- end_line
- 3806
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3741
- text
- exclamations, forced every white and every negro back, at the same
moment, with gestures friendly and familiar, almost jocose, bidding
him, in substance, not be a fool. Simultaneously the hatchet-polishers
resumed their seats, quietly as so many tailors, and at once, as if
nothing had happened, the work of hoisting in the casks was resumed,
whites and blacks singing at the tackle.
Captain Delano glanced towards Don Benito. As he saw his meagre form in
the act of recovering itself from reclining in the servant’s arms, into
which the agitated invalid had fallen, he could not but marvel at the
panic by which himself had been surprised, on the darting supposition
that such a commander, who, upon a legitimate occasion, so trivial,
too, as it now appeared, could lose all self-command, was, with
energetic iniquity, going to bring about his murder.
The casks being on deck, Captain Delano was handed a number of jars and
cups by one of the steward’s aids, who, in the name of his captain,
entreated him to do as he had proposed—dole out the water. He complied,
with republican impartiality as to this republican element, which
always seeks one level, serving the oldest white no better than the
youngest black; excepting, indeed, poor Don Benito, whose condition, if
not rank, demanded an extra allowance. To him, in the first place,
Captain Delano presented a fair pitcher of the fluid; but, thirsting as
he was for it, the Spaniard quaffed not a drop until after several
grave bows and salutes. A reciprocation of courtesies which the
sight-loving Africans hailed with clapping of hands.
Two of the less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin table, the
residue were minced up on the spot for the general regalement. But the
soft bread, sugar, and bottled cider, Captain Delano would have given
the whites alone, and in chief Don Benito; but the latter objected;
which disinterestedness not a little pleased the American; and so
mouthfuls all around were given alike to whites and blacks; excepting
one bottle of cider, which Babo insisted upon setting aside for his
master.
Here it may be observed that as, on the first visit of the boat, the
American had not permitted his men to board the ship, neither did he
now; being unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks.
Not uninfluenced by the peculiar good-humor at present prevailing, and
for the time oblivious of any but benevolent thoughts, Captain Delano,
who, from recent indications, counted upon a breeze within an hour or
two at furthest, dispatched the boat back to the sealer, with orders
for all the hands that could be spared immediately to set about rafting
casks to the watering-place and filling them. Likewise he bade word be
carried to his chief officer, that if, against present expectation, the
ship was not brought to anchor by sunset, he need be under no concern;
for as there was to be a full moon that night, he (Captain Delano)
would remain on board ready to play the pilot, come the wind soon or
late.
As the two Captains stood together, observing the departing boat—the
servant, as it happened, having just spied a spot on his master’s
velvet sleeve, and silently engaged rubbing it out—the American
expressed his regrets that the San Dominick had no boats; none, at
least, but the unseaworthy old hulk of the long-boat, which, warped as
a camel’s skeleton in the desert, and almost as bleached, lay pot-wise
inverted amidships, one side a little tipped, furnishing a
subterraneous sort of den for family groups of the blacks, mostly women
and small children; who, squatting on old mats below, or perched above
in the dark dome, on the elevated seats, were descried, some distance
within, like a social circle of bats, sheltering in some friendly cave;
at intervals, ebon flights of naked boys and girls, three or four years
old, darting in and out of the den’s mouth.
- title
- Chunk 13