Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

BENITO CERENO 95
'
' And—and will be to-night, sefior ?
'
Yes, for aught I know,' returned Captain Delano—
'but nay,' raUymgJiimself. into. fearless truth, 'some of
them talked of going off on another fishing party about
midnight.'
'
Your ships generally go — go more or less armed, I
'
believe, sefior ?
'
Oh, a six-pounder or two, in case of emergency,' was
with a small stock of
the intrepidly indifferent reply, '
muskets, sealing-spears, and cutlasses, you know.'
As he thus responded, Captain Delano again glanced
at Don Benito, but the latter 's eyes were averted ; while
abruptly and awkwardly shifting the subject, he made
some peevish allusion to the calm, and then, without
apology, once more, with his attendant, withdrew to
the opposite bulwarks, where the whispering was resumed.
At this moment, and ere Captain Delano could cast
a cool thought upon what had just passed, the young
Spanish sailor, before mentioned, was seen descending
from the rigging. In act of stooping over to spring inboard
to the deck, his voluminous, unconfined frock, or
shirt, of coarse woollen, 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
this moment the young sailor's eye was again fixed on
the whisperers, and Captain Delano thought he observed
a lurking significance in it, as if silent signs, of some
Freemason sort, had that instant been interchanged.
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 subject of the conference. He
paused. The sound of the hatchet-polishing fell on his
ears. He cast another swift side-look at the two. They