"Don Benito," said Captain Delano quickly, "do you see what is
going on there? Look!"

But, seized by his cough, the Spaniard staggered, with both
hands to his face, on the point of falling. 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. Don Benito,

restored, the black withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but
dutifully remaining within call of a whisper. Such discretion was here

evinced as quite wiped away, in the visitor's eyes, any blemish of
impropriety which might have attached to the attendant, from the

indecorous conferences before mentioned; showing, too, that if the
servant were to blame, it might be more the master's fault than his

own, since when left to himself he could conduct thus well.
His glance thus called away from the spectacle of disorder to

the more pleasing one before him, Captain Delano could not avoid again
congratulating Don Benito upon possessing such a servant, who,

though perhaps a little too forward now and then, must upon the
whole be invaluable to one in the invalid's situation.

"Tell me, Don Benito," he added, with a smile- "I should like to
have your man here myself- what will you take for him? Would fifty

doubloons be any object?"
"Master wouldn't part with Babo for a thousand doubloons,"

murmured the black, overhearing the offer, and taking it in earnest,
and, with the strange vanity of a faithful slave appreciated by his

master, scorning to hear so paltry a valuation put upon him by a
stranger. But Don Benito, apparently hardly yet completely restored,

and again interrupted by his cough, made but some broken reply.
Soon his physicaldistress became so great, affecting his mind,

tool apparently, that, as if to screen the sad spectacle, the
servant gently conducted his master below.

Left to himself, the American, to while away the time till his
boat should arrive, would have pleasantly accosted some one of the few

Spanish seamen he saw; but recalling something that Don Benito had
said touching their ill conduct, he refrained, as a shipmaster

indisposed to countenancecowardice or unfaithfulness in seamen.
While, with these thoughts, standing with eye directed forward

toward that handful of sailors- suddenly he thought that some of
them returned the glance and with a sort of meaning. He rubbed his

eyes, and looked again; but again seemed to see the same thing.
Under a new form, but more obscure than any previous one, the old

suspicions recurred, but, in the absence of Don Benito, with less of
panic than before. Despite the bad account given of the sailors,

Captain Delano resolvedforthwith to accost one of them. Descending
the poop, he made his way through the blacks, his movementdrawing a

queer cry from the oakum-pickers, prompted by whom the Negroes,
twitching each other aside, divided before him; but, as if curious

to see what was the object of this deliberate visit to their Ghetto,
closing in behind, in tolerable order, followed the white stranger up.

His progress thus proclaimed as by mounted kings-at-arms, and escorted
as by a Caffre guard of honour, Captain Delano, assuming a

good-humoured, off-hand air, continued to advance; now and then saying
a blithe word to the Negroes, and his eye curiously surveying the

white faces, here and there sparsely mixed in with the blacks, like
stray white pawns venturously involved in the ranks of the chessmen

opposed.
While thinking which of them to select for his purpose, he chanced

to observe a sailor seated on the deck engaged in tarring the strap of
a large block, with a circle of blacks squatted round him

inquisitively eyeing the process.
The mean employment of the man was in contrast with something

superior in his figure. His hand, black with continually thrusting
it into the tar-pot held for him by a Negro, seemed not naturally

allied to his face, a face which would have been a very fine one but
for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness had aught to do with

criminality could not be determined; since, as intense heat and
cold, though unlike, produce like sensations, so innocence and

guilt, when, through casual association with mental pain, stamping any
visible impress, use one seal- a hacked one.

Not again that this reflection occurred to Captain Delano at the
time, charitable man as he was. Rather another idea. Because observing

so singular a haggardness to be combined with a dark eye, averted as
in trouble and shame, and then, however illogically, uniting in his

mind his own private suspicions of the crew with the confessed
ill-opinion on the part of their captain, he was insensibly operated

upon by certain general notions, which, while disconnecting pain and
abashment from virtue, as invariably link them with vice.

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. I don't like to accost him. I will
speak to this other, this old Jack here on the windlass.

He advanced to an old Barcelona tar, in ragged red breeches and
dirty night-cap, cheeks trenched and bronzed, whiskers dense as

thorn hedges. 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.

Upon Captain Delano's approach, the man at once hung his head
below its previous level; the one necessary for business. It

appeared as if he desired to be thought absorbed, with more than
common fidelity, in his task. Being addressed, he glanced up, but with

what seemed a furtive, diffident air, which sat strangely enough on
his weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear, instead of

growling and biting, should simper and cast sheep's eyes. He was asked
several questions concerning the voyage- questions purposely referring

to several particulars in Don Benito's narrative- not previously
corroborated by those impulsive cries greeting the visitor on first

coming on board. The questions were briefly answered, confirming all
that remained to be confirmed of the story. The Negroes about the

windlass joined in with the old sailor, but, as they became talkative,
he by degrees became mute, and at length quite glum, seemed morosely

unwilling to answer more questions, and yet, all the while, this
ursine air was somehow mixed with his sheepish one.

Despairing of getting into unembarrassed talk with such a centaur,
Captain Delano, after glancing round for a more promisingcountenance,

but seeing none, spoke pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him;
and so, amid various grins and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling

a little strange at first, he could hardly tell why, but upon the
whole with regained confidence in Benito Cereno.

How plainly, thought he, did that old whiskerando yonder betray
a consciousness of ill-desert. No doubt, when he saw me coming, he

dreaded lest I, apprised by his captain of the crew's general
misbehaviour, came with sharp words for him, and so down with his

head. And yet- and yet, now that I think of it, that very old
fellow, if I err not, was one of those who seemed so earnestly

eyeing me here awhile since. Ah, these currents spin one's head
round almost as much as they do the ship. Ha, there now's a pleasant

sort of sunny sight; quite sociable, too.
His attention had been drawn to a slumbering Negress, partly

disclosed through the lace-work of some rigging, lying, with
youthful limbs carelessly disposed, under the lee of the bulwarks,

like a doe in the shade of a woodland rock. Sprawling at her lapped
breasts was her wide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black little body

half lifted from the deck, crosswise with its dam's; its hands, like
two paws, clambering upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually

rooting to get at the mark; and meantime giving a vexatious
half-grunt, blending with the composed snore of the Negress.

The uncommonvigour of the child at length roused the mother.
She started up, at distance facing Captain Delano. But, as if not at

all concerned at the attitude in which she had been caught,
delightedly she caught the child up, with maternal transports,

covering it with kisses.
There's naked nature, now; pure tenderness and love, thought

Captain Delano, well pleased.
This incident prompted him to remark the other Negresses more

particularly than before. He was gratified with their manners; like
most uncivilized women, they seemed at once tender of heart and

tough of constitution; equally ready to die for their infants or fight
for them. Unsophisticated as leopardesses; loving as doves. Ah!