- end_line
- 2660
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2594
- text
- gales,” plaintively sighed the servant; “my poor, poor master!”
wringing one hand, and with the other wiping the mouth. “But be
patient, Señor,” again turning to Captain Delano, “these fits do not
last long; master will soon be himself.”
Don Benito reviving, went on; but as this portion of the story was very
brokenly delivered, the substance only will here be set down.
It appeared that after the ship had been many days tossed in storms off
the Cape, the scurvy broke out, carrying off numbers of the whites and
blacks. When at last they had worked round into the Pacific, their
spars and sails were so damaged, and so inadequately handled by the
surviving mariners, most of whom were become invalids, that, unable to
lay her northerly course by the wind, which was powerful, the
unmanageable ship, for successive days and nights, was blown
northwestward, where the breeze suddenly deserted her, in unknown
waters, to sultry calms. The absence of the water-pipes now proved as
fatal to life as before their presence had menaced it. Induced, or at
least aggravated, by the more than scanty allowance of water, a
malignant fever followed the scurvy; with the excessive heat of the
lengthened calm, making such short work of it as to sweep away, as by
billows, whole families of the Africans, and a yet larger number,
proportionably, of the Spaniards, including, by a luckless fatality,
every remaining officer on board. Consequently, in the smart west winds
eventually following the calm, the already rent sails, having to be
simply dropped, not furled, at need, had been gradually reduced to the
beggars’ rags they were now. To procure substitutes for his lost
sailors, as well as supplies of water and sails, the captain, at the
earliest opportunity, had made for Baldivia, the southernmost civilized
port of Chili and South America; but upon nearing the coast the thick
weather had prevented him from so much as sighting that harbor. Since
which period, almost without a crew, and almost without canvas and
almost without water, and, at intervals giving its added dead to the
sea, the San Dominick had been battle-dored about by contrary winds,
inveigled by currents, or grown weedy in calms. Like a man lost in
woods, more than once she had doubled upon her own track.
“But throughout these calamities,” huskily continued Don Benito,
painfully turning in the half embrace of his servant, “I have to thank
those negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing
unruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of restlessness
than even their owner could have thought possible under such
circumstances.”
Here he again fell faintly back. Again his mind wandered; but he
rallied, and less obscurely proceeded.
“Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters would
be needed with his blacks; so that while, as is wont in this
transportation, those negroes have always remained upon deck—not thrust
below, as in the Guinea-men—they have, also, from the beginning, been
freely permitted to range within given bounds at their pleasure.”
Once more the faintness returned—his mind roved—but, recovering, he
resumed:
“But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own
preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit is due, of
pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted to
murmurings.”
“Ah, master,” sighed the black, bowing his face, “don’t speak of me;
Babo is nothing; what Babo has done was but duty.”
“Faithful fellow!” cried Captain Delano. “Don Benito, I envy you such a
friend; slave I cannot call him.”
- title
- Chunk 10