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Summary
Captain Delano considers the details of Cereno’s tale and wonders if all on board are a part of an elaborate piratical scheme, but once again, he dismisses his suspicions as silly. He convinces himself that Cereno is simply mentally unfit to lead the ship in his present state. Meanwhile, the Bachelor’s Delight approaches the San Dominick, an event which catches all the passengers’ attention. As the men prepare to receive the supplies, Captain Delano witnesses another strange scene: two Black men push a sailor and then throw him to the ground. When he attempts to point this out to Cereno, the Spanish captain has another coughing fit, and his servant Babo must help him. Captain Delano, impressed by Babo’s devotion, makes an offer to buy him from Cereno, leading Babo to emphasize the inseparability of the pair. Cereno’s coughing resumes, and Babo leads him below deck.
Left alone, Captain Delano looks about and thinks that he sees the Spanish sailors giving him meaningful glances. He vows to speak with one of them, and as he looks around the deck, he sees a haggard-looking sailor working with tar while a group of slaves supervises. Since this image unnerves him, Captain Delano questions another sailor occupied with the ship’s rigging. This sailor confirms Cereno’s story, although the Black men accompanying him quickly dominate the conversation. Satisfied by this information, Captain Delano returns to the upper deck and observes the Black women and children as he waits for the Bachelor’s Delight to return with additional supplies. One of the Spanish sailors catches his eye by gesturing toward the balcony, but he runs off before Captain Delano can decipher the message. He wonders if the sailor was attempting to warn him about an attack of some kind.
Pacing along the deck, Captain Delano comes upon an older sailor who is tying a large, complex knot with ropes. The man explains that he is tying the knot “for someone else to undo” before handing it to Captain Delano and quietly instructing him to undo it. Captain Delano, dumbfounded, fails to untie it, and the knot is taken away from him by a slave. The situation is extremely strange, but he tries again to simply ignore it. Watching his ship get closer brings Captain Delano comfort and reassures him that no one would want to murder a good-hearted man such as himself. Babo returns and tells him that Cereno will rejoin them shortly, another sign which convinces him that all is well. He admits that the San Dominick has its peculiarities but ultimately attributes them to Cereno’s Spanish heritage.
The Bachelor’s Delight finally returns and the crew unloads the supplies. Captain Delano becomes unnerved when a few of the Black men push him aside to get to the gangplank, and he believes he is about to be attacked when Cereno cries out and the hatchet-polishers rise. This moment passes so briefly, however, that he dismisses his fears. As the men enjoy the provisions that Captain Delano’s ship supplied, he makes a comment to Cereno about the San Dominick’s lack of boats. Cereno explains that they were destroyed in the storms they faced, but when questioned about where these storms were, he responds with “Who spoke of Cape Horn?” When Captain Delano reminds him that he had mentioned it previously, Cereno seems very upset. Babo then informs Cereno it is time for his daily shave. Captain Delano finds this, like everything else, very odd but goes along with it. During the shaving, he admires Babo's attitude and skill at shaving. He then brings up Cape Horn again, and before Cereno can answer, Babo accidentally cuts Cereno's skin. At the sight of the blood, Cereno looks terrified. Captain Delano decides that a man so terrified by the sight of blood cannot possibly be plotting murder, although the hollowness of their conversation leads him to wonder if the master and servant are acting out some sort of pre-arranged play before him.
Analysis
The tension on board the San Dominick continues to grow throughout this section of the narrative, and Captain Delano misreads almost every sign that Melville includes. While he is correct in his suspicions that an attack may be impending, his biases cause him to focus his fears on the wrong people. Cereno has a particularly bad coughing fit after two Black men throw a sailor to the ground, for example, and all Captain Delano can focus on is how well Babo takes care of his master. His belief that Black people are inherently obedient and willing servants blinds him to the possibility that Cereno’s mysterious illness may be a sign of something serious. Throughout the story as a whole, Cereno’s coughing fits have two primary functions. The scenes that these moments of helplessness cause allow him to draw attention away from other behaviors that may give away the secret that Babo is forcing him to hide. His coughing also serves as a physical manifestation of the anxiety he feels toward the life-or-death situation he finds himself in. To Captain Delano, however, this sickness is simply another aspect of Cereno’s strange character. Other key signs that Captain Delano misreads in this section come from Spanish sailors on the ship, people whom he struggles to trust as a result of their ties to Cereno. The glances and signs that they give him fill him with a sense of dread because he assumes that they know of Cereno’s plans. While the sailors do know the truth about the ship’s power dynamics, Captain Delano’s inability to grasp the full meaning of their signals emphasizes his limited perspective.
In addition to reinforcing the limits of Captain Delano’s narrow worldview, this section of the story highlights even more explicitly the racial stereotypes that he buys into and uses to support his decision-making. Melville takes care to reference these prejudices in a very casual manner, and this technique calls attention to how normalized such views are in Captain Delano’s world. Rather than depict Captain Delano as a villain for his racist opinions, Melville continues to emphasize his benevolent nature in order to force the reader to confront the reality that these biases are not limited to one type of person. As Captain Delano watches the Black women and children interacting on the ship, for example, he uses animalistic language to describe them. While the phrases that he uses, such as “a doe in the shade of a woodland rock,” evoke peaceful imagery, he nevertheless dehumanizes the women. The most explicit references to Captain Delano’s views on race occur just before the knot-tying scene as he contemplates the possibility that Cereno may be plotting against him. As he attempts to rationalize Cereno’s mysterious behavior, he draws upon numerous nineteenth-century stereotypes, including the belief that whites “are the shrewder race” and that Blacks are “too stupid.” By including these offensive remarks in the story, Melville is able to emphasize just how deeply racism pervades the American consciousness. Captain Delano takes these prejudices as facts, and this characterization reflects the harm that adhering to a strictly binary worldview can cause.
The final two highlights of this section of the story are the knot scene and the shaving scene, both of which are full of symbolism and work to foreshadow the surprise ending. After noticing that the Spanish sailors seem to be sending him signals, Captain Delano looks for someone to speak with and comes across an older crew member tying a rope into a complicated knot. The knot, which the sailor explains is “for someone else to undo,” symbolizes the complex nature of the San Dominick’s journey and emphasizes the idea that the true social dynamics on board are not clearly defined. Melville’s inclusion of this scene as the story nears its climax invites the reader to consider whether or not they can untangle the plot’s metaphorical knot. The fact that Captain Delano fails to undo the knot highlights his failure to correctly interpret the day’s strange events and, given the story’s third-person limited point of view, implies that the reader may also be struggling to discern the truth. Melville includes one more major symbol, however, before the mutiny on the San Dominick becomes clear. The shaving scene, which occurs after a conversation in which Captain Delano identifies a suspicious inconsistency in Cereno’s story, foreshadows the control that Babo has over his master. Drawing blood with the razor serves as a powerful reminder to Cereno that his life is in Babo’s hands, although Babo takes care to make the nick appear accidental to Captain Delano.
