker 2: dear friend, my own brother, then supercargo, assured of the
- 46:04Speaker 2: welfare of his spirit its departure, I could have borne
- 46:07Speaker 2: like a man, but that honest eye, that honest hand,
- 46:10Speaker 2: both of which had so often met mine, and that
- 46:13Speaker 2: warm heart, all all like scraps to the dogs, to
- 46:17Speaker 2: throw all to the sharks. It was then I vowed
- 46:21Speaker 2: never to have for fell a voyager a man I loved, unless,
- 46:24Speaker 2: unbeknown to him I had provided every requisite in case
- 46:28Speaker 2: of her fatality, for embalming his mortal part for interment
- 46:31Speaker 2: on shore. We your fringe remains now on board this ship, done, Benito?
- 46:36Speaker 2: Not thus strangely would the mention of his name affect
- 46:39Speaker 2: you on the board this ship, echoed the Spaniard. Then,
- 46:44Speaker 2: with horrified gestures as directed against some specter, he unconsciously
- 46:48Speaker 2: fell into the ready arms of his attendant, who, with
- 46:51Speaker 2: a silent appeal toward Captain Delano, seemed beseeching him not
- 46:54Speaker 2: again to approach a theme so unspeakably distressing to his master.
- 47:00Speaker 2: This poor fellow now thought, the pained American is the
- 47:03Speaker 2: victim of that sad superstition which associates goblins with the
- 47:06Speaker 2: deserted body of a man as ghosts with an abandoned house.
- 47:10Speaker 2: How unlike are we made? What to me in like
- 47:13Speaker 2: case would have been a solemn satisfaction. The bare suggestion
- 47:16Speaker 2: even terrifies the Spaniard into this trance. Poor Alexandro Arande,
- 47:22Speaker 2: what would you say? Could you see your friend who
- 47:24Speaker 2: on former voyages when you for months were left behind,
- 47:28Speaker 2: has I daresay often longed and longed for one Peepeche
- 47:32Speaker 2: now transported with terror at the least thought of having
- 47:36Speaker 2: you anyway nigh him at this moment, with a dreary
- 47:40Speaker 2: graveyard tull betokening a flaw. The ship's forecastle bell, smote
- 47:44Speaker 2: by one of the grizzled oakum pickers, proclaimed ten o'clock
- 47:48Speaker 2: through the leaden calm, when Captain Delano's attention was caught
- 47:52Speaker 2: by the moving figure of a gigantic black, emerging from
- 47:55Speaker 2: the general crowd below and slowly advancing toward the elevated poop.
- 48:00Speaker 2: The iron collar was about his neck, from which depended
- 48:02Speaker 2: a chain thrice well round his body. The terminating lynx
- 48:05Speaker 2: pad luck together at a broad band of iron his girdle,
- 48:10Speaker 2: how like a mutato fall moves, murmured the servant. The
- 48:16Speaker 2: black mounted the steps of the poop, and, like a
- 48:18Speaker 2: brave prisoner brought up to receive sentence, stood in unquailing
- 48:22Speaker 2: muteness before Don Benito, now recovered from his attack. At
- 48:27Speaker 2: the first glimpse of his approach, Don Benito had started,
- 48:30Speaker 2: a resentful shadow swept over his face, and as with
- 48:33Speaker 2: the sudden memory of bootless rage, his white lips glued together.
- 48:38Speaker 2: This is some mulish mutineer, thought Captain Delano, surveying, not
- 48:42Speaker 2: without a mixture of admiration, the colossal form of the Negro.
- 48:47Speaker 2: See he waits your question, master, said the servant, thus
- 48:52Speaker 2: reminded Don Benito, nervously averting his glance as if shining
- 48:56Speaker 2: by anticipation some rebellious response. In a disconcert voice, thus
- 49:00Speaker 2: spoke artofoll, will you ask my pardon? Now? The black
- 49:06Speaker 2: was silent again, Master, reported the servant, with bitter upbraiding
- 49:11Speaker 2: eye in his countrymen. Again, Master, he will bend to master.
- 49:15Speaker 2: Yet answer, said Don Benito, still averting his glance, Say
- 49:21Speaker 2: but the one word pardon, and your chain shall be
- 49:24Speaker 2: off upon this The black, slowly raising both arms, let
- 49:28Speaker 2: them lifelessly fall, his lynx clanking. His head bowed as
- 49:33Speaker 2: much as to say no, I am content, Go, said
- 49:38Speaker 2: Don Benito, with inkept an unknown emotion, deliberately as he
- 49:44Speaker 2: had come. The black obeyed. Excuse me, Don Benito, said
- 49:48Speaker 2: Captain de Lano. But this scene surprises me. What means it?
- 49:51Speaker 3: Pray?
- 49:53Speaker 2: It means that that Negro alone of all the band,
- 49:57Speaker 2: has given me peculiar cause of a fit. I have
- 50:01Speaker 2: put him in chains. I here he paused, his hand
- 50:04Speaker 2: to his head as if there were swimming there, or
- 50:07Speaker 2: sudden bewilderment of memory had come over him. But meeting
- 50:10Speaker 2: his servant's kindly glance, seemed reassured, and proceeded. I could
- 50:16Speaker 2: not scourge such a form. But I told him he
- 50:20Speaker 2: must ask my pardon. And yet he has not at
- 50:24Speaker 2: my command. Every two hours he stands before me. And
- 50:29Speaker 2: how long has this been? Some sixty days? And obedient
- 50:35Speaker 2: in all else, and respectful. Yes upon my conscience, then
- 50:40Speaker 2: exclaimed Captain Delano impulsively. He has a royal spirit in him,
- 50:44Speaker 2: this fellow, he may have some right to it. Bitterly,
- 50:48Speaker 2: returned Don Benito, He says he was king in his
- 50:52Speaker 2: own land, Yes, said the servant, entering a word. Those
- 50:57Speaker 2: slits and out the fall's ears once wedges of gold.
- 51:01Speaker 2: But poor Babo here in his own land, was only
- 51:05Speaker 2: a poor slave. A black man's slave, was Babo, who
- 51:08Speaker 2: now is the whites. Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities,
- 51:14Speaker 2: Captain Delano turned curiously upon the attendant, then glanced inquiringly
- 51:18Speaker 2: at his master. But as if long wonted to these
- 51:21Speaker 2: little informalities, neither master nor man seemed to understand him.
- 51:27Speaker 2: What prey was that of all's offense? Don Benito asked
- 51:30Speaker 2: Captain Delano, if it was not something very serious, take
- 51:33Speaker 2: a fool's advice, and, in view of his general docility,
- 51:36Speaker 2: as well as in some natural respect for a spirit,
- 51:38Speaker 2: remit his penalty. No, no, Master will never do that here,
- 51:44Speaker 2: murmured the servant to himself, proud that of all must
- 51:47Speaker 2: first ask master's pardon. The slave there carries the padlock,
- 51:51Speaker 2: but master here carries the key. His attention thus directed,
- 51:56Speaker 2: Captain Delano now noticed for the first time that suspended
- 52:00Speaker 2: by a slender silken cord from Don Benito's neck hunger
- 52:03Speaker 2: key at once from the servant's muttered syllables divining the
- 52:06Speaker 2: key's purpose, he smiled and said, so, Don Benito, padlock
- 52:11Speaker 2: and key symbolic symbols, truly biting his lip. Don Benito faltered.
- 52:19Speaker 2: Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such
- 52:21Speaker 2: native simplicity as to be incapable of satire or irony,
- 52:24Speaker 2: had been dropped in playful allusion to the Spaniard's singularly
- 52:28Speaker 2: evidenced lordship over the black. Yet the Hypochontriac seemed in
- 52:32Speaker 2: some way to have taken it as a malicious reflection
- 52:34Speaker 2: upon his confessed inability, thus far to break down, at
- 52:38Speaker 2: least on a verbal summons, the entrenched will of the slave.
- 52:43Speaker 2: Deploring this supposed misconception, yet despairing of correcting it, Captain
- 52:47Speaker 2: Dolano shifted the subject, but finding his companion more than
- 52:50Speaker 2: ever withdrawn, as if still slowly digesting the leaves of
- 52:54Speaker 2: the presumed affront above mentioned by and by Captain Delano
- 52:58Speaker 2: likewise became less talkative, oppressed against his own will by
- 53:02Speaker 2: what seemed the secret vindictiveness of the morbidly sensitive Spaniard.
- 53:07Speaker 2: But the good sailor himself, of a quite contrary disposition,
- 53:10Speaker 2: refrained on his part, alike from the appearances, from the
- 53:13Speaker 2: feeling of resentment, and if silent, was only so from contagion. Presently,
- 53:19Speaker 2: the Spaniard, assisted by a servant, somewhat discourteously, crossed over
- 53:23Speaker 2: from Captain Delano, a procedure which sensibly enough might have
- 53:26Speaker 2: been allowed to pass for idle caprice of ill humor,
- 53:29Speaker 2: had not Master and man, lingering round the corner of
- 53:32Speaker 2: the elevated skylight, begun whispering together in low voices. This
- 53:37Speaker 2: was unpleasing, and more the moody air of the Spaniard,
- 53:41Speaker 2: which at times had not been without a sort of
- 53:43Speaker 2: valetudinarian stateliness, now seemed anything but dignified, while the menial
- 53:49Speaker 2: familiarity of the servant lost its original charm of simple
- 53:52Speaker 2: hearted attachment.
- 53:57Speaker 4: End of Chapter four Questions. In his embarrassment, the visitor
- 54:04Speaker 4: turned his face to the other side of the ship.
- 54:07Speaker 4: By so doing his glance accidentally fell on a young
- 54:11Speaker 4: Spanish sailor a coil of rope in his hand, just
- 54:15Speaker 4: stepped from the deck to the first round of the
- 54:18Speaker 4: mizzen rigging. Perhaps the man would not have been particularly noticed,
- 54:23Speaker 4: were it not that, during his ascent to one of
- 54:26Speaker 4: the yards, he, with a sort of covert intentness, kept
- 54:30Speaker 4: his eye fixed on Captain Delano, from whom presently it passed,
- 54:35Speaker 4: as if by a natural sequence to the two whisperers,
- 54:40Speaker 4: his own attention thus redirected to that quarter. Captain Delano
- 54:44Speaker 4: gave a slight start from something in Don Benito's manner.
- 54:49Speaker 4: Just then it seemed as if the visitor had at
- 54:51Speaker 4: least partly been the subject of the withdrawn consultation, going
- 54:55Speaker 4: on a conjecture as little agreeable to the gees as
- 55:00Speaker 4: it was little flattering to the host. The singular alternations
- 55:05Speaker 4: of courtesy and ill breeding in the Spanish captain were
- 55:08Speaker 4: unaccountable except on one of two suppositions, innocent lunacy or
- 55:15Speaker 4: wicked impostor. But the first idea, though it might naturally
- 55:20Speaker 4: have occurred to an indifferent observer, and in some respects,
- 55:25Speaker 4: had not hitherto been wholly a stranger to Captain Delano's mind.
- 55:29Speaker 4: Yet now that in an incipient way he began to
- 55:33Speaker 4: regard the stranger's conduct something in the light of an
- 55:36Speaker 4: intentional affront, of course, the idea of lunacy was virtually vacated.
- 55:42Speaker 4: But if not a lunatic, what then, under the circumstances,
- 55:47Speaker 4: would a gentleman, nay, any honest boor act the part
- 55:51Speaker 4: now acted by his host. The man was an impostor,
- 55:56Speaker 4: some low born adventurer masquerading as an ocean grandee, yet
- 56:02Speaker 4: so ignorant of the first requisites of mere gentlemanhood as
- 56:06Speaker 4: to be betrayed into the present remarkable in decorum. That
- 56:11Speaker 4: strange ceremoniousness too. At other times events seemed not uncharacteristic
- 56:17Speaker 4: of one playing a part above his real level. Benito
- 56:21Speaker 4: Cereno Don Benito Cereno, a sounding name one two at
- 56:27Speaker 4: that period not unknown in the surname to supercargoes and
- 56:31Speaker 4: sea captains trading along the Spanish main as, belonging to
- 56:35Speaker 4: one of the most enterprising and extensive mercantile families in
- 56:39Speaker 4: all those provinces, several members of it having titles, a
- 56:43Speaker 4: sort of Castilian rothchild with a noble brother or cousin
- 56:48Speaker 4: in every great trading town of South America. The alleged
- 56:52Speaker 4: Don Benito was in early manhood about twenty nine or
- 56:56Speaker 4: thirty to assume a sort of roving cadet in the
- 57:00Speaker 4: maritime affairs of such a house. What more likely scheme
- 57:04Speaker 4: for a young knave of talent and spirit. But the
- 57:08Speaker 4: Spaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind, for even to
- 57:12Speaker 4: the degree of simulating mortal disease, the craft of some
- 57:16Speaker 4: tricksters had been known to attain to think that under
- 57:20Speaker 4: the aspect of infantile weakness, the most savage energies might
- 57:24Speaker 4: be couched those velvets of the Spaniard. But the velvet
- 57:28Speaker 4: paw to his fangs. From no train of thought did
- 57:32Speaker 4: these fancies come not from within but from without. Suddenly too,
- 57:38Speaker 4: and in one throng like hoarfrost, yet as soon to
- 57:42Speaker 4: vanish as the mild sun of Captain Delano's good nature
- 57:45Speaker 4: regained its meridian, glancing over once again toward Don Benito,
- 57:51Speaker 4: whose side face revealed above the skylight was now turned
- 57:55Speaker 4: toward him. Captain Delano was struck by the profile, whose
- 58:00Speaker 4: clearness of cut was refined by the Thinness incident to
- 58:04Speaker 4: ill health, as well as ennobled about the chin by
- 58:07Speaker 4: the beard away with suspicion he was a true offshoot
- 58:12Speaker 4: of a true Idalgo Sereno. Relieved by these and other
- 58:17Speaker 4: better thoughts, the visitor, lightly humming a tune, now began
- 58:22Speaker 4: indifferently pacing the poop, so as not to betray to
- 58:25Speaker 4: Don Benito that he had at all mistrusted incivility, much
- 58:30Speaker 4: less duplicity, for such mistrust would yet be proved illusory,
- 58:35Speaker 4: and by the event, though for the present, the circumstance
- 58:40Speaker 4: which had provoked that distrust remained unexplained. But when that
- 58:45Speaker 4: little mystery should have been cleared up, Captain Delano thought
- 58:49Speaker 4: he might extremely regret it. Did he allow Don Benito
- 58:52Speaker 4: to become aware that he had indulged in ungenerous surmises
- 58:57Speaker 4: in short to the Spaniard's black letter text, it was
- 59:01Speaker 4: best for a while to leave open margin. Presently, his
- 59:07Speaker 4: pale face twitching and overcast, the Spaniard, still supported by
- 59:11Speaker 4: his attendant, moved over toward his guest, when with even
- 59:16Speaker 4: more than unusual embarrassment and a strange sort of intriguing
- 59:20Speaker 4: intonation in his husky whisper, the following conversation began. Senor,
- 59:28Speaker 4: May I ask how long you have lain at this isle? Oh,
- 59:32Speaker 4: but a day or two, Don Benito. And from what
- 59:35Speaker 4: port are you last canton? And there, Signor, you exchanged
- 59:41Speaker 4: your seal skins for teas and silks. I think you said, yes,
- 59:46Speaker 4: silks mostly, and the balance you took in specie perhaps.
- 59:52Speaker 4: Captain Delano, fidgeting a little, answered yes, some silver. Not
- 59:56Speaker 4: a very great deal though, Ah well, May I ask
- 1:00:01Speaker 4: how many men have you on board, Senor. Captain Delano
- 1:00:05Speaker 4: slightly started, but answered about five and twenty all told,
- 1:00:11Speaker 4: and at present, Signor, all on board. I suppose all
- 1:00:15Speaker 4: on board, Don Benito, replied the captain, now with satisfaction,
- 1:00:20Speaker 4: and will be tonight Senor. At this last question, following
- 1:00:26Speaker 4: so many pertinacious ones, for the soul of him, Captain
- 1:00:29Speaker 4: Delano could not but look very earnestly at the questioner, who,
- 1:00:33Speaker 4: instead of meeting the glance with every token of craven discomposure,
- 1:00:38Speaker 4: dropped his eyes to the deck, presenting an unworthy contrast
- 1:00:42Speaker 4: to his servant, who just then was kneeling at his
- 1:00:45Speaker 4: feet adjusting a loose shoe buckle. His disengaged face, meantime,
- 1:00:51Speaker 4: with humble curiosity, turned openly up into his master's downcast one.
- 1:00:57Speaker 4: The Spaniard, still with a guilty shuffle, repeated his question,
- 1:01:03Speaker 4: and and will be to night, Senor? Yes, for aught,
- 1:01:08Speaker 4: I know, returned Captain Delano, but nay, rallying himself into
- 1:01:13Speaker 4: fearless truth. Some of them talked of going off on
- 1:01:16Speaker 4: another fishing party about midnight. Your ships generally go go
- 1:01:22Speaker 4: more or less armed, I believe, Senor. Oh a six
- 1:01:27Speaker 4: pounder or two in case of emergency, was the intrepidly
- 1:01:30Speaker 4: indifferent reply, with a small stock of muskets, sealing spears,
- 1:01:34Speaker 4: and cutlasses.
- 1:01:35Speaker 5: You know.
- 1:01:37Speaker 4: As he thus responded, Captain Delano again glanced at Don Benito,
- 1:01:42Speaker 4: but the latter's eyes were averted. While abruptly and awkwardly
- 1:01:47Speaker 4: shifting the subject, he made some peevish allusion to the calm,
- 1:01:51Speaker 4: and then, without apology, once more with his attendant withdrew
- 1:01:55Speaker 4: to the opposite bulwarks, where the whispering was resumed. At
- 1:02:01Speaker 4: this moment and ere Captain Delano could cast a cool
- 1:02:05Speaker 4: thought upon what had just passed. The young Spanish sailor
- 1:02:08Speaker 4: before mentioned was seen descending from the rigging in act
- 1:02:13Speaker 4: of stooping over to spring inboard to the deck. His
- 1:02:16Speaker 4: voluminous unconfined frock or shirt of coarse woolen, much spotted
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: with tar, opened out far down the chest, revealing a
- 1:02:26Speaker 4: soiled undergarment of what seemed the finest linen, edged about
- 1:02:30Speaker 4: the neck with a narrow blue ribbon sadly faded and worn.
- 1:02:36Speaker 4: At this moment, the young sailor's eye was again fixed
- 1:02:40Speaker 4: on the whisperers, and Captain Delano thought he observed a
- 1:02:43Speaker 4: lurking significance in it, as if silent signs of some
- 1:02:47Speaker 4: freemason sort had that instant been interchanged. This once more
- 1:02:53Speaker 4: impelled his own glance in the direction of Don Benito,
- 1:02:57Speaker 4: and as before he could not but infer that himself
- 1:03:00Speaker 4: formed the subject of the conference. He paused the sound
- 1:03:06Speaker 4: of the hatchet polishing fell on his ears. He cast
- 1:03:10Speaker 4: another swift side look at the two. They had the
- 1:03:13Speaker 4: air of conspirators. In connection with the late questionings and
- 1:03:19Speaker 4: the incident of the young sailor. These things now begat
- 1:03:22Speaker 4: such return of involuntary suspicion that the singular guilelessness of
- 1:03:27Speaker 4: the American could not endure it. Plucking up a gay
- 1:03:31Speaker 4: and humorous expression, he crossed over to the two rapidly, saying, Ah,
- 1:03:37Speaker 4: don Benito, your black hair seems high in your trust,
- 1:03:41Speaker 4: a sort of privy counselor in fact. Upon this, the
- 1:03:45Speaker 4: servant looked up with a good natured grin, but the
- 1:03:48Speaker 4: master started as from a venomous bite. It was a
- 1:03:52Speaker 4: moment or two before the Spaniard sufficiently recovered himself to reply,
- 1:03:57Speaker 4: which he did at last with cold constraint. Yes, Senor,
- 1:04:01Speaker 4: I have trust in Babo. Here Babo, changing his previous
- 1:04:06Speaker 4: grin of mere animal humor into an intelligent smile not
- 1:04:11Speaker 4: ungratefully eyed his master, finding that the Spaniard now stood
- 1:04:17Speaker 4: silent and reserved, as if involuntarily or purposely, giving hint
- 1:04:22Speaker 4: that his guest's proximity was inconvenient. Just then, Captain Delano,
- 1:04:27Speaker 4: unwilling to appear uncivil, even to incivility itself, made some
- 1:04:32Speaker 4: trivial remark, and moved off again and again, turning over
- 1:04:36Speaker 4: in his mind the mysterious demeanor of Don Benito Sereno.
- 1:04:41Speaker 4: He had descended from the poop and wrapped in thought,
- 1:04:45Speaker 4: was passing near a dark hatchway leading down into the steerage.
- 1:04:49Speaker 4: When perceiving motion there, he looked to see what moved
- 1:04:54Speaker 4: the same instant There was a sparkle in the shadowy hatchway,
- 1:04:58Speaker 4: and he saw one of the Spanish sailors prowling there,
- 1:05:01Speaker 4: hurriedly placing his hand in the bosom of his frock,
- 1:05:05Speaker 4: as if hiding something. Before the man could have been
- 1:05:08Speaker 4: certain who it was that was passing, he slunk below,
- 1:05:12Speaker 4: out of sight, but enough was seen of him to
- 1:05:15Speaker 4: make it sure that he was the same young sailor
- 1:05:18Speaker 4: before noticed in the rigging. What was that which so sparkled,
- 1:05:23Speaker 4: thought Captain Delano. It was no lamp, no match, no
- 1:05:27Speaker 4: live coal. Could it have been a jewel? But how
- 1:05:32Speaker 4: come sailors with jewels or with silk trimmed undershirts either?
- 1:05:37Speaker 4: Has he been robbing the trunks of the dead cabin passengers?
- 1:05:41Speaker 4: But if so, he would hardly wear one of the
- 1:05:43Speaker 4: stolen articles on board ship. Here ah ah, if now
- 1:05:49Speaker 4: that was indeed a secret sign I saw passing between
- 1:05:52Speaker 4: this suspicious fellow and his captain a while since, if
- 1:05:56Speaker 4: I could only be certain that in my uneasiness my
- 1:05:59Speaker 4: sae did not deceive me, then here, passing from one
- 1:06:04Speaker 4: suspicious thing to another, his mind revolved the point of
- 1:06:08Speaker 4: the strange questions put to him concerning his ship. By
- 1:06:12Speaker 4: a curious coincidence, as each point was recalled, the black
- 1:06:16Speaker 4: wizards of Ashanti would strike up with their hatchets as
- 1:06:19Speaker 4: an ominous comment on the white stranger's thoughts. Pressed by
- 1:06:23Speaker 4: such enigmas and portents, it would have been almost against
- 1:06:27Speaker 4: nature had not even into the least distrustful heart, some
- 1:06:31Speaker 4: ugly misgivings obtruded. Observing the ship now helplessly fallen into
- 1:06:37Speaker 4: a current with enchanted sails, drifting with increased rapidity seaward,
- 1:06:42Speaker 4: and noting that from a lately intercepted projection of the
- 1:06:46Speaker 4: land the sealer was hidden, the stout mariner began to
- 1:06:50Speaker 4: quake at thoughts which he barely durst confess to himself.
- 1:06:54Speaker 4: Above all, he began to feel a ghostly dread of
- 1:06:57Speaker 4: Don Benito. And yet when he roused himself, dilated his chest,
- 1:07:02Speaker 4: felt himself strong on his legs, and coolly considered it.
- 1:07:06Speaker 4: What did all these phantoms amount to? Had the Spaniard
- 1:07:11Speaker 4: any sinister scheme, it must have reference not so much
- 1:07:15Speaker 4: to him, Captain Delano, as to his ship the Bachelor's Delight.
- 1:07:21Speaker 4: Hence the present drifting away of the one ship from
- 1:07:24Speaker 4: the other. Instead of favoring any such possible scheme, was
- 1:07:28Speaker 4: for the time at least opposed to it. Clearly, any
- 1:07:32Speaker 4: suspicion combining such contradictions must need be delusive. Besides, was
- 1:07:39Speaker 4: it not absurd to think of a vessel in distress,
- 1:07:42Speaker 4: a vessel by sickness, almost dismanned of her crew, a
- 1:07:47Speaker 4: vessel whose inmates were parched for water? Was it not
- 1:07:51Speaker 4: a thousand times absurd that such a craft should at
- 1:07:54Speaker 4: present be of a piratical character, or her commander either
- 1:08:00Speaker 4: or himself or those under him, cherish any desire but
- 1:08:03Speaker 4: for speedy relief and refreshment. But then might not general
- 1:08:09Speaker 4: distress and thirst in particular be affected, And might not
- 1:08:13Speaker 4: that same undiminished Spanish crew alleged to have perished off
- 1:08:17Speaker 4: to a remnant be at that very moment, lurking in
- 1:08:20Speaker 4: the hold on heartbroken pretense of entreating a cup of
- 1:08:25Speaker 4: cold water. Fiends in human form had got into lonely dwellings,
- 1:08:31Speaker 4: nor retired until a dark deed had been done. And
- 1:08:34Speaker 4: among the Malay pirates it was no unusual thing to
- 1:08:38Speaker 4: lure ships after them into their treacherous harbors or entice
- 1:08:42Speaker 4: borders from a declared enemy at sea, by the spectacle
- 1:08:46Speaker 4: of thinly manned or vacant decks beneath which prowled a
- 1:08:49Speaker 4: hundred spears with yellow arms, ready to upthrust them through
- 1:08:53Speaker 4: the mats. Not that Captain Delano had entirely credited such things,
- 1:08:59Speaker 4: he had heard them, and now as stories they recurred.
- 1:09:04Speaker 4: The present destination of the ship was the anchorage. There
- 1:09:07Speaker 4: she would be near his own vessel. Upon gaining that vicinity,
- 1:09:12Speaker 4: might not the san Dominic, like a slumbering volcano, suddenly
- 1:09:15Speaker 4: let loose energies now hid, he recalled the spaniard's manner
- 1:09:21Speaker 4: while telling his story. There was a gloomy hesitancy and
- 1:09:25Speaker 4: subterfuge about it. It was just the manner of one
- 1:09:28Speaker 4: making up his tale for evil purposes as he goes.
- 1:09:32Speaker 4: But if that story was not true. What was the
- 1:09:35Speaker 4: truth that the ship had unlawfully come into the Spaniard's possession,
- 1:09:41Speaker 4: But in many of its details, especially in reference to
- 1:09:44Speaker 4: the more calamitous parts, such as the fatalities among the seamen,
- 1:09:49Speaker 4: the consequent prolonged beating about the past sufferings from obstinate calms,
- 1:09:54Speaker 4: and still continued suffering from thirst. In all these points,
- 1:09:58Speaker 4: as well as others, Don Benito's story had been corroborated
- 1:10:03Speaker 4: not only by the wailing ejaculations of the indiscriminate multitude,
- 1:10:07Speaker 4: white and black, but likewise what seemed impossible to be
- 1:10:11Speaker 4: counterfeit by the very expression and play of every human
- 1:10:16Speaker 4: feature which Captain Delano saw. If Don Benito's story was
- 1:10:21Speaker 4: throughout an invention, then every soul on board, down to
- 1:10:25Speaker 4: the youngest negress, was his carefully drilled recruit in the plot,
- 1:10:30Speaker 4: an incredible inference. And yet if there was ground for
- 1:10:34Speaker 4: mistrusting the Spanish captain's veracity, that inference was a legitimate one.
- 1:10:40Speaker 4: In short, scarce and uneasiness entered the honest sailor's mind,
- 1:10:45Speaker 4: but by a subsequent spontaneous act of good sense it
- 1:10:48Speaker 4: was ejected. At last, he began to laugh at these forebodings,
- 1:10:53Speaker 4: and laugh at the strange ship, for in its aspects
- 1:10:56Speaker 4: some way siding with them, as it were, laughed too
- 1:11:01Speaker 4: at the odd looking blacks, particularly those old scissors grinders,
- 1:11:05Speaker 4: the ashantes, and those bed ridden old knitting women, the
- 1:11:09Speaker 4: oakum pickers, and in a human way, he almost began
- 1:11:13Speaker 4: to laugh at the dark spaniard himself, the central hobgoblin
- 1:11:17Speaker 4: of all. For the rest whatever, in a serious way
- 1:11:22Speaker 4: seemed enigmatical, was now good naturedly explained away by the
- 1:11:26Speaker 4: thought that for the most part the poor invalids scarcely
- 1:11:30Speaker 4: knew what he was about, either sulking in black vapors
- 1:11:34Speaker 4: or putting random questions without sense or object. Evidently, for
- 1:11:39Speaker 4: the present the man was not fit to be entrusted
- 1:11:42Speaker 4: with the ship. On some benevolent plea. Withdrawing the command
- 1:11:46Speaker 4: from him, Captain Delano would yet have to send her
- 1:11:48Speaker 4: to Concepcion in charge of his second mate, a worthy
- 1:11:52Speaker 4: person and good navigator, a plan which would prove no
- 1:11:56Speaker 4: wiser for the San Dominic than for Don Benito, For,
- 1:12:00Speaker 4: relieved from all anxiety, keeping wholly to his cabin, the
- 1:12:05Speaker 4: sick man, under the good nursing of his servant would probably,
- 1:12:09Speaker 4: by the end of the passage be in a measure
- 1:12:12Speaker 4: restored to health, and with that he should also be
- 1:12:15Speaker 4: restored to authority. End of chapter five, the boat appears,
- 1:12:23Speaker 4: such were the Americans thoughts they were tranquilizing. There was
- 1:12:28Speaker 4: a difference between the idea of Don Benito's darkly pre
- 1:12:32Speaker 4: ordaining Captain Delano's fate and Captain Delano's lightly arranging Don Benito's. Nevertheless,
- 1:12:40Speaker 4: it was not without something of relief that the good
- 1:12:43Speaker 4: seaman presently perceived his whale boat in the distance. Its
- 1:12:49Speaker 4: absence had been prolonged by unexpected detention at the seiler's side,
- 1:12:54Speaker 4: as well as its returning trip lengthened by the continual
- 1:12:58Speaker 4: recession of the goal. The advancing speck was observed by
- 1:13:03Speaker 4: the Blacks. Their shouts attracted the attention of Don Benito, who,
- 1:13:08Speaker 4: with a return of courtesy approaching Captain Delano, expressed satisfaction
- 1:13:14Speaker 4: at the coming of some supplies, slight and temporary, as
- 1:13:18Speaker 4: they must necessarily prove. Captain Delano responded, but while doing so,
- 1:13:25Speaker 4: his attention was drawn to something passing on the deck below.
- 1:13:29Speaker 4: Among the crowd climbing the landward bulwarks. Anxiously watching the
- 1:13:33Speaker 4: coming boat, two blacks, to all appearances, accidentally incommoded by
- 1:13:38Speaker 4: one of the sailors, flew out against him with horrible curses,
- 1:13:42Speaker 4: which the sailor, some way resenting the two blacks, dashed
- 1:13:45Speaker 4: him to the deck and jumped upon him, despite the
- 1:13:48Speaker 4: earnest cries of the oakum pickers. Don Benito said Captain
- 1:13:54Speaker 4: Delano quickly, do you see what is going on there? Look?
- 1:13:59Speaker 4: But seized by his cough, the Spaniard staggered with both
- 1:14:03Speaker 4: hands to his face, on the point of falling. Captain
- 1:14:07Speaker 4: Delano would have supported him, but the servant was more alert, who,
- 1:14:12Speaker 4: with one hand sustaining his master, with the other, applied
- 1:14:15Speaker 4: the cordial Don Benito restored the black withdrew his support,
- 1:14:21Speaker 4: slipping aside a little, but dutifully remaining within call of
- 1:14:25Speaker 4: a whisper. Such discretion was here evinced as quite wiped
- 1:14:30Speaker 4: away in the visitor's eyes any blemish of impropriety which
- 1:14:34Speaker 4: might have attached to the attendant from the in decorous
- 1:14:38Speaker 4: conferences before mentioned, showing too that if the servant were
- 1:14:42Speaker 4: to blame, it might be more the master's fault than
- 1:14:46Speaker 4: his own, since when left to himself, he could conduct
- 1:14:50Speaker 4: thus well. His glance thus called away from the spectacle
- 1:14:55Speaker 4: of disorder to the more pleasing one before him. Captain
- 1:14:58Speaker 4: Delano could not avoid it, again, congratulating Don Benito upon
- 1:15:02Speaker 4: possessing such a servant, who, though perhaps a little too
- 1:15:06Speaker 4: forward now and then, must upon the whole be invaluable
- 1:15:10Speaker 4: to one in the invalid's situation. Tell me, Don Benito,
- 1:15:14Speaker 4: he added, with a smile, I should like to have
- 1:15:17Speaker 4: your man here myself. What will you take for him?
- 1:15:22Speaker 4: Would fifty doubloons be any object? Master wouldn't part with
- 1:15:27Speaker 4: Babo for a thousand dobloons, murmured the black overhearing the
- 1:15:31Speaker 4: offer and taking it in earnest and with the strange
- 1:15:34Speaker 4: vanity of a faithful slave appreciated by his master, scorning
- 1:15:39Speaker 4: to hear so paltry a valuation put upon him by
- 1:15:42Speaker 4: a stranger. But Don Benito, apparently hardly yet completely restored,
- 1:15:48Speaker 4: and again interrupted by his cough, made but some broken reply.
- 1:15:54Speaker 4: Soon his physical distress became so great, affecting his mind too, apparently, that,
- 1:16:00Speaker 4: as if to screen the sad spectacle, the servant gently
- 1:16:04Speaker 4: conducted his master below left to himself. The American to
- 1:16:09Speaker 4: while away the time till his boat should arrive, would
- 1:16:12Speaker 4: have pleasantly accosted some one of the few Spanish seamen
- 1:16:16Speaker 4: he saw, but recalling something that Don Benito had said,
- 1:16:19Speaker 4: touching their ill conduct, he refrained, as a shipmaster indisposed
- 1:16:25Speaker 4: to countenance cowardice or unfaithfulness in seamen. While with these thoughts,
- 1:16:32Speaker 4: standing with eye directed forward toward that handful of sailors,
- 1:16:36Speaker 4: suddenly he thought that some of them returned the glance,
- 1:16:39Speaker 4: and with a sort of meaning, he rubbed his eyes
- 1:16:43Speaker 4: and looked again, but again seemed to see the same thing,
- 1:16:48Speaker 4: under a new form, but more obscure than any previous one.
- 1:16:52Speaker 4: The old suspicions recurred, but in the absence of Don Benito,
- 1:16:57Speaker 4: with less of panic than before. Despite the bad account
- 1:17:02Speaker 4: given of the sailors, Captain Delano resolved forthwith to accost
- 1:17:07Speaker 4: one of them. Descending the poop, he made his way
- 1:17:10Speaker 4: through the blacks, his movement drawing a queer cry from
- 1:17:14Speaker 4: the oakum pickers, prompted by whom the Negroes, twitching each
- 1:17:18Speaker 4: other aside, divided before him, but as if curious to
- 1:17:23Speaker 4: see what was the object of this deliberate visit, to
- 1:17:25Speaker 4: their ghetto. Closing in behind in tolerable order, followed the
- 1:17:30Speaker 4: white stranger up, his progress thus proclaimed as by mounted
- 1:17:34Speaker 4: kings at arms and escorted as by a Kaffir guard
- 1:17:38Speaker 4: of honor. Captain Delano, assuming a good humored off hand air,
- 1:17:43Speaker 4: continued to advance now and then, saying a blithe word
- 1:17:47Speaker 4: to the negroes, and his eye curiously surveying the white
- 1:17:50Speaker 4: faces here and there, sparsely mixed in with the blacks,
- 1:17:54Speaker 4: like stray white ponds, venturously involved in the ranks of
- 1:17:58Speaker 4: the chessmen opposed. While thinking which of them to select
- 1:18:02Speaker 4: for his purpose, he chanced to observe a sailor seated
- 1:18:06Speaker 4: on the deck, engaged in tarring the strap of a
- 1:18:09Speaker 4: large block, with a circle of blacks squatted round him,
- 1:18:13Speaker 4: inquisitively eyeing the process. The mean employment of the man
- 1:18:19Speaker 4: was in contrast with something superior in his figure. His
- 1:18:23Speaker 4: hand black, with continually thrusting it into the tar pot
- 1:18:27Speaker 4: held for him by a Negro, seemed not naturally alied
- 1:18:30Speaker 4: to his face, a face which would have been a
- 1:18:33Speaker 4: very fine one but for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness
- 1:18:38Speaker 4: had ought to do with criminality could not be determined,
- 1:18:42Speaker 4: since as intense heat and cold, though unlike, produce like sensations,
- 1:18:48Speaker 4: so innocence and guilt when through casual association with mental pain,
- 1:18:53Speaker 4: stamping any visible impress use one seal a hacked one.
- 1:18:59Speaker 4: Not again that this reflection occurred to Captain Delano at
- 1:19:03Speaker 4: the time charitable man as he was, rather another idea,
- 1:19:09Speaker 4: because observing so singular a haggardness to be combined with
- 1:19:13Speaker 4: a dark eye averted as in trouble and shame. And then, however,
- 1:19:17Speaker 4: illogically uniting in his mind his own private suspicions of
- 1:19:21Speaker 4: the crew with the confessed ill opinion on the part
- 1:19:24Speaker 4: of their captain, he was insensibly operated upon by certain
- 1:19:28Speaker 4: general notions which, while disconnecting pain and abashment from virtue
- 1:19:34Speaker 4: as invariably linked them with vice. If indeed there be
- 1:19:40Speaker 4: any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano, be
- 1:19:44Speaker 4: sure that man there has fouled his hand in it,
- 1:19:48Speaker 4: even as now he fouls it in the pitch. I
- 1:19:51Speaker 4: don't like to accost him. I will speak to this other,
- 1:19:55Speaker 4: this old jack here on the windlass. He advanced to
- 1:20:00Speaker 4: an old Barcelona tar in ragged red breeches and dirty nightcap,
- 1:20:05Speaker 4: cheeks trenched and bronzed, whiskers dense as thorn hedges. Seated
- 1:20:10Speaker 4: between two sleepy looking Africans, this mariner, like his younger shipmate,
- 1:20:16Speaker 4: was employed upon some rigging splicing a cable, the sleepy
- 1:20:20Speaker 4: looking blacks performing the inferior function of holding the outer
- 1:20:24Speaker 4: parts of the ropes for him. Upon Captain Delano's approach,
- 1:20:29Speaker 4: the man at once hung his head below its previous level,
- 1:20:33Speaker 4: the one necessary for business. It appeared as if he
- 1:20:37Speaker 4: desired to be thought absorbed with more than common fidelity
- 1:20:41Speaker 4: in his task being addressed. He glanced up, but with
- 1:20:46Speaker 4: what seemed a furtive, diffident air, which sat strangely enough
- 1:20:50Speaker 4: on his weather beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear,
- 1:20:55Speaker 4: instead of growling and biting, should simper and cast sheep's eyes.
- 1:21:00Speaker 4: He was asked several questions concerning the voyage, questions purposely
- 1:21:05Speaker 4: referring to several particulars in Don Benito's narrative not previously
- 1:21:10Speaker 4: corroborated by those impulsive cries greeting the visitor on first
- 1:21:14Speaker 4: coming on board. The questions were briefly answered, confirming all
- 1:21:20Speaker 4: that remained to be confirmed of the story. The negroes
- 1:21:24Speaker 4: about the windlass joined in with the old sailor, but
- 1:21:27Speaker 4: as they became talkative, he, by degrees became mute, and
- 1:21:32Speaker 4: at length quite glum, seemed morosely unwilling to answer more questions.
- 1:21:37Speaker 4: And yet all the while this ersine air was somehow
- 1:21:41Speaker 4: mixed with his sheepish one, despairing of getting into unembarrassed
- 1:21:47Speaker 4: talk with such a centaur. Captain Delano, after glancing round
- 1:21:52Speaker 4: for a more promising countenance, but seeing none, spoke pleasantly
- 1:21:56Speaker 4: to the blacks to make way for him, And so,
- 1:21:59Speaker 4: amid various grins and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling
- 1:22:03Speaker 4: a little strange at first he could hardly tell why,
- 1:22:06Speaker 4: but upon the whole with regained confidence. In beneath o Sereno,
- 1:22:12Speaker 4: how plainly thought he did that old whiskerindo yonder betray
- 1:22:16Speaker 4: a consciousness of ill desert, no doubt, when he saw
- 1:22:21Speaker 4: me coming he dreaded lest I, apprized by his captain
- 1:22:24Speaker 4: of the crew's general misbehavior, came with sharp words for him,
- 1:22:29Speaker 4: and so down with his head. And yet, and yet
- 1:22:34Speaker 4: now that I think of it, that very old fellow,
- 1:22:38Speaker 4: if I err not, was one of those who seemed
- 1:22:40Speaker 4: so earnestly eyeing me here a while since, Ah, these
- 1:22:46Speaker 4: currents spin one's head round almost as much as they
- 1:22:49Speaker 4: do the ship. Huh. There now's a pleasant sort of
- 1:22:54Speaker 4: sunny sight. Quite sociable too. His attention had been drawn
- 1:23:00Speaker 4: to a slumbering negress, partly disclosed through the lace work
- 1:23:04Speaker 4: of some rigging, lying with youthful limbs, carelessly disposed under
- 1:23:09Speaker 4: the lee of the bulwarks like a dough in the
- 1:23:12Speaker 4: shade of a woodland rock. Sprawling at her lapped breasts
- 1:23:17Speaker 4: was her wide awake fawn, stark naked, its black little
- 1:23:20Speaker 4: body half lifted from the deck crosswise with its dams,
- 1:23:24Speaker 4: its hands like two paws clambering upon her, its mouth
- 1:23:29Speaker 4: and nose ineffectually rooting to get at the mark, and
- 1:23:33Speaker 4: meantime giving a vexatious half grunt, blending with the composed
- 1:23:37Speaker 4: snore of the negress. The uncommon vigor of the child
- 1:23:43Speaker 4: at length roused the mother. She started up at distance,
- 1:23:47Speaker 4: facing Captain Delano, but as if not at all concerned
- 1:23:51Speaker 4: at the attitude in which she had been caught, Delightedly,
- 1:23:55Speaker 4: she caught the child up with maternal transports, covering it
- 1:23:59Speaker 4: with kisses. There's naked nature now, pure tenderness and love,
- 1:24:05Speaker 4: thought Captain Delano. Well pleased, this incident prompted him to
- 1:24:11Speaker 4: remark the other negresses more particularly than before, he was
- 1:24:16Speaker 4: gratified with their manners. Like most uncivilized women, they seemed
- 1:24:19Speaker 4: at once tender of heart and tough of constitution, equally
- 1:24:24Speaker 4: ready to die for their infants or fight for them.
- 1:24:27Speaker 4: Unsophisticated as leopardesses, loving as doves, ah, thought Captain Delano.
- 1:24:34Speaker 4: These perhaps are some of the very women whom Mungo
- 1:24:37Speaker 4: Park saw in Africa, and gave such a noble account
- 1:24:41Speaker 4: of these natural sights. Somehow insensibly deepened his confidence and ease.
- 1:24:49Speaker 4: At last, he looked to see how his boat was
- 1:24:51Speaker 4: getting on, but it was still pretty remote. He turned
- 1:24:55Speaker 4: to see if Don Benito had returned, but he had
- 1:24:59Speaker 4: not to change the scene, as well as to please
- 1:25:03Speaker 4: himself with a leisurely observation of the coming boat. Stepping
- 1:25:08Speaker 4: over into the mizzen chains, he clambered his way into
- 1:25:11Speaker 4: the starboard quarter galley, one of those abandoned Venetian looking
- 1:25:15Speaker 4: water balconies previously mentioned retreats cut off from the deck.
- 1:25:21Speaker 4: As his foot pressed the half damp, half dry sea
- 1:25:24Speaker 4: mosses matting the place, and a chance phantom cat's paw
- 1:25:29Speaker 4: an islet of breeze unherlded unfollowed. As this ghostly cat's
- 1:25:35Speaker 4: paw came fanning his cheek, his glance fell upon the
- 1:25:39Speaker 4: row of small, round dead lights, all closed like coppered
- 1:25:43Speaker 4: eyes of the coffined, and the State cabin door, once
- 1:25:47Speaker 4: connecting with the gallery, even as the dead lights had
- 1:25:50Speaker 4: once looked out upon it, but now calked fast like
- 1:25:53Speaker 4: a sarcophagus lid to a purple black tarred over panel,
- 1:25:58Speaker 4: threshold and post. And he bethought him of the time
- 1:26:02Speaker 4: when that state cabin and the state balcony had heard
- 1:26:06Speaker 4: the voices of the Spanish king's officers, and the forms
- 1:26:10Speaker 4: of thelem of Viceroy's daughters had perhaps leaned where he stood.
- 1:26:14Speaker 4: As these and other images flitted through his mind as
- 1:26:19Speaker 4: the cat's paw through the calm, gradually he felt rising
- 1:26:23Speaker 4: a dreamy inquietude, like that of one who alone on
- 1:26:27Speaker 4: the prairie feels unrest from the repose of the noon.
- 1:26:33Speaker 4: He leaned against the carved balustrade, again looking off toward
- 1:26:37Speaker 4: his boat, but found his eye falling upon the ribbon
- 1:26:41Speaker 4: grass trailing along the ship's water line, straight as a
- 1:26:45Speaker 4: border of green box and parterres of seaweed, broad ovals
- 1:26:50Speaker 4: and crescents, floating nigh and far, with what seemed long
- 1:26:54Speaker 4: formal alleys, between crossing the terraces of swells, and sweeping
- 1:26:59Speaker 4: round as if leading to the grottoes below. And Overhanging
- 1:27:04Speaker 4: all was the balustrade by his arm, which, partly stained
- 1:27:08Speaker 4: with pitch and partly embossed with moss, seemed the charred
- 1:27:13Speaker 4: ruin of some summer house in a grand garden, long
- 1:27:17Speaker 4: running to waste. Trying to break one charm, he was
- 1:27:22Speaker 4: but becharmed new, though upon the wide sea he seemed
- 1:27:27Speaker 4: in some far inland country, prisoner in some deserted chateau,
- 1:27:32Speaker 4: left to stare at empty grounds and peer out at
- 1:27:35Speaker 4: vague roads where never wagon or wayfarer passed. But these
- 1:27:41Speaker 4: enchantments were a little disenchanted as his eye fell on
- 1:27:45Speaker 4: the corroded main chains of an ancient style, massy and
- 1:27:49Speaker 4: rusty in link, shackle and bolt. They seemed even more
- 1:27:53Speaker 4: fit for the ship's present business than the one for
- 1:27:56Speaker 4: which probably she had been built. Presently, he thought something
- 1:28:02Speaker 4: moved nigh the chains. He rubbed his eyes and looked hard.
- 1:28:07Speaker 4: Groves of rigging were about the chains, and there, peering
- 1:28:11Speaker 4: from behind a great stay like an Indian, from behind
- 1:28:14Speaker 4: a hemlock, a Spanish sailor a marling spike in his hand,
- 1:28:19Speaker 4: was seen, who made what seemed an imperfect gesture toward
- 1:28:23Speaker 4: the balcony, but immediately, as if alarmed by some advancing
- 1:28:27Speaker 4: step along the deck within, vanished into the recesses of
- 1:28:31Speaker 4: the hempen forest like a poacher. What meant this something
- 1:28:37Speaker 4: the man had sought to communicate unbeknown to any one,
- 1:28:40Speaker 4: even to his captain. Did the secret involve ought unfavorable
- 1:28:45Speaker 4: to his captain? Were those previous misgivings of Captain Delano's
- 1:28:50Speaker 4: about to be verified, or, in his haunted mood at
- 1:28:53Speaker 4: the moment, had some random unintentional motion of the man,
- 1:28:57Speaker 4: while busy with the stay, as if repairing it, been
- 1:29:01Speaker 4: mistaken for a significant beckoning. Not unbewildered again, he gazed
- 1:29:08Speaker 4: off for his boat, but it was temporarily hidden by
- 1:29:11Speaker 4: a rocky spur of the aisle. As with some eagerness
- 1:29:16Speaker 4: he bent forward, watching for the first shooting view of
- 1:29:19Speaker 4: its beak. The balustrade gave way before him like charcoal.
- 1:29:23Speaker 4: Had he not clutched an outreaching rope, he would have
- 1:29:26Speaker 4: fallen into the sea. The crash, though feeble, and the fall,
- 1:29:32Speaker 4: though hollow, of the rotten fragments, must have been overheard.
- 1:29:36Speaker 4: He glanced up with sober curiosity. Peering down upon him
- 1:29:42Speaker 4: was one of the old oakum pickers, slipped from his
- 1:29:45Speaker 4: perch to an outside boom. While below the old negro,
- 1:29:50Speaker 4: and invisible to him, reconnoitering from a porthole like a
- 1:29:55Speaker 4: fox from the mouth of its den, crouched the Spanish sailor.
- 1:29:58Speaker 4: Again from something suddenly suggested by the man's heir, the
- 1:30:04Speaker 4: mad idea now darted into Captain Delano's mind that Don
- 1:30:09Speaker 4: Benito's plea of indisposition and withdrawing below was but a
- 1:30:14Speaker 4: pretense that he was engaged there maturing some plot of
- 1:30:19Speaker 4: which the sailor, by some means gaining an inkling, had
- 1:30:23Speaker 4: a mind to warn the stranger against incited, it may
- 1:30:27Speaker 4: be by gratitude for a kind word on first boarding
- 1:30:31Speaker 4: the ship. Was it from foreseeing some possible interference like
- 1:30:37Speaker 4: this that Don Benito had beforehand, given such a bad
- 1:30:40Speaker 4: character of his sailors while praising the Negroes, though indeed
- 1:30:45Speaker 4: the former seemed as docile as the latter. The contrary,
- 1:30:49Speaker 4: the whites, too, by nature, were the shrewder race. A
- 1:30:55Speaker 4: man with some evil design? Would not he be likely
- 1:30:58Speaker 4: to speak well of that stupidity which was blind to
- 1:31:01Speaker 4: his depravity, and beligned that intelligence from which it might
- 1:31:05Speaker 4: not be hidden? Not unlikely perhaps, But if the whites
- 1:31:10Speaker 4: had dark secrets concerning Don Benito, could then Don Benito
- 1:31:14Speaker 4: be any way in complicity with the blacks. But they
- 1:31:19Speaker 4: were too stupid. Besides, whoever heard of a white so
- 1:31:23Speaker 4: far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species,
- 1:31:27Speaker 4: almost by leaguing in against it. With Negroes. These difficulties
- 1:31:33Speaker 4: recalled former ones lost in their mazes. Captain Delano, who
- 1:31:39Speaker 4: had now regained the deck, was uneasily advancing along it
- 1:31:43Speaker 4: when he observed a new face, an aged sailor seated
- 1:31:47Speaker 4: cross legged near the main hatchway. His skin was shrunk
- 1:31:51Speaker 4: up with wrinkles, like a pelican's empty pouch, His hair frosted,
- 1:31:56Speaker 4: his countenance grave and composed. His hands were full of ropes,
- 1:32:01Speaker 4: which he was working into a large knot. Some blacks
- 1:32:05Speaker 4: were about him, obligingly dipping the strands for him here
- 1:32:09Speaker 4: and there, as the exigencies of the operation demanded. Captain
- 1:32:15Speaker 4: Delano crossed over to him and stood in silence, surveying
- 1:32:19Speaker 4: the knot his mind by a not uncongenial transition, passing
- 1:32:25Speaker 4: from its own entanglements to those of the hemp for intricacy.
- 1:32:30Speaker 4: Such a knot he had never seen in an American ship,
- 1:32:34Speaker 4: or indeed any other. The old man looked like an
- 1:32:37Speaker 4: Egyptian priest making Gordian knots for the temple of a man.
- 1:32:42Speaker 4: The knot seemed a combination of double bowline knot, trouble
- 1:32:47Speaker 4: crown knot, backhanded well knot not in an out knot,
- 1:32:52Speaker 4: and jamming knot. At last, puzzled to comprehend the meaning
- 1:32:58Speaker 4: of such a knot, Captain de la addressed the nootter,
- 1:33:03Speaker 4: What are you nodding there, my man? The knot, was
- 1:33:07Speaker 4: the brief reply, without looking up, so it seems, But
- 1:33:11Speaker 4: what is it for for someone else to undo? Muttered
- 1:33:15Speaker 4: back the old man, plying his fingers harder than ever,
- 1:33:19Speaker 4: the not being now nearly completed. While Captain Delano stood
- 1:33:24Speaker 4: watching him. Suddenly, the old man threw the knot toward
- 1:33:28Speaker 4: him and said, in broken English, the first herd in
- 1:33:31Speaker 4: the ship, something to this effect. Undo it cut it quick,
- 1:33:42Speaker 4: it was said, lowly, but with such condensation of rapidity
- 1:33:47Speaker 4: that the long, slow words in Spanish which had preceded
- 1:33:51Speaker 4: and followed almost operated as covers to the brief English between.
- 1:33:57Speaker 4: For a moment, not in hand and not in head,
- 1:34:01Speaker 4: Captain Delano stood mute, while without further heeding him, the
- 1:34:06Speaker 4: old man was now intent upon other ropes. Presently, there
- 1:34:11Speaker 4: was a slight stir behind Captain Delano. Turning, he saw
- 1:34:16Speaker 4: the chained negro at to fall, standing quietly there. The
- 1:34:21Speaker 4: next moment the old sailor rose, muttering, and, followed by
- 1:34:25Speaker 4: his subordinate negroes, removed to the forward part of the ship,
- 1:34:29Speaker 4: where in the crowd he disappeared. An elderly negro in
- 1:34:35Speaker 4: a clout like an infant's and with a pepper and
- 1:34:38Speaker 4: salt head and a kind of atturney air, now approached
- 1:34:41Speaker 4: Captain Delano, intolerable Spanish, and with a good natured, knowing wink,
- 1:34:48Speaker 4: he informed him that the old notter was simple witted
- 1:34:52Speaker 4: but harmless, often playing his old tricks. The negro concluded
- 1:34:58Speaker 4: by begging the knot for a of course, the stranger
- 1:35:00Speaker 4: would not care to be troubled with it. Unconsciously, it
- 1:35:05Speaker 4: was handed to him with a sort of kannga. The
- 1:35:09Speaker 4: negro received it, and, turning his back, ferreted into it
- 1:35:14Speaker 4: like a detective custom house officer. After smuggled laces. Soon
- 1:35:20Speaker 4: with some African word equivalent to psh, he tossed the
- 1:35:24Speaker 4: knot overboard. End of chapter six, The boat arrives. All
- 1:35:34Speaker 4: this is very queer, now, thought Captain Delano, with a
- 1:35:37Speaker 4: qualmish sort of emotion, But as one feeling incipient seasickness,
- 1:35:43Speaker 4: he strove by ignoring the symptoms to get rid of
- 1:35:46Speaker 4: the malady. Once more, he looked off for his boat.
- 1:35:51Speaker 4: To his delight, it was now again in view, leaving
- 1:35:55Speaker 4: the rocky spur astern the sensation nation here experienced. After
- 1:36:01Speaker 4: at first relieving his uneasiness with unforeseen efficiency, soon began
- 1:36:07Speaker 4: to remove it the less distant sight of that well
- 1:36:11Speaker 4: known boat, showing it not as before half blended with
- 1:36:15Speaker 4: the haze, but with outline defined so that its individuality
- 1:36:19Speaker 4: like a man's, was manifest. That boat rover by name,
- 1:36:24Speaker 4: which though now in strange seas, had often pressed the
- 1:36:28Speaker 4: beach of Captain Delano's home and brought to its threshold
- 1:36:33Speaker 4: for repairs. Had familiarly lain there as a Newfoundland dog.
- 1:36:38Speaker 4: The sight of that household boat evoked a thousand trustful associations, which,
- 1:36:44Speaker 4: contrasted with previous suspicions, filled him not only with lightsome confidence,
- 1:36:50Speaker 4: but somehow with half humorous self reproaches at his former
- 1:36:55Speaker 4: lack of it. What I a Masa Delano, Jack of
- 1:37:00Speaker 4: the beach, as they called me? When a lad I
- 1:37:03Speaker 4: a masa the same that duck satchel in hand used
- 1:37:07Speaker 4: to paddle along the water side to the schoolhouse made
- 1:37:10Speaker 4: from the old hulk, I little jack of the beach
- 1:37:13Speaker 4: that used to go bearing with cousin Nat and the rest.
- 1:37:17Speaker 4: I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth,
- 1:37:20Speaker 4: on board a haunted pirate ship by a horrible spaniard
- 1:37:24Speaker 4: too nonsensical to think of. Who would murder a Masa Delano.
- 1:37:29Speaker 4: His conscience is clean. There is someone above fi fi
- 1:37:34Speaker 4: Jack of the beach. You are a child, indeed a
- 1:37:37Speaker 4: child of the second childhood. Old boy, you are beginning
- 1:37:41Speaker 4: to dote and drool. I'm afraid light of heart and foot.
- 1:37:47Speaker 4: He stepped aft and there was met by Don Benito's servant, who,
- 1:37:52Speaker 4: with a pleasing expression responsive to his own present feelings,
- 1:37:57Speaker 4: informed him that his master had recovered from the effects
- 1:38:00Speaker 4: of his coughing fit and had just ordered him to
- 1:38:02Speaker 4: go present his compliments to his good guest Don Amasa
- 1:38:07Speaker 4: and say that he Don Benito would soon have the
- 1:38:10Speaker 4: happiness to rejoin him.
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: There.
- 1:38:14Speaker 4: Now do you mark that again? Thought Captain Delano, walking
- 1:38:18Speaker 4: the poop, What a donkey, I was, this kind gentleman
- 1:38:22Speaker 4: who here sends me his kind compliments. He but ten
- 1:38:25Speaker 4: minutes ago, dark lantern in hand, was dodging round some
- 1:38:30Speaker 4: old grindstone in the hold, sharpening a hatchet for me.
- 1:38:33Speaker 4: I thought, well, well, these long calms have a morbid
- 1:38:38Speaker 4: effect on the mind, I've often heard, though I never
- 1:38:41Speaker 4: believed it before. Humph. Glancing toward the boat, there's Rover,
- 1:38:48Speaker 4: a good dog, a white bone in her mouth, a
- 1:38:51Speaker 4: pretty big bone, though, seems to me. What, Yes, she
- 1:38:55Speaker 4: has fallen a foul of the bubbling tide rip there
- 1:38:58Speaker 4: it sets her the other way too, for the time patience.
- 1:39:05Speaker 4: It was now about noon, though from the grayness of
- 1:39:07Speaker 4: everything it seemed to be getting toward dusk. The calm
- 1:39:12Speaker 4: was confirmed. In the far distance, away from the influence
- 1:39:16Speaker 4: of land, the leaden ocean seemed laid out and let
- 1:39:20Speaker 4: it up, its course finished, soul gone defunct, but the
- 1:39:26Speaker 4: current from landward where the ship was increased, silently sweeping
- 1:39:32Speaker 4: her further and further toward the tranced waters beyond. Still
- 1:39:38Speaker 4: from his knowledge of those latitudes, cherishing hopes of a
- 1:39:41Speaker 4: breeze and a fair and fresh one at any moment,
- 1:39:45Speaker 4: Captain Delano, despite present prospects, buoyantly counted upon bringing the
- 1:39:50Speaker 4: San Dominique safely to anchor Ere night. The distance swept
- 1:39:55Speaker 4: over was nothing, since with a good wind, ten minutes
- 1:39:58Speaker 4: sailing would reach trace more than sixty minutes drifting meantime,
- 1:40:04Speaker 4: one moment turning to Mark Rover fighting the tide rip,
- 1:40:07Speaker 4: and the next to see Don Benito approaching. He continued
- 1:40:11Speaker 4: walking the poop. Gradually he felt a vexation arising from
- 1:40:17Speaker 4: the delay of his boat. This soon merged into uneasiness,
- 1:40:22Speaker 4: and at last his eye falling continually as from a
- 1:40:25Speaker 4: stage box into the pit, upon the strange crowd before
- 1:40:29Speaker 4: and below him, and by and by recognizing there the
- 1:40:32Speaker 4: face now composed to indifference of the Spanish sailor, who
- 1:40:37Speaker 4: had seemed to beckon from the main chains, something of
- 1:40:40Speaker 4: his old trepidations returned. Ah thought he gravely enough, this
- 1:40:47Speaker 4: is like the ag Hu. Because it went off, it
- 1:40:50Speaker 4: follows not that it won't come back. Though ashamed of
- 1:40:54Speaker 4: the relapse, he could not altogether subdue it, and so,
- 1:40:58Speaker 4: exerting his good nature to the utmost insensibly, he came
- 1:41:02Speaker 4: to a compromise. Yes, this is a strange craft, a
- 1:41:08Speaker 4: strange history too, and strange folks on board, but nothing more.
- 1:41:15Speaker 4: By way of keeping his mind out of mischief till
- 1:41:18Speaker 4: the boat should arrive, he tried to occupy it with
- 1:41:21Speaker 4: turning over and over in a purely speculative sort of way,
- 1:41:26Speaker 4: some lesser peculiarities of the captain and crew, among others.
- 1:41:31Speaker 4: Four curious points recurred. First the affair of the Spanish
- 1:41:37Speaker 4: lad assailed with a knife by the slave boy and
- 1:41:40Speaker 4: act winked at by Don Benito. Second, the tyranny in
- 1:41:44Speaker 4: Don Benito's treatment of Atufal the Black, as if a
- 1:41:49Speaker 4: child should lead a bull of the nile by the
- 1:41:52Speaker 4: ring in his nose. Third, the trampling of the sailor
- 1:41:56Speaker 4: by the two negroes. A piece of insolence passed without
- 1:42:00Speaker 4: so much as a Reprimand fourth, the cringing submission to
- 1:42:05Speaker 4: their master of all the ship's underlings, mostly Blacks, as
- 1:42:09Speaker 4: if by the least inadvertence, they fear to draw down
- 1:42:12Speaker 4: his despotic displeasure. Coupling these points, they seem somewhat contradictory.
- 1:42:20Speaker 4: But what then, thought Captain Delano, glancing toward his now
- 1:42:24Speaker 4: nearing boat, What then, why this done? Benito is a
- 1:42:29Speaker 4: very capricious commander, but he is not the first of
- 1:42:32Speaker 4: the sword I have seen, though it's true he rather
- 1:42:35Speaker 4: exceeds any other. But as a nation, continued he in
- 1:42:39Speaker 4: his reveries. These Spaniards are all an odd set. The
- 1:42:44Speaker 4: very word spaniard has a curious conspirator guy fawkish twang
- 1:42:49Speaker 4: to it. And yet I dare say Spaniards in the
- 1:42:52Speaker 4: main are as good folks as any in Dukesbury, Massachusetts.
- 1:42:58Speaker 4: Ah good. At last roverus come as with its welcome freight.
- 1:43:07Speaker 4: The boat touched the side. The Oakum pickers, with venerable gestures,
- 1:43:11Speaker 4: sought to restrain the Blacks, who, at the sight of
- 1:43:14Speaker 4: three gurried water casks in its bottom and a pile
- 1:43:18Speaker 4: of wilted pumpkins in its bow, hung over the bulwarks
- 1:43:22Speaker 4: in disorderly raptures. Don Benito, with his servant, now appeared
- 1:43:27Speaker 4: his coming, perhaps hastened by hearing the noise of him,
- 1:43:33Speaker 4: Captain Delano sought permission to serve out the water, so
- 1:43:36Speaker 4: that all might share alike, and none injure themselves by
- 1:43:40Speaker 4: unfair excess, but sensible and on Don Benito's account, kind
- 1:43:46Speaker 4: as this offer was, it was received with what seemed impatience,
- 1:43:51Speaker 4: as if aware that he lacked energy as a commander.
- 1:43:53Speaker 4: Don Benito, with the true jealousy of weakness, resented as
- 1:43:58Speaker 4: an affront any interference, so at least Captain Delano inferred.
- 1:44:03Speaker 4: In another moment, the casks were being hoisted in when
- 1:44:07Speaker 4: some of the eager Negroes accidentally jostled Captain Delano where
- 1:44:11Speaker 4: he stood by the gangway, so that, unmindful of Don Benito,
- 1:44:15Speaker 4: yielding to the impulse of the moment, with good natured authority,
- 1:44:19Speaker 4: he bade the Blacks stand back to enforce his words,
- 1:44:23Speaker 4: making use of a half mirthful, half menacing gesture. Instantly,
- 1:44:29Speaker 4: the Blacks paused just where they were, each Negro and
- 1:44:32Speaker 4: Negress suspended in his or her posture exactly as the
- 1:44:36Speaker 4: word had found them. For a few seconds, continuing so
- 1:44:40Speaker 4: while as between the responsive posts of a telegraph, an
- 1:44:44Speaker 4: unknown syllable ran from man to man among the perched
- 1:44:47Speaker 4: oakum pickers. While Captain Delano's attention was fixed by this scene,
- 1:44:52Speaker 4: Suddenly the hatchet polishers half rose, and a rapid cry
- 1:44:56Speaker 4: came from Don Benito. Thinking that at the signal of
- 1:45:01Speaker 4: the Spaniard he was about to be massacred, Captain Delano
- 1:45:05Speaker 4: would have sprung for his boat, but paused, as the
- 1:45:07Speaker 4: oakum pickers, dropping down into the crowd with earnest exclamations,
- 1:45:12Speaker 4: forced every white and every Negro back at the same moment,
- 1:45:16Speaker 4: with gestures friendly and familiar, almost jocose, bidding him in
- 1:45:20Speaker 4: substance not be a fool. Simultaneously, the hatchet polishers resumed
- 1:45:26Speaker 4: their seats quietly as so many tailors, and at once,
- 1:45:30Speaker 4: as if nothing had happened, the work of hoisting in
- 1:45:32Speaker 4: the casks was resumed, whites and blacks singing at the tackle.
- 1:45:39Speaker 4: Captain Delano glanced toward Don Benito as he saw his
- 1:45:43Speaker 4: meager form in the act of recovering itself from reclining
- 1:45:47Speaker 4: in the servant's arms, into which the agitated invalid had fallen.
- 1:45:51Speaker 4: He could not but marvel at the panic by which
- 1:45:54Speaker 4: himself had been surprised, on the darting supposition that such
- 1:45:58Speaker 4: a commander, who, upon a legitimate an occasion so trivial too,
- 1:46:02Speaker 4: as it now appeared, could lose all self command, was,
- 1:46:06Speaker 4: with energetic iniquity, going to bring about his murder. The
- 1:46:11Speaker 4: casks being on deck, Captain Delano was handed a number
- 1:46:15Speaker 4: of jars and cups by one of the steward's aides, who,
- 1:46:18Speaker 4: in the name of Don Benito, entreated him to do
- 1:46:21Speaker 4: as he had proposed, dole out the water. He complied
- 1:46:26Speaker 4: with republican impartiality as to this Republican element, which always
- 1:46:31Speaker 4: seeks one level, serving the oldest white no better than
- 1:46:35Speaker 4: the youngest black, excepting, indeed, poor Don Benito, whose condition,
- 1:46:40Speaker 4: if not rank, demanded an extra allowance to him in
- 1:46:45Speaker 4: the first place. Captain Delano presented a fair pitcher of
- 1:46:49Speaker 4: the fluid, but thirsting as he was for fresh water,
- 1:46:53Speaker 4: Don Benito quaffed not a drop until after several grave
- 1:46:57Speaker 4: bows and salutes, a reciprocate of courtesies which the sight
- 1:47:02Speaker 4: loving Africans hailed with clapping of hands, two of the
- 1:47:07Speaker 4: less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin table. The
- 1:47:11Speaker 4: residue were minced up on the spot for the general regalement.
- 1:47:15Speaker 4: But the soft bread, sugar, and bottled cider Captain Delano
- 1:47:20Speaker 4: would have given the Spaniards alone and in chief Don Benito,
- 1:47:23Speaker 4: but the latter objected, which disinterestedness on his part not
- 1:47:28Speaker 4: a little pleased the American, and so mouthfuls all around
- 1:47:32Speaker 4: were given alike to whites and blacks, excepting one bottle
- 1:47:36Speaker 4: of cider, which Babo insisted upon setting aside for his master.
- 1:47:42Speaker 4: Here it may be observed that, as on the first
- 1:47:45Speaker 4: visit of the boat, the American had not permitted his
- 1:47:48Speaker 4: men to board the ship. Neither did he now, being
- 1:47:52Speaker 4: unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks, not
- 1:47:57Speaker 4: uninfluenced by the peculiar good humor at pre prevailing, and
- 1:48:01Speaker 4: for the time oblivious of any but benevolent thoughts, Captain Delano,
- 1:48:06Speaker 4: who from recent indications counted upon a breeze within an
- 1:48:10Speaker 4: hour or two at furthest dispatched the boat back to
- 1:48:14Speaker 4: the Seiler, with orders for all the hands that could
- 1:48:17Speaker 4: be spared immediately to set about rafting casks to the
- 1:48:21Speaker 4: watering place and filling them. Likewise, he bade word be
- 1:48:26Speaker 4: carried to his chief officer that if, against present expectation,
- 1:48:30Speaker 4: the ship was not brought to anchor by sunset, he
- 1:48:33Speaker 4: need be under no concern, for as there was to
- 1:48:37Speaker 4: be a full moon that night, he Captain Delano would
- 1:48:40Speaker 4: remain on board, ready to play the pilot should the
- 1:48:43Speaker 4: wind come soon or late. As the two captains stood
- 1:48:48Speaker 4: together observing the departing boat, the servant, as it happened,
- 1:48:51Speaker 4: having just spied a spot on his master's velvet sleeve
- 1:48:55Speaker 4: and silently engaged rubbing it out, the American expressed his
- 1:48:59Speaker 4: regrets that the San Dominic had no boats, none at least,
- 1:49:03Speaker 4: but the unseaworthy old hulk of the longboat, which warped
- 1:49:07Speaker 4: as a camel skeleton in the desert and almost as bleached,
- 1:49:11Speaker 4: lay pot wise inverted amidships one side, a little tipped
- 1:49:15Speaker 4: furnishing a subterraneous sort of den for family. Groups of
- 1:49:19Speaker 4: the Blacks, mostly women and small children, who squatting on
- 1:49:23Speaker 4: old mats below or perched above in the dark dome
- 1:49:27Speaker 4: on the elevated seats, were descried some distance within, like
- 1:49:32Speaker 4: a social circle of bats sheltering in some friendly cave
- 1:49:36Speaker 4: at intervals, even flights of naked boys and girls three
- 1:49:39Speaker 4: or four years old, darting in and out of the
- 1:49:42Speaker 4: den's mouth. Had you three or four boats now, Don Benito,
- 1:49:47Speaker 4: said Captain Delano. I think that by tugging at the
- 1:49:51Speaker 4: oars your negroes here might help along matters. Some did
- 1:49:55Speaker 4: you sail from port without boats, Don Benito? They were
- 1:49:59Speaker 4: stove the gaels, Senor, that was bad. Many men too,
- 1:50:04Speaker 4: you lost? Then boats and men? Those must have been
- 1:50:08Speaker 4: hard gales, Don Benito, past all speech, cringed the Spaniard.
- 1:50:14Speaker 4: Tell me, Don Benito, continued his companion, with increased interest.
- 1:50:19Speaker 4: Tell me were these gales immediately off the pitch of
- 1:50:22Speaker 4: cape horn? Cape horn? Who spoke of cape horn? Yourself
- 1:50:28Speaker 4: did when giving me an account of your voyage, answered
- 1:50:31Speaker 4: Captain Delano, with almost equal astonishment at this eating of
- 1:50:35Speaker 4: his own words, even as he ever seemed eating his
- 1:50:38Speaker 4: own heart on the part of the Spaniard, You yourself,
- 1:50:42Speaker 4: Don Benito, spoke of cape horn, he emphatically repeated. The
- 1:50:47Speaker 4: Spaniard turned in a sort of stooping posture, pausing an
- 1:50:51Speaker 4: instant as one about to make a plunging exchange of elements,
- 1:50:55Speaker 4: as from air to water.
- 1:50:59Speaker 3: End of chapter chapter eight. In the Cuddy, at this moment,
- 1:51:07Speaker 3: a messenger boy a white, hurried by, in the regular
- 1:51:11Speaker 3: performance of his function, carrying the last expired half hour
- 1:51:15Speaker 3: forward to the forecastle from the cabin time piece, to
- 1:51:20Speaker 3: have it struck at the ship's large bell. Master, said
- 1:51:24Speaker 3: the servant, discontinuing his work on the coat sleeve and
- 1:51:28Speaker 3: addressing the rapt Spaniard with a sort of timid apprehensiveness,
- 1:51:33Speaker 3: as one charged with a duty, the discharge of which,
- 1:51:37Speaker 3: it was foreseen, would prove irksome to the very person
- 1:51:41Speaker 3: who had imposed it, and for whose benefit it was intended.
- 1:51:46Speaker 3: Master told me, never mind where he was, or how engaged,
- 1:51:50Speaker 3: always to remind him to a minute. When shaving time comes.
- 1:51:55Speaker 3: Miguel has gone to strike the half hour afternoon. It
- 1:51:59Speaker 3: is now Master. Will Master go into the cuddy. Ah, yes,
- 1:52:04Speaker 3: answered the Spaniard, starting somewhat as from dreams into realities.
- 1:52:10Speaker 3: Then turning upon Captain Delano, he said that ere long
- 1:52:15Speaker 3: he would resume the conversation. Then, if Master means to
- 1:52:18Speaker 3: talk more to don Amasa, said the servant, why not
- 1:52:21Speaker 3: let Don Amasa sit by Master in the cuddy, and
- 1:52:24Speaker 3: Master can talk, and Don Amasa can listen while Babo
- 1:52:28Speaker 3: here lathers and stops. Yes, said Captain Delano, not unleased
- 1:52:33Speaker 3: with this sociable plan. Yes, don Benito, unless you had
- 1:52:38Speaker 3: rather not, I will go with you. Be it so signor.
- 1:52:44Speaker 3: As the three passed aft, the American could not but
- 1:52:47Speaker 3: think it another strange instance of his host's capriciousness, this
- 1:52:52Speaker 3: being shaved with such uncommon punctuality in the middle of
- 1:52:56Speaker 3: the day. But he deemed it more than likely that
- 1:53:00Speaker 3: the servant's anxious fidelity had something to do with the matter,
- 1:53:04Speaker 3: inasmuch as the timely interruption served to rally his master
- 1:53:09Speaker 3: from the mood which had evidently been coming upon him.
- 1:53:13Speaker 3: The place called the cutty was a light deck cabin
- 1:53:17Speaker 3: formed by the poop, a sort of attic to the
- 1:53:20Speaker 3: large cabin below. Part of it had formerly been the
- 1:53:24Speaker 3: quarters of the officers, but since their death all the
- 1:53:27Speaker 3: partitionings had been thrown down, and the whole interior converted
- 1:53:32Speaker 3: into one spacious and airy marine hall or absence of
- 1:53:37Speaker 3: fine furniture and picturesque disarray of odd appurtenances, somewhat answering
- 1:53:43Speaker 3: to the wide cluttered hall of some eccentric bachelor's squire
- 1:53:48Speaker 3: in the country who hangs his shooting jacket and tobacco
- 1:53:52Speaker 3: pouch on deer antlers, and keeps his fishing rod, tongs
- 1:53:56Speaker 3: and walking stick in the same corner. The similitude was heightened,
- 1:54:02Speaker 3: if not originally suggested, by glimpses of the surrounding sea,
- 1:54:07Speaker 3: since in one aspect the country and the ocean seem
- 1:54:11Speaker 3: cousins German. The floor of the cutty was matted. Overhead,
- 1:54:17Speaker 3: four or five old muskets were stuck into horizontal holes
- 1:54:21Speaker 3: along the beams. On one side was a claw footed
- 1:54:25Speaker 3: old table lashed to the deck, a thumbed missile on it,
- 1:54:30Speaker 3: and over it a small meager crucifix attached to the bulkhead.
- 1:54:36Speaker 3: Under the table lay dented cutlass or two with a
- 1:54:39Speaker 3: hacked harpoon, among some melancholy old rigging like a heap
- 1:54:44Speaker 3: of poor friar's girdles. There were also two long, sharp
- 1:54:50Speaker 3: ribbed settees of malacca cane, black with age and uncomfortable
- 1:54:55Speaker 3: to look at as inquisitor's racks, with a large misshapen armchair,
- 1:55:01Speaker 3: which furnished with a rude barber's crutch at the back,
- 1:55:05Speaker 3: working with a screw, seemed some grotesque middle age engine
- 1:55:10Speaker 3: of torments. A flag locker was in one corner, exposing
- 1:55:16Speaker 3: various colored bunting, some rolled up, others half unrolled, still
- 1:55:21Speaker 3: others tumbled. Opposite was a cumbrous washstand, a black mahogany
- 1:55:29Speaker 3: all of one block with a pedestal like a font,
- 1:55:32Speaker 3: and over it a railed shelf containing combs, brushes, and
- 1:55:38Speaker 3: other implements of the toilet. A tom hammock of stained
- 1:55:43Speaker 3: grass swung near the sheets tossed, and the pillow wrinkled
- 1:55:48Speaker 3: up like a brow, as if whoever slept here slept
- 1:55:52Speaker 3: but illy, with alternate visitations of sad thoughts and bad dreams.
- 1:56:00Speaker 3: Further extremity of the cuddy overhanging the ship's stern was
- 1:56:04Speaker 3: pierced with three openings windows or portholes, according as men
- 1:56:10Speaker 3: or cannon might peer socially or unsocially out of them.
- 1:56:16Speaker 3: At present, neither men nor cannon were seen, though huge
- 1:56:20Speaker 3: ring bolts and other rusty iron fixtures of the woodwork
- 1:56:25Speaker 3: hinted of twenty four pounders glancing toward the hammock. As
- 1:56:30Speaker 3: he entered, Captain Delano said you sleep here, dom Benito, Yes, signor,
- 1:56:37Speaker 3: since we got into mild weather, this seems a sort
- 1:56:41Speaker 3: of dormitory, sitting room, sail loft, chapel, armory, and private
- 1:56:46Speaker 3: closet together, Dominito added Captain Delano looking around, Yes, signor,
- 1:56:53Speaker 3: events have not been favorable too much order in my arrangements.
- 1:57:00Speaker 3: The servant, napkin on arm, made a motion as if
- 1:57:03Speaker 3: waiting his master's good pleasure. Dominito signified his readiness when
- 1:57:08Speaker 3: seating him in the Malacca armchair, and for the guest's convenience,
- 1:57:13Speaker 3: drawing opposite it one of the settees. The servant commenced
- 1:57:17Speaker 3: operations by throwing back his master's collar and loosening his cravat.
- 1:57:24Speaker 3: There is something in the negro which, in a peculiar
- 1:57:28Speaker 3: way fits him for avocations about one's person. Most negroes
- 1:57:34Speaker 3: are natural valets and hairdressers, taking to the comb and
- 1:57:38Speaker 3: brush congenially as to the castanets, and flourishing them apparently
- 1:57:44Speaker 3: with almost equal satisfaction. There is to a smooth tact
- 1:57:50Speaker 3: about them in this employment, with a marvelous, noiseless gliding briskness,
- 1:57:59Speaker 3: not ungraceful in it way. Singularly pleasing to behold, and
- 1:58:03Speaker 3: still more so to be the manipulated subject of And
- 1:58:08Speaker 3: above all is the great gift of good humor. Not
- 1:58:12Speaker 3: the mere grin or laugh is here meant. Those were unsuitable,
- 1:58:18Speaker 3: but a certain easy cheerfulness, harmonious in every glance and gesture,
- 1:58:26Speaker 3: as though God had set the whole Negro to some
- 1:58:29Speaker 3: pleasant tune. When to all this has added the docility
- 1:58:34Speaker 3: arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind, and
- 1:58:39Speaker 3: that susceptibility of blind attachment, sometimes inhering in indisputable inferiors,
- 1:58:47Speaker 3: one readily perceives why those hypochondriacs Johnson and Byron. It
- 1:58:53Speaker 3: may be something like the hypochondriac Benito Sereno took to
- 1:58:58Speaker 3: their hearts almost to the exclusion of the entire white race,
- 1:59:03Speaker 3: their serving men, the negroes Barber and Fletcher. But if
- 1:59:08Speaker 3: there be that in the Negro which exempts him from
- 1:59:11Speaker 3: the inflicted sourness of the morbid or cynical mind, how
- 1:59:17Speaker 3: in his most prepossessing aspects must appear to a benevolent
- 1:59:23Speaker 3: one when at ease with respect to exterior things. Captain
- 1:59:28Speaker 3: Delano's nature was not only benign, but familiarly and humorously
- 1:59:34Speaker 3: so at home he had often taken rare satisfaction in
- 1:59:38Speaker 3: sitting in his door watching some free man of color
- 1:59:42Speaker 3: at his work or play. If on a voyage he
- 1:59:45Speaker 3: chanced to have a black sailor, invariably he was on
- 1:59:50Speaker 3: chatty and half gain some terms with him. In fact,
- 1:59:54Speaker 3: like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano
- 1:59:58Speaker 3: took to negroes not philanthropically but genially, just as other
- 2:00:04Speaker 3: men to Newfoundland dogs. Hitherto the circumstances in which he
- 2:00:10Speaker 3: found the Sandomenik had repressed the tendency, but in the cutting,
- 2:00:16Speaker 3: relieved from his former uneasiness, and for various reasons, more
- 2:00:21Speaker 3: sociably inclined than at any previous period of the day.
- 2:00:25Speaker 3: And seeing the colored servant napkin on arm so debonair
- 2:00:30Speaker 3: about his master in a business so familiar as that
- 2:00:35Speaker 3: of shaving, to all his old weakness for negroes returned.
- 2:00:42Speaker 3: Among the things he was amused with an odd instance
- 2:00:46Speaker 3: of the African love of bright colors and fine shows
- 2:00:51Speaker 3: in the blacks, in formally taking from the flag locker
- 2:00:54Speaker 3: a great piece of bunting of all hues, and lavishly
- 2:00:58Speaker 3: tucking it under his master's chin, brun Apron. The mode
- 2:01:03Speaker 3: of shaving among the Spaniards is a little different from
- 2:01:06Speaker 3: what it is with other nations. They have a basin
- 2:01:10Speaker 3: specially called a barber's basin, which on one side is
- 2:01:14Speaker 3: scooped out so as accurately to receive the chin, against
- 2:01:19Speaker 3: which it is closely held in lathering, which is done
- 2:01:23Speaker 3: not with a brush, but with soap dipped in the
- 2:01:25Speaker 3: water of the basin and rubbed on the face. In
- 2:01:29Speaker 3: the present instance, salt water was used for lack of
- 2:01:32Speaker 3: better and the parts lathered were only the upper lip
- 2:01:37Speaker 3: and low down under the throat, all the rest being
- 2:01:41Speaker 3: cultivated beard. These preliminaries being somewhat novel to Captain delano
- 2:01:47Speaker 3: Is sat curiously eyeing them, so that no conversation took place,
- 2:01:51Speaker 3: nor for the present did Don Benito appear disposed to
- 2:01:55Speaker 3: renew any Setting down his basin, the Negro searched among
- 2:01:59Speaker 3: the rays as for the sharpest, and, having found it,
- 2:02:04Speaker 3: gave it an additional edge by expertly dropping it on
- 2:02:08Speaker 3: the firm, smooth, oily skin of his open palm. He
- 2:02:13Speaker 3: then made a gesture as if to begin, but midway
- 2:02:16Speaker 3: stood suspended for an instant. One hand elevating the razor,
- 2:02:22Speaker 3: the other professionally dabbling among the bubbly SuDS on the
- 2:02:25Speaker 3: Spaniard's lank neck. Not unaffected by the close side of
- 2:02:30Speaker 3: the gleaming steel dom Benito nervously shuddered. His usual ghastliness
- 2:02:38Speaker 3: was heightened by the lather, which lather again was intensified
- 2:02:43Speaker 3: in its hue by the sootiness of the negro's body. Altogether,
- 2:02:49Speaker 3: the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to Captain Delano,
- 2:02:55Speaker 3: Nor as he saw the two thus postured, could he
- 2:02:58Speaker 3: resist the vagary that in the black he saw a headsman,
- 2:03:03Speaker 3: and in the white a man at the block. But
- 2:03:08Speaker 3: this was one of those antique conceits, appearing and vanishing
- 2:03:13Speaker 3: in a breath from which perhaps the best regulated mind
- 2:03:17Speaker 3: is not free. Meantime, the agitation of the spaniard had
- 2:03:21Speaker 3: a little loosened the bunting from around him, so that
- 2:03:25Speaker 3: one broad fold swept curtainlike over the chair arm to
- 2:03:28Speaker 3: the floor, revealing amid a profusion of armorial bars and
- 2:03:33Speaker 3: ground colors black blue and yellow, a closed castle and
- 2:03:39Speaker 3: a blood red field diagonal with a lion rampant in
- 2:03:43Speaker 3: a white The castle and the lion exclaimed Captain Delano.
- 2:03:49Speaker 3: Why don't, Benito, this is the flag of Spain you
- 2:03:52Speaker 3: use here. It's well, it's only I and not the
- 2:03:55Speaker 3: king that sees this, he added, with a smile, but
- 2:04:00Speaker 3: turning toward the black it's all one, I suppose, so
- 2:04:05Speaker 3: the colors be gay, which playful remark did not fail
- 2:04:09Speaker 3: somewhat to tickle the Negro. Now, Master, he said, readjusting
- 2:04:14Speaker 3: the flag and pressing the head gently further back into
- 2:04:17Speaker 3: the crotch of the chair. Now, Master, and the steel
- 2:04:22Speaker 3: glanced neither throats again. Dominito faintly shuddered. You must not shake,
- 2:04:29Speaker 3: so Master, see Donomasa, Master always shakes when I shave him,
- 2:04:34Speaker 3: and yet Master knows I never yet have drawn blood.
- 2:04:38Speaker 3: Though it's true. If Master will shake, so I may
- 2:04:41Speaker 3: some of these times, now Master, he continued, And now Donomasa,
- 2:04:47Speaker 3: please go on with your talk about the gale and
- 2:04:50Speaker 3: all that Master can hear, and between times Master can answer. Ah, yes,
- 2:04:57Speaker 3: these gales, said Captain de Laano. But the more I
- 2:05:01Speaker 3: think of your voyage, Don Benito, the more I wonder
- 2:05:04Speaker 3: not at the gales, terrible as they must have been,
- 2:05:07Speaker 3: but at the disastrous interval following them. For here by
- 2:05:11Speaker 3: your account have you been these two months and more
- 2:05:14Speaker 3: getting from Cape Horn to Saint Maria, a distance which
- 2:05:18Speaker 3: I myself and a good wind have sailed in a
- 2:05:20Speaker 3: few days. True, you had calms and long ones, but
- 2:05:25Speaker 3: to be be calmed for two months, that is at
- 2:05:29Speaker 3: least unusual. Why Don Benito had almost any other gentleman
- 2:05:34Speaker 3: told me such a story, I should have been half
- 2:05:37Speaker 3: disposed to a little incredulity. Here an involuntary expression came
- 2:05:43Speaker 3: over the spaniard, similar to that just before on the deck.
- 2:05:46Speaker 3: And whether it was the start he gave, or a
- 2:05:49Speaker 3: sudden gawky roll of the hull in the calm, or
- 2:05:51Speaker 3: a momentary unsteadiness of the servant's hand, however it was
- 2:05:56Speaker 3: just then the razor drew blood, spots of which stained
- 2:06:00Speaker 3: creamy lather under the throat. Immediately, the black barber drew
- 2:06:04Speaker 3: back his steel, and, remaining in his professional attitude, back
- 2:06:08Speaker 3: to Captain Delano and face to Don Benito, held up
- 2:06:13Speaker 3: the trickling razor, saying, with a sort of half humorous sorrow,
- 2:06:18Speaker 3: the seamaster you shook. So here's Babo's first blood. No
- 2:06:24Speaker 3: sword drawn before James the first of England, No assassination
- 2:06:29Speaker 3: in that timid king's presence could have produced a more
- 2:06:33Speaker 3: terrified aspect than was now presented by Don Benito. Poor fellow,
- 2:06:40Speaker 3: thought Captain Delano, so nervous he can't even bear the
- 2:06:43Speaker 3: sight of barber's blood, and this unstrung sick man. Is
- 2:06:49Speaker 3: it credible that I should have imagined he meant to
- 2:06:52Speaker 3: spill all my blood? Who can't endure the sight of
- 2:06:55Speaker 3: one little drop of his own? Surely, Amasa Delano, you
- 2:06:59Speaker 3: have been beside yourself this day? Tell it not when
- 2:07:04Speaker 3: you get home sappy a Maasa? Well, well he looks
- 2:07:08Speaker 3: like a murderer, does he? More like as if himself
- 2:07:13Speaker 3: were to be done for?
- 2:07:15Speaker 1: Well?
- 2:07:15Speaker 3: Well, this day's experience shall be a good lesson. Meantime,
- 2:07:21Speaker 3: While these things were running through the honest seaman's mind,
- 2:07:25Speaker 3: the servant had taken the napkin from his arm, and
- 2:07:28Speaker 3: to Don Benito had said, but answered, on Amasa, please, master,
- 2:07:33Speaker 3: while I wiped his ugly stuff off the razor and
- 2:07:36Speaker 3: strop it again. As he said these words, his face
- 2:07:40Speaker 3: was turned half round so as to be alike visible
- 2:07:44Speaker 3: to the Spaniard and the American, and seemed, by its
- 2:07:47Speaker 3: expression to hint that he was desirous by getting his
- 2:07:51Speaker 3: master to go on with the conversation considerately, to withdraw
- 2:07:55Speaker 3: his attention from the recent annoying accidents. As if glad
- 2:08:00Speaker 3: to snatch the offered relief dom, Benito resumed rehearsing to
- 2:08:05Speaker 3: Captain Delano that not only were the calms of unusual duration,
- 2:08:10Speaker 3: but the ship had fallen in with obstinate currents and
- 2:08:13Speaker 3: other things he added, some of which were but repetitions
- 2:08:17Speaker 3: of former statements, to explain how it came to pass
- 2:08:21Speaker 3: that the passage from Cape Warren to Saint Maria had
- 2:08:24Speaker 3: been so exceedingly long. Now, and then, mingling with his
- 2:08:28Speaker 3: words incidental praises less qualified than before to the Blacks
- 2:08:34Speaker 3: for their general good conduct, These particulars were not given consecutively.
- 2:08:40Speaker 3: The servant now and then using his razor, and so
- 2:08:44Speaker 3: between the intervals of shaving, the story and panegyric went
- 2:08:49Speaker 3: on with more than usual huskiness. To Captain Delano's imagination,
- 2:08:56Speaker 3: now again not wholly at rest, there was something so
- 2:09:00Speaker 3: hollow in the spaniard's manner, with apparently some reciprocal hollowness
- 2:09:07Speaker 3: in the servant's dusky comment of silence, that the idea
- 2:09:11Speaker 3: flash across him that possibly master and man, or some
- 2:09:16Speaker 3: unknown purpose were acting out both in word and deed, nay,
- 2:09:22Speaker 3: to the very tremor of dom Benito's limbs, some juggling
- 2:09:27Speaker 3: play before him. Neither did the suspicion of collusion lack
- 2:09:32Speaker 3: apparent support from the fact of those whispered conferences before mentioned.
- 2:09:39Speaker 3: But then, what could be the object of enacting this
- 2:09:43Speaker 3: play of the barber before him? At last, regarding the
- 2:09:48Speaker 3: notion as a whimsy insensibly suggested, perhaps by the theatrical
- 2:09:55Speaker 3: aspect of dom Benito in his harlequin ensign, kept Sindolano
- 2:10:00Speaker 3: speedily banished it. The shaving over, the servant bestirred himself
- 2:10:06Speaker 3: with a small bottle of scented waters, pouring a few
- 2:10:10Speaker 3: drops on the head, and then diligently rubbing the vehemits
- 2:10:14Speaker 3: of the exercise, causing the muscles of his face to
- 2:10:18Speaker 3: twitch rather strangely. His next operation was with comb, scissors
- 2:10:24Speaker 3: and brush, going round and round, smoothing a curl here,
- 2:10:29Speaker 3: clipping an unruly whisker hair, there, giving a graceful sweep
- 2:10:33Speaker 3: to the temple lock. With other impromptu touches evincing the
- 2:10:38Speaker 3: hand of a master while like any resigned gentleman in
- 2:10:44Speaker 3: barber's hands, Dominito bore all much less uneasily, at least
- 2:10:51Speaker 3: than he had done the razoring. Indeed, he sat so
- 2:10:55Speaker 3: pale and rigid now that the Negro seemed a nubian's sculptor,
- 2:11:01Speaker 3: finishing off a white statue head. All being over at last,
- 2:11:06Speaker 3: the standard of Spain removed, tumbled up, and tossed back
- 2:11:10Speaker 3: into the flag locker, the Negro's warm breath blowing away
- 2:11:15Speaker 3: any stray hair which might have lodged down his master's
- 2:11:18Speaker 3: neck collar, and gravat readjusted a speck of lint whist
- 2:11:24Speaker 3: off the velvet lapel, All this being done, backing off
- 2:11:29Speaker 3: a little space, and pausing with an expression of subdued
- 2:11:33Speaker 3: self complacency, the servant for a moment surveyed his master
- 2:11:38Speaker 3: as in toilet, at least the creature of his own
- 2:11:42Speaker 3: tasteful hands. Captain Delano playfully complimented him upon his achievement,
- 2:11:49Speaker 3: at the same time congratulating Don Benito. But neither sweet waters,
- 2:11:55Speaker 3: nor shampooing, nor fidelity nor sociality delighted the Spaniard, seeing
- 2:12:03Speaker 3: him relapsing into forbidding gloom, and still remaining seated. Captain Delano,
- 2:12:09Speaker 3: thinking that his presence was undesired, just then withdrew on
- 2:12:14Speaker 3: pretense of seeing whether, as he had prophesied, any signs
- 2:12:18Speaker 3: of a breeze were visible. Walking forward toward the mainmast,
- 2:12:23Speaker 3: he stood a while, thinking over the scene, and not
- 2:12:26Speaker 3: without some undefined misgivings, when he heard a noise near
- 2:12:31Speaker 3: the cutting, and turning saw the Negro his hand to
- 2:12:34Speaker 3: his cheek. Advancing, Captain Delano perceived that the cheek was pleading.
- 2:12:40Speaker 3: He was about to ask the cause when the negroes
- 2:12:43Speaker 3: wailing soliloquy enlightened him. Ah, when will Master get better
- 2:12:49Speaker 3: from his sickness? Only the sour heart that sour sickness
- 2:12:53Speaker 3: breeds made him deserve Babo's soul. Cutting Babo with the
- 2:12:57Speaker 3: razor because only by accident Babo had given Master one
- 2:13:01Speaker 3: little scratch, and for the first time in so many
- 2:13:05Speaker 3: a day too ah ah ah, holding his hand to
- 2:13:11Speaker 3: his face. Is it possible, thought, Captain Delano, was it
- 2:13:17Speaker 3: to wreck in private this Spanish spite against this poor
- 2:13:22Speaker 3: friend of his, that Don Benito, by his sullen manner,
- 2:13:27Speaker 3: impelled me to withdraw? Ah, This slavery breathes ugly passions
- 2:13:34Speaker 3: in man, poor fellow, he is about to speak in
- 2:13:39Speaker 3: sympathy to the Negro, though with a timid reluctance. He
- 2:13:43Speaker 3: now re entered the cutting. Presently, Master and man came forth,
- 2:13:49Speaker 3: Don Benito, leaning on his servant, as if nothing had
- 2:13:52Speaker 3: happened but a sort of love quarrel, after all, thought
- 2:13:57Speaker 3: Captain Delano. He accosted Dominito, and they slowly walked together.
- 2:14:04Speaker 3: They had gone but a few paces when the steward,
- 2:14:06Speaker 3: a tall rajah looking mulatto Orientaly, set off with a
- 2:14:11Speaker 3: pagoda turban formed by three or four madras, handkerchiefs wound
- 2:14:16Speaker 3: about his head, tier on tier, approaching with a Salaam
- 2:14:22Speaker 3: announced lunch in the cabin. On their way, the two
- 2:14:26Speaker 3: captains were preceded by the mulatto, who, turning round as
- 2:14:31Speaker 3: he advanced, with continual smiles and bows, ushered them in
- 2:14:35Speaker 3: a display of elegance, which quite completed the insignificance of
- 2:14:39Speaker 3: the small, bareheaded babo, who, as if not unconscious of inferiority,
- 2:14:45Speaker 3: eyed askance the graceful steward. But in part Captain Delano
- 2:14:51Speaker 3: imputed his jealous watchfulness to that peculiar feeling which the
- 2:14:56Speaker 3: full blooded African entertains for the the adulterated one. As
- 2:15:03Speaker 3: for the steward, his manner, if not bespeaking much dignity
- 2:15:07Speaker 3: of self respect, yet evidenced his extreme desire to please,
- 2:15:14Speaker 3: which is doubly meritorious. As at once Christian and Chesterfieldian,
- 2:15:24Speaker 3: Captain Delano observed with interest that while the complexion of
- 2:15:27Speaker 3: the mulatto was hybrid, his physiognomy was European classically. So
- 2:15:35Speaker 3: Don Benito, whispered he, I'm glad to see this usher
- 2:15:38Speaker 3: of the golden rod of yours. The site refutes an
- 2:15:42Speaker 3: ugly remark once made to me by a Barbados planter
- 2:15:46Speaker 3: that when a mulatto has a regular European face, look
- 2:15:51Speaker 3: out for him he is a devil. But see your
- 2:15:54Speaker 3: steward here has features more regular than King George's of England.
- 2:15:59Speaker 3: And yet here he nods and bows and smiles a king, indeed,
- 2:16:05Speaker 3: the king of kind hearts and polite fellows. What a
- 2:16:09Speaker 3: pleasant voice he has too, he has signor but tell
- 2:16:16Speaker 3: me has he not? So far as you have known him,
- 2:16:18Speaker 3: always proved a good worthy fellow, said Captain Delano, pausing,
- 2:16:24Speaker 3: while with a final genuflection, the Steward disappeared into the cabin.
- 2:16:29Speaker 3: Come for the reason just mentioned, I am curious to
- 2:16:32Speaker 3: know Franaisco is a good man, rather sluggishly responded dom Benito,
- 2:16:40Speaker 3: like a fledgmatic appreciator who would neither find faults nor flatter. Ah.
- 2:16:47Speaker 3: I thought so, for it were strange, indeed, and not
- 2:16:51Speaker 3: very creditable to us white skins. If a little of
- 2:16:55Speaker 3: our blood mixed with the Africans should, far from improving
- 2:16:58Speaker 3: the latter's quality, have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic
- 2:17:03Speaker 3: acid into black broth, improving the hue perhaps, but not
- 2:17:09Speaker 3: the wholesomeness doubtless, doubtless sgnor But glancing at Babo not
- 2:17:16Speaker 3: to speak of negroes your planter's remark, I have heard
- 2:17:19Speaker 3: applied to the Spanish and Indian intermixtures in our provinces,
- 2:17:25Speaker 3: but I know nothing about the matter, he listlessly added,
- 2:17:30Speaker 3: And here they entered the cabin end of chapter eight.
- 2:17:37Speaker 5: Business. The lunch was a frugal one, some of Captain
- 2:17:41Speaker 5: Delano's fresh fish and pumpkins, biscuit and salt beef, the
- 2:17:46Speaker 5: reserved bottle of cider, and the San Dominique's last bottle
- 2:17:50Speaker 5: of canary As they entered, Francesco, with two or three
- 2:17:55Speaker 5: colored aids, was hovering over the table giving the last adjustments.
- 2:18:00Speaker 5: Upon perceiving their master, they withdrew Francesco making a smiling conch,
- 2:18:05Speaker 5: and the Spaniard, without condescending to notice it, fastidiously remarking
- 2:18:09Speaker 5: to his companion that he relished not superfluous attendants. Without companions,
- 2:18:15Speaker 5: host and guests sat down like a childless married couple
- 2:18:19Speaker 5: at opposite ends of the table. Don Benito waving Captain
- 2:18:23Speaker 5: Delano to his place, and weak as he was insisting
- 2:18:27Speaker 5: upon that gentleman being seated before himself. The Negro placed
- 2:18:32Speaker 5: a rug under Don Benito's feet and a cushion behind
- 2:18:35Speaker 5: his back, and then stood behind not his master's chair,
- 2:18:39Speaker 5: but Captain Delano's. At first this a little surprised the latter,
- 2:18:44Speaker 5: but it was soon evident that in taking his position,
- 2:18:47Speaker 5: the black was still true to his master, since by
- 2:18:50Speaker 5: facing him he could the more readily anticipate his slightest want.
- 2:18:55Speaker 5: This is an uncommonly intelligent fellow of yours, Don Benito,
- 2:18:59Speaker 5: whispered Captain Delano across the table. You say, true signour.
- 2:19:04Speaker 5: During the repast, the guest again reverted to parts of
- 2:19:07Speaker 5: Don Benito's story, begging further particulars. Here and there he
- 2:19:12Speaker 5: inquired how it was that the scurvy and fever should
- 2:19:15Speaker 5: have committed such wholesale havoc upon the white while destroying
- 2:19:19Speaker 5: less than half of the blacks, as if this question
- 2:19:23Speaker 5: reproduced the whole scene of plague before the Spaniard's eyes, miserably,
- 2:19:27Speaker 5: reminding him of his solitude in a cabin where before
- 2:19:31Speaker 5: he had had so many friends and officers round him.
- 2:19:34Speaker 5: His hand shook, his face became hueless, broken words escaped,
- 2:19:38Speaker 5: but directly the sane memory of the past seemed replaced
- 2:19:42Speaker 5: by insane terrors of the present. With starting eyes, he
- 2:19:46Speaker 5: stared before him at vacancy, for nothing was to be
- 2:19:49Speaker 5: seen but the hand of his servant, pushing the canary
- 2:19:52Speaker 5: over towards him. At length, a few SIPs served partially
- 2:19:57Speaker 5: to restore him. He made random refaceference to the different
- 2:20:01Speaker 5: constitutions of races, enabling one to offer more resistance to
- 2:20:05Speaker 5: certain maladies than another. The thought was new to his companion. Presently,
- 2:20:12Speaker 5: Captain Delano, intending to say something to his host concerning
- 2:20:16Speaker 5: the pecuniary part of the business he had undertaken for him,
- 2:20:19Speaker 5: especially since he was strictly accountable to his owners with
- 2:20:23Speaker 5: reference to the new suit of sales and other things
- 2:20:26Speaker 5: of that sort, and naturally preferring to conduct such affairs
- 2:20:30Speaker 5: in private, was desirous that the servant should withdraw, imagining
- 2:20:35Speaker 5: that Don Benito for a few minutes could dispense with
- 2:20:38Speaker 5: his attendants. He however, waited awhile, thinking that as the
- 2:20:43Speaker 5: conversation proceeded, Don Benito, without being prompted, would perceive the
- 2:20:48Speaker 5: propriety of the step. But it was otherwise. At last,
- 2:20:53Speaker 5: catching his host's eye, Captain Delano, with a slight backward
- 2:20:56Speaker 5: gesture of his thumb, whispered, Don Benito, pardon me, but
- 2:21:01Speaker 5: there is an interference with the full expression of what
- 2:21:03Speaker 5: I have to say to you. Upon this, the Spaniard
- 2:21:07Speaker 5: changed countenance, which was imputed to his, resenting the hint
- 2:21:11Speaker 5: as in some way a reflection upon his servant. After
- 2:21:15Speaker 5: a moment's pause, he assured his guest that the blacks
- 2:21:18Speaker 5: remaining with them would be of no disservice beaus since
- 2:21:22Speaker 5: losing his officers, he had made Babo, whose original office,
- 2:21:25Speaker 5: it now appeared, had been captain of the slaves, not
- 2:21:29Speaker 5: only his constant attendant and companion, but in all things
- 2:21:33Speaker 5: his confidant. After this nothing more could be said, though
- 2:21:38Speaker 5: indeed Captain Delano could hardly avoid some little tinge of
- 2:21:42Speaker 5: irritation upon being left ungratified in so inconsiderable a wish
- 2:21:48Speaker 5: by one two for whom he intended such solid services.
- 2:21:53Speaker 5: But it is only his quarrelousness, thought he, and so
- 2:21:56Speaker 5: filling his glass, he proceeded to business. The price of
- 2:22:00Speaker 5: the sales and other matters was fixed upon. But while
- 2:22:03Speaker 5: this was being done, the American observed that though his
- 2:22:07Speaker 5: original offer of assistance had been hailed with hectic animation,
- 2:22:11Speaker 5: yet now when it was reduced to a business transaction,
- 2:22:15Speaker 5: indifference and apathy were betrayed. Don Benito in fact appeared
- 2:22:20Speaker 5: to submit to hearing the details more out of regard
- 2:22:23Speaker 5: to common propriety than from any impression that weighty benefit
- 2:22:27Speaker 5: to himself and his voyage was involved. Soon his manner
- 2:22:31Speaker 5: became still more reserved. The effort was vain to seek
- 2:22:35Speaker 5: to draw him into social talk. Gnawed by his splenetic mood,
- 2:22:39Speaker 5: he sat twitching his beard, while to little purpose, the
- 2:22:42Speaker 5: hand of his servant, mute as that on the wall,
- 2:22:46Speaker 5: slowly pushed over the canary. Lunch being over, they sat
- 2:22:50Speaker 5: down on the cushioned transom, the servant placing a pillow
- 2:22:54Speaker 5: behind his master. The long continuance of the calm had
- 2:22:57Speaker 5: now effected the atmosphere. Don Benito sighed heavily, as if
- 2:23:02Speaker 5: for breath. Why not adjourn to the cuddy, said Captain
- 2:23:05Speaker 5: Delano There is more air there. But the host sat
- 2:23:09Speaker 5: silent and motionless. Meantime, his servant knelt before him with
- 2:23:14Speaker 5: a large fan of feathers, and Francesco, coming in on tiptoes,
- 2:23:19Speaker 5: handed the Negro a little cup of aromatic waters, with which,
- 2:23:22Speaker 5: at intervals he chafed his master's brow, smoothing the hair
- 2:23:26Speaker 5: along the temples, as a nurse does a child's. He
- 2:23:30Speaker 5: spoke no word. He only rested his eye on his master's,
- 2:23:34Speaker 5: as if amid all Don Benito's distress, a little to
- 2:23:38Speaker 5: refresh his spirit by the silent sight of fidelity. End
- 2:23:43Speaker 5: of Chapter nine.
- 2:23:50Speaker 4: Safe Harbor. Presently, the ship's bell sounded two o'clock, and
- 2:23:58Speaker 4: through the cabin windows a slight rippling of the sea
- 2:24:01Speaker 4: was discerned, and from the desired direction there, exclaimed Captain Delano,
- 2:24:08Speaker 4: I told you so, Don Benito, look he had risen
- 2:24:12Speaker 4: to his feet, speaking in a very animated tone, with
- 2:24:16Speaker 4: a view the more to rouse his companion. But though
- 2:24:20Speaker 4: the crimson curtain of the stern window near him that
- 2:24:23Speaker 4: moment fluttered against his pale cheek, Don Benito seemed to
- 2:24:27Speaker 4: have even less welcome for the breeze than the calm
- 2:24:32Speaker 4: poor fellow, thought Captain Delano. Bitter experience has taught him
- 2:24:37Speaker 4: that one ripple does not make a wind any more
- 2:24:40Speaker 4: than one swallow a summer. But he is mistaken, for
- 2:24:44Speaker 4: once I will get his ship in for him and
- 2:24:47Speaker 4: prove it. Briefly, alluding to his weak condition, he urged
- 2:24:52Speaker 4: his host to remain quietly where he was, since he,
- 2:24:57Speaker 4: Captain Delano, would with pleasure to upon himself the responsibility
- 2:25:02Speaker 4: of making the best use of the wind. Upon gaining
- 2:25:07Speaker 4: the deck, Captain Delano started at the unexpected figure of Atufal,
- 2:25:12Speaker 4: monumentally fixed at the threshold, like one of those sculptured
- 2:25:16Speaker 4: porters of black marble guarding the porches of Egyptian tombs.
- 2:25:22Speaker 4: But this time the start was perhaps purely physical. Atufal's presence,
- 2:25:27Speaker 4: singularly attesting docility even in sullenness, was contrasted with that
- 2:25:33Speaker 4: of the hatchet polishers, who, in patience evinced their industry.
- 2:25:38Speaker 4: While both spectacles showed that lax As don Benito's general
- 2:25:42Speaker 4: authority might be still whenever he chose to exert it.
- 2:25:47Speaker 4: No man so savage or colossal, but must more or
- 2:25:51Speaker 4: less bow. Snatching a trumpet which hung from the bulwarks.
- 2:25:57Speaker 4: With a free step, Captain Delano advanced to the forward
- 2:26:01Speaker 4: edge of the poop, issuing his orders in his best Spanish.
- 2:26:05Speaker 4: The few sailors and many negroes, all equally pleased, obediently
- 2:26:10Speaker 4: set about heading the ship toward the harbor, while giving
- 2:26:14Speaker 4: some directions about setting a lower stunsil. Suddenly Captain Delano
- 2:26:19Speaker 4: heard a voice faithfully repeating his orders. Turning, he saw Babo,
- 2:26:25Speaker 4: now for the time, acting under the pilot, his original
- 2:26:28Speaker 4: part of captain of the slaves. This assistance proved valuable.
- 2:26:34Speaker 4: Tattered sails and warped yards were soon brought into some trim,
- 2:26:38Speaker 4: and no brace or halliard was pulled. But to the
- 2:26:41Speaker 4: blithe songs of the inspirited negroes good fellows, thought Captain Delano,
- 2:26:49Speaker 4: A little training would make fine sailors of them. Why
- 2:26:53Speaker 4: see the very women pull and sing too These must
- 2:26:57Speaker 4: be some of those ashanti negresses that make such capital
- 2:27:01Speaker 4: soldiers I've heard. But who's at the helm? I must
- 2:27:05Speaker 4: have a good hand There he went to sea. The
- 2:27:10Speaker 4: San Dominic steered with a cumbrous tiller with large horizontal
- 2:27:15Speaker 4: pulleys attached. At each pulley end stood a subordinate black,
- 2:27:20Speaker 4: and between them at the tiller head the responsible post
- 2:27:24Speaker 4: a Spanish seaman, whose countenance evinced his due share in
- 2:27:28Speaker 4: the general hopefulness and confidence. At the coming of the breeze,
- 2:27:33Speaker 4: he proved the same man who had behaved with so
- 2:27:37Speaker 4: shamefaced an air on the windlass. Ah it is you,
- 2:27:41Speaker 4: my man, exclaimed Captain Delano. Well no more sheep's eyes.
- 2:27:46Speaker 4: Now look straightforward and keep the ship so good hand
- 2:27:50Speaker 4: I trust and want to get into the harbor, don't you,
- 2:27:55Speaker 4: si signor, assented the man with an inward chuckle, grasping
- 2:27:59Speaker 4: the tiller head firm Upon this, unperceived by the American,
- 2:28:04Speaker 4: the two blacks eyed the sailor askance. Finding all right
- 2:28:09Speaker 4: at the helm, the pilot went forward to the forecastle
- 2:28:12Speaker 4: to see how matters stood there. The ship now had
- 2:28:16Speaker 4: way enough to breast the current with the approach of evening,
- 2:28:20Speaker 4: the breeze would be sure to freshen. Having done all
- 2:28:25Speaker 4: that was needed for the present, Captain Delano, giving his
- 2:28:28Speaker 4: last orders to the sailors, turned aft to report affairs
- 2:28:32Speaker 4: to Don Benito in the cabin, perhaps additionally incited to
- 2:28:36Speaker 4: rejoin him by the hope of snatching a moment's private
- 2:28:39Speaker 4: chat while his servant was engaged upon deck. From opposite sides,
- 2:28:45Speaker 4: there were beneath the poop two approaches to the cabin,
- 2:28:50Speaker 4: one further forward than the other, and consequently communicating with
- 2:28:54Speaker 4: a longer passage marking the servants still above kept taking
- 2:29:01Speaker 4: the nightest entrance. The one last named, and at whose
- 2:29:05Speaker 4: porch Atufal still stood, hurried on his way till arrived
- 2:29:09Speaker 4: at the cabin threshold. He paused an instant a little
- 2:29:13Speaker 4: to recover from his eagerness. Then, with the words of
- 2:29:17Speaker 4: his intended business upon his lips, he entered. As he
- 2:29:20Speaker 4: advanced toward the Spaniard on the transom, he heard another
- 2:29:24Speaker 4: footstep keeping time with his from the opposite door, a
- 2:29:28Speaker 4: salver in hand. The servant was likewise advancing confound the
- 2:29:34Speaker 4: faithful fellow, thought Captain Delano, what a vexatious coincidence. Possibly,
- 2:29:42Speaker 4: the vexation might have been something different were it not
- 2:29:45Speaker 4: for the buoyant confidence inspired by the breeze. But even
- 2:29:49Speaker 4: as it was, he felt a slight twinge from a
- 2:29:53Speaker 4: sudden involuntary association in his mind of Babo with atufal
- 2:30:00Speaker 4: Bano said he, I give you joy. The breeze will
- 2:30:03Speaker 4: hold and will increase by the way your tall man
- 2:30:07Speaker 4: and time piece at to fall stands without by your order.
- 2:30:12Speaker 4: Of course, Don Benito recoiled, as if at some bland
- 2:30:17Speaker 4: satirical touch, delivered with such a droit garnish of apparent
- 2:30:22Speaker 4: good breeding as to present no handle for retort. He
- 2:30:27Speaker 4: is like one flayed alive, thought Captain Delano. Where may
- 2:30:31Speaker 4: one touch him without causing a shrink? The servant moved
- 2:30:36Speaker 4: before his master, adjusting a cushion. Recalled to civility, the
- 2:30:41Speaker 4: Spaniard stiffly replied, you are right. The slave appears where
- 2:30:46Speaker 4: you saw him according to my command, which is that
- 2:30:49Speaker 4: if at the given hour I am below, he must
- 2:30:52Speaker 4: take his stand and abide my coming. Ah. Now, pardon me,
- 2:30:57Speaker 4: but that is treating the poor fellow like an execs king,
- 2:31:00Speaker 4: denied ah. Don Benito, smiling for all the license you
- 2:31:05Speaker 4: permit in some things. I fear lest at bottom, you
- 2:31:09Speaker 4: are a bitter hard master. Again, Don Benito shrank, and,
- 2:31:15Speaker 4: this time as the good sailor thought from a genuine
- 2:31:18Speaker 4: twinge of his conscience, conversation now became constrained in vain.
- 2:31:26Speaker 4: Captain Delano called attention to the now perceptible motion of
- 2:31:29Speaker 4: the keel, gently cleaving the sea. With lackluster eye, Don
- 2:31:35Speaker 4: Benito returned words few and reserved by and bye. The
- 2:31:40Speaker 4: wind having steadily risen and still blowing right into the
- 2:31:44Speaker 4: harbor bore the San Dominic. Swiftly, on rounding a point
- 2:31:49Speaker 4: of land, the sealer, at distance, came into open view. Meantime,
- 2:31:55Speaker 4: Captain Delano had again repaired to the deck, remaining there
- 2:31:59Speaker 4: some time, Having at last altered the ship's course so
- 2:32:04Speaker 4: as to give the reef a wide berth. He returned
- 2:32:07Speaker 4: for a few moments below. I will cheer up my
- 2:32:11Speaker 4: poor friend this time, thought he better and better, Don Benito,
- 2:32:16Speaker 4: he cried, as he blithely re entered. There will soon
- 2:32:19Speaker 4: be an end to your cares, at least for a while.
- 2:32:22Speaker 4: For when after a long sad voyage, you know, the
- 2:32:25Speaker 4: anchor drops into the heaven all its vast weight seems
- 2:32:28Speaker 4: lifted from the captain's heart. We are getting on famously,
- 2:32:32Speaker 4: Don Benito, my ship is in sight. Look through the
- 2:32:36Speaker 4: side light. Here there she is all a taunt. Oh,
- 2:32:40Speaker 4: the bachelor's delight, My good friend. Ah, how this wind
- 2:32:43Speaker 4: braces one up. Come, you must take a cup of
- 2:32:46Speaker 4: coffee with me this evening. My old steward will give
- 2:32:49Speaker 4: you as fine a cup as ever any sultan tasted.
- 2:32:53Speaker 4: What say you, Don Benito? Will you? At first, the
- 2:32:58Speaker 4: spaniard glanced feverishly up, casting a longing look toward the seiler,
- 2:33:03Speaker 4: while with mute concern his servant gazed into his face. Suddenly,
- 2:33:08Speaker 4: the old a u of coldness returned, and dropping back
- 2:33:12Speaker 4: to his cushions, he was silent. You do not answer.
- 2:33:18Speaker 4: Come all day you have been my host. Would you
- 2:33:20Speaker 4: have hospitality all on one side? I cannot go, was
- 2:33:25Speaker 4: the response. What it will not fatigue you. The ships
- 2:33:30Speaker 4: will lie together as near as they can without swinging fowl.
- 2:33:33Speaker 4: It will be little more than stepping from deck to deck,
- 2:33:36Speaker 4: which is but as from room to room. Come, Come,
- 2:33:40Speaker 4: you must not refuse me. I cannot go. Decisively and
- 2:33:45Speaker 4: repulsively repeated Don Benito, renouncing all but the last appearance
- 2:33:52Speaker 4: of courtesy with a sort of cadaverous sullenness, and biting
- 2:33:56Speaker 4: his thin nails to the quick. He glanced, almost glared
- 2:34:00Speaker 4: at his guest, as if impatient that a stranger's presence
- 2:34:04Speaker 4: should interfere with the full indulgence of his morbid hour. Meantime,
- 2:34:09Speaker 4: the sound of the parted waters came more and more,
- 2:34:12Speaker 4: gurglingly and merrily in at the windows, as reproaching him
- 2:34:16Speaker 4: for his dark spleen as telling him that sulk as
- 2:34:20Speaker 4: he might and go mad with it. Nature cared not
- 2:34:23Speaker 4: a jot, since whose fault was it, pray, But the
- 2:34:28Speaker 4: foul mood was now at its depth, as the fair
- 2:34:31Speaker 4: wind at its height. There was something in the man,
- 2:34:36Speaker 4: so far beyond any mere unsociality or sourness previously evinced
- 2:34:41Speaker 4: that even the forbearing good nature of his guest could
- 2:34:45Speaker 4: no longer endure it wholly at a loss to account
- 2:34:49Speaker 4: for such demeanor and deeming sickness with eccentricity, however extreme
- 2:34:55Speaker 4: no adequate excuse. Well satisfied too, that nothing in his
- 2:34:59Speaker 4: own condom duct could justify it. Captain Delano's pride began
- 2:35:03Speaker 4: to be roused himself became reserved, but all seemed one
- 2:35:08Speaker 4: to the Spaniard, quitting him. Therefore, Captain Delano once more
- 2:35:13Speaker 4: went to the deck. The ship was now within less
- 2:35:16Speaker 4: than two miles of the seiler. The whale boat was
- 2:35:20Speaker 4: seen darting over the interval to be brief. The two vessels,
- 2:35:24Speaker 4: thanks to the pilot's skill, ere long in neighborly style,
- 2:35:28Speaker 4: lay anchored together before returning to his own vessel. Captain
- 2:35:34Speaker 4: Delano had intended communicating to Don Benito the practical details
- 2:35:40Speaker 4: of the proposed services to be rendered, but as it
- 2:35:44Speaker 4: was unwilling anew to subject himself to rebuffs, he resolved,
- 2:35:49Speaker 4: now that he had seen the send Dominic safely moored,
- 2:35:52Speaker 4: immediately to quit her without further allusion to hospitality or business.
- 2:35:58Speaker 4: Indefinitely postponed his ulterior plans. He would regulate his future
- 2:36:03Speaker 4: actions according to future circumstances. His boat was ready to
- 2:36:08Speaker 4: receive him, but his host still tarried below. Well, thought
- 2:36:13Speaker 4: Captain Delano, if he has little breeding, the more need
- 2:36:16Speaker 4: to show mine. He descended to the cabin to bid
- 2:36:20Speaker 4: a ceremonious, and it may be tacitly rebukeful adieu, but
- 2:36:26Speaker 4: to his great satisfaction Don Benito, as if he began
- 2:36:30Speaker 4: to feel the weight of that treatment with which his
- 2:36:33Speaker 4: slighted guest had not indecorously retaliated upon him. Now supported
- 2:36:38Speaker 4: by his servant, rose to his feet and grasping Captain
- 2:36:42Speaker 4: Delano's hand stood tremulous, too much agitated to speak. But
- 2:36:48Speaker 4: the good augury hents drawn was suddenly dashed by his
- 2:36:52Speaker 4: resuming all his previous reserve with augmented gloom, as with
- 2:36:57Speaker 4: half averted eyes, he silently re seated himself on his cushions,
- 2:37:02Speaker 4: with a corresponding return of his own chilled feelings. Captain
- 2:37:06Speaker 4: Delano bowed and withdrew. He was hardly midway in the
- 2:37:12Speaker 4: narrow corridor dim as a tunnel leading from the cabin
- 2:37:15Speaker 4: to the stairs, when as sound as of the tolling
- 2:37:19Speaker 4: for execution in some jail yard fell on his ears.
- 2:37:24Speaker 4: It was the echo of the ship's flawed bell striking
- 2:37:27Speaker 4: the hour drearily reverberated in this subterranean vault, instantly by
- 2:37:34Speaker 4: a fatality not to be withstood. His mind, responsive to
- 2:37:38Speaker 4: the portent, swarmed with superstitious suspicions, he paused in images
- 2:37:44Speaker 4: far swifter than these sentences. The minutest detail of all
- 2:37:49Speaker 4: his former distrusts swept through him, hitherto credulous good nature
- 2:37:56Speaker 4: had been too ready to furnish excuses for reasonable fear.
- 2:38:01Speaker 4: Why was the Spaniard so superfluously punctilious at times now
- 2:38:06Speaker 4: heedless of common propriety? In not accompanying to the side
- 2:38:10Speaker 4: his departing guest, did indisposition forbid? Indisposition had not forbidden
- 2:38:17Speaker 4: more irksome exertion that day his last equivocal demeanor recurred.
- 2:38:24Speaker 4: He had risen to his feet, grasped his guest's hand,
- 2:38:28Speaker 4: motioned toward his hat. Then in an instant, all was
- 2:38:32Speaker 4: eclipsed in sinister muteness and gloom. Did this imply one
- 2:38:37Speaker 4: brief repentant relenting at the final moment from some iniquitous plot,
- 2:38:43Speaker 4: followed by remorseless return to it. His last glance seemed
- 2:38:48Speaker 4: to express a calamitous, yet acquiescent farewell to Captain Delano forever?
- 2:38:54Speaker 4: Why declined the invitation to visit the Sealer that evening?
- 2:38:58Speaker 4: Or was the Spaniard less hardened than the jew who
- 2:39:01Speaker 4: refrained not from supping at the board of him whom
- 2:39:04Speaker 4: the same night he meant to betray what imported all
- 2:39:08Speaker 4: those day long enigmas and contradictions, except they were intended
- 2:39:12Speaker 4: to mystify, preliminary to some stealthy blow atu fall the
- 2:39:18Speaker 4: pretended rebel but punctual shadow. That moment lurked by the
- 2:39:22Speaker 4: threshold without he seemed a sentry and more who, by
- 2:39:29Speaker 4: his own confession, had stationed him. There was the Negro
- 2:39:33Speaker 4: now lying in wait, the Spaniard behind his creature. Before
- 2:39:40Speaker 4: to rush from darkness to light was the involuntary choice.
- 2:39:46Speaker 4: The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed
- 2:39:50Speaker 4: Atufall and stood unarmed in the light, as he saw
- 2:39:54Speaker 4: his trim ship lying peacefully at her anchor and almost
- 2:39:57Speaker 4: within ordinary call. As he saw his household boat with
- 2:40:01Speaker 4: familiar faces in it, patiently rising and falling on the
- 2:40:05Speaker 4: short waves by the Sandominic's side, and then glancing about
- 2:40:09Speaker 4: the decks where he stood, saw the oakum pickers still
- 2:40:12Speaker 4: gravely plying their fingers, and heard the low buzzing whistle
- 2:40:17Speaker 4: and industrious hum of the hatchet polishers, still bestirring themselves
- 2:40:22Speaker 4: over their endless occupation. And more than all, as he
- 2:40:26Speaker 4: saw the benign aspect of nature taking her innocent repose
- 2:40:30Speaker 4: in the evening, the screened sun in the quiet camp
- 2:40:35Speaker 4: of the west, shining out like the mild light from
- 2:40:38Speaker 4: Abraham's tent. As his charmed eye and ear took in
- 2:40:43Speaker 4: all these with the chained figure of the black the
- 2:40:46Speaker 4: clenched jaw and hand relaxed once again. He smiled at
- 2:40:51Speaker 4: the phantoms which had mocked him, and felt something like
- 2:40:54Speaker 4: a tinge of remorse that by indulging them, even for
- 2:40:58Speaker 4: a moment, he should, by implication, have betrayed an almost
- 2:41:02Speaker 4: atheistic doubt of the ever watchful providence above end of
- 2:41:10Speaker 4: chapter ten. Into the boat. There was a few minutes delay, while,
- 2:41:17Speaker 4: in obedience to his orders, the boat was being hooked
- 2:41:20Speaker 4: along to the gangway. During this interval, a sort of
- 2:41:25Speaker 4: saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano at thinking of the
- 2:41:29Speaker 4: kindly offices he had that day discharged for a stranger,
- 2:41:35Speaker 4: Ah thought he after good actions. One's conscience is never ungrateful,
- 2:41:40Speaker 4: however much so the benefited party may be. Presently his
- 2:41:46Speaker 4: foot in the first act of descent into the boat,
- 2:41:49Speaker 4: pressed the first round of the side ladder, his face
- 2:41:52Speaker 4: presented inward upon the deck. In the same moment he
- 2:41:57Speaker 4: heard his name courteously sounded, and to his pleased surprise,
- 2:42:02Speaker 4: saw Don Benito advancing an unwonted energy in his air,
- 2:42:08Speaker 4: as if at the last moment, intent upon making amends
- 2:42:11Speaker 4: for his recent discourtesy. With instinctive good feeling, Captain Delano,
- 2:42:18Speaker 4: revoking his foot, turned and reciprocally advanced. As he did so,
- 2:42:23Speaker 4: the Spaniard's nervous eagerness increased, but his vital energy failed,
- 2:42:28Speaker 4: so that the better to support him, the servant, placing
- 2:42:32Speaker 4: his master's hand on his naked shoulder and gently holding
- 2:42:35Speaker 4: it there, formed himself into a sort of crutch. When
- 2:42:41Speaker 4: the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the
- 2:42:45Speaker 4: hand of the American, at the same time casting an
- 2:42:48Speaker 4: earnest glance into his eyes. But as before, too much
- 2:42:53Speaker 4: overcome to speak, I have done him wrong self, reproachfully,
- 2:42:58Speaker 4: thought Captain Delano. His apparent coldness has deceived me. In
- 2:43:03Speaker 4: no instance has he meant to offend meantime, as if
- 2:43:09Speaker 4: fearful that the continuance of the scene might too much
- 2:43:12Speaker 4: unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it,
- 2:43:17Speaker 4: and so, still presenting himself as a crutch, and walking
- 2:43:21Speaker 4: between the two captains. He advanced with them toward the gangway,
- 2:43:26Speaker 4: while still as if full of kindly contrition, Don Benito
- 2:43:30Speaker 4: would not let go the hand of Captain Delano, but
- 2:43:33Speaker 4: retained it in his across the black's body. Soon they
- 2:43:39Speaker 4: were standing by the side, looking over into the boat,
- 2:43:42Speaker 4: whose crew turned up their curious eyes, waiting a moment
- 2:43:47Speaker 4: for the Spaniard to relinquish his hold. The now embarrassed
- 2:43:50Speaker 4: Captain Delano lifted his foot to overstep the threshold of
- 2:43:54Speaker 4: the open gangway, but still Don Benito would not let
- 2:43:58Speaker 4: go his hand, and yet with an agitated tone, he said,
- 2:44:03Speaker 4: I can go no further here. I must bid you adieu. Adieu,
- 2:44:07Speaker 4: my dear dear Donamasa, go go, suddenly tearing his hand,
- 2:44:13Speaker 4: loose go and God guard you better than me, my
- 2:44:17Speaker 4: best friend. Not unaffected, Captain Delano would now have lingered,
- 2:44:23Speaker 4: but catching the meekly admonitory eye of the servant, with
- 2:44:27Speaker 4: a hasty farewell, he descended into his boat, followed by
- 2:44:31Speaker 4: the continual adieus of Don Benito, standing rooted in the gangway.
- 2:44:37Speaker 4: Seating himself in the stern, Captain Delano, making a last salute,
- 2:44:42Speaker 4: ordered the boat shoved off. The crew had their oars
- 2:44:46Speaker 4: on end. The bowsmen pushed the boat a sufficient distance
- 2:44:50Speaker 4: for the oars to be lengthwise dropped. The instant that
- 2:44:54Speaker 4: was done, Don Benito sprang over the bulwarks, falling at
- 2:44:58Speaker 4: the feet of Captain Delano, at the same time, calling
- 2:45:01Speaker 4: towards his ship, but in tones so frenzied that none
- 2:45:05Speaker 4: in the boat could understand him. But as if not
- 2:45:09Speaker 4: equally obtuse, three Spanish sailors from three different and distant
- 2:45:13Speaker 4: parts of the ship splashed into the sea, swimming after
- 2:45:17Speaker 4: their captain, as if intent upon his rescue. The dismayed
- 2:45:22Speaker 4: officer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant, to
- 2:45:26Speaker 4: which Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile upon the unaccountable
- 2:45:31Speaker 4: Benito Cereno, answered that for his part, he neither knew
- 2:45:35Speaker 4: nor cared, but it seemed as if the Spaniard had
- 2:45:38Speaker 4: taken it into his head to produce the impression among
- 2:45:41Speaker 4: his people that the boat wanted to kidnap him or else.
- 2:45:46Speaker 4: Give way for your lives, he wildly added, starting at
- 2:45:50Speaker 4: a clattering hubub in the ship, above which rang the
- 2:45:54Speaker 4: tocsin of the hatchet polishers and seizing Don Benito by
- 2:45:58Speaker 4: the throat. He added, this plotting pirate means murder. Here,
- 2:46:03Speaker 4: in apparent verification of the words, the servant, a dagger
- 2:46:07Speaker 4: in his hand, was seen on the rail overhead, poised
- 2:46:11Speaker 4: in the act of leaping, as if with desperate fidelity
- 2:46:15Speaker 4: to befriend his master to the last, while seemingly to
- 2:46:19Speaker 4: aid the Black. The three Spanish sailors were trying to
- 2:46:23Speaker 4: clamber into the hampered bow. Meantime, the whole host of Negroes,
- 2:46:29Speaker 4: as if inflamed at the sight of their jeopardized captain,
- 2:46:32Speaker 4: impended in one sooty avalanche over the bulwarks. All this
- 2:46:38Speaker 4: with what preceded and what followed, occurred with such involutions
- 2:46:43Speaker 4: of rapidity, that past, present and future seemed one. Seeing
- 2:46:49Speaker 4: the Negro coming, Captain Delano had flung the Spaniard aside,
- 2:46:53Speaker 4: almost in the very act of clutching him, and by
- 2:46:57Speaker 4: the unconscious recoil shifting his place with arms thrown up,
- 2:47:01Speaker 4: so promptly grappled the servant in his descent, that, with
- 2:47:05Speaker 4: dagger presented at Captain Delano's heart, the Black seemed of
- 2:47:09Speaker 4: purpose to have leaped there as to his mark, but
- 2:47:13Speaker 4: the weapon was wrenched away, and the assailant dashed down
- 2:47:16Speaker 4: into the bottom of the boat, which, now with disentangled oars,
- 2:47:21Speaker 4: began to speed through the sea. At this juncture, the
- 2:47:26Speaker 4: left hand of Captain Delano, on one side, again clutched
- 2:47:29Speaker 4: the half reclined Don Benito, heedless that he was in
- 2:47:33Speaker 4: a speechless feint, while his right foot on the other
- 2:47:36Speaker 4: side ground the prostrate Negro, and his right arm pressed
- 2:47:40Speaker 4: for added speed on the after oar, his eye bent forward,
- 2:47:45Speaker 4: encouraging his men to their utmost. But here the officer
- 2:47:50Speaker 4: of the boat, who had at last succeeded in beating
- 2:47:53Speaker 4: off the towing Spanish sailors, and was now with face
- 2:47:56Speaker 4: turned aft, assisting the bowsman at his oar, suddenly called
- 2:48:01Speaker 4: to Captain Delano to see what the black was about,
- 2:48:04Speaker 4: while a Portuguese oarsman shouted to him to give heed
- 2:48:08Speaker 4: to what the Spaniard was saying. Glancing down at his feet,
- 2:48:13Speaker 4: Captain Delano saw the freed hand of the servant aiming
- 2:48:16Speaker 4: with a second dagger, a small one before concealed in
- 2:48:20Speaker 4: his wool. With this he was snakishly writhing up from
- 2:48:24Speaker 4: the boat's bottom at the heart of his master. His
- 2:48:27Speaker 4: countenance lividly vindictive, expressing the centered purpose of his soul,
- 2:48:33Speaker 4: while the Spaniard, half choked, was vainly shrinking away with
- 2:48:37Speaker 4: husky words incoherent to all but the Portuguese. That moment
- 2:48:43Speaker 4: across the long benighted mind of Captain Delano, a flash
- 2:48:48Speaker 4: of revelation swept, illuminating in unanticipated clearness Benito Sedeno's whole
- 2:48:54Speaker 4: mysterious demeanor with every enigmatic event of the day, as
- 2:48:59Speaker 4: well as the entire past voyage of the San Dominic.
- 2:49:03Speaker 4: He smote Babo's hand down, but his own heart smote
- 2:49:06Speaker 4: him harder. With infinite pity, he withdrew his hold from
- 2:49:11Speaker 4: Don Benito, not Captain Delano, but Don Benito the Black,
- 2:49:16Speaker 4: and leaping into the boat, had intended to stab.
- 2:49:21Speaker 1: Both.
- 2:49:21Speaker 4: The Black's hands were held as glancing up toward the
- 2:49:25Speaker 4: San Dominic. Captain Delano now would these scales drop from
- 2:49:29Speaker 4: his eyes. Saw the Negroes, not in misrule, not in tumult,
- 2:49:33Speaker 4: not as if frantically concerned for Don Benito, but with
- 2:49:37Speaker 4: masks torn away, flourishing hatchets and knives, in ferocious piratical revolt,
- 2:49:44Speaker 4: like delirious black dervishes, the six Ashantis danced on the poop.
- 2:49:50Speaker 4: Prevented by their foes from springing into the water, The
- 2:49:53Speaker 4: Spanish boys were hurrying up to the topmost spars, while
- 2:49:57Speaker 4: such of the few Spanish sailors not all ready and
- 2:50:00Speaker 4: the sea less alert, were descried helplessly mixed in on
- 2:50:05Speaker 4: deck with the blacks. Meantime, Captain Delano hailed his own vessel,
- 2:50:11Speaker 4: ordering the ports up and the guns run out. But
- 2:50:14Speaker 4: by this time the cable of the San Dominic had
- 2:50:17Speaker 4: been cut and the fag end in lashing out, whipped
- 2:50:21Speaker 4: away the canvas shroud about the beak, suddenly revealing as
- 2:50:25Speaker 4: the bleached hull swung round toward the open ocean. Death
- 2:50:29Speaker 4: for the figurehead in a human skeleton chalky comment on
- 2:50:34Speaker 4: the chalked words below, follow your leader. At the sight,
- 2:50:40Speaker 4: Don Benito, covering his face, wailed out, tis he arnda
- 2:50:46Speaker 4: my murdered unburied friend. Upon reaching the seiler, calling for ropes,
- 2:50:53Speaker 4: Captain Delano bound the Negro, who made no resistance, and
- 2:50:57Speaker 4: had him hoisted to the deck. He would then have
- 2:51:00Speaker 4: assisted the now almost helpless Don Benito up the side,
- 2:51:04Speaker 4: but Don Benito won as he was refused to move
- 2:51:08Speaker 4: or be moved until the Negro should have been first
- 2:51:11Speaker 4: put below out of view. When presently assured that it
- 2:51:15Speaker 4: was done, he no more shrank from the ascent. The
- 2:51:20Speaker 4: boat was immediately dispatched back to pick up the three
- 2:51:23Speaker 4: swimming sailors. Meantime, the guns were in readiness, though owing
- 2:51:29Speaker 4: to the San Dominic having glided somewhat astern of the seiler,
- 2:51:32Speaker 4: only the aftermost one could be brought to bear with this,
- 2:51:37Speaker 4: they fired six times, thinking to cripple the fugitive ship
- 2:51:41Speaker 4: by bringing down her spars, but only a few inconsiderable
- 2:51:46Speaker 4: ropes were shot away. Soon the ship was beyond the
- 2:51:49Speaker 4: gun's range, steering broad out of the bay. The blacks,
- 2:51:53Speaker 4: thickly clustering round the bowsprit one moment with taunting cries
- 2:51:58Speaker 4: toward the whites, the next with upthrown gestures hailing the
- 2:52:02Speaker 4: now dusky expanse of ocean. Cawing crows escaped from the
- 2:52:07Speaker 4: hand of the fowler end of Chapter eleven. Pursuit. The
- 2:52:17Speaker 4: first impulse was to slip the cables and give chase,
- 2:52:23Speaker 4: but upon second thought, to pursue with whale boat and
- 2:52:27Speaker 4: yawl seemed more promising. Upon inquiring of Don Benito, what
- 2:52:33Speaker 4: firearms they had on board the San Dominic Captain Delano
- 2:52:37Speaker 4: was answered that they had none that could be used, because,
- 2:52:41Speaker 4: in the earlier stages of the mutiny, a cabin passenger
- 2:52:45Speaker 4: since dead, had secretly put out of order the locks
- 2:52:48Speaker 4: of what few muskets there were. But with all his
- 2:52:53Speaker 4: remaining strength, Don Benito entreated the Americans not to give chase,
- 2:52:58Speaker 4: either with ship or boat, for the Negroes had already
- 2:53:02Speaker 4: proved themselves such desperadoes that in case of a present assault,
- 2:53:07Speaker 4: nothing but a total massacre of the whites could be
- 2:53:10Speaker 4: looked for. But regarding this warning as coming from one
- 2:53:15Speaker 4: whose spirit had been crushed by misery, the American did
- 2:53:19Speaker 4: not give up his design. The boats were got ready
- 2:53:23Speaker 4: and armed. Captain Delano ordered twenty five men into them.
- 2:53:29Speaker 4: He was going himself when Don Benito grasped his arm.
- 2:53:33Speaker 4: What have you saved my life?
- 2:53:35Speaker 1: Signor?
- 2:53:36Speaker 4: And are you now going to throw away your own?
- 2:53:40Speaker 4: The officers, also, for reasons connected with their interests and
- 2:53:44Speaker 4: those of the voyage and a duty owing to the owners,
- 2:53:48Speaker 4: strongly objected against their commander's going. Weighing their remonstrances a moment,
- 2:53:54Speaker 4: Captain Delano felt bound to remain appointing his chief mate,
- 2:53:59Speaker 4: an athletic, resolute men who had been a privateersman, and
- 2:54:03Speaker 4: as his enemies whispered a pirate to head the party.
- 2:54:08Speaker 4: The more to encourage the sailors, they were told that
- 2:54:11Speaker 4: the Spanish captain considered his ship as good as lost,
- 2:54:15Speaker 4: that she and her cargo, including some gold and silver,
- 2:54:19Speaker 4: were worth upwards of ten thousand doubloons. Take her, and
- 2:54:24Speaker 4: no small part should be theirs. The sailors replied with
- 2:54:28Speaker 4: a shout. The fugitives had now almost gained an offing.
- 2:54:34Speaker 4: It was nearly night, but the moon was rising. After hard,
- 2:54:39Speaker 4: prolonged pulling, the boats came up on the ship's quarters
- 2:54:43Speaker 4: at a suitable distance, laying upon their oars to discharge
- 2:54:47Speaker 4: their muskets. Having no bullets to return, the negroes sent
- 2:54:52Speaker 4: their yells, but upon the second volley, indian like, they
- 2:54:56Speaker 4: hurtled their hatchets. One took off a sailor's fingers. Another
- 2:55:01Speaker 4: struck the whaleboat's bow, cutting off the rope there and
- 2:55:05Speaker 4: remaining stuck in the gunwale like a woodman's axe. Snatching
- 2:55:10Speaker 4: it quivering from its lodgment, the mate hurled it back.
- 2:55:14Speaker 4: The returned gauntlet now stuck in the ship's broken quarter gallery,
- 2:55:18Speaker 4: and so remained the Negroes giving too hot a reception.
- 2:55:24Speaker 4: The Whites kept a more respectful distance, hovering now just
- 2:55:28Speaker 4: out of reach of the hurtling hatchets. They, with a
- 2:55:31Speaker 4: view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought
- 2:55:35Speaker 4: to decoy the Blacks into entirely disarming themselves of their
- 2:55:39Speaker 4: most murderous weapons and a hand to hand fight by
- 2:55:42Speaker 4: foolishly flinging them as missiles short of the mark into
- 2:55:46Speaker 4: the sea. But ere long perceiving the stratagem, the Negroes desisted,
- 2:55:53Speaker 4: though not before many of them had to replace their
- 2:55:55Speaker 4: lost hatchets with hand spikes, an exchange which, as mounted upon,
- 2:56:01Speaker 4: proved in the end favorable to the assailants. Meantime, with
- 2:56:06Speaker 4: a strong wind, the ship still clove the water, the
- 2:56:10Speaker 4: boats alternately falling behind and pulling up to discharge fresh volleys.
- 2:56:17Speaker 4: The fire was mostly directed toward the stern, since there
- 2:56:21Speaker 4: chiefly the Negroes at present were clustering. But to kill
- 2:56:26Speaker 4: or maim the Negroes was not the object. To take
- 2:56:29Speaker 4: them with the ship was the object. To do it,
- 2:56:34Speaker 4: the ship must be boarded, which could not be done
- 2:56:36Speaker 4: by boats. While she was sailing so fast A thought
- 2:56:41Speaker 4: now struck the Mate. Observing the Spanish boys still aloft
- 2:56:46Speaker 4: high as they could get, he called to them to
- 2:56:48Speaker 4: descend to the yards and cut adrift the sails. It
- 2:56:53Speaker 4: was done about this time, owing to causes hereafter to
- 2:56:57Speaker 4: be shown, two Spaniards, in the dress of sailors, and
- 2:57:01Speaker 4: conspicuously showing themselves, were killed not by volleys, but by
- 2:57:06Speaker 4: deliberate marksmen's shots, while, as it afterwards appeared, during one
- 2:57:12Speaker 4: of the general discharges, a to fall the black and
- 2:57:16Speaker 4: the Spaniard at the helm likewise were killed. What now,
- 2:57:20Speaker 4: with the loss of the sails and loss of leaders,
- 2:57:24Speaker 4: the ship became unmanageable to the Negroes, with creaking masts.
- 2:57:29Speaker 4: She came heavily round to the wind, the prow slowly
- 2:57:33Speaker 4: swinging into view of the boats, its skeleton gleaming in
- 2:57:37Speaker 4: the horizontal moonlight and casting a gigantic ribbed shadow.
- 2:57:41Speaker 1: Upon the water.
- 2:57:43Speaker 4: One extended arm of the ghost seemed beckoning the Whites
- 2:57:47Speaker 4: to avenge it. Follow your leader, cried the mate, and
- 2:57:54Speaker 4: one on each bow. The boats boarded ceiling spears and cutlasses,
- 2:57:59Speaker 4: crossed hats and handspikes. Huddled upon the long boat amidships,
- 2:58:05Speaker 4: the Negresses raised a wailing chant whose chorus was the
- 2:58:09Speaker 4: clash of the steel. For a time the attack wavered
- 2:58:14Speaker 4: the Negroes, wedging themselves to beat it back. The half
- 2:58:17Speaker 4: repelled sailors, as yet unable to gain a footing, fighting
- 2:58:22Speaker 4: as troopers in the saddle, one leg sideways, flung over
- 2:58:25Speaker 4: the bulwarks and one without plying their cutlasses like Carter's whips,
- 2:58:31Speaker 4: but in vain they were almost overborne. When rallying themselves
- 2:58:38Speaker 4: into a squad as one man with a huzzah, they
- 2:58:42Speaker 4: sprang inboard, where entangled they involuntarily separated again for a
- 2:58:48Speaker 4: few breath space. There was a vague, muffled inner sound,
- 2:58:52Speaker 4: as of submerged swordfish rushing hither and thither through shoals
- 2:58:56Speaker 4: of black fish. Soon, in a reunited band, and joined
- 2:59:01Speaker 4: by the Spanish seamen, the whites came to the surface irresistibly,
- 2:59:05Speaker 4: driving the Negroes toward the stern, But a barricade of
- 2:59:10Speaker 4: casks and sacks from side to side had been thrown
- 2:59:13Speaker 4: up by the mainmast. Here the Negroes faced about, and
- 2:59:18Speaker 4: those scorning peace or truce yet fane would have had
- 2:59:22Speaker 4: a respite, but without pause overleaping the barrier, the unflagging
- 2:59:27Speaker 4: sailors again closed. Exhausted, the blacks now fought in despair.
- 2:59:33Speaker 4: Their red tongues lolled wolf like from their black mouths,
- 2:59:37Speaker 4: but the pale sailor's teeth were set. Not a word
- 2:59:40Speaker 4: was spoken, and in five minutes more the ship was won.
- 2:59:46Speaker 4: Nearly a score of the Negroes were killed. Exclusive of
- 2:59:49Speaker 4: those by the balls, many were mangled, their wounds mostly
- 2:59:54Speaker 4: inflicted by the long edged ceiling spears resembling those shaven
- 2:59:59Speaker 4: ones of the English at Preston pans made by the
- 3:00:02Speaker 4: polled skithes of the Highlanders. On the other side, none
- 3:00:06Speaker 4: were killed, though several were wounded, some severely, including the mate.
- 3:00:12Speaker 4: The surviving Negroes were temporarily secured, and the ship towed
- 3:00:17Speaker 4: back into the harbor at midnight once more lay anchored.
- 3:00:23Speaker 4: End of chapter twelve.
- 3:00:25Speaker 6: Chapter thirteen, a deposition omitting the incidents and arrangements ensuing
- 3:00:33Speaker 6: suffice it that after two days spent in refitting, the
- 3:00:37Speaker 6: two ships sailed in company for Concepcion in Chile, and
- 3:00:41Speaker 6: thence for Lima in Peru, where before the vice regal courts.
- 3:00:46Speaker 6: The whole affair from the beginning underwent investigation, though midway
- 3:00:52Speaker 6: on the passage, the ill fated Spaniard relaxed from constraint,
- 3:00:57Speaker 6: showed some signs of regaining health with free will, yet
- 3:01:01Speaker 6: agreeably to his own foreboding. Shortly before arriving at Lima,
- 3:01:06Speaker 6: he relapsed, finally becoming so reduced as to be carried
- 3:01:10Speaker 6: ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and plight, one
- 3:01:15Speaker 6: of the many religious institutions of the city of Kings
- 3:01:19Speaker 6: opened an hospitable refuge to him, where both physician and
- 3:01:23Speaker 6: priest were his nurses, and a member of the order
- 3:01:27Speaker 6: volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler by
- 3:01:31Speaker 6: night and by day. The following extracts, translated from one
- 3:01:36Speaker 6: of the official Spanish documents, will, it is hoped, shed
- 3:01:40Speaker 6: light on the preceding narrative, as well as in the
- 3:01:44Speaker 6: first place, revealed the true port of departure and true
- 3:01:47Speaker 6: history of the San Dominique's voyage down to the time
- 3:01:51Speaker 6: of her touching at the island of Santa Maria. But
- 3:01:54Speaker 6: ere the extracts come, it may be well to preface
- 3:01:58Speaker 6: them with a remark. The documents selected from among many others.
- 3:02:02Speaker 6: For partial translation, contains the deposition of Benito Serno, the
- 3:02:07Speaker 6: first taken in the case. Some disclosures therein were at
- 3:02:12Speaker 6: the time held dubious for both learned and natural reasons.
- 3:02:17Speaker 6: The Tribunal inclined to the opinion that the deponent, not
- 3:02:21Speaker 6: undisturbed in his mind by recent events, raved of some
- 3:02:25Speaker 6: things which could never have happened. But subsequent depositions of
- 3:02:30Speaker 6: the surviving sailors, bearing out the revelations of their captain
- 3:02:34Speaker 6: and several of the strangest particulars, gave credence to the
- 3:02:37Speaker 6: rest so that the Tribunal, in its final decision, rested
- 3:02:42Speaker 6: its capital sentences upon statements which, had they lacked confirmation,
- 3:02:47Speaker 6: it would have deemed it but duty to reject. I
- 3:02:51Speaker 6: Don Jose de Abos and Padija, his Majesty's Notary for
- 3:02:55Speaker 6: the Royal Revenue and Register of this Province, and Notary
- 3:02:59Speaker 6: public of the Holy Crusade of this Bishopric, et cetera,
- 3:03:03Speaker 6: do certify and declare, as much as is requisite in law,
- 3:03:07Speaker 6: that in the criminal case commenced the twenty fourth of
- 3:03:10Speaker 6: the month of September in the year seventeen hundred and
- 3:03:14Speaker 6: ninety nine, against the Senegal Negroes of the ship San Dominique.
- 3:03:19Speaker 6: The following declaration before me was made declaration of the
- 3:03:24Speaker 6: first witness, Dom Benito seer Reno. The same day and
- 3:03:28Speaker 6: month and year, his Honor Doctr. Juan Martinez de doosas
- 3:03:33Speaker 6: Counselor of the Royal Audience of this Kingdom, and learned
- 3:03:36Speaker 6: in the law of this Intendency, ordered the captain of
- 3:03:40Speaker 6: the ship San Dominique, Dom Benito Serno, to appear, which
- 3:03:45Speaker 6: he did in his litter, attended by the Monk in Felees,
- 3:03:49Speaker 6: of whom he received before Don Jose the Abbosimpadija, notary
- 3:03:53Speaker 6: public of the Holy Crusade, the oath which he took
- 3:03:57Speaker 6: by God, our Lord, and a sign of the Cross,
- 3:04:01Speaker 6: under which he promised to tell the truth of whatever
- 3:04:03Speaker 6: he should know and should be asked, and being interrogated
- 3:04:08Speaker 6: agreeably to the tenor of the act. Commencing the process,
- 3:04:12Speaker 6: he said that on the twentieth of May last, he
- 3:04:15Speaker 6: set sail with his ship from the port of Alparaiso,
- 3:04:19Speaker 6: bound to that of Caaijao, loaded with the produce of
- 3:04:23Speaker 6: the country and one hundred and sixty blacks of both sexes,
- 3:04:27Speaker 6: mostly belonging to Donallejandro Aranda, gentlemen of the city of Mendoza,
- 3:04:33Speaker 6: that the crew of the ship consisted of thirty six men,
- 3:04:37Speaker 6: beside the persons who went as passengers, that the Negroes
- 3:04:40Speaker 6: were in part as follows here in the original follows
- 3:04:44Speaker 6: a list of some fifty names, descriptions and ages, compiled
- 3:04:49Speaker 6: from certain recovered documents of Arandas and also from recollections
- 3:04:54Speaker 6: of the Deponent, from which portions only are extracted. One
- 3:04:59Speaker 6: from about eighteen to nineteen years named Jose and this
- 3:05:03Speaker 6: was the man that waited upon his master, Don Alejandro,
- 3:05:07Speaker 6: and who speaks well the Spanish, having served him four
- 3:05:10Speaker 6: or five years. A Mulatto named Francesco, the cabin steward
- 3:05:15Speaker 6: of a good person and voice, having sung in the
- 3:05:18Speaker 6: Valparaiso churches, native of the province of Buenos Aires, aged
- 3:05:23Speaker 6: about thirty five years. A smart Negro named Dago, who
- 3:05:27Speaker 6: had been for many years a grave digger among the Spaniards,
- 3:05:31Speaker 6: aged forty six years. Four old Negroes born in Africa
- 3:05:36Speaker 6: from sixty to seventy but sound cockers by trade, whose
- 3:05:40Speaker 6: names are his follows. The first was named Mooi, and
- 3:05:44Speaker 6: he was killed, as was also his son named Diamelo.
- 3:05:48Speaker 6: The second Nacta, the third Jola likewise killed the fourth
- 3:05:54Speaker 6: Gofan and six full grown negroes aged from thirty to
- 3:05:58Speaker 6: forty five, all all raw and born among the Ashantes
- 3:06:03Speaker 6: Martiniki Yan Lecbe, Mapenda, Yambayo Akim, four of whom were killed,
- 3:06:11Speaker 6: a powerful Negro named Atufal, who being supposed to have
- 3:06:15Speaker 6: been a chief in Africa, his owners set great store
- 3:06:19Speaker 6: by him, and a small negro of Senegal, but some
- 3:06:23Speaker 6: years among the Spaniards aged about thirty, which negro's name
- 3:06:27Speaker 6: was Babo, that he does not remember the names of
- 3:06:30Speaker 6: the others, but that still expecting the residue of Don
- 3:06:33Speaker 6: Alejandro's papers will be found, will then take due account
- 3:06:36Speaker 6: of them all and remit to the court and thirty
- 3:06:40Speaker 6: nine women and children of all ages. After the catalog.
- 3:06:44Speaker 6: The deposition goes on as follows, that all the negroes
- 3:06:48Speaker 6: slept upon deck, as is customary in this navigation, and
- 3:06:52Speaker 6: none wore fetters because the owner, his friend Aranda, told
- 3:06:57Speaker 6: him that they were all tractable. That on the dam
- 3:07:00Speaker 6: the seventh day after leaving port, at three o'clock in
- 3:07:03Speaker 6: the morning, all the Spaniards being asleep except the two
- 3:07:07Speaker 6: officers on the watch, who were the bosun Juan Trobles
- 3:07:10Speaker 6: and the carpenter Juan Bautista Gagette, and the helmsman and
- 3:07:15Speaker 6: his boy. The Negroes revolted, suddenly wounded dangerously the bosun
- 3:07:20Speaker 6: and the carpenter, and successively killed eighteen men of those
- 3:07:24Speaker 6: who were sleeping upon deck, some with handspikes and hatchets,
- 3:07:29Speaker 6: and others by throwing them alive overboard after tying them.
- 3:07:33Speaker 6: That of the Spaniards upon deck, they left about seven,
- 3:07:37Speaker 6: as he thinks, alive and tied to maneuver the ship,
- 3:07:41Speaker 6: and three or four more who hid themselves, remained also alive.
- 3:07:45Speaker 6: Although in the act of revolt the Negroes made themselves
- 3:07:48Speaker 6: masters of the hatchway, six or seven wounded went through
- 3:07:52Speaker 6: it to the cockpit without any hindrance on their part.
- 3:07:57Speaker 6: That in the act of revolt, the mate and another
- 3:08:00Speaker 6: person whose name he does not recollect attempted to come
- 3:08:03Speaker 6: up through the hatchway, but having been wounded at the onset,
- 3:08:07Speaker 6: they were obliged to return to the cabin. That the
- 3:08:10Speaker 6: deponent resolved at break of day to come up the companionway,
- 3:08:15Speaker 6: where the negro Babo was being the ringleader, and Atufal,
- 3:08:19Speaker 6: who assisted him, and having spoken to them, exhorted them
- 3:08:23Speaker 6: to cease committing such atrocities, asking them at the same
- 3:08:27Speaker 6: time what they wanted and intended to do, offering himself
- 3:08:32Speaker 6: to obey their commands. That notwithstanding this, they threw in
- 3:08:36Speaker 6: his presence three men alive and tide overboard. That they
- 3:08:42Speaker 6: told the opponent to come up and that they would
- 3:08:45Speaker 6: not kill him, which having done, the negro Babo asked
- 3:08:49Speaker 6: him whether there were in those seas any Negro countries
- 3:08:53Speaker 6: where they might be carried, and he answered them no.
- 3:08:57Speaker 6: That the Negro Babo afterwards told him to carry them to,
- 3:08:59Speaker 6: say Senegal, or to the neighboring islands of Saint Nicholas.
- 3:09:04Speaker 6: And he answered that this was impossible on account of
- 3:09:07Speaker 6: the great distance, the necessity involved of rounding Cape Horn,
- 3:09:12Speaker 6: the bad condition of the vessel, the want of provisions,
- 3:09:15Speaker 6: sails and water. But that the Negro Babo replied to
- 3:09:19Speaker 6: him he must carry them in any way, that they
- 3:09:22Speaker 6: would do and conform themselves to everything the opponent should
- 3:09:25Speaker 6: require as to eating and drinking. That, after a long conference,
- 3:09:30Speaker 6: being absolutely compelled to please them, for they threatened him
- 3:09:34Speaker 6: to kill all the whites if they were not, at
- 3:09:36Speaker 6: all events carried to Senegal. He told them that what
- 3:09:41Speaker 6: was most wanting for the voyage was water, that they
- 3:09:44Speaker 6: would go near the coast to take it, and hence
- 3:09:47Speaker 6: they would proceed on their course. That the Negro Babo
- 3:09:51Speaker 6: agreed to it, and the opponent steered toward the intermediate ports,
- 3:09:55Speaker 6: hoping to meet some Spanish or foreign vessel that would
- 3:09:59Speaker 6: save them. That within ten or eleven days they saw
- 3:10:02Speaker 6: the land and continued their course by it in the
- 3:10:05Speaker 6: vicinity of Nasca. That the deponent observed that the Negroes
- 3:10:10Speaker 6: were now restless and mutinous because he did not effect
- 3:10:14Speaker 6: the taking inn of water, the Negro Babo having required
- 3:10:18Speaker 6: with threats that it should be done without fail. The
- 3:10:21Speaker 6: following day he told him he saw plainly that the
- 3:10:24Speaker 6: coast was steep and the rivers designated in the maps
- 3:10:28Speaker 6: were not to be found, with other reasons suitable to
- 3:10:31Speaker 6: the circumstances, that the best way would be to go
- 3:10:35Speaker 6: to the island of Santa Maria, where they might water
- 3:10:38Speaker 6: and victual easily, it being a desert island. As the
- 3:10:42Speaker 6: foreigners did. That the opponent did not go to Pisco.
- 3:10:45Speaker 6: That was near nor make any other port of the coast,
- 3:10:49Speaker 6: because the Negro Babo had intimated to him several times
- 3:10:53Speaker 6: that he would kill all the whites the very moment
- 3:10:56Speaker 6: he should perceive any city, town or settlement of any
- 3:11:00Speaker 6: kind on the shores to which they should be carried.
- 3:11:03Speaker 6: That having determined to go to the island of Santa Maria,
- 3:11:06Speaker 6: as the Deponent had planned, for the purpose of trying
- 3:11:10Speaker 6: whether in the passage or in the island itself they
- 3:11:13Speaker 6: could find any vessel that should favor them, or whether
- 3:11:16Speaker 6: he could escape from it in a boat to the
- 3:11:18Speaker 6: neighboring coast of Aruco. To adopt the necessary means, he
- 3:11:23Speaker 6: immediately changed his course, steering for the island. That the
- 3:11:27Speaker 6: negroes Babo and Ottufal held daily conferences in which they
- 3:11:32Speaker 6: discussed what was necessary for their design of returning to Senegal,
- 3:11:36Speaker 6: whether they were to kill all the Spaniards, in particularly
- 3:11:39Speaker 6: the deponent. That eight days after parting from the coast
- 3:11:43Speaker 6: of Nasca, the deponent being on the watch, a little
- 3:11:47Speaker 6: after daybreak and soon after the Negroes had their meeting,
- 3:11:51Speaker 6: the Negro Babo came to the place where the deponent
- 3:11:54Speaker 6: was and told him that he had determined to kill
- 3:11:57Speaker 6: his master, Don Alejandro Aranda, both because he and his
- 3:12:01Speaker 6: companions could not otherwise be sure of their liberty, and
- 3:12:05Speaker 6: that to keep the seamen in subjection, he wanted to
- 3:12:09Speaker 6: prepare a warning of what road they should be made
- 3:12:12Speaker 6: to take did they or any of them oppose him,
- 3:12:16Speaker 6: and that by means of the death of Don Alejandro,
- 3:12:20Speaker 6: that warning would best be given. But that what this
- 3:12:24Speaker 6: last meant the opponent did not at the time comprehend,
- 3:12:27Speaker 6: nor could not further than that the death of Don
- 3:12:30Speaker 6: Alejandro was intended. And moreover, the negro Babo proposed to
- 3:12:36Speaker 6: the deponent to call the mate Ranids, who was sleeping
- 3:12:39Speaker 6: in the cabin before the thing was done, for fear,
- 3:12:43Speaker 6: as the opponent understood it, that the mate, who was
- 3:12:46Speaker 6: a good navigator, should be killed with Don Alejandro, and
- 3:12:49Speaker 6: the rest that the opponent, who was the friend from
- 3:12:53Speaker 6: youth of Don Alejandro, prayed and conjured, but all was useless,
- 3:12:58Speaker 6: for the Negro Babo answered him that the thing could
- 3:13:02Speaker 6: not be prevented, and that all the Spaniards risked their
- 3:13:05Speaker 6: death if they should attempt to frustrate his will in
- 3:13:08Speaker 6: this matter or in any other. That in this conflict
- 3:13:12Speaker 6: the opponent called the mate Ranids, who was forced to
- 3:13:15Speaker 6: go apart, and immediately the Negro Babo commanded the Ashanti
- 3:13:20Speaker 6: Martiniqui and the Ashanti Lekbe to go and commit the murder.
- 3:13:26Speaker 6: That those two went down with the hatchets to the
- 3:13:28Speaker 6: birth of Don Alejandro, that yet half alive and mangled,
- 3:13:33Speaker 6: they dragged him on deck, that they were going to
- 3:13:36Speaker 6: throw him overboard in that state, but the Negro Babo
- 3:13:39Speaker 6: stopped them, bidding the murder be completed on the deck
- 3:13:43Speaker 6: before him, which was done, when by his orders the
- 3:13:47Speaker 6: body was carried below forward, that nothing more was seen
- 3:13:51Speaker 6: of it by the deponent for three days. That Don
- 3:13:55Speaker 6: Alonzo Sidonia, an old man, long resident of Valparaiso, and
- 3:14:00Speaker 6: lately appointed to a civil office in Peru, whither he
- 3:14:03Speaker 6: had taken passage, was at the time sleeping in the
- 3:14:06Speaker 6: berth opposite Don Alejandros. That awakening at his cries, surprised
- 3:14:12Speaker 6: by them, and at the sight of the Negroes with
- 3:14:14Speaker 6: their bloody hatchets in their hands, he threw himself into
- 3:14:17Speaker 6: the sea through a window which was near him, and
- 3:14:20Speaker 6: was drowned without its being in the power of the
- 3:14:23Speaker 6: deponent to assist or take him up. That a short
- 3:14:27Speaker 6: time after killing Aranda, they brought upon deck his German
- 3:14:31Speaker 6: cousin of middle age, Don Francisco Masa of Mendoza, and
- 3:14:36Speaker 6: the young Don Joaquin Marques de arambolasa then lately from Spain,
- 3:14:41Speaker 6: with his Spanish servant Ponce, and the three young clerks
- 3:14:45Speaker 6: of Aranda, Jose Mozairi, Dorenzo Bargas and er Menehildo Gandiks,
- 3:14:51Speaker 6: all of Goddis that Don Joaquin and at Minnehildo Gandiks
- 3:14:56Speaker 6: the Negro Babo for purposes hereafter to appear preserved alive.
- 3:15:01Speaker 6: But Don Francisco Masa, Jose Mozairi, and Lorenzo Bargas with
- 3:15:06Speaker 6: Ponce the servant, besides the Boson Juan Robles, the Bosun's
- 3:15:12Speaker 6: mates Manuel Biskaija and Rodrigo Urda, and four of the
- 3:15:16Speaker 6: sailors the Negro Babo ordered to be thrown alive into
- 3:15:20Speaker 6: the sea, although they made no resistance nor begged for
- 3:15:24Speaker 6: anything else but mercy. That the Bozen Juan Roblis, who
- 3:15:29Speaker 6: knew how to swim, kept the longest above water, making
- 3:15:33Speaker 6: acts of contrition, and in the last words he uttered
- 3:15:36Speaker 6: charged this deponent to cause mass to be said for
- 3:15:40Speaker 6: his soul to our Lady of succor that during the
- 3:15:44Speaker 6: three days which followed, the opponent, uncertain what fate had
- 3:15:47Speaker 6: befallen the remains of Don Alejandro, frequently asked the negro
- 3:15:52Speaker 6: Babo where they were, and, if still on board, whether
- 3:15:56Speaker 6: they were to be preserved for interment Ashore, treating him
- 3:16:00Speaker 6: so to order it that the negro Babo answered nothing
- 3:16:04Speaker 6: till the fourth day, when at sunrise the opponent, coming
- 3:16:08Speaker 6: on deck, the negro Babo showed him a skeleton which
- 3:16:11Speaker 6: had substituted for the ship's proper figurehead, the image of
- 3:16:15Speaker 6: Christopher Cologne, the discoverer of the New World. That the
- 3:16:20Speaker 6: negro Babo asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether
- 3:16:23Speaker 6: from its whiteness he should not think at a whites That,
- 3:16:27Speaker 6: upon his covering his face, the negro Babo, coming close,
- 3:16:31Speaker 6: said words to this effect quote, keep faith with the
- 3:16:35Speaker 6: Blacks from here to Senegal, or you shall in spirit,
- 3:16:39Speaker 6: as now in body, follow your leader end quote, pointing
- 3:16:43Speaker 6: to the prow That the same morning the negro Babo took,
- 3:16:47Speaker 6: by succession each Spaniard forward and asked him whose skeleton
- 3:16:51Speaker 6: that was, and whether from its whiteness he should not
- 3:16:55Speaker 6: think at a whites. That each Spaniard covered his face,
- 3:16:59Speaker 6: that then to each the Negro Babo repeated the words
- 3:17:02Speaker 6: in the first place, said to the Deponent that they
- 3:17:06Speaker 6: the Spaniards being then assembled aft the Negro Babo, who
- 3:17:10Speaker 6: rangued them, saying that he had now done all that
- 3:17:13Speaker 6: the Deponent, as navigator for the Negroes, might pursue his course,
- 3:17:18Speaker 6: warning him and all of them that they should soul
- 3:17:22Speaker 6: and body go the way of Don Alejandro if he
- 3:17:25Speaker 6: saw them the Spaniards speak or plot anything against them
- 3:17:29Speaker 6: the Negroes, a threat which was repeated every day. That
- 3:17:35Speaker 6: before the events last mentioned, they had tied the cook
- 3:17:37Speaker 6: to throw him overboard, for it is not known what
- 3:17:41Speaker 6: thing they heard him speak. But finally the Negro Babo
- 3:17:44Speaker 6: spared his life at the request of the Deponent. That
- 3:17:48Speaker 6: a few days after the Deponent, endeavoring not to omit
- 3:17:52Speaker 6: any means to preserve the lives of the remaining whites,
- 3:17:56Speaker 6: spoke to the Negroes peace and tranquility, and agreed to
- 3:18:00Speaker 6: draw up a paper signed by the Deponent and the
- 3:18:03Speaker 6: sailors who could write, as also by the Negro Babo
- 3:18:07Speaker 6: for himself and all the blacks, in which the opponent
- 3:18:10Speaker 6: obliged himself to carry them to Senegal, and they not
- 3:18:14Speaker 6: to kill any more, and he formerly to make over
- 3:18:17Speaker 6: to them the ship with a cargo with which they
- 3:18:21Speaker 6: were for that time satisfied and quieted. But the next
- 3:18:25Speaker 6: day the more surely, to guard against the sailor's escape,
- 3:18:29Speaker 6: the Negro Babo commanded all the boats to be destroyed,
- 3:18:32Speaker 6: but the long boat, which was unseaworthy, and another a
- 3:18:36Speaker 6: cutter in good condition, which, knowing it would yet be
- 3:18:40Speaker 6: wanted for lowering the water casks, he had it lowered
- 3:18:43Speaker 6: down into the hold. Various particulars of the prolonged and
- 3:18:48Speaker 6: perplexed navigation ensuing here follow with incidents of a calamitous calm,
- 3:18:55Speaker 6: from which portion one passage is extracted, to wit that,
- 3:19:00Speaker 6: on the fifth day of the calm, all on board,
- 3:19:02Speaker 6: suffering much from the heat and want of water, and
- 3:19:06Speaker 6: five having died in fits and mad, the Negroes became irritable,
- 3:19:11Speaker 6: and for a chance gesture which they deemed suspicious, though
- 3:19:15Speaker 6: it was harmless, made by the mate Ranids to the
- 3:19:18Speaker 6: deponent in the act of handing a quadrant, they killed
- 3:19:22Speaker 6: him but that for this they afterwards were sorry, the
- 3:19:26Speaker 6: mate being the only remaining navigator on board except the opponent,
- 3:19:31Speaker 6: that omitting other events which daily happened and which can
- 3:19:34Speaker 6: only serve uselessly to recall past misfortunes and conflicts. After
- 3:19:39Speaker 6: seventy three days navigation reckoned from the time they sailed
- 3:19:43Speaker 6: from Nasca, during which they navigated under a scanty allowance
- 3:19:47Speaker 6: of water and were afflicted with the calms before mentioned,
- 3:19:51Speaker 6: They at last arrived at the island of Santa Maria
- 3:19:55Speaker 6: on the seventeenth of the month of August, at about
- 3:19:58Speaker 6: six o'clock in the afternoon, at which hour they cast
- 3:20:01Speaker 6: anchor very near the American ship Bachelor's Delight, which lay
- 3:20:06Speaker 6: in the same bay, commanded by the generous Captain Amasa Delano.
- 3:20:11Speaker 6: But at six o'clock in the morning they had already
- 3:20:14Speaker 6: descried the port, and the Negroes became uneasy as soon
- 3:20:18Speaker 6: as at a distance they saw the ship, not having
- 3:20:21Speaker 6: expected to see one there. That the Negro Babo pacified them,
- 3:20:26Speaker 6: assuring them that no fear need be had that straightway,
- 3:20:30Speaker 6: he ordered the figure on the bow to be covered
- 3:20:33Speaker 6: with canvas as four repairs, and had the decks a
- 3:20:36Speaker 6: little set in order that for a time the negro
- 3:20:40Speaker 6: Babo and the Negro Atufal conferred that the Negro Atufal
- 3:20:45Speaker 6: was for sailing away, but the negro Babo would not,
- 3:20:49Speaker 6: and by himself cast about what to do. That at
- 3:20:53Speaker 6: last he came to the deponent, proposing to him to
- 3:20:56Speaker 6: say and do all that the deponent declares to have
- 3:20:59Speaker 6: said and done to the American captain. That the negro
- 3:21:03Speaker 6: Babo warned him that if he varied in the least
- 3:21:06Speaker 6: or uttered any word, or gave any look that should
- 3:21:09Speaker 6: give the least intimation of the past events or present state,
- 3:21:13Speaker 6: he would instantly kill him with all his companions, showing
- 3:21:17Speaker 6: a dagger which he carried hid saying something which, as
- 3:21:21Speaker 6: he understood it meant that the dagger would be alert
- 3:21:24Speaker 6: as his eye. That the negro Babo then announced the
- 3:21:28Speaker 6: plan to all his companions, which pleased them. That he, then,
- 3:21:32Speaker 6: the better to disguise the truth, devised many expedients, in
- 3:21:37Speaker 6: some of them uniting deceit and defense. That of this
- 3:21:41Speaker 6: sort was the device of the six ashantees before named,
- 3:21:45Speaker 6: who were his bravoes. That them he stationed on the
- 3:21:48Speaker 6: break of the poop, as if to clean certain hatchets
- 3:21:52Speaker 6: in cases which were part of the cargo, but in
- 3:21:55Speaker 6: reality to use them and distribute them at need and
- 3:21:58Speaker 6: at a given word. He'd told them that, among other devices,
- 3:22:02Speaker 6: was the device of presenting Atufal his right hand man
- 3:22:06Speaker 6: as chained, though in a moment the change could be dropped.
- 3:22:10Speaker 6: That in every particular he informed the opponent what part
- 3:22:14Speaker 6: he was expected to enact in every device, and what
- 3:22:17Speaker 6: story he was to tell on every occasion, always threatening
- 3:22:21Speaker 6: him with instant death if he varied in the least That,
- 3:22:26Speaker 6: conscious that many of the Negroes would be turbulent, the
- 3:22:29Speaker 6: Negro Babo appointed the four aged Negroes who were conquers,
- 3:22:33Speaker 6: to keep what domestic order they could on the decks.
- 3:22:37Speaker 6: That again and again he harangued the Spaniards and his companions,
- 3:22:42Speaker 6: informing them of his intent and of his devices, and
- 3:22:46Speaker 6: of the invented story that this deponent was to tell,
- 3:22:50Speaker 6: charging them lest any of them varied from that story.
- 3:22:54Speaker 6: That these arrangements were made and matured during the interval
- 3:22:57Speaker 6: of two or three hours between their first siding of
- 3:23:00Speaker 6: the ship and the arrival on board of Captain Amasa Delano.
- 3:23:05Speaker 6: That this happened at about half past seven in the morning,
- 3:23:09Speaker 6: Captain Amasa Delano coming in his boat, and all gladly
- 3:23:13Speaker 6: receiving him that that opponent as well as he could
- 3:23:16Speaker 6: force himself, acting then the part of principal owner and
- 3:23:20Speaker 6: a free captain of the ship, told Captain Amasa Delano,
- 3:23:23Speaker 6: when called upon, that he came from Buenos Aires bound
- 3:23:27Speaker 6: to Lima with three hundred negroes that off Cape Horn,
- 3:23:32Speaker 6: and in a subsequent fever, many negroes had died. That also,
- 3:23:37Speaker 6: by similar casualties, all the sea officers and the greatest
- 3:23:41Speaker 6: part of the crew had died. And so the deposition
- 3:23:45Speaker 6: goes on circumstantially recounting the fictitious story dictated to the
- 3:23:49Speaker 6: deponent by Babo, and through the deponent, imposed upon Captain Delano,
- 3:23:54Speaker 6: and also recounting the friendly offers of Captain Delano with
- 3:23:58Speaker 6: other things, but all of which were omitted after the
- 3:24:02Speaker 6: fictitious strange story, et cetera. The deposition proceeds that the
- 3:24:07Speaker 6: generous Captain Amasa Delano remained on board all the day
- 3:24:12Speaker 6: till he left the ship anchored at six o'clock in
- 3:24:14Speaker 6: the evening, deponent speaking to him always of his pretended
- 3:24:18Speaker 6: misfortunes under the foe mentioned principles, without having had it
- 3:24:23Speaker 6: in his power to tell a single word or give
- 3:24:25Speaker 6: him the least hint that he might know the truth
- 3:24:28Speaker 6: and state of things. Because the negro Babo, performing the
- 3:24:33Speaker 6: office of an officious servant, with all the appearance of
- 3:24:36Speaker 6: submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent
- 3:24:40Speaker 6: one moment. That this was in order to observe the
- 3:24:43Speaker 6: deponent's actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well
- 3:24:47Speaker 6: the Spanish, And besides, there were thereabouts some others who
- 3:24:52Speaker 6: were constantly on the watch and likewise understood the Spanish.
- 3:24:56Speaker 6: That upon one occasion, while duponent was standing on the
- 3:25:00Speaker 6: deck conversing with a Masa Delano, by a secret sign,
- 3:25:04Speaker 6: the negro Babo drew him the deponent aside, the act
- 3:25:09Speaker 6: appearing as if originating with the deponent. That then he
- 3:25:13Speaker 6: being drawn aside, the negro Babo proposed to him to
- 3:25:17Speaker 6: gain from a Massa Delano full particulars about his ship
- 3:25:21Speaker 6: and crew and arms. That the opponent asked for what
- 3:25:26Speaker 6: that the negro Babo answered, he might conceive that grieved
- 3:25:31Speaker 6: at the prospect of what might overtake the generous captain
- 3:25:34Speaker 6: a Massa Delano. The opponent at first refused to ask
- 3:25:38Speaker 6: the desired questions, and used every argument to induce the
- 3:25:42Speaker 6: negro Babo to give up this new design, that the
- 3:25:46Speaker 6: negro Babo showed the point of his dagger. That after
- 3:25:49Speaker 6: the information had been obtained, the negro Babo again drew
- 3:25:53Speaker 6: him aside, telling him that very night he the opponent,
- 3:25:58Speaker 6: would be captain of two ships instead of one, for
- 3:26:01Speaker 6: that great part of the American ship's crew being to
- 3:26:04Speaker 6: be absent fishing, the six essentees without any one else
- 3:26:09Speaker 6: would easily take it. That at this time, he said
- 3:26:13Speaker 6: other things to the same purpose, that no entreaties availed,
- 3:26:18Speaker 6: that before Amasa Delano's coming on board, no hint had
- 3:26:21Speaker 6: been given touching the capture of the American ship. That
- 3:26:25Speaker 6: to prevent this project, the deponent was powerless. That in
- 3:26:29Speaker 6: some things his memory is confused. He cannot distinctly recall
- 3:26:33Speaker 6: every event. That as soon as they had cast Anchor
- 3:26:36Speaker 6: at six of the clock in the evening, as has
- 3:26:39Speaker 6: before been stated, the American captain took leave to return
- 3:26:43Speaker 6: to his vessel. That upon a sudden impulse, which the
- 3:26:46Speaker 6: deponent believes to a come from God and his angels. He,
- 3:26:51Speaker 6: after the farewell had been said, followed the generous Captain
- 3:26:54Speaker 6: Amasa Delano as far as the gunwale, where he stayed
- 3:26:59Speaker 6: under the pretense of taking leave, until Amasa Delano should
- 3:27:02Speaker 6: have been seated in his boat. That on shoving off,
- 3:27:06Speaker 6: the opponent sprang from the gunwale into the boat and
- 3:27:09Speaker 6: fell into it. He knows not how God guarding him that.
- 3:27:15Speaker 6: Here in the original follows the account of what further
- 3:27:17Speaker 6: happened at the escape and how the San Dominique was retaken,
- 3:27:22Speaker 6: and of the passage to the coast, including in the
- 3:27:25Speaker 6: recital many expressions of eternal gratitude to the generous Captain
- 3:27:29Speaker 6: Amasa Delano. The deposition then proceeds with recapitulatory remarks and
- 3:27:36Speaker 6: a partial remuneration of the Negroes, making record of their
- 3:27:40Speaker 6: individual part in the past events, with a view to furnishing,
- 3:27:44Speaker 6: according to command of the court, the data whereon to
- 3:27:48Speaker 6: found the criminal sentences to be pronounced. From this portion
- 3:27:52Speaker 6: is the following that he believes that all the Negroes,
- 3:27:56Speaker 6: though not in the first place knowing to the design
- 3:27:59Speaker 6: of revolt when it was accomplished, approved it that the
- 3:28:03Speaker 6: negro Jose, eighteen years old and in the personal service
- 3:28:07Speaker 6: of Don Alejandro, was the one who communicated the information
- 3:28:11Speaker 6: to the Negro Babo about the state of things in
- 3:28:14Speaker 6: the cabin before the revolt. That this is known because
- 3:28:18Speaker 6: in the preceding midnight he used to come from his berth,
- 3:28:22Speaker 6: which was under his masters in the cabin, to the
- 3:28:25Speaker 6: deck where the ringleader and his associates were, and had
- 3:28:28Speaker 6: secret conversations with the Negro Babo, in which he was
- 3:28:32Speaker 6: several times seen by the mate. That one night the
- 3:28:36Speaker 6: mate drove him away twice. That this same Negro Jose
- 3:28:40Speaker 6: was the one who, without being commanded to do so
- 3:28:43Speaker 6: by the Negro Babo, as Lecbe and Martinki were stabbed
- 3:28:47Speaker 6: his master, Don Alejandro, after he had been dragged half
- 3:28:51Speaker 6: lifeless to the deck, that the mulatto steward Francesco was
- 3:28:56Speaker 6: of the first band of revolters, that he was, in
- 3:28:59Speaker 6: all things the creature and tool of the Negro Babo,
- 3:29:04Speaker 6: that to make his court, he, just before a repassed
- 3:29:07Speaker 6: in the cabin, proposed to the Negro Babo poisoning a
- 3:29:11Speaker 6: dish for the generous captain a Massa Delano. This is
- 3:29:15Speaker 6: known and believed because the Negroes have said it, but
- 3:29:19Speaker 6: that the Negro Babo, having another design forbade Francisco, that
- 3:29:24Speaker 6: the Ashanti Lecbe was one of the worst of them,
- 3:29:27Speaker 6: for that on the day the ship was retaken, he
- 3:29:30Speaker 6: assisted in the defense of her with a hatchet in
- 3:29:33Speaker 6: each hand, with one of which he wounded in the
- 3:29:36Speaker 6: breast the chief mate of a Massa Delano. And the
- 3:29:39Speaker 6: first act of boarding this all knew that inside of
- 3:29:44Speaker 6: the deponent Legbay struck with a hatchet Don Francisco Masa,
- 3:29:49Speaker 6: when by the Negro Babo's orders, he was carrying him,
- 3:29:53Speaker 6: to throw him overboard alive, Beside participating in the murder
- 3:29:58Speaker 6: before mentioned of Dona le Handro Randa and others of
- 3:30:02Speaker 6: the cabin passengers, that owing to the fury with which
- 3:30:05Speaker 6: the Ashantis fought in the engagement with the boats, but
- 3:30:09Speaker 6: this Alekbe and Jan survived, that Jan was bad as Lekbay,
- 3:30:14Speaker 6: that John was the man who, by Babo's command, willingly
- 3:30:18Speaker 6: prepared the skeleton of Don Alejandro, in a way the
- 3:30:22Speaker 6: Negroes afterwards told the Deponent, but which he, so long
- 3:30:25Speaker 6: as reason is left him, can never divulge, that Jean
- 3:30:29Speaker 6: and Lecbe were the two who in a calm by night,
- 3:30:34Speaker 6: riveted the skeleton to the bow. This also the Negroes
- 3:30:37Speaker 6: told him that the negro Babo was he who traced
- 3:30:41Speaker 6: the inscription below it, that the negro Babo was the
- 3:30:45Speaker 6: plotter from first to last, He ordered every murder and
- 3:30:49Speaker 6: was the helm and keel of the revolt. That Atufal
- 3:30:53Speaker 6: was his lieutenant in all but Atufal, with his own hand,
- 3:30:57Speaker 6: committed no murder, nor did the negro Babo. That Atufal
- 3:31:02Speaker 6: was shot being killed in the fight with the boats
- 3:31:05Speaker 6: air boarding. That the negresses of age were knowing to
- 3:31:09Speaker 6: the revolt, and testified themselves satisfied at the death of
- 3:31:12Speaker 6: their master Donalejandro, that had the Negroes not restrained them,
- 3:31:17Speaker 6: they would have tortured to death instead of simply killing
- 3:31:21Speaker 6: the Spaniards slain by command of the negro Babo. That
- 3:31:24Speaker 6: the Negresses used their utmost influence to have the deponent
- 3:31:28Speaker 6: made away with that in the various acts of murder
- 3:31:32Speaker 6: they sang songs and danced not gaily but solemnly, and
- 3:31:37Speaker 6: before the engagement with the boats, as well as during
- 3:31:40Speaker 6: the action, they sang melancholy songs to the Negroes, and
- 3:31:44Speaker 6: that this melancholy tone was more inflaming than a different
- 3:31:48Speaker 6: one would have been, and was so intended. That all
- 3:31:52Speaker 6: this is believed because the Negroes have said it. That
- 3:31:57Speaker 6: of the thirty six men of the crew excled elusive
- 3:32:00Speaker 6: of the passengers, all of whom are now dead, which
- 3:32:03Speaker 6: the opponent had knowledge of, six only remained alive, with
- 3:32:08Speaker 6: four cabin boys and ship boys not included with the crew.
- 3:32:12Speaker 6: That the Negroes broke an arm of one of the
- 3:32:14Speaker 6: cabin boys and gave him strokes with hatchets. Then follow
- 3:32:19Speaker 6: various random disclosures referring to various periods of time. The
- 3:32:24Speaker 6: following are extracted that during the presence of Captain Amasa
- 3:32:29Speaker 6: Delano on board, some attempts were made by the sailors
- 3:32:33Speaker 6: and one by Edminnehilo Gandiks, to convey hints to him
- 3:32:38Speaker 6: of the true state of affairs, but that these attempts
- 3:32:41Speaker 6: were ineffectual owing to fear of incurring death and furthermore,
- 3:32:46Speaker 6: owing to the devices which offered contradictions to the true
- 3:32:49Speaker 6: state of affairs, as well as owing to the generosity
- 3:32:53Speaker 6: and piety of Amasa Delano incapable of sounding such wickedness
- 3:32:58Speaker 6: that Luis Galgo, as sailor about sixty years of age
- 3:33:02Speaker 6: and formerly of the King's navy, was one of those
- 3:33:05Speaker 6: who sought to convey tokens to Captain Amasa Delano, but
- 3:33:09Speaker 6: his intent, though undiscovered, being suspected, he was on a
- 3:33:14Speaker 6: pretense made to retire out of sight and at last
- 3:33:18Speaker 6: into the hold, and there was made away with this.
- 3:33:22Speaker 6: The Negroes have since said that one of the ship boys,
- 3:33:26Speaker 6: feeling from Captain Amaso Delano's presence some hopes of release,
- 3:33:31Speaker 6: and not having enough prudence, dropped some chance word respecting
- 3:33:36Speaker 6: his expectations, which, being overheard and understood by a slave
- 3:33:40Speaker 6: boy with whom he was eating at the time, the
- 3:33:44Speaker 6: latter struck him on the head with a knife, inflicting
- 3:33:46Speaker 6: a bad wound, but of which the boy is now healing.
- 3:33:50Speaker 6: That likewise, not long before the ship was brought to anchor,
- 3:33:55Speaker 6: one of the seamen steering at the time endangered himself
- 3:33:59Speaker 6: by letting the blacks remark a certain unconscious hopeful expression
- 3:34:03Speaker 6: in his countenance, arising from some cause similar to the above.
- 3:34:08Speaker 6: But this sailor, by his heedful after conduct, escaped. That
- 3:34:13Speaker 6: these statements are made to show the court that from
- 3:34:16Speaker 6: the beginning to the end of the revolt it was
- 3:34:19Speaker 6: impossible for the opponent and his men to act otherwise
- 3:34:22Speaker 6: than they did. That the third Clerk ed Minehildo Gandiks,
- 3:34:27Speaker 6: who before had been forced to live among the seamen,
- 3:34:30Speaker 6: wearing a seaman's habit, and in all respects appearing to
- 3:34:34Speaker 6: be won for the time. He Gandiks was killed by
- 3:34:38Speaker 6: a musket ball fired through a mistake from the American
- 3:34:42Speaker 6: boats before boarding, having in his fright, ran up the
- 3:34:46Speaker 6: mizzen rigging, calling to the boats don't board, lest upon
- 3:34:50Speaker 6: their boarding the Negroes should kill him. That this inducing
- 3:34:54Speaker 6: the Americans to believe he some way favored the cause
- 3:34:57Speaker 6: of the Negroes, they fired two balls at him, so
- 3:35:00Speaker 6: that he fell wounded from the rigging and was drowned
- 3:35:03Speaker 6: in the sea. That the young Don Joaquin Marques de
- 3:35:07Speaker 6: arambolasa like Edmenechilo Gandik's, the third Clerk, was degraded to
- 3:35:13Speaker 6: the office and appearance of a common seaman. That upon
- 3:35:16Speaker 6: one occasion, when Don Joaquin shrank, the Negro Babo commanded
- 3:35:21Speaker 6: the ashantee Lecbe to take tar and heat it and
- 3:35:25Speaker 6: pour it upon Don Joaquin's hands, that Don Joaquin was
- 3:35:29Speaker 6: killed owing to another mistake of the Americans, but one
- 3:35:33Speaker 6: impossible to be avoided, as upon the approach of the boats,
- 3:35:37Speaker 6: Don Joaquin, with a hatchet tied edge out and upright
- 3:35:41Speaker 6: to his hand, was made by the Negroes to appear
- 3:35:44Speaker 6: on the bulwarks, whereupon seen with arms in his hands
- 3:35:48Speaker 6: and in a questionable attitude, he was shot for a
- 3:35:51Speaker 6: renegade seaman, that on the person of Don Joaquin was
- 3:35:56Speaker 6: found secreted a jewel, which, by papers that were covered,
- 3:36:00Speaker 6: proved to have been meant for the shrine of our
- 3:36:03Speaker 6: Lady of Mercy in Lima, a vote of offering beforehand,
- 3:36:07Speaker 6: prepared and guarded to attest his gratitude when he should
- 3:36:11Speaker 6: have landed in Peru, his last destination, for the safe
- 3:36:15Speaker 6: conclusion of his entire voyage from Spain. That the jewel,
- 3:36:19Speaker 6: with the other effects of the late Don Joaquin, is
- 3:36:22Speaker 6: in the custody of the brethren of the os Pitad Sasserdotes,
- 3:36:27Speaker 6: awaiting the decision of the Honorable Court that, owing to
- 3:36:31Speaker 6: the condition of the deponent, as well as the haste
- 3:36:35Speaker 6: in which the boats departed for the attack, the Americans
- 3:36:38Speaker 6: were not forewarned that there were among the apparent crew
- 3:36:42Speaker 6: a passenger and one of the clerks disguised by the
- 3:36:45Speaker 6: Negro Babo, that besides the Negroes killed in the action,
- 3:36:50Speaker 6: some were killed after the capture and re anchoring at night,
- 3:36:54Speaker 6: when shackled to the ring bolts on the deck, that
- 3:36:57Speaker 6: these deaths were committed by the sailors, ere they could
- 3:37:00Speaker 6: be prevented, that so soon as informed of it, Captain
- 3:37:05Speaker 6: Amasa Delano used all his authority, and in particular with
- 3:37:09Speaker 6: his own hand, struck down Martinez Gola, who, having found
- 3:37:14Speaker 6: a razor in the pocket of an old jacket of his,
- 3:37:17Speaker 6: which one of the shackled negroes had on, was aiming
- 3:37:20Speaker 6: it at the negro's throat. That the noble Captain Amasa
- 3:37:24Speaker 6: Delano also wrenched from the hand of Bartholomew Barlo a
- 3:37:29Speaker 6: dagger secreted at the time of the massacre of the whites,
- 3:37:33Speaker 6: with which he was in the act of stabbing a
- 3:37:35Speaker 6: shackled Negro, who the same day, with another Negro, had
- 3:37:40Speaker 6: thrown him down and jumped upon him. That for all
- 3:37:43Speaker 6: the events befalling through so long a time during which
- 3:37:46Speaker 6: the ship was in the hands of the Negro Babo.
- 3:37:49Speaker 6: He cannot here give account, but that what he has
- 3:37:53Speaker 6: said is the most substantial of what occurs to him
- 3:37:56Speaker 6: at present, and is the truth under the oath which
- 3:37:59Speaker 6: he has taken, which declaration he affirmed and ratified, after
- 3:38:04Speaker 6: hearing it read to him, he said that he is
- 3:38:07Speaker 6: twenty nine years of age, and broken in body and mind,
- 3:38:10Speaker 6: that when finally dismissed by the court, he shall not
- 3:38:13Speaker 6: return home to Chile, but betake himself to the monastery
- 3:38:17Speaker 6: of the mount Agonia without and signed with his honor,
- 3:38:21Speaker 6: and crossed himself and for the time departed as he
- 3:38:24Speaker 6: came in his litter with a monk in Felese to
- 3:38:28Speaker 6: the ospitald Sasserrotes end of Chapter thirteen.
- 3:38:44Speaker 4: Conclusion. If the deposition of Benito Cereno has served as
- 3:38:50Speaker 4: the key to fit into the lock of the complications
- 3:38:53Speaker 4: which preceded it, then as a vault whose door has
- 3:38:57Speaker 4: been flung back, the San Dominic's hull lies open today.
- 3:39:03Speaker 4: Hitherto the nature of this narrative, besides rendering the intricacies
- 3:39:08Speaker 4: in the beginning unavoidable, has more or less required that
- 3:39:12Speaker 4: many things, instead of being set down in the order
- 3:39:15Speaker 4: of occurrence, should be retrospectively or irregularly. Given. This last
- 3:39:21Speaker 4: is the case with the following passages, which will conclude
- 3:39:25Speaker 4: the account. During the Long Mild Voyage Telema, there was,
- 3:39:31Speaker 4: as before hinted, a period during which Don Benito a
- 3:39:35Speaker 4: little recovered his health, or at least in some degree
- 3:39:39Speaker 4: his tranquility. Ere the decided relapse which came. The two
- 3:39:45Speaker 4: captains had many cordial conversations, their fraternal unreserve in singular
- 3:39:50Speaker 4: contrast with former withdrawmns. Again and again it was repeated
- 3:39:57Speaker 4: how hard it had been to enact the art forced
- 3:40:00Speaker 4: on the Spaniard by Babo. Ah, My dear Donamasa, Don
- 3:40:06Speaker 4: Benito once said, at those very times when you thought
- 3:40:10Speaker 4: me so morose and ungrateful, Nay, when as you now admit,
- 3:40:14Speaker 4: you half thought me plotting your murder, at those very times,
- 3:40:19Speaker 4: my heart was frozen. I could not look at you,
- 3:40:22Speaker 4: thinking of what both on board this ship and your
- 3:40:25Speaker 4: own hung from other hands over my kind benefactor, and
- 3:40:31Speaker 4: as God lives, Donamasa, I know not whether desire for
- 3:40:34Speaker 4: my own safety alone could have nerved me to that
- 3:40:38Speaker 4: leap into your boat, had it not been for the
- 3:40:40Speaker 4: thought that did you unenlightened return to your ship. You,
- 3:40:45Speaker 4: my best friend, with all who might be with you,
- 3:40:48Speaker 4: stolen upon that night in your hammocks, would never in
- 3:40:52Speaker 4: this world have wakened again. Do but think how you
- 3:40:55Speaker 4: walk this deck, how you sat in this cabin, Every
- 3:40:59Speaker 4: inch of mined into honeycombs under you. Had I dropped
- 3:41:04Speaker 4: the least hint, made the least advance toward an understanding
- 3:41:08Speaker 4: between us death explosive death, yours and mine, would have
- 3:41:13Speaker 4: ended the scene. True, true, cried Captain Delano, starting you
- 3:41:18Speaker 4: saved my life, don Benito, more than I Yours saved
- 3:41:22Speaker 4: it too, against my knowledge and will nay, my friend
- 3:41:27Speaker 4: rejoined the Spaniard, courteous even to the point of religion.
- 3:41:32Speaker 4: God charmed your life, but you saved mine. To think
- 3:41:36Speaker 4: of some things you did, those smilings and chattings, rash
- 3:41:40Speaker 4: pointings and gesturings, for less than these they slew my
- 3:41:44Speaker 4: mate renids. But you had the Prince of Heaven's safe
- 3:41:48Speaker 4: conduct through all ambuscades. Yes, all is owing to providence,
- 3:41:54Speaker 4: I know. But the temper of my mind that morning
- 3:41:57Speaker 4: was more than commonly pleasant, while the sight of so
- 3:42:00Speaker 4: much suffering, more apparent than real, added to my good nature,
- 3:42:04Speaker 4: compassion and charity, happily interweaving the three. Had it been otherwise, doubtless,
- 3:42:11Speaker 4: as you hint, some of my interferences with the Blacks
- 3:42:14Speaker 4: might have ended unhappily enough. Besides that, those feelings I
- 3:42:19Speaker 4: spoke of enabled me to get the better of momentary
- 3:42:22Speaker 4: distrust at times when acuteness might have cost me my
- 3:42:25Speaker 4: life without saving another's. Only at the end did my
- 3:42:30Speaker 4: suspicions get the better of me. And you know how
- 3:42:33Speaker 4: wide of the mark they then proved?
- 3:42:37Speaker 1: Wide?
- 3:42:37Speaker 4: Indeed, said Don Benito, sadly you were with me all day,
- 3:42:41Speaker 4: stood with me, sat with me, talked with me, looked
- 3:42:45Speaker 4: at me, ate with me, drank with me. And yet
- 3:42:49Speaker 4: your last act was to clutch for a villain, not
- 3:42:52Speaker 4: only an innocent man, but the most pitiable of all men.
- 3:42:56Speaker 4: To such degree may malign machinations and deceptions impose, so
- 3:43:01Speaker 4: far may even the best men err in judging the
- 3:43:04Speaker 4: conduct of one with the recesses of whose condition he
- 3:43:08Speaker 4: is not acquainted. But you were forced to it, and
- 3:43:12Speaker 4: you were, in time undeceived. Would that in both respects
- 3:43:16Speaker 4: it was? So? Ever, and with all men, I think
- 3:43:20Speaker 4: I understand you. You generalized, Don Benito, and mournfully enough.
- 3:43:27Speaker 4: But the past is past. Why moralize upon it? Forget it?
- 3:43:32Speaker 4: See Yon, bright sun has forgotten it all, And the
- 3:43:35Speaker 4: blue sea and the blue sky, these have turned over
- 3:43:38Speaker 4: new leaves because they have no memory, he dejectedly replied,
- 3:43:44Speaker 4: because they are not human. But these mild trades that
- 3:43:48Speaker 4: now fan your cheeked on, Benito, do they not come
- 3:43:51Speaker 4: with a human like healing to you? Warm friends? Steadfast friends?
- 3:43:57Speaker 4: Are the trades? Would their starf ahe at fastness? They
- 3:44:01Speaker 4: but wafft me to my tomb? Senor was the foreboding response.
- 3:44:06Speaker 4: You are saved, don Benito, cried Captain Delano, more and
- 3:44:10Speaker 4: more astonished and pained. You are saved? What is cast
- 3:44:15Speaker 4: such a shadow upon you? The negro? There was silence,
- 3:44:23Speaker 4: while the moody man sat slowly and unconsciously, gathering his
- 3:44:27Speaker 4: mantle about him as if it were appall. There was
- 3:44:31Speaker 4: no more conversation that day. But if the Spaniard's melancholy
- 3:44:36Speaker 4: sometimes ended in muteness upon topics like the above, there
- 3:44:40Speaker 4: were others upon which he never spoke at all, on which,
- 3:44:44Speaker 4: indeed all his old reserves were piled pass over the
- 3:44:49Speaker 4: worst and only to elucidate let an item or two
- 3:44:52Speaker 4: of these be sighted the dress so precise and costly
- 3:44:57Speaker 4: warned by him on the day whose events have been near,
- 3:45:00Speaker 4: had not willingly been put on. And that silver mounted sword,
- 3:45:05Speaker 4: apparent symbol of despotic command, was not indeed a sword,
- 3:45:09Speaker 4: but the ghost of one. The scabbard, artificially stiffened, was empty.
- 3:45:16Speaker 4: As for the black, whose brain not body, had schemed
- 3:45:20Speaker 4: and led the revolt with the plot, his slight frame,
- 3:45:24Speaker 4: inadequate to that which it held, had at once yielded
- 3:45:27Speaker 4: to the superior muscular strength of his captor in the boat.
- 3:45:32Speaker 4: Seeing all was over, he uttered no sound, and could
- 3:45:35Speaker 4: not be forced to his aspects. Seemed to say, since
- 3:45:39Speaker 4: I cannot do deeds, I will not speak words. Put
- 3:45:43Speaker 4: in irons in the hold with the rest. He was
- 3:45:46Speaker 4: carried to Lima. During the passage, Don Benito did not
- 3:45:49Speaker 4: visit him, nor then, nor at any time after. Would
- 3:45:53Speaker 4: he look at him. Before the tribunal, he refused. When
- 3:45:59Speaker 4: pressed by the judge, he fainted. On the testimony of
- 3:46:03Speaker 4: the sailors alone rested the legal identity of Babo. And
- 3:46:08Speaker 4: yet the Spaniard would, upon occasion verbally refer to the
- 3:46:11Speaker 4: Negro as has been shown, but look on him he
- 3:46:15Speaker 4: would not or could not. Some months after, dragged to
- 3:46:22Speaker 4: the gibbet at the tail of a mule, the black
- 3:46:25Speaker 4: met his voiceless end. The body was burned to ashes,
- 3:46:30Speaker 4: but for many days the head, that hive of subtlety,
- 3:46:33Speaker 4: fixed on a pole in the plaza, met unabashed the
- 3:46:37Speaker 4: gaze of the whites, and across the plaza looked towards
- 3:46:41Speaker 4: Saint Bartholomew's Church, in whose vaults slept then as now
- 3:46:46Speaker 4: the recovered bones of Aranda, And across the Rimac Bridge
- 3:46:51Speaker 4: looked toward the monastery on Mount Agonna, without where, three
- 3:46:56Speaker 4: months after being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, born
- 3:47:00Speaker 4: on the bier, did indeed follow his leader.
- 3:47:05Speaker 1: The end.
- 3:47:07Speaker 4: End of chapter fourteen. End of Benito Cereno by Hermann
- 3:47:13Speaker 4: Melville