rags they were now. To procure
substitutes for his lost sailors, as well as supplies of water and
sails, the captain, at the earliest opportunity, had made for Baldivia,
the southernmost civilized port of Chili and South America; but upon
nearing the coast the thick weather had prevented him from so much as
sighting that harbor. Since which period, almost without a crew, and
almost without canvas and almost without water, and, at intervals giving
its added dead to the sea, the San Dominick had been battle-dored about
by contrary winds, inveigled by currents, or grown weedy in calms. Like
a man lost in woods, more than once she had doubled upon her own track.

"But throughout these calamities," huskily continued Don Benito,
painfully turning in the half embrace of his servant, "I have to thank
those negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing
unruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of restlessness
than even their owner could have thought possible under such
circumstances."

Here he again fell faintly back. Again his mind wandered; but he
rallied, and less obscurely proceeded.

"Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters would
be needed with his blacks; so that while, as is wont in this
transportation, those negroes have always remained upon deck--not thrust
below, as in the Guinea-men--they have, also, from the beginning, been
freely permitted to range within given bounds at their pleasure."

Once more the faintness returned--his mind roved--but, recovering, he
resumed:

"But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own
preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit is due, of
pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted to
murmurings."

"Ah, master," sighed the black, bowing his face, "don't speak of me;
Babo is nothing; what Babo has done was but duty."

"Faithful fellow!" cried Captain Delano. "Don Benito, I envy you such a
friend; slave I cannot call him."

As master and man stood before him, the black upholding the white,
Captain Delano could not but bethink him of the beauty of that
relationship which could present such a spectacle of fidelity on the one
hand and confidence on the other. The scene was heightened by, the
contrast in dress, denoting their relative positions. The Spaniard wore
a loose Chili jacket of dark velvet; white small-clothes and stockings,
with silver buckles at the knee and instep; a high