06. Herman Melville_Benito Cereno

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from his perch to an outside boom; while below the old Negro- and, invisible to him,
reconnoitring from a port-hole like a fox from the mouth of its den- crouched the Spanish
sailor again. 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 pretence: that he was engaged there maturing some 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. Was it from foreseeing some
possible interference like this, that Don Benito had, beforehand, given such a bad character
of his sailors, while praising the Negroes; though, indeed, the former seemed as docile as
the latter the contrary? The whites, too, by nature, were the shrewder race. A man with
some evil design, would not he be likely to speak well of that stupidity which was blind to
his depravity, and malign that intelligence from which it might not be hidden? Not
unlikely, perhaps. But if the whites had dark secrets concerning Don Benito, could then
Don Benito be any way in complicity with the blacks? But they were too stupid. Besides,
who ever heard of a white so far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost,
by leaguing in against it with Negroes? These difficulties recalled former ones. Lost in
their mazes, Captain Delano, who had now regained the deck, was uneasily advancing
along it, when he observed a new face: an aged sailor seated cross-legged near the main
hatchway. His skin was shrunk up with wrinkles like a pelican's empty pouch; his hair
frosted; his countenance grave and composed. His hands were full of ropes, which he was
working into a large knot. Some blacks were about him obligingly dipping the strands for
him, here and there, as the exigencies of the operation demanded.
Captain Delano crossed over to him, and stood in silence surveying the knot; his mind, by a
not uncongenial transition, passing from its own entanglements to those of the hemp. For
intricacy such a knot he had never seen in an American ship, or indeed any other. The old
man looked like an Egyptian priest, making Gordian knots for the temple of Ammon. The
knot seemed a combination of double-bowline-knot, treble-crown-knot,
back-handed-well-knot, knot-in-and-out-knot, and jamming-knot.
At last, puzzled to comprehend the meaning of such a knot, Captain Delano, addressed the
knotter:-
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"What are you knotting there, my man?"
"The knot," was the brief reply, without looking up.
"So it seems; but what is it for?"
"For some one else to undo," muttered back the old man, plying his fingers harder than
ever, the knot being now nearly completed.
While Captain Delano stood watching him, suddenly the old man threw the knot toward
him, and said in broken English,- the first heard in the ship,- something to this effect-
"Undo it, cut it, quick." It was said lowly, but with such condensation of rapidity, that the
long, slow words in Spanish, which had preceded and followed, almost operated as covers
to the brief English between.
For a moment, knot in hand, and knot in head, Captain Delano stood mute; while, without
further heeding him, the old man was now intent upon other ropes. Presently there was a
slight stir behind Captain Delano. Turning, he saw the chained Negro, Atufal, standing
quietly there. The next moment the old sailor rose, muttering, and, followed by his
subordinate Negroes, removed to the forward part of the ship, where in the crowd he
disappeared.
An elderly Negro, in a clout like an infant's, and with a pepper and salt head, and a kind of
attorney air, now approached Captain Delano. In tolerable Spanish, and with a
good-natured, knowing wink, he informed him that the old knotter was simple-witted, but
harmless; often playing his old tricks. The Negro concluded by begging the knot, for of
course the stranger would not care to be troubled with it. Unconsciously, it was handed to
him. With a sort of conge, the Negro received it, and turning his back ferreted into it like a
detective Custom House officer after smuggled laces. Soon, with some African word,
equivalent to pshaw, he tossed the knot overboard.
All this is very queer now, thought Captain Delano, with a qualmish sort of emotion; but as
one feeling incipient seasickness, he strove, by ignoring the symptoms, to get rid of the
malady. Once more he looked off for his boat. To his delight, it was now again in view,
leaving the rocky spur astern.
The sensation here experienced, after at first relieving his uneasiness, with unforeseen
efficiency, soon began to remove it. The less distant sight of that well-known boat-
showing it, not as before, half blended with the haze, but with outline defined, so that its
individuality, like a man's, was manifest; that boat, Rover by name, which, though now in
strange seas, had often pressed the beach of Captain Delano's home, and, brought to its
threshold for repairs, had familiarly lain there, as a Newfoundland dog; the sight of that
household boat evoked a thousand trustful associations, which, contrasted with previous
suspicions, filled Him not only with lightsome confidence, but somehow with half
humorous self-reproaches at his former lack of it.
"What, I, Amasa Delano- Jack of the Beach, as they called me when a lad- I, Amasa; the
same that, duck-satchel in hand, used to paddle along the waterside to the schoolhouse
made from the old hulk;- I, little Jack of the Beach, that used to go berrying with cousin
Nat and the rest; I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth, on board a haunted
pirate-ship by a horrible Spaniard?- Too nonsensical to think of! Who would murder
Amasa Delano? His conscience is clean. There is some one above. Fie, fie, Jack of the
Beach! you are a child indeed; a child of the second childhood, old boy; you are beginning
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to dote and drool, I'm afraid."
Light of heart and foot, he stepped aft, and there was met by Don Benito's servant, who,
with a pleasing expression, responsive to his own present feelings, informed him that his
master had recovered from the effects of his coughing fit, and had just ordered him to go
present his compliments to his good guest, Don Amasa, and say that he (Don Benito)
would soon have the happiness to rejoin him.
There now, do you mark that? again thought Captain Delano, walking the poop. What a
donkey I was. This kind gentleman who here sends me his kind compliments, he, but ten
minutes ago, dark-lantern in hand, was dodging round some old grind-stone in the hold,
sharpening a hatchet for me, I thought. Well, well; these long calms have a morbid effect [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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