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BENITO CERENO-Part6_HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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thought Captain Delano, these perhaps are some of the very women

whom Mungo Park saw in Africa, and gave such a noble account of.



These natural sights somehow insensibly deepened his confidence

and ease. At last he looked to see how his boat was getting on; but it



was still pretty remote. He turned to see if Don Benito had

returned; but he had not.



To change the scene, as well as to please himself with a leisurely

observation of the coming boat, stepping over into the mizzen-chains



he clambered his way into the starboard quarter-galley; one of those

abandoned Venetian-looking water-balconies previously mentioned;



retreats cut off from the deck. As his foot pressed the half-damp,

half-dry sea-mosses matting the place, and a chance phantom cat's-paw-



an islet of breeze, unheralded, unfollowed- as this ghostly

cat's-paw came fanning his cheek, his glance fell upon the row of



small, round dead-lights, all closed like coppered eyes of the

coffined, and the state-cabin door, once connecting with the



gallery, even as the dead-lights had once looked out upon it, but

now caulked fast like a sarcophagus lid, to a purple-black,



tarred-over panel, threshold, and post; and he bethought him of the

time, when that state-cabin and this state-balcony had heard the



voices of the Spanish king's officers, and the forms of the Lima

viceroy's daughters had perhaps leaned where he stood- as these and



other images flitted through his mind, as the cat's-paw through the

calm, gradually he felt rising a dreamy inquietude, like that of one



who alone on the prairie feels unrest from the repose of the noon.

He leaned against the carved balustrade, again looking off



toward his boat; but found his eye falling upon the ribboned grass,

trailing along the ship's water-line, straight as a border of green



box; and parterres of sea-weed, broad ovals and crescents, floating

nigh and far, with what seemed long formal alleys between, crossing



the terraces of swells, and sweeping round as if leading to the

grottoes below. And overhanging all was the balustrade by his arm,



which, partly stained with pitch and partly embossed with moss, seemed

the charred ruin of some summer-house in a grand garden long running



to waste.

Trying to break one charm, he was but becharmed anew. Though



upon the wide sea, he seemed in some far inland country; prisoner in

some deserted chateau, left to stare at empty grounds, and peer out at



vague roads, where never wagon or wayfarer passed.

But these enchantments were a little disenchanted as his eye



fell on the corroded main-chains. Of an ancient style, massy and rusty

in link, shackle and bolt, they seemed even more fit for the ship's



present business than the one for which probably she had been built.

Presently he thought something moved nigh the chains. He rubbed



his eyes, and looked hard. Groves of rigging were about the chains;

and there, peering from behind a great stay, like an Indian from



behind a hemlock, a Spanish sailor, a marlingspike in his hand, was

seen, who made what seemed an imperfectgesture toward the balcony-



but immediately, as if alarmed by some advancing step along the deck

within, vanished into the recesses of the hempen forest, like a



poacher.

What meant this? Something the man had sought to communicate,



unbeknown to any one, even to his captain? Did the secret involve

aught unfavourable to his captain? Were those previous misgivings of



Captain Delano's about to be verified? Or, in his haunted mood at

the moment, had some random, unintentional motion of the man, while



busy with the stay, as if repairing it, been mistaken for a

significant beckoning?



Not unbewildered, again he gazed off for his boat. But it was

temporarily hidden by a rocky spur of the isle. As with some eagerness



he bent forward, watching for the first shooting view of its beak, the

balustrade gave way before him like charcoal. Had he not clutched an



outreaching rope he would have fallen into the sea. The crash,




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