awhile. 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. We are getting on famously, Don Benito. My ship is in sight.

Look through this side-light here; there she is; all a-taunt-o! The
Bachelor's Delight, my good friend. Ah, how this wind braces one up.

Come, you must take a cup of coffee with me this evening. My old
steward will give you as fine a cup as ever any sultan tasted. What

say you, Don Benito, will you?"
At first, the Spaniard glanced feverishly up, casting a longing

look toward the sealer, while with mute concern his servant gazed into
his face. Suddenly the old ague of coldness returned, and dropping

back to his cushions he was silent.
"You do not answer. Come, all day you have been my host; would you

have hospitality all on one side?"
"I cannot go," was the response.

"What? it will not fatigue you. The ships will lie together as
near as they can, without swinging foul. It will be little more than

stepping from deck to deck; which is but as from room to room. Come,
come, you must not refuse me."

"I cannot go," decisively and repulsively repeated Don Benito.
Renouncing all but the last appearance of courtesy, with a sort of

cadaverous sullenness, and biting his thin nails to the quick, he
glanced, almost glared, at his guest; as if impatient that a

stranger's presence should interfere with the full indulgence of his
morbid hour. Meantime the sound of the parted waters came more and

more gurglingly and merrily in at the windows; as reproaching him
for his dark spleen; as telling him that, sulk as he might, and go mad

with it, nature cared not a jot; since, whose fault was it, pray?
But the foul mood was now at its depth, as the fair wind at its

height.
There was something in the man so far beyond any mere

unsociality or sourness previously" target="_blank" title="ad.预先；以前">previously evinced, that even the forbearing
good-nature of his guest could no longer endure it. Wholly at a loss

to account for such demeanour, and deeming sickness with eccentricity,
however extreme, no adequate excuse, well satisfied, too, that nothing

in his own conduct could justify it, Captain Delano's pride began to
be roused. Himself became reserved. But all seemed one to the

Spaniard. Quitting him, therefore, Captain Delano once more went to
the deck.

The ship was now within less than two miles of the sealer. The
whale-boat was seen darting over the interval.

To be brief, the two vessels, thanks to the pilot's skill, ere
long in neighbourly style lay anchored together.

Before returning to his own vessel, Captain Delano had intended
communicating to Don Benito the practical details of the proposed

services to be rendered. But, as it was, unwilling anew to subject
himself to rebuffs, he resolved, now that he had seen the San Dominick

safely moored, immediately to quit her, without further allusion to
hospitality or business. Indefinitely postponing his ulterior plans,

he would regulate his future actions according to future
circumstances. His boat was ready to receive him; but his host still

tarried below. Well, thought Captain Delano, if he has little
breeding, the more need to show mine. He descended to the cabin to bid

a ceremonious, and, it may be, tacitly rebukeful adieu. But to his
great satisfaction, Don Benito, as if he began to feel the weight of

that treatment with which his slighted guest had, not indecorously,
retaliated upon him, now supported by his servant, rose to his feet,

and grasping Captain Delano's hand, stood tremulous; too much agitated
to speak. But the good augury hence drawn was suddenly dashed, by

his resuming all his previous reserve, with augmented gloom, as,
with half-averted eyes, he silently reseated himself on his

cushions. With a corresponding return of his own chilled feelings,
Captain Delano bowed and withdrew.

He was hardly midway in the narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel,
leading from the cabin to the stairs, when a sound, as of the

tolling for execution in some jail-yard, fell on his ears. It was
the echo of the ship's flawed bell, striking the hour, drearily

reverberated in this subterranean vault. Instantly, by a fatality
not to be withstood, his mind, responsive to the portent, swarmed with

superstitious suspicions. He paused. In images far swifter than
these sentences, the minutest details of all his former distrusts

swept through him.
Hitherto, credulous good-nature had been too ready to furnish

excuses for reasonable fears. Why was the Spaniard, so superfluously
punctilious at times, now heedless of common propriety in not

accompanying to the side his departing guest? Did indisposition
forbid? Indisposition had not forbidden more irksome exertion that

day. His last equivocal demeanour recurred. He had risen to his
feet, grasped his guest's hand, motioned toward his hat; then, in an

instant, all was eclipsed in sinister muteness and gloom. Did this
imply one brief, repentant relenting at the final moment, from some

iniquitous plot, followed by remorseless return to it? His last glance
seemed to express a calamitous, yet acquiescent farewell to Captain

Delano for ever. Why decline the invitation to visit the sealer that
evening? Or was the Spaniard less hardened than the Jew, who refrained

not from supping at the board of him whom the same night he meant to
betray? What imported all those day-long enigmas and contradictions,

except they were intended to mystify, preliminary to some stealthy
blow? Atufal, the pretended rebel, but punctual shadow, that moment

lurked by the threshold without. He seemed a sentry, and more. Who, by
his own confession, had stationed him there? Was the Negro now lying

in wait?
The Spaniard behind- his creature before: to rush from darkness to

light was the involuntary choice.
The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed Atufal, and

stood unarmed in the light. As he saw his trim ship lying peacefully
at her anchor, and almost within ordinary call; as he saw his

household boat, with familiar faces in it, patiently rising and
falling on the short waves by the San Dominick's side; and then,

glancing about the decks where he stood, saw the oakum-pickers still
gravely plying their fingers; and heard the low, buzzing whistle and

industrious hum of the hatchet-polishers, still bestirring
themselves over their endless occupation; and more than all, as he saw

the benign aspect of Nature, taking her innocentrepose in the
evening; the screened sun in the quiet camp of the west shining out

like the mild light from Abraham's tent; as his charmed eye and ear
took in all these, with the chained figure of the black, the

clenched jaw and hand relaxed. Once again he smiled at the phantoms
which had mocked him, and felt something like a tinge of remorse,

that, by indulging them even for a moment, he should, by
implication, have betrayed an almost atheistic doubt of the

ever-watchful Providence above.
There was a few minutes' delay, while, in obedience to his orders,

the boat was being hooked along to the gangway. During this
interval, a sort of saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano,

at thinking of the kindly offices he had that day discharged for a
stranger. Ah, thought he, after good actions one's conscience is never

ungrateful, however much so the benefited party may be.
Presently, his foot, in the first act of descent into the boat,

pressed the first round of the side-ladder, his face presented
inward upon the deck. In the same moment, he heard his name

courteously sounded; and, to his pleased surprise, saw Don Benito
advancing- an unwonted energy in his air, as if, at the last moment,

intent upon making amends for his recent discourtesy. With instinctive
good feeling, Captain Delano, revoking his foot, turned and

reciprocally advanced. As he did so, the Spaniard's nervous
eagerness increased, but his vital energy failed; so that, the

better to support him, the servant, placing his master's hand on his
naked shoulder, and gentlyholding it there, formed himself into a

sort of crutch.
When the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the

hand of the American, at the same time casting an earnest glance
into his eyes, but, as before, too much overcome to speak.

I have done him wrong, self-reproachfully thought Captain
Delano; his apparentcoldness has deceived me; in no instance has he

meant to offend.
Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might