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7 -- THE BOAT ARRIVES
All this is very queer now, thought Captain Delano, with a
qualmish sort of emotion; but as one feeling incipient seasickness, he
strove, by ignoring the symptoms, to get rid of the malady. Once
more he looked off for his boat. To his delight, it was now again in
view, leaving the rocky spur astern.
The sensation here experienced, after at first relieving his
uneasiness, with unforeseen efficiency, soon began to remove it. The
less distant sight of that well-known boat -- showing it, not as before,
half blended with the haze, but with outline defined, so that its
individuality, like a man's, was manifest; that boat, Rover by name,
which, though now in strange seas, had often pressed the beach of
Captain Delano's home, and, brought to its threshold for repairs,
had familiarly lain there, as a Newfoundland dog; the sight of that
household boat evoked a thousand trustful associations, which,
contrasted with previous suspicions, filled Him not only with
lightsome confidence, but somehow with half humorous self-reproaches
at his former lack of it.
"What, I, Amasa Delano -- Jack of the Beach, as they called me
when a lad -- I, Amasa; the same that, duck-satchel in hand, used to
paddle along the waterside to the schoolhouse made from the old hulk; --
I, little Jack of the Beach, that used to go berrying with cousin
Nat and the rest; I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth, on
board a haunted pirate-ship by a horrible Spaniard? -- Too nonsensical
to think of! Who would murder Amasa Delano? His conscience is clean.
There is some one above. Fie, fie, Jack of the Beach! you are a
child indeed; a child of the second childhood, old boy; you are
beginning to dote and drool, I'm afraid."
Light of heart and foot, he stepped aft, and there was met by
Don Benito's servant, who, with a pleasing expression, responsive to
his own present feelings, informed him that his master had recovered
from the effects of his coughing fit, and had just ordered him to go
present his compliments to his good guest, Don Amasa, and say that
he (Don Benito) would soon have the happiness to rejoin him.
There now, do you mark that? again thought Captain Delano, walking
the poop. What a donkey I was. This kind gentleman who here sends me
his kind compliments, he, but ten minutes ago, dark-lantern in hand,
was dodging round some old grind-stone in the hold, sharpening a
hatchet for me, I thought. Well, well; these long calms have a
morbid effect on the mind, I've often heard, though I never believed
it before. Ha! glancing toward the boat; there's Rover; a good dog;
a white bone in her mouth. A pretty big bone though, seems to me. --
What? Yes, she has fallen afoul of the bubbling tide-rip there. It
sets her the other way, too, for the time. Patience.
It was now about noon, though, from the greyness of everything, it
seemed to be getting toward dusk.
The calm was confirmed. In the far distance, away from the
influence of land, the leaden ocean seemed laid out and leaded up, its
course finished, soul gone, defunct. But the current from landward,
where the ship was, increased; silently sweeping her further and
further toward the tranced waters beyond.
Still, from his knowledge of those latitudes, cherishing hopes
of a breeze, and a fair and fresh one, at any moment, Captain
Delano, despite present prospects, buoyantly counted upon bringing the
San Dominick safely to anchor ere night. The distance swept over was
nothing; since, with a good wind, ten minutes' sailing would retrace
more than sixty minutes' drifting. Meantime, one moment turning to
mark Rover fighting the tide-rip, and the next to see Don Benito
approaching, he continued walking the poop.
Gradually he felt a vexation arising from the delay of his boat;
this soon merged into uneasiness; and at last, his eye falling
continually, as from a stage-box into the pit, upon the strange
crowd before and below him, and by-and-by recognizing there the
face -- now composed to indifference -- of the Spanish sailor who had
seemed to beckon from the main-chains, something of his old
trepidations returned.
Ah, thought he -- gravely enough -- this is like the ague: because
it went off, it follows not that it won't come back.
Though ashamed of the relapse, he could not altogether subdue
it; and so, exerting his good nature to the utmost, insensibly he came
to a compromise.
Yes, this is a strange craft; a strange history, too, and
strange folks on board. But -- nothing more.
By way of keeping his mind out of mischief till the boat should
arrive, he tried to occupy it with turning over and over, in a
purely speculative sort of way, some lesser peculiarities of the
captain and crew. Among others, four curious points recurred.
First, the affair of the Spanish lad assailed with a knife by
the slave boy; an act winked at by Don Benito. Second, the tyranny
in Don Benito's treatment of Atufal, the black; as if a child should
lead a bull of the Nile by the ring in his nose. Third, the
trampling of the sailor by the two Negroes; a piece of insolence
passed over without so much as a reprimand. Fourth, the cringing
submission to their master of all the ship's underlings, mostly
blacks; as if by the least inadvertence they feared to draw down his
despotic displeasure.
Coupling these points, they seemed somewhat contradictory. But
what then, thought Captain Delano, glancing toward his now nearing
boat, -- what then? Why, this Don Benito is a very capricious commander.
But he is not the first of the sort I have seen; though it's true he
rather exceeds any other. But as a nation -- continued he in his
reveries -- these Spaniards are all an odd set; the very word Spaniard
has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it. And yet, I dare
say, Spaniards in the main are as good folks as any in Duxbury,
Massachusetts. Ah, good! At last Rover has come.
As, with its welcome freight, the boat touched the side, the
oakum-pickers, with venerable gestures, sought to restrain the blacks,
who, at the sight of three gurried water-casks in its bottom, and a
pile of wilted pumpkins in its bow, hung over the bulwarks in
disorderly raptures.
Don Benito with his servant now appeared; his coming, perhaps,
hastened by hearing the noise. Of him Captain Delano sought permission
to serve out the water, so that all might share alike, and none injure
themselves by unfair excess. But sensible, and, on Don Benito's
account, kind as this offer was, it was received with what seemed
impatience; as if aware that he lacked energy as a commander, Don
Benito, with the true jealousy of weakness, resented as an affront any
interference. So, at least, Captain Delano inferred.
In another moment the casks were being hoisted in, when some of
the eager Negroes accidentally jostled Captain Delano, where he
stood by the gangway; so that, unmindful of Don Benito, yielding to
the impulse of the moment, with good-natured authority he bade the
blacks stand back; to enforce his words making use of a half-mirthful,
half-menacing gesture. Instantly the blacks paused, just where they
were, each Negro and Negress suspended in his or her posture,
exactly as the word had found them -- for a few seconds continuing so --
while, as between the responsive posts of a telegraph, an unknown
syllable ran from man to man among the perched oakum-pickers. While
Captain Delano's attention was fixed by this scene, suddenly the
hatchet-polishers half rose, and a rapid cry came from Don Benito.
Thinking that at the signal of the Spaniard he was about to be
massacred, Captain Delano would have sprung for his boat, but
paused, as the oakum-pickers, dropping down into the crowd with
earnest exclamations, forced every white and every Negro back, at
the same moment, with gestures friendly and familiar, almost jocose,
bidding him, in substance, not be a fool. Simultaneously the
hatchet-polishers resumed their seats, quietly as so many tailors, and
at once, as if nothing had happened, the work of hoisting in the casks
was resumed, whites and blacks singing at the tackle.
Captain Delano glanced toward Don Benito. As he saw his meagre
form in the act of recovering itself from reclining in the servant's
arms, into which the agitated invalid had fallen, he could not but
marvel at the panic by which himself had been surprised on the darting
supposition that such a commander, who upon a legitimate occasion,
so trivial, too, as it now appeared, could lose all self-command, was,
with energetic iniquity, going to bring about his murder.
The casks being on deck, Captain Delano was handed a number of
jars and cups by one of the steward's aides, who, in the name of Don
Benito, entreated him to do as he had proposed: dole out the water. He
complied, with republican impartiality as to this republican
element, which always seeks one level, serving the oldest white no
better than the youngest black; excepting, indeed, poor Don Benito,
whose condition, if not rank, demanded an extra allowance. To him,
in the first place, Captain Delano presented a fair pitcher of the
fluid; but, thirsting as he was for fresh water, Don Benito quaffed
not a drop until after several grave bows and salutes: a reciprocation
of courtesies which the sight-loving Africans hailed with clapping
of hands.
Two of the less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin
table, the residue were minced up on the spot for the general
regalement. But the soft bread, sugar, and bottled cider, Captain
Delano would have given the Spaniards alone, and in chief Don
Benito; but the latter objected; which disinterestedness, on his part,
not a little pleased the American; and so mouthfuls all around were
given alike to whites and blacks; excepting one bottle of cider, which
Babo insisted upon setting aside for his master.
Here it may be observed that as, on the first visit of the boat,
the American had not permitted his men to board the ship, neither
did he now; being unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks.
Not uninfluenced by the peculiar good humour at present
prevailing, and for the time oblivious of any but benevolent thoughts,
Captain Delano, who from recent indications counted upon a breeze
within an hour or two at furthest, despatched the boat back to the
sealer with orders for all the hands that could be spared
immediately to set about rafting casks to the watering-place and
filling them. Likewise he bade word be carried to his chief officer,
that if against present expectation the ship was not brought to anchor
by sunset, he need be under no concern, for as there was to be a
full moon that night, he (Captain Delano) would remain on board
ready to play the pilot, should the wind come soon or late.
As the two captains stood together, observing the departing
boat -- the servant as it happened having just spied a spot on his
master's velvet sleeve, and silently engaged rubbing it out -- the
American expressed his regrets that the San Dominick had no boats;
none, at least, but the unseaworthy old hulk of the long-boat,
which, warped as a camel's skeleton in the desert, and almost as
bleached, lay pot-wise inverted amidships, one side a little tipped,
furnishing a subterraneous sort of den for family groups of the
blacks, mostly women and small children; who, squatting on old mats
below, or perched above in the dark dome, on the elevated seats,
were descried, some distance within, like a social circle of bats,
sheltering in some friendly cave; at intervals, ebon flights of
naked boys and girls, three or four years old, darting in and out of
the den's mouth.
"Had you three or four boats now, Don Benito," said Captain
Delano, "I think that, by tugging at the oars, your Negroes here might
help along matters some. -- Did you sail from port without boats, Don
Benito?"
"They were stove in the gales, Senor."
"That was bad. Many men, too, you lost then. Boats and men. -- Those
must have been hard gales, Don Benito."
"Past all speech," cringed the Spaniard.
"Tell me, Don Benito," continued his companion with increased
interest, "tell me, were these gales immediately off the pitch of Cape
Horn?"
"Cape Horn? -- who spoke of Cape Horn?"
"Yourself did, when giving me an account of your voyage,"
answered Captain Delano with almost equal astonishment at this
eating of his own words, even as he ever seemed eating his own
heart, on the part of the Spaniard. "You yourself, Don Benito, spoke
of Cape Horn," he emphatically repeated.
The Spaniard turned, in a sort of stooping posture, pausing an
instant, as one about to make a plunging exchange of elements, as from
air to water.
Benito Cereno
by Herman Melville
Herman Melville Page in Great Books Index
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