"I am owner of all you see," impatiently returned Don Benito,
"except the main company of blacks, who belonged to my late friend,

Alexandro Aranda."
As he mentioned this name, his air was heart-broken, his knees

shook; his servant supported him.
Thinking he divined the cause of such unusualemotion, to

confirm his surmise, Captain Delano, after a pause, said, "And may I
ask, Don Benito, whether- since awhile ago you spoke of some cabin

passengers- the friend, whose loss so afflicts you, at the outset of
the voyage accompanied his blacks?"

"Yes."
"But died of the fever?"

"Died of the fever.- Oh, could I but-"
Again quivering, the Spaniard paused.

"Pardon me," said Captain Delano slowly, "but I think that, by a
sympathetic experience, I conjecture, Don Benito, what it is that

gives the keener edge to your grief. It was once my hard fortune to
lose at sea a dear friend, my own brother, then supercargo. Assured of

the welfare of his spirit, its departure I could have borne like a
man; but that honest eye, that honest hand- both of which had so often

met mine- and that warm heart; all, all- like scraps to the dogs- to
throw all to the sharks! It was then I vowed never to have for

fellow-voyager a man I loved, unless, unbeknown to him, I had provided
every requisite, in case of a fatality, for embalming his mortal

part for interment on shore. Were your friend's remains now on board
this ship, Don Benito, not thus strangely would the mention of his

name affect you."
"On board this ship?" echoed the Spaniard. Then, with horrified

gestures, as directed against some spectre, he unconsciously fell into
the ready arms of his attendant, who, with a silent appeal toward

Captain Delano, seemed beseeching him not again to broach a theme so
unspeakably distressing to his master.

This poor fellow now, thought the pained American, is the victim
of that sad superstition which associates goblins with the deserted

body of man, as ghosts with an abandoned house. How unlike are we
made! What to me, in like case, would have been a solemn satisfaction,

the bare suggestion, even, terrifies the Spaniard into this trance.
Poor Alexandro Aranda! what would you say could you see your friend-

who, on former voyages, when you for months were left behind, has, I
dare say, often longed, and longed, for one peep at you- now

transported with terror at the least thought of having you anyway nigh
him.

At this moment, with a dreary graveyard toll, betokening a flaw,
the ship's forecastle bell, smote by one of the grizzled

oakum-pickers, proclaimed ten o'clock through the leaden calm; when
Captain Delano's attention was caught by the moving figure of a

gigantic black, emerging from the general crowd below, and slowly
advancing toward the elevated poop. An iron collar was about his neck,

from which depended a chain, thrice wound round his body; the
terminating links padlocked together at a broad band of iron, his

girdle.
"How like a mute Atufal moves," murmured the servant.

The black mounted the steps of the poop, and, like a brave
prisoner, brought up to receive sentence, stood in unquailing muteness

before Don Benito, now recovered from his attack.
At the first glimpse of his approach, Don Benito had started, a

resentful shadow swept over his face; and, as with the sudden memory
of bootless rage, his white lips glued together.

This is some mulish mutineer, thought Captain Delano, surveying,
not without a mixture of admiration, the colossal form of the Negro.

"See, he waits your question, master," said the servant.
Thus reminded, Don Benito, nervously averting his glance, as if

shunning, by anticipation, some rebelliousresponse, in a disconcerted
voice, thus spoke:

"Atufal, will you ask my pardon now?"
The black was silent.

"Again, master," murmured the servant, with bitter upbraiding
eyeing his countryman. "Again, master; he will bend to master yet."

"Answer," said Don Benito, still averting his glance, "say but the
one word pardon, and your chains shall be off."

Upon this, the black, slowly raising both arms, let them
lifelessly fall, his links clanking, his head bowed; as much as to

say, "No, I am content."
"Go," said Don Benito, with inkept and unknown emotion.

Deliberately as he had come, the black obeyed.
"Excuse me, Don Benito," said Captain Delano, "but this scene

surprises me; what means it, pray?"
"It means that that Negro alone, of all the band, has given me

peculiar cause of offence. I have put him in chains; I-"
Here he paused; his hand to his head, as if there were a

swimming there, or a sudden bewilderment of memory had come over
him; but meeting his servant's kindly glance seemed reassured, and

proceeded:
"I could not scourge such a form. But I told him he must ask my

pardon. As yet he has not. At my command, every two hours he stands
before me."

"And how long has this been?"
"Some sixty days."

"And obedient in all else? And respectful?"
"Yes."

"Upon my conscience, then," exclaimed Captain Delano, impulsively,
"he has a royal spirit in him, this fellow."

"He may have some right to it," bitterly returned Don Benito;
"he says he was king in his own land."

"Yes," said the servant, entering a word, "those slits in Atufal's
ears once held wedges of gold; but poor Babo here, in his own land,

was only a poor slave; a black man's slave was Babo, who now is the
white's."

Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities, Captain
Delano turned curiously upon the attendant, then glanced inquiringly

at his master; but, as if long wonted to these little informalities,
neither master nor man seemed to understand him.

"What, pray, was Atufal's offence, Don Benito?" asked Captain
Delano; "if it was not something very serious, take a fool's advice,

and, in view of his general docility, as well as in some natural
respect for his spirit, remit his penalty."

"No, no, master never will do that," here murmured the servant
to himself, "proud Atufal must first ask master's pardon. The slave

there carries the padlock, but master here carries the key."
His attention thus directed, Captain Delano now noticed for the

first time that, suspended by a slendersilken cord, from Don Benito's
neck hung a key. At once, from the servant's muttered syllables

divining the key's purpose, he smiled and said: "So, Don Benito-
padlock and key- significant symbols, truly."

Biting his lip, Don Benito faltered.
Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such native

simplicity as to be incapable of satire or irony, had been dropped
in playfulallusion to the Spaniard's singularly evidenced lordship

over the black; yet the hypochondriac seemed in some way to have taken
it as a maliciousreflection upon his confessed inability thus far

to break down, at least, on a verbal summons, the entrenched will of
the slave. Deploring this supposed misconception, yet despairing of

correcting it, Captain Delano shifted the subject; but finding his
companion more than ever withdrawn, as if still slowly digesting the

lees of the presumed affront above-mentioned, by-and-by Captain Delano
likewise became less talkative, oppressed, against his own will, by

what seemed the secret vindictiveness of the morbidly sensitive
Spaniard. But the good sailor himself, of a quite contrary

disposition, refrained, on his part, alike from the appearance as from
the feeling of resentment, and if silent, was only so from contagion.

Presently the Spaniard, assisted by his servant, somewhat
discourteously crossed over from Captain Delano; a procedure which,

sensibly enough, might have been allowed to pass for idle caprice of
ill-humour, had not master and man, lingering round the corner of

the elevated skylight, begun whispering together in low voices. This
was unpleasing. And more: the moody air of the Spaniard, which at

times had not been without a sort of valetudinarian stateliness, now
seemed anything but dignified; while the menial familiarity of the