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- 3248
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- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
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- 3187
- text
- the strange questions put to him concerning his ship.
By a curious coincidence, as each point was recalled, the black wizards
of Ashantee would strike up with their hatchets, as in ominous comment
on the white stranger’s thoughts. Pressed by such enigmas and portents,
it would have been almost against nature, had not, even into the least
distrustful heart, some ugly misgivings obtruded.
Observing the ship, now helplessly fallen into a current, with
enchanted sails, drifting with increased rapidity seaward; and noting
that, from a lately intercepted projection of the land, the sealer was
hidden, the stout mariner began to quake at thoughts which he barely
durst confess to himself. Above all, he began to feel a ghostly dread
of Don Benito. And yet, when he roused himself, dilated his chest, felt
himself strong on his legs, and coolly considered it—what did all these
phantoms amount to?
Had the Spaniard any sinister scheme, it must have reference not so
much to him (Captain Delano) as to his ship (the Bachelor’s Delight).
Hence the present drifting away of the one ship from the other, instead
of favoring any such possible scheme, was, for the time, at least,
opposed to it. Clearly any suspicion, combining such contradictions,
must need be delusive. Beside, was it not absurd to think of a vessel
in distress—a vessel by sickness almost dismanned of her crew—a vessel
whose inmates were parched for water—was it not a thousand times absurd
that such a craft should, at present, be of a piratical character; or
her commander, either for himself or those under him, cherish any
desire but for speedy relief and refreshment? But then, might not
general distress, and thirst in particular, be affected? And might not
that same undiminished Spanish crew, alleged to have perished off to a
remnant, be at that very moment lurking in the hold? On heart-broken
pretense of entreating a cup of cold water, fiends in human form had
got into lonely dwellings, nor retired until a dark deed had been done.
And among the Malay pirates, it was no unusual thing to lure ships
after them into their treacherous harbors, or entice boarders from a
declared enemy at sea, by the spectacle of thinly manned or vacant
decks, beneath which prowled a hundred spears with yellow arms ready to
upthrust them through the mats. Not that Captain Delano had entirely
credited such things. He had heard of them—and now, as stories, they
recurred. The present destination of the ship was the anchorage. There
she would be near his own vessel. Upon gaining that vicinity, might not
the San Dominick, like a slumbering volcano, suddenly let loose
energies now hid?
He recalled the Spaniard’s manner while telling his story. There was a
gloomy hesitancy and subterfuge about it. It was just the manner of one
making up his tale for evil purposes, as he goes. But if that story was
not true, what was the truth? That the ship had unlawfully come into
the Spaniard’s possession? But in many of its details, especially in
reference to the more calamitous parts, such as the fatalities among
the seamen, the consequent prolonged beating about, the past sufferings
from obstinate calms, and still continued suffering from thirst; in all
these points, as well as others, Don Benito’s story had corroborated
not only the wailing ejaculations of the indiscriminate multitude,
white and black, but likewise—what seemed impossible to be
counterfeit—by the very expression and play of every human feature,
which Captain Delano saw. If Don Benito’s story was, throughout, an
invention, then every soul on board, down to the youngest negress, was
his carefully drilled recruit in the plot: an incredible inference. And
yet, if there was ground for mistrusting his veracity, that inference
was a legitimate one.
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