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

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might too much
unstring his master, the servant seemed anxious to terminate it. And so, still
presenting himself as a crutch, and walking between the two captains, he advanced
with them towards the gangway; while still, as if full of kindly contrition, Don
Benito would not let go the hand of Captain Delano, but retained it in his, across
the black’s body.
Soon they were standing by the side, looking over into the boat, whose crew
turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a moment for the Spaniard to relinquish his
hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano lifted his foot, to overstep the threshold
of the open gangway; but still Don Benito would not let go his hand. And yet, with
an agitated tone, he said, “I can go no further; here I must bid you adieu. Adieu,
my dear, dear Don Amasa. Go—go!” suddenly tearing his hand loose, “go, and God
guard you better than me, my best friend.”
Not unaected, Captain Delano would now have lingered; but catching the
meekly admonitory eye of the servant, with a hasty farewell he descended into
his boat, followed by the continual adieus of Don Benito, standing rooted in the
gangway.
Seating himself in the stern, Captain Delano, making a last salute, ordered the
boat shoved o. The crew had their oars on end. The bowsmen pushed the boat
a sucient distance for the oars to be lengthwise dropped. The instant that was
done, Don Benito sprang over the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain Delano;
at the same time calling towards his ship, but in tones so frenzied, that none in the
boat could understand him. But, as if not equally obtuse, three sailors, from three
dierent and distant parts of the ship, splashed into the sea, swimming after their
captain, as if intent upon his rescue.
The dismayed ocer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant. To which,
Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile upon the unaccountable Spaniard,
answered that, for his part, he neither knew nor cared; but it seemed as if Don
Benito had taken it into his head to produce the impression among his people that
the boat wanted to kidnap him. “Or else—give way for your lives,” he wildly added,
starting at a clattering hubbub in the ship, above which rang the tocsin of the
hatchet-polishers; and seizing Don Benito by the throat he added, “this plotting
pirate means murder!” Here, in apparent verication of the words, the servant, a
dagger in his hand, was seen on the rail overhead, poised, in the act of leaping, as
if with desperate delity to befriend his master to the last; while, seemingly to aid
the black, the three white sailors were trying to clamber into the hampered bow.
Meantime, the whole host of negroes, as if inamed at the sight of their jeopardized
captain, impended in one sooty avalanche over the bulwarks.
All this, with what preceded, and what followed, occurred with such involutions
of rapidity, that past, present, and future seemed one.
Seeing the negro coming, Captain Delano had ung the Spaniard aside, almost
in the very act of clutching him, and, by the unconscious recoil, shifting his place,
with arms thrown up, so promptly grappled the servant in his descent, that with
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