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- 2407
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2364
- text
- they sideways clashed their hatchets together, like cymbals, with a
barbarous din. All six, unlike the generality, had the raw aspect of
unsophisticated Africans.
But that first comprehensive glance which took in those ten figures,
with scores less conspicuous, rested but an instant upon them, as,
impatient of the hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in quest of
whomsoever it might be that commanded the ship.
But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case among his
suffering charge, or else in despair of restraining it for the time,
the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved-looking, and rather young
man to a stranger’s eye, dressed with singular richness, but bearing
plain traces of recent sleepless cares and disquietudes, stood
passively by, leaning against the main-mast, at one moment casting a
dreary, spiritless look upon his excited people, at the next an unhappy
glance toward his visitor. By his side stood a black of small stature,
in whose rude face, as occasionally, like a shepherd’s dog, he mutely
turned it up into the Spaniard’s, sorrow and affection were equally
blended.
Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the Spaniard,
assuring him of his sympathies, and offering to render whatever
assistance might be in his power. To which the Spaniard returned for
the present but grave and ceremonious acknowledgments, his national
formality dusked by the saturnine mood of ill-health.
But losing no time in mere compliments, Captain Delano, returning to
the gangway, had his basket of fish brought up; and as the wind still
continued light, so that some hours at least must elapse ere the ship
could be brought to the anchorage, he bade his men return to the
sealer, and fetch back as much water as the whale-boat could carry,
with whatever soft bread the steward might have, all the remaining
pumpkins on board, with a box of sugar, and a dozen of his private
bottles of cider.
Not many minutes after the boat’s pushing off, to the vexation of all,
the wind entirely died away, and the tide turning, began drifting back
the ship helplessly seaward. But trusting this would not long last,
Captain Delano sought, with good hopes, to cheer up the strangers,
feeling no small satisfaction that, with persons in their condition, he
could—thanks to his frequent voyages along the Spanish main—converse
with some freedom in their native tongue.
- title
- Chunk 5