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minced up on the spot for the general regalement. But the soft bread, sugar, and bottled
cider, Captain Delano would have given the Spaniards alone, and in chief Don Benito; but
the latter objected; which disinterestedness, on his part, 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 humour 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, despatched 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, should the wind come 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.
"Had you three or four boats now, Don Benito," said Captain Delano, "I think that, by
tugging at the oars, your Negroes here might help along matters some.- Did you sail from
port without boats, Don Benito?"
"They were stove in the gales, Senor."
"That was bad. Many men, too, you lost then. Boats and men.- Those must have been hard
gales, Don Benito."
"Past all speech," cringed the Spaniard.
"Tell me, Don Benito," continued his companion with increased interest, "tell me, were
these gales immediately off the pitch of Cape Horn?"
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"Cape Horn?- who spoke of Cape Horn?"
"Yourself did, when giving me an account of your voyage," answered Captain Delano with
almost equal astonishment at this eating of his own words, even as he ever seemed eating
his own heart, on the part of the Spaniard. "You yourself, Don Benito, spoke of Cape
Horn," he emphatically repeated.
The Spaniard turned, in a sort of stooping posture, pausing an instant, as one about to make
a plunging exchange of elements, as from air to water.
At this moment a messenger-boy, a white, hurried by, in the regular performance of his
function carrying the last expired half-hour forward to the forecastle, from the cabin
time-piece, to have it struck at the ship's large bell.
"Master," said the servant, discontinuing his work on the coat sleeve, and addressing the
rapt Spaniard with a sort of timid apprehensiveness, as one charged with a duty, the
discharge of which, it was foreseen, would prove irksome to the very person who had
imposed it, and for whose benefit it was intended, "master told me never mind where he
was, or how engaged, always to remind him, to a minute, when shaving-time comes.
Miguel has gone to strike the half-hour after noon. It is now, master. Will master go into
the cuddy?"
"Ah- yes," answered the Spaniard, starting, somewhat as from dreams into realities; then
turning upon Captain Delano, he said that ere long he would resume the conversation.
"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."
"Be it so, Senor."
As the three passed aft, the American could not but think it another strange instance of his
host's capriciousness, this being shaved with such uncommon punctuality in the middle of
the day. But he deemed it more than likely that the servant's anxious fidelity had something
to do with the matter; inasmuch as the timely interruption served to rally his master from
the mood which had evidently been coming upon him.
The place called the cuddy was a light deck-cabin formed by the poop, a sort of attic to the
large cabin below. Part of it had formerly been the quarters of the officers; but since their
death all the partitionings had been thrown down, and the whole interior converted into one
spacious and airy marine hall; for absence of fine furniture and picturesque disarray, of odd
appurtenances, somewhat answering to the wide, cluttered hall of some eccentric bachelor
squire in the country, who hangs his shooting-jacket and tobacco-pouch on deer antlers,
and keeps his fishing-rod, tongs, and walking-stick in the same corner.
The similitude was heightened, if not originally suggested, by glimpses of the surrounding
sea; since, in one aspect, the country and the ocean seem cousins-german.
The floor of the cuddy was matted. Overhead, four or five old muskets were stuck into
horizontal holes along the beams. On one side was a claw-footed old table lashed to the
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deck; a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre crucifix attached to the bulkhead.
Under the table lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some
melancholy old rigging, like a heap of poor friar's girdles. There were also two long,
sharp-ribbed settees of malacca cane, black with age, and uncomfortable to look at as
inquisitors' racks, with a large, misshapen arm-chair, which, furnished with a rude barber's
crutch at the back, working with a screw, seemed some grotesque Middle Age engine of
torment. A flag locker was in one corner, exposing various coloured bunting, some rolled
up, others half unrolled, still others tumbled. Opposite was a cumbrous washstand, of black
mahogany, all of one block, with a pedestal, like a font, and over it a railed shelf, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]