Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

88 THE PIAZZA TALES
beseeching him not again to broach a theme so unspeakably
distressing to his master.
This poor fellow now, thought the pained American,
is the victim of that sad superstition which associates
goblins with the deserted body of man, as ghosts with
an abandoned house. How unlike are we made ! What
to me, in like case, would have been a solemn satisfaction,
the bare suggestion, even, terrifies the Spaniard into
this trance. Poor Alexandro Aranda ! what would you
say could you here see your friend— who, on former
voyages, when you, for months, were left behind, has,
I dare say, often longed, and longed, for one peep at
you —now transported with terror at the least thought
of having you any way nigh him.
At this moment, with a dreary graveyard toll, betokening
a flaw, the ship's forecastle bell, smote by one
of the grizzled oakum-pickers, proclaimed ten o'clock
through the leaden calm ;
when Captain Delano's atten-
tion was caught by the moving figure of a gigantic
black, emerging from the general crowd below, and
slowly advancing toward the elevated poop. An iron
collar was about his neck, from which depended a chain,
thrice wound round his body ; the terminating links
padlocked together at a broad band of iron, his girdle.
* How like a mute Atufal moves,' murmured the
servant.
The black mounted the steps of the poop, and, like
a brave prisoner, brought up to receive sentence, stood
in unquailing muteness before Don Benito, now re-
covered from his attack.
At the first glimpse of his approach, Don Benito had
started, a resentful shadow swept over his face ; and, as
with the sudden memory of bootless rage, his white lips
glued together.
This is some mulish mutineer, thought Captain Delano,