He rubbed his eyes, and looked again; but again seemed to see the same thing. 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. Come, all day you have been my host; would you have hospitality all on one side?”, “What? Walking forward to the main-mast, he stood awhile thinking over the scene, and not without some undefined misgivings, when he heard a noise near the cuddy, and turning, saw the negro, his hand to his cheek. Not unaffected by the close sight of the gleaming steel, Don Benito nervously shuddered; his usual ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in its hue by the contrasting sootiness of the negro’s body. But in vain. Why, Don Benito, had almost any other gentleman told me such a story, I should have been half disposed to a little incredulity.”, Here an involuntary expression came over the Spaniard, similar to that just before on the deck, and whether it was the start he gave, or a sudden gawky roll of the hull in the calm, or a momentary unsteadiness 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.”. But enough was seen of him to make it sure that he was the same young sailor before noticed in the rigging. /F3 11 0 R Skip to navigation. “What posts they fill, I appointed them,” rejoined the Spaniard, in an acrid tone, as if resenting some supposed satiric reflection. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and 1413739. Not unlikely, perhaps. Struggling with distance learning? The singular alternations of courtesy and ill-breeding in the Spanish captain were unaccountable, except on one of two suppositions–innocent lunacy, or wicked imposture. Don Benito restored, the black withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but dutifully remaining within call of a whisper. Huddled upon the long-boat amidships, the negresses raised a wailing chant, whose chorus was the clash of the steel. Great book, Benito Cereno pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone. Was the negro now lying in wait? But probably this appearance of slumbering dominion might have been but an attempted disguise to conscious imbecility–not deep policy, but shallow device. 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. Why, Don Benito is a very capricious commander. “Doubtless, doubtless, Señor, but”–glancing at Babo–“not to speak of negroes, your planter’s remark I have heard applied to the Spanish and Indian intermixtures in our provinces. For nothing was to be seen but the hand of his servant pushing the Canary over towards him. But to kill or maim the negroes was not the object. Captain Delano would have supported him, but the servant was more alert, who, with one hand sustaining his master, with the other applied the cordial. For when, after a long, sad voyage, you know, the anchor drops into the haven, all its vast weight seems lifted from the captain’s heart. The wind, which had breezed up a little during the night, was now extremely light and baffling, which the more increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements. 702 The floor of the cuddy was matted. But it was otherwise. He recalled the Spaniard’s manner while telling his story. The servant wore nothing but wide trowsers, apparently, from their coarseness and patches, made out of some old topsail; they were clean, and confined at the waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which, with his composed, deprecatory air at times, made him look something like a begging friar of St. Francis. “Then if master means to talk more to Don Amasa,” said the servant, “why not let Don Amasa sit by master in the cuddy, and master can talk, and Don Amasa can listen, while Babo here lathers and strops.”, “Yes,” said Captain Delano, not unpleased with this sociable plan, “yes, Don Benito, unless you had rather not, I will go with you.”. And yet, I dare say, Spaniards in the main are as good folks as any in Duxbury, Massachusetts. At my command, every two hours he stands before me.”, “And obedient in all else? From something suddenly suggested by the man’s air, the mad idea now darted into Captain Delano’s mind, that Don Benito’s plea of indisposition, in withdrawing below, was but a pretense: that he was engaged there maturing his plot, of which the sailor, by some means gaining an inkling, had a mind to warn the stranger against; incited, it may be, by gratitude for a kind word on first boarding the ship. Always upon first boarding a large and populous ship at sea, especially a foreign one, with a nondescript crew such as Lascars or Manilla men, the impression varies in a peculiar way from that produced by first entering a strange house with strange inmates in a strange land. If, indeed, there be any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano, be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now he fouls it in the pitch. For it were strange, indeed, and not very creditable to us white-skins, if a little of our blood mixed with the African’s, should, far from improving the latter’s quality, have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic acid into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps, but not the wholesomeness.”. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." The more so, since, with an untimely caprice of punctilio, rendered distressing by his cadaverous aspect, Don Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnly insisted upon his guest’s preceding him up the ladder leading to the elevation; where, one on each side of the last step, sat for armorial supporters and sentries two of the ominous file. It’s well it’s only I, and not the King, that sees this,” he added, with a smile, “but”–turning towards the black–“it’s all one, I suppose, so the colors be gay;” which playful remark did not fail somewhat to tickle the negro. Adieu, my dear, dear Don Amasa. Meantime, the whole host of negroes, as if inflamed at the sight of their jeopardized captain, impended in one sooty avalanche over the bulwarks. 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. Climbing the side, the visitor was at once surrounded by a clamorous throng of whites and blacks, but the latter outnumbering the former more than could have been expected, negro transportation-ship as the stranger in port was. The long continuance of the calm had now affected the atmosphere. More like as if himself were to be done for. Benito Cereno–Don Benito Cereno–a sounding name. 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. Rudely painted or chalked, as in a sailor freak, along the forward side of a sort of pedestal below the canvas, was the sentence, “_Seguid vuestro jefe_” (follow your leader); while upon the tarnished headboards, near by, appeared, in stately capitals, once gilt, the ship’s name, “SAN DOMINICK,” each letter streakingly corroded with tricklings of copper-spike rust; while, like mourning weeds, dark festoons of sea-grass slimily swept to and fro over the name, with every hearse-like roll of the hull. To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill-behavior of others, seemed to withdraw the half-lunatic Don Benito from his cloudy languor. Seated between two sleepy-looking Africans, this mariner, like his younger shipmate, was employed upon some rigging–splicing a cable–the sleepy-looking blacks performing the inferior function of holding the outer parts of the ropes for him. 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. The more to encourage the sailors, they were told, that the Spanish captain considered his ship good as lost; that she and her cargo, including some gold and silver, were worth more than a thousand doubloons. With a sort of congé, the negro received it, and, turning his back, ferreted into it like a detective custom-house officer after smuggled laces. There was silence, while the moody man sat, slowly and unconsciously gathering his mantle about him, as if it were a pall. There was a few minutes’ delay, while, in obedience to his orders, the boat was being hooked along to the gangway. SHARE this site and downlad any VIP ebook for Free! Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this hapless man is one of those paper captains I’ve known, who by policy wink at what by power they cannot put down? Once more he looked off for his boat. The tribunal inclined to the opinion that the deponent, not undisturbed in his mind by recent events, raved of some things which could never have happened. Through Delano’s confused perspective, Melville shows that prejudice and racist assumptions about the world can blind people to reality. But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first seeing the stranger, would almost, in any seaman’s mind, have been dissipated by observing that, the ship, in navigating into the harbor, was drawing too near the land; a sunken reef making out off her bow. He cast another swift side-look at the two. The servant moved before his master, adjusting a cushion; recalled to civility, the Spaniard stiffly replied: “you are right. Peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealed through the open port-holes, other dark moving figures were dimly descried, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters. To take them, with the ship, was the object. The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed Atufal, and stood unharmed in the light. Although slavery is legal in the world of the novella, it involves the total dehumanization of its victims, who are treated as objects of trade. He rubbed his eyes, and looked hard. That strange ceremoniousness, too, at other times evinced, seemed not uncharacteristic of one playing a part above his real level. Overhead, four or five old muskets were stuck into horizontal holes along the beams.
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