“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, all its vast weight seems lifted from the captain’s heart. We
are getting on famously, Don Benito. My ship is in sight. Look through
this side-light here; there she is; all a-taunt-o! The Bachelor’s
Delight, my good friend. Ah, how this wind braces one up. Come, you
must take a cup of coffee with me this evening. My old steward will
give you as fine a cup as ever any sultan tasted. What say you, Don
Benito, will you?”
At first, the Spaniard glanced feverishly up, casting a longing look
towards the sealer, while with mute concern his servant gazed into his
face. Suddenly the old ague of coldness returned, and dropping back to
his cushions he was silent.
“You do not answer. Come, all day you have been my host; would you have
hospitality all on one side?”
“I cannot go,” was the response.
“What? it will not fatigue you. The ships will lie together as near as
they can, without swinging foul. It will be little more than stepping
from deck to deck; which is but as from room to room. Come, come, you
must not refuse me.”
“I cannot go,” decisively and repulsively repeated Don Benito.
Renouncing all but the last appearance of courtesy, with a sort of
cadaverous sullenness, and biting his thin nails to the quick, he
glanced, almost glared, at his guest, as if impatient that a stranger’s
presence should interfere with the full indulgence of his morbid hour.
Meantime the sound of the parted waters came more and more gurglingly
and merrily in at the windows; as reproaching him for his dark spleen;
as telling him that, sulk as he might, and go mad with it, nature cared
not a jot; since, whose fault was it, pray?
But the foul mood was now at its depth, as the fair wind at its height.
There was something in the man so far beyond any mere unsociality or
sourness previously evinced, that even the forbearing good-nature of
his guest could no longer endure it. Wholly at a loss to account for
such demeanor, and deeming sickness with eccentricity, however extreme,
no adequate excuse, well satisfied, too, that nothing in his own
conduct could justify it, Captain Delano’s pride began to be roused.
Himself became reserved. But all seemed one to the Spaniard. Quitting
him, therefore, Captain Delano once more went to the deck.
The ship was now within less than two miles of the sealer. The
whale-boat was seen darting over the interval.
To be brief, the two vessels, thanks to the pilot’s skill, ere long
neighborly style lay anchored together.
Before returning to his own vessel, Captain Delano had intended
communicating to Don Benito the smaller details of the proposed
services to be rendered. But, as it was, unwilling anew to subject
himself to rebuffs, he resolved, now that he had seen the San Dominick
safely moored, immediately to quit her, without further allusion to
hospitality or business. Indefinitely postponing his ulterior plans, he
would regulate his future actions according to future circumstances.
His boat was ready to receive him; but his host still tarried below.
Well, thought Captain Delano, if he has little breeding, the more need
to show mine. He descended to the cabin to bid a ceremonious, and, it
may be, tacitly rebukeful adieu. But to his great satisfaction, Don
Benito, as if he began to feel the weight of that treatment with which
his slighted guest had, not indecorously, retaliated upon him, now
supported by his servant, rose to his feet, and grasping Captain
Delano’s hand, stood tremulous; too much agitated to speak. But the
good augury hence drawn was suddenly dashed, by his resuming all his
previous reserve, with augmented gloom, as, with half-averted eyes, he
silently reseated himself on his cushions. With a corresponding return
of his own chilled feelings, Captain Delano bowed and withdrew.
He was hardly midway in the narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel, leading
from the cabin to the stairs, when a sound, as of the tolling for
execution in some jail-yard, fell on his ears. It was the echo of the
ship’s flawed bell, striking the hour, drearily reverberated in this
subterranean vault. Instantly, by a fatality not to be withstood, his
mind, responsive to the portent, swarmed with superstitious suspicions.
He paused. In images far swifter than these sentences, the minutest
details of all his former distrusts swept through him.
Hitherto, credulous good-nature had been too ready to furnish excuses
for reasonable fears. Why was the Spaniard, so superfluously
punctilious at times, now heedless of common propriety in not
accompanying to the side his departing guest? Did indisposition forbid?
Indisposition had not forbidden more irksome exertion that day. His
last equivocal demeanor recurred. He had risen to his feet, grasped his
guest’s hand, motioned toward his hat; then, in an instant, all was
eclipsed in sinister muteness and gloom. Did this imply one brief,
repentant relenting at the final moment, from some iniquitous plot,
followed by remorseless return to it? His last glance seemed to express
a calamitous, yet acquiescent farewell to Captain Delano forever. Why
decline the invitation to visit the sealer that evening? Or was the
Spaniard less hardened than the Jew, who refrained not from supping at
the board of him whom the same night he meant to betray? What imported
all those day-long enigmas and contradictions, except they were
intended to mystify, preliminary to some stealthy blow? Atufal, the
pretended rebel, but punctual shadow, that moment lurked by the
threshold without. He seemed a sentry, and more. Who, by his own
confession, had stationed him there? Was the negro now lying in wait?
The Spaniard behind—his creature before: to rush from darkness to light
was the involuntary choice.
The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed Atufal, and
stood unharmed in the light. As he saw his trim ship lying peacefully
at anchor, and almost within ordinary call; as he saw his household
boat, with familiar faces in it, patiently rising and falling, on the
short waves by the San Dominick’s side; and then, glancing about the
decks where he stood, saw the oakum-pickers still gravely plying their
fingers; and heard the low, buzzing whistle and industrious hum of the
hatchet-polishers, still bestirring themselves over their endless
occupation; and more than all, as he saw the benign aspect of nature,
taking her innocent repose in the evening; the screened sun in the
quiet camp of the west shining out like the mild light from Abraham’s
tent; as charmed eye and ear took in all these, with the chained figure
of the black, clenched jaw and hand relaxed. Once again he smiled at
the phantoms which had mocked him, and felt something like a tinge of
remorse, that, by harboring them even for a moment, he should, by
implication, have betrayed an atheist doubt of the ever-watchful
Providence above.
There was a few minutes’ delay, while, in obedience to his orders, the
boat was being hooked along to the gangway. During this interval, a
sort of saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano, at thinking of
the kindly offices he had that day discharged for a stranger. Ah,
thought he, after good actions one’s conscience is never ungrateful,
however much so the benefited party may be.
Presently, his foot, in the first act of descent into the boat, pressed
the first round of the side-ladder, his face presented inward upon the
deck. In the same moment, he heard his name courteously sounded; and,
to his pleased surprise, saw Don Benito advancing—an unwonted energy in
his air, as if, at the last moment, intent upon making amends for his
recent discourtesy. With instinctive good feeling, Captain Delano,
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’s hand on his naked shoulder, and gently holding it there,
formed himself into a sort of crutch.
When the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the hand
of the American, at the same time casting an earnest glance into his
eyes, but, as before, too much overcome to speak.
I have done him wrong, self-reproachfully thought Captain Delano; his
apparent coldness has deceived me: in no instance has he meant to
offend.
Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might too
much unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it.
And so, still presenting himself as a crutch, and walking between the
two captains, he advanced with them towards the gangway; while still,
as if full of kindly contrition, Don Benito would not let go the hand
of Captain Delano, but retained it in his, across the black’s body.
Soon they were standing by the side, looking over into the boat, whose
crew turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a moment for the Spaniard to
relinquish his hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano lifted his
foot, to overstep the threshold of the open gangway; but still Don
Benito would not let go his hand. And yet, with an agitated tone, he
said, “I can go no further; here I must bid you adieu. Adieu, my dear,
dear Don Amasa. Go—go!” suddenly tearing his hand loose, “go, and God
guard you better than me, my best friend.”
Not unaffected, Captain Delano would now have lingered; but catching
the meekly admonitory eye of the servant, with a hasty farewell he
descended into his boat, followed by the continual adieus of Don
Benito, standing rooted 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
bowsmen pushed the boat a sufficient distance for the oars to be
lengthwise dropped. The instant that was done, Don Benito sprang over
the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain Delano; at the same time
calling towards his ship, but in tones so frenzied, that none in the
boat could understand him. But, as if not equally obtuse, three
sailors, from three 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. To
which, Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile upon the
unaccountable Spaniard, answered that, for his part, he neither knew
nor cared; but it seemed as if Don Benito had taken it into his head to
produce the impression among his people that the boat wanted to kidnap
him. “Or else—give way for your lives,” he wildly added, starting at a
clattering hubbub in the ship, above which rang the tocsin of the
hatchet-polishers; and seizing Don Benito by the throat he added, “this
plotting pirate means murder!” Here, in apparent verification of the
words, 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 befriend his master to the last; while, seemingly to aid the black,
the three white sailors were trying to clamber into the hampered bow.
Meantime, the whole host of negroes, as if inflamed at the sight of
their jeopardized captain, impended in one sooty avalanche over the
bulwarks.
All this, with what preceded, and what followed, occurred with such
involutions 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
the servant in his descent, that with dagger presented at Captain
Delano’s heart, 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 the bottom of the boat, which now, with disentangled oars,
began to speed through the sea.
At this juncture, the left hand of Captain Delano, on one side, again
clutched the half-reclined Don Benito, heedless that he was in a
speechless faint, while his right-foot, on the other side, ground the
prostrate negro; and his right arm pressed for added speed on the after
oar, his eye bent forward, encouraging his men to their utmost.
But here, the officer of the boat, who had at last succeeded in beating
off the towing sailors, and was now, with face turned aft, assisting
the bowsman at his oar, suddenly called to Captain Delano, to see what
the black was about; while a Portuguese oarsman shouted to him to give
heed to what the Spaniard was saying.
Glancing down at his feet, Captain Delano saw the freed hand of the
servant aiming with a second dagger—a small one, before concealed in
his 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 to
all but the Portuguese.
That moment, across the long-benighted mind of Captain Delano, a flash
of revelation swept, illuminating, in unanticipated clearness, his
host’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’s hand down, but his own heart smote him harder. With infinite
pity he withdrew 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 San
Dominick, Captain Delano, now with scales dropped from his eyes, saw
the negroes, not in misrule, not in tumult, not as if frantically
concerned for Don Benito, but with mask torn away, flourishing hatchets
and knives, in ferocious piratical revolt. Like delirious black
dervishes, the six Ashantees danced on the poop. Prevented by their
foes from springing into the water, the Spanish boys were hurrying up
to the topmost spars, while such of the few Spanish sailors, not
already in the sea, less alert, were descried, helplessly mixed in, on
deck, with the blacks.
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
had been cut; and the fag-end, in lashing out, whipped away the canvas
shroud about the beak, suddenly revealing, as the bleached hull swung
round towards the open ocean, death for the figure-head, in a human
skeleton; chalky comment on the chalked words below, “_Follow your
leader_.”
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 the
negro, who made no resistance, and had him hoisted to the deck. He
would then have assisted the now almost helpless Don Benito up the
side; but Don Benito, wan as he was, refused to move, or be moved,
until the negro should have been first put below out of view. When,
presently assured that it was done, he no more shrank from the ascent.
The boat was immediately dispatched back to pick up the three swimming
sailors. Meantime, the guns were in readiness, though, owing to the San
Dominick having glided somewhat astern of the sealer, only the
aftermost one could be brought to bear. With this, they fired six
times; thinking to cripple the fugitive ship by bringing down her
spars. But only a few inconsiderable ropes were shot away. Soon the
ship was beyond the gun’s range, steering broad out of the bay; the
blacks thickly clustering round the bowsprit, one moment with taunting
cries towards the whites, the next with upthrown gestures hailing the
now dusky moors of ocean—cawing crows escaped from the hand of the
fowler.
The first impulse was to slip the cables and give chase. But, upon
second thoughts, to pursue with whale-boat and yawl seemed more
promising.
Upon inquiring of Don Benito what firearms they had on board the San
Dominick, Captain Delano was answered that they had none that could be
used; because, in the earlier stages of the mutiny, a cabin-passenger,
since dead, had secretly put out of order the locks of what few muskets
there were. But with all his remaining strength, Don Benito entreated
the American not to give chase, either with ship or boat; for the
negroes had already proved themselves such desperadoes, that, in case
of a present assault, nothing but a total massacre of the whites could
be looked for. But, regarding this warning as coming from one whose
spirit had been crushed by misery the American did not give up his
design.
The boats were got ready and armed. Captain Delano ordered his men into
them. He was going himself when Don Benito grasped his arm.
“What! have you saved my life, Señor, and are you now going to throw
away your own?”
The officers also, for reasons connected with their interests and those
of the voyage, and a duty owing to the owners, strongly objected
against their commander’s going. Weighing their remonstrances a moment,
Captain Delano felt bound to remain; appointing his chief mate—an
athletic and resolute man, who had been a privateer’s-man—to head the
party. The more to encourage the sailors, they were told, that the
Spanish captain considered his ship good as lost; that she and her
cargo, including some gold 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; but
the moon was rising. After hard, prolonged pulling, the boats came up
on the ship’s quarters, at a suitable distance laying upon their oars
to discharge their muskets. Having no bullets to return, the negroes
sent their yells. But, upon the second volley, Indian-like, they
hurtled their hatchets. One took off a sailor’s fingers. Another struck
the whale-boat’s bow, cutting off the rope there, and remaining stuck
in the gunwale like a woodman’s axe. Snatching it, quivering from its
lodgment, the mate hurled it back. The returned gauntlet now stuck in
the ship’s broken quarter-gallery, and so remained.
The negroes giving too hot a reception, the whites kept a more
respectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtling
hatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon
come, sought to decoy the blacks into entirely disarming themselves of
their most murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly
flinging them, as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But, ere
long, perceiving the stratagem, the negroes desisted, though not before
many of them had to replace their lost hatchets with handspikes; an
exchange which, as counted upon, proved, in the end, favorable to the
assailants.
Meantime, with a strong wind, the ship still clove the water; the boats
alternately 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 the
negroes 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
boats while 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, and
cut adrift the sails. It was done. About this time, owing to causes
hereafter to be shown, two Spaniards, in the dress of sailors, and
conspicuously showing themselves, were killed; not by volleys, but by
deliberate marksman’s shots; while, as it afterwards appeared, by one
of the general discharges, Atufal, the black, and the Spaniard at the
helm likewise were killed. What now, with the loss of the sails, and
loss of leaders, the ship became unmanageable to the negroes.
With creaking masts, she came heavily round to the wind; the prow
slowly swinging into view of the boats, its skeleton gleaming in the
horizontal moonlight, and casting a gigantic ribbed shadow upon the
water. One extended arm of the ghost seemed beckoning the whites to
avenge it.
“Follow your leader!” cried the mate; and, one on each bow, the boats
boarded. Sealing-spears and cutlasses crossed hatchets and hand-spikes.
Huddled upon the long-boat amidships, the negresses raised a wailing
chant, whose chorus was the clash of the steel.
For a time, the attack wavered; the negroes wedging themselves to beat
it back; the half-repelled sailors, as yet unable to gain a footing,
fighting as troopers in the saddle, one leg sideways flung over the
bulwarks, and one without, plying their cutlasses like carters’ whips.
But in vain. They were almost overborne, when, rallying themselves into
a squad as one man, with a huzza, they sprang inboard, where,
entangled, they involuntarily separated again. For a few breaths’
space, there was a vague, muffled, inner sound, as of submerged
sword-fish rushing hither and thither through shoals of black-fish.
Soon, in a reunited band, and joined by the Spanish seamen, the whites
came to the surface, irresistibly driving the negroes toward the stern.
But a barricade of casks 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, yet fain would have had respite. But, without pause,
overleaping the barrier, the unflagging sailors again closed.
Exhausted, the blacks now fought in despair. Their red tongues lolled,
wolf-like, from their black mouths. 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 the
balls, many were mangled; their wounds—mostly inflicted by the
long-edged sealing-spears, resembling those shaven ones of the English
at Preston Pans, made by the poled scythes of the Highlanders. On the
other side, none were killed, though several were wounded; some
severely, including the mate. The surviving negroes were temporarily
secured, and the ship, towed back into the harbor at midnight, once
more lay anchored.
Omitting the incidents and arrangements ensuing, suffice it that, after
two days spent in refitting, the ships sailed in company for
Conception, in Chili, and thence for Lima, in Peru; where, before the
vice-regal courts, the whole affair, from the beginning, underwent
investigation.
Though, midway on the passage, the ill-fated Spaniard, relaxed from
constraint, showed some signs of regaining health with free-will; yet,
agreeably to his own foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, he
relapsed, finally becoming so reduced as to be carried ashore in arms.
Hearing of his story and plight, one of the many religious institutions
of the City of Kings opened an hospitable refuge to him, where both
physician and priest were his nurses, and a member of the order
volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, by night and
by day.
The following extracts, translated from one of the official Spanish
documents, will, it is hoped, shed light on the preceding narrative, as
well as, in the first place, reveal the true port of departure and true
history of the San Dominick’s voyage, down to the time of her touching
at the island of St. Maria.
But, ere the extracts come, it may be well to preface them with a
remark.
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 both
learned and natural reasons. The tribunal inclined to the opinion that
the deponent, not undisturbed in his mind by recent events, raved of
some things which could never have happened. But subsequent depositions
of the surviving sailors, bearing out the revelations of their captain
in several of the strangest particulars, gave credence to the rest. So
that the tribunal, in its final decision, rested its capital sentences
upon statements which, had they lacked confirmation, it would have
deemed it but duty to reject.
I, DON JOSE DE ABOS AND PADILLA, His Majesty’s Notary for the Royal
Revenue, and Register of this Province, and Notary Public of the Holy
Crusade of this Bishopric, etc.
Do certify and declare, as much as is requisite in law, that, in the
criminal cause commenced the twenty-fourth of the month of September,
in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, against the negroes of
the ship 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 he 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 in a questionable attitude, 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.