Melville repeats these words on several occasions to cause the reader to evaluate the question of leadership in this story. In this instance, Babo displays these words to warn the Spanish sailors of the fate that awaits them if they dare contest his power. Aranda is the leader that they would follow in death, yet Babo is the master of their lives and the ship. He demonstrates the true qualities of a dynamic leader through the authority he commands from the slaves and the absolute power which he is able to exert over Benito Cereno and the other Spanish sailors. His capacity to invent such a scheme of perfect deception also attests to his understated intelligence and ability. Later in Lima, many could not believe that a black man was capable of the precision and genius that was needed for such a scheme. Through Babo, Melville creates the strong leader that is not found in either Delano or Benito Cereno (Sundquist 160). Delano's inability to perceive reality and Cereno's weakness to command himself leave Babo as the true figure of authority in Benito Cereno. Melville seals his position with his last comments stating that Babo "met, unabashed, the gaze of the whites" and stared forward at the church where both Aranda and Cereno lay still under the power of their "leader" (258).
"death for the figurehead".
At Benito Cereno's climax, Captain Delano is swept by the realization of mutiny aboard the San Dominick as he is further shocked by the unveiling of the ship's figurehead. What once was Christopher Columbus is now the skeleton of the former master Alexandro Aranda, revealing that these two synonymously represented Spanish imperialism (Sundquist 156). One founded and the other perpetuated the institution of African slavery, resulting in generations of cruelty and savagery that had caused the deaths of thousands. Their designation as death also foretells the demise of the Spanish Empire, which Melville hints at from the beginning descriptions of the San Dominick as a dilapidated chateau (Melville 200).