e pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him; and
so, amid various grins and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling a
little strange at first, he could hardly tell why, but upon the whole
with regained confidence in Benito Cereno.

How plainly, thought he, did that old whiskerando yonder betray a
consciousness of ill desert. No doubt, when he saw me coming, he
dreaded lest I, apprised by his Captain of the crew's general
misbehavior, came with sharp words for him, and so down with his head.
And yet--and yet, now that I think of it, that very old fellow, if I err
not, was one of those who seemed so earnestly eying me here awhile
since. Ah, these currents spin one's head round almost as much as they
do the ship. Ha, there now's a pleasant sort of sunny sight; quite
sociable, too.

His attention had been drawn to a slumbering negress, partly disclosed
through the lacework of some rigging, lying, with youthful limbs
carelessly disposed, under the lee of the bulwarks, like a doe in the
shade of a woodland rock. Sprawling at her lapped breasts, was her
wide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black little body half lifted from the
deck, crosswise with its dam's; its hands, like two paws, clambering
upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually rooting to get at the mark;
and meantime giving a vexatious half-grunt, blending with the composed
snore of the negress.

The uncommon vigor of the child at length roused the mother. She started
up, at a distance facing Captain Delano. But as if not, at all concerned
at the attitude in which she had been caught, delightedly she caught the
child up, with maternal transports, covering it with kisses.

There's naked nature, now; pure tenderness and love, thought Captain
Delano, well pleased.

This incident prompted him to remark the other negresses more
particularly than before. He was gratified with their manners: like most
uncivilized women, they seemed at once tender of heart and tough of
constitution; equally ready to die for their infants or fight for them.
Unsophisticated as leopardesses; loving as doves. Ah! thought Captain
Delano, these, perhaps, are some of the very women whom Ledyard saw in
Africa, and gave such a noble account of.

These natural sights somehow insensibly deepened his confidence and
ease. At last he looked to see how his boat was getting on; but it was
still pretty remote. He turned to see if Don Benito had returned; but
he had not.

To change the scene, as wel