{"id":"01KG8AKVZ92EW3VKY31SDFRJ9C","cid":"bafkreiaw3yasnxs2diklosmnnd3bmud2zxfepxblwnn5gvi73prawniwv4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3304,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.023Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7","start_line":3241,"text":"white and black, but likewise—what seemed impossible to be\r\ncounterfeit—by the very expression and play of every human feature,\r\nwhich Captain Delano saw. If Don Benito’s story was, throughout, an\r\ninvention, then every soul on board, down to the youngest negress, was\r\nhis carefully drilled recruit in the plot: an incredible inference. And\r\nyet, if there was ground for mistrusting his veracity, that inference\r\nwas a legitimate one.\r\n\r\nBut those questions of the Spaniard. There, indeed, one might pause.\r\nDid they not seem put with much the same object with which the burglar\r\nor assassin, by day-time, reconnoitres the walls of a house? But, with\r\nill purposes, to solicit such information openly of the chief person\r\nendangered, and so, in effect, setting him on his guard; how unlikely a\r\nprocedure was that? Absurd, then, to suppose that those questions had\r\nbeen prompted by evil designs. Thus, the same conduct, which, in this\r\ninstance, had raised the alarm, served to dispel it. In short, scarce\r\nany suspicion or uneasiness, however apparently reasonable at the time,\r\nwhich was not now, with equal apparent reason, dismissed.\r\n\r\nAt last he began to laugh at his former forebodings; and laugh at the\r\nstrange ship for, in its aspect, someway siding with them, as it were;\r\nand laugh, too, at the odd-looking blacks, particularly those old\r\nscissors-grinders, the Ashantees; and those bed-ridden old knitting\r\nwomen, the oakum-pickers; and almost at the dark Spaniard himself, the\r\ncentral hobgoblin of all.\r\n\r\nFor the rest, whatever in a serious way seemed enigmatical, was now\r\ngood-naturedly explained away by the thought that, for the most part,\r\nthe poor invalid scarcely knew what he was about; either sulking in\r\nblack vapors, or putting idle questions without sense or object.\r\nEvidently for the present, the man was not fit to be intrusted with the\r\nship. On some benevolent plea withdrawing the command from him, Captain\r\nDelano would yet have to send her to Conception, in charge of his\r\nsecond mate, a worthy person and good navigator—a plan not more\r\nconvenient for the San Dominick than for Don Benito; for, relieved from\r\nall anxiety, keeping wholly to his cabin, the sick man, under the good\r\nnursing of his servant, would, probably, by the end of the passage, be\r\nin a measure restored to health, and with that he should also be\r\nrestored to authority.\r\n\r\nSuch were the American’s thoughts. They were tranquilizing. There was a\r\ndifference between the idea of Don Benito’s darkly pre-ordaining\r\nCaptain Delano’s fate, and Captain Delano’s lightly arranging Don\r\nBenito’s. Nevertheless, it was not without something of relief that the\r\ngood seaman presently perceived his whale-boat in the distance. Its\r\nabsence had been prolonged by unexpected detention at the sealer’s\r\nside, as well as its returning trip lengthened by the continual\r\nrecession of the goal.\r\n\r\nThe advancing speck was observed by the blacks. Their shouts attracted\r\nthe attention of Don Benito, who, with a return of courtesy,\r\napproaching Captain Delano, expressed satisfaction at the coming of\r\nsome supplies, slight and temporary as they must necessarily prove.\r\n\r\nCaptain Delano responded; but while doing so, his attention was drawn\r\nto something passing on the deck below: among the crowd climbing the\r\nlandward bulwarks, anxiously watching the coming boat, two blacks, to\r\nall appearances accidentally incommoded by one of the sailors,\r\nviolently pushed him aside, which the sailor someway resenting, they\r\ndashed him to the deck, despite the earnest cries of the oakum-pickers.\r\n\r\n“Don Benito,” said Captain Delano quickly, “do you see what is going on\r\nthere? Look!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK2X9P0E5X4X6Z77F9M13","peer_type":"intro","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKVDD3GR4BTS02GAX6V4Q","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKVZ95NNJRQZHECTPHPTM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.409Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.231Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}