but likewise—­what seemed impossible to be counterfeit—­by the very expression and play of every human feature, which Captain Delano saw.  If Don Benito’s story was, throughout, an invention, then every soul on board, down to the youngest negress, was his carefully drilled recruit in the plot:  an incredible inference.  And yet, if there was ground for mistrusting his veracity, that inference was a legitimate one.

But those questions of the Spaniard.  There, indeed, one might pause.  Did they not seem put with much the same object with which the burglar or assassin, by day-time, reconnoitres the walls of a house?  But, with ill purposes, to solicit such information openly of the chief person endangered, and so, in effect, setting him on his guard; how unlikely a procedure was that?  Absurd, then, to suppose that those questions had been prompted by evil designs.  Thus, the same conduct, which, in this instance, had raised the alarm, served to dispel it.  In short, scarce any suspicion or uneasiness, however apparently reasonable at the time, which was not now, with equal apparent reason, dismissed.

At last he began to laugh at his former forebodings; and laugh at the strange ship for, in its aspect, someway siding with them, as it were; and laugh, too, at the odd-looking blacks, particularly those old scissors-grinders, the Ashantees; and those bed-ridden old knitting women, the oakum-pickers; and almost at the dark Spaniard himself, the central hobgoblin of all.

For the rest, whatever in a serious way seemed enigmatical, was now good-naturedly explained away by the thought that, for the most part, the poor invalid scarcely knew what he was about; either sulking in black vapors, or putting idle questions without sense or object.  Evidently for the present, the man was not fit to be intrusted with the ship.  On some benevolent plea withdrawing the command from him, Captain Delano would yet have to send her to Conception, in charge of his second mate, a worthy person and good navigator—­a plan not more convenient for the San Dominick than for Don Benito; for, relieved from all anxiety, keeping wholly to his cabin, the sick man, under the good nursing of his servant, would, probably, by the end of the passage, be in a measure restored to health, and with that he should also be restored to authority.

Such were the American’s thoughts.  They were tranquilizing.  There was a difference between the idea of Don Benito’s darkly pre-ordaining Captain Delano’s fate, and Captain Delano’s lightly arranging Don Benito’s.  Nevertheless, it was not without something of relief that the good seaman presently perceived his whale-boat in the distance.  Its absence had been prolonged by unexpected detention at the sealer’s side, as well as its returning trip lengthened by the continual recession of the goal.

The advancing speck was observed by the blacks.  Their shouts attracted the attention of Don Benito, who, with a return of courtesy, approaching Captain Delano, expressed satisfaction at the coming of some supplies, slight and temporary as they must necessarily prove.