Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
“Tell me, Don Benito,” continued his companion with increased interest, “tell
me, were these gales immediately o the pitch of Cape Horn?”
“Cape Horn?—who spoke of Cape Horn?”
“Yourself did, when giving me an account of your voyage,” answered Captain
Delano, with almost equal astonishment at this eating of his own words, even as he
ever seemed eating his own heart, on the part of the Spaniard. “You yourself, Don
Benito, spoke of Cape Horn,” he emphatically 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 to water.
At this moment a messenger-boy, a white, hurried by, in the regular performance
of his function carrying the last expired half hour forward to the forecastle, from
the cabin time-piece, to have it struck at the ship’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 whose benet it was intended, “master told
me never mind where he was, or how engaged, 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 into realities; then
turning upon Captain Delano, he said that ere long he would resume the conversation.
“Then if master means to talk more to Don Amasa,” said the servant, “why not
let Don Amasa sit by master in the cuddy, and master can talk, and Don 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 another strange
instance of his host’s capriciousness, this being shaved with such uncommon
punctuality in the middle of the day. But he deemed it more than likely that the
servant’s anxious delity had something to do with the matter; inasmuch as the
timely interruption served to rally his master from the mood which had evidently
been coming upon him.
The place called the cuddy was a light deck-cabin formed by the poop, a sort
of attic to the large cabin below. Part of it had formerly been the quarters of the
ocers; but since their death all the partitioning had been thrown down, and the
whole interior converted into one spacious and airy marine hall; for absence of ne
furniture and picturesque disarray of odd appurtenances, somewhat answering to
the wide, cluttered hall of some eccentric bachelor-squire in the country, who hangs
his shooting-jacket and tobacco-pouch on deer antlers, and keeps his shing-rod,
tongs, and walking-stick in the same corner.
The similitude was heightened, if not originally suggested, by glimpses of the
surrounding sea; since, in one aspect, the country and the ocean seem cousins-german.
Page | 1375