{"id":"01KG8AKWPS75P44J7SWC2FK0QX","cid":"bafkreifiwa626336n36jh7izj54lnvd7t4la77f5ylaqs3qdtyw6lptqqe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4105,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.023Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 18","source_file":"01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7","start_line":4037,"text":"of the servant’s hand, however it was, just then the razor drew blood,\r\nspots of which stained the creamy lather under the throat: immediately\r\nthe black barber drew back his steel, and, remaining in his\r\nprofessional attitude, back to Captain Delano, and face to Don Benito,\r\nheld up the trickling razor, saying, with a sort of half humorous\r\nsorrow, “See, master—you shook so—here’s Babo’s first blood.”\r\n\r\nNo sword drawn before James the First of England, no assassination in\r\nthat timid King’s presence, could have produced a more terrified aspect\r\nthan was now presented by Don Benito.\r\n\r\nPoor fellow, thought Captain Delano, so nervous he can’t even bear the\r\nsight of barber’s blood; and this unstrung, sick man, is it credible\r\nthat I should have imagined he meant to spill all my blood, who can’t\r\nendure the sight of one little drop of his own? Surely, Amasa Delano,\r\nyou have been beside yourself this day. Tell it not when you get home,\r\nsappy Amasa. Well, well, he looks like a murderer, doesn’t he? More\r\nlike as if himself were to be done for. Well, well, this day’s\r\nexperience shall be a good lesson.\r\n\r\nMeantime, while these things were running through the honest seaman’s\r\nmind, the servant had taken the napkin from his arm, and to Don Benito\r\nhad said—“But answer Don Amasa, please, master, while I wipe this ugly\r\nstuff off the razor, and strop it again.”\r\n\r\nAs he said the words, his face was turned half round, so as to be alike\r\nvisible to the Spaniard and the American, and seemed, by its\r\nexpression, to hint, that he was desirous, by getting his master to go\r\non with the conversation, considerately to withdraw his attention from\r\nthe recent annoying accident. As if glad to snatch the offered relief,\r\nDon Benito resumed, rehearsing to Captain Delano, that not only were\r\nthe calms of unusual duration, but the ship had fallen in with\r\nobstinate currents; and other things he added, some of which were but\r\nrepetitions of former statements, to explain how it came to pass that\r\nthe passage from Cape Horn to St. Maria had been so exceedingly long;\r\nnow and then, mingling with his words, incidental praises, less\r\nqualified than before, to the blacks, for their general good conduct.\r\nThese particulars were not given consecutively, the servant, at\r\nconvenient times, using his razor, and so, between the intervals of\r\nshaving, the story and panegyric went on with more than usual\r\nhuskiness.\r\n\r\nTo Captain Delano’s imagination, now again not wholly at rest, there\r\nwas something so hollow in the Spaniard’s manner, with apparently some\r\nreciprocal hollowness in the servant’s dusky comment of silence, that\r\nthe idea flashed across him, that possibly master and man, for some\r\nunknown purpose, were acting out, both in word and deed, nay, to the\r\nvery tremor of Don Benito’s limbs, some juggling play before him.\r\nNeither did the suspicion of collusion lack apparent support, from the\r\nfact of those whispered conferences before mentioned. But then, what\r\ncould be the object of enacting this play of the barber before him? At\r\nlast, regarding the notion as a whimsy, insensibly suggested, perhaps,\r\nby the theatrical aspect of Don Benito in his harlequin ensign, Captain\r\nDelano speedily banished it.\r\n\r\nThe shaving over, the servant bestirred himself with a small bottle of\r\nscented waters, pouring a few drops on the head, and then diligently\r\nrubbing; the vehemence of the exercise causing the muscles of his face\r\nto twitch rather strangely.\r\n\r\nHis next operation was with comb, scissors, and brush; going round and\r\nround, smoothing a curl here, clipping an unruly whisker-hair there,\r\ngiving a graceful sweep to the temple-lock, with other impromptu\r\ntouches evincing the hand of a master; while, like any resigned\r\ngentleman in barber’s hands, Don Benito bore all, much less uneasily,\r\nat least than he had done the razoring; indeed, he sat so pale and\r\nrigid now, that the negro seemed a Nubian sculptor finishing off a\r\nwhite statue-head.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 18"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK2X9P0E5X4X6Z77F9M13","peer_type":"intro","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1F4D8P9BBX9AMGZ7TX7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKWPHPCBN89TYPSADNMA3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKWPP5G23JT0VVPC9FJAB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:19.161Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.952Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}