people, at the next an unhappy glance toward his visitor. By his
side stood a black of small stature, in whose rude face, as

occasionally, like a shepherd's dog, he mutely turned it up into the
Spaniard's, sorrow and affection were equally blended.

Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the
Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies, and offering to render

whateverassistance might be in his power. To which the Spaniard
returned, for the present, but grave and ceremonious

acknowledgments, his national formality" target="_blank" title="n.形式；礼仪；拘谨">formality dusked by the saturnine mood
of ill health.

But losing no time in mere compliments, Captain Delano returning
to the gangway, had his baskets of fish brought up; and as the wind

still continued light, so that some hours at least must elapse ere the
ship could be brought to the anchorage" target="_blank" title="n.停泊地点；抛锚地点">anchorage, he bade his men return to

the sealer, and fetch back as much water as the whaleboat could carry,
with whatever soft bread the steward might have, all the remaining

pumpkins on board, with a box of sugar, and a dozen of his private
bottles of cider.

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 helplesslyseaward. But trusting this would not
last, Captain Delano sought with good hopes to cheer up the strangers,

feeling no small satisfaction that, with persons in their condition he
could- thanks to his frequentvoyages along the Spanish main- converse

with some freedom in their native tongue.
While left alone with them, he was not long in observing some

things tending to heighten his first impressions; but surprise was
lost in pity, both for the Spaniards and blacks, alike evidently

reduced from scarcity of water and provisions; while long-continued
suffering seemed to have brought out the less good-natured qualities

of the Negroes, besides, at the same time, impairing the Spaniard's
authority over them. But, under the circumstances, precisely this

condition of things was to have been anticipated. In armies, navies,
cities, or families- in nature herself- nothing more relaxes good

order than misery. Still, Captain Delano was not without the idea,
that had Benito Cereno been a man of greater energy, misrule would

hardly have come to the present pass. But the debility, constitutional
or induced by the hardships, bodily and mental, of the Spanish

captain, was too obvious to be overlooked. A prey to settled
dejection, as if long mocked with hope he would not now indulge it,

even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day or
evening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his

people, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in no
perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if

not still more seriouslyaffected. Shut up in these oaken walls,
chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed

him, like some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times
suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting his

finger-nail, flushing, paling, twitching his beard, with other
symptoms of an absent or moody mind. This distempered spirit was

lodged, as before hinted, in as distempered a frame. He was rather
tall, but seemed never to have been robust, and now with nervous

suffering was almost worn to a skeleton. A tendency to some
pulmonary complaint appeared to have been lately confirmed. His

voice was like that of one with lungs half gone, hoarsely
suppressed, a husky whisper. No wonder that, as in this state he

tottered about, his private servant apprehensively followed him.
Sometimes the Negro gave his master his arm, or took his

handkerchief out of his pocket for him; performing these and similar
offices with that affectionate zeal which transmutes into something

filial or fraternal acts in themselves but menial; and which has
gained for the Negro the repute of making the most pleasing

body-servant in the world; one, too, whom a master need be on no
stiffly superior terms with, but may treat with familiar trust; less a

servant than a devoted companion.
Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general, as well

as what seemed the sullen inefficiency of the whites, it was not
without humanesatisfaction that Captain Delano witnessed the steady

good conduct of Babo.
But the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill-behaviour

of others, seemed to withdraw the half-lunatic Don Benito from his
cloudy languor. Not that such precisely was the impression made by the

Spaniard on the mind of his visitor. The Spaniard's individual
unrest was, for the present, but noted as a conspicuous feature in the

ship's general affliction. Still, Captain Delano was not a little
concerned at what he could not help taking for the time to be Don

Benito's unfriendly indifference toward himself. The Spaniard's
manner, too, conveyed a sort of sour and gloomydisdain, which he

seemed at no pains to disguise. But this the American in charity
ascribed to the harassing effects of sickness, since, in former

instances, he had noted that there are peculiar natures on whom
prolonged physicalsuffering seems to cancel every social instinct

of kindness; as if forced to black bread themselves, they deemed it
but equity that each person coming nigh them should, indirectly, by

some slight or affront, be made to partake of their fare.
But ere long Captain Delano bethought him that, indulgent as he

was at the first, in judging the Spaniard, he might not, after all,
have exercised charity enough. At bottom it was Don Benito's reserve

which displeased him; but the same reserve was shown toward all but
his personal attendant. Even the formal reports which, according to

sea-usage, were at stated times made to him by some petty underling
(either a white, mulatto or black), he hardly had patience enough to

listen to, without betraying contemptuous aversion. His manner upon
such occasions was, in its degree, not unlike that which might be

supposed to have been his imperial countryman's, Charles V., just
previous to the anchoritish retirement of that monarch from the

throne.
This splenetic disrelish of his place was evinced in almost

every function pertaining to it. Proud as he was moody, he
condescended to no personal mandate. Whatever special orders were

necessary, their delivery was delegated to his body-servant, who in
turn transferred them to their ultimatedestination, through

runners, alert Spanish boys or slave boys, like pages or pilot-fish
within easy call continually hovering round Don Benito. So that to

have beheld this undemonstrative invalid gliding about, apathetic
and mute, no landsman could have dreamed that in him was lodged a

dictatorship beyond which, while at sea, there was no earthly appeal.
Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed as the

involuntary victim of mentaldisorder. But, in fact, his reserve
might, in some degree, have proceeded from design. If so, then in

Don Benito was evinced the unhealthy climax of that icy though
conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all commanders of

large ships, which, except in signal emergencies, obliterates alike
the manifestation of sway with every trace of sociality;

transforming the man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon,
which, until there is call for thunder, has nothing to say.

Viewing him in this light, it seemed but a natural token of the
perverse habit induced by a long course of such hard self-restraint,

that, notwithstanding the present condition of his ship, the
Spaniard should still persist in a demeanour, which, however harmless-

or it may be, appropriate- in a well-appointed vessel, such as the San
Dominick might have been at the outset of the voyage, was anything but

judicious now. But the Spaniard perhaps thought that it was with
captains as with gods: reserve, under all events, must still be

their cue. But more probably this appearance of slumbering dominion
might have been but an attempted disguise to conscious imbecility- not

deep policy, but shallowdevice. But be all this as it might,
whether Don Benito's manner was designed or not, the more Captain

Delano noted its pervading reserve, the less he felt uneasiness at any
particular manifestation of that reserve toward himself.

Neither were his thoughts taken up by the captain alone. Wonted to
the quiet orderliness of the sealer's comfortable family of a crew,

the noisy confusion of the San Dominick's suffering host repeatedly
challenged his eye. Some prominent breaches not only of discipline but

of decency were observed. These Captain Delano could not but
ascribe, in the main, to the absence of those subordinate

deck-officers to whom, along with higher duties, is entrusted what may
be styled the police department of a populous ship. True, the old

oakum-pickers appeared at times to act the part of monitorial
constables to their countrymen, the blacks; but though occasionally

succeeding in allaying trifling outbreaks now and then between man and
man, they could do little or nothing toward establishing general

quiet. The San Dominick was in the condition of a transatlantic
emigrant ship, among whose multitude of living freight are some

individuals, doubtless, as little troublesome as crates and bales; but
the friendly remonstrances of such with their ruder companions are