THE PIAZZA TALES

by

HERMAN MELVILLE, Author of "Typee, " "Omoo, " etc. , etc. , etc. 

New York;Dix & Edwards, 321 Broadway. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co. Miller & Holman, Printers & Stereotypers, N. Y. 

1856

CONTENTS

 THE PIAZZA

 BARTLEBY

 BENITO CERENO

 THE LIGHTNING-ROD MAN

 THE ENCANTADAS; OR, ENCHANTED ISLANDS

 THE BELL-TOWER

THE PIAZZA. 

 "With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele--"

When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashionedfarm-house, which had no piazza--a deficiency the more regretted, because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the cozinessof in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant toinspect your thermometer there, but the country round about was such apicture, that in berry time no boy climbs hill or crosses vale withoutcoming upon easels planted in every nook, and sun-burnt painterspainting there. A very paradise of painters. The circle of the stars cutby the circle of the mountains. At least, so looks it from the house;though, once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see. Had thesite been chosen five rods off, this charmed ring would not have been. 

The house is old. Seventy years since, from the heart of the HearthStone Hills, they quarried the Kaaba, or Holy Stone, to which, eachThanksgiving, the social pilgrims used to come. So long ago, that, indigging for the foundation, the workmen used both spade and axe, fighting the Troglodytes of those subterranean parts--sturdy roots of asturdy wood, encamped upon what is now a long land-slide of sleepingmeadow, sloping away off from my poppy-bed. Of that knit wood, but onesurvivor stands--an elm, lonely through steadfastness. 

Whoever built the house, he builded better than he knew; or else Orionin the zenith flashed down his Damocles' sword to him some starry night, and said, "Build there. " For how, otherwise, could it have entered thebuilder's mind, that, upon the clearing being made, such a purpleprospect would be his?--nothing less than Greylock, with all his hillsabout him, like Charlemagne among his peers. 

Now, for a house, so situated in such a country, to have no piazza forthe convenience of those who might desire to feast upon the view, andtake their time and ease about it, seemed as much of an omission as if apicture-gallery should have no bench; for what but picture-galleries arethe marble halls of these same limestone hills?--galleries hung, monthafter month anew, with pictures ever fading into pictures ever fresh. And beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it; tranquillity andconstancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed. For though, ofold, when reverence was in vogue, and indolence was not, the devotees ofNature, doubtless, used to stand and adore--just as, in the cathedralsof those ages, the worshipers of a higher Power did--yet, in these timesof failing faith and feeble knees, we have the piazza and the pew. 

During the first year of my residence, the more leisurely to witness thecoronation of Charlemagne (weather permitting, they crown him everysunrise and sunset), I chose me, on the hill-side bank near by, a royallounge of turf--a green velvet lounge, with long, moss-padded back;while at the head, strangely enough, there grew (but, I suppose, forheraldry) three tufts of blue violets in a field-argent of wildstrawberries; and a trellis, with honeysuckle, I set for canopy. Verymajestical lounge, indeed. So much so, that here, as with the recliningmajesty of Denmark in his orchard, a sly ear-ache invaded me. But, ifdamps abound at times in Westminster Abbey, because it is so old, whynot within this monastery of mountains, which is older?

A piazza must be had. 

The house was wide--my fortune narrow; so that, to build a panoramicpiazza, one round and round, it could not be--although, indeed, considering the matter by rule and square, the carpenters, in thekindest way, were anxious to gratify my furthest wishes, at I'veforgotten how much a foot. 

Upon but one of the four sides would prudence grant me what I wanted. Now, which side?

To the east, that long camp of the Hearth Stone Hills, fading far awaytowards Quito; and every fall, a small white flake of something peeringsuddenly, of a coolish morning, from the topmost cliff--the season'snew-dropped lamb, its earliest fleece; and then the Christmas dawn, draping those dim highlands with red-barred plaids and tartans--goodlysight from your piazza, that. Goodly sight; but, to the north isCharlemagne--can't have the Hearth Stone Hills with Charlemagne. 

Well, the south side. Apple-trees are there. Pleasant, of a balmymorning, in the month of May, to sit and see that orchard, white-budded, as for a bridal; and, in October, one green arsenal yard; such piles ofruddy shot. Very fine, I grant; but, to the north is Charlemagne. 

The west side, look. An upland pasture, alleying away into a maple woodat top. Sweet, in opening spring, to trace upon the hill-side, otherwisegray and bare--to trace, I say, the oldest paths by their streaks ofearliest green. Sweet, indeed, I can't deny; but, to the north isCharlemagne. 

So Charlemagne, he carried it. It was not long after 1848; and, somehow, about that time, all round the world, these kings, they had the castingvote, and voted for themselves. 

No sooner was ground broken, than all the neighborhood, neighbor Dives, in particular, broke, too--into a laugh. Piazza to the north! Winterpiazza! Wants, of winter midnights, to watch the Aurora Borealis, Isuppose; hope he's laid in good store of Polar muffs and mittens. 

That was in the lion month of March. Not forgotten are the blue noses ofthe carpenters, and how they scouted at the greenness of the cit, whowould build his sole piazza to the north. But March don't last forever;patience, and August comes. And then, in the cool elysium of my northernbower, I, Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, cast down the hill a pityingglance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory of his piazza tothe south. 

But, even in December, this northern piazza does not repel--nipping coldand gusty though it be, and the north wind, like any miller, bolting bythe snow, in finest flour--for then, once more, with frosted beard, Ipace the sleety deck, weathering Cape Horn. 

In summer, too, Canute-like, sitting here, one is often reminded of thesea. For not only do long ground-swells roll the slanting grain, andlittle wavelets of the grass ripple over upon the low piazza, as theirbeach, and the blown down of dandelions is wafted like the spray, andthe purple of the mountains is just the purple of the billows, and astill August noon broods upon the deep meadows, as a calm upon the Line;but the vastness and the lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the silenceand the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange house, risingbeyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, on the Barbarycoast, an unknown sail. 

And this recalls my inland voyage to fairy-land. A true voyage; but, take it all in all, interesting as if invented. 

From the piazza, some uncertain object I had caught, mysteriouslysnugged away, to all appearance, in a sort of purpled breast-pocket, high up in a hopper-like hollow, or sunken angle, among the northwesternmountains--yet, whether, really, it was on a mountain-side, or amountain-top, could not be determined; because, though, viewed fromfavorable points, a blue summit, peering up away behind the rest, will, as it were, talk to you over their heads, and plainly tell you, that, though he (the blue summit) seems among them, he is not of them (Godforbid!), and, indeed, would have you know that he considershimself--as, to say truth, he has good right--by several cubits theirsuperior, nevertheless, certain ranges, here and there double-filed, asin platoons, so shoulder and follow up upon one another, with theirirregular shapes and heights, that, from the piazza, a nigher and lowermountain will, in most states of the atmosphere, effacingly shade itselfaway into a higher and further one; that an object, bleak on theformer's crest, will, for all that, appear nested in the latter's flank. These mountains, somehow, they play at hide-and-seek, and all beforeone's eyes. 

But, be that as it may, the spot in question was, at all events, sosituated as to be only visible, and then but vaguely, under certainwitching conditions of light and shadow. 

Indeed, for a year or more, I knew not there was such a spot, and might, perhaps, have never known, had it not been for a wizard afternoon inautumn--late in autumn--a mad poet's afternoon; when the turned maplewoods in the broad basin below me, having lost their first vermiliontint, dully smoked, like smouldering towns, when flames expire upontheir prey; and rumor had it, that this smokiness in the general air wasnot all Indian summer--which was not used to be so sick a thing, howevermild--but, in great part, was blown from far-off forests, for weeks onfire, in Vermont; so that no wonder the sky was ominous as Hecate'scauldron--and two sportsmen, crossing a red stubble buck-wheat field, seemed guilty Macbeth and foreboding Banquo; and the hermit-sun, huttedin an Adullum cave, well towards the south, according to his season, didlittle else but, by indirect reflection of narrow rays shot down aSimplon pass among the clouds, just steadily paint one small, round, strawberry mole upon the wan cheek of northwestern hills. Signal as acandle. One spot of radiance, where all else was shade. 

Fairies there, thought I; some haunted ring where fairies dance. 

Time passed; and the following May, after a gentle shower upon themountains--a little shower islanded in misty seas of sunshine; such adistant shower--and sometimes two, and three, and four of them, allvisible together in different parts--as I love to watch from thepiazza, instead of thunder storms, as I used to, which wrap oldGreylock, like a Sinai, till one thinks swart Moses must be climbingamong scathed hemlocks there; after, I say, that, gentle shower, I saw arainbow, resting its further end just where, in autumn, I had marked themole. Fairies there, thought I; remembering that rainbows bring out theblooms, and that, if one can but get to the rainbow's end, his fortuneis made in a bag of gold. Yon rainbow's end, would I were there, thoughtI. And none the less I wished it, for now first noticing what seemedsome sort of glen, or grotto, in the mountain side; at least, whateverit was, viewed through the rainbow's medium, it glowed like the Potosimine. But a work-a-day neighbor said, no doubt it was but some oldbarn--an abandoned one, its broadside beaten in, the acclivity itsbackground. But I, though I had never been there, I knew better. 

A few days after, a cheery sunrise kindled a golden sparkle in the samespot as before. The sparkle was of that vividness, it seemed as if itcould only come from glass. The building, then--if building, after all, it was--could, at least, not be a barn, much less an abandoned one;stale hay ten years musting in it. No; if aught built by mortal, it mustbe a cottage; perhaps long vacant and dismantled, but this very springmagically fitted up and glazed. 

Again, one noon, in the same direction, I marked, over dimmed tops ofterraced foliage, a broader gleam, as of a silver buckler, held sunwardsover some croucher's head; which gleam, experience in like cases taught, must come from a roof newly shingled. This, to me, made pretty sure therecent occupancy of that far cot in fairy land. 

Day after day, now, full of interest in my discovery, what time I couldspare from reading the Midsummer's Night Dream, and all about Titania, wishfully I gazed off towards the hills; but in vain. Either troops ofshadows, an imperial guard, with slow pace and solemn, defiled along thesteeps; or, routed by pursuing light, fled broadcast from east towest--old wars of Lucifer and Michael; or the mountains, though unvexedby these mirrored sham fights in the sky, had an atmosphere otherwiseunfavorable for fairy views. I was sorry; the more so, because I had tokeep my chamber for some time after--which chamber did not face thosehills. 

At length, when pretty well again, and sitting out, in the Septembermorning, upon the piazza, and thinking to myself, when, just after alittle flock of sheep, the farmer's banded children passed, a-nutting, and said, "How sweet a day"--it was, after all, but what their fatherscall a weather-breeder--and, indeed, was become go sensitive through myillness, as that I could not bear to look upon a Chinese creeper of myadoption, and which, to my delight, climbing a post of the piazza, hadburst out in starry bloom, but now, if you removed the leaves a little, showed millions of strange, cankerous worms, which, feeding upon thoseblossoms, so shared their blessed hue, as to make it unblessedevermore--worms, whose germs had doubtless lurked in the very bulbwhich, so hopefully, I had planted: in this ingrate peevishness of myweary convalescence, was I sitting there; when, suddenly looking off, Isaw the golden mountain-window, dazzling like a deep-sea dolphin. Fairies there, thought I, once more; the queen of fairies at herfairy-window; at any rate, some glad mountain-girl; it will do me good, it will cure this weariness, to look on her. No more; I'll launch myyawl--ho, cheerly, heart! and push away for fairy-land--for rainbow'send, in fairy-land. 

How to get to fairy-land, by what road, I did not know; nor could anyone inform me; not even one Edmund Spenser, who had been there--so hewrote me--further than that to reach fairy-land, it must be voyaged to, and with faith. I took the fairy-mountain's bearings, and the first fineday, when strength permitted, got into my yawl--high-pommeled, leatherone--cast off the fast, and away I sailed, free voyager as an autumnleaf. Early dawn; and, sallying westward, I sowed the morning before me. 

Some miles brought me nigh the hills; but out of present sight of them. I was not lost; for road-side golden-rods, as guide-posts, pointed, Idoubted not, the way to the golden window. Following them, I came to alone and languid region, where the grass-grown ways were traveled but bydrowsy cattle, that, less waked than stirred by day, seemed to walk insleep. Browse, they did not--the enchanted never eat. At least, so saysDon Quixote, that sagest sage that ever lived. 

On I went, and gained at last the fairy mountain's base, but saw yet nofairy ring. A pasture rose before me. Letting down five moulderingbars--so moistly green, they seemed fished up from some sunken wreck--awigged old Aries, long-visaged, and with crumpled horn, came snuffingup; and then, retreating, decorously led on along a milky-way ofwhite-weed, past dim-clustering Pleiades and Hyades, of smallforget-me-nots; and would have led me further still his astral path, butfor golden flights of yellow-birds--pilots, surely, to the goldenwindow, to one side flying before me, from bush to bush, towards deepwoods--which woods themselves were luring--and, somehow, lured, too, bytheir fence, banning a dark road, which, however dark, led up. I pushedthrough; when Aries, renouncing me now for some lost soul, wheeled, andwent his wiser way.. Forbidding and forbidden ground--to him. 

A winter wood road, matted all along with winter-green. By the side ofpebbly waters--waters the cheerier for their solitude; beneath swayingfir-boughs, petted by no season, but still green in all, on Ijourneyed--my horse and I; on, by an old saw-mill, bound down and hushedwith vines, that his grating voice no more was heard; on, by a deepflume clove through snowy marble, vernal-tinted, where freshet eddieshad, on each side, spun out empty chapels in the living rock; on, whereJacks-in-the-pulpit, like their Baptist namesake, preached but to thewilderness; on, where a huge, cross-grain block, fern-bedded, showedwhere, in forgotten times, man after man had tried to split it, but losthis wedges for his pains--which wedges yet rusted in their holes; on, where, ages past, in step-like ledges of a cascade, skull-hollow potshad been churned out by ceaseless whirling of a flintstone--everwearing, but itself unworn; on, by wild rapids pouring into a secretpool, but soothed by circling there awhile, issued forth serenely; on, to less broken ground, and by a little ring, where, truly, fairies musthave danced, or else some wheel-tire been heated--for all was bare;still on, and up, and out into a hanging orchard, where maidenly lookeddown upon me a crescent moon, from morning. 

My horse hitched low his head. Red apples rolled before him; Eve'sapples; seek-no-furthers. He tasted one, I another; it tasted of theground. Fairy land not yet, thought I, flinging my bridle to a humpedold tree, that crooked out an arm to catch it. For the way now lay wherepath was none, and none might go but by himself, and only go by daring. Through blackberry brakes that tried to pluck me back, though I butstrained towards fruitless growths of mountain-laurel; up slipperysteeps to barren heights, where stood none to welcome. Fairy land notyet, thought I, though the morning is here before me. 

Foot-sore enough and weary, I gained not then my journey's end, but cameere long to a craggy pass, dipping towards growing regions still beyond. A zigzag road, half overgrown with blueberry bushes, here turned amongthe cliffs. A rent was in their ragged sides; through it a little trackbranched off, which, upwards threading that short defile, came breezilyout above, to where the mountain-top, part sheltered northward, by ataller brother, sloped gently off a space, ere darkly plunging; andhere, among fantastic rocks, reposing in a herd, the foot-track wound, half beaten, up to a little, low-storied, grayish cottage, capped, nun-like, with a peaked roof. 

On one slope, the roof was deeply weather-stained, and, nigh the turfyeaves-trough, all velvet-napped; no doubt the snail-monks founded mossypriories there. The other slope was newly shingled. On the north side, doorless and windowless, the clap-boards, innocent of paint, were yetgreen as the north side of lichened pines or copperless hulls ofJapanese junks, becalmed. The whole base, like those of the neighboringrocks, was rimmed about with shaded streaks of richest sod; for, withhearth-stones in fairy land, the natural rock, though housed, preservesto the last, just as in open fields, its fertilizing charm; only, bynecessity, working now at a remove, to the sward without. So, at least, says Oberon, grave authority in fairy lore. Though setting Oberon aside, certain it is, that, even in the common world, the soil, close up tofarm-houses, as close up to pasture rocks, is, even though untended, ever richer than it is a few rods off--such gentle, nurturing heat isradiated there. 

But with this cottage, the shaded streaks were richest in its front andabout its entrance, where the ground-sill, and especially the doorsillhad, through long eld, quietly settled down. 

No fence was seen, no inclosure. Near by--ferns, ferns, ferns;further--woods, woods, woods; beyond--mountains, mountains, mountains;then--sky, sky, sky. Turned out in aerial commons, pasture for themountain moon. Nature, and but nature, house and, all; even a lowcross-pile of silver birch, piled openly, to season; up among whosesilvery sticks, as through the fencing of some sequestered grave, sprangvagrant raspberry bushes--willful assertors of their right of way. 

The foot-track, so dainty narrow, just like a sheep-track, led throughlong ferns that lodged. Fairy land at last, thought I; Una and her lambdwell here. Truly, a small abode--mere palanquin, set down on thesummit, in a pass between two worlds, participant of neither. 

A sultry hour, and I wore a light hat, of yellow sinnet, with white ducktrowsers--both relics of my tropic sea-going. Clogged in the mufflingferns, I softly stumbled, staining the knees a sea-green. 

Pausing at the threshold, or rather where threshold once had been, Isaw, through the open door-way, a lonely girl, sewing at a lonelywindow. A pale-cheeked girl, and fly-specked window, with wasps aboutthe mended upper panes. I spoke. She shyly started, like some Tahitigirl, secreted for a sacrifice, first catching sight, through palms, ofCaptain Cook. Recovering, she bade me enter; with her apron brushed offa stool; then silently resumed her own. With thanks I took the stool;but now, for a space, I, too, was mute. This, then, is thefairy-mountain house, and here, the fairy queen sitting at her fairywindow. 

I went up to it. Downwards, directed by the tunneled pass, as through aleveled telescope, I caught sight of a, far-off, soft, azure world. Ihardly knew it, though I came from it. 

"You must find this view very pleasant, " said I, at last. 

"Oh, sir, " tears starting in her eyes, "the first time I looked out ofthis window, I said 'never, never shall I weary of this. '"

"And what wearies you of it now?"

"I don't know, " while a tear fell; "but it is not the view, it isMarianna. "

Some months back, her brother, only seventeen, had come hither, a longway from the other side, to cut wood and burn coal, and she, eldersister, had accompanied, him. Long had they been orphans, and now, soleinhabitants of the sole house upon the mountain. No guest came, notraveler passed. The zigzag, perilous road was only used at seasons bythe coal wagons. The brother was absent the entire day, sometimes theentire night. When at evening, fagged out, he did come home, he soonleft his bench, poor fellow, for his bed; just as one, at last, wearilyquits that, too, for still deeper rest. The bench, the bed, the grave. 

Silent I stood by the fairy window, while these things were being told. 

"Do you know, " said she at last, as stealing from her story, "do youknow who lives yonder?--I have never been down into that country--awayoff there, I mean; that house, that marble one, " pointing far across thelower landscape; "have you not caught it? there, on the long hill-side:the field before, the woods behind; the white shines out against theirblue; don't you mark it? the only house in sight. "

I looked; and after a time, to my surprise, recognized, more by itsposition than its aspect, or Marianna's description, my own abode, glimmering much like this mountain one from the piazza. The mirage hazemade it appear less a farm-house than King Charming's palace. 

"I have often wondered who lives there; but it must be some happy one;again this morning was I thinking so. "

"Some happy one, " returned I, starting; "and why do you think that? Youjudge some rich one lives there?"

"Rich or not, I never thought; but it looks so happy, I can't tell how;and it is so far away. Sometimes I think I do but dream it is there. You should see it in a sunset. "

"No doubt the sunset gilds it finely; but not more than the sunrise doesthis house, perhaps. "

"This house? The sun is a good sun, but it never gilds this house. Whyshould it? This old house is rotting. That makes it so mossy. In themorning, the sun comes in at this old window, to be sure--boarded up, when first we came; a window I can't keep clean, do what I may--and halfburns, and nearly blinds me at my sewing, besides setting the flies andwasps astir--such flies and wasps as only lone mountain houses know. See, here is the curtain--this apron--I try to shut it out with then. Itfades it, you see. Sun gild this house? not that ever Marianna saw. "

"Because when this roof is gilded most, then you stay here within. "

"The hottest, weariest hour of day, you mean? Sir, the sun gilds notthis roof. It leaked so, brother newly shingled all one side. Did younot see it? The north side, where the sun strikes most on what the rainhas wetted. The sun is a good sun; but this roof, in first scorches, and then rots. An old house. They went West, and are long dead, theysay, who built it. A mountain house. In winter no fox could den in it. That chimney-place has been blocked up with snow, just like a hollowstump. "

"Yours are strange fancies, Marianna. "

"They but reflect the things. "

"Then I should have said, 'These are strange things, ' rather than, 'Yours are strange fancies. '"

"As you will;" and took up her sewing. 

Something in those quiet words, or in that quiet act, it made me muteagain; while, noting, through the fairy window, a broad shadow stealingon, as cast by some gigantic condor, floating at brooding poise onoutstretched wings, I marked how, by its deeper and inclusive dusk, itwiped away into itself all lesser shades of rock or fern. 

"You watch the cloud, " said Marianna. 

"No, a shadow; a cloud's, no doubt--though that I cannot see. How didyou know it? Your eyes are on your work. "

"It dusked my work. There, now the cloud is gone, Tray comes back. "

"How?"

"The dog, the shaggy dog. At noon, he steals off, of himself, to changehis shape--returns, and lies down awhile, nigh the door. Don't you seehim? His head is turned round at you; though, when you came, he lookedbefore him. "

"Your eyes rest but on your work; what do you speak of?"

"By the window, crossing. "

"You mean this shaggy shadow--the nigh one? And, yes, now that I markit, it is not unlike a large, black Newfoundland dog. The invadingshadow gone, the invaded one returns. But I do not see what casts it. "

"For that, you must go without. "

"One of those grassy rocks, no doubt. "

"You see his head, his face?"

"The shadow's? You speak as if _you_ saw it, and all the time your eyesare on your work. "

"Tray looks at you, " still without glancing up; "this is his hour; I seehim. "

"Have you then, so long sat at this mountain-window, where but cloudsand, vapors pass, that, to you, shadows are as things, though you speakof them as of phantoms; that, by familiar knowledge, working like asecond sight, you can, without looking for them, tell just where theyare, though, as having mice-like feet, they creep about, and come andgo; that, to you, these lifeless shadows are as living friends, who, though out of sight, are not out of mind, even in their faces--is itso?"

"That way I never thought of it. But the friendliest one, that used tosoothe my weariness so much, coolly quivering on the ferns, it was takenfrom me, never to return, as Tray did just now. The shadow of a birch. The tree was struck by lightning, and brother cut it up. You saw thecross-pile out-doors--the buried root lies under it; but not the shadow. That is flown, and never will come back, nor ever anywhere stir again. "

Another cloud here stole along, once more blotting out the dog, andblackening all the mountain; while the stillness was so still, deafnessmight have forgot itself, or else believed that noiseless shadow spoke. 

"Birds, Marianna, singing-birds, I hear none; I hear nothing. Boys andbob-o-links, do they never come a-berrying up here?"

"Birds, I seldom hear; boys, never. The berries mostly ripe andfall--few, but me, the wiser. "

"But yellow-birds showed me the way--part way, at least. "

"And then flew back. I guess they play about the mountain-side, butdon't make the top their home. And no doubt you think that, living solonesome here, knowing nothing, hearing nothing--little, at least, butsound of thunder and the fall of trees--never reading, seldom speaking, yet ever wakeful, this is what gives me my strange thoughts--for so youcall them--this weariness and wakefulness together Brother, who standsand works in open air, would I could rest like him; but mine is mostlybut dull woman's work--sitting, sitting, restless sitting. "

"But, do you not go walk at times? These woods are wide. "

"And lonesome; lonesome, because so wide. Sometimes, 'tis true, ofafternoons, I go a little way; but soon come back again. Better feellone by hearth, than rock. The shadows hereabouts I know--those in thewoods are strangers. "

"But the night?"

"Just like the day. Thinking, thinking--a wheel I cannot stop; pure wantof sleep it is that turns it. "

"I have heard that, for this wakeful weariness, to say one's prayers, and then lay one's head upon a fresh hop pillow--"

"Look!"

Through the fairy window, she pointed down the steep to a small gardenpatch near by--mere pot of rifled loam, half rounded in by shelteringrocks--where, side by side, some feet apart, nipped and puny, twohop-vines climbed two poles, and, gaining their tip-ends, would havethen joined over in an upward clasp, but the baffled shoots, gropingawhile in empty air, trailed back whence they sprung. 

"You have tried the pillow, then?"

"Yes. "

"And prayer?"

"Prayer and pillow. "

"Is there no other cure, or charm?"

"Oh, if I could but once get to yonder house, and but look upon whoeverthe happy being is that lives there! A foolish thought: why do I thinkit? Is it that I live so lonesome, and know nothing?"

"I, too, know nothing; and, therefore, cannot answer; but, for yoursake, Marianna, well could wish that I were that happy one of the happyhouse you dream you see; for then you would behold him now, and, as yousay, this weariness might leave you. "

--Enough. Launching my yawl no more for fairy-land, I stick to thepiazza. It is my box-royal; and this amphitheatre, my theatre of SanCarlo. Yes, the scenery is magical--the illusion so complete. And MadamMeadow Lark, my prima donna, plays her grand engagement here; and, drinking in her sunrise note, which, Memnon-like, seems struck from thegolden window, how far from me the weary face behind it. 

But, every night, when the curtain falls, truth comes in with darkness. No light shows from the mountain. To and fro I walk the piazza deck, haunted by Marianna's face, and many as real a story. 

BARTLEBY. 

I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations, for the lastthirty years, has brought me into more than ordinary contact with whatwould seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom, asyet, nothing, that I know of, has ever been written--I mean, thelaw-copyists, or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and privately, and, if I pleased, could relate divershistories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimentalsouls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners, for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener, thestrangest I ever saw, or heard of. While, of other law-copyists, I mightwrite the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. Ibelieve that no materials exist, for a full and satisfactory biographyof this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was oneof those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from theoriginal sources, and, in his case, those are very small. What my ownastonished eyes saw of Bartleby, _that_ is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel. 

Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit Imake some mention of myself, my _employés_, my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensableto an adequate understanding of the chief character about to bepresented. Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has beenfilled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is thebest. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic andnervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have Iever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyerswho never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause;but, in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug businessamong rich men's bonds, and mortgages, and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminently _safe_ man. The late John Jacob Astor, apersonage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation inpronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I donot speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was notunemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat; for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound toit, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was notinsensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion. 

Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, myavocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinctin the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferredupon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantlyremunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge indangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but, I must be permittedto be rash here, and declare, that I consider the sudden and violentabrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as a ---- premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease ofthe profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. Butthis is by the way. 

My chambers were up stairs, at No. ---- Wall street. At one end, theylooked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. 

This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call "life. " But, if so, the viewfrom the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, ifnothing more. In that direction, my windows commanded an unobstructedview of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; whichwall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but, forthe benefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within tenfeet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surroundingbuildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the intervalbetween this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern. 

At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two personsas copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In truth, theywere nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman, of about my own age--that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his facewas of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian--his dinnerhour--it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continuedblazing--but, as it were, with a gradual wane--till six o'clock, P. M. , or thereabouts; after which, I saw no more of the proprietor of theface, which, gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the likeregularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidencesI have known in the course of my life, not the least among which was thefact, that, exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his redand radiant countenance, just then, too, at that critical moment, beganthe daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriouslydisturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he wasabsolutely idle, or averse to business, then; far from it. Thedifficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was astrange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All hisblots upon my documents were dropped there after twelve o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless, and sadly given tomaking blots in the afternoon, but, some days, he went further, and wasrather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with augmentedblazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He made anunpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending hispens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them on the floorin a sudden passion; stood up, and leaned over his table, boxing hispapers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in anelderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a mostvaluable person to me, and all the time before twelve o'clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature, too, accomplishing agreat deal of work in a style not easily to be matched--for thesereasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though, indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential ofmen in the morning, yet, in the afternoon, he was disposed, uponprovocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue--in fact, insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to losethem--yet, at the same time, made uncomfortable by his inflamed waysafter twelve o'clock--and being a man of peace, unwilling by myadmonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him, I took upon me, oneSaturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays) to hint to him, verykindly, that, perhaps, now that he was growing old, it might be well toabridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers aftertwelve o'clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings, andrest himself till tea-time. But no; he insisted upon his afternoondevotions. His countenance became intolerably fervid, as heoratorically assured me--gesticulating with a long ruler at the otherend of the room--that if his services in the morning were useful, howindispensable, then, in the afternoon?

"With submission, sir, " said Turkey, on this occasion, "I considermyself your right-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy mycolumns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantlycharge the foe, thus"--and he made a violent thrust with the ruler. 

"But the blots, Turkey, " intimated I. 

"True; but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severelyurged against gray hairs. Old age--even if it blot the page--ishonorable. With submission, sir, we _both_ are getting old. "

This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At allevents, I saw that go he would not. So, I made up my mind to let himstay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it that, during the afternoon, he had to do with my less important papers. 

Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon thewhole, rather piratical-looking young man, of about five and twenty. Ialways deemed him the victim of two evil powers--ambition andindigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of theduties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictlyprofessional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legaldocuments. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervoustestiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grindtogether over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by acontinual discontent with the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get thistable to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bitsof pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisiteadjustment, by final pieces of folded blotting-paper. But no inventionwould answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the tablelid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote, there like aman using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk, then he declaredthat it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the tableto his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there was a soreaching in his back. In short, the, truth of the matter was, Nippers knewnot what he wanted. Or, if he wanted anything, it was to be rid of ascrivener's table altogether. Among the manifestations of his diseasedambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from certainambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his clients. Indeed, I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable of award-politician, but he occasionally did a little business at theJustices' courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I havegood reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon himat my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, a bill. But, withall his failings, and the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, like hiscompatriot Turkey, was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swifthand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in a gentlemanly sort ofdeportment. Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort ofway; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon my chambers. Whereas, with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being a reproachto me. His clothes were apt to look oily, and smell of eating-houses. Hewore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer. His coats wereexecrable; his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing ofindifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference, as adependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he enteredthe room, yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats, Ireasoned with him; but with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, that aman with so small an income could not afford to sport such a lustrousface and a lustrous coat at one and the same time. As Nippers onceobserved, Turkey's money went chiefly for red ink. One winter day, Ipresented Turkey with a highly respectable-looking coat of my own--apadded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttonedstraight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciatethe favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy andblanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him--upon the sameprinciple that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as arash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom prosperity harmed. 

Though, concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey, I had my ownprivate surmises, yet, touching Nippers, I was well persuaded that, whatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, atemperate young man. But, indeed, nature herself seemed to have been hisvintner, and, at his birth, charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers wouldsometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerkit, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were aperverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him, I plainlyperceive that, for Nippers, brandy-and-water were altogethersuperfluous. 

It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiarcause--indigestion--the irritability and consequent nervousness ofNippers were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon hewas comparatively mild. So that, Turkey's paroxysms only coming on abouttwelve o'clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits relieved each other, like guards. When Nippers's was on, Turkey's was off; and _vice versa_. This was a good natural arrangement, under the circumstances. 

Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad, some twelve years old. His, father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead ofa cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office, as student at law, errand-boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. Hehad a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Uponinspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of varioussorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noblescience of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among theemployments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with themost alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey andNippers. Copying law-papers being proverbially a dry, husky sort ofbusiness, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very oftenwith Spitzenbergs, to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the CustomHouse and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently forthat peculiar cake--small, flat, round, and very spicy--after which hehad been named by them. Of a cold morning, when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were merewafers--indeed, they sell them at the rate of six or eight for apenny--the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crispparticles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurriedrashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cake between hislips, and clapping it on to a mortgage, for a seal. I came within anace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me by making an orientalbow, and saying--

"With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationeryon my own account. "

Now my original business--that of a conveyancer and title hunter, anddrawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts--was considerablyincreased by receiving the master's office. There was now great work forscriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I musthave additional help. 

In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stoodupon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I cansee that figure now--pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurablyforlorn! It was Bartleby. 

After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad tohave among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper ofTurkey, and the fiery one of Nippers. 

I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided mypremises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, theother by myself. According to my humor, I threw open these doors, orclosed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by thefolding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet manwithin easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placedhis desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, awindow which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimybackyards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Withinthree feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from farabove, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in adome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a highgreen folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from mysight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined. 

At first, Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if longfamishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on mydocuments. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and nightline, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quitedelighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. Buthe wrote on silently, palely, mechanically. 

It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener's business toverify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two ormore scriveners in an office, they assist each other in thisexamination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readilyimagine that, to some sanguine temperaments, it would be altogetherintolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet, Byron, would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a lawdocument of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. 

Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assistin comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers forthis purpose. One object I had, in placing Bartleby so handy to mebehind the screen, was, to avail myself of his services on such trivialoccasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, andbefore any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, Iabruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy ofinstant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on mydesk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended withthe copy, so that, immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartlebymight snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay. 

In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly statingwhat it was I wanted him to do--namely, to examine a small paper withme. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when, without movingfrom his privacy, Bartleby, in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, "I would prefer not to. "

I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartlebyhad entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in theclearest tone I could assume; but in quite as clear a one came theprevious reply, "I would prefer not to. "

"Prefer not to, " echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing theroom with a stride. "What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want youto help me compare this sheet here--take it, " and I thrust it towardshim. 

"I would prefer not to, " said he. 

I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eyedimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been theleast uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; inother words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. Butas it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my paleplaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at himawhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself atmy desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But mybusiness hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the otherroom, the paper was speedily examined. 

A few days after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, beingquadruplicates of a week's testimony taken before me in my High Court ofChancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged, I calledTurkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut, from the next room, meaning to place thefour copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I should read from theoriginal. Accordingly, Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut had taken theirseats in a row, each with his document in his hand, when I called toBartleby to join this interesting group. 

"Bartleby! quick, I am waiting. "

I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, andsoon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage. 

"What is wanted?" said he, mildly. 

"The copies, the copies, " said I, hurriedly. "We are going to examinethem. There"--and I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate. 

"I would prefer not to, " he said, and gently disappeared behind thescreen. 

For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at thehead of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advancedtowards the screen, and demanded the reason for such extraordinaryconduct. 

"_Why_ do you refuse?"

"I would prefer not to. "

With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from mypresence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangelydisarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me. Ibegan to reason with him. 

"These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor savingto you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It iscommon usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it notso? Will you not speak? Answer!"

"I prefer not to, " he replied in a flutelike tone. It seemed to me that, while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statementthat I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay theirresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramountconsideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. 

"You are decided, then, not to comply with my request--a request madeaccording to common usage and common sense?"

He briefly gave me to understand, that on that point my judgment wassound. Yes: his decision was irreversible. 

It is not seldom the case that, when a man is browbeaten in someunprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger inhis own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on theother side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, heturns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. 

"Turkey, " said I, "what do you think of this? Am I not right?"

"With submission, sir, " said Turkey, in his blandest tone, "I think thatyou are. "

"Nippers, " said I, "what do _you_ think of it?"

"I think I should kick him out of the office. "

(The reader, of nice perceptions, will here perceive that, it beingmorning, Turkey's answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, butNippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous sentence, Nippers's ugly mood was on duty, and Turkey's off. )

"Ginger Nut, " said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in mybehalf, "what do _you_ think of it?"

"I think, sir, he's a little _luny_, " replied Ginger Nut, with a grin. 

"You hear what they say, " said I, turning towards the screen, "comeforth and do your duty. "

But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity. Butonce more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone theconsideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a littletrouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though atevery page or two Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion, that thisproceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in hischair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out, between his set teeth, occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind thescreen. And for his (Nippers's) part, this was the first and the lasttime he would do another man's business without pay. 

Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but hisown peculiar business there. 

Some days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthywork. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly. Iobserved that he never went to dinner; indeed, that he never wentanywhere. As yet I had never, of my personal knowledge, known him to beoutside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At abouteleven o'clock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut wouldadvance toward the opening in Bartleby's screen, as if silently beckonedthither by a gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boy would thenleave the office, jingling a few pence, and reappear with a handful ofginger-nuts, which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving two of thecakes for his trouble. 

He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I; never eats a dinner, properlyspeaking; he must be a vegetarian, then; but no; he never eats evenvegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on inreveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution ofliving entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called, because theycontain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the finalflavoring one. Now, what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartlebyhot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby. Probably, he preferred it should have none. 

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If theindividual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resistingone perfectly harmless in his passivity, then, in the better moods ofthe former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imaginationwhat proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for themost part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, hemeans no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspectsufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He isuseful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chancesare he will fall in with some less-indulgent employer, and then he willbe rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriendBartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me littleor nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweetmorsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable, with me. Thepassiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goadedon to encounter him in new opposition--to elicit some angry spark fromhim answerable to my own. But, indeed, I might as well have essayed tostrike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But oneafternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following littlescene ensued:

"Bartleby, " said I, "when those papers are all copied, I will comparethem with you. "

"I would prefer not to. "

"How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?"

No answer. 

I threw open the folding-doors near by, and, turning upon Turkey andNippers, exclaimed:

"Bartleby a second time says, he won't examine his papers. What do youthink of it, Turkey?"

It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brassboiler; his bald head steaming; his hands reeling among his blottedpapers. 

"Think of it?" roared Turkey; "I think I'll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!"

So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilisticposition. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detainedhim, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey'scombativeness after dinner. 

"Sit down, Turkey, " said I, "and hear what Nippers has to say. What doyou think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediatelydismissing Bartleby?"

"Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quiteunusual, and, indeed, unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it mayonly be a passing whim. "

"Ah, " exclaimed I, "you have strangely changed your mind, then--youspeak very gently of him now. "

"All beer, " cried Turkey; "gentleness is effects of beer--Nippers and Idined together to-day. You see how gentle _I_ am, sir. Shall I go andblack his eyes?"

"You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey, " I replied;"pray, put up your fists. "

I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I feltadditional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelledagainst again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office. 

"Bartleby, " said I, "Ginger Nut is away; just step around to the PostOffice, won't you? (it was but a three minutes' walk), and see if thereis anything for me. "

"I would prefer not to. "

"You _will_ not?"

"I _prefer_ not. "

I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blindinveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procuremyself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?--myhired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that hewill be sure to refuse to do?

"Bartleby!"

No answer. 

"Bartleby, " in a louder tone. 

No answer. 

"Bartleby, " I roared. 

Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at thethird summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage. 

"Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me. "

"I prefer not to, " he respectfully and slowly said, and mildlydisappeared. 

"Very good, Bartleby, " said I, in a quiet sort of serenely-severeself-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terribleretribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended somethingof the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards mydinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for theday, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind. 

Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, thatit soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, had a desk there; that he copied for me at theusual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but he waspermanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty beingtransferred to Turkey and Nippers, out of compliment, doubtless, totheir superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never, on anyaccount, to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; andthat even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generallyunderstood that he would "prefer not to"--in other words, that he wouldrefuse point-blank. 

As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. Hissteadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry(except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind hisscreen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under allcircumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing wasthis--_he was always there_--first in the morning, continually throughthe day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in hishonesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes, to be sure, I could not, for the very soul of me, avoidfalling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceedingdifficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities, privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations onBartleby's part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, inthe eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertentlysummon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on theincipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressingsome papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, "Iprefer not to, " was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature, with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterlyexclaiming upon such perverseness--such unreasonableness. However, everyadded repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen theprobability of my repeating the inadvertence. 

Here it must be said, that according to the custom of most legalgentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law buildings, therewere several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing in theattic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted myapartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience sake. The third Isometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had. 

Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go to Trinity Church, to hear acelebrated preacher, and finding myself rather early on the ground Ithought I would walk round to my chambers for a while. Luckily I had mykey with me; but upon applying it to the lock, I found it resisted bysomething inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out; whento my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting his leanvisage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartlebyappeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattereddeshabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply engagedjust then, and--preferred not admitting me at present. In a brief wordor two, he moreover added, that perhaps I had better walk round theblock two or three times, and by that time he would probably haveconcluded his affairs. 

Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting mylaw-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly_nonchalance_, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strangeeffect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, anddid as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellionagainst the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, itwas his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, butunmanned me as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a sortof unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate tohim, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was fullof uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my officein his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition of aSunday morning. Was anything amiss going on? Nay, that was out of thequestion. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby was animmoral person. But what could he be doing there?--copying? Nay again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently decorousperson. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk in any stateapproaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was somethingabout Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by any secularoccupation violate the proprieties of the day. 

Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified; and full of a restlesscuriosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I insertedmy key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I lookedround anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that hewas gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for anindefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in myoffice, and that, too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seatof a ricketty old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean, reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; under theempty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, withsoap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts anda morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartlebyhas been making his home here, keeping bachelor's hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, what miserablefriendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great;but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street isdeserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness. Thisbuilding, too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, atnightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator, of a solitude which hehas seen all populous--a sort of innocent and transformed Mariusbrooding among the ruins of Carthage!

For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stingingmelancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a notunpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew meirresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartlebywere sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces Ihad seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippiof Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thoughtto myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay;but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sadfancyings--chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain--led on toother and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities ofBartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. Thescriveners pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers, in its shivering winding sheet. 

Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's closed desk, the key in opensight left in the lock. 

I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents, too, so I willmake bold to look within. Everything was methodically arranged, thepapers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing thefiles of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I feltsomething there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandannahandkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings'bank. 

I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. Iremembered that he never spoke but to answer; that, though at intervalshe had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen himreading--no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would standlooking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brickwall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house;while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer likeTurkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never wentanywhere in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless, indeed, that was the case at present; that he had declinedtelling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relativesin the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of illhealth. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air ofpallid--how shall I call it?--of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather anaustere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tamecompliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to dothe slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, fromhis long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must bestanding in one of those dead-wall reveries of his. 

Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recentlydiscovered fact, that he made my office his constant abiding place andhome, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all thesethings, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotionshad been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just inproportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to myimagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity intorepulsion. So true it is, and so terrible, too, that up to a certainpoint the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err whowould assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishnessof the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness ofremedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is notseldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannotlead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. WhatI saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim ofinnate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but hisbody did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul Icould not reach. 

I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church thatmorning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the timefrom church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do withBartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this--I would put certain calmquestions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc. , and if hedeclined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he wouldprefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and abovewhatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longerrequired; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would behappy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in wantof aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply. 

The next morning came. 

"Bartleby, " said I, gently calling to him behind his screen. 

No reply. 

"Bartleby, " said I, in a still gentler tone, "come here; I am not goingto ask you to do anything you would prefer not to do--I simply wish tospeak to you. "

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view. 

"Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?"

"I would prefer not to. "

"Will you tell me _anything_ about yourself?"

"I would prefer not to. "

"But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feelfriendly towards you. "

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon mybust of Cicero, which, as I then sat, was directly behind me, some sixinches above my head. 

"What is your answer, Bartleby, " said I, after waiting a considerabletime for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, onlythere was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth. 

"At present I prefer to give no answer, " he said, and retired into hishermitage. 

It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner, on this occasion, nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calmdisdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering theundeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me. 

Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at hisbehavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered myoffice, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knockingat my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncingme for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against thisforlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind hisscreen, I sat down and said: "Bartleby, never mind, then, aboutrevealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to complyas far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now, you will helpto examine papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now, that in aday or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:--say so, Bartleby. "

"At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable, " was hismildly cadaverous reply. 

Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemedsuffering from an unusually bad night's rest, induced by severerindigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby. 

"_Prefer not_, eh?" gritted Nippers--"I'd _prefer_ him, if I were you, sir, " addressing me--"I'd _prefer_ him; I'd give him preferences, thestubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he _prefers_ not to do now?"

Bartleby moved not a limb. 

"Mr. Nippers, " said I, "I'd prefer that you would withdraw for thepresent. "

Somehow, of late, I had got into the way of involuntarily using thisword "prefer" upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And Itrembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already andseriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeperaberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not beenwithout efficacy in determining me to summary measures. 

As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandlyand deferentially approached. 

"With submission, sir, " said he, "yesterday I was thinking aboutBartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quartof good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, andenabling him to assist in examining his papers. "

"So you have got the word, too, " said I, slightly excited. 

"With submission, what word, sir, " asked Turkey, respectfully crowdinghimself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing, making me jostle the scrivener. "What word, sir?"

"I would prefer to be left alone here, " said Bartleby, as if offended atbeing mobbed in his privacy. 

"_That's_ the word, Turkey, " said I--"_that's_ it. "

"Oh, _prefer_? oh yes--queer wood. I never use it myself. But, sir, asI was saying, if he would but prefer--"

"Turkey, " interrupted I, "you will please withdraw. "

"Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should. "

As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught aglimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain papercopied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accentthe word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled from histongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads ofmyself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismissionat once. 

The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his windowin his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write, he saidthat he had decided upon doing no more writing. 

"Why, how now? what next?" exclaimed I, "do no more writing?"

"No more. "

"And what is the reason?"

"Do you not see the reason for yourself, " he indifferently replied. 

I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull andglazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence incopying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with memight have temporarily impared his vision. 

I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that ofcourse he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and urgedhim to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in the openair. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my otherclerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch certainletters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry theseletters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, much to myinconvenience, I went myself. 

Still added days went by. Whether Bartleby's eyes improved or not, Icould not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I askedhim if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do nocopying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he hadpermanently given up copying. 

"What!" exclaimed I; "suppose your eyes should get entirely well--betterthan ever before--would you not copy then?"

"I have given up copying, " he answered, and slid aside. 

He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber. Nay--if that werepossible--he became still more of a fixture than before. What was to bedone? He would do nothing in the office; why should he stay there? Inplain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as anecklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak lessthan truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned meuneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, Iwould instantly have written, and urged their taking the poor fellowaway to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alonein the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic. At length, necessities connected with my business tyrannized over all otherconsiderations. Decently as I could, I told Bartleby that in six daystime he must unconditionally leave the office. I warned him to takemeasures, in the interval, for procuring some other abode. I offered toassist him in this endeavor, if he himself would but take the first steptowards a removal. "And when you finally quit me, Bartleby, " added I, "Ishall see that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days from thishour, remember. "

At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo!Bartleby was there. 

I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him, touched his shoulder, and said, "The time has come; you must quit thisplace; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go. "

"I would prefer not, " he replied, with his back still towards me. 

"You _must_. "

He remained silent. 

Now I had an unbounded confidence in this man's common honesty. He hadfrequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly droppedupon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-buttonaffairs. The proceeding, then, which followed will not be deemedextraordinary. 

"Bartleby, " said I, "I owe you twelve dollars on account; here arethirty-two; the odd twenty are yours--Will you take it?" and I handedthe bills towards him. 

But he made no motion. 

"I will leave them here, then, " putting them under a weight on thetable. Then taking my hat and cane and going to the door, I tranquillyturned and added--"After you have removed your things from theseoffices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the door--since every one isnow gone for the day but you--and if you please, slip your keyunderneath the mat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall notsee you again; so good-by to you. If, hereafter, in your new place ofabode, I can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me byletter. Good-by, Bartleby, and fare you well. "

But he answered not a word; like the last column of some ruined temple, he remained standing mute and solitary in the middle of the otherwisedeserted room. 

As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in gettingrid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to anydispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist inits perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of anysort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across theapartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himselfoff with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudly biddingBartleby depart--as an inferior genius might have done--I _assumed_ theground that depart he must; and upon that assumption built all I had tosay. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I was charmed withit. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my doubts--I hadsomehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisesthours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning. My procedureseemed as sagacious as ever--but only in theory. How it would prove inpractice--there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to haveassumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that assumption wassimply my own, and none of Bartleby's. The great point was, not whetherI had assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so todo. He was more a man of preferences than assumptions. 

After breakfast, I walked down town, arguing the probabilities _pro_ and_con_. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, andBartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next momentit seemed certain that I should find his chair empty. And so I keptveering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal street, I saw quitean excited group of people standing in earnest conversation. 

"I'll take odds he doesn't, " said a voice as I passed. 

"Doesn't go?--done!" said I, "put up your money. "

I was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce my own, whenI remembered that this was an election day. The words I had overheardbore no reference to Bartleby, but to the success or non-success of somecandidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had, as itwere, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and weredebating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that theuproar of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness. 

As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stoodlistening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone. I tried theknob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; heindeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I wasalmost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the door matfor the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me, whenaccidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoningsound, and in response a voice came to me from within--"Not yet; I amoccupied. "

It was Bartleby. 

I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe inmouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, bysummer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, andremained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon till some onetouched him, when he fell. 

"Not gone!" I murmured at last. But again obeying that wondrousascendancy which the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from whichascendancy, for all my chafing, I could not completely escape, I slowlywent down stairs and out into the street, and while walking round theblock, considered what I should next do in this unheard-of perplexity. Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him awayby calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was anunpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumphover me--this, too, I could not think of. What was to be done? or, ifnothing could be done, was there anything further that I could _assume_in the matter? Yes, as before I had prospectively assumed that Bartlebywould depart, so now I might retrospectively assume that departed hewas. In the legitimate carrying out of this assumption, I might enter myoffice in a great hurry, and pretending not to see Bartleby at all, walkstraight against him as if he were air. Such a proceeding would in asingular degree have the appearance of a home-thrust. It was hardlypossible that Bartleby could withstand such an application of thedoctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts the success of theplan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the matter over with himagain. 

"Bartleby, " said I, entering the office, with a quietly severeexpression, "I am seriously displeased. I am pained, Bartleby. I hadthought better of you. I had imagined you of such a gentlemanlyorganization, that in any delicate dilemma a slight hint wouldsuffice--in short, an assumption. But it appears I am deceived. Why, " Iadded, unaffectedly starting, "you have not even touched that moneyyet, " pointing to it, just where I had left it the evening previous. 

He answered nothing. 

"Will you, or will you not, quit me?" I now demanded in a suddenpassion, advancing close to him. 

"I would prefer _not_ to quit you, " he replied gently emphasizing the_not_. 

"What earthly right have you to stay here? Do you pay any rent? Do youpay my taxes? Or is this property yours?"

He answered nothing. 

"Are you ready to go on and write now? Are your eyes recovered? Couldyou copy a small paper for me this morning? or help examine a few lines?or step round to the post-office? In a word, will you do anything atall, to give a coloring to your refusal to depart the premises?"

He silently retired into his hermitage. 

I was now in such a state of nervous resentment that I thought it butprudent to check myself at present from further demonstrations. Bartlebyand I were alone. I remembered the tragedy of the unfortunate Adams andthe still more unfortunate Colt in the solitary office of the latter;and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams, and imprudentlypermitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawares hurried intohis fatal act--an act which certainly no man could possibly deplore morethan the actor himself. Often it had occurred to me in my ponderingsupon the subject, that had that altercation taken place in the publicstreet, or at a private residence, it would not have terminated as itdid. It was the circumstance of being alone in a solitary office, upstairs, of a building entirely unhallowed by humanizing domesticassociations--an uncarpeted office, doubtless, of a dusty, haggard sortof appearance--this it must have been, which greatly helped to enhancethe irritable desperation of the hapless Colt. 

But when this old Adam of resentment rose in me and tempted meconcerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him. How? Why, simply byrecalling the divine injunction: "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another. " Yes, this it was that saved me. Aside fromhigher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise andprudent principle--a great safeguard to its possessor. Men havecommitted murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred'ssake, and selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man, that ever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweetcharity's sake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can beenlisted, should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beingsto charity and philanthropy. At any rate, upon the occasion in question, I strove to drown my exasperated feelings towards the scrivener bybenevolently construing his conduct. --Poor fellow, poor fellow! thoughtI, he don't mean anything; and besides, he has seen hard times, andought to be indulged. 

I endeavored, also, immediately to occupy myself, and at the same timeto comfort my despondency. I tried to fancy, that in the course of themorning, at such time as might prove agreeable to him, Bartleby, of hisown free accord, would emerge from his hermitage and take up somedecided line of march in the direction of the door. But no. Half-pasttwelve o'clock came; Turkey began to glow in the face, overturn hisinkstand, and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down intoquietude and courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartlebyremained standing at his window in one of his profoundest dead-wallreveries. Will it be credited? Ought I to acknowledge it? That afternoonI left the office without saying one further word to him. 

Some days now passed, during which, at leisure intervals I looked alittle into "Edwards on the Will, " and "Priestley on Necessity. " Underthe circumstances, those books induced a salutary feeling. Gradually Islid into the persuasion that these troubles of mine, touching thescrivener, had been all predestinated from eternity, and Bartleby wasbilleted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an allwise Providence, which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby, stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no more;you are harmless and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in short, Inever feel so private as when I know you are here. At last I see it, Ifeel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I amcontent. Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in thisworld, Bartleby, is to furnish you with office-room for such period asyou may see fit to remain. 

I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continuedwith me, had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable remarksobtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the rooms. Butthus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wearsout at last the best resolves of the more generous. Though to be sure, when I reflected upon it, it was not strange that people entering myoffice should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the unaccountableBartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister observationsconcerning him. Sometimes an attorney, having business with me, andcalling at my office, and finding no one but the scrivener there, wouldundertake to obtain some sort of precise information from him touchingmy whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remainstanding immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplating himin that position for a time, the attorney would depart, no wiser than hecame. 

Also, when a reference was going on, and the room full of lawyers andwitnesses, and business driving fast, some deeply-occupied legalgentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request himto run round to his (the legal gentleman's) office and fetch somepapers for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yetremain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, andturn to me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that allthrough the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonderwas running round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at myoffice. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of hispossibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizingmy professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over thepremises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings(for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhapsoutlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetualoccupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more andmore, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks uponthe apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolvedto gather all my faculties together, and forever rid me of thisintolerable incubus. 

Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, Ifirst simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanentdeparture. In a calm and serious tone, I commanded the idea to hiscareful and mature consideration. But, having taken three days tomeditate upon it, he apprised me, that his original determinationremained the same; in short, that he still preferred to abide with me. 

What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the lastbutton. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I_should_ do with this man, or, rather, ghost. Rid myself of him, I must;go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale, passivemortal--you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your door?you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I cannotdo that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up hisremains in the wall. What, then, will you do? For all your coaxing, hewill not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own paper-weight on yourtable; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers to cling to you. 

Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely youwill not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocentpallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure such athing to be done?--a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer, whorefuses to budge? It is because he will _not_ be a vagrant, then, thatyou seek to count him _as_ a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visiblemeans of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for indubitably he_does_ support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that anyman can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more, then. Sincehe will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I willmove elsewhere, and give him fair notice, that if I find him on my newpremises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser. 

Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: "I find thesechambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer requireyour services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek anotherplace. "

He made no reply, and nothing more was said. 

On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers, and, having but little furniture, everything was removed in a few hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen, which Idirected to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; and, beingfolded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant of a nakedroom. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while something fromwithin me upbraided me. 

I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket--and--and my heart in my mouth. 

"Good-by, Bartleby; I am going--good-by, and God some way bless you; andtake that, " slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon thefloor, and then--strange to say--I tore myself from him whom I had solonged to be rid of. 

Established in my new quarters, for a day or two I kept the door locked, and started at every footfall in the passages. When I returned to myrooms, after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for aninstant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these fearswere needless. Bartleby never came nigh me. 

I thought all was going well, when a perturbed-looking stranger visitedme, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied roomsat No. ---- Wall street. 

Full of forebodings, I replied that I was. 

"Then, sir, " said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, "you areresponsible for the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying; herefuses to do anything; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses toquit the premises. "

"I am very sorry, sir, " said I, with assumed tranquillity, but an inwardtremor, "but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me--he is norelation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me responsible forhim. "

"In mercy's name, who is he?"

"I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly Iemployed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for sometime past. "

"I shall settle him, then--good morning, sir. "

Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and, though I often felta charitable prompting to call at the place and see poor Bartleby, yet acertain squeamishness, of I know not what, withheld me. 

All is over with him, by this time, thought I, at last, when, throughanother week, no further intelligence reached me. But, coming to my roomthe day after, I found several persons waiting at my door in a highstate of nervous excitement. 

"That's the man--here he comes, " cried the foremost one, whom Irecognized as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone. 

"You must take him away, sir, at once, " cried a portly person amongthem, advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord of No. ----Wall street. "These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer;Mr. B----, " pointing to the lawyer, "has turned him out of his room, and he now persists in haunting the building generally, sitting upon thebanisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by night. Everybody is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some fears areentertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay. "

Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain havelocked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby wasnothing to me--no more than to any one else. In vain--I was the lastperson known to have anything to do with him, and they held me to theterrible account. Fearful, then, of being exposed in the papers (as oneperson present obscurely threatened), I considered the matter, and, atlength, said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interviewwith the scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own room, I would, thatafternoon, strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complainedof. 

Going up stairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sittingupon the banister at the landing. 

"What are you doing here, Bartleby?" said I. 

"Sitting upon the banister, " he mildly replied. 

I motioned him into the lawyer's room, who then left us. 

"Bartleby" said I, "are you aware that you are the cause of greattribulation to me, by persisting in occupying the entry after beingdismissed from the office?"

No answer. 

"Now one of two things must take place. Either you must do something, orsomething must be done to you. Now what sort of business would you liketo engage in? Would you like to re-engage in copying for some one?"

"No; I would prefer not to make any change. "

"Would you like a clerkship in a dry-goods store?"

"There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like aclerkship; but I am not particular. "

"Too much confinement, " I cried, "why you keep yourself confined all thetime!"

"I would prefer not to take a clerkship, " he rejoined, as if to settlethat little item at once. 

"How would a bar-tender's business suit you? There is no trying of theeye-sight in that. "

"I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am notparticular. "

His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge. 

"Well, then, would you like to travel through the country collectingbills for the merchants? That would improve your health. "

"No, I would prefer to be doing something else. "

"How, then, would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain someyoung gentleman with your conversation--how would that suit you?"

"Not at all. It does not strike me that there is anything definite aboutthat. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular. "

"Stationary you shall be, then, " I cried, now losing all patience, and, for the first time in all my exasperating connection with him, fairlyflying into a passion. "If you do not go away from these premisesbefore night, I shall feel bound--indeed, I _am_ bound--to--to--to quitthe premises myself!" I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not with whatpossible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him, whena final thought occurred to me--one which had not been wholly unindulgedbefore. 

"Bartleby, " said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under suchexciting circumstances, "will you go home with me now--not to my office, but my dwelling--and remain there till we can conclude upon someconvenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now, right away. "

"No: at present I would prefer not to make any change at all. "

I answered nothing; but, effectually dodging every one by the suddennessand rapidity of my flight, rushed from the building, ran up Wall streettowards Broadway, and, jumping into the first omnibus, was soon removedfrom pursuit. As soon as tranquillity returned, I distinctly perceivedthat I had now done all that I possibly could, both in respect to thedemands of the landlord and his tenants, and with regard to my owndesire and sense of duty, to benefit Bartleby, and shield him from rudepersecution, I now strove to be entirely care-free and quiescent; and myconscience justified me in the attempt; though, indeed, it was not sosuccessful as I could have wished. So fearful was I of being againhunted out by the incensed landlord and his exasperated tenants, that, surrendering my business to Nippers, for a few days, I drove about theupper part of the town and through the suburbs, in my rockaway; crossedover to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid fugitive visits toManhattanville and Astoria. In fact, I almost lived in my rockaway forthe time. 

When again I entered my office, lo, a note from the landlord lay uponthe desk. I opened it with trembling hands. It informed me that thewriter had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to the Tombs asa vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than any one else, hewished me to appear at that place, and make a suitable statement of thefacts. These tidings had a conflicting effect upon me. At first I wasindignant; but, at last, almost approved. The landlord's energetic, summary disposition, had led him to adopt a procedure which I do notthink I would have decided upon myself; and yet, as a last resort, undersuch peculiar circumstances, it seemed the only plan. 

As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must beconducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but, in hispale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced. 

Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party; andheaded by one of the constables arm in arm with Bartleby, the silentprocession filed its way through all the noise, and heat, and joy of theroaring thoroughfares at noon. 

The same day I received the note, I went to the Tombs, or, to speak moreproperly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the right officer, I stated thepurpose of my call, and was informed that the individual I describedwas, indeed, within. I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was aperfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, howeverunaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew and closed by suggestingthe idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement as possible, till something less harsh might be done--though, indeed, I hardly knewwhat. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, thealms-house must receive him. I then begged to have an interview. 

Being under no disgraceful charge, and quite serene and harmless in allhis ways, they had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, and, especially, in the inclosed grass-platted yards thereof. And so I foundhim there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his facetowards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the jailwindows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers andthieves. 

"Bartleby!"

"I know you, " he said, without looking round--"and I want nothing to sayto you. "

"It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby, " said I, keenly pained athis implied suspicion. "And to you, this should not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is not sosad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here is thegrass. "

"I know where I am, " he replied, but would say nothing more, and so Ileft him. 

As I entered the corridor again, a broad meat-like man, in an apron, accosted me, and, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, said--"Is thatyour friend?"

"Yes. "

"Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, that's all. "

"Who are you?" asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofficiallyspeaking person in such a place. 

"I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire me toprovide them with something good to eat. "

"Is this so?" said I, turning to the turnkey. 

He said it was. 

"Well, then, " said I, slipping some silver into the grub-man's hands(for so they called him), "I want you to give particular attention to myfriend there; let him have the best dinner you can get. And you must beas polite to him as possible. "

"Introduce me, will you?" said the grub-man, looking at me with anexpression which seem to say he was all impatience for an opportunity togive a specimen of his breeding. 

Thinking it would prove of benefit to the scrivener, I acquiesced; and, asking the grub-man his name, went up with him to Bartleby. 

"Bartleby, this is a friend; you will find him very useful to you. "

"Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant, " said the grub-man, making a lowsalutation behind his apron. "Hope you find it pleasant here, sir; nicegrounds--cool apartments--hope you'll stay with us some time--try tomake it agreeable. What will you have for dinner to-day?"

"I prefer not to dine to-day, " said Bartleby, turning away. "It woulddisagree with me; I am unused to dinners. " So saying, he slowly moved tothe other side of the inclosure, and took up a position fronting thedead-wall. 

"How's this?" said the grub-man, addressing me with a stare ofastonishment. "He's odd, ain't he?"

"I think he is a little deranged, " said I, sadly. 

"Deranged? deranged is it? Well, now, upon my word, I thought thatfriend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they are always pale, andgenteel-like, them forgers. I can't help pity 'em--can't help it, sir. Did you know Monroe Edwards?" he added, touchingly, and paused. Then, laying his hand piteously on my shoulder, sighed, "he died ofconsumption at Sing-Sing. So you weren't acquainted with Monroe?"

"No, I was never socially acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot stoplonger. Look to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it. I will seeyou again. "

Some few days after this, I again obtained admission to the Tombs, andwent through the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but without findinghim. 

"I saw him coming from his cell not long ago, " said a turnkey, "may behe's gone to loiter in the yards. "

So I went in that direction. 

"Are you looking for the silent man?" said another turnkey, passing me. "Yonder he lies--sleeping in the yard there. 'Tis not twenty minutessince I saw him lie down. "

The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the commonprisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off allsounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed uponme with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew under foot. The heartof the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung. 

Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lyingon his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wastedBartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went close up to him;stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemedprofoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt hishand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my, feet. 

The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. "His dinner is ready. Won't he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?"

"Lives without dining, " said I, and closed the eyes. 

"Eh!--He's asleep, ain't he?"

"With kings and counselors, " murmured I. 

 * * * * *

There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history. Imagination will readily supply the meagre recital of poor Bartleby'sinterment. But, ere parting with the reader, let me say, that if thislittle narrative has sufficiently interested him, to awaken curiosity asto who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the presentnarrator's making his acquaintance, I can only reply, that in suchcuriosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here Ihardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, whichcame to my ear a few months after the scrivener's decease. Upon whatbasis it rested, I could never ascertain; and hence, how true it is Icannot now tell. But, inasmuch as this vague report has not been withouta certain suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the samewith some others; and so I will briefly mention it. The report was this:that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office atWashington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in theadministration. When I think over this rumor, hardly can I express theemotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men?Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that ofcontinually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for theflames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes fromout the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring--the finger it wasmeant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftestcharity--he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardonfor those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; goodtidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errandsof life, these letters speed to death. 

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

BENITO CERENO. 

In the year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor with avaluable cargo, in the harbor of St. Maria--a small, desert, uninhabitedisland toward the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. Therehe had touched for water. 

On the second day, not long after dawn, while lying in his berth, hismate came below, informing him that a strange sail was coming into thebay. Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed, and went on deck. 

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute andcalm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods ofswells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved leadthat has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a graysurtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights oftroubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low andfitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come. 

To Captain Delano's surprise, the stranger, viewed through the glass, showed no colors; though to do so upon entering a haven, howeveruninhabited in its shores, where but a single other ship might be lying, was the custom among peaceful seamen of all nations. Considering thelawlessness and loneliness of the spot, and the sort of stories, at thatday, associated with those seas, Captain Delano's surprise might havedeepened into some uneasiness had he not been a person of a singularlyundistrustful good-nature, not liable, except on extraordinary andrepeated incentives, and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, anyway involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether, in view ofwhat humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along with a benevolentheart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectualperception, may be left to the wise to determine. 

But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first seeing thestranger, would almost, in any seaman's mind, have been dissipated byobserving that, the ship, in navigating into the harbor, was drawing toonear the land; a sunken reef making out off her bow. This seemed toprove her a stranger, indeed, not only to the sealer, but the island;consequently, she could be no wonted freebooter on that ocean. With nosmall interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her--a proceeding notmuch facilitated by the vapors partly mantling the hull, through whichthe far matin light from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; muchlike the sun--by this time hemisphered on the rim of the horizon, and, apparently, in company with the strange ship entering the harbor--which, wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds, showed not unlike a Limaintriguante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indianloop-hole of her dusk _saya-y-manta. _

It might have been but a deception of the vapors, but, the longer thestranger was watched the more singular appeared her manoeuvres. Erelong it seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no--whatshe wanted, or what she was about. The wind, which had breezed up alittle during the night, was now extremely light and baffling, which themore increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements. Surmising, atlast, that it might be a ship in distress, Captain Delano ordered hiswhale-boat to be dropped, and, much to the wary opposition of his mate, prepared to board her, and, at the least, pilot her in. On the nightprevious, a fishing-party of the seamen had gone a long distance to somedetached rocks out of sight from the sealer, and, an hour or two beforedaybreak, had returned, having met with no small success. Presuming thatthe stranger might have been long off soundings, the good captain putseveral baskets of the fish, for presents, into his boat, and so pulledaway. From her continuing too near the sunken reef, deeming her indanger, calling to his men, he made all haste to apprise those on boardof their situation. But, some time ere the boat came up, the wind, lightthough it was, having shifted, had headed the vessel off, as well aspartly broken the vapors from about her. 

Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible onthe verge of the leaden-hued swells, with the shreds of fog here andthere raggedly furring her, appeared like a white-washed monastery aftera thunder-storm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees. But it was no purely fanciful resemblance which now, for a moment, almost led Captain Delano to think that nothing less than a ship-load ofmonks was before him. Peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealedthrough the open port-holes, other dark moving figures were dimlydescried, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters. 

Upon a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified, and the truecharacter of the vessel was plain--a Spanish merchantman of the firstclass, carrying negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from onecolonial port to another. A very large, and, in its time, a very finevessel, such as in those days were at intervals encountered along thatmain; sometimes superseded Acapulco treasure-ships, or retired frigatesof the Spanish king's navy, which, like superannuated Italian palaces, still, under a decline of masters, preserved signs of former state. 

As the whale-boat drew more and more nigh, the cause of the peculiarpipe-clayed aspect of the stranger was seen in the slovenly neglectpervading her. The spars, ropes, and great part of the bulwarks, lookedwoolly, from long unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her ribs put together, and she launched, fromEzekiel's Valley of Dry Bones. 

In the present business in which she was engaged, the ship's generalmodel and rig appeared to have undergone no material change from theiroriginal warlike and Froissart pattern. However, no guns were seen. 

The tops were large, and were railed about with what had once beenoctagonal net-work, all now in sad disrepair. These tops hung overheadlike three ruinous aviaries, in one of which was seen, perched, on aratlin, a white noddy, a strange fowl, so called from its lethargic, somnambulistic character, being frequently caught by hand at sea. Battered and mouldy, the castellated forecastle seemed some ancientturret, long ago taken by assault, and then left to decay. Toward thestern, two high-raised quarter galleries--the balustrades here and therecovered with dry, tindery sea-moss--opening out from the unoccupiedstate-cabin, whose dead-lights, for all the mild weather, werehermetically closed and calked--these tenantless balconies hung over thesea as if it were the grand Venetian canal. But the principal relic offaded grandeur was the ample oval of the shield-like stern-piece, intricately carved with the arms of Castile and Leon, medallioned aboutby groups of mythological or symbolical devices; uppermost and centralof which was a dark satyr in a mask, holding his foot on the prostrateneck of a writhing figure, likewise masked. 

Whether the ship had a figure-head, or only a plain beak, was not quitecertain, owing to canvas wrapped about that part, either to protect itwhile undergoing a re-furbishing, or else decently to hide its decay. Rudely painted or chalked, as in a sailor freak, along the forward sideof a sort of pedestal below the canvas, was the sentence, "_Seguidvuestro jefe_" (follow your leader); while upon the tarnishedheadboards, near by, appeared, in stately capitals, once gilt, theship's name, "SAN DOMINICK, " each letter streakingly corroded withtricklings of copper-spike rust; while, like mourning weeds, darkfestoons of sea-grass slimily swept to and fro over the name, with everyhearse-like roll of the hull. 

As, at last, the boat was hooked from the bow along toward the gangwayamidship, its keel, while yet some inches separated from the hull, harshly grated as on a sunken coral reef. It proved a huge bunch ofconglobated barnacles adhering below the water to the side like a wen--atoken of baffling airs and long calms passed somewhere in those seas. 

Climbing the side, the visitor was at once surrounded by a clamorousthrong of whites and blacks, but the latter outnumbering the former morethan could have been expected, negro transportation-ship as the strangerin port was. But, in one language, and as with one voice, all poured outa common tale of suffering; in which the negresses, of whom there werenot a few, exceeded the others in their dolorous vehemence. The scurvy, together with the fever, had swept off a great part of their number, more especially the Spaniards. Off Cape Horn they had narrowly escapedshipwreck; then, for days together, they had lain tranced without wind;their provisions were low; their water next to none; their lips thatmoment were baked. 

While Captain Delano was thus made the mark of all eager tongues, hisone eager glance took in all faces, with every other object about him. 

Always upon first boarding a large and populous ship at sea, especiallya foreign one, with a nondescript crew such as Lascars or Manilla men, the impression varies in a peculiar way from that produced by firstentering a strange house with strange inmates in a strange land. Bothhouse and ship--the one by its walls and blinds, the other by its highbulwarks like ramparts--hoard from view their interiors till the lastmoment: but in the case of the ship there is this addition; that theliving spectacle it contains, upon its sudden and complete disclosure, has, in contrast with the blank ocean which zones it, something of theeffect of enchantment. The ship seems unreal; these strange costumes, gestures, and faces, but a shadowy tableau just emerged from the deep, which directly must receive back what it gave. 

Perhaps it was some such influence, as above is attempted to bedescribed, which, in Captain Delano's mind, heightened whatever, upon astaid scrutiny, might have seemed unusual; especially the conspicuousfigures of four elderly grizzled negroes, their heads like black, doddered willow tops, who, in venerable contrast to the tumult belowthem, were couched, sphynx-like, one on the starboard cat-head, anotheron the larboard, and the remaining pair face to face on the oppositebulwarks above the main-chains. They each had bits of unstranded oldjunk in their hands, and, with a sort of stoical self-content, werepicking the junk into oakum, a small heap of which lay by their sides. They accompanied the task with a continuous, low, monotonous, chant;droning and drilling away like so many gray-headed bag-pipers playing afuneral march. 

The quarter-deck rose into an ample elevated poop, upon the forwardverge of which, lifted, like the oakum-pickers, some eight feet abovethe general throng, sat along in a row, separated by regular spaces, thecross-legged figures of six other blacks; each with a rusty hatchet inhis hand, which, with a bit of brick and a rag, he was engaged like ascullion in scouring; while between each two was a small stack ofhatchets, their rusted edges turned forward awaiting a like operation. Though occasionally the four oakum-pickers would briefly address someperson or persons in the crowd below, yet the six hatchet-polishersneither spoke to others, nor breathed a whisper among themselves, butsat intent upon their task, except at intervals, when, with the peculiarlove in negroes of uniting industry with pastime, two and two theysideways clashed their hatchets together, ' like cymbals, with abarbarous din. All six, unlike the generality, had the raw aspect ofunsophisticated Africans. 

But that first comprehensive glance which took in those ten figures, with scores less conspicuous, rested but an instant upon them, as, impatient of the hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in quest ofwhomsoever it might be that commanded the ship. 

But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case among hissuffering charge, or else in despair of restraining it for the time, theSpanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved-looking, and rather young manto a stranger's eye, dressed with singular richness, but bearing plaintraces of recent sleepless cares and disquietudes, stood passively by, leaning against the main-mast, at one moment casting a dreary, spiritless look upon his excited people, at the next an unhappy glancetoward his visitor. By his side stood a black of small stature, in whoserude face, as occasionally, like a shepherd's dog, he mutely turned itup into the Spaniard's, sorrow and affection were equally blended. 

Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies, and offering to render whateverassistance might be in his power. To which the Spaniard returned forthe present but grave and ceremonious acknowledgments, his nationalformality dusked by the saturnine mood of ill-health. 

But losing no time in mere compliments, Captain Delano, returning to thegangway, had his basket of fish brought up; and as the wind stillcontinued light, so that some hours at least must elapse ere the shipcould be brought to the anchorage, he bade his men return to the sealer, and fetch back as much water as the whale-boat could carry, withwhatever soft bread the steward might have, all the remaining pumpkinson board, with a box of sugar, and a dozen of his private bottles ofcider. 

Not many minutes after the boat's pushing off, to the vexation of all, the wind entirely died away, and the tide turning, began drifting backthe ship helplessly seaward. But trusting this would not long last, Captain Delano sought, with good hopes, to cheer up the strangers, feeling no small satisfaction that, with persons in their condition, hecould--thanks to his frequent voyages along the Spanish main--conversewith some freedom in their native tongue. 

While left alone with them, he was not long in observing some thingstending to heighten his first impressions; but surprise was lost inpity, both for the Spaniards and blacks, alike evidently reduced fromscarcity of water and provisions; while long-continued suffering seemedto have brought out the less good-natured qualities of the negroes, besides, at the same time, impairing the Spaniard's authority over them. But, under the circumstances, precisely this condition of things was tohave been anticipated. In armies, navies, cities, or families, in natureherself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery. Still, CaptainDelano was not without the idea, that had Benito Cereno been a man ofgreater energy, misrule would hardly have come to the present pass. Butthe debility, constitutional or induced by hardships, bodily and mental, of the Spanish captain, was too obvious to be overlooked. A prey tosettled dejection, as if long mocked with hope he would not now indulgeit, even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day, orevening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for hispeople, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in noperceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if notstill more seriously affected. Shut up in these oaken walls, chained toone dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed him, like somehypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting his finger-nail, flushing, paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of an absent or moodymind. This distempered spirit was lodged, as before hinted, in asdistempered a frame. He was rather tall, but seemed never to have beenrobust, and now with nervous suffering was almost worn to a skeleton. Atendency to some pulmonary complaint appeared to have been latelyconfirmed. His voice was like that of one with lungs half gone--hoarselysuppressed, a husky whisper. No wonder that, as in this state hetottered about, his private servant apprehensively followed him. Sometimes the negro gave his master his arm, or took his handkerchiefout of his pocket for him; performing these and similar offices withthat affectionate zeal which transmutes into something filial orfraternal acts in themselves but menial; and which has gained for thenegro the repute of making the most pleasing body-servant in the world;one, too, whom a master need be on no stiffly superior terms with, butmay treat with familiar trust; less a servant than a devoted companion. 

Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general, as well as whatseemed the sullen inefficiency of the whites it was not without humanesatisfaction that Captain Delano witnessed the steady good conduct ofBabo. 

But the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill-behavior ofothers, seemed to withdraw the half-lunatic Don Benito from his cloudylanguor. Not that such precisely was the impression made by the Spaniardon the mind of his visitor. The Spaniard's individual unrest was, forthe present, but noted as a conspicuous feature in the ship's generalaffliction. Still, Captain Delano was not a little concerned at what hecould not help taking for the time to be Don Benito's unfriendlyindifference towards himself. The Spaniard's manner, too, conveyed asort of sour and gloomy disdain, which he seemed at no pains todisguise. But this the American in charity ascribed to the harassingeffects of sickness, since, in former instances, he had noted that thereare peculiar natures on whom prolonged physical suffering seems tocancel every social instinct of kindness; as if, forced to black breadthemselves, they deemed it but equity that each person coming nigh themshould, indirectly, by some slight or affront, be made to partake oftheir fare. 

But ere long Captain Delano bethought him that, indulgent as he was atthe first, in judging the Spaniard, he might not, after all, haveexercised charity enough. At bottom it was Don Benito's reserve whichdispleased him; but the same reserve was shown towards all but hisfaithful personal attendant. Even the formal reports which, according tosea-usage, were, at stated times, made to him by some petty underling, either a white, mulatto or black, he hardly had patience enough tolisten to, without betraying contemptuous aversion. His manner upon suchoccasions was, in its degree, not unlike that which might be supposedto have been his imperial countryman's, Charles V. , just previous to theanchoritish retirement of that monarch from the throne. 

This splenetic disrelish of his place was evinced in almost everyfunction pertaining to it. Proud as he was moody, he condescended to nopersonal mandate. Whatever special orders were necessary, their deliverywas delegated to his body-servant, who in turn transferred them to theirultimate destination, through runners, alert Spanish boys or slave boys, like pages or pilot-fish within easy call continually hovering round DonBenito. So that to have beheld this undemonstrative invalid glidingabout, apathetic and mute, no landsman could have dreamed that in himwas lodged a dictatorship beyond which, while at sea, there was noearthly appeal. 

Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed the involuntaryvictim of mental disorder. But, in fact, his reserve might, in somedegree, have proceeded from design. If so, then here was evinced theunhealthy climax of that icy though conscientious policy, more or lessadopted by all commanders of large ships, which, except in signalemergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway with everytrace of sociality; transforming the man into a block, or rather into aloaded cannon, which, until there is call for thunder, has nothing tosay. 

Viewing him in this light, it seemed but a natural token of the perversehabit induced by a long course of such hard self-restraint, that, notwithstanding the present condition of his ship, the Spaniard shouldstill persist in a demeanor, which, however harmless, or, it may be, appropriate, in a well-appointed vessel, such as the San Dominick mighthave been at the outset of the voyage, was anything but judicious now. But the Spaniard, perhaps, thought that it was with captains as withgods: reserve, under all events, must still be their cue. But probablythis appearance of slumbering dominion might have been but an attempteddisguise to conscious imbecility--not deep policy, but shallow device. But be all this as it might, whether Don Benito's manner was designed ornot, the more Captain Delano noted its pervading reserve, the less hefelt uneasiness at any particular manifestation of that reserve towardshimself. 

Neither were his thoughts taken up by the captain alone. Wonted to thequiet orderliness of the sealer's comfortable family of a crew, thenoisy confusion of the San Dominick's suffering host repeatedlychallenged his eye. Some prominent breaches, not only of discipline butof decency, were observed. These Captain Delano could not but ascribe, in the main, to the absence of those subordinate deck-officers to whom, along with higher duties, is intrusted what may be styled the policedepartment of a populous ship. True, the old oakum-pickers appeared attimes to act the part of monitorial constables to their countrymen, theblacks; but though occasionally succeeding in allaying triflingoutbreaks now and then between man and man, they could do little ornothing toward establishing general quiet. The San Dominick was in thecondition of a transatlantic emigrant ship, among whose multitude ofliving freight are some individuals, doubtless, as little troublesome ascrates and bales; but the friendly remonstrances of such with theirruder companions are of not so much avail as the unfriendly arm of themate. What the San Dominick wanted was, what the emigrant ship has, stern superior officers. But on these decks not so much as a fourth-matewas to be seen. 

The visitor's curiosity was roused to learn the particulars of thosemishaps which had brought about such absenteeism, with its consequences;because, though deriving some inkling of the voyage from the wails whichat the first moment had greeted him, yet of the details no clearunderstanding had been had. The best account would, doubtless, be givenby the captain. Yet at first the visitor was loth to ask it, unwillingto provoke some distant rebuff. But plucking up courage, he at lastaccosted Don Benito, renewing the expression of his benevolent interest, adding, that did he (Captain Delano) but know the particulars of theship's misfortunes, he would, perhaps, be better able in the end torelieve them. Would Don Benito favor him with the whole story. 

Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interferedwith, vacantly stared at his visitor, and ended by looking down on thedeck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almostequally disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenlyfrom him, walking forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for thedesired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when, with asort of eagerness, Don Benito invited him back, regretting his momentaryabsence of mind, and professing readiness to gratify him. 

While most part of the story was being given, the two captains stood onthe after part of the main-deck, a privileged spot, no one being nearbut the servant. 

"It is now a hundred and ninety days, " began the Spaniard, in his huskywhisper, "that this ship, well officered and well manned, with severalcabin passengers--some fifty Spaniards in all--sailed from Buenos Ayresbound to Lima, with a general cargo, hardware, Paraguay tea and thelike--and, " pointing forward, "that parcel of negroes, now not more thana hundred and fifty, as you see, but then numbering over three hundredsouls. Off Cape Horn we had heavy gales. In one moment, by night, threeof my best officers, with fifteen sailors, were lost, with themain-yard; the spar snapping under them in the slings, as they sought, with heavers, to beat down the icy sail. To lighten the hull, theheavier sacks of mata were thrown into the sea, with most of thewater-pipes lashed on deck at the time. And this last necessity it was, combined with the prolonged detections afterwards experienced, whicheventually brought about our chief causes of suffering. When--"

Here there was a sudden fainting attack of his cough, brought on, nodoubt, by his mental distress. His servant sustained him, and drawing acordial from his pocket placed it to his lips. He a little revived. Butunwilling to leave him unsupported while yet imperfectly restored, theblack with one arm still encircled his master, at the same time keepinghis eye fixed on his face, as if to watch for the first sign of completerestoration, or relapse, as the event might prove. 

The Spaniard proceeded, but brokenly and obscurely, as one in a dream. 

--"Oh, my God! rather than pass through what I have, with joy I wouldhave hailed the most terrible gales; but--"

His cough returned and with increased violence; this subsiding; withreddened lips and closed eyes he fell heavily against his supporter. 

"His mind wanders. He was thinking of the plague that followed thegales, " plaintively sighed the servant; "my poor, poor master!" wringingone hand, and with the other wiping the mouth. "But be patient, Señor, "again turning to Captain Delano, "these fits do not last long; masterwill soon be himself. "

Don Benito reviving, went on; but as this portion of the story was verybrokenly delivered, the substance only will here be set down. 

It appeared that after the ship had been many days tossed in storms offthe Cape, the scurvy broke out, carrying off numbers of the whites andblacks. When at last they had worked round into the Pacific, their sparsand sails were so damaged, and so inadequately handled by the survivingmariners, most of whom were become invalids, that, unable to lay hernortherly course by the wind, which was powerful, the unmanageable ship, for successive days and nights, was blown northwestward, where thebreeze suddenly deserted her, in unknown waters, to sultry calms. Theabsence of the water-pipes now proved as fatal to life as before theirpresence had menaced it. Induced, or at least aggravated, by the morethan scanty allowance of water, a malignant fever followed the scurvy;with the excessive heat of the lengthened calm, making such short workof it as to sweep away, as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and a yet larger number, proportionably, of the Spaniards, including, bya luckless fatality, every remaining officer on board. Consequently, inthe smart west winds eventually following the calm, the already rentsails, having to be simply dropped, not furled, at need, had beengradually reduced to the beggars' rags they were now. To procuresubstitutes for his lost sailors, as well as supplies of water andsails, the captain, at the earliest opportunity, had made for Baldivia, the southernmost civilized port of Chili and South America; but uponnearing the coast the thick weather had prevented him from so much assighting that harbor. Since which period, almost without a crew, andalmost without canvas and almost without water, and, at intervals givingits added dead to the sea, the San Dominick had been battle-dored aboutby contrary winds, inveigled by currents, or grown weedy in calms. Likea 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 thankthose negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearingunruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of restlessnessthan even their owner could have thought possible under suchcircumstances. "

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

"Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters wouldbe needed with his blacks; so that while, as is wont in thistransportation, those negroes have always remained upon deck--not thrustbelow, as in the Guinea-men--they have, also, from the beginning, beenfreely permitted to range within given bounds at their pleasure. "

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

"But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my ownpreservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit is due, ofpacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted tomurmurings. "

"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 afriend; 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 thatrelationship which could present such a spectacle of fidelity on the onehand and confidence on the other. The scene was heightened by, thecontrast in dress, denoting their relative positions. The Spaniard worea loose Chili jacket of dark velvet; white small-clothes and stockings, with silver buckles at the knee and instep; a high-crowned sombrero, offine grass; a slender sword, silver mounted, hung from a knot in hissash--the last being an almost invariable adjunct, more for utility thanornament, of a South American gentleman's dress to this hour. Exceptingwhen his occasional nervous contortions brought about disarray, therewas a certain precision in his attire curiously at variance with theunsightly disorder around; especially in the belittered Ghetto, forwardof the main-mast, wholly occupied by the blacks. 

The servant wore nothing but wide trowsers, apparently, from theircoarseness and patches, made out of some old topsail; they were clean, and confined at the waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which, with hiscomposed, deprecatory air at times, made him look something like abegging friar of St. Francis. 

However unsuitable for the time and place, at least in theblunt-thinking American's eyes, and however strangely surviving in themidst of all his afflictions, the toilette of Don Benito might not, infashion at least, have gone beyond the style of the day among SouthAmericans of his class. Though on the present voyage sailing from BuenosAyres, he had avowed himself a native and resident of Chili, whoseinhabitants had not so generally adopted the plain coat and onceplebeian pantaloons; but, with a becoming modification, adhered to theirprovincial costume, picturesque as any in the world. Still, relativelyto the pale history of the voyage, and his own pale face, there seemedsomething so incongruous in the Spaniard's apparel, as almost to suggestthe image of an invalid courtier tottering about London streets in thetime of the plague. 

The portion of the narrative which, perhaps, most excited interest, aswell as some surprise, considering the latitudes in question, was thelong calms spoken of, and more particularly the ship's so long driftingabout. Without communicating the opinion, of course, the American couldnot but impute at least part of the detentions both to clumsy seamanshipand faulty navigation. Eying Don Benito's small, yellow hands, heeasily inferred that the young captain had not got into command at thehawse-hole, but the cabin-window; and if so, why wonder at incompetence, in youth, sickness, and gentility united?

But drowning criticism in compassion, after a fresh repetition of hissympathies, Captain Delano, having heard out his story, not onlyengaged, as in the first place, to see Don Benito and his peoplesupplied in their immediate bodily needs, but, also, now fartherpromised to assist him in procuring a large permanent supply of water, as well as some sails and rigging; and, though it would involve no smallembarrassment to himself, yet he would spare three of his best seamenfor temporary deck officers; so that without delay the ship mightproceed to Conception, there fully to refit for Lima, her destined port. 

Such generosity was not without its effect, even upon the invalid. Hisface lighted up; eager and hectic, he met the honest glance of hisvisitor. With gratitude he seemed overcome. 

"This excitement is bad for master, " whispered the servant, taking hisarm, and with soothing words gently drawing him aside. 

When Don Benito returned, the American was pained to observe that hishopefulness, like the sudden kindling in his cheek, was but febrile andtransient. 

Ere long, with a joyless mien, looking up towards the poop, the hostinvited his guest to accompany him there, for the benefit of what littlebreath of wind might be stirring. 

As, during the telling of the story, Captain Delano had once or twicestarted at the occasional cymballing of the hatchet-polishers, wonderingwhy such an interruption should be allowed, especially in that part ofthe ship, and in the ears of an invalid; and moreover, as the hatchetshad anything but an attractive look, and the handlers of them still lessso, it was, therefore, to tell the truth, not without some lurkingreluctance, or even shrinking, it may be, that Captain Delano, withapparent complaisance, acquiesced in his host's invitation. The more so, since, with an untimely caprice of punctilio, rendered distressing byhis cadaverous aspect, Don Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnlyinsisted upon his guest's preceding him up the ladder leading to theelevation; where, one on each side of the last step, sat for armorialsupporters and sentries two of the ominous file. Gingerly enough steppedgood Captain Delano between them, and in the instant of leaving thembehind, like one running the gauntlet, he felt an apprehensive twitch inthe calves of his legs. 

But when, facing about, he saw the whole file, like so manyorgan-grinders, still stupidly intent on their work, unmindful ofeverything beside, he could not but smile at his late fidgety panic. 

Presently, while standing with his host, looking forward upon the decksbelow, he was struck by one of those instances of insubordinationpreviously alluded to. Three black boys, with two Spanish boys, weresitting together on the hatches, scraping a rude wooden platter, inwhich some scanty mess had recently been cooked. Suddenly, one of theblack boys, enraged at a word dropped by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and, though called to forbear by one of theoakum-pickers, struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash fromwhich blood flowed. 

In amazement, Captain Delano inquired what this meant. To which the paleDon Benito dully muttered, that it was merely the sport of the lad. 

"Pretty serious sport, truly, " rejoined Captain Delano. "Had such athing happened on board the Bachelor's Delight, instant punishment wouldhave followed. "

At these words the Spaniard turned upon the American one of his sudden, staring, half-lunatic looks; then, relapsing into his torpor, answered, "Doubtless, doubtless, Señor. "

Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this hapless man is one of thosepaper captains I've known, who by policy wink at what by power theycannot put down? I know no sadder sight than a commander who has littleof command but the name. 

"I should think, Don Benito, " he now said, glancing towards theoakum-picker who had sought to interfere with the boys, "that you wouldfind it advantageous to keep all your blacks employed, especially theyounger ones, no matter at what useless task, and no matter what happensto the ship. Why, even with my little band, I find such a courseindispensable. I once kept a crew on my quarter-deck thrumming mats formy cabin, when, for three days, I had given up my ship--mats, men, andall--for a speedy loss, owing to the violence of a gale, in which wecould do nothing but helplessly drive before it. "

"Doubtless, doubtless, " muttered Don Benito. 

"But, " continued Captain Delano, again glancing upon the oakum-pickersand then at the hatchet-polishers, near by, "I see you keep some, atleast, of your host employed. "

"Yes, " was again the vacant response. 

"Those old men there, shaking their pows from their pulpits, " continuedCaptain Delano, pointing to the oakum-pickers, "seem to act the part ofold dominies to the rest, little heeded as their admonitions are attimes. Is this voluntary on their part, Don Benito, or have youappointed them shepherds to your flock of black sheep?"

"What posts they fill, I appointed them, " rejoined the Spaniard, in anacrid tone, as if resenting some supposed satiric reflection. 

"And these others, these Ashantee conjurors here, " continued CaptainDelano, rather uneasily eying the brandished steel of thehatchet-polishers, where, in spots, it had been brought to a shine, "this seems a curious business they are at, Don Benito?"

"In the gales we met, " answered the Spaniard, "what of our general cargowas not thrown overboard was much damaged by the brine. Since cominginto calm weather, I have had several cases of knives and hatchets dailybrought up for overhauling and cleaning. "

"A prudent idea, Don Benito. You are part owner of ship and cargo, Ipresume; but none of the slaves, perhaps?"

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

As he mentioned this name, his air was heart-broken; his knees shook;his servant supported him. 

Thinking he divined the cause of such unusual emotion, to confirm hissurmise, Captain Delano, after a pause, said: "And may I ask, DonBenito, whether--since awhile ago you spoke of some cabinpassengers--the friend, whose loss so afflicts you, at the outset of thevoyage 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, lowly, "but I think that, by asympathetic experience, I conjecture, Don Benito, what it is that givesthe keener edge to your grief. It was once my hard fortune to lose, atsea, a dear friend, my own brother, then supercargo. Assured of thewelfare of his spirit, its departure I could have borne like a man; butthat honest eye, that honest hand--both of which had so often metmine--and that warm heart; all, all--like scraps to the dogs--to throwall to the sharks! It was then I vowed never to have for fellow-voyagera man I loved, unless, unbeknown to him, I had provided every requisite, in case of a fatality, for embalming his mortal part for interment onshore. 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 horrifiedgestures, as directed against some spectre, he unconsciously fell intothe ready arms of his attendant, who, with a silent appeal towardCaptain Delano, seemed beseeching him not again to broach a theme sounspeakably distressing to his master. 

This poor fellow now, thought the pained American, is the victim of thatsad 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 baresuggestion, even, terrifies the Spaniard into this trance. PoorAlexandro Aranda! what would you say could you here see yourfriend--who, on former voyages, when you, for months, were left behind, has, I dare say, often longed, and longed, for one peep at you--nowtransported with terror at the least thought of having you anyway nighhim. 

At this moment, with a dreary grave-yard toll, betokening a flaw, theship's forecastle bell, smote by one of the grizzled oakum-pickers, proclaimed ten o'clock, through the leaden calm; when Captain Delano'sattention was caught by the moving figure of a gigantic black, emergingfrom the general crowd below, and slowly advancing towards the elevatedpoop. An iron collar was about his neck, from which depended a chain, thrice wound round his body; the terminating links padlocked together ata 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 DonBenito, now recovered from his attack. 

At the first glimpse of his approach, Don Benito had started, aresentful shadow swept over his face; and, as with the sudden memory ofbootless rage, his white lips glued together. 

This is some mulish mutineer, thought Captain Delano, surveying, notwithout 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 ifshunning, by anticipation, some rebellious response, in a disconcertedvoice, thus spoke:--

"Atufal, will you ask my pardon, now?"

The black was silent. 

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

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

Upon this, the black, slowly raising both arms, let them lifelesslyfall, his links clanking, his head bowed; as much as to say, "no, I amcontent. "

"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 surprisesme; what means it, pray?"

"It means that that negro alone, of all the band, has given me peculiarcause of offense. 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 hisservant'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, "hehas a royal spirit in him, this fellow. "

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

"Yes, " said the servant, entering a word, "those slits in Atufal's earsonce held wedges of gold; but poor Babo here, in his own land, was onlya poor slave; a black man's slave was Babo, who now is the white's. "

Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities, Captain Delanoturned curiously upon the attendant, then glanced inquiringly at hismaster; but, as if long wonted to these little informalities, neithermaster nor man seemed to understand him. 

"What, pray, was Atufal's offense, Don Benito?" asked Captain Delano;"if it was not something very serious, take a fool's advice, and, inview of his general docility, as well as in some natural respect for hisspirit, remit him his penalty. "

"No, no, master never will do that, " here murmured the servant tohimself, "proud Atufal must first ask master's pardon. The slave therecarries the padlock, but master here carries the key. "

His attention thus directed, Captain Delano now noticed for the first, that, suspended by a slender silken cord, from Don Benito's neck, hunga key. At once, from the servant's muttered syllables, divining thekey's purpose, he smiled, and said:--"So, Don Benito--padlock andkey--significant symbols, truly. "

Biting his lip, Don Benito faltered. 

Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such native simplicity asto be incapable of satire or irony, had been dropped in playful allusionto the Spaniard's singularly evidenced lordship over the black; yet thehypochondriac seemed some way to have taken it as a malicious reflectionupon his confessed inability thus far to break down, at least, on averbal summons, the entrenched will of the slave. Deploring thissupposed misconception, yet despairing of correcting it, Captain Delanoshifted the subject; but finding his companion more than ever withdrawn, as if still sourly digesting the lees of the presumed affrontabove-mentioned, by-and-by Captain Delano likewise became lesstalkative, oppressed, against his own will, by what seemed the secretvindictiveness of the morbidly sensitive Spaniard. But the good sailor, himself of a quite contrary disposition, refrained, on his part, alikefrom the appearance as from the feeling of resentment, and if silent, was only so from contagion. 

Presently the Spaniard, assisted by his servant somewhat discourteouslycrossed over from his guest; a procedure which, sensibly enough, mighthave been allowed to pass for idle caprice of ill-humor, had not masterand man, lingering round the corner of the elevated skylight, beganwhispering together in low voices. This was unpleasing. And more; themoody air of the Spaniard, which at times had not been without a sort ofvaletudinarian stateliness, now seemed anything but dignified; while themenial familiarity of the servant lost its original charm ofsimple-hearted attachment. 

In his embarrassment, the visitor turned his face to the other side ofthe ship. By so doing, his glance accidentally fell on a young Spanishsailor, a coil of rope in his hand, just stepped from the deck to thefirst round of the mizzen-rigging. Perhaps the man would not have beenparticularly noticed, were it not that, during his ascent to one of theyards, he, with a sort of covert intentness, kept his eye fixed onCaptain Delano, from whom, presently, it passed, as if by a naturalsequence, to the two whisperers. 

His own attention thus redirected to that quarter, Captain Delano gave aslight start. From something in Don Benito's manner just then, it seemedas if the visitor had, at least partly, been the subject of thewithdrawn consultation going on--a conjecture as little agreeable to theguest as it was little flattering to the host. 

The singular alternations of courtesy and ill-breeding in the Spanishcaptain were unaccountable, except on one of two suppositions--innocentlunacy, or wicked imposture. 

But the first idea, though it might naturally have occurred to anindifferent observer, and, in some respect, had not hitherto been whollya stranger to Captain Delano's mind, yet, now that, in an incipient way, he began to regard the stranger's conduct something in the light of anintentional affront, of course the idea of lunacy was virtually vacated. But if not a lunatic, what then? Under the circumstances, would agentleman, nay, any honest boor, act the part now acted by his host? Theman was an impostor. Some low-born adventurer, masquerading as anoceanic grandee; yet so ignorant of the first requisites of meregentlemanhood as to be betrayed into the present remarkable indecorum. That strange ceremoniousness, too, at other times evinced, seemed notuncharacteristic of one playing a part above his real level. BenitoCereno--Don Benito Cereno--a sounding name. One, too, at that period, not unknown, in the surname, to super-cargoes and sea captains tradingalong the Spanish Main, as belonging to one of the most enterprising andextensive mercantile families in all those provinces; several members ofit having titles; a sort of Castilian Rothschild, with a noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of South America. The alleged DonBenito was in early manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume asort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a house, whatmore likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But theSpaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind. For even to the degree ofsimulating mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been knownto attain. To think that, under the aspect of infantile weakness, themost savage energies might be couched--those velvets of the Spaniard butthe silky paw to his fangs. 

From no train of thought did these fancies come; not from within, butfrom without; suddenly, too, and in one throng, like hoar frost; yet assoon to vanish as the mild sun of Captain Delano's good-nature regainedits meridian. 

Glancing over once more towards his host--whose side-face, revealedabove the skylight, was now turned towards him--he was struck by theprofile, whose clearness of cut was refined by the thinness, incident toill-health, as well as ennobled about the chin by the beard. Away withsuspicion. He was a true off-shoot of a true hidalgo Cereno. 

Relieved by these and other better thoughts, the visitor, lightlyhumming a tune, now began indifferently pacing the poop, so as not tobetray to Don Benito that he had at all mistrusted incivility, much lessduplicity; for such mistrust would yet be proved illusory, and by theevent; though, for the present, the circumstance which had provoked thatdistrust remained unexplained. But when that little mystery should havebeen cleared up, Captain Delano thought he might extremely regret it, did he allow Don Benito to become aware that he had indulged inungenerous surmises. In short, to the Spaniard's black-letter text, itwas best, for awhile, to leave open margin. 

Presently, his pale face twitching and overcast, the Spaniard, stillsupported by his attendant, moved over towards his guest, when, witheven more than his usual embarrassment, and a strange sort of intriguingintonation in his husky whisper, the following conversation began:--

"Señor, may I ask how long you have lain at this isle?"

"Oh, but a day or two, Don Benito. "

"And from what port are you last?"

"Canton. "

"And there, Señor, you exchanged your sealskins for teas and silks, Ithink you said?"

"Yes, Silks, mostly. "

"And the balance you took in specie, perhaps?"

Captain Delano, fidgeting a little, answered--

"Yes; some silver; not a very great deal, though. "

"Ah--well. May I ask how many men have you, Señor?"

Captain Delano slightly started, but answered--

"About five-and-twenty, all told. "

"And at present, Señor, all on board, I suppose?"

"All on board, Don Benito, " replied the Captain, now with satisfaction. 

"And will be to-night, Señor?"

At this last question, following so many pertinacious ones, for the soulof him Captain Delano could not but look very earnestly at thequestioner, who, instead of meeting the glance, with every token ofcraven discomposure dropped his eyes to the deck; presenting an unworthycontrast to his servant, who, just then, was kneeling at his feet, adjusting a loose shoe-buckle; his disengaged face meantime, withhumble curiosity, turned openly up into his master's downcast one. 

The Spaniard, still with a guilty shuffle, repeated his question:

"And--and will be to-night, Señor?"

"Yes, for aught I know, " returned Captain Delano--"but nay, " rallyinghimself into fearless truth, "some of them talked of going off onanother fishing party about midnight. "

"Your ships generally go--go more or less armed, I believe, Señor?"

"Oh, a six-pounder or two, in case of emergency, " was the intrepidlyindifferent reply, "with a small stock of muskets, sealing-spears, andcutlasses, you know. "

As he thus responded, Captain Delano again glanced at Don Benito, butthe latter's eyes were averted; while abruptly and awkwardly shiftingthe subject, he made some peevish allusion to the calm, and then, without apology, once more, with his attendant, withdrew to the oppositebulwarks, where the whispering was resumed. 

At this moment, and ere Captain Delano could cast a cool thought uponwhat had just passed, the young Spanish sailor, before mentioned, wasseen descending from the rigging. In act of stooping over to springinboard to the deck, his voluminous, unconfined frock, or shirt, ofcoarse woolen, much spotted with tar, opened out far down the chest, revealing a soiled under garment of what seemed the finest linen, edged, about the neck, with a narrow blue ribbon, sadly faded and worn. At thismoment the young sailor's eye was again fixed on the whisperers, andCaptain Delano thought he observed a lurking significance in it, as ifsilent signs, of some Freemason sort, had that instant beeninterchanged. 

This once more impelled his own glance in the direction of Don Benito, and, as before, he could not but infer that himself formed the subjectof the conference. He paused. The sound of the hatchet-polishing fell onhis ears. He cast another swift side-look at the two. They had the airof conspirators. In connection with the late questionings, and theincident of the young sailor, these things now begat such return ofinvoluntary suspicion, that the singular guilelessness of the Americancould not endure it. Plucking up a gay and humorous expression, hecrossed over to the two rapidly, saying:--"Ha, Don Benito, your blackhere seems high in your trust; a sort of privy-counselor, in fact. "

Upon this, the servant looked up with a good-natured grin, but themaster started as from a venomous bite. It was a moment or two beforethe Spaniard sufficiently recovered himself to reply; which he did, atlast, with cold constraint:--"Yes, Señor, I have trust in Babo. "

Here Babo, changing his previous grin of mere animal humor into anintelligent smile, not ungratefully eyed his master. 

Finding that the Spaniard now stood silent and reserved, as ifinvoluntarily, or purposely giving hint that his guest's proximity wasinconvenient just then, Captain Delano, unwilling to appear uncivil evento incivility itself, made some trivial remark and moved off; again andagain turning over in his mind the mysterious demeanor of Don BenitoCereno. 

He had descended from the poop, and, wrapped in thought, was passingnear a dark hatchway, leading down into the steerage, when, perceivingmotion there, he looked to see what moved. The same instant there was asparkle in the shadowy hatchway, and he saw one of the Spanish sailors, prowling there hurriedly placing his hand in the bosom of his frock, asif hiding something. Before the man could have been certain who it wasthat was passing, he slunk below out of sight. But enough was seen ofhim to make it sure that he was the same young sailor before noticed inthe rigging. 

What was that which so sparkled? thought Captain Delano. It was nolamp--no match--no live coal. Could it have been a jewel? But how comesailors with jewels?--or with silk-trimmed under-shirts either? Has hebeen robbing the trunks of the dead cabin-passengers? But if so, hewould hardly wear one of the stolen articles on board ship here. Ah, ah--if, now, that was, indeed, a secret sign I saw passing between thissuspicious fellow and his captain awhile since; if I could only becertain that, in my uneasiness, my senses did not deceive me, then--

Here, passing from one suspicious thing to another, his mind revolvedthe strange questions put to him concerning his ship. 

By a curious coincidence, as each point was recalled, the black wizardsof Ashantee would strike up with their hatchets, as in ominous commenton the white stranger's thoughts. Pressed by such enigmas: and portents, it would have been almost against nature, had not, even into the leastdistrustful heart, some ugly misgivings obtruded. 

Observing the ship, now helplessly fallen into a current, with enchantedsails, drifting with increased rapidity seaward; and noting that, from alately intercepted projection of the land, the sealer was hidden, thestout mariner began to quake at thoughts which he barely durst confessto himself. Above all, he began to feel a ghostly dread of Don Benito. And yet, when he roused himself, dilated his chest, felt himself strongon his legs, and coolly considered it--what did all these phantomsamount to?

Had the Spaniard any sinister scheme, it must have reference not so muchto him (Captain Delano) as to his ship (the Bachelor's Delight). Hencethe present drifting away of the one ship from the other, instead offavoring any such possible scheme, was, for the time, at least, opposedto it. Clearly any suspicion, combining such contradictions, must needbe delusive. Beside, was it not absurd to think of a vessel indistress--a vessel by sickness almost dismanned of her crew--a vesselwhose inmates were parched for water--was it not a thousand times absurdthat such a craft should, at present, be of a piratical character; orher commander, either for himself or those under him, cherish any desirebut for speedy relief and refreshment? But then, might not generaldistress, and thirst in particular, be affected? And might not that sameundiminished Spanish crew, alleged to have perished off to a remnant, beat that very moment lurking in the hold? On heart-broken pretense ofentreating a cup of cold water, fiends in human form had got into lonelydwellings, nor retired until a dark deed had been done. And among theMalay pirates, it was no unusual thing to lure ships after them intotheir treacherous harbors, or entice boarders from a declared enemy atsea, by the spectacle of thinly manned or vacant decks, beneath whichprowled a hundred spears with yellow arms ready to upthrust them throughthe mats. Not that Captain Delano had entirely credited such things. Hehad heard of them--and now, as stories, they recurred. The presentdestination of the ship was the anchorage. There she would be near hisown vessel. Upon gaining that vicinity, might not the San Dominick, likea slumbering volcano, suddenly let loose energies now hid?

He recalled the Spaniard's manner while telling his story. There was agloomy hesitancy and subterfuge about it. It was just the manner of onemaking up his tale for evil purposes, as he goes. But if that story wasnot true, what was the truth? That the ship had unlawfully come into theSpaniard's possession? But in many of its details, especially inreference to the more calamitous parts, such as the fatalities among theseamen, the consequent prolonged beating about, the past sufferings fromobstinate calms, and still continued suffering from thirst; in allthese points, as well as others, Don Benito's story had corroborated notonly the wailing ejaculations of the indiscriminate multitude, white andblack, but likewise--what seemed impossible to be counterfeit--by thevery expression and play of every human feature, which Captain Delanosaw. If Don Benito's story was, throughout, an invention, then everysoul on board, down to the youngest negress, was his carefully drilledrecruit in the plot: an incredible inference. And yet, if there wasground for mistrusting his veracity, that inference was a legitimateone. 

But those questions of the Spaniard. There, indeed, one might pause. Didthey not seem put with much the same object with which the burglar orassassin, by day-time, reconnoitres the walls of a house? But, with illpurposes, to solicit such information openly of the chief personendangered, and so, in effect, setting him on his guard; how unlikely aprocedure was that? Absurd, then, to suppose that those questions hadbeen prompted by evil designs. Thus, the same conduct, which, in thisinstance, had raised the alarm, served to dispel it. In short, scarceany suspicion or uneasiness, however apparently reasonable at the time, which was not now, with equal apparent reason, dismissed. 

At last he began to laugh at his former forebodings; and laugh at thestrange ship for, in its aspect, someway siding with them, as it were;and laugh, too, at the odd-looking blacks, particularly those oldscissors-grinders, the Ashantees; and those bed-ridden old knittingwomen, the oakum-pickers; and almost at the dark Spaniard himself, thecentral hobgoblin of all. 

For the rest, whatever in a serious way seemed enigmatical, was nowgood-naturedly explained away by the thought that, for the most part, the poor invalid scarcely knew what he was about; either sulking inblack vapors, or putting idle questions without sense or object. Evidently for the present, the man was not fit to be intrusted with theship. On some benevolent plea withdrawing the command from him, CaptainDelano would yet have to send her to Conception, in charge of hissecond mate, a worthy person and good navigator--a plan not moreconvenient for the San Dominick than for Don Benito; for, relieved fromall anxiety, keeping wholly to his cabin, the sick man, under the goodnursing of his servant, would, probably, by the end of the passage, bein a measure restored to health, and with that he should also berestored to authority. 

Such were the American's thoughts. They were tranquilizing. There was adifference between the idea of Don Benito's darkly pre-ordaining CaptainDelano's fate, and Captain Delano's lightly arranging Don Benito's. Nevertheless, it was not without something of relief that the goodseaman presently perceived his whale-boat in the distance. Its absencehad been prolonged by unexpected detention at the sealer's side, as wellas its returning trip lengthened by the continual recession of the goal. 

The advancing speck was observed by the blacks. Their shouts attractedthe attention of Don Benito, who, with a return of courtesy, approachingCaptain Delano, expressed satisfaction at the coming of some supplies, slight and temporary as they must necessarily prove. 

Captain Delano responded; but while doing so, his attention was drawn tosomething passing on the deck below: among the crowd climbing thelandward bulwarks, anxiously watching the coming boat, two blacks, toall appearances accidentally incommoded by one of the sailors, violentlypushed him aside, which the sailor someway resenting, they dashed him tothe deck, despite the earnest cries of the oakum-pickers. 

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

But, seized by his cough, the Spaniard staggered, with both hands to hisface, on the point of falling. Captain Delano would have supported him, but the servant was more alert, who, with one hand sustaining hismaster, with the other applied the cordial. Don Benito restored, theblack withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but dutifullyremaining within call of a whisper. Such discretion was here evinced asquite wiped away, in the visitor's eyes, any blemish of improprietywhich might have attached to the attendant, from the indecorousconferences before mentioned; showing, too, that if the servant were toblame, it might be more the master's fault than his own, since, whenleft to himself, he could conduct thus well. 

His glance called away from the spectacle of disorder to the morepleasing one before him, Captain Delano could not avoid againcongratulating his host upon possessing such a servant, who, thoughperhaps a little too forward now and then, must upon the whole beinvaluable to one in the invalid's situation. 

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

"Master wouldn't part with Babo for a thousand doubloons, " murmured theblack, overhearing the offer, and taking it in earnest, and, with thestrange vanity of a faithful slave, appreciated by his master, scorningto hear so paltry a valuation put upon him by a stranger. But DonBenito, apparently hardly yet completely restored, and againinterrupted by his cough, made but some broken reply. 

Soon his physical distress became so great, affecting his mind, too, apparently, that, as if to screen the sad spectacle, the servant gentlyconducted his master below. 

Left to himself, the American, to while away the time till his boatshould arrive, would have pleasantly accosted some one of the fewSpanish seamen he saw; but recalling something that Don Benito had saidtouching their ill conduct, he refrained; as a shipmaster indisposed tocountenance cowardice or unfaithfulness in seamen. 

While, with these thoughts, standing with eye directed forward towardsthat handful of sailors, suddenly he thought that one or two of themreturned the glance and with a sort of meaning. He rubbed his eyes, andlooked 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 waythrough the blacks, his movement drawing a queer cry from theoakum-pickers, prompted by whom, the negroes, twitching each otheraside, divided before him; but, as if curious to see what was the objectof this deliberate visit to their Ghetto, closing in behind, intolerable order, followed the white stranger up. His progress thusproclaimed as by mounted kings-at-arms, and escorted as by a Caffreguard of honor, Captain Delano, assuming a good-humored, off-handed 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 sparselymixed in with the blacks, like stray white pawns venturously involved inthe ranks of the chess-men opposed. 

While thinking which of them to select for his purpose, he chanced toobserve a sailor seated on the deck engaged in tarring the strap of alarge block, a circle of blacks squatted round him inquisitively eyingthe process. 

The mean employment of the man was in contrast with something superiorin his figure. His hand, black with continually thrusting it into thetar-pot held for him by a negro, seemed not naturally allied to hisface, a face which would have been a very fine one but for itshaggardness. 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 casualassociation with mental pain, stamping any visible impress, use oneseal--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 sosingular a haggardness combined with a dark eye, averted as in troubleand shame, and then again recalling Don Benito's confessed ill opinionof his crew, insensibly he was operated upon by certain general notionswhich, while disconnecting pain and abashment from virtue, invariablylink them with vice. 

If, indeed, there be any wickedness on board this ship, thought CaptainDelano, be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now hefouls it in the pitch. I don't like to accost him. I will speak to thisother, this old Jack here on the windlass. 

He advanced to an old Barcelona tar, in ragged red breeches and dirtynight-cap, cheeks trenched and bronzed, whiskers dense as thorn hedges. Seated between two sleepy-looking Africans, this mariner, like hisyounger shipmate, was employed upon some rigging--splicing a cable--thesleepy-looking blacks performing the inferior function of holding theouter parts of the ropes for him. 

Upon Captain Delano's approach, the man at once hung his head below itsprevious level; the one necessary for business. It appeared as if hedesired to be thought absorbed, with more than common fidelity, in histask. 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 simperand cast sheep's eyes. He was asked several questions concerning thevoyage--questions purposely referring to several particulars in DonBenito's narrative, not previously corroborated by those impulsive criesgreeting the visitor on first coming on board. The questions werebriefly answered, confirming all that remained to be confirmed of thestory. The negroes about the windlass joined in with the old sailor;but, as they became talkative, he by degrees became mute, and at lengthquite 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 promising countenance, but seeing none, spoke pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him; andso, amid various grins and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling alittle strange at first, he could hardly tell why, but upon the wholewith regained confidence in Benito Cereno. 

How plainly, thought he, did that old whiskerando yonder betray aconsciousness of ill desert. No doubt, when he saw me coming, hedreaded lest I, apprised by his Captain of the crew's generalmisbehavior, 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 errnot, was one of those who seemed so earnestly eying me here awhilesince. Ah, these currents spin one's head round almost as much as theydo the ship. Ha, there now's a pleasant sort of sunny sight; quitesociable, too. 

His attention had been drawn to a slumbering negress, partly disclosedthrough the lacework of some rigging, lying, with youthful limbscarelessly disposed, under the lee of the bulwarks, like a doe in theshade of a woodland rock. Sprawling at her lapped breasts, was herwide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black little body half lifted from thedeck, crosswise with its dam's; its hands, like two paws, clamberingupon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually rooting to get at the mark;and meantime giving a vexatious half-grunt, blending with the composedsnore of the negress. 

The uncommon vigor of the child at length roused the mother. She startedup, at a distance facing Captain Delano. But as if not, at all concernedat the attitude in which she had been caught, delightedly she caught thechild up, with maternal transports, covering it with kisses. 

There's naked nature, now; pure tenderness and love, thought CaptainDelano, well pleased. 

This incident prompted him to remark the other negresses moreparticularly than before. He was gratified with their manners: like mostuncivilized women, they seemed at once tender of heart and tough ofconstitution; equally ready to die for their infants or fight for them. Unsophisticated as leopardesses; loving as doves. Ah! thought CaptainDelano, these, perhaps, are some of the very women whom Ledyard saw inAfrica, and gave such a noble account of. 

These natural sights somehow insensibly deepened his confidence andease. At last he looked to see how his boat was getting on; but it wasstill pretty remote. He turned to see if Don Benito had returned; buthe had not. 

To change the scene, as well as to please himself with a leisurelyobservation of the coming boat, stepping over into the mizzen-chains, heclambered his way into the starboard quarter-gallery--one ofthose abandoned Venetian-looking water-balconies previouslymentioned--retreats cut off from the deck. As his foot pressed thehalf-damp, half-dry sea-mosses matting the place, and a chance phantomcats-paw--an islet of breeze, unheralded unfollowed--as this ghostlycats-paw came fanning his cheek; as his glance fell upon the row ofsmall, round dead-lights--all closed like coppered eyes of thecoffined--and the state-cabin door, once connecting with the gallery, even as the dead-lights had once looked out upon it, but now calked fastlike a sarcophagus lid; and to a purple-black tarred-over, panel, threshold, and post; and he bethought him of the time, when thatstate-cabin and this state-balcony had heard the voices of the Spanishking's officers, and the forms of the Lima viceroy's daughters hadperhaps leaned where he stood--as these and other images flittedthrough his mind, as the cats-paw through the calm, gradually he feltrising a dreamy inquietude, like that of one who alone on the prairiefeels unrest from the repose of the noon. 

He leaned against the carved balustrade, again looking off toward hisboat; but found his eye falling upon the ribbon grass, trailing alongthe ship's water-line, straight as a border of green box; and parterresof sea-weed, broad ovals and crescents, floating nigh and far, with whatseemed long formal alleys between, crossing the terraces of swells, andsweeping round as if leading to the grottoes below. And overhanging allwas the balustrade by his arm, which, partly stained with pitch andpartly embossed with moss, seemed the charred ruin of some summer-housein a grand garden long running to waste. 

Trying to break one charm, he was but becharmed anew. Though upon thewide sea, he seemed in some far inland country; prisoner in somedeserted château, left to stare at empty grounds, and peer out at vagueroads, where never wagon or wayfarer passed. 

But these enchantments were a little disenchanted as his eye fell on thecorroded main-chains. Of an ancient style, massy and rusty in link, shackle and bolt, they seemed even more fit for the ship's presentbusiness than the one for which she had been built. 

Presently he thought something moved nigh the chains. He rubbed hiseyes, and looked hard. Groves of rigging were about the chains; andthere, peering from behind a great stay, like an Indian from behind ahemlock, a Spanish sailor, a marlingspike in his hand, was seen, whomade what seemed an imperfect gesture towards the balcony, butimmediately 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, unbeknownto any one, even to his captain. Did the secret involve aughtunfavorable to his captain? Were those previous misgivings of CaptainDelano's about to be verified? Or, in his haunted mood at the moment, had some random, unintentional motion of the man, while busy with thestay, as if repairing it, been mistaken for a significant beckoning?

Not unbewildered, again he gazed off for his boat. But it wastemporarily hidden by a rocky spur of the isle. As with some eagernesshe bent forward, watching for the first shooting view of its beak, thebalustrade gave way before him like charcoal. Had he not clutched anoutreaching rope he would have fallen into the sea. The crash, thoughfeeble, and the fall, though hollow, of the rotten fragments, must havebeen overheard. He glanced up. With sober curiosity peering down uponhim was one of the old oakum-pickers, slipped from his perch to anoutside boom; while below the old negro, and, invisible to him, reconnoitering from a port-hole like a fox from the mouth of its den, crouched the Spanish sailor again. From something suddenly suggested bythe man's air, the mad idea now darted into Captain Delano's mind, thatDon Benito's plea of indisposition, in withdrawing below, was but apretense: that he was engaged there maturing his plot, of which thesailor, by some means gaining an inkling, had a mind to warn thestranger against; incited, it may be, by gratitude for a kind word onfirst boarding the ship. Was it from foreseeing some possibleinterference like this, that Don Benito had, beforehand, given such abad character of his sailors, while praising the negroes; though, indeed, the former seemed as docile as the latter the contrary? Thewhites, too, by nature, were the shrewder race. A man with some evildesign, would he not be likely to speak well of that stupidity which wasblind to his depravity, and malign that intelligence from which it mightnot be hidden? Not unlikely, perhaps. But if the whites had dark secretsconcerning Don Benito, could then Don Benito be any way in complicitywith the blacks? But they were too stupid. Besides, who ever heard of awhite so far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost, by leaguing in against it with negroes? These difficulties recalledformer ones. Lost in their mazes, Captain Delano, who had now regainedthe deck, was uneasily advancing along it, when he observed a new face;an aged sailor seated cross-legged near the main hatchway. His skin wasshrunk up with wrinkles like a pelican's empty pouch; his hair frosted;his countenance grave and composed. His hands were full of ropes, whichhe was working into a large knot. Some blacks were about him obliginglydipping the strands for him, here and there, as the exigencies of theoperation demanded. 

Captain Delano crossed over to him, and stood in silence surveying theknot; his mind, by a not uncongenial transition, passing from its ownentanglements to those of the hemp. For intricacy, such a knot he hadnever seen in an American ship, nor indeed any other. The old man lookedlike an Egyptian priest, making Gordian knots for the temple of Ammon. The knot seemed a combination of double-bowline-knot, treble-crown-knot, back-handed-well-knot, knot-in-and-out-knot, and jamming-knot. 

At last, puzzled to comprehend the meaning of such a knot, CaptainDelano addressed the knotter:--

"What are you knotting there, my man?"

"The knot, " was the brief reply, without looking up. 

"So it seems; but what is it for?"

"For some one else to undo, " muttered back the old man, plying hisfingers harder than ever, the knot being now nearly completed. 

While Captain Delano stood watching him, suddenly the old man threw theknot towards him, saying in broken English--the first heard in theship--something to this effect: "Undo it, cut it, quick. " It was saidlowly, but with such condensation of rapidity, that the long, slow wordsin Spanish, which had preceded and followed, almost operated as coversto the brief English between. 

For a moment, knot in hand, and knot in head, Captain Delano stood mute;while, without further heeding him, the old man was now intent uponother ropes. Presently there was a slight stir behind Captain Delano. Turning, he saw the chained negro, Atufal, standing quietly there. Thenext moment the old sailor rose, muttering, and, followed by hissubordinate negroes, removed to the forward part of the ship, where inthe crowd he disappeared. 

An elderly negro, in a clout like an infant's, and with a pepper andsalt head, and a kind of attorney air, now approached Captain Delano. Intolerable Spanish, and with a good-natured, knowing wink, he informedhim that the old knotter was simple-witted, but harmless; often playinghis odd tricks. The negro concluded by begging the knot, for of coursethe stranger would not care to be troubled with it. Unconsciously, itwas handed to him. With a sort of congé, the negro received it, and, turning his back, ferreted into it like a detective custom-house officerafter smuggled laces. Soon, with some African word, equivalent to pshaw, he tossed the knot overboard. 

All this is very queer now, thought Captain Delano, with a qualmish sortof emotion; but, as one feeling incipient sea-sickness, he strove, byignoring the symptoms, to get rid of the malady. Once more he looked offfor his boat. To his delight, it was now again in view, leaving therocky spur astern. 

The sensation here experienced, after at first relieving his uneasiness, with unforeseen efficacy soon began to remove it. The less distant sightof that well-known boat--showing it, not as before, half blended withthe haze, but with outline defined, so that its individuality, like aman's, was manifest; that boat, Rover by name, which, though now instrange seas, had often pressed the beach of Captain Delano's home, and, brought to its threshold for repairs, had familiarly lain there, as aNewfoundland dog; the sight of that household, boat evoked a thousandtrustful associations, which, contrasted with previous suspicions, filled him not only with lightsome confidence, but somehow with halfhumorous self-reproaches at his former lack of it. 

"What, I, Amasa Delano--Jack of the Beach, as they called me when alad--I, Amasa; the same that, duck-satchel in hand, used to paddle alongthe water-side to the school-house made from the old hulk--I, littleJack of the Beach, that used to go berrying with cousin Nat and therest; I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth, on board a hauntedpirate-ship by a horrible Spaniard? Too nonsensical to think of! Whowould murder Amasa Delano? His conscience is clean. There is some oneabove. Fie, fie, Jack of the Beach! you are a child indeed; a child ofthe second childhood, old boy; you are beginning to dote and drule, I'mafraid. "

Light of heart and foot, he stepped aft, and there was met by DonBenito's servant, who, with a pleasing expression, responsive to his ownpresent feelings, informed him that his master had recovered from theeffects of his coughing fit, and had just ordered him to go present hiscompliments to his good guest, Don Amasa, and say that he (Don Benito)would soon have the happiness to rejoin him. 

There now, do you mark that? again thought Captain Delano, walking thepoop. What a donkey I was. This kind gentleman who here sends me hiskind compliments, he, but ten minutes ago, dark-lantern in had, wasdodging round some old grind-stone in the hold, sharpening a hatchet forme, I thought. Well, well; these long calms have a morbid effect on themind, I've often heard, though I never believed it before. Ha! glancingtowards the boat; there's Rover; good dog; a white bone in her mouth. Apretty big bone though, seems to me. --What? Yes, she has fallen afoulof the bubbling tide-rip there. It sets her the other way, too, for thetime. Patience. 

It was now about noon, though, from the grayness of everything, itseemed to be getting towards dusk. 

The calm was confirmed. In the far distance, away from the influence ofland, the leaden ocean seemed laid out and leaded up, it's coursefinished, soul gone, defunct. But the current from landward, where theship was, increased; silently sweeping her further and further towardsthe tranced waters beyond. 

Still, from his knowledge of those latitudes, cherishing hopes of abreeze, and a fair and fresh one, at any moment, Captain Delano, despitepresent prospects, buoyantly counted upon bringing the San Dominicksafely to anchor ere night. The distance swept over was nothing; since, with a good wind, ten minutes' sailing would retrace more than sixtyminutes, drifting. Meantime, one moment turning to mark "Rover" fightingthe tide-rip, and the next to see Don Benito approaching, he continuedwalking the poop. 

Gradually he felt a vexation arising from the delay of his boat; thissoon merged into uneasiness; and at last--his eye falling continually, as from a stage-box into the pit, upon the strange crowd before andbelow him, and, by-and-by, recognizing there the face--now composed toindifference--of the Spanish sailor who had seemed to beckon from themain-chains--something of his old trepidations returned. 

Ah, thought he--gravely enough--this is like the ague: because it wentoff, it follows not that it won't come back. 

Though ashamed of the relapse, he could not altogether subdue it; andso, exerting his good-nature to the utmost, insensibly he came to acompromise. 

Yes, this is a strange craft; a strange history, too, and strange folkson board. But--nothing more. 

By way of keeping his mind out of mischief till the boat should arrive, he tried to occupy it with turning over and over, in a purelyspeculative sort of way, some lesser peculiarities of the captain andcrew. Among others, four curious points recurred:

First, the affair of the Spanish lad assailed with a knife by the slaveboy; an act winked at by Don Benito. Second, the tyranny in Don Benito'streatment of Atufal, the black; as if a child should lead a bull of theNile by the ring in his nose. Third, the trampling of the sailor by thetwo negroes; a piece of insolence passed over without so much as areprimand. Fourth, the cringing submission to their master, of all theship's underlings, mostly blacks; as if by the least inadvertence theyfeared to draw down his despotic displeasure. 

Coupling these points, they seemed somewhat contradictory. But whatthen, thought Captain Delano, glancing towards his now nearingboat--what then? Why, Don Benito is a very capricious commander. But heis not the first of the sort I have seen; though it's true he ratherexceeds any other. But as a nation--continued he in his reveries--theseSpaniards are all an odd set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it. And yet, I dare say, Spaniards inthe main are as good folks as any in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Ah good!last "Rover" has come. 

As, with its welcome freight, the boat touched the side, theoakum-pickers, with venerable gestures, sought to restrain the blacks, who, at the sight of three gurried water-casks in its bottom, and a pileof wilted pumpkins in its bow, hung over the bulwarks in disorderlyraptured. 

Don Benito, with his servant, now appeared; his coming, perhaps, hastened by hearing the noise. Of him Captain Delano sought permissionto serve out the water, so that all might share alike, and none injurethemselves by unfair excess. But sensible, and, on Don Benito's account, kind as this offer was, it was received with what seemed impatience; asif aware that he lacked energy as a commander, Don Benito, with the truejealousy of weakness, resented as an affront any interference. So, atleast, Captain Delano inferred. 

In another moment the casks were being hoisted in, when some of theeager negroes accidentally jostled Captain Delano, where he stood by thegangway; so, that, unmindful of Don Benito, yielding to the impulse ofthe moment, with good-natured authority he bade the blacks stand back;to enforce his words making use of a half-mirthful, half-menacinggesture. Instantly the blacks paused, just where they were, each negroand negress suspended in his or her posture, exactly as the word hadfound them--for a few seconds continuing so--while, as between theresponsive posts of a telegraph, an unknown syllable ran from man to manamong the perched oakum-pickers. While the visitor's attention was fixedby this scene, suddenly the hatchet-polishers half rose, and a rapid crycame from Don Benito. 

Thinking that at the signal of the Spaniard he was about to bemassacred, Captain Delano would have sprung for his boat, but paused, asthe oakum-pickers, dropping down into the crowd with earnestexclamations, forced every white and every negro back, at the samemoment, with gestures friendly and familiar, almost jocose, bidding him, in substance, not be a fool. Simultaneously the hatchet-polishersresumed their seats, quietly as so many tailors, and at once, as ifnothing had happened, the work of hoisting in the casks was resumed, whites and blacks singing at the tackle. 

Captain Delano glanced towards Don Benito. As he saw his meagre form inthe act of recovering itself from reclining in the servant's arms, intowhich the agitated invalid had fallen, he could not but marvel at thepanic by which himself had been surprised, on the darting suppositionthat such a commander, who, upon a legitimate occasion, so trivial, too, as it now appeared, could lose all self-command, was, with energeticiniquity, going to bring about his murder. 

The casks being on deck, Captain Delano was handed a number of jars andcups by one of the steward's aids, who, in the name of his captain, entreated him to do as he had proposed--dole out the water. He complied, with republican impartiality as to this republican element, which alwaysseeks one level, serving the oldest white no better than the youngestblack; excepting, indeed, poor Don Benito, whose condition, if not rank, demanded an extra allowance. To him, in the first place, Captain Delanopresented a fair pitcher of the fluid; but, thirsting as he was for it, the Spaniard quaffed not a drop until after several grave bows andsalutes. A reciprocation of courtesies which the sight-loving Africanshailed with clapping of hands. 

Two of the less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin table, theresidue were minced up on the spot for the general regalement. But thesoft bread, sugar, and bottled cider, Captain Delano would have giventhe whites alone, and in chief Don Benito; but the latter objected;which disinterestedness not a little pleased the American; and somouthfuls all around were given alike to whites and blacks; exceptingone bottle of cider, which Babo insisted upon setting aside for hismaster. 

Here it may be observed that as, on the first visit of the boat, theAmerican had not permitted his men to board the ship, neither did henow; being unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks. 

Not uninfluenced by the peculiar good-humor at present prevailing, andfor the time oblivious of any but benevolent thoughts, Captain Delano, who, from recent indications, counted upon a breeze within an hour ortwo at furthest, dispatched the boat back to the sealer, with orders forall the hands that could be spared immediately to set about raftingcasks to the watering-place and filling them. Likewise he bade word becarried to his chief officer, that if, against present expectation, theship was not brought to anchor by sunset, he need be under no concern;for as there was to be a full moon that night, he (Captain Delano) wouldremain on board ready to play the pilot, come the wind soon or late. 

As the two Captains stood together, observing the departing boat--theservant, as it happened, having just spied a spot on his master's velvetsleeve, and silently engaged rubbing it out--the American expressed hisregrets that the San Dominick had no boats; none, at least, but theunseaworthy old hulk of the long-boat, which, warped as a camel'sskeleton in the desert, and almost as bleached, lay pot-wise invertedamidships, one side a little tipped, furnishing a subterraneous sort ofden for family groups of the blacks, mostly women and small children;who, squatting on old mats below, or perched above in the dark dome, onthe elevated seats, were descried, some distance within, like a socialcircle of bats, sheltering in some friendly cave; at intervals, ebonflights of naked boys and girls, three or four years old, darting in andout of the den's mouth. 

"Had you three or four boats now, Don Benito, " said Captain Delano, "Ithink that, by tugging at the oars, your negroes here might help alongmatters some. Did you sail from port without boats, Don Benito?"

"They were stove in the gales, Señor. "

"That was bad. Many men, too, you lost then. Boats and men. Those musthave been hard gales, Don Benito. "

"Past all speech, " cringed the Spaniard. 

"Tell me, Don Benito, " continued his companion with increased interest, "tell me, were these gales immediately off the pitch of Cape Horn?"

"Cape Horn?--who spoke of Cape Horn?"

"Yourself did, when giving me an account of your voyage, " answeredCaptain Delano, with almost equal astonishment at this eating of his ownwords, even as he ever seemed eating his own heart, on the part of theSpaniard. "You yourself, Don Benito, spoke of Cape Horn, " heemphatically repeated. 

The Spaniard turned, in a sort of stooping posture, pausing an instant, as one about to make a plunging exchange of elements, as from air towater. 

At this moment a messenger-boy, a white, hurried by, in the regularperformance of his function carrying the last expired half hour forwardto the forecastle, from the cabin time-piece, to have it struck at theship's large bell. 

"Master, " said the servant, discontinuing his work on the coat sleeve, and addressing the rapt Spaniard with a sort of timid apprehensiveness, as one charged with a duty, the discharge of which, it was foreseen, would prove irksome to the very person who had imposed it, and for whosebenefit it was intended, "master told me never mind where he was, or howengaged, always to remind him to a minute, when shaving-time comes. Miguel has gone to strike the half-hour afternoon. It is _now_, master. Will master go into the cuddy?"

"Ah--yes, " answered the Spaniard, starting, as from dreams intorealities; then turning upon Captain Delano, he said that ere long hewould resume the conversation. 

"Then if master means to talk more to Don Amasa, " said the servant, "whynot let Don Amasa sit by master in the cuddy, and master can talk, andDon Amasa can listen, while Babo here lathers and strops. "

"Yes, " said Captain Delano, not unpleased with this sociable plan, "yes, Don Benito, unless you had rather not, I will go with you. "

"Be it so, Señor. "

As the three passed aft, the American could not but think it anotherstrange instance of his host's capriciousness, this being shaved withsuch uncommon punctuality in the middle of the day. But he deemed itmore than likely that the servant's anxious fidelity had something to dowith the matter; inasmuch as the timely interruption served to rally hismaster from the mood which had evidently been coming upon him. 

The place called the cuddy was a light deck-cabin formed by the poop, asort of attic to the large cabin below. Part of it had formerly beenthe quarters of the officers; but since their death all the partitioninghad been thrown down, and the whole interior converted into one spaciousand airy marine hall; for absence of fine furniture and picturesquedisarray of odd appurtenances, somewhat answering to the wide, clutteredhall of some eccentric bachelor-squire in the country, who hangs hisshooting-jacket and tobacco-pouch on deer antlers, and keeps hisfishing-rod, tongs, and walking-stick in the same corner. 

The similitude was heightened, if not originally suggested, by glimpsesof the surrounding sea; since, in one aspect, the country and the oceanseem cousins-german. 

The floor of the cuddy was matted. Overhead, four or five old musketswere stuck into horizontal holes along the beams. On one side was aclaw-footed old table lashed to the deck; a thumbed missal on it, andover it a small, meagre crucifix attached to the bulk-head. Under thetable lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some;melancholy old rigging, like a heap of poor friars' girdles. There werealso two long, sharp-ribbed settees of Malacca cane, black with age, and uncomfortable to look at as inquisitors' racks, with a large, misshapen arm-chair, which, furnished with a rude barber's crotch at theback, working with a screw, seemed some grotesque engine of torment. Aflag locker was in one corner, open, exposing various colored bunting, some rolled up, others half unrolled, still others tumbled. Opposite wasa cumbrous washstand, of black mahogany, all of one block, with apedestal, like a font, and over it a railed shelf, containing combs, brushes, and other implements of the toilet. A torn hammock of stainedgrass swung near; the sheets tossed, and the pillow wrinkled up like abrow, as if who ever slept here slept but illy, with alternatevisitations of sad thoughts and bad dreams. 

The further extremity of the cuddy, overhanging the ship's stern, waspierced with three openings, windows or port-holes, according as men orcannon might peer, socially or unsocially, out of them. At presentneither men nor cannon were seen, though huge ring-bolts and other rustyiron fixtures of the wood-work hinted of twenty-four-pounders. 

Glancing towards the hammock as he entered, Captain Delano said, "Yousleep here, Don Benito?"

"Yes, Señor, since we got into mild weather. "

"This seems a sort of dormitory, sitting-room, sail-loft, chapel, armory, and private closet all together, Don Benito, " added CaptainDelano, looking round. 

"Yes, Señor; events have not been favorable to much order in myarrangements. "

Here the servant, napkin on arm, made a motion as if waiting hismaster's good pleasure. Don Benito signified his readiness, when, seating him in the Malacca arm-chair, and for the guest's conveniencedrawing opposite one of the settees, the servant commenced operations bythrowing back his master's collar and loosening his cravat. 

There is something in the negro which, in a peculiar way, fits him foravocations about one's person. Most negroes are natural valets andhair-dressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to thecastinets, and flourishing them apparently with almost equalsatisfaction. There is, too, a smooth tact about them in thisemployment, with a marvelous, noiseless, gliding briskness, notungraceful in its way, singularly pleasing to behold, and still more soto be the manipulated subject of. And above all is the great gift ofgood-humor. Not the mere grin or laugh is here meant. Those wereunsuitable. But a certain easy cheerfulness, harmonious in every glanceand gesture; as though God had set the whole negro to some pleasanttune. 

When to this is added the docility arising from the unaspiringcontentment of a limited mind and that susceptibility of blindattachment sometimes inhering in indisputable inferiors, one readilyperceives why those hypochondriacs, Johnson and Byron--it may be, something like the hypochondriac Benito Cereno--took to their hearts, almost to the exclusion of the entire white race, their serving men, thenegroes, Barber and Fletcher. But if there be that in the negro whichexempts him from the inflicted sourness of the morbid or cynical mind, how, in his most prepossessing aspects, must he appear to a benevolentone? When at ease with respect to exterior things, Captain Delano'snature was not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so. At home, he had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watchingsome free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced tohave a black sailor, invariably he was on chatty and half-gamesome termswith him. In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delanotook to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other mento Newfoundland dogs. 

Hitherto, the circumstances in which he found the San Dominick hadrepressed the tendency. But in the cuddy, relieved from his formeruneasiness, and, for various reasons, more sociably inclined than at anyprevious period of the day, and seeing the colored servant, napkin onarm, so debonair about his master, in a business so familiar as that ofshaving, too, all his old weakness for negroes returned. 

Among other things, he was amused with an odd instance of the Africanlove of bright colors and fine shows, in the black's informally takingfrom the flag-locker a great piece of bunting of all hues, and lavishlytucking it under his master's chin for an apron. 

The mode of shaving among the Spaniards is a little different from whatit is with other nations. They have a basin, specifically called abarber's basin, which on one side is scooped out, so as accurately toreceive the chin, against which it is closely held in lathering; whichis done, not with a brush, but with soap dipped in the water of thebasin and rubbed on the face. 

In the present instance salt-water was used for lack of better; and theparts lathered were only the upper lip, and low down under the throat, all the rest being cultivated beard. 

The preliminaries being somewhat novel to Captain Delano, he satcuriously eying them, so that no conversation took place, nor, for thepresent, did Don Benito appear disposed to renew any. 

Setting down his basin, the negro searched among the razors, as for thesharpest, and having found it, gave it an additional edge by expertlystrapping it on the firm, smooth, oily skin of his open palm; he thenmade a gesture as if to begin, but midway stood suspended for aninstant, one hand elevating the razor, the other professionally dabblingamong the bubbling suds on the Spaniard's lank neck. Not unaffected bythe close sight of the gleaming steel, Don Benito nervously shuddered;his usual ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in its hue by the contrasting sootiness of the negro'sbody. Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to CaptainDelano, nor, as he saw the two thus postured, could he resist thevagary, that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white a man atthe block. But this was one of those antic conceits, appearing andvanishing in a breath, from which, perhaps, the best regulated mind isnot always free. 

Meantime the agitation of the Spaniard had a little loosened the buntingfrom around him, so that one broad fold swept curtain-like over, thechair-arm to the floor, revealing, amid a profusion of armorial bars andground-colors--black, blue, and yellow--a closed castle in a blood redfield diagonal with a lion rampant in a white. 

"The castle and the lion, " exclaimed Captain Delano--"why, Don Benito, this is the flag of Spain you use here. It's well it's only I, and notthe King, that sees this, " he added, with a smile, "but"--turningtowards the black--"it's all one, I suppose, so the colors be gay;"which playful remark did not fail somewhat to tickle the negro. 

"Now, master, " he said, readjusting the flag, and pressing the headgently further back into the crotch of the chair; "now, master, " and thesteel glanced nigh the throat. 

Again Don Benito faintly shuddered. 

"You must not shake so, master. See, Don Amasa, master always shakeswhen I shave him. And yet master knows I never yet have drawn blood, though it's true, if master will shake so, I may some of these times. Now master, " he continued. "And now, Don Amasa, please go on with yourtalk about the gale, and all that; master can hear, and, between times, master can answer. "

"Ah yes, these gales, " said Captain Delano; "but the more I think ofyour voyage, Don Benito, the more I wonder, not at the gales, terribleas they must have been, but at the disastrous interval following them. For here, by your account, have you been these two months and moregetting from Cape Horn to St. Maria, a distance which I myself, with agood wind, have sailed in a few days. True, you had calms, and longones, but to be becalmed for two months, that is, at least, unusual. Why, Don Benito, had almost any other gentleman told me such a story, Ishould have been half disposed to a little incredulity. "

Here an involuntary expression came over the Spaniard, similar to thatjust before on the deck, and whether it was the start he gave, or asudden gawky roll of the hull in the calm, or a momentary unsteadinessof the servant's hand, however it was, just then the razor drew blood, spots of which stained the creamy lather under the throat: immediatelythe black barber drew back his steel, and, remaining in his professionalattitude, back to Captain Delano, and face to Don Benito, held up thetrickling razor, saying, with a sort of half humorous sorrow, "See, master--you shook so--here's Babo's first blood. "

No sword drawn before James the First of England, no assassination inthat timid King's presence, could have produced a more terrified aspectthan was now presented by Don Benito. 

Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, so nervous he can't even bear thesight of barber's blood; and this unstrung, sick man, is it crediblethat I should have imagined he meant to spill all my blood, who can'tendure the sight of one little drop of his own? Surely, Amasa Delano, you have been beside yourself this day. Tell it not when you get home, sappy Amasa. Well, well, he looks like a murderer, doesn't he? More likeas if himself were to be done for. Well, well, this day's experienceshall be a good lesson. 

Meantime, while these things were running through the honest seaman'smind, the servant had taken the napkin from his arm, and to Don Benitohad said--"But answer Don Amasa, please, master, while I wipe this uglystuff off the razor, and strop it again. "

As he said the words, his face was turned half round, so as to be alikevisible to the Spaniard and the American, and seemed, by itsexpression, to hint, that he was desirous, by getting his master to goon with the conversation, considerately to withdraw his attention fromthe recent annoying accident. As if glad to snatch the offered relief, Don Benito resumed, rehearsing to Captain Delano, that not only were thecalms of unusual duration, but the ship had fallen in with obstinatecurrents; and other things he added, some of which were but repetitionsof former statements, to explain how it came to pass that the passagefrom Cape Horn to St. Maria had been so exceedingly long; now and then, mingling with his words, incidental praises, less qualified than before, to the blacks, for their general good conduct. These particulars werenot given consecutively, the servant, at convenient times, using hisrazor, and so, between the intervals of shaving, the story and panegyricwent on with more than usual huskiness. 

To Captain Delano's imagination, now again not wholly at rest, there wassomething so hollow in the Spaniard's manner, with apparently somereciprocal hollowness in the servant's dusky comment of silence, thatthe idea flashed across him, that possibly master and man, for someunknown purpose, were acting out, both in word and deed, nay, to thevery tremor of Don Benito's limbs, some juggling play before him. Neither did the suspicion of collusion lack apparent support, from thefact of those whispered conferences before mentioned. But then, whatcould be the object of enacting this play of the barber before him? Atlast, regarding the notion as a whimsy, insensibly suggested, perhaps, by the theatrical aspect of Don Benito in his harlequin ensign, CaptainDelano speedily banished it. 

The shaving over, the servant bestirred himself with a small bottle ofscented waters, pouring a few drops on the head, and then diligentlyrubbing; the vehemence of the exercise causing the muscles of his faceto twitch rather strangely. 

His next operation was with comb, scissors, and brush; going round andround, smoothing a curl here, clipping an unruly whisker-hair there, giving a graceful sweep to the temple-lock, with other impromptutouches evincing the hand of a master; while, like any resignedgentleman in barber's hands, Don Benito bore all, much less uneasily, atleast than he had done the razoring; indeed, he sat so pale and rigidnow, that the negro seemed a Nubian sculptor finishing off a whitestatue-head. 

All being over at last, the standard of Spain removed, tumbled up, andtossed back into the flag-locker, the negro's warm breath blowing awayany stray hair, which might have lodged down his master's neck; collarand cravat readjusted; a speck of lint whisked off the velvet lapel; allthis being done; backing off a little space, and pausing with anexpression of subdued self-complacency, the servant for a momentsurveyed his master, as, in toilet at least, the creature of his owntasteful hands. 

Captain Delano playfully complimented him upon his achievement; at thesame time congratulating Don Benito. 

But neither sweet waters, nor shampooing, nor fidelity, nor sociality, delighted the Spaniard. Seeing him relapsing into forbidding gloom, andstill remaining seated, Captain Delano, thinking that his presence wasundesired just then, withdrew, on pretense of seeing whether, as he hadprophesied, any signs of a breeze were visible. 

Walking forward to the main-mast, he stood awhile thinking over thescene, and not without some undefined misgivings, when he heard a noisenear the cuddy, and turning, saw the negro, his hand to his cheek. Advancing, Captain Delano perceived that the cheek was bleeding. He wasabout to ask the cause, when the negro's wailing soliloquy enlightenedhim. 

"Ah, when will master get better from his sickness; only the sour heartthat sour sickness breeds made him serve Babo so; cutting Babo with therazor, because, only by accident, Babo had given master one littlescratch; and for the first time in so many a day, too. Ah, ah, ah, "holding his hand to his face. 

Is it possible, thought Captain Delano; was it to wreak in private hisSpanish spite against this poor friend of his, that Don Benito, by hissullen manner, impelled me to withdraw? Ah this slavery breeds uglypassions in man. --Poor fellow!

He was about to speak in sympathy to the negro, but with a timidreluctance he now re-entered the cuddy. 

Presently master and man came forth; Don Benito leaning on his servantas if nothing had happened. 

But a sort of love-quarrel, after all, thought Captain Delano. 

He accosted Don Benito, and they slowly walked together. They had gonebut a few paces, when the steward--a tall, rajah-looking mulatto, orientally set off with a pagoda turban formed by three or four Madrashandkerchiefs wound about his head, tier on tier--approaching with asaalam, announced lunch in the cabin. 

On their way thither, the two captains were preceded by the mulatto, who, turning round as he advanced, with continual smiles and bows, ushered them on, a display of elegance which quite completed theinsignificance of the small bare-headed Babo, who, as if not unconsciousof inferiority, eyed askance the graceful steward. But in part, CaptainDelano imputed his jealous watchfulness to that peculiar feeling whichthe full-blooded African entertains for the adulterated one. As for thesteward, his manner, if not bespeaking much dignity of self-respect, yetevidenced his extreme desire to please; which is doubly meritorious, asat once Christian and Chesterfieldian. 

Captain Delano observed with interest that while the complexion of themulatto was hybrid, his physiognomy was European--classically so. 

"Don Benito, " whispered he, "I am glad to see thisusher-of-the-golden-rod of yours; the sight refutes an ugly remark oncemade to me by a Barbadoes planter; that when a mulatto has a regularEuropean face, look out for him; he is a devil. But see, your stewardhere has features more regular than King George's of England; and yetthere he nods, and bows, and smiles; a king, indeed--the king of kindhearts and polite fellows. What a pleasant voice he has, too?"

"He has, Señor. "

"But tell me, has he not, so far as you have known him, always proved agood, worthy fellow?" said Captain Delano, pausing, while with a finalgenuflexion the steward disappeared into the cabin; "come, for thereason just mentioned, I am curious to know. "

"Francesco is a good man, " a sort of sluggishly responded Don Benito, like a phlegmatic appreciator, who would neither find fault nor flatter. 

"Ah, I thought so. For it were strange, indeed, and not very creditableto us white-skins, if a little of our blood mixed with the African's, should, far from improving the latter's quality, have the sad effect ofpouring vitriolic acid into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps, butnot the wholesomeness. "

"Doubtless, doubtless, Señor, but"--glancing at Babo--"not to speak ofnegroes, your planter's remark I have heard applied to the Spanish andIndian intermixtures in our provinces. But I know nothing about thematter, " he listlessly added. 

And here they entered the cabin. 

The lunch was a frugal one. Some of Captain Delano's fresh fish andpumpkins, biscuit and salt beef, the reserved bottle of cider, and theSan Dominick's last bottle of Canary. 

As they entered, Francesco, with two or three colored aids, was hoveringover the table giving the last adjustments. Upon perceiving their masterthey withdrew, Francesco making a smiling congé, and the Spaniard, without condescending to notice it, fastidiously remarking to hiscompanion that he relished not superfluous attendance. 

Without companions, host and guest sat down, like a childless marriedcouple, at opposite ends of the table, Don Benito waving Captain Delanoto his place, and, weak as he was, insisting upon that gentleman beingseated before himself. 

The negro placed a rug under Don Benito's feet, and a cushion behind hisback, and then stood behind, not his master's chair, but CaptainDelano's. At first, this a little surprised the latter. But it was soonevident that, in taking his position, the black was still true to hismaster; since by facing him he could the more readily anticipate hisslightest want. 

"This is an uncommonly intelligent fellow of yours, Don Benito, "whispered Captain Delano across the table. 

"You say true, Señor. "

During the repast, the guest again reverted to parts of Don Benito'sstory, begging further particulars here and there. He inquired how itwas that the scurvy and fever should have committed such wholesale havocupon the whites, while destroying less than half of the blacks. As ifthis question reproduced the whole scene of plague before the Spaniard'seyes, miserably reminding him of his solitude in a cabin where before hehad had so many friends and officers round him, his hand shook, his facebecame hueless, broken words escaped; but directly the sane memory ofthe past seemed replaced by insane terrors of the present. With startingeyes he stared before him at vacancy. For nothing was to be seen but thehand of his servant pushing the Canary over towards him. At length a fewsips served partially to restore him. He made random reference to thedifferent constitution of races, enabling one to offer more resistanceto certain maladies than another. The thought was new to his companion. 

Presently Captain Delano, intending to say something to his hostconcerning the pecuniary part of the business he had undertaken for him, especially--since he was strictly accountable to his owners--withreference to the new suit of sails, and other things of that sort; andnaturally preferring to conduct such affairs in private, was desirousthat the servant should withdraw; imagining that Don Benito for a fewminutes could dispense with his attendance. He, however, waited awhile;thinking that, as the conversation proceeded, Don Benito, without beingprompted, would perceive the propriety of the step. 

But it was otherwise. At last catching his host's eye, Captain Delano, with a slight backward gesture of his thumb, whispered, "Don Benito, pardon me, but there is an interference with the full expression of whatI have to say to you. "

Upon this the Spaniard changed countenance; which was imputed to hisresenting the hint, as in some way a reflection upon his servant. Aftera moment's pause, he assured his guest that the black's remaining withthem could be of no disservice; because since losing his officers he hadmade Babo (whose original office, it now appeared, had been captain ofthe slaves) not only his constant attendant and companion, but in allthings his confidant. 

After this, nothing more could be said; though, indeed, Captain Delanocould hardly avoid some little tinge of irritation upon being leftungratified in so inconsiderable a wish, by one, too, for whom heintended such solid services. But it is only his querulousness, thoughthe; and so filling his glass he proceeded to business. 

The price of the sails and other matters was fixed upon. But while thiswas being done, the American observed that, though his original offer ofassistance had been hailed with hectic animation, yet now when it wasreduced to a business transaction, indifference and apathy werebetrayed. Don Benito, in fact, appeared to submit to hearing the detailsmore out of regard to common propriety, than from any impression thatweighty benefit to himself and his voyage was involved. 

Soon, his manner became still more reserved. The effort was vain to seekto draw him into social talk. Gnawed by his splenetic mood, he sattwitching his beard, while to little purpose the hand of his servant, mute as that on the wall, slowly pushed over the Canary. 

Lunch being over, they sat down on the cushioned transom; the servantplacing a pillow behind his master. The long continuance of the calm hadnow affected the atmosphere. Don Benito sighed heavily, as if forbreath. 

"Why not adjourn to the cuddy, " said Captain Delano; "there is more airthere. " But the host sat silent and motionless. 

Meantime his servant knelt before him, with a large fan of feathers. AndFrancesco coming in on tiptoes, handed the negro a little cup ofaromatic waters, with which at intervals he chafed his master's brow;smoothing the hair along the temples as a nurse does a child's. He spokeno word. He only rested his eye on his master's, as if, amid all DonBenito's distress, a little to refresh his spirit by the silent sightof fidelity. 

Presently the ship's bell sounded two o'clock; and through the cabinwindows a slight rippling of the sea was discerned; and from the desireddirection. 

"There, " exclaimed Captain Delano, "I told you so, Don Benito, look!"

He had risen to his feet, speaking in a very animated tone, with a viewthe more to rouse his companion. But though the crimson curtain of thestern-window near him that moment fluttered against his pale cheek, DonBenito seemed to have even less welcome for the breeze than the calm. 

Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, bitter experience has taught himthat one ripple does not make a wind, any more than one swallow asummer. But he is mistaken for once. I will get his ship in for him, andprove it. 

Briefly alluding to his weak condition, he urged his host to remainquietly where he was, since he (Captain Delano) would with pleasure takeupon himself the responsibility of making the best use of the wind. 

Upon gaining the deck, Captain Delano started at the unexpected figureof Atufal, monumentally fixed at the threshold, like one of thosesculptured porters of black marble guarding the porches of Egyptiantombs. 

But this time the start was, perhaps, purely physical. Atufal'spresence, singularly attesting docility even in sullenness, wascontrasted with that of the hatchet-polishers, who in patience evincedtheir industry; while both spectacles showed, that lax as Don Benito'sgeneral authority might be, still, whenever he chose to exert it, no manso savage or colossal but must, more or less, bow. 

Snatching a trumpet which hung from the bulwarks, with a free stepCaptain Delano advanced to the forward edge of the poop, issuing hisorders in his best Spanish. The few sailors and many negroes, allequally pleased, obediently set about heading the ship towards theharbor. 

While giving some directions about setting a lower stu'n'-sail, suddenlyCaptain Delano heard a voice faithfully repeating his orders. Turning, he saw Babo, now for the time acting, under the pilot, his originalpart of captain of the slaves. This assistance proved valuable. Tatteredsails and warped yards were soon brought into some trim. And no brace orhalyard was pulled but to the blithe songs of the inspirited negroes. 

Good fellows, thought Captain Delano, a little training would make finesailors of them. Why see, the very women pull and sing too. These mustbe some of those Ashantee negresses that make such capital soldiers, I've heard. But who's at the helm. I must have a good hand there. 

He went to see. 

The San Dominick steered with a cumbrous tiller, with large horizontalpullies attached. At each pully-end stood a subordinate black, andbetween them, at the tiller-head, the responsible post, a Spanishseaman, whose countenance evinced his due share in the generalhopefulness and confidence at the coming of the breeze. 

He proved the same man who had behaved with so shame-faced an air on thewindlass. 

"Ah, --it is you, my man, " exclaimed Captain Delano--"well, no moresheep's-eyes now;--look straight forward and keep the ship so. Goodhand, I trust? And want to get into the harbor, don't you?"

The man assented with an inward chuckle, grasping the tiller-headfirmly. Upon this, unperceived by the American, the two blacks eyed thesailor intently. 

Finding all right at the helm, the pilot went forward to the forecastle, to see how matters stood there. 

The ship now had way enough to breast the current. With the approach ofevening, the breeze would be sure to freshen. 

Having done all that was needed for the present, Captain Delano, givinghis last orders to the sailors, turned aft to report affairs to DonBenito in the cabin; perhaps additionally incited to rejoin him by thehope of snatching a moment's private chat while the servant was engagedupon deck. 

From opposite sides, there were, beneath the poop, two approaches to thecabin; one further forward than the other, and consequentlycommunicating with a longer passage. Marking the servant still above, Captain Delano, taking the nighest entrance--the one last named, and atwhose porch Atufal still stood--hurried on his way, till, arrived at thecabin threshold, he paused an instant, a little to recover from hiseagerness. Then, with the words of his intended business upon his lips, he entered. As he advanced toward the seated Spaniard, he heard anotherfootstep, keeping time with his. From the opposite door, a salver inhand, the servant was likewise advancing. 

"Confound the faithful fellow, " thought Captain Delano; "what avexatious coincidence. "

Possibly, the vexation might have been something different, were it notfor the brisk confidence inspired by the breeze. But even as it was, hefelt a slight twinge, from a sudden indefinite association in his mindof Babo with Atufal. 

"Don Benito, " said he, "I give you joy; the breeze will hold, and willincrease. By the way, your tall man and time-piece, Atufal, standswithout. By your order, of course?"

Don Benito recoiled, as if at some bland satirical touch, delivered withsuch adroit garnish of apparent good breeding as to present no handlefor retort. 

He is like one flayed alive, thought Captain Delano; where may one touchhim without causing a shrink?

The servant moved before his master, adjusting a cushion; recalled tocivility, the Spaniard stiffly replied: "you are right. The slaveappears where you saw him, according to my command; which is, that if atthe given hour I am below, he must take his stand and abide my coming. "

"Ah now, pardon me, but that is treating the poor fellow like an ex-kingindeed. Ah, Don Benito, " smiling, "for all the license you permit insome things, I fear lest, at bottom, you are a bitter hard master. "

Again Don Benito shrank; and this time, as the good sailor thought, froma genuine twinge of his conscience. 

Again conversation became constrained. In vain Captain Delano calledattention to the now perceptible motion of the keel gently cleaving thesea; with lack-lustre eye, Don Benito returned words few and reserved. 

By-and-by, the wind having steadily risen, and still blowing right intothe harbor bore the San Dominick swiftly on. Sounding a point of land, the sealer at distance came into open view. 

Meantime Captain Delano had again repaired to the deck, remaining theresome time. Having at last altered the ship's course, so as to give thereef a wide berth, he returned for a few moments below. 

I will cheer up my poor friend, this time, thought he. 

"Better and better, " Don Benito, he cried as he blithely re-entered:"there will soon be an end to your cares, at least for awhile. For when, after a long, sad voyage, you know, the anchor drops into the haven, allits vast weight seems lifted from the captain's heart. We are getting onfamously, Don Benito. My ship is in sight. Look through this side-lighthere; there she is; all a-taunt-o! The Bachelor's Delight, my goodfriend. Ah, how this wind braces one up. Come, you must take a cup ofcoffee with me this evening. My old steward will give you as fine a cupas ever any sultan tasted. What say you, Don Benito, will you?"

At first, the Spaniard glanced feverishly up, casting a longing looktowards the sealer, while with mute concern his servant gazed into hisface. Suddenly the old ague of coldness returned, and dropping back tohis cushions he was silent. 

"You do not answer. Come, all day you have been my host; would you havehospitality all on one side?"

"I cannot go, " was the response. 

"What? it will not fatigue you. The ships will lie together as near asthey can, without swinging foul. It will be little more than steppingfrom deck to deck; which is but as from room to room. Come, come, youmust not refuse me. "

"I cannot go, " decisively and repulsively repeated Don Benito. 

Renouncing all but the last appearance of courtesy, with a sort ofcadaverous sullenness, and biting his thin nails to the quick, heglanced, almost glared, at his guest, as if impatient that a stranger'spresence should interfere with the full indulgence of his morbid hour. Meantime the sound of the parted waters came more and more gurglinglyand 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 carednot 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 orsourness previously evinced, that even the forbearing good-nature of hisguest could no longer endure it. Wholly at a loss to account for suchdemeanor, and deeming sickness with eccentricity, however extreme, noadequate excuse, well satisfied, too, that nothing in his own conductcould justify it, Captain Delano's pride began to be roused. Himselfbecame 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. Thewhale-boat was seen darting over the interval. 

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

Before returning to his own vessel, Captain Delano had intendedcommunicating to Don Benito the smaller details of the proposed servicesto be rendered. But, as it was, unwilling anew to subject himself torebuffs, he resolved, now that he had seen the San Dominick safelymoored, immediately to quit her, without further allusion to hospitalityor business. Indefinitely postponing his ulterior plans, he wouldregulate his future actions according to future circumstances. His boatwas ready to receive him; but his host still tarried below. Well, thought Captain Delano, if he has little breeding, the more need to showmine. He descended to the cabin to bid a ceremonious, and, it may be, tacitly rebukeful adieu. But to his great satisfaction, Don Benito, asif he began to feel the weight of that treatment with which his slightedguest had, not indecorously, retaliated upon him, now supported by hisservant, rose to his feet, and grasping Captain Delano's hand, stoodtremulous; too much agitated to speak. But the good augury hence drawnwas suddenly dashed, by his resuming all his previous reserve, withaugmented gloom, as, with half-averted eyes, he silently reseatedhimself on his cushions. With a corresponding return of his own chilledfeelings, Captain Delano bowed and withdrew. 

He was hardly midway in the narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel, leadingfrom the cabin to the stairs, when a sound, as of the tolling forexecution in some jail-yard, fell on his ears. It was the echo of theship's flawed bell, striking the hour, drearily reverberated in thissubterranean vault. Instantly, by a fatality not to be withstood, hismind, responsive to the portent, swarmed with superstitious suspicions. He paused. In images far swifter than these sentences, the minutestdetails of all his former distrusts swept through him. 

Hitherto, credulous good-nature had been too ready to furnish excusesfor reasonable fears. Why was the Spaniard, so superfluously punctiliousat times, now heedless of common propriety in not accompanying to theside his departing guest? Did indisposition forbid? Indisposition hadnot forbidden more irksome exertion that day. His last equivocaldemeanor recurred. He had risen to his feet, grasped his guest's hand, motioned toward his hat; then, in an instant, all was eclipsed insinister muteness and gloom. Did this imply one brief, repentantrelenting at the final moment, from some iniquitous plot, followed byremorseless return to it? His last glance seemed to express acalamitous, yet acquiescent farewell to Captain Delano forever. Whydecline the invitation to visit the sealer that evening? Or was theSpaniard less hardened than the Jew, who refrained not from supping atthe board of him whom the same night he meant to betray? What importedall those day-long enigmas and contradictions, except they were intendedto mystify, preliminary to some stealthy blow? Atufal, the pretendedrebel, but punctual shadow, that moment lurked by the threshold without. He seemed a sentry, and more. Who, by his own confession, had stationedhim there? Was the negro now lying in wait?

The Spaniard behind--his creature before: to rush from darkness tolight was the involuntary choice. 

The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed Atufal, and stoodunharmed in the light. As he saw his trim ship lying peacefully atanchor, and almost within ordinary call; as he saw his household boat, with familiar faces in it, patiently rising and falling, on the shortwaves by the San Dominick's side; and then, glancing about the deckswhere he stood, saw the oakum-pickers still gravely plying theirfingers; and heard the low, buzzing whistle and industrious hum of thehatchet-polishers, still bestirring themselves over their endlessoccupation; and more than all, as he saw the benign aspect of nature, taking her innocent repose in the evening; the screened sun in the quietcamp of the west shining out like the mild light from Abraham's tent; ascharmed eye and ear took in all these, with the chained figure of theblack, clenched jaw and hand relaxed. Once again he smiled at thephantoms which had mocked him, and felt something like a tinge ofremorse, that, by harboring them even for a moment, he should, byimplication, have betrayed an atheist doubt of the ever-watchfulProvidence above. 

There was a few minutes' delay, while, in obedience to his orders, theboat was being hooked along to the gangway. During this interval, a sortof saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano, at thinking of thekindly offices he had that day discharged for a stranger. Ah, thoughthe, after good actions one's conscience is never ungrateful, howevermuch so the benefited party may be. 

Presently, his foot, in the first act of descent into the boat, pressedthe first round of the side-ladder, his face presented inward upon thedeck. In the same moment, he heard his name courteously sounded; and, tohis pleased surprise, saw Don Benito advancing--an unwonted energy inhis air, as if, at the last moment, intent upon making amends for hisrecent discourtesy. With instinctive good feeling, Captain Delano, withdrawing 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'shand on his naked shoulder, and gently holding it there, formed himselfinto a sort of crutch. 

When the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the hand ofthe 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; hisapparent coldness has deceived me: in no instance has he meant tooffend. 

Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might too muchunstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it. And so, still presenting himself as a crutch, and walking between the twocaptains, he advanced with them towards the gangway; while still, as iffull of kindly contrition, Don Benito would not let go the hand ofCaptain Delano, but retained it in his, across the black's body. 

Soon they were standing by the side, looking over into the boat, whosecrew turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a moment for the Spaniard torelinquish his hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano lifted his foot, to overstep the threshold of the open gangway; but still Don Benitowould not let go his hand. And yet, with an agitated tone, he said, "Ican go no further; here I must bid you adieu. Adieu, my dear, dear DonAmasa. Go--go!" suddenly tearing his hand loose, "go, and God guard youbetter than me, my best friend. "

Not unaffected, Captain Delano would now have lingered; but catching themeekly admonitory eye of the servant, with a hasty farewell he descendedinto his boat, followed by the continual adieus of Don Benito, standingrooted in the gangway. 

Seating himself in the stern, Captain Delano, making a last salute, ordered the boat shoved off. The crew had their oars on end. The bowsmenpushed the boat a sufficient distance for the oars to be lengthwisedropped. The instant that was done, Don Benito sprang over the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain Delano; at the same time calling towardshis ship, but in tones so frenzied, that none in the boat couldunderstand him. But, as if not equally obtuse, three sailors, fromthree different and distant parts of the ship, splashed into the sea, swimming after their captain, as if intent upon his rescue. 

The dismayed officer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant. Towhich, Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile upon the unaccountableSpaniard, answered that, for his part, he neither knew nor cared; but itseemed as if Don Benito had taken it into his head to produce theimpression among his people that the boat wanted to kidnap him. "Orelse--give way for your lives, " he wildly added, starting at aclattering hubbub in the ship, above which rang the tocsin of thehatchet-polishers; and seizing Don Benito by the throat he added, "thisplotting pirate means murder!" Here, in apparent verification of thewords, the servant, a dagger in his hand, was seen on the rail overhead, poised, in the act of leaping, as if with desperate fidelity to befriendhis master to the last; while, seemingly to aid the black, the threewhite sailors were trying to clamber into the hampered bow. Meantime, the whole host of negroes, as if inflamed at the sight of theirjeopardized captain, impended in one sooty avalanche over the bulwarks. 

All this, with what preceded, and what followed, occurred with suchinvolutions of rapidity, that past, present, and future seemed one. 

Seeing the negro coming, Captain Delano had flung the Spaniard aside, almost in the very act of clutching him, and, by the unconscious recoil, shifting his place, with arms thrown up, so promptly grappled theservant in his descent, that with dagger presented at Captain Delano'sheart, the black seemed of purpose to have leaped there as to his mark. But the weapon was wrenched away, and the assailant dashed down into thebottom of the boat, which now, with disentangled oars, began to speedthrough the sea. 

At this juncture, the left hand of Captain Delano, on one side, againclutched the half-reclined Don Benito, heedless that he was in aspeechless faint, while his right-foot, on the other side, ground theprostrate negro; and his right arm pressed for added speed on the afteroar, his eye bent forward, encouraging his men to their utmost. 

But here, the officer of the boat, who had at last succeeded in beatingoff the towing sailors, and was now, with face turned aft, assisting thebowsman at his oar, suddenly called to Captain Delano, to see what theblack was about; while a Portuguese oarsman shouted to him to give heedto what the Spaniard was saying. 

Glancing down at his feet, Captain Delano saw the freed hand of theservant aiming with a second dagger--a small one, before concealed inhis wool--with this he was snakishly writhing up from the boat's bottom, at the heart of his master, his countenance lividly vindictive, expressing the centred purpose of his soul; while the Spaniard, half-choked, was vainly shrinking away, with husky words, incoherent toall but the Portuguese. 

That moment, across the long-benighted mind of Captain Delano, a flashof revelation swept, illuminating, in unanticipated clearness, hishost's whole mysterious demeanor, with every enigmatic event of the day, as well as the entire past voyage of the San Dominick. He smote Babo'shand down, but his own heart smote him harder. With infinite pity hewithdrew his hold from Don Benito. Not Captain Delano, but Don Benito, the black, in leaping into the boat, had intended to stab. 

Both the black's hands were held, as, glancing up towards the SanDominick, Captain Delano, now with scales dropped from his eyes, saw thenegroes, not in misrule, not in tumult, not as if frantically concernedfor Don Benito, but with mask torn away, flourishing hatchets andknives, in ferocious piratical revolt. Like delirious black dervishes, the six Ashantees danced on the poop. Prevented by their foes fromspringing into the water, the Spanish boys were hurrying up to thetopmost spars, while such of the few Spanish sailors, not already in thesea, less alert, were descried, helplessly mixed in, on deck, with theblacks. 

Meantime Captain Delano hailed his own vessel, ordering the ports up, and the guns run out. But by this time the cable of the San Dominick hadbeen cut; and the fag-end, in lashing out, whipped away the canvasshroud about the beak, suddenly revealing, as the bleached hull swunground towards the open ocean, death for the figure-head, in a humanskeleton; chalky comment on the chalked words below, "_Follow yourleader_. "

At the sight, Don Benito, covering his face, wailed out: "'Tis he, Aranda! my murdered, unburied friend!"

Upon reaching the sealer, calling for ropes, Captain Delano bound thenegro, who made no resistance, and had him hoisted to the deck. He wouldthen have assisted the now almost helpless Don Benito up the side; butDon Benito, wan as he was, refused to move, or be moved, until the negroshould have been first put below out of view. When, presently assuredthat it was done, he no more shrank from the ascent. 

The boat was immediately dispatched back to pick up the three swimmingsailors. Meantime, the guns were in readiness, though, owing to the SanDominick having glided somewhat astern of the sealer, only the aftermostone could be brought to bear. With this, they fired six times; thinkingto cripple the fugitive ship by bringing down her spars. But only a fewinconsiderable ropes were shot away. Soon the ship was beyond the gun'srange, steering broad out of the bay; the blacks thickly clusteringround the bowsprit, one moment with taunting cries towards the whites, the next with upthrown gestures hailing the now dusky moors ofocean--cawing crows escaped from the hand of the fowler. 

The first impulse was to slip the cables and give chase. But, uponsecond thoughts, to pursue with whale-boat and yawl seemed morepromising. 

Upon inquiring of Don Benito what firearms they had on board the SanDominick, Captain Delano was answered that they had none that could beused; because, in the earlier stages of the mutiny, a cabin-passenger, since dead, had secretly put out of order the locks of what few musketsthere were. But with all his remaining strength, Don Benito entreatedthe American not to give chase, either with ship or boat; for thenegroes had already proved themselves such desperadoes, that, in case ofa present assault, nothing but a total massacre of the whites could belooked for. But, regarding this warning as coming from one whose spirithad been crushed by misery the American did not give up his design. 

The boats were got ready and armed. Captain Delano ordered his men intothem. He was going himself when Don Benito grasped his arm. 

"What! have you saved my life, Señor, and are you now going to throwaway your own?"

The officers also, for reasons connected with their interests and thoseof the voyage, and a duty owing to the owners, strongly objected againsttheir commander's going. Weighing their remonstrances a moment, CaptainDelano felt bound to remain; appointing his chief mate--an athletic andresolute man, who had been a privateer's-man--to head the party. Themore to encourage the sailors, they were told, that the Spanish captainconsidered his ship good as lost; that she and her cargo, including somegold and silver, were worth more than a thousand doubloons. Take her, and no small part should be theirs. The sailors replied with a shout. 

The fugitives had now almost gained an offing. It was nearly night; butthe moon was rising. After hard, prolonged pulling, the boats came up onthe ship's quarters, at a suitable distance laying upon their oars todischarge their muskets. Having no bullets to return, the negroes senttheir yells. But, upon the second volley, Indian-like, they hurtledtheir hatchets. One took off a sailor's fingers. Another struck thewhale-boat's bow, cutting off the rope there, and remaining stuck in thegunwale like a woodman's axe. Snatching it, quivering from its lodgment, the mate hurled it back. The returned gauntlet now stuck in the ship'sbroken quarter-gallery, and so remained. 

The negroes giving too hot a reception, the whites kept a morerespectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtlinghatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought to decoy the blacks into entirely disarming themselves of theirmost murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly flingingthem, as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But, ere long, perceiving the stratagem, the negroes desisted, though not before manyof them had to replace their lost hatchets with handspikes; an exchangewhich, as counted upon, proved, in the end, favorable to the assailants. 

Meantime, with a strong wind, the ship still clove the water; the boatsalternately falling behind, and pulling up, to discharge fresh volleys. 

The fire was mostly directed towards the stern, since there, chiefly, the negroes, at present, were clustering. But to kill or maim thenegroes was not the object. To take them, with the ship, was the object. To do it, the ship must be boarded; which could not be done by boatswhile she was sailing so fast. 

A thought now struck the mate. Observing the Spanish boys still aloft, high as they could get, he called to them to descend to the yards, andcut adrift the sails. It was done. About this time, owing to causeshereafter to be shown, two Spaniards, in the dress of sailors, andconspicuously showing themselves, were killed; not by volleys, but bydeliberate marksman's shots; while, as it afterwards appeared, by oneof the general discharges, Atufal, the black, and the Spaniard at thehelm likewise were killed. What now, with the loss of the sails, andloss of leaders, the ship became unmanageable to the negroes. 

With creaking masts, she came heavily round to the wind; the prow slowlyswinging into view of the boats, its skeleton gleaming in the horizontalmoonlight, and casting a gigantic ribbed shadow upon the water. Oneextended arm of the ghost seemed beckoning the whites to avenge it. 

"Follow your leader!" cried the mate; and, one on each bow, the boatsboarded. Sealing-spears and cutlasses crossed hatchets and hand-spikes. Huddled upon the long-boat amidships, the negresses raised a wailingchant, whose chorus was the clash of the steel. 

For a time, the attack wavered; the negroes wedging themselves to beatit back; the half-repelled sailors, as yet unable to gain a footing, fighting as troopers in the saddle, one leg sideways flung over thebulwarks, and one without, plying their cutlasses like carters' whips. But in vain. They were almost overborne, when, rallying themselves intoa squad as one man, with a huzza, they sprang inboard, where, entangled, they involuntarily separated again. For a few breaths' space, there wasa vague, muffled, inner sound, as of submerged sword-fish rushing hitherand thither through shoals of black-fish. Soon, in a reunited band, andjoined by the Spanish seamen, the whites came to the surface, irresistibly driving the negroes toward the stern. But a barricade ofcasks and sacks, from side to side, had been thrown up by the main-mast. Here the negroes faced about, and though scorning peace or truce, yetfain would have had respite. But, without pause, overleaping thebarrier, the unflagging sailors again closed. Exhausted, the blacks nowfought in despair. Their red tongues lolled, wolf-like, from their blackmouths. But the pale sailors' teeth were set; not a word was spoken;and, in five minutes more, the ship was won. 

Nearly a score of the negroes were killed. Exclusive of those by theballs, many were mangled; their wounds--mostly inflicted by thelong-edged sealing-spears, resembling those shaven ones of the Englishat Preston Pans, made by the poled scythes of the Highlanders. On theother side, none were killed, though several were wounded; someseverely, including the mate. The surviving negroes were temporarilysecured, and the ship, towed back into the harbor at midnight, once morelay anchored. 

Omitting the incidents and arrangements ensuing, suffice it that, aftertwo days spent in refitting, the ships sailed in company for Conception, in Chili, and thence for Lima, in Peru; where, before the vice-regalcourts, the whole affair, from the beginning, underwent investigation. 

Though, midway on the passage, the ill-fated Spaniard, relaxed fromconstraint, showed some signs of regaining health with free-will; yet, agreeably to his own foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, herelapsed, finally becoming so reduced as to be carried ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and plight, one of the many religious institutionsof the City of Kings opened an hospitable refuge to him, where bothphysician and priest were his nurses, and a member of the ordervolunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, by night and byday. 

The following extracts, translated from one of the official Spanishdocuments, will, it is hoped, shed light on the preceding narrative, aswell as, in the first place, reveal the true port of departure and truehistory of the San Dominick's voyage, down to the time of her touchingat the island of St. Maria. 

But, ere the extracts come, it may be well to preface them with aremark. 

The document selected, from among many others, for partial translation, contains the deposition of Benito Cereno; the first taken in the case. Some disclosures therein were, at the time, held dubious for bothlearned and natural reasons. The tribunal inclined to the opinion thatthe deponent, not undisturbed in his mind by recent events, raved ofsome things which could never have happened. But subsequent depositionsof the surviving sailors, bearing out the revelations of their captainin several of the strangest particulars, gave credence to the rest. Sothat the tribunal, in its final decision, rested its capital sentencesupon statements which, had they lacked confirmation, it would havedeemed it but duty to reject. 

 * * * * *

I, DON JOSE DE ABOS AND PADILLA, His Majesty's Notary for the RoyalRevenue, and Register of this Province, and Notary Public of the HolyCrusade of this Bishopric, etc. 

Do certify and declare, as much as is requisite in law, that, in thecriminal cause commenced the twenty-fourth of the month of September, inthe year seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, against the negroes of theship San Dominick, the following declaration before me was made:

 _Declaration of the first witness_, DON BENITO CERENO. 

 The same day, and month, and year, His Honor, Doctor Juan Martinez de Rozas, Councilor of the Royal Audience of this Kingdom, and learned in the law of this Intendency, ordered the captain of the ship San Dominick, Don Benito Cereno, to appear; which he did, in his litter, attended by the monk Infelez; of whom he received the oath, which he took by God, our Lord, and a sign of the Cross; under which he promised to tell the truth of whatever he should know and should be asked;--and being interrogated agreeably to the tenor of the act commencing the process, he said, that on the twentieth of May last, he set sail with his ship from the port of Valparaiso, bound to that of Callao; loaded with the produce of the country beside thirty cases of hardware and one hundred and sixty blacks, of both sexes, mostly belonging to Don Alexandro Aranda, gentleman, of the city of Mendoza; that the crew of the ship consisted of thirty-six men, beside the persons who went as passengers; that the negroes were in part as follows:

 [_Here, in the original, follows a list of some fifty names, descriptions, and ages, compiled from certain recovered documents of Aranda's, and also from recollections of the deponent, from which portions only are extracted. _]

 --One, from about eighteen to nineteen years, named José, and this was the man that waited upon his master, Don Alexandro, and who speaks well the Spanish, having served him four or five years; * * * a mulatto, named Francesco, the cabin steward, of a good person and voice, having sung in the Valparaiso churches, native of the province of Buenos Ayres, aged about thirty-five years. * * * A smart negro, named Dago, who had been for many years a grave-digger among the Spaniards, aged forty-six years. * * * Four old negroes, born in Africa, from sixty to seventy, but sound, calkers by trade, whose names are as follows:--the first was named Muri, and he was killed (as was also his son named Diamelo); the second, Nacta; the third, Yola, likewise killed; the fourth, Ghofan; and six full-grown negroes, aged from thirty to forty-five, all raw, and born among the Ashantees--Matiluqui, Yan, Leche, Mapenda, Yambaio, Akim; four of whom were killed; * * * a powerful negro named Atufal, who being supposed to have been a chief in Africa, his owner set great store by him. * * * And a small negro of Senegal, but some years among the Spaniards, aged about thirty, which negro's name was Babo; * * * that he does not remember the names of the others, but that still expecting the residue of Don Alexandra's papers will be found, will then take due account of them all, and remit to the court; * * * and thirty-nine women and children of all ages. 

 [_The catalogue over, the deposition goes on_]

 * * * That all the negroes slept upon deck, as is customary in this navigation, and none wore fetters, because the owner, his friend Aranda, told him that they were all tractable; * * * that on the seventh day after leaving port, at three o'clock in the morning, all the Spaniards being asleep except the two officers on the watch, who were the boatswain, Juan Robles, and the carpenter, Juan Bautista Gayete, and the helmsman and his boy, the negroes revolted suddenly, wounded dangerously the boatswain and the carpenter, and successively killed eighteen men of those who were sleeping upon deck, some with hand-spikes and hatchets, and others by throwing them alive overboard, after tying them; that of the Spaniards upon deck, they left about seven, as he thinks, alive and tied, to manoeuvre the ship, and three or four more, who hid themselves, remained also alive. Although in the act of revolt the negroes made themselves masters of the hatchway, six or seven wounded went through it to the cockpit, without any hindrance on their part; that during the act of revolt, the mate and another person, whose name he does not recollect, attempted to come up through the hatchway, but being quickly wounded, were obliged to return to the cabin; that the deponent resolved at break of day to come up the companion-way, where the negro Babo was, being the ringleader, and Atufal, who assisted him, and having spoken to them, exhorted them to cease committing such atrocities, asking them, at the same time, what they wanted and intended to do, offering, himself, to obey their commands; that notwithstanding this, they threw, in his presence, three men, alive and tied, overboard; that they told the deponent to come up, and that they would not kill him; which having done, the negro Babo asked him whether there were in those seas any negro countries where they might be carried, and he answered them, No; that the negro Babo afterwards told him to carry them to Senegal, or to the neighboring islands of St. Nicholas; and he answered, that this was impossible, on account of the great distance, the necessity involved of rounding Cape Horn, the bad condition of the vessel, the want of provisions, sails, and water; but that the negro Babo replied to him he must carry them in any way; that they would do and conform themselves to everything the deponent should require as to eating and drinking; that after a long conference, being absolutely compelled to please them, for they threatened to kill all the whites if they were not, at all events, carried to Senegal, he told them that what was most wanting for the voyage was water; that they would go near the coast to take it, and thence they would proceed on their course; that the negro Babo agreed to it; and the deponent steered towards the intermediate ports, hoping to meet some Spanish, or foreign vessel that would save them; that within ten or eleven days they saw the land, and continued their course by it in the vicinity of Nasca; that the deponent observed that the negroes were now restless and mutinous, because he did not effect the taking in of water, the negro Babo having required, with threats, that it should be done, without fail, the following day; he told him he saw plainly that the coast was steep, and the rivers designated in the maps were not to be found, with other reasons suitable to the circumstances; that the best way would be to go to the island of Santa Maria, where they might water easily, it being a solitary island, as the foreigners did; that the deponent did not go to Pisco, that was near, nor make any other port of the coast, because the negro Babo had intimated to him several times, that he would kill all the whites the very moment he should perceive any city, town, or settlement of any kind on the shores to which they should be carried: that having determined to go to the island of Santa Maria, as the deponent had planned, for the purpose of trying whether, on the passage or near the island itself, they could find any vessel that should favor them, or whether he could escape from it in a boat to the neighboring coast of Arruco, to adopt the necessary means he immediately changed his course, steering for the island; that the negroes Babo and Atufal held daily conferences, in which they discussed what was necessary for their design of returning to Senegal, whether they were to kill all the Spaniards, and particularly the deponent; that eight days after parting from the coast of Nasca, the deponent being on the watch a little after day-break, and soon after the negroes had their meeting, the negro Babo came to the place where the deponent was, and told him that he had determined to kill his master, Don Alexandro Aranda, both because he and his companions could not otherwise be sure of their liberty, and that to keep the seamen in subjection, he wanted to prepare a warning of what road they should be made to take did they or any of them oppose him; and that, by means of the death of Don Alexandro, that warning would best be given; but, that what this last meant, the deponent did not at the time comprehend, nor could not, further than that the death of Don Alexandro was intended; and moreover the negro Babo proposed to the deponent to call the mate Raneds, who was sleeping in the cabin, before the thing was done, for fear, as the deponent understood it, that the mate, who was a good navigator, should be killed with Don Alexandro and the rest; that the deponent, who was the friend, from youth, of Don Alexandro, prayed and conjured, but all was useless; for the negro Babo answered him that the thing could not be prevented, and that all the Spaniards risked their death if they should attempt to frustrate his will in this matter, or any other; that, in this conflict, the deponent called the mate, Raneds, who was forced to go apart, and immediately the negro Babo commanded the Ashantee Martinqui and the Ashantee Lecbe to go and commit the murder; that those two went down with hatchets to the berth of Don Alexandro; that, yet half alive and mangled, they dragged him on deck; that they were going to throw him overboard in that state, but the negro Babo stopped them, bidding the murder be completed on the deck before him, which was done, when, by his orders, the body was carried below, forward; that nothing more was seen of it by the deponent for three days; * * * that Don Alonzo Sidonia, an old man, long resident at Valparaiso, and lately appointed to a civil office in Peru, whither he had taken passage, was at the time sleeping in the berth opposite Don Alexandro's; that awakening at his cries, surprised by them, and at the sight of the negroes with their bloody hatchets in their hands, he threw himself into the sea through a window which was near him, and was drowned, without it being in the power of the deponent to assist or take him up; * * * that a short time after killing Aranda, they brought upon deck his german-cousin, of middle-age, Don Francisco Masa, of Mendoza, and the young Don Joaquin, Marques de Aramboalaza, then lately from Spain, with his Spanish servant Ponce, and the three young clerks of Aranda, José Mozairi Lorenzo Bargas, and Hermenegildo Gandix, all of Cadiz; that Don Joaquin and Hermenegildo Gandix, the negro Babo, for purposes hereafter to appear, preserved alive; but Don Francisco Masa, José Mozairi, and Lorenzo Bargas, with Ponce the servant, beside the boatswain, Juan Robles, the boatswain's mates, Manuel Viscaya and Roderigo Hurta, and four of the sailors, the negro Babo ordered to be thrown alive into the sea, although they made no resistance, nor begged for anything else but mercy; that the boatswain, Juan Robles, who knew how to swim, kept the longest above water, making acts of contrition, and, in the last words he uttered, charged this deponent to cause mass to be said for his soul to our Lady of Succor: * * * that, during the three days which followed, the deponent, uncertain what fate had befallen the remains of Don Alexandro, frequently asked the negro Babo where they were, and, if still on board, whether they were to be preserved for interment ashore, entreating him so to order it; that the negro Babo answered nothing till the fourth day, when at sunrise, the deponent coming on deck, the negro Babo showed him a skeleton, which had been substituted for the ship's proper figure-head--the image of Christopher Colon, the discoverer of the New World; that the negro Babo asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white's; that, upon discovering his face, the negro Babo, coming close, said words to this effect: "Keep faith with the blacks from here to Senegal, or you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow your leader, " pointing to the prow; * * * that the same morning the negro Babo took by succession each Spaniard forward, and asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white's; that each Spaniard covered his face; that then to each the negro Babo repeated the words in the first place said to the deponent; * * * that they (the Spaniards), being then assembled aft, the negro Babo harangued them, saying that he had now done all; that the deponent (as navigator for the negroes) might pursue his course, warning him and all of them that they should, soul and body, go the way of Don Alexandro, if he saw them (the Spaniards) speak, or plot anything against them (the negroes)--a threat which was repeated every day; that, before the events last mentioned, they had tied the cook to throw him overboard, for it is not known what thing they heard him speak, but finally the negro Babo spared his life, at the request of the deponent; that a few days after, the deponent, endeavoring not to omit any means to preserve the lives of the remaining whites, spoke to the negroes peace and tranquillity, and agreed to draw up a paper, signed by the deponent and the sailors who could write, as also by the negro Babo, for himself and all the blacks, in which the deponent obliged himself to carry them to Senegal, and they not to kill any more, and he formally to make over to them the ship, with the cargo, with which they were for that time satisfied and quieted. * * But the next day, the more surely to guard against the sailors' escape, the negro Babo commanded all the boats to be destroyed but the long-boat, which was unseaworthy, and another, a cutter in good condition, which knowing it would yet be wanted for towing the water casks, he had it lowered down into the hold. 

 * * * * *

 [_Various particulars of the prolonged and perplexed navigation ensuing here follow, with incidents of a calamitous calm, from which portion one passage is extracted, to wit_:]

 --That on the fifth day of the calm, all on board suffering much from the heat, and want of water, and five having died in fits, and mad, the negroes became irritable, and for a chance gesture, which they deemed suspicious--though it was harmless--made by the mate, Raneds, to the deponent in the act of handing a quadrant, they killed him; but that for this they afterwards were sorry, the mate being the only remaining navigator on board, except the deponent. 

 * * * * *

 --That omitting other events, which daily happened, and which can only serve uselessly to recall past misfortunes and conflicts, after seventy-three days' navigation, reckoned from the time they sailed from Nasca, during which they navigated under a scanty allowance of water, and were afflicted with the calms before mentioned, they at last arrived at the island of Santa Maria, on the seventeenth of the month of August, at about six o'clock in the afternoon, at which hour they cast anchor very near the American ship, Bachelor's Delight, which lay in the same bay, commanded by the generous Captain Amasa Delano; but at six o'clock in the morning, they had already descried the port, and the negroes became uneasy, as soon as at distance they saw the ship, not having expected to see one there; that the negro Babo pacified them, assuring them that no fear need be had; that straightway he ordered the figure on the bow to be covered with canvas, as for repairs and had the decks a little set in order; that for a time the negro Babo and the negro Atufal conferred; that the negro Atufal was for sailing away, but the negro Babo would not, and, by himself, cast about what to do; that at last he came to the deponent, proposing to him to say and do all that the deponent declares to have said and done to the American captain; * * * * * * * that the negro Babo warned him that if he varied in the least, or uttered any word, or gave any look that should give the least intimation of the past events or present state, he would instantly kill him, with all his companions, showing a dagger, which he carried hid, saying something which, as he understood it, meant that that dagger would be alert as his eye; that the negro Babo then announced the plan to all his companions, which pleased them; that he then, the better to disguise the truth, devised many expedients, in some of them uniting deceit and defense; that of this sort was the device of the six Ashantees before named, who were his bravoes; that them he stationed on the break of the poop, as if to clean certain hatchets (in cases, which were part of the cargo), but in reality to use them, and distribute them at need, and at a given word he told them; that, among other devices, was the device of presenting Atufal, his right hand man, as chained, though in a moment the chains could be dropped; that in every particular he informed the deponent what part he was expected to enact in every device, and what story he was to tell on every occasion, always threatening him with instant death if he varied in the least: that, conscious that many of the negroes would be turbulent, the negro Babo appointed the four aged negroes, who were calkers, to keep what domestic order they could on the decks; that again and again he harangued the Spaniards and his companions, informing them of his intent, and of his devices, and of the invented story that this deponent was to tell; charging them lest any of them varied from that story; that these arrangements were made and matured during the interval of two or three hours, between their first sighting the ship and the arrival on board of Captain Amasa Delano; that this happened about half-past seven o'clock in the morning, Captain Amasa Delano coming in his boat, and all gladly receiving him; that the deponent, as well as he could force himself, acting then the part of principal owner, and a free captain of the ship, told Captain Amasa Delano, when called upon, that he came from Buenos Ayres, bound to Lima, with three hundred negroes; that off Cape Horn, and in a subsequent fever, many negroes had died; that also, by similar casualties, all the sea officers and the greatest part of the crew had died. 

 * * * * *

 [_And so the deposition goes on, circumstantially recounting the fictitious story dictated to the deponent by Babo, and through the deponent imposed upon Captain Delano; and also recounting the friendly offers of Captain Delano, with other things, but all of which is here omitted. After the fictitious story, etc. The deposition proceeds_:]

 * * * * *

 --that the generous Captain Amasa Delano remained on board all the day, till he left the ship anchored at six o'clock in the evening, deponent speaking to him always of his pretended misfortunes, under the fore-mentioned principles, without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him the least hint, that he might know the truth and state of things; because the negro Babo, performing the office of an officious servant with all the appearance of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment; that this was in order to observe the deponent's actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there were thereabout some others who were constantly on the watch, and likewise understood the Spanish; * * * that upon one occasion, while deponent was standing on the deck conversing with Amasa Delano, by a secret sign the negro Babo drew him (the deponent) aside, the act appearing as if originating with the deponent; that then, he being drawn aside, the negro Babo proposed to him to gain from Amasa Delano full particulars about his ship, and crew, and arms; that the deponent asked "For what?" that the negro Babo answered he might conceive; that, grieved at the prospect of what might overtake the generous Captain Amasa Delano, the deponent at first refused to ask the desired questions, and used every argument to induce the negro Babo to give up this new design; that the negro Babo showed the point of his dagger; that, after the information had been obtained the negro Babo again drew him aside, telling him that that very night he (the deponent) would be captain of two ships, instead of one, for that, great part of the American's ship's crew being to be absent fishing, the six Ashantees, without any one else, would easily take it; that at this time he said other things to the same purpose; that no entreaties availed; that, before Amasa Delano's coming on board, no hint had been given touching the capture of the American ship: that to prevent this project the deponent was powerless; * * *--that in some things his memory is confused, he cannot distinctly recall every event; * * *--that as soon as they had cast anchor at six of the clock in the evening, as has before been stated, the American Captain took leave, to return to his vessel; that upon a sudden impulse, which the deponent believes to have come from God and his angels, he, after the farewell had been said, followed the generous Captain Amasa Delano as far as the gunwale, where he stayed, under pretense of taking leave, until Amasa Delano should have been seated in his boat; that on shoving off, the deponent sprang from the gunwale into the boat, and fell into it, he knows not how, God guarding him; that--

 * * * * *

 [_Here, in the original, follows the account of what further happened at the escape, and how the San Dominick was retaken, and of the passage to the coast; including in the recital many expressions of "eternal gratitude" to the "generous Captain Amasa Delano. " The deposition then proceeds with recapitulatory remarks, and a partial renumeration of the negroes, making record of their individual part in the past events, with a view to furnishing, according to command of the court, the data whereon to found the criminal sentences to be pronounced. From this portion is the following_;]

 --That he believes that all the negroes, though not in the first place knowing to the design of revolt, when it was accomplished, approved it. * * * That the negro, José, eighteen years old, and in the personal service of Don Alexandro, was the one who communicated the information to the negro Babo, about the state of things in the cabin, before the revolt; that this is known, because, in the preceding midnight, he use to come from his berth, which was under his master's, in the cabin, to the deck where the ringleader and his associates were, and had secret conversations with the negro Babo, in which he was several times seen by the mate; that, one night, the mate drove him away twice; * * that this same negro José was the one who, without being commanded to do so by the negro Babo, as Lecbe and Martinqui were, stabbed his master, Don Alexandro, after be had been dragged half-lifeless to the deck; * * that the mulatto steward, Francesco, was of the first band of revolters, that he was, in all things, the creature and tool of the negro Babo; that, to make his court, he, just before a repast in the cabin, proposed, to the negro Babo, poisoning a dish for the generous Captain Amasa Delano; this is known and believed, because the negroes have said it; but that the negro Babo, having another design, forbade Francesco; * * that the Ashantee Lecbe was one of the worst of them; for that, on the day the ship was retaken, he assisted in the defense of her, with a hatchet in each hand, with one of which he wounded, in the breast, the chief mate of Amasa Delano, in the first act of boarding; this all knew; that, in sight of the deponent, Lecbe struck, with a hatchet, Don Francisco Masa, when, by the negro Babo's orders, he was carrying him to throw him overboard, alive, beside participating in the murder, before mentioned, of Don Alexandro Aranda, and others of the cabin-passengers; that, owing to the fury with which the Ashantees fought in the engagement with the boats, but this Lecbe and Yan survived; that Yan was bad as Lecbe; that Yan was the man who, by Babo's command, willingly prepared the skeleton of Don Alexandro, in a way the negroes afterwards told the deponent, but which he, so long as reason is left him, can never divulge; that Yan and Lecbe were the two who, in a calm by night, riveted the skeleton to the bow; this also the negroes told him; that the negro Babo was he who traced the inscription below it; that the negro Babo was the plotter from first to last; he ordered every murder, and was the helm and keel of the revolt; that Atufal was his lieutenant in all; but Atufal, with his own hand, committed no murder; nor did the negro Babo; * * that Atufal was shot, being killed in the fight with the boats, ere boarding; * * that the negresses, of age, were knowing to the revolt, and testified themselves satisfied at the death of their master, Don Alexandro; that, had the negroes not restrained them, they would have tortured to death, instead of simply killing, the Spaniards slain by command of the negro Babo; that the negresses used their utmost influence to have the deponent made away with; that, in the various acts of murder, they sang songs and danced--not gaily, but solemnly; and before the engagement with the boats, as well as during the action, they sang melancholy songs to the negroes, and that this melancholy tone was more inflaming than a different one would have been, and was so intended; that all this is believed, because the negroes have said it. --that of the thirty-six men of the crew, exclusive of the passengers (all of whom are now dead), which the deponent had knowledge of, six only remained alive, with four cabin-boys and ship-boys, not included with the crew; * *--that the negroes broke an arm of one of the cabin-boys and gave him strokes with hatchets. 

 [_Then follow various random disclosures referring to various periods of time. The following are extracted_;]

 --That during the presence of Captain Amasa Delano on board, some attempts were made by the sailors, and one by Hermenegildo Gandix, to convey hints to him of the true state of affairs; but that these attempts were ineffectual, owing to fear of incurring death, and, futhermore, owing to the devices which offered contradictions to the true state of affairs, as well as owing to the generosity and piety of Amasa Delano incapable of sounding such wickedness; * * * that Luys Galgo, a sailor about sixty years of age, and formerly of the king's navy, was one of those who sought to convey tokens to Captain Amasa Delano; but his intent, though undiscovered, being suspected, he was, on a pretense, made to retire out of sight, and at last into the hold, and there was made away with. This the negroes have since said; * * * that one of the ship-boys feeling, from Captain Amasa Delano's presence, some hopes of release, and not having enough prudence, dropped some chance-word respecting his expectations, which being overheard and understood by a slave-boy with whom he was eating at the time, the latter struck him on the head with a knife, inflicting a bad wound, but of which the boy is now healing; that likewise, not long before the ship was brought to anchor, one of the seamen, steering at the time, endangered himself by letting the blacks remark some expression in his countenance, arising from a cause similar to the above; but this sailor, by his heedful after conduct, escaped; * * * that these statements are made to show the court that from the beginning to the end of the revolt, it was impossible for the deponent and his men to act otherwise than they did; * * *--that the third clerk, Hermenegildo Gandix, who before had been forced to live among the seamen, wearing a seaman's habit, and in all respects appearing to be one for the time; he, Gandix, was killed by a musket ball fired through mistake from the boats before boarding; having in his fright run up the mizzen-rigging, calling to the boats--"don't board, " lest upon their boarding the negroes should kill him; that this inducing the Americans to believe he some way favored the cause of the negroes, they fired two balls at him, so that he fell wounded from the rigging, and was drowned in the sea; * * *--that the young Don Joaquin, Marques de Aramboalaza, like Hermenegildo Gandix, the third clerk, was degraded to the office and appearance of a common seaman; that upon one occasion when Don Joaquin shrank, the negro Babo commanded the Ashantee Lecbe to take tar and heat it, and pour it upon Don Joaquin's hands; * * *--that Don Joaquin was killed owing to another mistake of the Americans, but one impossible to be avoided, as upon the approach of the boats, Don Joaquin, with a hatchet tied edge out and upright to his hand, was made by the negroes to appear on the bulwarks; whereupon, seen with arms in his hands and is a questionable altitude, he was shot for a renegade seaman; * * *--that on the person of Don Joaquin was found secreted a jewel, which, by papers that were discovered, proved to have been meant for the shrine of our Lady of Mercy in Lima; a votive offering, beforehand prepared and guarded, to attest his gratitude, when he should have landed in Peru, his last destination, for the safe conclusion of his entire voyage from Spain; * * *--that the jewel, with the other effects of the late Don Joaquin, is in the custody of the brethren of the Hospital de Sacerdotes, awaiting the disposition of the honorable court; * * *--that, owing to the condition of the deponent, as well as the haste in which the boats departed for the attack, the Americans were not forewarned that there were, among the apparent crew, a passenger and one of the clerks disguised by the negro Babo; * * *--that, beside the negroes killed in the action, some were killed after the capture and re-anchoring at night, when shackled to the ring-bolts on deck; that these deaths were committed by the sailors, ere they could be prevented. That so soon as informed of it, Captain Amasa Delano used all his authority, and, in particular with his own hand, struck down Martinez Gola, who, having found a razor in the pocket of an old jacket of his, which one of the shackled negroes had on, was aiming it at the negro's throat; that the noble Captain Amasa Delano also wrenched from the hand of Bartholomew Barlo a dagger, secreted at the time of the massacre of the whites, with which he was in the act of stabbing a shackled negro, who, the same day, with another negro, had thrown him down and jumped upon him; * * *--that, for all the events, befalling through so long a time, during which the ship was in the hands of the negro Babo, he cannot here give account; but that, what he has said is the most substantial of what occurs to him at present, and is the truth under the oath which he has taken; which declaration he affirmed and ratified, after hearing it read to him. 

 He said that he is twenty-nine years of age, and broken in body and mind; that when finally dismissed by the court, he shall not return home to Chili, but betake himself to the monastery on Mount Agonia without; and signed with his honor, and crossed himself, and, for the time, departed as he came, in his litter, with the monk Infelez, to the Hospital de Sacerdotes. 

 BENITO CERENO. 

 DOCTOR ROZAS. 

If the Deposition have served as the key to fit into the lock of thecomplications which precede it, then, as a vault whose door has beenflung back, the San Dominick's hull lies open to-day. 

Hitherto the nature of this narrative, besides rendering the intricaciesin the beginning unavoidable, has more or less required that manythings, instead of being set down in the order of occurrence, should beretrospectively, or irregularly given; this last is the case with thefollowing passages, which will conclude the account:

During the long, mild voyage to Lima, there was, as before hinted, aperiod during which the sufferer a little recovered his health, or, atleast in some degree, his tranquillity. Ere the decided relapse whichcame, the two captains had many cordial conversations--their fraternalunreserve in singular contrast with former withdrawments. 

Again and again it was repeated, how hard it had been to enact the partforced on the Spaniard by Babo. 

"Ah, my dear friend, " Don Benito once said, "at those very times whenyou thought me so morose and ungrateful, nay, when, as you now admit, you half thought me plotting your murder, at those very times my heartwas frozen; I could not look at you, thinking of what, both on boardthis ship and your own, hung, from other hands, over my kind benefactor. And as God lives, Don Amasa, I know not whether desire for my own safetyalone could have nerved me to that leap into your boat, had it not beenfor the thought that, did you, unenlightened, return to your ship, you, my best friend, with all who might be with you, stolen upon, that night, in your hammocks, would never in this world have wakened again. Do butthink how you walked this deck, how you sat in this cabin, every inch ofground mined into honey-combs under you. Had I dropped the least hint, made the least advance towards an understanding between us, death, explosive death--yours as mine--would have ended the scene. "

"True, true, " cried Captain Delano, starting, "you have saved my life, Don Benito, more than I yours; saved it, too, against my knowledge andwill. "

"Nay, my friend, " rejoined the Spaniard, courteous even to the point ofreligion, "God charmed your life, but you saved mine. To think of somethings you did--those smilings and chattings, rash pointings andgesturings. For less than these, they slew my mate, Raneds; but you hadthe Prince of Heaven's safe-conduct through all ambuscades. "

"Yes, all is owing to Providence, I know: but the temper of my mind thatmorning was more than commonly pleasant, while the sight of so muchsuffering, more apparent than real, added to my good-nature, compassion, and charity, happily interweaving the three. Had it been otherwise, doubtless, as you hint, some of my interferences might have endedunhappily enough. Besides, those feelings I spoke of enabled me to getthe better of momentary distrust, at times when acuteness might havecost me my life, without saving another's. Only at the end did mysuspicions get the better of me, and you know how wide of the mark theythen proved. "

"Wide, indeed, " said Don Benito, sadly; "you were with me all day; stoodwith me, sat with me, talked with me, looked at me, ate with me, drankwith me; and yet, your last act was to clutch for a monster, not only aninnocent man, but the most pitiable of all men. To such degree maymalign machinations and deceptions impose. So far may even the best manerr, in judging the conduct of one with the recesses of whose conditionhe is not acquainted. But you were forced to it; and you were in timeundeceived. Would that, in both respects, it was so ever, and with allmen. "

"You generalize, Don Benito; and mournfully enough. But the past ispassed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun hasforgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turnedover new leaves. "

"Because they have no memory, " he dejectedly replied; "because they arenot human. "

"But these mild trades that now fan your cheek, do they not come with ahuman-like healing to you? Warm friends, steadfast friends are thetrades. "

"With their steadfastness they but waft me to my tomb, Señor, " was theforeboding response. 

"You are saved, " cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished andpained; "you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?"

"The negro. "

There was silence, while the moody man sat, slowly and unconsciouslygathering his mantle about him, as if it were a pall. 

There was no more conversation that day. 

But if the Spaniard's melancholy sometimes ended in muteness upon topicslike the above, there were others upon which he never spoke at all; onwhich, indeed, all his old reserves were piled. Pass over the worst, and, only to elucidate let an item or two of these be cited. The dress, so precise and costly, worn by him on the day whose events have beennarrated, had not willingly been put on. And that silver-mounted sword, apparent symbol of despotic command, was not, indeed, a sword, but theghost of one. The scabbard, artificially stiffened, was empty. 

As for the black--whose brain, not body, had schemed and led the revolt, with the plot--his slight frame, inadequate to that which it held, hadat once yielded to the superior muscular strength of his captor, in theboat. Seeing all was over, he uttered no sound, and could not be forcedto. His aspect seemed to say, since I cannot do deeds, I will not speakwords. Put in irons in the hold, with the rest, he was carried to Lima. During the passage, Don Benito did not visit him. Nor then, nor at anytime after, would he look at him. Before the tribunal he refused. Whenpressed by the judges he fainted. On the testimony of the sailors alonerested the legal identity of Babo. 

Some months after, dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule, theblack met his voiceless end. The body was burned to ashes; but for manydays, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the Plaza, met, unabashed, the gaze of the whites; and across the Plaza lookedtowards St. Bartholomew's church, in whose vaults slept then, as now, the recovered bones of Aranda: and across the Rimac bridge lookedtowards the monastery, on Mount Agonia without; where, three monthsafter being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did, indeed, follow his leader. 

THE LIGHTNING-ROD MAN. 

What grand irregular thunder, thought I, standing on my hearth-stoneamong the Acroceraunian hills, as the scattered bolts boomed overhead, and crashed down among the valleys, every bolt followed by zigzagirradiations, and swift slants of sharp rain, which audibly rang, like acharge of spear-points, on my low shingled roof. I suppose, though, thatthe mountains hereabouts break and churn up the thunder, so that it isfar more glorious here than on the plain. Hark!--someone at the door. Who is this that chooses a time of thunder for making calls? And whydon't he, man-fashion, use the knocker, instead of making that dolefulundertaker's clatter with his fist against the hollow panel? But let himin. Ah, here he comes. "Good day, sir:" an entire stranger. "Pray beseated. " What is that strange-looking walking-stick he carries: "A finethunder-storm, sir. "

"Fine?--Awful!"

"You are wet. Stand here on the hearth before the fire. "

"Not for worlds!"

The stranger still stood in the exact middle of the cottage, where hehad first planted himself. His singularity impelled a closer scrutiny. Alean, gloomy figure. Hair dark and lank, mattedly streaked over hisbrow. His sunken pitfalls of eyes were ringed by indigo halos, andplayed with an innocuous sort of lightning: the gleam without the bolt. The whole man was dripping. He stood in a puddle on the bare oak floor:his strange walking-stick vertically resting at his side. 

It was a polished copper rod, four feet long, lengthwise attached to aneat wooden staff, by insertion into two balls of greenish glass, ringedwith copper bands. The metal rod terminated at the top tripodwise, inthree keen tines, brightly gilt. He held the thing by the wooden partalone. 

"Sir, " said I, bowing politely, "have I the honor of a visit from thatillustrious god, Jupiter Tonans? So stood he in the Greek statue of old, grasping the lightning-bolt. If you be he, or his viceroy, I have tothank you for this noble storm you have brewed among our mountains. Listen: That was a glorious peal. Ah, to a lover of the majestic, it isa good thing to have the Thunderer himself in one's cottage. The thundergrows finer for that. But pray be seated. This old rush-bottomedarm-chair, I grant, is a poor substitute for your evergreen throne onOlympus; but, condescend to be seated. "

While I thus pleasantly spoke, the stranger eyed me, half in wonder, andhalf in a strange sort of horror; but did not move a foot. 

"Do, sir, be seated; you need to be dried ere going forth again. "

I planted the chair invitingly on the broad hearth, where a little firehad been kindled that afternoon to dissipate the dampness, not the cold;for it was early in the month of September. 

But without heeding my solicitation, and still standing in the middle ofthe floor, the stranger gazed at me portentously and spoke. 

"Sir, " said he, "excuse me; but instead of my accepting your invitationto be seated on the hearth there, I solemnly warn _you_, that you hadbest accept _mine_, and stand with me in the middle of the room. Goodheavens!" he cried, starting--"there is another of those awful crashes. I warn you, sir, quit the hearth. "

"Mr. Jupiter Tonans, " said I, quietly rolling my body on the stone, "Istand very well here. "

"Are you so horridly ignorant, then, " he cried, "as not to know, that byfar the most dangerous part of a house, during such a terrific tempestas this, is the fire-place?"

"Nay, I did not know that, " involuntarily stepping upon the first boardnext to the stone. 

The stranger now assumed such an unpleasant air of successfuladmonition, that--quite involuntarily again--I stepped back upon thehearth, and threw myself into the erectest, proudest posture I couldcommand. But I said nothing. 

"For Heaven's sake, " he cried, with a strange mixture of alarm andintimidation--"for Heaven's sake, get off the hearth! Know you not, thatthe heated air and soot are conductors;--to say nothing of thoseimmense iron fire-dogs? Quit the spot--I conjure--I command you. "

"Mr. Jupiter Tonans, I am not accustomed to be commanded in my ownhouse. "

"Call me not by that pagan name. You are profane in this time ofterror. "

"Sir, will you be so good as to tell me your business? If you seekshelter from the storm, you are welcome, so long as you be civil; but ifyou come on business, open it forthwith. Who are you?"

"I am a dealer in lightning-rods, " said the stranger, softening histone; "my special business is--Merciful heaven! what a crash!--Have youever been struck--your premises, I mean? No? It's best to beprovided;"--significantly rattling his metallic staff on the floor;--"bynature, there are no castles in thunder-storms; yet, say but the word, and of this cottage I can make a Gibraltar by a few waves of this wand. Hark, what Himalayas of concussions!"

"You interrupted yourself; your special business you were about to speakof. "

"My special business is to travel the country for orders forlightning-rods. This is my specimen-rod;" tapping his staff; "I have thebest of references"--fumbling in his pockets. "In Criggan last month, Iput up three-and-twenty rods on only five buildings. "

"Let me see. Was it not at Criggan last week, about midnight onSaturday, that the steeple, the big elm, and the assembly-room cupolawere struck? Any of your rods there?"

"Not on the tree and cupola, but the steeple. "

"Of what use is your rod, then?"

"Of life-and-death use. But my workman was heedless. In fitting the rodat top to the steeple, he allowed a part of the metal to graze the tinsheeting. Hence the accident. Not my fault, but his. Hark!"

"Never mind. That clap burst quite loud enough to be heard withoutfinger-pointing. Did you hear of the event at Montreal last year? Aservant girl struck at her bed-side with a rosary in her hand; the beadsbeing metal. Does your beat extend into the Canadas?"

"No. And I hear that there, iron rods only are in use. They should have_mine_, which are copper. Iron is easily fused. Then they draw out therod so slender, that it has not body enough to conduct the full electriccurrent. The metal melts; the building is destroyed. My copper rodsnever act so. Those Canadians are fools. Some of them knob the rod atthe top, which risks a deadly explosion, instead of imperceptiblycarrying down the current into the earth, as this sort of rod does. _Mine_ is the only true rod. Look at it. Only one dollar a foot. "

"This abuse of your own calling in another might make one distrustfulwith respect to yourself. "

"Hark! The thunder becomes less muttering. It is nearing us, and nearingthe earth, too. Hark! One crammed crash! All the vibrations made one bynearness. Another flash. Hold!"

"What do you?" I said, seeing him now, instantaneously relinquishing hisstaff, lean intently forward towards the window, with his right fore andmiddle fingers on his left wrist. But ere the words had well escapedme, another exclamation escaped him. 

"Crash! only three pulses--less than a third of a mile off--yonder, somewhere in that wood. I passed three stricken oaks there, ripped outnew and glittering. The oak draws lightning more than other timber, having iron in solution in its sap. Your floor here seems oak. 

"Heart-of-oak. From the peculiar time of your call upon me, I supposeyou purposely select stormy weather for your journeys. When the thunderis roaring, you deem it an hour peculiarly favorable for producingimpressions favorable to your trade. "

"Hark!--Awful!"

"For one who would arm others with fear you seem unbeseemingly timorousyourself. Common men choose fair weather for their travels: you choosethunder-storms; and yet--"

"That I travel in thunder-storms, I grant; but not without particularprecautions, such as only a lightning-rod man may know. Hark!Quick--look at my specimen rod. Only one dollar a foot. "

"A very fine rod, I dare say. But what are these particular precautionsof yours? Yet first let me close yonder shutters; the slanting rain isbeating through the sash. I will bar up. "

"Are you mad? Know you not that yon iron bar is a swift conductor?Desist. "

"I will simply close the shutters, then, and call my boy to bring me awooden bar. Pray, touch the bell-pull there. 

"Are you frantic? That bell-wire might blast you. Never touch bell-wirein a thunder-storm, nor ring a bell of any sort. "

"Nor those in belfries? Pray, will you tell me where and how one may besafe in a time like this? Is there any part of my house I may touch withhopes of my life?"

"There is; but not where you now stand. Come away from the wall. Thecurrent will sometimes run down a wall, and--a man being a betterconductor than a wall--it would leave the wall and run into him. Swoop!_That_ must have fallen very nigh. That must have been globularlightning. "

"Very probably. Tell me at once, which is, in your opinion, the safestpart of this house?

"This room, and this one spot in it where I stand. Come hither. "

"The reasons first. "

"Hark!--after the flash the gust--the sashes shiver--the house, thehouse!--Come hither to me!"

"The reasons, if you please. "

"Come hither to me!"

"Thank you again, I think I will try my old stand--the hearth. And now, Mr. Lightning-rod-man, in the pauses of the thunder, be so good as totell me your reasons for esteeming this one room of the house thesafest, and your own one stand-point there the safest spot in it. "

There was now a little cessation of the storm for a while. TheLightning-rod man seemed relieved, and replied:--

"Your house is a one-storied house, with an attic and a cellar; thisroom is between. Hence its comparative safety. Because lightningsometimes passes from the clouds to the earth, and sometimes from theearth to the clouds. Do you comprehend?--and I choose the middle of theroom, because if the lightning should strike the house at all, it wouldcome down the chimney or walls; so, obviously, the further you are fromthem, the better. Come hither to me, now. "

"Presently. Something you just said, instead of alarming me, hasstrangely inspired confidence. "

"What have I said?"

"You said that sometimes lightning flashes from the earth to theclouds. "

"Aye, the returning-stroke, as it is called; when the earth, beingovercharged with the fluid, flashes its surplus upward. "

"The returning-stroke; that is, from earth to sky. Better and better. But come here on the hearth and dry yourself. "

"I am better here, and better wet. "

"How?"

"It is the safest thing you can do--Hark, again!--to get yourselfthoroughly drenched in a thunder-storm. Wet clothes are betterconductors than the body; and so, if the lightning strike, it might passdown the wet clothes without touching the body. The storm deepensagain. Have you a rug in the house? Rugs are non-conductors. Get one, that I may stand on it here, and you, too. The skies blacken--it is duskat noon. Hark!--the rug, the rug!"

I gave him one; while the hooded mountains seemed closing and tumblinginto the cottage. 

"And now, since our being dumb will not help us, " said I, resuming myplace, "let me hear your precautions in traveling duringthunder-storms. "

"Wait till this one is passed. "

"Nay, proceed with the precautions. You stand in the safest possibleplace according to your own account. Go on. "

"Briefly, then. I avoid pine-trees, high houses, lonely barns, uplandpastures, running water, flocks of cattle and sheep, a crowd of men. IfI travel on foot--as to-day--I do not walk fast; if in my buggy, I touchnot its back or sides; if on horseback, I dismount and lead the horse. But of all things, I avoid tall men. "

"Do I dream? Man avoid man? and in danger-time, too. "

"Tall men in a thunder-storm I avoid. Are you so grossly ignorant as notto know, that the height of a six-footer is sufficient to discharge anelectric cloud upon him? Are not lonely Kentuckians, ploughing, smit inthe unfinished furrow? Nay, if the six-footer stand by running water, the cloud will sometimes _select_ him as its conductor to that runningwater. Hark! Sure, yon black pinnacle is split. Yes, a man is a goodconductor. The lightning goes through and through a man, but only peelsa tree. But sir, you have kept me so long answering your questions, thatI have not yet come to business. Will you order one of my rods? Look atthis specimen one? See: it is of the best of copper. Copper's the bestconductor. Your house is low; but being upon the mountains, that lownessdoes not one whit depress it. You mountaineers are most exposed. Inmountainous countries the lightning-rod man should have most business. Look at the specimen, sir. One rod will answer for a house so small asthis. Look over these recommendations. Only one rod, sir; cost, onlytwenty dollars. Hark! There go all the granite Taconics and Hoosicsdashed together like pebbles. By the sound, that must have strucksomething. An elevation of five feet above the house, will protecttwenty feet radius all about the rod. Only twenty dollars, sir--a dollara foot. Hark!--Dreadful!--Will you order? Will you buy? Shall I put downyour name? Think of being a heap of charred offal, like a haltered horseburnt in his stall; and all in one flash!"

"You pretended envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to andfrom Jupiter Tonans, " laughed I; "you mere man who come here to put youand your pipestem between clay and sky, do you think that because youcan strike a bit of green light from the Leyden jar, that you canthoroughly avert the supernal bolt? Your rod rusts, or breaks, and whereare you? Who has empowered you, you Tetzel, to peddle round yourindulgences from divine ordinations? The hairs of our heads arenumbered, and the days of our lives. In thunder as in sunshine, I standat ease in the hands of my God. False negotiator, away! See, the scrollof the storm is rolled back; the house is unharmed; and in the blueheavens I read in the rainbow, that the Deity will not, of purpose, makewar on man's earth. "

"Impious wretch!" foamed the stranger, blackening in the face as therainbow beamed, "I will publish your infidel notions. "

The scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles enlarged roundhis eyes as the storm-rings round the midnight moon. He sprang upon me;his tri-forked thing at my heart. 

I seized it; I snapped it; I dashed it; I trod it; and dragging the darklightning-king out of my door, flung his elbowed, copper sceptre afterhim. 

But spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to myneighbors, the Lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still travelsin storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man. 

THE ENCANTADAS; OR, ENCHANTED ISLES

 * * * * *

SKETCH FIRST. 

THE ISLES AT LARGE. 

 --"That may not be, said then the ferryman, Least we unweeting hap to be fordonne; For those same islands seeming now and than, Are not firme land, nor any certein wonne, But stragling plots which to and fro do ronne In the wide waters; therefore are they hight The Wandering Islands; therefore do them shonne; For they have oft drawne many a wandring wight Into most deadly daunger and distressed plight; For whosoever once hath fastened His foot thereon may never it secure But wandreth evermore uncertein and unsure. "

 * * * * *

 "Darke, dolefull, dreary, like a greedy grave, That still for carrion carcasses doth crave; On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owl, Shrieking his balefull note, which ever drave Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl, And all about it wandring ghosts did wayle and howl. "

Take five-and-twenty heaps of cinders dumped here and there in anoutside city lot; imagine some of them magnified into mountains, andthe vacant lot the sea; and you will have a fit idea of the generalaspect of the Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles. A group rather of extinctvolcanoes than of isles; looking much as the world at large might, aftera penal conflagration. 

It is to be doubted whether any spot of earth can, in desolateness, furnish a parallel to this group. Abandoned cemeteries of long ago, oldcities by piecemeal tumbling to their ruin, these are melancholy enough;but, like all else which has but once been associated with humanity, they still awaken in us some thoughts of sympathy, however sad. Hence, even the Dead Sea, along with whatever other emotions it may at timesinspire, does not fail to touch in the pilgrim some of his lessunpleasurable feelings. 

And as for solitariness; the great forests of the north, the expanses ofunnavigated waters, the Greenland ice-fields, are the profoundest ofsolitudes to a human observer; still the magic of their changeable tidesand seasons mitigates their terror; because, though unvisited by men, those forests are visited by the May; the remotest seas reflect familiarstars even as Lake Erie does; and in the clear air of a fine Polar day, the irradiated, azure ice shows beautifully as malachite. 

But the special curse, as one may call it, of the Encantadas, that whichexalts them in desolation above Idumea and the Pole, is, that to themchange never comes; neither the change of seasons nor of sorrows. Cut bythe Equator, they know not autumn, and they know not spring; whilealready reduced to the lees of fire, ruin itself can work little moreupon them. The showers refresh the deserts; but in these isles, rainnever falls. Like split Syrian gourds left withering in the sun, theyare cracked by an everlasting drought beneath a torrid sky. "Have mercyupon me, " the wailing spirit of the Encantadas seems to cry, "and sendLazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool mytongue, for I am tormented in this flame. "

Another feature in these isles is their emphatic uninhabitableness. Itis deemed a fit type of all-forsaken overthrow, that the jackal shouldden in the wastes of weedy Babylon; but the Encantadas refuse to harboreven the outcasts of the beasts. Man and wolf alike disown them. Littlebut reptile life is here found: tortoises, lizards, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the _aguano_. No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is ahiss. 

On most of the isles where vegetation is found at all, it is moreungrateful than the blankness of Aracama. Tangled thickets of wirybushes, without fruit and without a name, springing up among deepfissures of calcined rock, and treacherously masking them; or a parchedgrowth of distorted cactus trees. 

In many places the coast is rock-bound, or, more properly, clinker-bound; tumbled masses of blackish or greenish stuff like thedross of an iron-furnace, forming dark clefts and caves here and there, into which a ceaseless sea pours a fury of foam; overhanging them with aswirl of gray, haggard mist, amidst which sail screaming flights ofunearthly birds heightening the dismal din. However calm the seawithout, there is no rest for these swells and those rocks; they lashand are lashed, even when the outer ocean is most at peace with, itself. On the oppressive, clouded days, such as are peculiar to this part ofthe watery Equator, the dark, vitrified masses, many of which raisethemselves among white whirlpools and breakers in detached and perilousplaces off the shore, present a most Plutonian sight. In no world but afallen one could such lands exist. 

Those parts of the strand free from the marks of fire, stretch away inwide level beaches of multitudinous dead shells, with here and theredecayed bits of sugar-cane, bamboos, and cocoanuts, washed upon thisother and darker world from the charming palm isles to the westward andsouthward; all the way from Paradise to Tartarus; while mixed with therelics of distant beauty you will sometimes see fragments of charredwood and mouldering ribs of wrecks. Neither will any one be surprised atmeeting these last, after observing the conflicting currents which eddythroughout nearly all the wide channels of the entire group. Thecapriciousness of the tides of air sympathizes with those of the sea. Nowhere is the wind so light, baffling, and every way unreliable, and sogiven to perplexing calms, as at the Encantadas. Nigh a month has beenspent by a ship going from one isle to another, though but ninety milesbetween; for owing to the force of the current, the boats employed totow barely suffice to keep the craft from sweeping upon the cliffs, butdo nothing towards accelerating her voyage. Sometimes it is impossiblefor a vessel from afar to fetch up with the group itself, unless largeallowances for prospective lee-way have been made ere its coming insight. And yet, at other times, there is a mysterious indraft, whichirresistibly draws a passing vessel among the isles, though not bound tothem. 

True, at one period, as to some extent at the present day, large fleetsof whalemen cruised for spermaceti upon what some seamen call theEnchanted Ground. But this, as in due place will be described, was offthe great outer isle of Albemarle, away from the intricacies of thesmaller isles, where there is plenty of sea-room; and hence, to thatvicinity, the above remarks do not altogether apply; though even therethe current runs at times with singular force, shifting, too, with assingular a caprice. 

Indeed, there are seasons when currents quite unaccountable prevail fora great distance round about the total group, and are so strong andirregular as to change a vessel's course against the helm, thoughsailing at the rate of four or five miles the hour. The difference inthe reckonings of navigators, produced by these causes, along with thelight and variable winds, long nourished a persuasion, that thereexisted two distinct clusters of isles in the parallel of theEncantadas, about a hundred leagues apart. Such was the idea of theirearlier visitors, the Buccaneers; and as late as 1750, the charts ofthat part of the Pacific accorded with the strange delusion. And thisapparent fleetingness and unreality of the locality of the isles wasmost probably one reason for the Spaniards calling them the Encantada, or Enchanted Group. 

But not uninfluenced by their character, as they now confessedly exist, the modern voyager will be inclined to fancy that the bestowal of thisname might have in part originated in that air of spell-bound desertnesswhich so significantly invests the isles. Nothing can better suggest theaspect of once living things malignly crumbled from ruddiness intoashes. Apples of Sodom, after touching, seem these isles. 

However wavering their place may seem by reason of the currents, theythemselves, at least to one upon the shore, appear invariably the same:fixed, cast, glued into the very body of cadaverous death. 

Nor would the appellation, enchanted, seem misapplied in still anothersense. For concerning the peculiar reptile inhabitant of thesewilds--whose presence gives the group its second Spanish name, Gallipagos--concerning the tortoises found here, most mariners have longcherished a superstition, not more frightful than grotesque. Theyearnestly believe that all wicked sea-officers, more especiallycommodores and captains, are at death (and, in some cases, before death)transformed into tortoises; thenceforth dwelling upon these hotaridities, sole solitary lords of Asphaltum. 

Doubtless, so quaintly dolorous a thought was originally inspired by thewoe-begone landscape itself; but more particularly, perhaps, by thetortoises. For, apart from their strictly physical features, there issomething strangely self-condemned in the appearance of these creatures. Lasting sorrow and penal hopelessness are in no animal form sosuppliantly expressed as in theirs; while the thought of their wonderfullongevity does not fail to enhance the impression. 

Nor even at the risk of meriting the charge of absurdly believing inenchantments, can I restrain the admission that sometimes, even now, when leaving the crowded city to wander out July and August among theAdirondack Mountains, far from the influences of towns andproportionally nigh to the mysterious ones of nature; when at such timesI sit me down in the mossy head of some deep-wooded gorge, surrounded byprostrate trunks of blasted pines and recall, as in a dream, my otherand far-distant rovings in the baked heart of the charmed isles; andremember the sudden glimpses of dusky shells, and long languid necksprotruded from the leafless thickets; and again have beheld thevitreous inland rocks worn down and grooved into deep ruts by ages andages of the slow draggings of tortoises in quest of pools of scantywater; I can hardly resist the feeling that in my time I have indeedslept upon evilly enchanted ground. 

Nay, such is the vividness of my memory, or the magic of my fancy, thatI know not whether I am not the occasional victim of optical delusionconcerning the Gallipagos. For, often in scenes of social merriment, andespecially at revels held by candle-light in old-fashioned mansions, sothat shadows are thrown into the further recesses of an angular andspacious room, making them put on a look of haunted undergrowth oflonely woods, I have drawn the attention of my comrades by my fixed gazeand sudden change of air, as I have seemed to see, slowly emerging fromthose imagined solitudes, and heavily crawling along the floor, theghost of a gigantic tortoise, with "Memento * * * * *" burning in liveletters upon his back. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH SECOND. 

TWO SIDES TO A TORTOISE. 

 "Most ugly shapes and horrible aspects, Such as Dame Nature selfe mote feare to see, Or shame, that ever should so fowle defects From her most cunning hand escaped bee; All dreadfull pourtraicts of deformitee. No wonder if these do a man appall; For all that here at home we dreadfull hold Be but as bugs to fearen babes withall Compared to the creatures in these isles' entrall

 * * * * *

 "Fear naught, then said the palmer, well avized, For these same monsters are not there indeed, But are into these fearful shapes disguized. 

 * * * * *

 "And lifting up his vertuous staffe on high, Then all that dreadful armie fast gan flye Into great Zethy's bosom, where they hidden lye. "

In view of the description given, may one be gay upon the Encantadas?Yes: that is, find one the gayety, and he will be gay. And, indeed, sackcloth and ashes as they are, the isles are not perhaps unmitigatedgloom. For while no spectator can deny their claims to a most solemn andsuperstitious consideration, no more than my firmest resolutions candecline to behold the spectre-tortoise when emerging from its shadowyrecess; yet even the tortoise, dark and melancholy as it is upon theback, still possesses a bright side; its calipee or breast-plate beingsometimes of a faint yellowish or golden tinge. Moreover, every oneknows that tortoises as well as turtle are of such a make, that if youbut put them on their backs you thereby expose their bright sideswithout the possibility of their recovering themselves, and turning intoview the other. But after you have done this, and because you have donethis, you should not swear that the tortoise has no dark side. Enjoy thebright, keep it turned up perpetually if you can, but be honest, anddon't deny the black. Neither should he, who cannot turn the tortoisefrom its natural position so as to hide the darker and expose hislivelier aspect, like a great October pumpkin in the sun, for that causedeclare the creature to be one total inky blot. The tortoise is bothblack and bright. But let us to particulars. 

Some months before my first stepping ashore upon the group, my ship wascruising in its close vicinity. One noon we found ourselves off theSouth Head of Albemarle, and not very far from the land. Partly by wayof freak, and partly by way of spying out so strange a country, a boat'screw was sent ashore, with orders to see all they could, and besides, bring back whatever tortoises they could conveniently transport. 

It was after sunset, when the adventurers returned. I looked down overthe ship's high side as if looking down over the curb of a well, anddimly saw the damp boat, deep in the sea with some unwonted weight. Ropes were dropt over, and presently three huge antediluvian-lookingtortoises, after much straining, were landed on deck. They seemed hardlyof the seed of earth. We had been broad upon the waters for five longmonths, a period amply sufficient to make all things of the land wear afabulous hue to the dreamy mind. Had three Spanish custom-house officersboarded us then, it is not unlikely that I should have curiously staredat them, felt of them, and stroked them much as savages serve civilizedguests. But instead of three custom-house officers, behold these reallywondrous tortoises--none of your schoolboy mud-turtles--but black aswidower's weeds, heavy as chests of plate, with vast shells medallionedand orbed like shields, and dented and blistered like shields that havebreasted a battle, shaggy, too, here and there, with dark green moss, and slimy with the spray of the sea. These mystic creatures, suddenlytranslated by night from unutterable solitudes to our peopled deck, affected me in a manner not easy to unfold. They seemed newly crawledforth from beneath the foundations of the world. Yea, they seemed theidentical tortoises whereon the Hindoo plants this total sphere. With alantern I inspected them more closely. Such worshipful venerableness ofaspect! Such furry greenness mantling the rude peelings and healing thefissures of their shattered shells. I no more saw three tortoises. Theyexpanded--became transfigured. I seemed to see three Roman Coliseums inmagnificent decay. 

Ye oldest inhabitants of this, or any other isle, said I, pray, give methe freedom of your three-walled towns. 

The great feeling inspired by these creatures was that ofage:--dateless, indefinite endurance. And in fact that any othercreature can live and breathe as long as the tortoise of the Encantadas, I will not readily believe. Not to hint of their known capacity ofsustaining life, while going without food for an entire year, considerthat impregnable armor of their living mail. What other bodily beingpossesses such a citadel wherein to resist the assaults of Time?

As, lantern in hand, I scraped among the moss and beheld the ancientscars of bruises received in many a sullen fall among the marlymountains of the isle--scars strangely widened, swollen, halfobliterate, and yet distorted like those sometimes found in the bark ofvery hoary trees, I seemed an antiquary of a geologist, studying thebird-tracks and ciphers upon the exhumed slates trod by incrediblecreatures whose very ghosts are now defunct. 

As I lay in my hammock that night, overhead I heard the slow wearydraggings of the three ponderous strangers along the encumbered deck. Their stupidity or their resolution was so great, that they never wentaside for any impediment. One ceased his movements altogether justbefore the mid-watch. At sunrise I found him butted like a battering-ramagainst the immovable foot of the foremast, and still striving, toothand nail, to force the impossible passage. That these tortoises are thevictims of a penal, or malignant, or perhaps a downright diabolicalenchanter, seems in nothing more likely than in that strange infatuationof hopeless toil which so often possesses them. I have known them intheir journeyings ram themselves heroically against rocks, and longabide there, nudging, wriggling, wedging, in order to displace them, andso hold on their inflexible path. Their crowning curse is their drudgingimpulse to straightforwardness in a belittered world. 

Meeting with no such hinderance as their companion did, the othertortoises merely fell foul of small stumbling-blocks--buckets, blocks, and coils of rigging--and at times in the act of crawling over themwould slip with an astounding rattle to the deck. Listening to thesedraggings and concussions, I thought me of the haunt from which theycame; an isle full of metallic ravines and gulches, sunk bottomlesslyinto the hearts of splintered mountains, and covered for many mileswith inextricable thickets. I then pictured these three straight-forwardmonsters, century after century, writhing through the shades, grim asblacksmiths; crawling so slowly and ponderously, that not only didtoad-stools and all fungus things grow beneath their feet, but a sootymoss sprouted upon their backs. With them I lost myself in volcanicmazes; brushed away endless boughs of rotting thickets; till finally ina dream I found myself sitting crosslegged upon the foremost, a Brahminsimilarly mounted upon either side, forming a tripod of foreheads whichupheld the universal cope. 

Such was the wild nightmare begot by my first impression of theEncantadas tortoise. But next evening, strange to say, I sat down withmy shipmates, and made a merry repast from tortoise steaks, and tortoisestews; and supper over, out knife, and helped convert the three mightyconcave shells into three fanciful soup-tureens, and polished the threeflat yellowish calipees into three gorgeous salvers. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH THIRD. 

ROCK RODONDO. 

 "For they this tight the Rock of vile Reproach, A dangerous and dreadful place, To which nor fish nor fowl did once approach, But yelling meaws with sea-gulls hoars and bace And cormoyrants with birds of ravenous race, Which still sit waiting on that dreadful clift. "

 * * * * *

 "With that the rolling sea resounding soft In his big base them fitly answered, And on the Rock, the waves breaking aloft, A solemn ineane unto them measured. "

 * * * * *

 "Then he the boteman bad row easily, And let him heare some part of that rare melody. "

 * * * * *

 "Suddeinly an innumerable flight Of harmefull fowles about them fluttering cride, And with their wicked wings them oft did smight And sore annoyed, groping in that griesly night. "

 * * * * *

 "Even all the nation of unfortunate And fatal birds about them flocked were. "

To go up into a high stone tower is not only a very fine thing initself, but the very best mode of gaining a comprehensive view of theregion round about. It is all the better if this tower stand solitaryand alone, like that mysterious Newport one, or else be sole survivorof some perished castle. 

Now, with reference to the Enchanted Isles, we are fortunately suppliedwith just such a noble point of observation in a remarkable rock, fromits peculiar figure called of old by the Spaniards, Rock Rodondo, orRound Rock. Some two hundred and fifty feet high, rising straight fromthe sea ten miles from land, with the whole mountainous group to thesouth and east. Rock Rodondo occupies, on a large scale, very much theposition which the famous Campanile or detached Bell Tower of St. Markdoes with respect to the tangled group of hoary edifices around it. 

Ere ascending, however, to gaze abroad upon the Encantadas, thissea-tower itself claims attention. It is visible at the distance ofthirty miles; and, fully participating in that enchantment whichpervades the group, when first seen afar invariably is mistaken for asail. Four leagues away, of a golden, hazy noon, it seems some SpanishAdmiral's ship, stacked up with glittering canvas. Sail ho! Sail ho!Sail ho! from all three masts. But coming nigh, the enchanted frigateis transformed apace into a craggy keep. 

My first visit to the spot was made in the gray of the morning. With aview of fishing, we had lowered three boats and pulling some two milesfrom our vessel, found ourselves just before dawn of day close under themoon-shadow of Rodondo. Its aspect was heightened, and yet softened, bythe strange double twilight of the hour. The great full moon burnt inthe low west like a half-spent beacon, casting a soft mellow tinge uponthe sea like that cast by a waning fire of embers upon a midnighthearth; while along the entire east the invisible sun sent pallidintimations of his coming. The wind was light; the waves languid; thestars twinkled with a faint effulgence; all nature seemed supine withthe long night watch, and half-suspended in jaded expectation of thesun. This was the critical hour to catch Rodondo in his perfect mood. The twilight was just enough to reveal every striking point, withouttearing away the dim investiture of wonder. 

From a broken stair-like base, washed, as the steps of a water-palace, by the waves, the tower rose in entablatures of strata to a shavensummit. These uniform layers, which compose the mass, form its mostpeculiar feature. For at their lines of junction they project flatlyinto encircling shelves, from top to bottom, rising one above another ingraduated series. And as the eaves of any old barn or abbey are alivewith swallows, so were all these rocky ledges with unnumbered sea-fowl. Eaves upon eaves, and nests upon nests. Here and there were longbirdlime streaks of a ghostly white staining the tower from sea to air, readily accounting for its sail-like look afar. All would have beenbewitchingly quiescent, were it not for the demoniac din created by thebirds. Not only were the eaves rustling with them, but they flew denselyoverhead, spreading themselves into a winged and continually shiftingcanopy. The tower is the resort of aquatic birds for hundreds of leaguesaround. To the north, to the east, to the west, stretches nothing buteternal ocean; so that the man-of-war hawk coming from the coasts ofNorth America, Polynesia, or Peru, makes his first land at Rodondo. Andyet though Rodondo be terra-firma, no land-bird ever lighted on it. Fancy a red-robin or a canary there! What a falling into the hands ofthe Philistines, when the poor warbler should be surrounded by suchlocust-flights of strong bandit birds, with long bills cruel as daggers. 

I know not where one can better study the Natural History of strangesea-fowl than at Rodondo. It is the aviary of Ocean. Birds light herewhich never touched mast or tree; hermit-birds, which ever fly alone;cloud-birds, familiar with unpierced zones of air. 

Let us first glance low down to the lowermost shelf of all, which is thewidest, too, and but a little space from high-water mark. Whatoutlandish beings are these? Erect as men, but hardly as symmetrical, they stand all round the rock like sculptured caryatides, supporting thenext range of eaves above. Their bodies are grotesquely misshapen; theirbills short; their feet seemingly legless; while the members at theirsides are neither fin, wing, nor arm. And truly neither fish, flesh, norfowl is the penguin; as an edible, pertaining neither to Carnival norLent; without exception the most ambiguous and least lovely creature yetdiscovered by man. Though dabbling in all three elements, and indeedpossessing some rudimental claims to all, the penguin is at home innone. On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops. As ifashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away atthe ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abasedsea-story of Rodondo. 

But look, what are yon wobegone regiments drawn up on the next shelfabove? what rank and file of large strange fowl? what sea Friars ofOrders Gray? Pelicans. Their elongated bills, and heavy leathern pouchessuspended thereto, give them the most lugubrious expression. A pensiverace, they stand for hours together without motion. Their dull, ashyplumage imparts an aspect as if they had been powdered over withcinders. A penitential bird, indeed, fitly haunting the shores of theclinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented Job himself might have well satdown and scraped himself with potsherds. 

Higher up now we mark the gony, or gray albatross, anomalously socalled, an unsightly unpoetic bird, unlike its storied kinsman, which isthe snow-white ghost of the haunted Capes of Hope and Horn. 

As we still ascend from shelf to shelf, we find the tenants of the towerserially disposed in order of their magnitude:--gannets, black andspeckled haglets, jays, sea-hens, sperm-whale-birds, gulls of allvarieties:--thrones, princedoms, powers, dominating one above another insenatorial array; while, sprinkled over all, like an ever-repeated flyin a great piece of broidery, the stormy petrel or Mother Cary's chickensounds his continual challenge and alarm. That this mysterioushummingbird of ocean--which, had it but brilliancy of hue, might, fromits evanescent liveliness, be almost called its butterfly, yet whosechirrup under the stern is ominous to mariners as to the peasant thedeath-tick sounding from behind the chimney jamb--should have itsspecial haunt at the Encantadas, contributes, in the seaman's mind, nota little to their dreary spell. 

As day advances the dissonant din augments. With ear-splitting cries thewild birds celebrate their matins. Each moment, flights push from thetower, and join the aerial choir hovering overhead, while their placesbelow are supplied by darting myriads. But down through all this discordof commotion, I hear clear, silver, bugle-like notes unbrokenly falling, like oblique lines of swift-slanting rain in a cascading shower. I gazefar up, and behold a snow-white angelic thing, with one long, lance-likefeather thrust out behind. It is the bright, inspiriting chanticleer ofocean, the beauteous bird, from its bestirring whistle of musicalinvocation, fitly styled the "Boatswain's Mate. "

The winged, life-clouding Rodondo had its full counterpart in the finnyhosts which peopled the waters at its base. Below the water-line, therock seemed one honey-comb of grottoes, affording labyrinthinelurking-places for swarms of fairy fish. All were strange; manyexceedingly beautiful; and would have well graced the costliest glassglobes in which gold-fish are kept for a show. Nothing was more strikingthan the complete novelty of many individuals of this multitude. Herehues were seen as yet unpainted, and figures which are unengraved. 

To show the multitude, avidity, and nameless fearlessness and tamenessof these fish, let me say, that often, marking through clear spaces ofwater--temporarily made so by the concentric dartings of the fish abovethe surface--certain larger and less unwary wights, which swam slow anddeep; our anglers would cautiously essay to drop their lines down tothese last. But in vain; there was no passing the uppermost zone. Nosooner did the hook touch the sea, than a hundred infatuates contendedfor the honor of capture. Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimizedconfidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust, while they do not understand, human nature. 

But the dawn is now fairly day. Band after band, the sea-fowl sail awayto forage the deep for their food. The tower is left solitary save thefish-caves at its base. Its birdlime gleams in the golden rays like thewhitewash of a tall light-house, or the lofty sails of a cruiser. Thismoment, doubtless, while we know it to be a dead desert rock othervoyagers are taking oaths it is a glad populous ship. 

But ropes now, and let us ascend. Yet soft, this is not so easy. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH FOURTH. 

A PISGAH VIEW FROM THE ROCK. 

 --"That done, he leads him to the highest mount, From whence, far off he unto him did show:"--

If you seek to ascend Rock Rodondo, take the following prescription. Gothree voyages round the world as a main-royal-man of the tallest frigatethat floats; then serve a year or two apprenticeship to the guides whoconduct strangers up the Peak of Teneriffe; and as many morerespectively to a rope-dancer, an Indian juggler, and a chamois. Thisdone, come and be rewarded by the view from our tower. How we get there, we alone know. If we sought to tell others, what the wiser were they?Suffice it, that here at the summit you and I stand. Does anyballoonist, does the outlooking man in the moon, take a broader view ofspace? Much thus, one fancies, looks the universe from Milton'scelestial battlements. A boundless watery Kentucky. Here Daniel Boonewould have dwelt content. 

Never heed for the present yonder Burnt District of the Enchanted Isles. Look edgeways, as it were, past them, to the south. You see nothing; butpermit me to point out the direction, if not the place, of certaininteresting objects in the vast sea, which, kissing this tower's base, we behold unscrolling itself towards the Antarctic Pole. 

We stand now ten miles from the Equator. Yonder, to the East, some sixhundred miles, lies the continent; this Rock being just about on theparallel of Quito. 

Observe another thing here. We are at one of three uninhabited clusters, which, at pretty nearly uniform distances from the main, sentinel, atlong intervals from each other, the entire coast of South America. In apeculiar manner, also, they terminate the South American character ofcountry. Of the unnumbered Polynesian chains to the westward, not onepartakes of the qualities of the Encantadas or Gallipagos, the isles ofSt. Felix and St. Ambrose, the isles Juan-Fernandez and Massafuero. Ofthe first, it needs not here to speak. The second lie a little above theSouthern Tropic; lofty, inhospitable, and uninhabitable rocks, one ofwhich, presenting two round hummocks connected by a low reef, exactlyresembles a huge double-headed shot. The last lie in the latitude of33°; high, wild and cloven. Juan Fernandez is sufficiently famouswithout further description. Massafuero is a Spanish name, expressive ofthe fact, that the isle so called lies _more without_, that is, furtheroff the main than its neighbor Juan. This isle Massafuero has a veryimposing aspect at a distance of eight or ten miles. Approached in onedirection, in cloudy weather, its great overhanging height and ruggedcontour, and more especially a peculiar slope of its broad summits, giveit much the air of a vast iceberg drifting in tremendous poise. Itssides are split with dark cavernous recesses, as an old cathedral withits gloomy lateral chapels. Drawing nigh one of these gorges from sea, after a long voyage, and beholding some tatterdemalion outlaw, staff inhand, descending its steep rocks toward you, conveys a very queeremotion to a lover of the picturesque. 

On fishing parties from ships, at various times, I have chanced tovisit each of these groups. The impression they give to the strangerpulling close up in his boat under their grim cliffs is, that surely hemust be their first discoverer, such, for the most part, is theunimpaired ... Silence and solitude. And here, by the way, the mode inwhich these isles were really first lighted upon by Europeans is notunworthy of mention, especially as what is about to be said, likewiseapplies to the original discovery of our Encantadas. 

Prior to the year 1563, the voyages made by Spanish ships from Peru toChili, were full of difficulty. Along this coast, the winds from theSouth most generally prevail; and it had been an invariable custom tokeep close in with the land, from a superstitious conceit on the part ofthe Spaniards, that were they to lose sight of it, the eternaltrade-wind would waft them into unending waters, from whence would be noreturn. Here, involved among tortuous capes and headlands, shoals andreefs, beating, too, against a continual head wind, often light, andsometimes for days and weeks sunk into utter calm, the provincialvessels, in many cases, suffered the extremest hardships, in passages, which at the present day seem to have been incredibly protracted. Thereis on record in some collections of nautical disasters, an account ofone of these ships, which, starting on a voyage whose duration wasestimated at ten days, spent four months at sea, and indeed never againentered harbor, for in the end she was cast away. Singular to tell, thiscraft never encountered a gale, but was the vexed sport of maliciouscalms and currents. Thrice, out of provisions, she put back to anintermediate port, and started afresh, but only yet again to return. Frequent fogs enveloped her; so that no observation could be had of herplace, and once, when all hands were joyously anticipating sight oftheir destination, lo! the vapors lifted and disclosed the mountainsfrom which they had taken their first departure. In the like deceptivevapors she at last struck upon a reef, whence ensued a long series ofcalamities too sad to detail. 

It was the famous pilot, Juan Fernandez, immortalized by the islandnamed after him, who put an end to these coasting tribulations, byboldly venturing the experiment--as De Gama did before him with respectto Europe--of standing broad out from land. Here he found the windsfavorable for getting to the South, and by running westward till beyondthe influences of the trades, he regained the coast without difficulty;making the passage which, though in a high degree circuitous, proved farmore expeditious than the nominally direct one. Now it was upon thesenew tracks, and about the year 1670, or thereabouts, that the EnchantedIsles, and the rest of the sentinel groups, as they may be called, werediscovered. Though I know of no account as to whether any of them werefound inhabited or no, it may be reasonably concluded that they havebeen immemorial solitudes. But let us return to Redondo. 

Southwest from our tower lies all Polynesia, hundreds of leagues away;but straight west, on the precise line of his parallel, no land risestill your keel is beached upon the Kingsmills, a nice little sail of, say 5000 miles. 

Having thus by such distant references--with Rodondo the only possibleones--settled our relative place on the sea, let us consider objects notquite so remote. Behold the grim and charred Enchanted Isles. Thisnearest crater-shaped headland is part of Albemarle, the largest of thegroup, being some sixty miles or more long, and fifteen broad. Did youever lay eye on the real genuine Equator? Have you ever, in the largestsense, toed the Line? Well, that identical crater-shaped headland there, all yellow lava, is cut by the Equator exactly as a knife cuts straightthrough the centre of a pumpkin pie. If you could only see so far, justto one side of that same headland, across yon low dikey ground, youwould catch sight of the isle of Narborough, the loftiest land of thecluster; no soil whatever; one seamed clinker from top to bottom;abounding in black caves like smithies; its metallic shore ringing underfoot like plates of iron; its central volcanoes standing grouped like agigantic chimney-stack. 

Narborough and Albemarle are neighbors after a quite curious fashion. Afamiliar diagram will illustrate this strange neighborhood:

[Illustration]

Cut a channel at the above letter joint, and the middle transverse limbis Narborough, and all the rest is Albemarle. Volcanic Narborough liesin the black jaws of Albemarle like a wolf's red tongue in his openmonth. 

If now you desire the population of Albemarle, I will give you, in roundnumbers, the statistics, according to the most reliable estimates madeupon the spot:

Men, none. Ant-eaters, unknown. Man-haters, unknown. Lizards, 500, 000. Snakes, 500, 000. Spiders, 10, 000, 000. Salamanders, unknown. Devils, do. Making a clean total of 11, 000, 000, exclusive of an incomputable host of fiends, ant-eaters, man-haters, andsalamanders. 

Albemarle opens his mouth towards the setting sun. His distended jawsform a great bay, which Narborough, his tongue, divides into halves, onewhereof is called Weather Bay, the other Lee Bay; while the volcanicpromontories, terminating his coasts, are styled South Head and NorthHead. I note this, because these bays are famous in the annals of theSperm Whale Fishery. The whales come here at certain seasons to calve. When ships first cruised hereabouts, I am told, they used to blockadethe entrance of Lee Bay, when their boats going round by Weather Bay, passed through Narborough channel, and so had the Leviathans very neatlyin a pen. 

The day after we took fish at the base of this Round Tower, we had afine wind, and shooting round the north headland, suddenly descried afleet of full thirty sail, all beating to windward like a squadron inline. A brave sight as ever man saw. A most harmonious concord ofrushing keels. Their thirty kelsons hummed like thirty harp-strings, andlooked as straight whilst they left their parallel traces on the sea. But there proved too many hunters for the game. The fleet broke up, andwent their separate ways out of sight, leaving my own ship and two trimgentlemen of London. These last, finding no luck either, likewisevanished; and Lee Bay, with all its appurtenances, and without a rival, devolved to us. 

The way of cruising here is this. You keep hovering about the entranceof the bay, in one beat and out the next. But at times--not always, asin other parts of the group--a racehorse of a current sweeps rightacross its mouth. So, with all sails set, you carefully ply your tacks. How often, standing at the foremast head at sunrise, with our patientprow pointed in between these isles, did I gaze upon that land, not ofcakes, but of clinkers, not of streams of sparkling water, but arrestedtorrents of tormented lava. 

As the ship runs in from the open sea, Narborough presents its side inone dark craggy mass, soaring up some five or six thousand feet, atwhich point it hoods itself in heavy clouds, whose lowest level fold isas clearly defined against the rocks as the snow-line against the Andes. There is dire mischief going on in that upper dark. There toil thedemons of fire, who, at intervals, irradiate the nights with a strangespectral illumination for miles and miles around, but unaccompanied byany further demonstration; or else, suddenly announce themselves byterrific concussions, and the full drama of a volcanic eruption. Theblacker that cloud by day, the more may you look for light by night. Often whalemen have found themselves cruising nigh that burning mountainwhen all aglow with a ball-room blaze. Or, rather, glass-works, you maycall this same vitreous isle of Narborough, with its tallchimney-stacks. 

Where we still stand, here on Rodondo, we cannot see all the otherisles, but it is a good place from which to point out where they lie. Yonder, though, to the E. N. E. , I mark a distant dusky ridge. It isAbington Isle, one of the most northerly of the group; so solitary, remote, and blank, it looks like No-Man's Land seen off our northernshore. I doubt whether two human beings ever touched upon that spot. Sofar as yon Abington Isle is concerned, Adam and his billions ofposterity remain uncreated. 

Ranging south of Abington, and quite out of sight behind the long spineof Albemarle, lies James's Isle, so called by the early Buccaneers afterthe luckless Stuart, Duke of York. Observe here, by the way, that, excepting the isles particularized in comparatively recent times, andwhich mostly received the names of famous Admirals, the Encantadas werefirst christened by the Spaniards; but these Spanish names weregenerally effaced on English charts by the subsequent christenings ofthe Buccaneers, who, in the middle of the seventeenth century, calledthem after English noblemen and kings. Of these loyal freebooters andthe things which associate their name with the Encantadas, we shall hearanon. Nay, for one little item, immediately; for between James's Isleand Albemarle, lies a fantastic islet, strangely known as "Cowley'sEnchanted Isle. " But, as all the group is deemed enchanted, the reasonmust be given for the spell within a spell involved by this particulardesignation. The name was bestowed by that excellent Buccaneer himself, on his first visit here. Speaking in his published voyages of this spot, he says--"My fancy led me to call it Cowley's Enchanted Isle, for, wehaving had a sight of it upon several points of the compass, it appearedalways in so many different forms; sometimes like a ruinedfortification; upon another point like a great city, " etc. No wonderthough, that among the Encantadas all sorts of ocular deceptions andmirages should be met. 

That Cowley linked his name with this self-transforming and bemockingisle, suggests the possibility that it conveyed to him some meditativeimage of himself. At least, as is not impossible, if he were anyrelative of the mildly-thoughtful and self-upbraiding poet Cowley, wholived about his time, the conceit might seem unwarranted; for that sortof thing evinced in the naming of this isle runs in the blood, and maybe seen in pirates as in poets. 

Still south of James's Isle lie Jervis Isle, Duncan Isle, Grossman'sIsle, Brattle Isle, Wood's Isle, Chatham Isle, and various lesser isles, for the most part an archipelago of aridities, without inhabitant, history, or hope of either in all time to come. But not far from theseare rather notable isles--Barrington, Charles's, Norfolk, and Hood's. Succeeding chapters will reveal some ground for their notability. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH FIFTH. 

THE FRIGATE, AND SHIP FLYAWAY. 

 "Looking far forth into the ocean wide, A goodly ship with banners bravely dight, And flag in her top-gallant I espide, Through the main sea making her merry flight. "

Ere quitting Rodondo, it must not be omitted that here, in 1813, theU. S. Frigate Essex, Captain David Porter, came near leaving her bones. Lying becalmed one morning with a strong current setting her rapidlytowards the rock, a strange sail was descried, which--not out of keepingwith alleged enchantments of the neighborhood--seemed to be staggeringunder a violent wind, while the frigate lay lifeless as if spell-bound. But a light air springing up, all sail was made by the frigate in chaseof the enemy, as supposed--he being deemed an English whale-ship--butthe rapidity of the current was so great, that soon all sight was lostof him; and, at meridian, the Essex, spite of her drags, was driven soclose under the foam-lashed cliffs of Rodondo that, for a time, allhands gave her up. A smart breeze, however, at last helped her off, though the escape was so critical as to seem almost miraculous. 

Thus saved from destruction herself, she now made use of that salvationto destroy the other vessel, if possible. Renewing the chase in thedirection in which the stranger had disappeared, sight was caught of himthe following morning. Upon being descried he hoisted American colorsand stood away from the Essex. A calm ensued; when, still confident thatthe stranger was an Englishman, Porter dispatched a cutter, not to boardthe enemy, but drive back his boats engaged in towing him. The cuttersucceeded. Cutters were subsequently sent to capture him; the strangernow showing English colors in place of American. But, when the frigate'sboats were within a short distance of their hoped-for prize, anothersudden breeze sprang up; the stranger, under all sail, bore off to thewestward, and, ere night, was hull down ahead of the Essex, which, allthis time, lay perfectly becalmed. 

This enigmatic craft--American in the morning, and English in theevening--her sails full of wind in a calm--was never again beheld. Anenchanted ship no doubt. So, at least, the sailors swore. 

This cruise of the Essex in the Pacific during the war of 1812, is, perhaps, the strangest and most stirring to be found in the history ofthe American navy. She captured the furthest wandering vessels; visitedthe remotest seas and isles; long hovered in the charmed vicinity of theenchanted group; and, finally, valiantly gave up the ghost fighting twoEnglish frigates in the harbor of Valparaiso. Mention is made of herhere for the same reason that the Buccaneers will likewise receiverecord; because, like them, by long cruising among the isles, tortoise-hunting upon their shores, and generally exploring them; forthese and other reasons, the Essex is peculiarly associated with theEncantadas. 

Here be it said that you have but three, eye-witness authorities worthmentioning touching the Enchanted Isles:--Cowley, the Buccaneer (1684);Colnet the whaling-ground explorer (1798); Porter, the post captain(1813). Other than these you have but barren, bootless allusions fromsome few passing voyagers or compilers. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH SIXTH. 

BARRINGTON ISLE AND THE BUCCANEERS. 

 "Let us all servile base subjection scorn, And as we be sons of the earth so wide, Let us our father's heritage divide, And challenge to ourselves our portions dew Of all the patrimony, which a few hold on hugger-mugger in their hand. "

 * * * * *

 "Lords of the world, and so will wander free, Whereso us listeth, uncontroll'd of any. "

 * * * * *

 "How bravely now we live, how jocund, how near the first inheritance, without fear, how free from little troubles!"

Near two centuries ago Barrington Isle was the resort of that famouswing of the West Indian Buccaneers, which, upon their repulse from theCuban waters, crossing the Isthmus of Darien, ravaged the Pacific sideof the Spanish colonies, and, with the regularity and timing of a modernmail, waylaid the royal treasure-ships plying between Manilla andAcapulco. After the toils of piratic war, here they came to say theirprayers, enjoy their free-and-easies, count their crackers from thecask, their doubloons from the keg, and measure their silks of Asia withlong Toledos for their yard-sticks. 

As a secure retreat, an undiscoverable hiding-place, no spot in thosedays could have been better fitted. In the centre of a vast and silentsea, but very little traversed--surrounded by islands, whoseinhospitable aspect might well drive away the chance navigator--and yetwithin a few days' sail of the opulent countries which they made theirprey--the unmolested Buccaneers found here that tranquillity which theyfiercely denied to every civilized harbor in that part of the world. Here, after stress of weather, or a temporary drubbing at the hands oftheir vindictive foes, or in swift flight with golden booty, those oldmarauders came, and lay snugly out of all harm's reach. But not only wasthe place a harbor of safety, and a bower of ease, but for utility inother things it was most admirable. 

Barrington Isle is, in many respects, singularly adapted to careening, refitting, refreshing, and other seamen's purposes. Not only has it goodwater, and good anchorage, well sheltered from all winds by the highland of Albemarle, but it is the least unproductive isle of the group. Tortoises good for food, trees good for fuel, and long grass good forbedding, abound here, and there are pretty natural walks, and severallandscapes to be seen. Indeed, though in its locality belonging to theEnchanted group, Barrington Isle is so unlike most of its neighbors, that it would hardly seem of kin to them. 

"I once landed on its western side, " says a sentimental voyager longago, "where it faces the black buttress of Albemarle. I walked beneathgroves of trees--not very lofty, and not palm trees, or orange trees, orpeach trees, to be sure--but, for all that, after long sea-faring, verybeautiful to walk under, even though they supplied no fruit. And here, in calm spaces at the heads of glades, and on the shaded tops of slopescommanding the most quiet scenery--what do you think I saw? Seats whichmight have served Brahmins and presidents of peace societies. Fine oldruins of what had once been symmetric lounges of stone and turf, theybore every mark both of artificialness and age, and were, undoubtedly, made by the Buccaneers. One had been a long sofa, with back and arms, just such a sofa as the poet Gray might have loved to throw himselfupon, his Crebillon in hand. 

"Though they sometimes tarried here for months at a time, and used thespot for a storing-place for spare spars, sails, and casks; yet it ishighly improbable that the Buccaneers ever erected dwelling-houses uponthe isle. They never were here except their ships remained, and theywould most likely have slept on board. I mention this, because I cannotavoid the thought, that it is hard to impute the construction of theseromantic seats to any other motive than one of pure peacefulness andkindly fellowship with nature. That the Buccaneers perpetrated thegreatest outrages is very true--that some of them were mere cutthroatsis not to be denied; but we know that here and there among their hostwas a Dampier, a Wafer, and a Cowley, and likewise other men, whoseworst reproach was their desperate fortunes--whom persecution, oradversity, or secret and unavengeable wrongs, had driven from Christiansociety to seek the melancholy solitude or the guilty adventures of thesea. At any rate, long as those ruins of seats on Barrington remain, the most singular monuments are furnished to the fact, that all of theBuccaneers were not unmitigated monsters. 

"But during my ramble on the isle I was not long in discovering othertokens, of things quite in accordance with those wild traits, popularly, and no doubt truly enough, imputed to the freebooters at large. Had Ipicked up old sails and rusty hoops I would only have thought of theship's carpenter and cooper. But I found old cutlasses and daggersreduced to mere threads of rust, which, doubtless, had stuck betweenSpanish ribs ere now. These were signs of the murderer and robber; thereveler likewise had left his trace. Mixed with shells, fragments ofbroken jars were lying here and there, high up upon the beach. They wereprecisely like the jars now used upon the Spanish coast for the wine andPisco spirits of that country. 

"With a rusty dagger-fragment in one hand, and a bit of a wine-jar inanother, I sat me down on the ruinous green sofa I have spoken of, andbethought me long and deeply of these same Buccaneers. Could it bepossible, that they robbed and murdered one day, reveled the next, andrested themselves by turning meditative philosophers, rural poets, andseat-builders on the third? Not very improbable, after all. For considerthe vacillations of a man. Still, strange as it may seem, I must alsoabide by the more charitable thought; namely, that among theseadventurers were some gentlemanly, companionable souls, capable ofgenuine tranquillity and virtue. "

 * * * * *

SKETCH SEVENTH. 

CHARLES'S ISLE AND THE DOG-KING. 

 --So with outragious cry, A thousand villeins round about him swarmed Out of the rocks and caves adjoining nye; Vile caitive wretches, ragged, rude, deformed; All threatning death, all in straunge manner armed; Some with unweldy clubs, some with long speares. Some rusty knives, some staves in fier warmd. 

 * * * * *

 We will not be of any occupation, Let such vile vassals, born to base vocation, Drudge in the world, and for their living droyle, Which have no wit to live withouten toyle. 

Southwest of Barrington lies Charles's Isle. And hereby hangs a historywhich I gathered long ago from a shipmate learned in all the lore ofoutlandish life. 

During the successful revolt of the Spanish provinces from Old Spain, there fought on behalf of Peru a certain Creole adventurer from Cuba, who, by his bravery and good fortune, at length advanced himself to highrank in the patriot army. The war being ended, Peru found itself likemany valorous gentlemen, free and independent enough, but with few shotin the locker. In other words, Peru had not wherewithal to pay off itstroops. But the Creole--I forget his name--volunteered to take his payin lands. So they told him he might have his pick of the EnchantedIsles, which were then, as they still remain, the nominal appanage ofPeru. The soldier straightway embarks thither, explores the group, returns to Callao, and says he will take a deed of Charles's Isle. Moreover, this deed must stipulate that thenceforth Charles's Isle isnot only the sole property of the Creole, but is forever free of Peru, even as Peru of Spain. To be short, this adventurer procures himself tobe made in effect Supreme Lord of the Island, one of the princes of thepowers of the earth. [A]

[Footnote A: The American Spaniards have long been in the habit ofmaking presents of islands to deserving individuals. The pilot JuanFernandez procured a deed of the isle named after him, and for someyears resided there before Selkirk came. It is supposed, however, thathe eventually contracted the blues upon his princely property, for aftera time he returned to the main, and as report goes, became a verygarrulous barber in the city of Lima. ]

He now sends forth a proclamation inviting subjects to his as yetunpopulated kingdom. Some eighty souls, men and women, respond; andbeing provided by their leader with necessaries, and tools of varioussorts, together with a few cattle and goats, take ship for the promisedland; the last arrival on board, prior to sailing, being the Creolehimself, accompanied, strange to say, by a disciplined cavalry companyof large grim dogs. These, it was observed on the passage, refusing toconsort with the emigrants, remained aristocratically grouped aroundtheir master on the elevated quarter-deck, casting disdainful glancesforward upon the inferior rabble there; much as, from the ramparts, thesoldiers of a garrison, thrown into a conquered town, eye the ingloriouscitizen-mob over which they are set to watch. 

Now Charles's Isle not only resembles Barrington Isle in being much moreinhabitable than other parts of the group, but it is double the size ofBarrington, say forty or fifty miles in circuit. 

Safely debarked at last, the company, under direction of their lord andpatron, forthwith proceeded to build their capital city. They makeconsiderable advance in the way of walls of clinkers, and lava floors, nicely sanded with cinders. On the least barren hills they pasturetheir cattle, while the goats, adventurers by nature, explore the farinland solitudes for a scanty livelihood of lofty herbage. Meantime, abundance of fish and tortoises supply their other wants. 

The disorders incident to settling all primitive regions, in the presentcase were heightened by the peculiarly untoward character of many of thepilgrims. His Majesty was forced at last to proclaim martial law, andactually hunted and shot with his own hand several of his rebellioussubjects, who, with most questionable intentions, had clandestinelyencamped in the interior, whence they stole by night, to prowlbarefooted on tiptoe round the precincts of the lava-palace. It is to beremarked, however, that prior to such stern proceedings, the morereliable men had been judiciously picked out for an infantry body-guard, subordinate to the cavalry body-guard of dogs. But the state of politicsin this unhappy nation may be somewhat imagined, from the circumstancethat all who were not of the body-guard were downright plotters andmalignant traitors. At length the death penalty was tacitly abolished, owing to the timely thought, that were strict sportsman's justice to bedispensed among such subjects, ere long the Nimrod King would havelittle or no remaining game to shoot. The human part of the life-guardwas now disbanded, and set to work cultivating the soil, and raisingpotatoes; the regular army now solely consisting of the dog-regiment. These, as I have heard, were of a singularly ferocious character, thoughby severe training rendered docile to their master. Armed to the teeth, the Creole now goes in state, surrounded by his canine janizaries, whoseterrific bayings prove quite as serviceable as bayonets in keeping downthe surgings of revolt. 

But the census of the isle, sadly lessened by the dispensation ofjustice, and not materially recruited by matrimony, began to fill hismind with sad mistrust. Some way the population must be increased. Now, from its possessing a little water, and its comparative pleasantness ofaspect, Charles's Isle at this period was occasionally visited byforeign whalers. These His Majesty had always levied upon for portcharges, thereby contributing to his revenue. But now he had additionaldesigns. By insidious arts he, from time to time, cajoles certainsailors to desert their ships, and enlist beneath his banner. Soon asmissed, their captains crave permission to go and hunt them up. Whereupon His Majesty first hides them very carefully away, and thenfreely permits the search. In consequence, the delinquents are neverfound, and the ships retire without them. 

Thus, by a two-edged policy of this crafty monarch, foreign nations werecrippled in the number of their subjects, and his own were greatlymultiplied. He particularly petted these renegado strangers. But alasfor the deep-laid schemes of ambitious princes, and alas for the vanityof glory. As the foreign-born Pretorians, unwisely introduced into theRoman state, and still more unwisely made favorites of the Emperors, atlast insulted and overturned the throne, even so these lawless mariners, with all the rest of the body-guard and all the populace, broke out intoa terrible mutiny, and defied their master. He marched against them withall his dogs. A deadly battle ensued upon the beach. It raged for threehours, the dogs fighting with determined valor, and the sailors recklessof everything but victory. Three men and thirteen dogs were left deadupon the field, many on both sides were wounded, and the king was forcedto fly with the remainder of his canine regiment. The enemy pursued, stoning the dogs with their master into the wilderness of the interior. Discontinuing the pursuit, the victors returned to the village on theshore, stove the spirit casks, and proclaimed a Republic. The dead menwere interred with the honors of war, and the dead dogs ignominiouslythrown into the sea. At last, forced by stress of suffering, thefugitive Creole came down from the hills and offered to treat for peace. But the rebels refused it on any other terms than his unconditionalbanishment. Accordingly, the next ship that arrived carried away theex-king to Peru. 

The history of the king of Charles's Island furnishes anotherillustration of the difficulty of colonizing barren islands withunprincipled pilgrims. 

Doubtless for a long time the exiled monarch, pensively ruralizing inPeru, which afforded him a safe asylum in his calamity, watched everyarrival from the Encantadas, to hear news of the failure of theRepublic, the consequent penitence of the rebels, and his own recall toroyalty. Doubtless he deemed the Republic but a miserable experimentwhich would soon explode. But no, the insurgents had confederatedthemselves into a democracy neither Grecian, Roman, nor American. Nay, it was no democracy at all, but a permanent _Riotocracy_, which gloriedin having no law but lawlessness. Great inducements being offered todeserters, their ranks were swelled by accessions of scamps from everyship which touched their shores. Charles's Island was proclaimed theasylum of the oppressed of all navies. Each runaway tar was hailed as amartyr in the cause of freedom, and became immediately installed aragged citizen of this universal nation. In vain the captains ofabsconding seamen strove to regain them. Their new compatriots wereready to give any number of ornamental eyes in their behalf. They hadfew cannon, but their fists were not to be trifled with. So at last itcame to pass that no vessels acquainted with the character of thatcountry durst touch there, however sorely in want of refreshment. Itbecame Anathema--a sea Alsatia--the unassailed lurking-place of allsorts of desperadoes, who in the name of liberty did just what theypleased. They continually fluctuated in their numbers. Sailors, deserting ships at other islands, or in boats at sea anywhere in thatvicinity, steered for Charles's Isle, as to their sure home of refuge;while, sated with the life of the isle, numbers from time to timecrossed the water to the neighboring ones, and there presentingthemselves to strange captains as shipwrecked seamen, often succeeded ingetting on board vessels bound to the Spanish coast, and having acompassionate purse made up for them on landing there. 

One warm night during my first visit to the group, our ship was floatingalong in languid stillness, when some one on the forecastle shouted"Light ho!" We looked and saw a beacon burning on some obscure land offthe beam. Our third mate was not intimate with this part of the world. Going to the captain he said, "Sir, shall I put off in a boat? Thesemust be shipwrecked men. "

The captain laughed rather grimly, as, shaking his fist towards thebeacon, he rapped out an oath, and said--"No, no, you precious rascals, you don't juggle one of my boats ashore this blessed night. You do well, you thieves--you do benevolently to hoist a light yonder as on adangerous shoal. It tempts no wise man to pull off and see what's thematter, but bids him steer small and keep off shore--that is Charles'sIsland; brace up, Mr. Mate, and keep the light astern. "

 * * * * *

SKETCH EIGHTH. 

NORFOLK ISLE AND THE CHOLA WIDOW. 

 "At last they in an island did espy A seemly woman sitting by the shore, That with great sorrow and sad agony Seemed some great misfortune to deplore; And loud to them for succor called evermore. "

 "Black his eye as the midnight sky. White his neck as the driven snow, Red his cheek as the morning light;-- Cold he lies in the ground below. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, ys All under the cactus tree. "

 "Each lonely scene shall thee restore, For thee the tear be duly shed; Belov'd till life can charm no more, And mourned till Pity's self be dead. "

Far to the northeast of Charles's Isle, sequestered from the rest, liesNorfolk Isle; and, however insignificant to most voyagers, to me, through sympathy, that lone island has become a spot made sacred by thestrangest trials of humanity. 

It was my first visit to the Encantadas. Two days had been spent ashorein hunting tortoises. There was not time to capture many; so on thethird afternoon we loosed our sails. We were just in the act of gettingunder way, the uprooted anchor yet suspended and invisibly swayingbeneath the wave, as the good ship gradually turned her heel to leavethe isle behind, when the seaman who heaved with me at the windlasspaused suddenly, and directed my attention to something moving on theland, not along the beach, but somewhat back, fluttering from a height. 

In view of the sequel of this little story, be it here narrated how itcame to pass, that an object which partly from its being so small wasquite lost to every other man on board, still caught the eye of myhandspike companion. The rest of the crew, myself included, merely stoodup to our spikes in heaving, whereas, unwontedly exhilarated, at everyturn of the ponderous windlass, my belted comrade leaped atop of it, with might and main giving a downward, thewey, perpendicular heave, hisraised eye bent in cheery animation upon the slowly receding shore. Being high lifted above all others was the reason he perceived theobject, otherwise unperceivable; and this elevation of his eye wasowing to the elevation of his spirits; and this again--for truth mustout--to a dram of Peruvian pisco, in guerdon for some kindness done, secretly administered to him that morning by our mulatto steward. Now, certainly, pisco does a deal of mischief in the world; yet seeing that, in the present case, it was the means, though indirect, of rescuing ahuman being from the most dreadful fate, must we not also needs admitthat sometimes pisco does a deal of good?

Glancing across the water in the direction pointed out, I saw some whitething hanging from an inland rock, perhaps half a mile from the sea. 

"It is a bird; a white-winged bird; perhaps a--no; it is--it is ahandkerchief!"

"Ay, a handkerchief!" echoed my comrade, and with a louder shoutapprised the captain. 

Quickly now--like the running out and training of a great gun--the longcabin spy-glass was thrust through the mizzen rigging from the highplatform of the poop; whereupon a human figure was plainly seen upon theinland rock, eagerly waving towards us what seemed to be thehandkerchief. 

Our captain was a prompt, good fellow. Dropping the glass, he lustilyran forward, ordering the anchor to be dropped again; hands to stand bya boat, and lower away. 

In a half-hour's time the swift boat returned. It went with six and camewith seven; and the seventh was a woman. 

It is not artistic heartlessness, but I wish I could but draw incrayons; for this woman was a most touching sight; and crayons, tracingsoftly melancholy lines, would best depict the mournful image of thedark-damasked Chola widow. 

Her story was soon told, and though given in her own strange languagewas as quickly understood; for our captain, from long trading on theChilian coast, was well versed in the Spanish. A Cholo, or half-breedIndian woman of Payta in Peru, three years gone by, with her youngnew-wedded husband Felipe, of pure Castilian blood, and her one onlyIndian brother, Truxill, Hunilla had taken passage on the main in aFrench whaler, commanded by a joyous man; which vessel, bound to thecruising grounds beyond the Enchanted Isles, proposed passing close bytheir vicinity. The object of the little party was to procure tortoiseoil, a fluid which for its great purity and delicacy is held in highestimation wherever known; and it is well known all along this part ofthe Pacific coast. With a chest of clothes, tools, cooking utensils, arude apparatus for trying out the oil, some casks of biscuit, and otherthings, not omitting two favorite dogs, of which faithful animal all theCholos are very fond, Hunilla and her companions were safely landed attheir chosen place; the Frenchman, according to the contract made eresailing, engaged to take them off upon returning from a four months'cruise in the westward seas; which interval the three adventurers deemedquite sufficient for their purposes. 

On the isle's lone beach they paid him in silver for their passage out, the stranger having declined to carry them at all except upon thatcondition; though willing to take every means to insure the duefulfillment of his promise. Felipe had striven hard to have this paymentput off to the period of the ship's return. But in vain. Still theythought they had, in another way, ample pledge of the good faith of theFrenchman. It was arranged that the expenses of the passage home shouldnot be payable in silver, but in tortoises; one hundred tortoises readycaptured to the returning captain's hand. These the Cholos meant tosecure after their own work was done, against the probable time of theFrenchman's coming back; and no doubt in prospect already felt, that inthose hundred tortoises--now somewhere ranging the isle's interior--theypossessed one hundred hostages. Enough: the vessel sailed; the gazingthree on shore answered the loud glee of the singing crew; and ereevening, the French craft was hull down in the distant sea, its maststhree faintest lines which quickly faded from Hunilla's eye. 

The stranger had given a blithesome promise, and anchored it with oaths;but oaths and anchors equally will drag; naught else abides on fickleearth but unkept promises of joy. Contrary winds from out unstableskies, or contrary moods of his more varying mind, or shipwreck andsudden death in solitary waves; whatever was the cause, the blithestranger never was seen again. 

Yet, however dire a calamity was here in store, misgivings of it ere duetime never disturbed the Cholos' busy mind, now all intent upon thetoilsome matter which had brought them hither. Nay, by swift doom cominglike the thief at night, ere seven weeks went by, two of the littleparty were removed from all anxieties of land or sea. No more theysought to gaze with feverish fear, or still more feverish hope, beyondthe present's horizon line; but into the furthest future their ownsilent spirits sailed. By persevering labor beneath that burning sun, Felipe and Truxill had brought down to their hut many scores oftortoises, and tried out the oil, when, elated with their good success, and to reward themselves for such hard work, they, too hastily, made acatamaran, or Indian raft, much used on the Spanish main, and merrilystarted on a fishing trip, just without a long reef with many jaggedgaps, running parallel with the shore, about half a mile from it. Bysome bad tide or hap, or natural negligence of joyfulness (for thoughthey could not be heard, yet by their gestures they seemed singing atthe time) forced in deep water against that iron bar, the ill-madecatamaran was overset, and came all to pieces; when dashed bybroad-chested swells between their broken logs and the sharp teeth ofthe reef, both adventurers perished before Hunilla's eyes. 

Before Hunilla's eyes they sank. The real woe of this event passedbefore her sight as some sham tragedy on the stage. She was seated on arude bower among the withered thickets, crowning a lofty cliff, a littleback from the beach. The thickets were so disposed, that in looking uponthe sea at large she peered out from among the branches as from thelattice of a high balcony. But upon the day we speak of here, the betterto watch the adventure of those two hearts she loved, Hunilla hadwithdrawn the branches to one side, and held them so. They formed anoval frame, through which the bluely boundless sea rolled like a paintedone. And there, the invisible painter painted to her view thewave-tossed and disjointed raft, its once level logs slantinglyupheaved, as raking masts, and the four struggling armsindistinguishable among them; and then all subsided into smooth-flowingcreamy waters, slowly drifting the splintered wreck; while first andlast, no sound of any sort was heard. Death in a silent picture; a dreamof the eye; such vanishing shapes as the mirage shows. 

So instant was the scene, so trance-like its mild pictorial effect, sodistant from her blasted bower and her common sense of things, thatHunilla gazed and gazed, nor raised a finger or a wail. But as good tosit thus dumb, in stupor staring on that dumb show, for all thatotherwise might be done. With half a mile of sea between, how could hertwo enchanted arms aid those four fated ones? The distance long, thetime one sand. After the lightning is beheld, what fool shall stay thethunder-bolt? Felipe's body was washed ashore, but Truxill's never came;only his gay, braided hat of golden straw--that same sunflower thing hewaved to her, pushing from the strand--and now, to the last gallant, itstill saluted her. But Felipe's body floated to the marge, with one armencirclingly outstretched. Lock-jawed in grim death, the lover-husbandsoftly clasped his bride, true to her even in death's dream. Ah, heaven, when man thus keeps his faith, wilt thou be faithless whocreated the faithful one? But they cannot break faith who never plightedit. 

It needs not to be said what nameless misery now wrapped the lonelywidow. In telling her own story she passed this almost entirely over, simply recounting the event. Construe the comment of her features as youmight, from her mere words little would you have weened that Hunilla washerself the heroine of her tale. But not thus did she defraud us of ourtears. All hearts bled that grief could be so brave. 

She but showed us her soul's lid, and the strange ciphers thereonengraved; all within, with pride's timidity, was withheld. Yet was thereone exception. Holding out her small olive hand before her captain, shesaid in mild and slowest Spanish, "Señor, I buried him;" then paused, struggled as against the writhed coilings of a snake, and cringingsuddenly, leaped up, repeating in impassioned pain, "I buried him, mylife, my soul!"

Doubtless, it was by half-unconscious, automatic motions of her hands, that this heavy-hearted one performed the final office for Felipe, andplanted a rude cross of withered sticks--no green ones might be had--atthe head of that lonely grave, where rested now in lasting un-complaintand quiet haven he whom untranquil seas had overthrown. 

But some dull sense of another body that should be interred, of anothercross that should hallow another grave--unmade as yet--some dull anxietyand pain touching her undiscovered brother, now haunted the oppressedHunilla. Her hands fresh from the burial earth, she slowly went back tothe beach, with unshaped purposes wandering there, her spell-bound eyebent upon the incessant waves. But they bore nothing to her but a dirge, which maddened her to think that murderers should mourn. As time wentby, and these things came less dreamingly to her mind, the strongpersuasions of her Romish faith, which sets peculiar store byconsecrated urns, prompted her to resume in waking earnest that pioussearch which had but been begun as in somnambulism. Day after day, weekafter week, she trod the cindery beach, till at length a double motiveedged every eager glance. With equal longing she now looked for theliving and the dead; the brother and the captain; alike vanished, neverto return. Little accurate note of time had Hunilla taken under suchemotions as were hers, and little, outside herself, served for calendaror dial. As to poor Crusoe in the self-same sea, no saint's bell pealedforth the lapse of week or month; each day went by unchallenged; nochanticleer announced those sultry dawns, no lowing herds thosepoisonous nights. All wonted and steadily recurring sounds, human, orhumanized by sweet fellowship with man, but one stirred that torridtrance--the cry of dogs; save which naught but the rolling sea invadedit, an all-pervading monotone; and to the widow that was the least lovedvoice she could have heard. 

No wonder, that as her thoughts now wandered to the unreturning ship, and were beaten back again, the hope against hope so struggled in hersoul, that at length she desperately said, "Not yet, not yet; my foolishheart runs on too fast. " So she forced patience for some further weeks. But to those whom earth's sure indraft draws, patience or impatience isstill the same. 

Hunilla now sought to settle precisely in her mind, to an hour, how longit was since the ship had sailed; and then, with the same precision, howlong a space remained to pass. But this proved impossible. What presentday or month it was she could not say. Time was her labyrinth, in whichHunilla was entirely lost. 

And now follows--

Against my own purposes a pause descends upon me here. One knows notwhether nature doth not impose some secrecy upon him who has been privyto certain things. At least, it is to be doubted whether it be good toblazon such. If some books are deemed most baneful and their saleforbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Thosewhom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, notbooks, should be forbid. But in all things man sows upon the wind, whichbloweth just there whither it listeth; for ill or good, man cannot know. Often ill comes from the good, as good from ill. 

When Hunilla--

Dire sight it is to see some silken beast long dally with a goldenlizard ere she devour. More terrible, to see how feline Fate willsometimes dally with a human soul, and by a nameless magic make itrepulse a sane despair with a hope which is but mad. Unwittingly I impthis cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of him who reads; for if hefeel not he reads in vain. 

--"The ship sails this day, to-day, " at last said Hunilla to herself;"this gives me certain time to stand on; without certainty I go mad. Inloose ignorance I have hoped and hoped; now in firm knowledge I will butwait. Now I live and no longer perish in bewilderings. Holy Virgin, aidme! Thou wilt waft back the ship. Oh, past length of weary weeks--all tobe dragged over--to buy the certainty of to-day, I freely give ye, though I tear ye from me!"

As mariners, tost in tempest on some desolate ledge, patch them a boatout of the remnants of their vessel's wreck, and launch it in theself-same waves, see here Hunilla, this lone shipwrecked soul, out oftreachery invoking trust. Humanity, thou strong thing, I worship thee, not in the laureled victor, but in this vanquished one. 

Truly Hunilla leaned upon a reed, a real one; no metaphor; a realEastern reed. A piece of hollow cane, drifted from unknown isles, andfound upon the beach, its once jagged ends rubbed smoothly even as bysand-paper; its golden glazing gone. Long ground between the sea andland, upper and nether stone, the unvarnished substance was filed bare, and wore another polish now, one with itself, the polish of its agony. Circular lines at intervals cut all round this surface, divided it intosix panels of unequal length. In the first were scored the days, eachtenth one marked by a longer and deeper notch; the second was scored forthe number of sea-fowl eggs for sustenance, picked out from the rockynests; the third, how many fish had been caught from the shore; thefourth, how many small tortoises found inland; the fifth, how many daysof sun; the sixth, of clouds; which last, of the two, was the greaterone. Long night of busy numbering, misery's mathematics, to weary hertoo-wakeful soul to sleep; yet sleep for that was none. 

The panel of the days was deeply worn--the long tenth notches halfeffaced, as alphabets of the blind. Ten thousand times the longing widowhad traced her finger over the bamboo--dull flute, which played, on, gave no sound--as if counting birds flown by in air would hastentortoises creeping through the woods. 

After the one hundred and eightieth day no further mark was seen; thatlast one was the faintest, as the first the deepest. 

"There were more days, " said our Captain; "many, many more; why did younot go on and notch them, too, Hunilla?"

"Señor, ask me not. "

"And meantime, did no other vessel pass the isle?"

"Nay, Señor;--but--"

"You do not speak; but _what_, Hunilla?"

"Ask me not, Señor. "

"You saw ships pass, far away; you waved to them; they passed on;--wasthat it, Hunilla?"

"Señor, be it as you say. "

Braced against her woe, Hunilla would not, durst not trust the weaknessof her tongue. Then when our Captain asked whether any whale-boatshad--

But no, I will not file this thing complete for scoffing souls to quote, and call it firm proof upon their side. The half shall here remainuntold. Those two unnamed events which befell Hunilla on this isle, letthem abide between her and her God. In nature, as in law, it may belibelous to speak some truths. 

Still, how it was that, although our vessel had lain three days anchorednigh the isle, its one human tenant should not have discovered us tilljust upon the point of sailing, never to revisit so lone and far a spot, this needs explaining ere the sequel come. 

The place where the French captain had landed the little party was onthe further and opposite end of the isle. There, too, it was that theyhad afterwards built their hut. Nor did the widow in her solitude desertthe spot where her loved ones had dwelt with her, and where the dearestof the twain now slept his last long sleep, and all her plaints awakedhim not, and he of husbands the most faithful during life. 

Now, high, broken land rises between the opposite extremities of theisle. A ship anchored at one side is invisible from the other. Neitheris the isle so small, but a considerable company might wander for daysthrough the wilderness of one side, and never be seen, or their halloosheard, by any stranger holding aloof on the other. Hence Hunilla, whonaturally associated the possible coming of ships with her own part ofthe isle, might to the end have remained quite ignorant of the presenceof our vessel, were it not for a mysterious presentiment, borne to her, so our mariners averred, by this isle's enchanted air. Nor did thewidow's answer undo the thought. 

"How did you come to cross the isle this morning, then, Hunilla?" saidour Captain. 

"Señor, something came flitting by me. It touched my cheek, my heart, Señor. "

"What do you say, Hunilla?"

"I have said, Señor, something came through the air. "

It was a narrow chance. For when in crossing the isle Hunilla gained thehigh land in the centre, she must then for the first have perceived ourmasts, and also marked that their sails were being loosed, perhaps evenheard the echoing chorus of the windlass song. The strange ship wasabout to sail, and she behind. With all haste she now descends theheight on the hither side, but soon loses sight of the ship among thesunken jungles at the mountain's base. She struggles on through thewithered branches, which seek at every step to bar her path, till shecomes to the isolated rock, still some way from the water. This sheclimbs, to reassure herself. The ship is still in plainest sight. Butnow, worn out with over tension, Hunilla all but faints; she fears tostep down from her giddy perch; she is fain to pause, there where sheis, and as a last resort catches the turban from her head, unfurls andwaves it over the jungles towards us. 

During the telling of her story the mariners formed a voiceless circleround Hunilla and the Captain; and when at length the word was given toman the fastest boat, and pull round to the isle's thither side, tobring away Hunilla's chest and the tortoise-oil, such alacrity of bothcheery and sad obedience seldom before was seen. Little ado was made. Already the anchor had been recommitted to the bottom, and the shipswung calmly to it. 

But Hunilla insisted upon accompanying the boat as indispensable pilotto her hidden hut. So being refreshed with the best the steward couldsupply, she started with us. Nor did ever any wife of the most famousadmiral, in her husband's barge, receive more silent reverence ofrespect than poor Hunilla from this boat's crew. 

Rounding many a vitreous cape and bluff, in two hours' time we shotinside the fatal reef; wound into a secret cove, looked up along a greenmany-gabled lava wall, and saw the island's solitary dwelling. 

It hung upon an impending cliff, sheltered on two sides by tangledthickets, and half-screened from view in front by juttings of the rudestairway, which climbed the precipice from the sea. Built of canes, itwas thatched with long, mildewed grass. It seemed an abandoned hay-rick, whose haymakers were now no more. The roof inclined but one way; theeaves coming to within two feet of the ground. And here was a simpleapparatus to collect the dews, or rather doubly-distilled and finestwinnowed rains, which, in mercy or in mockery, the night-skies sometimesdrop upon these blighted Encantadas. All along beneath the eaves, aspotted sheet, quite weather-stained, was spread, pinned to short, upright stakes, set in the shallow sand. A small clinker, thrown intothe cloth, weighed its middle down, thereby straining all moisture intoa calabash placed below. This vessel supplied each drop of water everdrunk upon the isle by the Cholos. Hunilla told us the calabash, wouldsometimes, but not often, be half filled overnight. It held six quarts, perhaps. "But, " said she, "we were used to thirst. At sandy Payta, whereI live, no shower from heaven ever fell; all the water there is broughton mules from the inland vales. "

Tied among the thickets were some twenty moaning tortoises, supplyingHunilla's lonely larder; while hundreds of vast tableted black bucklers, like displaced, shattered tomb-stones of dark slate, were also scatteredround. These were the skeleton backs of those great tortoises fromwhich Felipe and Truxill had made their precious oil. Several largecalabashes and two goodly kegs were filled with it. In a pot near bywere the caked crusts of a quantity which had been permitted toevaporate. "They meant to have strained it off next day, " said Hunilla, as she turned aside. 

I forgot to mention the most singular sight of all, though the firstthat greeted us after landing. 

Some ten small, soft-haired, ringleted dogs, of a beautiful breed, peculiar to Peru, set up a concert of glad welcomings when we gained thebeach, which was responded to by Hunilla. Some of these dogs had, sinceher widowhood, been born upon the isle, the progeny of the two broughtfrom Payta. Owing to the jagged steeps and pitfalls, tortuous thickets, sunken clefts and perilous intricacies of all sorts in the interior, Hunilla, admonished by the loss of one favorite among them, neverallowed these delicate creatures to follow her in her occasionalbirds'-nests climbs and other wanderings; so that, through longhabituation, they offered not to follow, when that morning she crossedthe land, and her own soul was then too full of other things to heedtheir lingering behind. Yet, all along she had so clung to them, that, besides what moisture they lapped up at early daybreak from the smallscoop-holes among the adjacent rocks, she had shared the dew of hercalabash among them; never laying by any considerable store againstthose prolonged and utter droughts which, in some disastrous seasons, warp these isles. 

Having pointed out, at our desire, what few things she would liketransported to the ship--her chest, the oil, not omitting the livetortoises which she intended for a grateful present to our Captain--weimmediately set to work, carrying them to the boat down the long, sloping stair of deeply-shadowed rock. While my comrades were thusemployed, I looked and Hunilla had disappeared. 

It was not curiosity alone, but, it seems to me, something differentmingled with it, which prompted me to drop my tortoise, and once moregaze slowly around. I remembered the husband buried by Hunilla's hands. A narrow pathway led into a dense part of the thickets. Following itthrough many mazes, I came out upon a small, round, open space, deeplychambered there. 

The mound rose in the middle; a bare heap of finest sand, like thatunverdured heap found at the bottom of an hour-glass run out. At itshead stood the cross of withered sticks; the dry, peeled bark stillfraying from it; its transverse limb tied up with rope, and forlornlyadroop in the silent air. 

Hunilla was partly prostrate upon the grave; her dark head bowed, andlost in her long, loosened Indian hair; her hands extended to thecross-foot, with a little brass crucifix clasped between; a crucifixworn featureless, like an ancient graven knocker long plied in vain. Shedid not see me, and I made no noise, but slid aside, and left the spot. 

A few moments ere all was ready for our going, she reappeared among us. I looked into her eyes, but saw no tear. There was something whichseemed strangely haughty in her air, and yet it was the air of woe. ASpanish and an Indian grief, which would not visibly lament. Pride'sheight in vain abased to proneness on the rack; nature's pride subduingnature's torture. 

Like pages the small and silken dogs surrounded her, as she slowlydescended towards the beach. She caught the two most eager creatures inher arms:--"Mia Teeta! Mia Tomoteeta!" and fondling them, inquired howmany could we take on board. 

The mate commanded the boat's crew; not a hard-hearted man, but his wayof life had been such that in most things, even in the smallest, simpleutility was his leading motive. 

"We cannot take them all, Hunilla; our supplies are short; the winds areunreliable; we may be a good many days going to Tombez. So take thoseyou have, Hunilla; but no more. "

She was in the boat; the oarsmen, too, were seated; all save one, whostood ready to push off and then spring himself. With the sagacity oftheir race, the dogs now seemed aware that they were in the very instantof being deserted upon a barren strand. The gunwales of the boat werehigh; its prow--presented inland--was lifted; so owing to the water, which they seemed instinctively to shun, the dogs could not well leapinto the little craft. But their busy paws hard scraped the prow, as ithad been some farmer's door shutting them out from shelter in a winterstorm. A clamorous agony of alarm. They did not howl, or whine; they allbut spoke. 

"Push off! Give way!" cried the mate. The boat gave one heavy drag andlurch, and next moment shot swiftly from the beach, turned on her heel, and sped. The dogs ran howling along the water's marge; now pausing togaze at the flying boat, then motioning as if to leap in chase, butmysteriously withheld themselves; and again ran howling along the beach. Had they been human beings, hardly would they have more vividly inspiredthe sense of desolation. The oars were plied as confederate feathers oftwo wings. No one spoke. I looked back upon the beach, and then uponHunilla, but her face was set in a stern dusky calm. The dogs crouchingin her lap vainly licked her rigid hands. She never looked be her: butsat motionless, till we turned a promontory of the coast and lost allsights and sounds astern. She seemed as one who, having experienced thesharpest of mortal pangs, was henceforth content to have all lesserheartstrings riven, one by one. To Hunilla, pain seemed so necessary, that pain in other beings, though by love and sympathy made her own, wasunrepiningly to be borne. A heart of yearning in a frame of steel. Aheart of earthly yearning, frozen by the frost which falleth from thesky. 

The sequel is soon told. After a long passage, vexed by calms andbaffling winds, we made the little port of Tombez in Peru, there torecruit the ship. Payta was not very distant. Our captain sold thetortoise oil to a Tombez merchant; and adding to the silver acontribution from all hands, gave it to our silent passenger, who knewnot what the mariners had done. 

The last seen of lone Hunilla she was passing into Payta town, ridingupon a small gray ass; and before her on the ass's shoulders, she eyedthe jointed workings of the beast's armorial cross. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH NINTH. 

HOOD'S ISLE AND THE HERMIT OBERLUS. 

 "That darkesome glen they enter, where they find That cursed man low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullein mind; His griesly lockes long gronen and unbound, Disordered hong about his shoulders round, And hid his face, through which his hollow eyne Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound; His raw-bone cheekes, through penurie and pine, Were shronke into the jawes, as he did never dine. His garments nought but many ragged clouts, With thornes together pind and patched reads, The which his naked sides he wrapt abouts. "

Southeast of Crossman's Isle lies Hood's Isle, or McCain's BecloudedIsle; and upon its south side is a vitreous cove with a wide strand ofdark pounded black lava, called Black Beach, or Oberlus's Landing. Itmight fitly have been styled Charon's. 

It received its name from a wild white creature who spent many yearshere; in the person of a European bringing into this savage regionqualities more diabolical than are to be found among any of thesurrounding cannibals. 

About half a century ago, Oberlus deserted at the above-named island, then, as now, a solitude. He built himself a den of lava and clinkers, about a mile from the Landing, subsequently called after him, in a vale, or expanded gulch, containing here and there among the rocks about twoacres of soil capable of rude cultivation; the only place on the islenot too blasted for that purpose. Here he succeeded in raising a sort ofdegenerate potatoes and pumpkins, which from time to time he exchangedwith needy whalemen passing, for spirits or dollars. 

His appearance, from all accounts, was that of the victim of somemalignant sorceress; he seemed to have drunk of Circe's cup; beast-like;rags insufficient to hide his nakedness; his befreckled skin blisteredby continual exposure to the sun; nose flat; countenance contorted, heavy, earthy; hair and beard unshorn, profuse, and of fiery red. Hestruck strangers much as if he were a volcanic creature thrown up by thesame convulsion which exploded into sight the isle. All bepatched andcoiled asleep in his lonely lava den among the mountains, he looked, they say, as a heaped drift of withered leaves, torn from autumn trees, and so left in some hidden nook by the whirling halt for an instant of afierce night-wind, which then ruthlessly sweeps on, somewhere else torepeat the capricious act. It is also reported to have been thestrangest sight, this same Oberlus, of a sultry, cloudy morning, hiddenunder his shocking old black tarpaulin hat, hoeing potatoes among thelava. So warped and crooked was his strange nature, that the very handleof his hoe seemed gradually to have shrunk and twisted in his grasp, being a wretched bent stick, elbowed more like a savage's war-sicklethan a civilized hoe-handle. It was his mysterious custom upon a firstencounter with a stranger ever to present his back; possibly, becausethat was his better side, since it revealed the least. If the encounterchanced in his garden, as it sometimes did--the new-landed strangersgoing from the sea-side straight through the gorge, to hunt up the queergreen-grocer reported doing business here--Oberlus for a time hoed on, unmindful of all greeting, jovial or bland; as the curious strangerwould turn to face him, the recluse, hoe in hand, as diligently wouldavert himself; bowed over, and sullenly revolving round his murphy hill. Thus far for hoeing. When planting, his whole aspect and all hisgestures were so malevolently and uselessly sinister and secret, that heseemed rather in act of dropping poison into wells than potatoes intosoil. But among his lesser and more harmless marvels was an idea he everhad, that his visitors came equally as well led by longings to beholdthe mighty hermit Oberlus in his royal state of solitude, as simply, toobtain potatoes, or find whatever company might be upon a barren isle. It seems incredible that such a being should possess such vanity; amisanthrope be conceited; but he really had his notion; and upon thestrength of it, often gave himself amusing airs to captains. But afterall, this is somewhat of a piece with the well-known eccentricity ofsome convicts, proud of that very hatefulness which makes themnotorious. At other times, another unaccountable whim would seize him, and he would long dodge advancing strangers round the clinkered cornersof his hut; sometimes like a stealthy bear, he would slink through thewithered thickets up the mountains, and refuse to see the human face. 

Except his occasional visitors from the sea, for a long period, the onlycompanions of Oberlus were the crawling tortoises; and he seemed morethan degraded to their level, having no desires for a time beyondtheirs, unless it were for the stupor brought on by drunkenness. Butsufficiently debased as he appeared, there yet lurked in him, onlyawaiting occasion for discovery, a still further proneness. Indeed, thesole superiority of Oberlus over the tortoises was his possession of alarger capacity of degradation; and along with that, something like anintelligent will to it. Moreover, what is about to be revealed, perhapswill show, that selfish ambition, or the love of rule for its own sake, far from being the peculiar infirmity of noble minds, is shared bybeings which have no mind at all. No creatures are so selfishlytyrannical as some brutes; as any one who has observed the tenants ofthe pasture must occasionally have observed. 

"This island's mine by Sycorax my mother, " said Oberlus to himself, glaring round upon his haggard solitude. By some means, barter ortheft--for in those days ships at intervals still kept touching at hisLanding--he obtained an old musket, with a few charges of powder andball. Possessed of arms, he was stimulated to enterprise, as a tigerthat first feels the coming of its claws. The long habit of soledominion over every object round him, his almost unbroken solitude, hisnever encountering humanity except on terms of misanthropicindependence, or mercantile craftiness, and even such encounters beingcomparatively but rare; all this must have gradually nourished in him avast idea of his own importance, together with a pure animal sort ofscorn for all the rest of the universe. 

The unfortunate Creole, who enjoyed his brief term of royalty atCharles's Isle was perhaps in some degree influenced by not unworthymotives; such as prompt other adventurous spirits to lead colonists intodistant regions and assume political preeminence over them. His summaryexecution of many of his Peruvians is quite pardonable, considering thedesperate characters he had to deal with; while his offering caninebattle to the banded rebels seems under the circumstances altogetherjust. But for this King Oberlus and what shortly follows, no shade ofpalliation can be given. He acted out of mere delight in tyranny andcruelty, by virtue of a quality in him inherited from Sycorax hismother. Armed now with that shocking blunderbuss, strong in the thoughtof being master of that horrid isle, he panted for a chance to prove hispotency upon the first specimen of humanity which should fallunbefriended into his hands. 

Nor was he long without it. One day he spied a boat upon the beach, withone man, a negro, standing by it. Some distance off was a ship, andOberlus immediately knew how matters stood. The vessel had put in forwood, and the boat's crew had gone into the thickets for it. From aconvenient spot he kept watch of the boat, till presently a stragglingcompany appeared loaded with billets. Throwing these on the beach, theyagain went into the thickets, while the negro proceeded to load theboat. 

Oberlus now makes all haste and accosts the negro, who, aghast atseeing any living being inhabiting such a solitude, and especially sohorrific a one, immediately falls into a panic, not at all lessened bythe ursine suavity of Oberlus, who begs the favor of assisting him inhis labors. The negro stands with several billets on his shoulder, inact of shouldering others; and Oberlus, with a short cord concealed inhis bosom, kindly proceeds to lift those other billets to their place. In so doing, he persists in keeping behind the negro, who, rightlysuspicious of this, in vain dodges about to gain the front of Oberlus;but Oberlus dodges also; till at last, weary of this bootless attempt attreachery, or fearful of being surprised by the remainder of the party, Oberlus runs off a little space to a bush, and fetching his blunderbuss, savagely commands the negro to desist work and follow him. He refuses. Whereupon, presenting his piece, Oberlus snaps at him. Luckily theblunderbuss misses fire; but by this time, frightened out of his wits, the negro, upon a second intrepid summons, drops his billets, surrendersat discretion, and follows on. By a narrow defile familiar to him, Oberlus speedily removes out of sight of the water. 

On their way up the mountains, he exultingly informs the negro, thathenceforth he is to work for him, and be his slave, and that histreatment would entirely depend on his future conduct. But Oberlus, deceived by the first impulsive cowardice of the black, in an evilmoment slackens his vigilance. Passing through a narrow way, andperceiving his leader quite off his guard, the negro, a powerful fellow, suddenly grasps him in his arms, throws him down, wrests his musketoonfrom him, ties his hands with the monster's own cord, shoulders him, andreturns with him down to the boat. When the rest of the party arrive, Oberlus is carried on board the ship. This proved an Englishman, and asmuggler; a sort of craft not apt to be over-charitable. Oberlus isseverely whipped, then handcuffed, taken ashore, and compelled to makeknown his habitation and produce his property. His potatoes, pumpkins, and tortoises, with a pile of dollars he had hoarded from his mercantileoperations were secured on the spot. But while the too vindictivesmugglers were busy destroying his hut and garden, Oberlus makes hisescape into the mountains, and conceals himself there in impenetrablerecesses, only known to himself, till the ship sails, when he venturesback, and by means of an old file which he sticks into a tree, contrivesto free himself from his handcuffs. 

Brooding among the ruins of his hut, and the desolate clinkers andextinct volcanoes of this outcast isle, the insulted misanthrope nowmeditates a signal revenge upon humanity, but conceals his purposes. Vessels still touch the Landing at times; and by-and-by Oberlus isenabled to supply them with some vegetables. 

Warned by his former failure in kidnapping strangers, he now pursues aquite different plan. When seamen come ashore, he makes up to them likea free-and-easy comrade, invites them to his hut, and with whateveraffability his red-haired grimness may assume, entreats them to drinkhis liquor and be merry. But his guests need little pressing; and so, soon as rendered insensible, are tied hand and foot, and pitched amongthe clinkers, are there concealed till the ship departs, when, findingthemselves entirely dependent upon Oberlus, alarmed at his changeddemeanor, his savage threats, and above all, that shocking blunderbuss, they willingly enlist under him, becoming his humble slaves, and Oberlusthe most incredible of tyrants. So much so, that two or three perishbeneath his initiating process. He sets the remainder--four of them--tobreaking the caked soil; transporting upon their backs loads of loamyearth, scooped up in moist clefts among the mountains; keeps them on theroughest fare; presents his piece at the slightest hint of insurrection;and in all respects converts them into reptiles at his feet--plebeiangarter-snakes to this Lord Anaconda. 

At last, Oberlus contrives to stock his arsenal with four rustycutlasses, and an added supply of powder and ball intended for hisblunderbuss. Remitting in good part the labor of his slaves, he nowapproves himself a man, or rather devil, of great abilities in the wayof cajoling or coercing others into acquiescence with his own ulteriordesigns, however at first abhorrent to them. But indeed, prepared foralmost any eventual evil by their previous lawless life, as a sort ofranging Cow-Boys of the sea, which had dissolved within them the wholemoral man, so that they were ready to concrete in the first offeredmould of baseness now; rotted down from manhood by their hopeless miseryon the isle; wonted to cringe in all things to their lord, himself theworst of slaves; these wretches were now become wholly corrupted to hishands. He used them as creatures of an inferior race; in short, hegaffles his four animals, and makes murderers of them; out of cowardsfitly manufacturing bravos. 

Now, sword or dagger, human arms are but artificial claws and fangs, tied on like false spurs to the fighting cock. So, we repeat, Oberlus, czar of the isle, gaffles his four subjects; that is, with intent ofglory, puts four rusty cutlasses into their hands. Like any otherautocrat, he had a noble army now. 

It might be thought a servile war would hereupon ensue. Arms in thehands of trodden slaves? how indiscreet of Emperor Oberlus! Nay, theyhad but cutlasses--sad old scythes enough--he a blunderbuss, which byits blind scatterings of all sorts of boulders, clinkers, and otherscoria would annihilate all four mutineers, like four pigeons at oneshot. Besides, at first he did not sleep in his accustomed hut; everylurid sunset, for a time, he might have been seen wending his way amongthe riven mountains, there to secrete himself till dawn in somesulphurous pitfall, undiscoverable to his gang; but finding this at lasttoo troublesome, he now each evening tied his slaves hand and foot, hidthe cutlasses, and thrusting them into his barracks, shut to the door, and lying down before it, beneath a rude shed lately added, slept outthe night, blunderbuss in hand. 

It is supposed that not content with daily parading over a cinderysolitude at the head of his fine army, Oberlus now meditated the mostactive mischief; his probable object being to surprise some passing shiptouching at his dominions, massacre the crew, and run away with her toparts unknown. While these plans were simmering in his head, two shipstouch in company at the isle, on the opposite side to his; when hisdesigns undergo a sudden change. 

The ships are in want of vegetables, which Oberlus promises in greatabundance, provided they send their boats round to his landing, so thatthe crews may bring the vegetables from his garden; informing the twocaptains, at the same time, that his rascals--slaves and soldiers--hadbecome so abominably lazy and good-for-nothing of late, that he couldnot make them work by ordinary inducements, and did not have the heartto be severe with them. 

The arrangement was agreed to, and the boats were sent and hauled uponthe beach. The crews went to the lava hut; but to their surprise nobodywas there. After waiting till their patience was exhausted, theyreturned to the shore, when lo, some stranger--not the Good Samaritaneither--seems to have very recently passed that way. Three of the boatswere broken in a thousand pieces, and the fourth was missing. By hardtoil over the mountains and through the clinkers, some of the strangerssucceeded in returning to that side of the isle where the ships lay, when fresh boats are sent to the relief of the rest of the haplessparty. 

However amazed at the treachery of Oberlus, the two captains, afraid ofnew and still more mysterious atrocities--and indeed, half imputing suchstrange events to the enchantments associated with these isles--perceiveno security but in instant flight; leaving Oberlus and his army in quietpossession of the stolen boat. 

On the eve of sailing they put a letter in a keg, giving the PacificOcean intelligence of the affair, and moored the keg in the bay. Sometime subsequent, the keg was opened by another captain chancing toanchor there, but not until after he had dispatched a boat round toOberlus's Landing. As may be readily surmised, he felt no littleinquietude till the boat's return: when another letter was handed him, giving Oberlus's version of the affair. This precious document had beenfound pinned half-mildewed to the clinker wall of the sulphurous anddeserted hut. It ran as follows: showing that Oberlus was at least anaccomplished writer, and no mere boor; and what is more, was capable ofthe most tristful eloquence. 

"Sir: I am the most unfortunate ill-treated gentleman that lives. I ama patriot, exiled from my country by the cruel hand of tyranny. 

"Banished to these Enchanted Isles, I have again and again besoughtcaptains of ships to sell me a boat, but always have been refused, though I offered the handsomest prices in Mexican dollars. At length anopportunity presented of possessing myself of one, and I did not let itslip. 

"I have been long endeavoring, by hard labor and much solitarysuffering, to accumulate something to make myself comfortable in avirtuous though unhappy old age; but at various times have been robbedand beaten by men professing to be Christians. 

"To-day I sail from the Enchanted group in the good boat Charity boundto the Feejee Isles. 

"FATHERLESS OBERLUS. 

"_P. S. _--Behind the clinkers, nigh the oven, you will find the old fowl. Do not kill it; be patient; I leave it setting; if it shall have anychicks, I hereby bequeath them to you, whoever you may be. But don'tcount your chicks before they are hatched. "

The fowl proved a starveling rooster, reduced to a sitting posture bysheer debility. 

Oberlus declares that he was bound to the Feejee Isles; but this wasonly to throw pursuers on a false scent. For, after a long time, hearrived, alone in his open boat, at Guayaquil. As his miscreants werenever again beheld on Hood's Isle, it is supposed, either that theyperished for want of water on the passage to Guayaquil, or, what isquite as probable, were thrown overboard by Oberlus, when he found thewater growing scarce. 

From Guayaquil Oberlus proceeded to Payta; and there, with that namelesswitchery peculiar to some of the ugliest animals, wound himself into theaffections of a tawny damsel; prevailing upon her to accompany him backto his Enchanted Isle; which doubtless he painted as a Paradise offlowers, not a Tartarus of clinkers. 

But unfortunately for the colonization of Hood's Isle with a choicevariety of animated nature, the extraordinary and devilish aspect ofOberlus made him to be regarded in Payta as a highly suspiciouscharacter. So that being found concealed one night, with matches in hispocket, under the hull of a small vessel just ready to be launched, hewas seized and thrown into jail. 

The jails in most South American towns are generally of the leastwholesome sort. Built of huge cakes of sun-burnt brick, and containingbut one room, without windows or yard, and but one door heavily gratedwith wooden bars, they present both within and without the grimmestaspect. As public edifices they conspicuously stand upon the hot anddusty Plaza, offering to view, through the gratings, their villainousand hopeless inmates, burrowing in all sorts of tragic squalor. Andhere, for a long time, Oberlus was seen; the central figure of a mongreland assassin band; a creature whom it is religion to detest, since it isphilanthropy to hate a misanthrope. 

 _Note_. --They who may be disposed to question the possibility of the character above depicted, are referred to the 2d vol. Of Porter's Voyage into the Pacific, where they will recognize many sentences, for expedition's sake derived verbatim from thence, and incorporated here; the main difference--save a few passing reflections--between the two accounts being, that the present writer has added to Porter's facts accessory ones picked up in the Pacific from reliable sources; and where facts conflict, has naturally preferred his own authorities to Porter's. As, for instance, _his_ authorities place Oberlus on Hood's Isle: Porter's, on Charles's Isle. The letter found in the hut is also somewhat different; for while at the Encantadas he was informed that, not only did it evince a certain clerkliness, but was full of the strangest satiric effrontery which does not adequately appear in Porter's version. I accordingly altered it to suit the general character of its author. 

 * * * * *

SKETCH TENTH. 

RUNAWAYS, CASTAWAYS, SOLITARIES, GRAVE-STONES, ETC. 

 "And all about old stocks and stubs of trees, Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever seen, Did hang upon ragged knotty knees, On which had many wretches hanged been. "

Some relics of the hut of Oberlus partially remain to this day at thehead of the clinkered valley. Nor does the stranger, wandering amongother of the Enchanted Isles, fail to stumble upon still other solitaryabodes, long abandoned to the tortoise and the lizard. Probably fewparts of earth have, in modern times, sheltered so many solitaries. Thereason is, that these isles are situated in a distant sea, and thevessels which occasionally visit them are mostly all whalers, or shipsbound on dreary and protracted voyages, exempting them in a good degreefrom both the oversight and the memory of human law. Such is thecharacter of some commanders and some seamen, that under these untowardcircumstances, it is quite impossible but that scenes of unpleasantnessand discord should occur between them. A sullen hatred of the tyrannicship will seize the sailor, and he gladly exchanges it for isles, which, though blighted as by a continual sirocco and burning breeze, stilloffer him, in their labyrinthine interior, a retreat beyond thepossibility of capture. To flee the ship in any Peruvian or Chilianport, even the smallest and most rustical, is not unattended with greatrisk of apprehension, not to speak of jaguars. A reward of five pesossends fifty dastardly Spaniards into the wood, who, with long knives, scour them day and night in eager hopes of securing their prey. Neitheris it, in general, much easier to escape pursuit at the isles ofPolynesia. Those of them which have felt a civilizing influence presentthe same difficulty to the runaway with the Peruvian ports, the advancednatives being quite as mercenary and keen of knife and scent as theretrograde Spaniards; while, owing to the bad odor in which allEuropeans lie, in the minds of aboriginal savages who have chanced tohear aught of them, to desert the ship among primitive Polynesians, is, in most cases, a hope not unforlorn. Hence the Enchanted Isles becomethe voluntary tarrying places of all sorts of refugees; some of whomtoo sadly experience the fact, that flight from tyranny does not ofitself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home. 

Moreover, it has not seldom happened that hermits have been made uponthe isles by the accidents incident to tortoise-hunting. The interior ofmost of them is tangled and difficult of passage beyond description; theair is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for whichno running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under anequatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe betidethe straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such-as to forbidan adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The impatient shipwaits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining undiscovered, upgoes a stake on the beach, with a letter of regret, and a keg ofcrackers and another of water tied to it, and away sails the craft. 

Nor have there been wanting instances where the inhumanity of somecaptains has led them to wreak a secure revenge upon seamen who havegiven their caprice or pride some singular offense. Thrust ashore uponthe scorching marl, such mariners are abandoned to perish outright, unless by solitary labors they succeed in discovering some preciousdribblets of moisture oozing from a rock or stagnant in a mountain pool. 

I was well acquainted with a man, who, lost upon the Isle of Narborough, was brought to such extremes by thirst, that at last he only saved hislife by taking that of another being. A large hair-seal came upon thebeach. He rushed upon it, stabbed it in the neck, and then throwinghimself upon the panting body quaffed at the living wound; thepalpitations of the creature's dying heart injected life into thedrinker. 

Another seaman, thrust ashore in a boat upon an isle at which no shipever touched, owing to its peculiar sterility and the shoals about it, and from which all other parts of the group were hidden--this man, feeling that it was sure death to remain there, and that nothing worsethan death menaced him in quitting it, killed seals, and inflating theirskins, made a float, upon which he transported himself to Charles'sIsland, and joined the republic there. 

But men, not endowed with courage equal to such desperate attempts, findtheir only resource in forthwith seeking some watering-place, howeverprecarious or scanty; building a hut; catching tortoises and birds; andin all respects preparing for a hermit life, till tide or time, or apassing ship arrives to float them off. 

At the foot of precipices on many of the isles, small rude basins in therocks are found, partly filled with rotted rubbish or vegetable decay, or overgrown with thickets, and sometimes a little moist; which, uponexamination, reveal plain tokens of artificial instruments employed inhollowing them out, by some poor castaway or still more miserablerunaway. These basins are made in places where it was supposed somescanty drops of dew might exude into them from the upper crevices. 

The relics of hermitages and stone basins are not the only signs ofvanishing humanity to be found upon the isles. And, curious to say, thatspot which of all others in settled communities is most animated, atthe Enchanted Isles presents the most dreary of aspects. And though itmay seem very strange to talk of post-offices in this barren region, yetpost-offices are occasionally to be found there. They consist of a stakeand a bottle. The letters being not only sealed, but corked. They aregenerally deposited by captains of Nantucketers for the benefit ofpassing fishermen, and contain statements as to what luck they had inwhaling or tortoise-hunting. Frequently, however, long months andmonths, whole years glide by and no applicant appears. The stake rotsand falls, presenting no very exhilarating object. 

If now it be added that grave-stones, or rather grave-boards, are alsodiscovered upon some of the isles, the picture will be complete. 

Upon the beach of James's Isle, for many years, was to be seen a rudefinger-post, pointing inland. And, perhaps, taking it for some signal ofpossible hospitality in this otherwise desolate spot--some good hermitliving there with his maple dish--the stranger would follow on in thepath thus indicated, till at last he would come out in a noiseless nook, and find his only welcome, a dead man--his sole greeting theinscription over a grave. Here, in 1813, fell, in a daybreak duel, alieutenant of the U. S. Frigate Essex, aged twenty-one: attaining hismajority in death. 

It is but fit that, like those old monastic institutions of Europe, whose inmates go not out of their own walls to be inurned, but areentombed there where they die, the Encantadas, too, should bury theirown dead, even as the great general monastery of earth does hers. 

It is known that burial in the ocean is a pure necessity of sea-faringlife, and that it is only done when land is far astern, and not clearlyvisible from the bow. Hence, to vessels cruising in the vicinity of theEnchanted Isles, they afford a convenient Potter's Field. The intermentover, some good-natured forecastle poet and artist seizes hispaint-brush, and inscribes a doggerel epitaph. When, after a long lapseof time, other good-natured seamen chance to come upon the spot, theyusually make a table of the mound, and quaff a friendly can to the poorsoul's repose. 

As a specimen of these epitaphs, take the following, found in a bleakgorge of Chatham Isle:--

 "Oh, Brother Jack, as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I. Just so game, and just so gay, But now, alack, they've stopped my pay. No more I peep out of my blinkers, Here I be--tucked in with clinkers!"

THE BELL-TOWER. 

In the south of Europe, nigh a once frescoed capital, now with dankmould cankering its bloom, central in a plain, stands what, at distance, seems the black mossed stump of some immeasurable pine, fallen, inforgotten days, with Anak and the Titan. 

As all along where the pine tree falls, its dissolution leaves a mossymound--last-flung shadow of the perished trunk; never lengthening, neverlessening; unsubject to the fleet falsities of the sun; shade immutable, and true gauge which cometh by prostration--so westward from what seemsthe stump, one steadfast spear of lichened ruin veins the plain. 

From that tree-top, what birded chimes of silver throats had rung. Astone pine; a metallic aviary in its crown: the Bell-Tower, built by thegreat mechanician, the unblest foundling, Bannadonna. 

Like Babel's, its base was laid in a high hour of renovated earth, following the second deluge, when the waters of the Dark Ages had driedup, and once more the green appeared. No wonder that, after so long anddeep submersion, the jubilant expectation of the race should, as withNoah's sons, soar into Shinar aspiration. 

In firm resolve, no man in Europe at that period went beyond Bannadonna. Enriched through commerce with the Levant, the state in which he livedvoted to have the noblest Bell-Tower in Italy. His repute assigned himto be architect. 

Stone by stone, month by month, the tower rose. Higher, higher;snail-like in pace, but torch or rocket in its pride. 

After the masons would depart, the builder, standing alone upon itsever-ascending summit, at close of every day, saw that he overtoppedstill higher walls and trees. He would tarry till a late hour there, wrapped in schemes of other and still loftier piles. Those who ofsaints' days thronged the spot--hanging to the rude poles ofscaffolding, like sailors on yards, or bees on boughs, unmindful of limeand dust, and falling chips of stone--their homage not the lessinspirited him to self-esteem. 

At length the holiday of the Tower came. To the sound of viols, theclimax-stone slowly rose in air, and, amid the firing of ordnance, waslaid by Bannadonna's hands upon the final course. Then mounting it, hestood erect, alone, with folded arms, gazing upon the white summits ofblue inland Alps, and whiter crests of bluer Alps off-shore--sightsinvisible from the plain. Invisible, too, from thence was that eye heturned below, when, like the cannon booms, came up to him the people'scombustions of applause. 

That which stirred them so was, seeing with what serenity the builderstood three hundred feet in air, upon an unrailed perch. This none buthe durst do. But his periodic standing upon the pile, in each stage ofits growth--such discipline had its last result. 

Little remained now but the bells. These, in all respects, mustcorrespond with their receptacle. 

The minor ones were prosperously cast. A highly enriched one followed, of a singular make, intended for suspension in a manner before unknown. The purpose of this bell, its rotary motion, and connection with theclock-work, also executed at the time, will, in the sequel, receivemention. 

In the one erection, bell-tower and clock-tower were united, though, before that period, such structures had commonly been built distinct; asthe Campanile and Torre del 'Orologio of St. Mark to this day attest. 

But it was upon the great state-bell that the founder lavished his moredaring skill. In vain did some of the less elated magistrates herecaution him; saying that though truly the tower was Titanic, yet limitshould be set to the dependent weight of its swaying masses. Butundeterred, he prepared his mammoth mould, dented with mythologicaldevices; kindled his fires of balsamic firs; melted his tin and copper, and, throwing in much plate, contributed by the public spirit of thenobles, let loose the tide. 

The unleashed metals bayed like hounds. The workmen shrunk. Throughtheir fright, fatal harm to the bell was dreaded. Fearless as Shadrach, Bannadonna, rushing through the glow, smote the chief culprit with hisponderous ladle. From the smitten part, a splinter was dashed into theseething mass, and at once was melted in. 

Next day a portion of the work was heedfully uncovered. All seemedright. Upon the third morning, with equal satisfaction, it was baredstill lower. At length, like some old Theban king, the whole cooledcasting was disinterred. All was fair except in one strange spot. But ashe suffered no one to attend him in these inspections, he concealed theblemish by some preparation which none knew better to devise. 

The casting of such a mass was deemed no small triumph for the caster;one, too, in which the state might not scorn to share. The homicide wasoverlooked. By the charitable that deed was but imputed to suddentransports of esthetic passion, not to any flagitious quality. A kickfrom an Arabian charger; not sign of vice, but blood. 

His felony remitted by the judge, absolution given him by the priest, what more could even a sickly conscience have desired. 

Honoring the tower and its builder with another holiday, the republicwitnessed the hoisting of the bells and clock-work amid shows and pompssuperior to the former. 

Some months of more than usual solitude on Bannadonna's part ensued. Itwas not unknown that he was engaged upon something for the belfry, intended to complete it, and surpass all that had gone before. Mostpeople imagined that the design would involve a casting like the bells. But those who thought they had some further insight, would shake theirheads, with hints, that not for nothing did the mechanician keep sosecret. Meantime, his seclusion failed not to invest his work with moreor less of that sort of mystery pertaining to the forbidden. 

Ere long he had a heavy object hoisted to the belfry, wrapped in a darksack or cloak--a procedure sometimes had in the case of an elaboratepiece of sculpture, or statue, which, being intended to grace the frontof a new edifice, the architect does not desire exposed to criticaleyes, till set up, finished, in its appointed place. Such was theimpression now. But, as the object rose, a statuary present observed, orthought he did, that it was not entirely rigid, but was, in a manner, pliant. At last, when the hidden thing had attained its final height, and, obscurely seen from below, seemed almost of itself to step into thebelfry, as if with little assistance from the crane, a shrewd oldblacksmith present ventured the suspicion that it was but a living man. This surmise was thought a foolish one, while the general interestfailed not to augment. 

Not without demur from Bannadonna, the chief-magistrate of the town, with an associate--both elderly men--followed what seemed the image upthe tower. But, arrived at the belfry, they had little recompense. Plausibly entrenching himself behind the conceded mysteries of his art, the mechanician withheld present explanation. The magistrates glancedtoward the cloaked object, which, to their surprise, seemed now to havechanged its attitude, or else had before been more perplexinglyconcealed by the violent muffling action of the wind without. It seemednow seated upon some sort of frame, or chair, contained within thedomino. They observed that nigh the top, in a sort of square, the web ofthe cloth, either from accident or design, had its warp partlywithdrawn, and the cross threads plucked out here and there, so as toform a sort of woven grating. Whether it were the low wind or no, stealing through the stone lattice-work, or only their own perturbedimaginations, is uncertain, but they thought they discerned a slightsort of fitful, spring-like motion, in the domino. Nothing, howeverincidental or insignificant, escaped their uneasy eyes. Among otherthings, they pried out, in a corner, an earthen cup, partly corroded andpartly encrusted, and one whispered to the other, that this cup was justsuch a one as might, in mockery, be offered to the lips of some brazenstatue, or, perhaps, still worse. 

But, being questioned, the mechanician said, that the cup was simplyused in his founder's business, and described the purpose; in short, acup to test the condition of metals in fusion. He added, that it had gotinto the belfry by the merest chance. 

Again, and again, they gazed at the domino, as at some suspiciousincognito at a Venetian mask. All sorts of vague apprehensions stirredthem. They even dreaded lest, when they should descend, themechanician, though without a flesh and blood companion, for all that, would not be left alone. 

Affecting some merriment at their disquietude, he begged to relievethem, by extending a coarse sheet of workman's canvas between them andthe object. 

Meantime he sought to interest them in his other work; nor, now that thedomino was out of sight, did they long remain insensible to the artisticwonders lying round them; wonders hitherto beheld but in theirunfinished state; because, since hoisting the bells, none but the casterhad entered within the belfry. It was one trait of his, that, even indetails, he would not let another do what he could, without too greatloss of time, accomplish for himself. So, for several preceding weeks, whatever hours were unemployed in his secret design, had been devoted toelaborating the figures on the bells. 

The clock-bell, in particular, now drew attention. Under a patientchisel, the latent beauty of its enrichments, before obscured by thecloudings incident to casting, that beauty in its shyest grace, was nowrevealed. Round and round the bell, twelve figures of gay girls, garlanded, hand-in-hand, danced in a choral ring--the embodied hours. 

"Bannadonna, " said the chief, "this bell excels all else. No added touchcould here improve. Hark!" hearing a sound, "was that the wind?"

"The wind, Excellenza, " was the light response. "But the figures, theyare not yet without their faults. They need some touches yet. When thoseare given, and the--block yonder, " pointing towards the canvas screen, "when Haman there, as I merrily call him, --him? _it_, I mean--when Hamanis fixed on this, his lofty tree, then, gentlemen, will I be most happyto receive you here again. "

The equivocal reference to the object caused some return ofrestlessness. However, on their part, the visitors forbore furtherallusion to it, unwilling, perhaps, to let the foundling see how easilyit lay within his plebeian art to stir the placid dignity of nobles. 

"Well, Bannadonna, " said the chief, "how long ere you are ready to setthe clock going, so that the hour shall be sounded? Our interest inyou, not less than in the work itself, makes us anxious to be assured ofyour success. The people, too, --why, they are shouting now. Say theexact hour when you will be ready. "

"To-morrow, Excellenza, if you listen for it, --or should you not, allthe same--strange music will be heard. The stroke of one shall be thefirst from yonder bell, " pointing to the bell adorned with girls andgarlands, "that stroke shall fall there, where the hand of Una claspsDua's. The stroke of one shall sever that loved clasp. To-morrow, then, at one o'clock, as struck here, precisely here, " advancing and placinghis finger upon the clasp, "the poor mechanic will be most happy oncemore to give you liege audience, in this his littered shop. Farewelltill then, illustrious magnificoes, and hark ye for your vassal'sstroke. "

His still, Vulcanic face hiding its burning brightness like a forge, hemoved with ostentatious deference towards the scuttle, as if so far toescort their exit. But the junior magistrate, a kind-hearted man, troubled at what seemed to him a certain sardonical disdain, lurkingbeneath the foundling's humble mien, and in Christian sympathy moredistressed at it on his account than on his own, dimly surmising whatmight be the final fate of such a cynic solitaire, nor perhapsuninfluenced by the general strangeness of surrounding things, this goodmagistrate had glanced sadly, sideways from the speaker, and thereuponhis foreboding eye had started at the expression of the unchanging faceof the Hour Una. 

"How is this, Bannadonna?" he lowly asked, "Una looks unlike hersisters. "

"In Christ's name, Bannadonna, " impulsively broke in the chief, hisattention, for the first attracted to the figure, by his associate'sremark, "Una's face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, aspainted by the Florentine, Del Fonca. "

"Surely, Bannadonna, " lowly resumed the milder magistrate, "you meantthe twelve should wear the same jocundly abandoned air. But see, thesmile of Una seems but a fatal one. 'Tis different. "

While his mild associate was speaking, the chief glanced, inquiringly, from him to the caster, as if anxious to mark how the discrepancy wouldbe accounted for. As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on thescuttle's curb. 

Bannadonna spoke:

"Excellenza, now that, following your keener eye, I glance upon the faceof Una, I do, indeed perceive some little variance. But look all roundthe bell, and you will find no two faces entirely correspond. Becausethere is a law in art--but the cold wind is rising more; these latticesare but a poor defense. Suffer me, magnificoes, to conduct you, atleast, partly on your way. Those in whose well-being there is a publicstake, should be heedfully attended. "

"Touching the look of Una, you were saying, Bannadonna, that there was acertain law in art, " observed the chief, as the three now descended thestone shaft, "pray, tell me, then--. "

"Pardon; another time, Excellenza;--the tower is damp. "

"Nay, I must rest, and hear it now. Here, --here is a wide landing, andthrough this leeward slit, no wind, but ample light. Tell us of yourlaw; and at large. "

"Since, Excellenza, you insist, know that there is a law in art, whichbars the possibility of duplicates. Some years ago, you may remember, Igraved a small seal for your republic, bearing, for its chief device, the head of your own ancestor, its illustrious founder. It becomingnecessary, for the customs' use, to have innumerable impressions forbales and boxes, I graved an entire plate, containing one hundred of theseals. Now, though, indeed, my object was to have those hundred headsidentical, and though, I dare say, people think them; so, yet, uponclosely scanning an uncut impression from the plate, no two of thosefive-score faces, side by side, will be found alike. Gravity is the airof all; but, diversified in all. In some, benevolent; in some, ambiguous; in two or three, to a close scrutiny, all but incipientlymalign, the variation of less than a hair's breadth in the linearshadings round the mouth sufficing to all this. Now, Excellenza, transmute that general gravity into joyousness, and subject it to twelveof those variations I have described, and tell me, will you not have myhours here, and Una one of them? But I like--. "

Hark! is that--a footfall above?

"Mortar, Excellenza; sometimes it drops to the belfry-floor from thearch where the stonework was left undressed. I must have it seen to. AsI was about to say: for one, I like this law forbidding duplicates. Itevokes fine personalities. Yes, Excellenza, that strange, and--toyou--uncertain smile, and those fore-looking eyes of Una, suitBannadonna very well. "

"Hark!--sure we left no soul above?"

"No soul, Excellenza; rest assured, no _soul_--Again the mortar. "

"It fell not while we were there. "

"Ah, in your presence, it better knew its place, Excellenza, " blandlybowed Bannadonna. 

"But, Una, " said the milder magistrate, "she seemed intently gazing onyou; one would have almost sworn that she picked you out from among usthree. "

"If she did, possibly, it might have been her finer apprehension, Excellenza. "

"How, Bannadonna? I do not understand you. "

"No consequence, no consequence, Excellenza--but the shifted wind isblowing through the slit. Suffer me to escort you on; and then, pardon, but the toiler must to his tools. "

"It may be foolish, Signor, " said the milder magistrate, as, from thethird landing, the two now went down unescorted, "but, somehow, ourgreat mechanician moves me strangely. Why, just now, when he sosuperciliously replied, his walk seemed Sisera's, God's vain foe, in DelFonca's painting. And that young, sculptured Deborah, too. Ay, andthat--. "

"Tush, tush, Signor!" returned the chief. "A passing whim. Deborah?--Where's Jael, pray?"

"Ah, " said the other, as they now stepped upon the sod, "Ah, Signor, Isee you leave your fears behind you with the chill and gloom; but mine, even in this sunny air, remain, Hark!"

It was a sound from just within the tower door, whence they had emerged. Turning, they saw it closed. 

"He has slipped down and barred us out, " smiled the chief; "but it ishis custom. "

Proclamation was now made, that the next day, at one hour aftermeridian, the clock would strike, and--thanks to the mechanician'spowerful art--with unusual accompaniments. But what those should be, none as yet could say. The announcement was received with cheers. 

By the looser sort, who encamped about the tower all night, lights wereseen gleaming through the topmost blind-work, only disappearing with themorning sun. Strange sounds, too, were heard, or were thought to be, bythose whom anxious watching might not have left mentallyundisturbed--sounds, not only of some ringing implement, but also--sothey said--half-suppressed screams and plainings, such as might haveissued from some ghostly engine, overplied. 

Slowly the day drew on; part of the concourse chasing the weary timewith songs and games, till, at last, the great blurred sun rolled, likea football, against the plain. 

At noon, the nobility and principal citizens came from the town incavalcade, a guard of soldiers, also, with music, the more to honor theoccasion. 

Only one hour more. Impatience grew. Watches were held in hands offeverish men, who stood, now scrutinizing their small dial-plates, andthen, with neck thrown back, gazing toward the belfry, as if the eyemight foretell that which could only be made sensible to the ear; for, as yet, there was no dial to the tower-clock. 

The hour hands of a thousand watches now verged within a hair's breadthof the figure 1. A silence, as of the expectation of some Shiloh, pervaded the swarming plain. Suddenly a dull, mangled sound--naughtringing in it; scarcely audible, indeed, to the outer circles of thepeople--that dull sound dropped heavily from the belfry. At the samemoment, each man stared at his neighbor blankly. All watches wereupheld. All hour-hands were at--had passed--the figure 1. No bell-strokefrom the tower. The multitude became tumultuous. 

Waiting a few moments, the chief magistrate, commanding silence, hailedthe belfry, to know what thing unforeseen had happened there. 

No response. 

He hailed again and yet again. 

All continued hushed. 

By his order, the soldiers burst in the tower-door; when, stationingguards to defend it from the now surging mob, the chief, accompanied byhis former associate, climbed the winding stairs. Half-way up, theystopped to listen. No sound. Mounting faster, they reached the belfry;but, at the threshold, started at the spectacle disclosed. A spaniel, which, unbeknown to them, had followed them thus far, stood shivering asbefore some unknown monster in a brake: or, rather, as if it snuffedfootsteps leading to some other world. 

Bannadonna lay, prostrate and bleeding, at the base of the bell whichwas adorned with girls and garlands. He lay at the feet of the hour Una;his head coinciding, in a vertical line, with her left hand, clasped bythe hour Dua. With downcast face impending over him, like Jael overnailed Sisera in the tent, was the domino; now no more becloaked. 

It had limbs, and seemed clad in a scaly mail, lustrous as adragon-beetle's. It was manacled, and its clubbed arms were uplifted, as if, with its manacles, once more to smite its already smittenvictim. One advanced foot of it was inserted beneath the dead body, asif in the act of spurning it. 

Uncertainty falls on what now followed. 

It were but natural to suppose that the magistrates would, at first, shrink from immediate personal contact with what they saw. At the least, for a time, they would stand in involuntary doubt; it may be, in more orless of horrified alarm. Certain it is, that an arquebuss was called forfrom below. And some add, that its report, followed by a fierce whiz, asof the sudden snapping of a main-spring, with a steely din, as if astack of sword-blades should be dashed upon a pavement, these blendedsounds came ringing to the plain, attracting every eye far upward to thebelfry, whence, through the lattice-work, thin wreaths of smoke werecurling. 

Some averred that it was the spaniel, gone mad by fear, which was shot. This, others denied. True it was, the spaniel never more was seen; and, probably, for some unknown reason, it shared the burial now to berelated of the domino. For, whatever the preceding circumstances mayhave been, the first instinctive panic over, or else all ground ofreasonable fear removed, the two magistrates, by themselves, quicklyrehooded the figure in the dropped cloak wherein it had been hoisted. The same night, it was secretly lowered to the ground, smuggled to thebeach, pulled far out to sea, and sunk. Nor to any after urgency, evenin free convivial hours, would the twain ever disclose the full secretsof the belfry. 

From the mystery unavoidably investing it, the popular solution of thefoundling's fate involved more or less of supernatural agency. But somefew less unscientific minds pretended to find little difficulty inotherwise accounting for it. In the chain of circumstantial inferencesdrawn, there may, or may not, have been some absent or defective links. But, as the explanation in question is the only one which tradition hasexplicitly preserved, in dearth of better, it will here be given. But, in the first place, it is requisite to present the suppositionentertained as to the entire motive and mode, with their origin, of thesecret design of Bannadonna; the minds above-mentioned assuming topenetrate as well into his soul as into the event. The disclosure willindirectly involve reference to peculiar matters, none of, the clearest, beyond the immediate subject. 

At that period, no large bell was made to sound otherwise than as atpresent, by agitation of a tongue within, by means of ropes, orpercussion from without, either from cumbrous machinery, or stalwartwatchmen, armed with heavy hammers, stationed in the belfry, or insentry-boxes on the open roof, according as the bell was sheltered orexposed. 

It was from observing these exposed bells, with their watchmen, that thefoundling, as was opined, derived the first suggestion of his scheme. Perched on a great mast or spire, the human figure, viewed from below, undergoes such a reduction in its apparent size, as to obliterate itsintelligent features. It evinces no personality. Instead of bespeakingvolition, its gestures rather resemble the automatic ones of the arms ofa telegraph. 

Musing, therefore, upon the purely Punchinello aspect of the humanfigure thus beheld, it had indirectly occurred to Bannadonna to devisesome metallic agent, which should strike the hour with its mechanichand, with even greater precision than the vital one. And, moreover, asthe vital watchman on the roof, sallying from his retreat at the givenperiods, walked to the bell with uplifted mace, to smite it, Bannadonnahad resolved that his invention should likewise possess the power oflocomotion, and, along with that, the appearance, at least, ofintelligence and will. 

If the conjectures of those who claimed acquaintance with the intent ofBannadonna be thus far correct, no unenterprising spirit could have beenhis. But they stopped not here; intimating that though, indeed, hisdesign had, in the first place, been prompted by the sight of thewatchman, and confined to the devising of a subtle substitute for him:yet, as is not seldom the case with projectors, by insensiblegradations, proceeding from comparatively pigmy aims to Titanic ones, the original scheme had, in its anticipated eventualities, at last, attained to an unheard of degree of daring. 

He still bent his efforts upon the locomotive figure for the belfry, butonly as a partial type of an ulterior creature, a sort of elephantineHelot, adapted to further, in a degree scarcely to be imagined, theuniversal conveniences and glories of humanity; supplying nothing lessthan a supplement to the Six Days' Work; stocking the earth with a newserf, more useful than the ox, swifter than the dolphin, stronger thanthe lion, more cunning than the ape, for industry an ant, more fierythan serpents, and yet, in patience, another ass. All excellences of allGod-made creatures, which served man, were here to receive advancement, and then to be combined in one. Talus was to have been theall-accomplished Helot's name. Talus, iron slave to Bannadonna, and, through him, to man. 

Here, it might well be thought that, were these last conjectures as tothe foundling's secrets not erroneous, then must he have been hopelesslyinfected with the craziest chimeras of his age; far outgoing AlbertMagus and Cornelius Agrippa. But the contrary was averred. Howevermarvelous his design, however apparently transcending not alone thebounds of human invention, but those of divine creation, yet theproposed means to be employed were alleged to have been confined withinthe sober forms of sober reason. It was affirmed that, to a degree ofmore than skeptic scorn, Bannadonna had been without sympathy for any ofthe vain-glorious irrationalities of his time. For example, he had notconcluded, with the visionaries among the metaphysicians, that betweenthe finer mechanic forces and the ruder animal vitality some germ ofcorrespondence might prove discoverable. As little did his schemepartake of the enthusiasm of some natural philosophers, who hoped, byphysiological and chemical inductions, to arrive at a knowledge of thesource of life, and so qualify themselves to manufacture and improveupon it. Much less had he aught in common with the tribe of alchemists, who sought, by a species of incantations, to evoke some surprisingvitality from the laboratory. Neither had he imagined, with certainsanguine theosophists, that, by faithful adoration of the Highest, unheard-of powers would be vouchsafed to man. A practical materialist, what Bannadonna had aimed at was to have been reached, not by logic, notby crucible, not by conjuration, not by altars; but by plain vice-benchand hammer. In short, to solve nature, to steal into her, to intriguebeyond her, to procure some one else to bind her to his hand;--these, one and all, had not been his objects; but, asking no favors from anyelement or any being, of himself, to rival her, outstrip her, and ruleher. He stooped to conquer. With him, common sense was theurgy;machinery, miracle; Prometheus, the heroic name for machinist; man, thetrue God. 

Nevertheless, in his initial step, so far as the experimental automatonfor the belfry was concerned, he allowed fancy some little play; or, perhaps, what seemed his fancifulness was but his utilitarian ambitioncollaterally extended. In figure, the creature for the belfry should notbe likened after the human pattern, nor any animal one, nor after theideals, however wild, of ancient fable, but equally in aspect as inorganism be an original production; the more terrible to behold, thebetter. 

Such, then, were the suppositions as to the present scheme, and thereserved intent. How, at the very threshold, so unlooked for acatastrophe overturned all, or rather, what was the conjecture here, isnow to be set forth. 

It was thought that on the day preceding the fatality, his visitorshaving left him, Bannadonna had unpacked the belfry image, adjusted it, and placed it in the retreat provided--a sort of sentry-box in onecorner of the belfry; in short, throughout the night, and for some partof the ensuing morning, he had been engaged in arranging everythingconnected with the domino; the issuing from the sentry-box each sixtyminutes; sliding along a grooved way, like a railway; advancing to theclock-bell, with uplifted manacles; striking it at one of the twelvejunctions of the four-and-twenty hands; then wheeling, circling thebell, and retiring to its post, there to bide for another sixty minutes, when the same process was to be repeated; the bell, by a cunningmechanism, meantime turning on its vertical axis, so as to present, tothe descending mace, the clasped hands of the next two figures, when itwould strike two, three, and so on, to the end. The musical metal inthis time-bell being so managed in the fusion, by some art, perishingwith its originator, that each of the clasps of the four-and-twentyhands should give forth its own peculiar resonance when parted. 

But on the magic metal, the magic and metallic stranger never struck butthat one stroke, drove but that one nail, served but that one clasp, bywhich Bannadonna clung to his ambitious life. For, after winding up thecreature in the sentry-box, so that, for the present, skipping theintervening hours, it should not emerge till the hour of one, but shouldthen infallibly emerge, and, after deftly oiling the grooves whereon itwas to slide, it was surmised that the mechanician must then havehurried to the bell, to give his final touches to its sculpture. Trueartist, he here became absorbed; and absorption still furtherintensified, it may be, by his striving to abate that strange look ofUna; which, though, before others, he had treated with such unconcern, might not, in secret, have been without its thorn. 

And so, for the interval, he was oblivious of his creature; which, notoblivious of him, and true to its creation, and true to its heedfulwinding up, left its post precisely at the given moment; along itswell-oiled route, slid noiselessly towards its mark; and, aiming at thehand of Una, to ring one clangorous note, dully smote the interveningbrain of Bannadonna, turned backwards to it; the manacled arms theninstantly up-springing to their hovering poise. The falling body cloggedthe thing's return; so there it stood, still impending over Bannadonna, as if whispering some post-mortem terror. The chisel lay dropped fromthe hand, but beside the hand; the oil-flask spilled across the irontrack. 

In his unhappy end, not unmindful of the rare genius of the mechanician, the republic decreed him a stately funeral. It was resolved that thegreat bell--the one whose casting had been jeopardized through thetimidity of the ill-starred workman--should be rung upon the entrance ofthe bier into the cathedral. The most robust man of the country roundwas assigned the office of bell-ringer. 

But as the pall-bearers entered the cathedral porch, naught but abroken and disastrous sound, like that of some lone Alpine land-slide, fell from the tower upon their ears. And then, all was hushed. 

Glancing backwards, they saw the groined belfry crashed sideways in. Itafterwards appeared that the powerful peasant, who had the bell-rope incharge, wishing to test at once the full glory of the bell, had swayeddown upon the rope with one concentrate jerk. The mass of quaking metal, too ponderous for its frame, and strangely feeble somewhere at its top, loosed from its fastening, tore sideways down, and tumbling in one sheerfall, three hundred feet to the soft sward below, buried itself invertedand half out of sight. 

Upon its disinterment, the main fracture was found to have started froma small spot in the ear; which, being scraped, revealed a defect, deceptively minute in the casting; which defect must subsequently havebeen pasted over with some unknown compound. 

The remolten metal soon reassumed its place in the tower's repairedsuperstructure. For one year the metallic choir of birds sang musicallyin its belfry-bough-work of sculptured blinds and traceries. But on thefirst anniversary of the tower's completion--at early dawn, before theconcourse had surrounded it--an earthquake came; one loud crash washeard. The stone-pine, with all its bower of songsters, lay overthrownupon the plain. 

So the blind slave obeyed its blinder lord; but, in obedience, slew him. So the creator was killed by the creature. So the bell was too heavy forthe tower. So the bell's main weakness was where man's blood had flawedit. And so pride went before the fall.