His cough returned and with increased violence; this subsiding,

with reddened lips and closed eyes he fell heavily against his
supporter.

"His mind wanders. He was thinking of the plague that followed the
gales," plaintively sighed the servant; "my poor, poor master!"

wringing one hand, and with the other wiping the mouth. "But be
patient, Senor," again turning to Captain Delano, "these fits do not

last long; master will soon be himself."
Don Benito reviving, went on; but as this portion of the story was

very brokenly delivered, the substance only will here be set down.
It appeared that after the ship had been many days tossed in

storms off the Cape, the scurvy broke out, carrying off numbers of the
whites and blacks. When at last they had worked round into the

Pacific, their spars and sails were so damaged, and so inadequately
handled by the surviving mariners, most of whom were become

invalids, that, unable to lay her northerly course by the wind,
which was powerful, the unmanageable ship for successive days and

nights was blown northwestward, where the breeze suddenly deserted
her, in unknown waters, to sultry calms. The absence of the

water-pipes now proved as fatal to life as before their presence had
menaced it. Induced, or at least aggravated, by the more than scanty

allowance of water, a malignant fever followed the scurvy; with the
excessive heat of the lengthened calm, making such short work of it as

to sweep away, as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and a
yet larger number, proportionally, of the Spaniards, including, by a

luckless fatality, every officer on board. Consequently, in the
smart west winds eventually following the calm, the already rent sails

having to be simply dropped, not furled, at need, had been gradually
reduced to the beggar's rags they were now. To procure substitutes for

his lost sailors, as well as supplies of water and sails, the
captain at the earliest opportunity had made for Baldivia, the

southermost civilized port of Chili and South America; but upon
nearing the coast the thick weather had prevented him from so much

as sighting that harbour. Since which period, almost without a crew,
and almost without canvas and almost without water, and at intervals

giving its added dead to the sea, the San Dominick had been
battle-dored about by contrary winds, inveigled by currents, or

grown weedy in calms. Like a man lost in woods, more than once she had
doubled upon her own track.

"But throughout these calamities," huskily continued Don Benito,
painfully turning in the half embrace of his servant, "I have to thank

those Negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes
appearing unruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of

restlessness than even their owner could have thought possible under
such circumstances."

Here he again fell faintly back. Again his mind wandered: but he
rallied, and less obscurely proceeded.

"Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters
would be needed with his blacks; so that while, as is wont in this

transportation, those Negroes have always remained upon deck- not
thrust below, as in the Guineamen- they have, also, from the

beginning, been freely permitted to range within given bounds at their
pleasure."

Once more the faintness returned- his mind roved- but, recovering,
he resumed:

"But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own
preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit is due, of

pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted to
murmurings."

"Ah, master," sighed the black, bowing his face, "don't speak of
me; Babo is nothing; what Babo has done was but duty."

"Faithful fellow!" cried Captain Delano. "Don Benito, I envy you
such a friend; slave I cannot call him."

As master and man stood before him, the black upholding the white,
Captain Delano could not but bethink him of the beauty of that

relationship which could present such a spectacle of fidelity on the
one hand and confidence on the other. The scene was heightened by

the contrast in dress, denoting their relative positions. The Spaniard
wore a loose Chili jacket of dark velvet; white small clothes and

stockings, with silver buckles at the knee and instep; a
high-crowned sombrero, of fine grass; a slender sword, silver mounted,

hung from a knot in his sash; the last being an almost invariable
adjunct, more for utility than ornament, of a South American

gentleman's dress to this hour. Excepting when his occasional
nervous contortions brought about disarray, there was a certain

precision in his attire, curiously at variance with the unsightly
disorder around; especially in the belittered Ghetto, forward of the

main-mast, wholly occupied by the blacks.
The servant wore nothing but wide trousers, apparently" target="_blank" title="ad.显然，表面上地">apparently, from their

coarseness and patches, made out of some old top-sail; they were
clean, and confined at the waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which,

with his composed, deprecatory air at times, made him look something
like a begging friar of St. Francis.

However unsuitable for the time and place, at least in the blunt
thinking American's eyes, and however strangely surviving in the midst

of all his afflictions, the toilette of Don Benito might not, in
fashion at least, have gone beyond the style of the day among South

Americans of his class. Though on the present voyage sailing from
Buenos Ayres, he had avowed himself a native and resident of Chili,

whose inhabitants had not so generally adopted the plain coat and once
plebeian pantaloons; but, with a becoming modification, adhered to

their provincialcostume, picturesque as any in the world. Still,
relatively to the pale history of the voyage, and his own pale face,

there seemed something so incongruous in the Spaniard's apparel, as
almost to suggest the image of an invalidcourtier tottering about

London streets in the time of the plague.
The portion of the narrative which, perhaps, most excited

interest, as well as some surprise, considering the latitudes in
question, was the long calms spoken of, and more particularly the

ship's so long drifting about. Without communicating the opinion, of
course, the American could not but impute at least part of the

detentions both to clumsy seamanship and faultynavigation. Eyeing Don
Benito's small, yellow hands, he easily inferred that the young

captain had not got into command at the hawse-hole but the
cabin-window, and if so, why wonder at incompetence, in youth,

sickness, and aristocracy united? Such was his democratic conclusion.
But drowning criticism in compassion, after a fresh repetition

of his sympathies, Captain Delano having heard out his story, not only
engaged, as in the first place, to see Don Benito and his people

supplied in their immediate bodily needs, but, also, now further
promised to assist him in procuring a large permanent supply of water,

as well as some sails and rigging; and, though it would involve no
small embarrassment to himself, yet he would spare three of his best

seamen for temporary deck officers; so that without delay the ship
might proceed to Concepcion, there fully to refit for Lima, her

destined port.
Such generosity was not without its effect, even upon the invalid.

His face lighted up; eager and hectic, he met the honest glance of his
visitor. With gratitude he seemed overcome.

"This excitement is bad for master," whispered the servant, taking
his arm, and with soothing words gentlydrawing him aside.

When Don Benito returned, the American was pained to observe
that his hopefulness, like the sudden kindling in his cheek, was but

febrile and transient.
Ere long, with a joyless mien, looking up toward the poop, the

host invited his guest to accompany him there, for the benefit of what
little breath of wind might be stirring.

As during the telling of the story, Captain Delano had once or
twice started at the occasional cymballing of the hatchet-polishers,

wondering why such an interruption should be allowed, especially in
that part of the ship, and in the ears of an invalid; and, moreover,

as the hatchets had anything but an attractive look, and the
handlers of them still less so, it was, therefore, to tell the

truth, not without some lurking reluctance, or even shrinking, it
may be, that Captain Delano, with apparent complaisance, acquiesced in

his host's invitation. The more so, since with an untimely caprice
of punctilio, rendered distressing by his cadaverous aspect, Don

Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnly insisted upon his guest's
preceding him up the ladder leading to the elevation; where, one on