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12 -- PURSUIT
The first impulse was to slip the cables and give chase. But, upon
second thought, to pursue with whale-boat and yawl seemed more
promising.
Upon inquiring of Don Benito what firearms they had on board the
San Dominick, Captain Delano was answered that they had none that
could be used; because, in the earlier stages of the mutiny, a
cabin-passenger, since dead, had secretly put out of order the locks
of what few muskets there were. But with all his remaining strength,
Don Benito entreated the American not to give chase, either with
ship or boat; for the Negroes had already proved themselves such
desperadoes, that, in case of a present assault, nothing but a total
massacre of the whites could be looked for. But, regarding this
warning as coming from one whose spirit had been crushed by misery,
the American did not give up his design.
The boats were got ready and armed. Captain Delano ordered
twenty-five men into them. He was going himself when Don Benito
grasped his arm. "What! have you saved my life, Senor, and are you now
going to throw away your own?"
The officers also, for reasons connected with their interests
and those of the voyage, and a duty owing to the owners, strongly
objected against their commander's going. Weighing their remonstrances
a moment, Captain Delano felt bound to remain; appointing his chief
mate -- an athletic and resolute man, who had been a privateer's man,
and, as his enemies whispered, a pirate -- to head the party. The more
to encourage the sailors, they were told, that the Spanish captain
considered his ship as good as lost; that she and her cargo, including
some gold and silver, were worth upwards of ten thousand doubloons.
Take her, and no small part should be theirs. The sailors replied with
a shout.
The fugitives had now almost gained an offing. It was nearly
night; but the moon was rising. After hard, prolonged pulling, the
boats came up on the ship's quarters, at a suitable distance laying
upon their oars to discharge their muskets. Having no bullets to
return, the Negroes sent their yells. But, upon the second volley,
Indian-like, they hurtled their hatchets. One took off a sailor's
fingers. Another struck the whale-boat's bow, cutting off the rope
there, and remaining stuck in the gunwale, like a woodman's axe.
Snatching it, quivering from its lodgment, the mate hurled it back.
The returned gauntlet now stuck in the ship's broken
quarter-gallery, and so remained.
The Negroes giving too hot a reception, the whites kept a more
respectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtling
hatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon
come, sought to decoy the blacks into entirely disarming themselves of
their most murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly
flinging them, as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But ere
long perceiving the stratagem, the Negroes desisted, though not before
many of them had to replace their lost hatchets with handspikes; an
exchange which, as counted upon, proved in the end favourable to the
assailants.
Meantime, with a strong wind, the ship still clove the water;
the boats alternately falling behind, and pulling up, to discharge
fresh volleys.
The fire was mostly directed toward the stern, since there,
chiefly, the Negroes, at present, were clustering. But to kill or maim
the Negroes was not the object. To take them, with the ship, was the
object. To do it, the ship must be boarded; which could not be done by
boats while she was sailing so fast.
A thought now struck the mate. Observing the Spanish boys still
aloft, high as they could get, he called to them to descend to the
yards, and cut adrift the sails. It was done. About this time, owing
to causes hereafter to be shown, two Spaniards, in the dress of
sailors and conspicuously showing themselves, were killed; not by
volleys, but by deliberate marksman's shots; while, as it afterwards
appeared, during one of the general discharges, Atufal, the black, and
the Spaniard at the helm likewise were killed. What now, with the loss
of the sails, and loss of leaders, the ship became unmanageable to the
Negroes.
With creaking masts she came heavily round to the wind; the prow
slowly swinging into view of the boats, its skeleton gleaming in the
horizontal moonlight, and casting a gigantic ribbed shadow upon the
water. One extended arm of the ghost seemed beckoning the whites to
avenge it.
"Follow your leader!" cried the mate; and, one on each bow, the
boats boarded. Sealing-spears and cutlasses crossed hatchets and
handspikes. Huddled upon the long-boat amidships, the Negresses raised
a wailing chant, whose chorus was the clash of the steel.
For a time, the attack wavered; the Negroes wedging themselves
to beat it back; the half-repelled sailors, as yet unable to gain a
footing, fighting as troopers in the saddle, one leg sideways flung
over the bulwarks, and one without, plying their cutlasses like
carters' whips. But in vain. They were almost overborne, when,
rallying themselves into a squad as one man, with a huzza, they sprang
inboard; where, entangled, they involuntarily separated again. For a
few breaths' space there was a vague, muffled, inner sound as of
submerged sword-fish rushing hither and thither through shoals of
black-fish. Soon, in a reunited band, and joined by the Spanish
seamen, the whites came to the surface, irresistibly driving the
Negroes toward the stern. But a barricade of casks and sacks, from
side to side, had been thrown up by the mainmast. Here the Negroes
faced about, and though scorning peace or truce, yet fain would have
had a respite. But, without pause, overleaping the barrier, the
unflagging sailors again closed. Exhausted, the blacks now fought in
despair. Their red tongues lolled, wolf-like, from their black mouths.
But the pale sailors' teeth were set; not a word was spoken; and, in
five minutes more, the ship was won.
Nearly a score of the Negroes were killed. Exclusive of those by
the balls, many were mangled; their wounds -- mostly inflicted by the
long-edged sealing-spears -- resembling those shaven ones of the English
at Preston Pans, made by the poled scythes of the Highlanders. On
the other side, none were killed, though several were wounded; some
severely, including the mate. The surviving Negroes were temporarily
secured, and the ship, towed back into the harbour at midnight, once
more lay anchored.
Benito Cereno
by Herman Melville
Herman Melville Page in Great Books Index
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