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

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
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
satised, 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 rebus, he resolved, now that he had seen
the San Dominick safely moored, immediately to quit her, without further allusion
to hospitality or business. Indenitely 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 awed 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 superuously 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
nal moment, from some iniquitous plot, followed by remorseless return to it? His
last glance seemed to express a calamitous, yet acquiescent farewell to Captain
Page | 1386