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- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
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- of the servant’s hand, however it was, just then the razor drew blood,
spots of which stained the creamy lather under the throat: immediately
the black barber drew back his steel, and, remaining in his
professional attitude, back to Captain Delano, and face to Don Benito,
held up the trickling razor, saying, with a sort of half humorous
sorrow, “See, master—you shook so—here’s Babo’s first blood.”
No sword drawn before James the First of England, no assassination in
that timid King’s presence, could have produced a more terrified aspect
than was now presented by Don Benito.
Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, so nervous he can’t even bear the
sight of barber’s blood; and this unstrung, sick man, is it credible
that I should have imagined he meant to spill all my blood, who can’t
endure the sight of one little drop of his own? Surely, Amasa Delano,
you have been beside yourself this day. Tell it not when you get home,
sappy Amasa. Well, well, he looks like a murderer, doesn’t he? More
like as if himself were to be done for. Well, well, this day’s
experience shall be a good lesson.
Meantime, while these things were running through the honest seaman’s
mind, the servant had taken the napkin from his arm, and to Don Benito
had said—“But answer Don Amasa, please, master, while I wipe this ugly
stuff off the razor, and strop it again.”
As he said the words, his face was turned half round, so as to be alike
visible to the Spaniard and the American, and seemed, by its
expression, to hint, that he was desirous, by getting his master to go
on with the conversation, considerately to withdraw his attention from
the recent annoying accident. As if glad to snatch the offered relief,
Don Benito resumed, rehearsing to Captain Delano, that not only were
the calms of unusual duration, but the ship had fallen in with
obstinate currents; and other things he added, some of which were but
repetitions of former statements, to explain how it came to pass that
the passage from Cape Horn to St. Maria had been so exceedingly long;
now and then, mingling with his words, incidental praises, less
qualified than before, to the blacks, for their general good conduct.
These particulars were not given consecutively, the servant, at
convenient times, using his razor, and so, between the intervals of
shaving, the story and panegyric went on with more than usual
huskiness.
To Captain Delano’s imagination, now again not wholly at rest, there
was something so hollow in the Spaniard’s manner, with apparently some
reciprocal hollowness in the servant’s dusky comment of silence, that
the idea flashed across him, that possibly master and man, for some
unknown purpose, were acting out, both in word and deed, nay, to the
very tremor of Don Benito’s limbs, some juggling play before him.
Neither did the suspicion of collusion lack apparent support, from the
fact of those whispered conferences before mentioned. But then, what
could be the object of enacting this play of the barber before him? At
last, regarding the notion as a whimsy, insensibly suggested, perhaps,
by the theatrical aspect of Don Benito in his harlequin ensign, Captain
Delano speedily banished it.
The shaving over, the servant bestirred himself with a small bottle of
scented waters, pouring a few drops on the head, and then diligently
rubbing; the vehemence of the exercise causing the muscles of his face
to twitch rather strangely.
His next operation was with comb, scissors, and brush; going round and
round, smoothing a curl here, clipping an unruly whisker-hair there,
giving a graceful sweep to the temple-lock, with other impromptu
touches evincing the hand of a master; while, like any resigned
gentleman in barber’s hands, Don Benito bore all, much less uneasily,
at least than he had done the razoring; indeed, he sat so pale and
rigid now, that the negro seemed a Nubian sculptor finishing off a
white statue-head.
- title
- Chunk 18