Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

lack was about ;
BENITO CERENO 143
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 vin-
dictive, 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 flasFof revelation swept, illuminating,
in unanticipated clearness, his host's whole mysterious
demeanour, 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
toward 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 dervishesT^he 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