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11 -- INTO THE BOAT
There was a few minutes' delay, while, in obedience to his orders,
the boat was being hooked along to the gangway. During this
interval, a sort of saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano,
at thinking of the kindly offices he had that day discharged for a
stranger. Ah, thought he, after good actions one's conscience is never
ungrateful, however much so the benefited party may be.
Presently, his foot, in the first act of descent into the boat,
pressed the first round of the side-ladder, his face presented
inward upon the deck. In the same moment, he heard his name
courteously sounded; and, to his pleased surprise, saw Don Benito
advancing -- an unwonted energy in his air, as if, at the last moment,
intent upon making amends for his recent discourtesy. With instinctive
good feeling, Captain Delano, revoking his foot, turned and
reciprocally advanced. As he did so, the Spaniard's nervous
eagerness increased, but his vital energy failed; so that, the
better to support him, the servant, placing his master's hand on his
naked shoulder, and gently holding it there, formed himself into a
sort of crutch.
When the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the
hand of the American, at the same time casting an earnest glance
into his eyes, but, as before, too much overcome to speak.
I have done him wrong, self-reproachfully thought Captain
Delano; his apparent coldness has deceived me; in no instance has he
meant to offend.
Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might
too much unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to
terminate it. And so, still presenting himself as a crutch, and
walking between the two captains, he advanced with them toward the
gangway; while still, as if full of kindly contrition, Don Benito
would not let go the hand of Captain Delano, but retained it in his,
across the black's body.
Soon they were standing by the side, looking over into the boat,
whose crew turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a moment for the
Spaniard to relinquish his hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano
lifted his foot, to overstep the threshold of the open gangway; but
still Don Benito would not let go his hand. And yet, with an
agitated tone, he said, "I can go no further; here I must bid you
adieu. Adieu, my dear, dear Don Amasa. Go -- go!" suddenly tearing his
hand loose, "go, and God guard you better than me, my best friend."
Not unaffected, Captain Delano would now have lingered; but
catching the meekly admonitory eye of the servant, with a hasty
farewell he descended into his boat, followed by the continual
adieus of Don Benito, standing rooted in the gangway.
Seating himself in the stern, Captain Delano, making a last
salute, ordered the boat shoved off. The crew had their oars on end.
The bowsman pushed the boat a sufficient distance for the oars to be
lengthwise dropped. The instant that was done, Don Benito sprang
over the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain Delano; at the
same time, calling towards his ship, but in tones so frenzied, that
none in the boat could understand him. But, as if not equally
obtuse, three Spanish sailors, from three different and distant
parts of the ship, splashed into the sea, swimming after their
captain, as if intent upon his rescue.
The dismayed officer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant. To
which, Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile upon the
unaccountable Benito Cereno, answered that, for his part, he neither
knew nor cared; but it seemed as if the Spaniard had taken it into his
head to produce the impression among his people that the boat wanted
to kidnap him. "Or else -- give way for your lives," he wildly added,
starting at a clattering hubbub in the ship, above which rang the
tocsin of the hatchet-polishers; and seizing Don Benito by the
throat he added, "this plotting pirate means murder!" Here, in
apparent verification of the words, the servant, a dagger in his hand,
was seen on the rail overhead, poised, in the act of leaping, as if
with desperate fidelity to befriend his master to the last; while,
seemingly to aid the black, the three Spanish sailors were trying to
clamber into the hampered bow. Meantime, the whole host of Negroes, as
if inflamed at the sight of their jeopardized captain, impended in one
sooty avalanche over the bulwarks.
All this, with what preceded, and what followed, occurred with
such involutions of rapidity, that past, present, and future seemed
one.
Seeing the Negro coming, Captain Delano had flung the Spaniard
aside, almost in the very act of clutching him, and, by the
unconscious recoil, shifting his place, with arms thrown up, so
promptly grappled the servant in his descent, that with dagger
presented at Captain Delano's heart, the black seemed of purpose to
have leaped there as to his mark. But the weapon was wrenched away,
and the assailant dashed down into the bottom of the boat, which
now, with disentangled oars, began to speed through the sea.
At this juncture, the left hand of Captain Delano, on one side,
again clutched the half-reclined Don Benito, heedless that he was in a
speechless faint, while his right foot, on the other side, ground
the prostrate Negro; and his right arm pressed for added speed on
the after oar, his eye bent forward, encouraging his men to their
utmost.
But here, the officer of the boat, who had at last succeeded in
beating off the towing Spanish sailors, and was now, with face
turned aft, assisting the bowsman at his oar, suddenly called to
Captain Delano, to see what the black was about; while a Portuguese
oarsman shouted to him to give heed to what the Spaniard was saying.
Glancing down at his feet, Captain Delano saw the freed hand of
the servant aiming with a second dagger -- a small one, before concealed
in his wool -- with this he was snakishly writhing up from the boat's
bottom, at the heart of his master, his countenance lividly
vindictive, expressing the centred purpose of his soul; while the
Spaniard, half-choked, was vainly shrinking away, with husky words,
incoherent to all but the Portuguese.
That moment, across the long benighted mind of Captain Delano, a
flash of revelation swept, illuminating in unanticipated clearness
Benito Cereno's whole mysterious demeanour, with every enigmatic event
of the day, as well as the entire past voyage of the San Dominick.
He smote Babo's hand down, but his own heart smote him harder. With
infinite pity he withdrew his hold from Don Benito. Not Captain
Delano, but Don Benito, the black, in leaping into the boat, had
intended to stab.
Both the black's hands were held, as, glancing up toward the San
Dominick, Captain Delano, now with the scales dropped from his eyes,
saw the Negroes, not in misrule, not in tumult, not as if
frantically concerned for Don Benito, but with mask tom away,
flourishing hatchets and knives, in ferocious piratical revolt. Like
delirious black dervishes, the six Ashantees danced on the poop.
Prevented by their foes from springing into the water, the Spanish
boys were hurrying up to the topmost spars, while such of the few
Spanish sailors, not already in the sea, less alert, were descried,
helplessly mixed in, on deck, with the blacks.
Meantime Captain Delano hailed his own vessel, ordering the
ports up, and the guns run out. But by this time the cable of the
San Dominick had been cut; and the fag-end, in lashing out, whipped
away the canvas shroud about the beak, suddenly revealing, as the
bleached hull swung round toward the open ocean, death for the
figurehead, in a human skeleton; chalky comment on the chalked words
below, "Follow your leader."
At the sight, Don Benito, covering his face, wailed out: "'Tis he,
Aranda! my murdered, unburied friend!"
Upon reaching the sealer, calling for ropes, Captain Delano
bound the Negro, who made no resistance, and had him hoisted to the
deck. He would then have assisted the now almost helpless Don Benito
up the side; but Don Benito, wan as he was, refused to move, or be
moved, until the Negro should have been first put below out of view.
When, presently assured that it was done, he no more shrank from the
ascent.
The boat was immediately despatched back to pick up the three
swimming sailors. Meantime, the guns were in readiness, though,
owing to the San Dominick having glided somewhat astern of the sealer,
only the aftermost one could be brought to bear. With this, they fired
six times; thinking to cripple the fugitive ship by bringing down
her spars. But only a few inconsiderable ropes were shot away. Soon
the ship was beyond the guns' range, steering broad out of the bay;
the blacks thickly clustering round the bowsprit, one moment with
taunting cries toward the whites, the next with up-thrown gestures
hailing the now dusky expanse of ocean -- cawing crows escaped from
the hand of the fowler.
Benito Cereno
by Herman Melville
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