

                                Herman Melville

                               Billy Budd, Sailor

                            Dedicated to JACK CHASE
                                   Englishman
                                        
                      Wherever That Great Heart May Now Be
                     Here on Earth or Harboured in Paradise
                            Captain of the Main-Top
                                In the Year 1843
                              In the U.S. Frigate
                                »United States«

                                    Preface

 
The year 1797, the year of this narrative, belongs to a period which, as every
thinker now feels, involved a crisis for Christendom, not exceeded in its
undetermined momentousness at the time by any other era whereof there is record.
The opening proposition made by the Spirit of that Age, involved a rectification
of the Old World's hereditary wrongs. In France, to some extent, this was
bloodily effected. But what then? Straightway the Revolution itself became a
wrongdoer, one more oppressive than the kings. Under Napoleon it enthroned
upstart kings, and initiated that prolonged agony of continual war whose final
throe was Waterloo. During those years not the wisest could have foreseen that
the outcome of all would be what to some thinkers apparently it has since turned
out to be, a political advance along nearly the whole line for Europeans.
    Now, as elsewhere hinted, it was something caught from the Revolutionary
Spirit that at Spithead emboldened the man-of-war's men to rise against real
abuses, long-standing ones, and afterwards at the Nore to make inordinate and
aggressive demands, successful resistance to which was confirmed only when the
ringleaders were hung for an admonitory spectacle to the anchored fleet. Yet in
a way analogous to the operation of the Revolution at large, the Great Mutiny,
though by Englishmen naturally deemed monstrous at the time, doubtless gave the
first latent prompting to most important reforms in the British Navy.
 

                                       I

                             (An inside Narrative)

In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller
along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally have his
attention arrested by a group of bronzed marines, man-of-war's men or merchant
sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would
flank, or, like a bodyguard, quite surround some superior figure of their own
class, moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his
constellation. That signal object was the Handsome Sailor of the less prosaic
time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no perceptible trace of the
vainglorious about him, rather with the offhand unaffectedness of natural
regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates. A
somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago,
I saw under the shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince's Dock (an
obstruction long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must
needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A symmetric
figure much above the average height. The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief
thrown loose about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest; in his
ears were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set
off his shapely head.
    It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with perspiration, beamed
with barbaric good-humour. In jovial sallies right and left, his white teeth
flashing into view, he rollicked along, the centre of a company of his
shipmates. These were made up of such an assortment of tribes and complexions as
would have well fitted them to be marched up by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar
of the first French Assembly as Representatives of the Human Race. At each
spontaneous tribute rendered by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow -
the tribute of a pause and stare, and less frequent an exclamation - the motley
retinue showed that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the
Assyrian priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the
faithful prostrated themselves. To return -
    If in some cases a bit of a nautical Murat in setting forth his person
ashore, the Handsome Sailor of the period in question evinced nothing of the
dandified Billy-be-Dam, an amusing character all but extinct now, but
occasionally to be encountered, and in a form yet more amusing than the
original, at the tiller of the boats on the tempestuous Erie Canal or, more
likely, vapouring in the groggeries along the tow-path. Invariably a proficient
in his perilous calling, he was also more or less of a mighty boxer or wrestler.
It was strength and beauty. Tales of his prowess were recited. Ashore he was the
champion, afloat the spokesman; on every suitable occasion always foremost.
Close-reefing topsails in a gale, there he was, astride the weather
yard-arm-end, foot in stirrup, both hands tugging at the ear-ring as at a
bridle, in very much the attitude of young Alexander curbing the fiery
Bucephalus. A superb figure, tossed up as by the horns of Taurus against the
thunderous sky, cheerily ballooning to the strenuous file along the spar.
    The moral nature was seldom out of keeping with the physical make. Indeed,
except as toned by the former, the comeliness and power, always attractive in
masculine conjunction, hardly could have drawn the sort of homage the Handsome
Sailor in some examples received from his less gifted associates.
    Such a cynosure, at least in aspect, and something such too in nature,
though with important variations made apparent as the story proceeds, was
welkin-eyed Billy Budd, or Baby Budd, as more familiarly, under circumstances
hereafter to be given, he at last came to be called, aged twenty-one, a
foretopman of the fleet toward the close of the last decade of the eighteenth
century. It was not very long prior to the time of the narration that follows
that he had entered the King's Service, having been impressed on the Narrow Seas
from a homeward-bound English merchantman into a seventy-four outward-bound,
H.M.S. Indomitable; which ship, as was not unusual in those hurried days, had
been obliged to put to sea short of her proper complement of men. Plump upon
Billy at first sight in the gangway the boarding-officer, Lieutenant Ratcliffe,
pounced, even before the merchantman's crew formally was mustered on the
quarter-deck for his deliberate inspection. And him only he selected. For
whether it was because the other men when ranged before him showed to ill
advantage after Billy, or whether he had some scruples in view of the
merchantman being rather short-handed; however it might be, the officer
contented himself with his first spontaneous choice. To the surprise of the
ship's company, though much to the Lieutenant's satisfaction, Billy made no
demur. But indeed any demur would have been as idle as the protest of a
goldfinch popped into a cage.
    Noting this uncomplaining acquiescence, all but cheerful one might say, the
shipmates turned a surprised glance of silent reproach at the sailor. The
shipmaster was one of those worthy mortals found in every vocation even the
humbler ones - the sort of person whom everybody agrees in calling a respectable
man. And - nor so strange to report as it may appear to be - though a ploughman
of the troubled waters, life-long contending with the intractable elements,
there was nothing this honest soul at heart loved better than simple peace and
quiet. For the rest, he was fifty or thereabouts, a little inclined to
corpulence, a prepossessing face, unwhiskered, and of an agreeable colour, a
rather full face, humanely intelligent in expression. On a fair day with a fair
wind and all going well, a certain musical chime in his voice seemed to be the
veritable unobstructed outcome of the innermost man. He had much prudence, much
conscientiousness, and there were occasions when these virtues were the cause of
overmuch disquietude in him. On a passage, so long as his craft was in any
proximity to land, no sleep for Captain Graveling. He took to heart those
serious responsibilities not so heavily borne by some shipmasters.
    Now while Billy Budd was down in the forecastle getting his kit together,
the Indomitable's lieutenant, burly and bluff, nowise disconcerted by Captain
Graveling's omitting to proffer the customary hospitalities on an occasion so
unwelcome to him, an omission simply caused by preoccupation of thought,
unceremoniously invited himself into the cabin, and also to a flask from the
spirit locker, a receptacle which his experienced eye instantly discovered. In
fact, he was one of those sea-dogs in whom all the hardship and peril of naval
life in the great prolonged wars of his time never impaired the natural instinct
for sensuous enjoyment. His duty he always faithfully did; but duty is sometimes
a dry obligation, and he was for irrigating its aridity whensoever possible with
a fertilising decoction of strong waters. For the cabin's proprietor there was
nothing left but to play the part of the enforced host with whatever grace and
alacrity were practicable. As necessary adjuncts to the flask, he silently
placed tumbler and water-jug before the irrepressible guest. But excusing
himself from partaking just then, dismally watched the unembarrassed officer
deliberately diluting his grog a little, then tossing it off in three swallows,
pushing the empty tumbler away, yet not so far as to be beyond easy reach, at
the same time settling himself in his seat, and smacking his lips with high
satisfaction, looking straight at the host.
    These proceedings over, the Master broke the silence; and there lurked a
rueful reproach in the tone of his voice: »Lieutenant, you are going to take my
best man from me, the jewel of 'em.«
    »Yes, I know,« rejoined the other, immediately drawing back the tumbler,
preliminary to a replenishing; »yes, I know. Sorry.«
    »Beg pardon, but you don't understand, Lieutenant. See here now. Before I
shipped that young fellow, my forecastle was a rat-pit of quarrels. It was black
times, I tell you, aboard the Rights here. I was worried to that degree my pipe
had no comfort for me. But Billy came; and it was like a Catholic priest
striking peace in an Irish shindy. Not that he preached to them or said or did
anything in particular; but a virtue went out of him, sugaring the sour ones.
They took to him like hornets to treacle; all but the bluffer of the gang, the
big, shaggy chap with the fire-red whiskers. He indeed, out of envy, perhaps, of
the newcomer, and thinking such a sweet and pleasant fellow, as he mockingly
designated him to the others, could hardly have the spirit of a gamecock, must
needs bestir himself in trying to get up an ugly row with him. Billy forbore
with him, and reassured with him in a pleasant way - he is something like
myself, Lieutenant, to whom aught like a quarrel is hateful - but nothing
served. So, in the second dog-watch one day the Red Whiskers, in presence of the
others, under pretence of showing Billy just whence a sirloin steak was cut -
for the fellow had once been a butcher - insultingly gave him a dig under the
ribs. Quick as lightning Billy let fly his arm. I dare say he never meant to do
quite as much as he did, but anyhow he gave the burly fool a terrible drubbing.
It took about half a minute, I should think. And, Lord bless you, the lubber was
astonished at the celerity. And will you believe it, Lieutenant, the Red
Whiskers now really loves Billy - loves him, or is the biggest hypocrite that
ever I heard of. But they all love him. Some of 'em do his washing, darn old
trousers for him; the carpenter is at odd times making a pretty little chest of
drawers for him. Anybody will do anything for Billy Budd; and it's the happy
family here. Now, Lieutenant, if that young fellow goes, I know how it will be
aboard the Rights. Not again very soon shall I, coming up from dinner, lean over
the capstan smoking a quiet pipe - no, not very soon again, I think. Ay,
Lieutenant, you are going to take away the jewel of 'em; you are going to take
away my peacemaker.« And with that the good soul had really some ado in checking
a rising sob.
    »Well,« said the Lieutenant, who had listened with amused interest to all
this, and now waxing merry with his tipple, »well, blessed are the peacemakers,
especially the fighting peacemakers! And such are the seventy-four beauties,
some of which you see poking their noses out of the port-holes of yonder warship
lying-to for me,« pointing through the cabin windows at the Indomitable. »But
courage! don't look so downhearted, man. Why, I pledge you in advance the royal
approbation. Rest assured that His Majesty will be delighted to know that in a
time when his hard-tack is not sought for by sailors with such avidity as should
be; a time also when some shipmasters privily resent the borrowing from them of
a tar or two for the service; His Majesty, I say, will be delighted to learn
that one shipmaster at least cheerfully surrenders to the King the flower of his
flock, a sailor who with equal loyalty makes no dissent. But where's my Beauty?
Ah,« looking through the cabin's open door, »here he comes; and, by Jove!
lugging along his chest - Apollo with his portmanteau! My man,« stepping out to
him, »you can't take that big box aboard a warship. The boxes there are mostly
shot-boxes. Put your duds in a bag, lad. Boot and saddle for the cavalryman, bag
and hammock for the man-of-war's man.«
    The transfer from chest to bag was made. And, after seeing his man into the
cutter, and then following him down, the Lieutenant pushed off from the
Rights-of-Man. That was the merchant ship's name; though by her master and crew
abbreviated in sailor fashion into the Rights. The hard-headed Dundee owner was
a staunch admirer of Thomas Paine, whose book in rejoinder to Burke's
arraignment of the French Revolution had then been published for some time, and
had gone everywhere. In christening his vessel after the title of Paine's
volume, the man of Dundee was something like his contemporary shipowner, Stephen
Girard of Philadelphia, whose sympathies alike with his native land and its
liberal philosophies he evinced by naming his ships after Voltaire, Diderot, and
so forth.
    But now when the boat swept under the merchantman's stern, and officer and
oarsmen were noting, some bitterly and others with a grin, the name emblazoned
there; just then it was that the new recruit jumped up from the bow where the
coxswain had directed him to sit, and, waving his hat to his silent shipmates
sorrowfully looking over at him from the taffrail, bade the lads a genial
good-bye. Then making a salutation as to the ship herself, »And good-bye to you
too, old Rights-of-Man!«
    »Down, sir,« roared the Lieutenant, instantly assuming all the rigour of his
rank, though with difficulty repressing a smile.
    To be sure, Billy's action was a terrible breach of naval decorum. But in
that decorum he had never been instructed; in consideration of which the
Lieutenant would hardly have been so energetic in reproof but for the concluding
farewell to the ship. This he rather took as meant to convey a covert sally on
the new recruit's part, a sly slur at impressment in general, and that of
himself in especial. And yet, more likely, if satire it was in effect, it was
hardly so by intention, for Billy, though happily endowed with the gaiety of
high health, youth, and a free heart, was yet by no means of a satirical turn.
The will to it and the sinister dexterity were alike wanting. To deal in double
meaning and insinuations of any sort was quite foreign to his nature.
    As to his enforced enlistment, that he seemed to take pretty much as he was
wont to take any vicissitudes of weather. Like the animals, though no
philosopher he was, without knowing it, practically a fatalist. And, it may be,
that he rather liked this adventurous turn in his affairs which promised an
opening into novel scenes and martial excitements.
    Aboard the Indomitable our merchant-sailor was forthwith rated as an able
seaman, and assigned to the starboard watch of the foretop. He was soon at home
in the service, not at all disliked for his unpretentious good looks, and a sort
of genial happy-go-lucky air. No merrier man in his mess; in marked contrast to
certain other individuals included like himself among the impressed portion of
the ship's company; for these when not actively employed were sometimes, and
more particularly in the last dog-watch when the drawing near of twilight
induced revery, apt to fall into a saddish mood which in some partook of
sullenness. But they were not so young as our foretopman, and no few of them
must have known a hearth of some sort, others may have had wives and children
left, too probably, in uncertain circumstances, and hardly any but must have
acknowledged kith and kin; while for Billy, as will shortly be seen, his entire
family was practically invested in himself.
 

                                       II

Though our new-made foretopman was well received in the top and on the
gun-decks, hardly here was he that cynosure he had previously been among those
minor ships' companies of the merchant marine, with which companies only had he
hitherto consorted.
    He was young; and despite his all but fully developed frame, in aspect
looked even younger than he really was. This was owing to a lingering adolescent
expression in the as yet smooth face, all but feminine in purity of natural
complexion, but where, thanks to his sea-going, the lily was quite suppressed,
and the rose had some ado visibly to flush through the tan.
    To one essentially such a novice in the complexities of factitious life, the
abrupt transition from his former and simpler sphere to the ampler and more
knowing world of a great warship - this might well have abashed him had there
been any conceit or vanity in his composition. Among her miscellaneous
multitude, the Indomitable mustered several individuals who, however inferior in
grade, were of no common natural stamp, sailors more signally susceptive of that
air which continuous martial discipline and repeated presence in battle can in
some degree impart even to the average man. As the Handsome Sailor Billy Budd's
position aboard the seventy-four was something analogous to that of a rustic
beauty transplanted from the provinces and brought into competition with the
high-born dames of the court. But this change of circumstances he scarce noted.
As little did he observe that something about him provoked an ambiguous smile in
one or two harder faces among the blue-jackets. Nor less unaware was he of the
peculiar favourable effect his person and demeanour had upon the more
intelligent gentlemen of the quarter-deck. Nor could this well have been
otherwise. Cast in a mould peculiar to the finest physical examples of those
Englishmen in whom the Saxon strain would seem not at all to partake of any
Norman or other admixture, he showed in face that humane look of reposeful
good-nature which the Greek sculptor in some instances gave to his heroic strong
man, Hercules. But this again was subtly modified by another and pervasive
quality. The ear, small and shapely, the arch of the foot, the curve in mouth
and nostril, even the indurated hand dyed to the orange-tawny of the toucan's
bill, a hand telling of the halyards and tar-buckets; but, above all, something
in the mobile expression, and every chance attitude and movement, something
suggestive of a mother eminently favoured by Love and the Graces; all this
strangely indicated a lineage in direct contradiction to his lot. The
mysteriousness here, became less mysterious through a matter of fact elicited
when Billy at the capstan was being formally mustered into the service. Asked by
the officer, a small, brisk little gentleman as it chanced, among other
questions, his place of birth, he replied, »Please, sir, I don't know.«
    »Don't know where you were born? Who was your father?«
    »God knows, sir.«
    Struck by the straightforward simplicity of these replies, the officer next
asked, »Do you know anything about your beginning?«
    »No, sir. But I have heard that I was found in a pretty silk-lined basket
hanging one morning from the knocker of a good man's door in Bristol.«
    »Found, say you? Well,« throwing back his head, and looking up and down the
new recruit - »well, it turns out to have been a pretty good find. Hope they'll
find some more like you, my man; the fleet sadly needs them.«
    Yes, Billy Budd was a foundling, a presumable by-blow, and, evidently, no
ignoble one. Noble descent was as evident in him as in a blood horse.
    For the rest, with little or no sharpness of faculty or any trace of the
wisdom of the serpent, nor yet quite a dove, he possessed a certain degree of
intelligence along with the unconventional rectitude of a sound human creature -
one to whom not yet has been proffered the questionable apple of knowledge. He
was illiterate; he could not read, but he could sing, and like the illiterate
nightingale was sometimes the composer of his own song.
    Of self-consciousness he seemed to have little or none, or about as much as
we may reasonably impute to a dog of St. Bernard's breed.
    Habitually being with the elements and knowing little more of the land than
as a beach, or, rather, that portion of the terraqueous globe providentially set
apart for dance-houses, doxies and tapsters, in short, what sailors call a
fiddlers' green, his simple nature remained unsophisticated by those moral
obliquities which are not in every case incomparable with that manufacturable
thing known as respectability. But are sailor frequenters of fiddlers' greens
without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so-called,
partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than
exuberance of vitality after long restraint, frank manifestations in accordance
with natural law. By his original constitution, aided by the co-operating
influences of his lot, Billy in many respects was little more than a sort of
upright barbarian, much such perhaps as Adam presumably might have been ere the
urbane Serpent wriggled himself into his company.
    And here be it submitted that, apparently going to corroborate the doctrine
of man's fall (a doctrine now popularly ignored), it is observable that where
certain virtues pristine and unadulterate peculiarly characterise anybody in the
external uniform of civilisation, they will upon scrutiny seem not to be derived
from custom or convention but rather to be out of keeping with these, as if
indeed exceptionally transmitted from a period prior to Cain's city and citified
man. The character marked by such qualities has to an unvitiated taste an
untampered-with flavour like that of berries, while the man thoroughly
civilised, even in a fair specimen of the breed, has to the same moral palate a
questionable smack as of a compounded wine. To any stray inheritor of these
primitive qualities found, like Caspar Hauser, wandering dazed in any Christian
capital of our time, the poet's famous invocation, near two thousand years ago,
of the good rustic out of his latitude in the Rome of the Cæsars, still
appropriately holds: -
 
»Faithful in word and thought,
What hast Thee, Fabian, to the city brought.«
 
Though our Handsome Sailor had as much of masculine beauty as one can expect
anywhere to see; nevertheless, like the beautiful woman in one of Hawthorne's
minor tales, there was just one thing amiss in him. No visible blemish, indeed,
as with the lady; no, but an occasional liability to a vocal defect. Though in
the hour of elemental uproar or peril, he was everything that a sailor should
be, yet under sudden provocation of strong heart-feeling his voice, otherwise
singularly musical, as if expressive of the harmony within, was apt to develop
an organic hesitancy, - in fact, more or less of a stutter or even worse. In
this particular Billy was a striking instance that the arch-interpreter, the
envious marplot of Eden still has more or less to do with every human
consignment to this planet of earth. In every case, one way or another, he is
sure to slip in his little card, as much as to remind us - I too have a hand
here.
    The avowal of such an imperfection in the Handsome Sailor should be evidence
not alone that he is not presented as a conventional hero, but also that the
story in which he is the main figure is no romance.
 

                                      III

At the time of Billy Budd's arbitrary enlistment into the Indomitable that ship
was on her way to join the Mediterranean fleet. No long time elapsed before the
junction was effected. As one of that fleet the seventy-four participated in its
movements, though at times on account of her superior sailing qualities, in the
absence of frigates, dispatched on separate duty as a scout, and at times on
less temporary service. But with all this the story has little concernment,
restricted as it is to the inner life of one particular ship and the career of
an individual sailor.
    It was the summer of 1797. In the April of that year had occurred the
commotion at Spithead, followed in May by a second and yet more serious outbreak
in the fleet at the Nore. The latter is known, and without exaggeration in the
epithet, as the Great Mutiny. It was indeed a demonstration more menacing to
England than the contemporary manifestos and conquering and proselytising armies
of the French Directory.
    To the Empire, the Nore Mutiny was what a strike in the fire-brigade would
be to London threatened by general arson. In a crisis when the Kingdom might
well have anticipated the famous signal that some years later published along
the naval line of battle what it was that upon occasion England expected of
Englishmen; that was the time when at the mast-heads of the three-deckers and
seventy-fours moored in her own roadstead - a fleet, the right arm of a Power
then all but the sole free conservative one of the Old World, the blue-jackets,
to be numbered by thousands, ran up with hurrahs the British colours with the
union and cross wiped out; by that cancellation transmuting the flag of founded
law and freedom defined, into the enemy's red meteor of unbridled and unbounded
revolt. Reasonable discontent growing out of practical grievances in the fleet
had been ignited into irrational combustion as by live cinders blown across the
Channel from France in flames.
    The event converted into irony for a time those spirited strains of Dibdin -
as a song-writer no mean auxiliary to the English Government - at this European
conjuncture, strains celebrating, among other things, the patriotic devotion of
the British tar -
 
»And as for my life, 'tis the King's!«
 
Such an episode in the Island's grand naval story her naval historians naturally
abridge; one of them (G.P.R. James) candidly acknowledging that fain would he
pass it over did not impartiality forbid fastidiousness. And yet his mention is
less a narration than a reference, having to do hardly at all with details. Nor
are these readily to be found in the libraries. Like some other events in every
age befalling states everywhere, including America, the Great Mutiny was of such
character that national pride along with views of policy would fain shade it off
into the historical background. Such events cannot be ignored, but there is a
considerate way of historically treating them. If a well-constituted individual
refrains from blazoning aught amiss or calamitous in his family, a nation in the
like circumstance may without reproach be equally discreet.
    Though after parleyings between Government and the ringleaders, and
concessions by the former as to some glaring abuses, the first uprising - that
at Spithead - with difficulty was put down, or matters for a time pacified; yet
at the Nore the unforeseen renewal of insurrection on a yet larger scale, and
emphasised in the conferences that ensued by demands deemed by the authorities
not only inadmissible but aggressively insolent, indicated, if the red flag did
not sufficiently do so, what was the spirit animating the men. Final
suppression, however, there was; but only made possible perhaps by the
unswerving loyalty of the marine corps, and a voluntary resumption of loyalty
among influential sections of the crews. To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be
regarded as analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a
frame constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.
    At all events, among these thousands of mutineers were some of the tars who
not so very long afterwards - whether wholly prompted thereto by patriotism, or
pugnacious instinct, or by both - helped to win a coronet for Nelson at the
Nile, and the naval crown of crowns for him at Trafalgar. To the mutineers those
battles, and especially Trafalgar, were a plenary absolution, and a grand one;
for that which goes to make up scenic naval display is heroic magnificence in
arms. Those battles, especially Trafalgar, stand unmatched in human annals.
 

                                       IV

            Concerning »The greatest sailor since the world began.« -
                                                                       Tennyson.
 
In this matter of writing, resolve as one may to keep to the main road, some
by-paths have an enticement not readily to be withstood. Beckoned by the genius
of Nelson I am going to err into such a by-path. If the reader will keep me
company I shall be glad. At the least we can promise ourselves that pleasure
which is wickedly said to be in sinning, for a literary sin the divergence will
be.
    Very likely it is no new remark that the inventions of our time have at last
brought about a change in sea warfare in degree corresponding to the revolution
in all warfare effected by the original introduction from China into Europe of
gunpowder. The first European firearm, a clumsy contrivance, was, as is well
known, scouted by no few of the knights as a base implement, good enough
peradventure for weavers too craven to stand up crossing steel with steel in
frank fight. But as ashore knightly valour, though shorn of its blazonry, did
not cease with the knights, neither on the seas, though nowadays in encounters
there a certain kind of displayed gallantry be fallen out of date as hardly
applicable under changed circumstances, did the nobler qualities of such naval
magnates as Don John of Austria, Doria, Van Tromp, Jean Bart, the long line of
British admirals and the American Decaturs of 1812 become obsolete with their
wooden walls.
    Nevertheless, to anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being
inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary
old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the
decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic reproach,
softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the
European ironclads. And this not altogether because such craft are unsightly,
unavoidably lacking the symmetry and grand lines of the old battle-ships, but
equally for other reasons.
    There are some, perhaps, who while not altogether inaccessible to that
poetic reproach just alluded to, may yet on behalf of the new order be disposed
to parry it; and this to the extent of iconoclasm, if need be. For example,
prompted by the sight of the star inserted in the Victory's deck designating the
spot where the Great Sailor fell, these martial utilitarians may suggest
considerations implying that Nelson's ornate publication of his person in battle
was not only unnecessary, but not military, nay, savoured of foolhardiness and
vanity. They may add, too, that at Trafalgar it was in effect nothing less than
a challenge to death; and death came; and that but for his bravado the
victorious admiral might possibly have survived the battle, and so, instead of
having his sagacious dying injunctions overruled by his immediate successor in
command, he himself when the contest was decided might have brought his
shattered fleet to anchor, a proceeding which might have averted the deplorable
loss of life by shipwreck in the elemental tempest that followed the martial
one.
    Well, should we set aside the more than disputable point whether for various
reasons it was possible to anchor the fleet, then plausibly enough the
Bethamites of war may urge the above.
    But he might have been is but boggy ground to build on. And certainly in
foresight as to the larger issue of an encounter, and anxious preparations for
it - buoying the deadly way and mapping it out, as at Copenhagen - few
commanders have been so painstakingly circumspect as this reckless declarer of
his person in fight.
    Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish
considerations, is surely no special virtue in a military man; while an
excessive love of glory, exercising to the uttermost the honest heart-felt sense
of duty, is the first. If the name Wellington is not so much of a trumpet to the
blood as the simpler name Nelson, the reason for this may perhaps be inferred
from the above. Alfred in his funeral ode on the victor of Waterloo ventures not
to call him the greatest soldier of all time, though in the same ode he invokes
Nelson as »the greatest sailor since the world began.«
    At Trafalgar Nelson on the brink of opening the fight sat down and wrote his
last brief will and testament. If under the presentiment of the most magnificent
of all victories, to be crowned by his own glorious death, a sort of priestly
motive led him to dress his person in the jewelled vouchers of his own shining
deeds; if thus to have adorned himself for the altar and the sacrifice were
indeed vainglory, then affectation and fustian is each truly heroic line in the
great epics and dramas, since in such lines the poet but embodies in verse those
exaltations of sentiment that a nature like Nelson, the opportunity being given,
vitalises into acts.
 

                                       V

The outbreak at the Nore was put down. But not every grievance was redressed. If
the contractors, for example, were no longer permitted to ply some practices
peculiar to their tribe everywhere, such as providing shoddy cloth, rations not
sound, or false in the measure; not the less impressment, for one thing, went
on. By custom sanctioned for centuries, and judicially maintained by a Lord
Chancellor as late as Mansfield, that mode of manning the fleet, a mode now
fallen into a sort of abeyance but never formally renounced, it was not
practicable to give up in those years. Its abrogation would have crippled the
indispensable fleet, one wholly under canvas, no steam-power, its innumerable
sails and thousands of cannon, everything in short, worked by muscle alone; a
fleet the more insatiate in demand for men, because then multiplying its ships
of all grades against contingencies present and to come of the convulsed
Continent.
    Discontent foreran the Two Mutinies, and more or less it lurkingly survived
them. Hence it was not unreasonable to apprehend some return of trouble sporadic
or general. One instance of such apprehensions: In the same year with this
story, Nelson, then Vice-Admiral Sir Horatio, being with the fleet on the
Spanish coast, was directed by the admiral in command to shift his pennant from
the Captain to the Theseus; and for this reason: that the latter ship having
newly arrived in the station from home where it had taken part in the Great
Mutiny, danger was apprehended from the temper of the men; and it was thought
that an officer like Nelson was the one, not indeed to terrorise the crew into
base subjection, but to win them by force of his mere presence back to an
allegiance, if not as enthusiastic as his own, yet as true. So it was, that for
a time on more than one quarter-deck anxiety did exist. At sea precautionary
vigilance was strained against relapse. At short notice an engagement might come
on. When it did, the lieutenants assigned to batteries felt it incumbent on them
in some instances to stand with drawn swords behind the men working the guns.
    But on board the seventy-four in which Billy now swung his hammock very
little in the manner of the men and nothing obvious in the demeanour of the
officers would have suggested to an ordinary observer that the Great Mutiny was
a recent event. In their general bearing and conduct the commissioned officers
of a warship naturally take their tone from the commander, that is if he have
that ascendency of character that ought to be his.
    Captain the Honourable Edward Fairfax Vere, to give his full title, was a
bachelor of forty or thereabouts, a sailor of distinction, even in a time
prolific of renowned seamen. Though allied to the higher nobility, his
advancement had not been altogether owing to influences connected with that
circumstance. He had seen much service, been in various engagements, always
acquitting himself as an officer mindful of the welfare of his men, but never
tolerating an infraction of discipline; thoroughly versed in the science of his
profession, and intrepid to the verge of temerity, though never injudiciously
so. For his gallantry in the West Indian waters as flag-lieutenant under Rodney
in that admiral's crowning victory over De Grasse, he was made a post-captain.
    Ashore in the garb of a civilian, scarce anyone would have taken him for a
sailor, more especially that he never garnished unprofessional talk with
nautical terms, and grave in his bearing, evinced little appreciation of mere
humour. It was not out of keeping with these traits that on a passage when
nothing demanded his paramount action, he was the most undemonstrative of men.
Any landsman observing this gentleman, not conspicuous by his stature and
wearing no pronounced insignia, emerging from his retreat to the open deck, and
noting the silent deference of the officers retiring to leeward, might have
taken him for the King's guest, a civilian aboard the King's ship, some highly
honourable discreet envoy on his way to an important post. But, in fact, this
unobtrusiveness of demeanour may have proceeded from a certain unaffected
modesty of manhood sometimes accompanying a resolute nature, a modesty evinced
at all times not calling for pronounced action, and which shown in any rank of
life suggests a virtue aristocratic in kind.
    As with some others engaged in various departments of the world's more
heroic activities, Captain Vere, though practical enough upon occasion, would at
times betray a certain dreaminess of mood. Standing alone on the weather-side of
the greater deck, one hand holding by the rigging, he would absently gaze off at
the black sea. At the presentation to him then of some minor matter interrupting
the current of his thoughts, he would show more or less irascibility; but
instantly he would control it.
    In the Navy he was popularly known by the appellation - Starry Vere. How
such a designation happened to fall upon one who, whatever his sturdy qualities,
was without any brilliant ones, was in this wise: a favourite kinsman, Lord
Denton, a free-handed fellow, had been the first to meet and congratulate him
upon his return to England from the West Indian cruise; and but the day previous
turning over a copy of Andrew Marvell's poems had lighted, not for the first
time however, upon the lines entitled »Appelton House,« the name of one of the
seats of their common ancestor, a hero in the German wars of the seventeenth
century, in which poem occur the lines,
 
»This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax and the starry Vere.«
 
And so, upon embracing his cousin fresh from Rodney's victory, wherein he had
played so gallant a part, brimming over with just family pride in the sailor of
their house, he exuberantly exclaimed, »Give ye joy, Ed; give ye joy, my starry
Vere!« This got currency, and the novel prefix serving in familiar parlance
readily to distinguish the Indomitable's captain from another Vere, his senior,
a distant relative, an officer of like rank in the Navy, it remained permanently
attached to the surname.
 

                                       VI

In view of the part that the commander of the Indomitable plays in scenes
shortly to follow, it may be well to fill out that sketch of him outlined in the
previous chapter. Aside from his qualities as a sea-officer Captain Vere was an
exceptional character. Unlike no few of England's renowned sailors, long and
arduous service with signal devotion to it, had not resulted in absorbing and
salting the entire man. He had a marked leaning toward everything intellectual.
He loved books, never going to sea without a newly replenished library, compact
but of the best. The isolated leisure, in some cases so wearisome, falling at
intervals to commanders even during a war-cruise, never was tedious to Captain
Vere. With nothing of that literary taste which less heeds the thing conveyed
than the vehicle, his bias was toward those books to which every serious mind of
superior order occupying any active post of authority in the world, naturally
inclines; books treating of actual men and events, no matter of what era -
history, biography, and unconventional writers who, free from cant and
convention, like Montaigne, honestly, and in the spirit of common sense,
philosophise upon realities.
    In this love of reading he found confirmation of his own more reserved
thoughts - confirmation which he had vainly sought in social converse, so that
as touching most fundamental topics, there had got to be established in him some
positive convictions which he felt would abide in him essentially unmodified so
long as his intelligent part remained unimpaired. In view of the humbled period
in which his lot was cast, this was well for him. His settled convictions were
as a dyke against those invading waters of novel opinion, social, political, and
otherwise, which carried away as in a torrent no few minds in those days, minds
by nature not inferior to his own. While other members of that aristocracy to
which by birth he belonged were incensed at the innovators mainly because their
theories were inimical to the privileged classes, Captain Vere disinterestedly
opposed them not alone because they seemed to him incapable of embodiment in
lasting institutions, but at war with the world and the peace of mankind.
    With minds less stored than his and less earnest, some officers of his rank,
with whom at times he would necessarily consort, found him lacking in the
companionable quality, a dry and bookish gentleman as they deemed. Upon any
chance withdrawal from their company one would be apt to say to another
something like this! »Vere is a noble fellow, Starry Vere. 'Spite the Gazettes
Sir Horatio is at bottom scarce a better seaman or fighter. But between you and
me now, don't you think there is a queer streak of the pedantic running through
him? Yes, like the King's yarn in a coil of navy-rope.«
    Some apparent ground there was for this sort of confidential criticism,
since not only did the captain's discourse never fall into the jocosely
familiar, but in illustrating any point touching the stirring personages and
events of the time, he would cite some historical character or incident of
antiquity with the same easy air that he would cite from the moderns. He seemed
unmindful of the circumstance that to his bluff company such allusions, however
pertinent they might really be, were altogether alien to men whose reading was
mainly confined to the journals. But considerateness in such matters is not easy
in natures constituted like Captain Vere's. Their honesty prescribes to them
directness, sometimes far-reaching like that of a migratory fowl that in its
flight never heeds when it crosses a frontier.
 

                                      VII

The lieutenants and other commissioned gentlemen forming Captain Vere's staff it
is not necessary here to particularise, nor needs it to make mention of any of
the warrant-officers. But among the petty officers was one who, having much to
do with the story, may as well be forthwith introduced. This portrait I essay,
but shall never hit it.
    This was John Claggart, the master-at-arms. But that sea-title may to
landsmen seem somewhat equivocal. Originally, doubtless, that petty officer's
function was the instruction of the men in the use of arms, sword, or cutlass.
But very long ago, owing to the advance in gunnery making hand-to-hand
encounters less frequent, and giving to nitre and sulphur the pre-eminence over
steel, that function ceased; the master-at-arms of a great warship becoming a
sort of chief of police charged among other matters with the duty of preserving
order on the populous lower gun-decks.
    Claggart was a man of about five-and-thirty, somewhat spare and tall, yet of
no ill figure upon the whole. His hand was too small and shapely to have been
accustomed to hard toil. The face was a notable one; the features, all except
the chin, cleanly cut as those on a Greek medallion; yet the chin, beardless as
Tecumseh's, had something of the strange protuberant heaviness in its make that
recalled the prints of the Rev. Dr. Titus Oates, the historical deponent with
the clerical drawl in the time of Charles II., and the fraud of the alleged
Popish Plot. It served Claggart in his office that his eye could cast a tutoring
glance. His brow was of the sort phrenologically associated with more than
average intellect; silken jet curls partly clustering over it, making a foil to
the pallor below, a pallor tinged with a faint shade of amber akin to the hue of
time-tinted marbles of old.
    This complexion singularly contrasting with the red or deeply bronzed
visages of the sailors, and in part the result of his official seclusion from
the sunlight, though it was not exactly displeasing, nevertheless seemed to hint
of something defective or abnormal in the constitution and blood. But his
general aspect and manner were so suggestive of an education and career
incongruous with his naval function, that when not actively engaged in it he
looked like a man of high quality, social and moral, who for reasons of his own
was keeping incognito. Nothing was known of his former life. It might be that he
was an Englishman; and yet there lurked a bit of accent in his speech suggesting
that possibly he was not such by birth, but through naturalisation in early
childhood. Among certain grizzled sea-gossips of the gun-decks and forecastle
went a rumour perdue that the master-at-arms was a chevalier who had volunteered
into the King's Navy by way of compounding for some mysterious swindle whereof
he had been arraigned at the King's Bench. The fact that nobody could
substantiate this report was, of course, nothing against its secret currency.
Such a rumour once started on the gun-decks in reference to almost anyone below
the rank of a commissioned officer would, during the period assigned to this
narrative, have seemed not altogether wanting in credibility to the tarry old
wiseacres of a man-of-war crew. And indeed a man of Claggart's accomplishments,
without prior nautical experience entering the Navy at mature life, as he did,
and necessarily allotted at the start to the lowest grade in it; a man, too, who
never made allusion to his previous life ashore; these were circumstances which
in the dearth of exact knowledge as to his true antecedents opened to the
invidious a vague field for unfavourable surmise.
    But the sailors' dog-watch gossip concerning him derived a vague
plausibility from the fact that now for some period the British Navy could so
little afford to be squeamish in the matter of keeping up the muster-rolls, that
not only were press-gangs notoriously abroad both afloat and ashore, but there
was little or no secret about another matter, namely, that the London police
were at liberty to capture any able-bodied suspect, and any questionable fellow
at large, and summarily ship him to the dock-yard or fleet. Furthermore, even
among voluntary enlistments, there were instances where the motive thereto
partook neither of patriotic impulse nor yet of a random desire to experience a
bit of sea-life and martial adventure. Insolvent debtors of minor grade,
together with the promiscuous lame ducks of morality, found in the Navy a
convenient and secure refuge. Secure, because once enlisted aboard a King's
ship, they were as much in sanctuary as the transgressor of the Middle Ages
harbouring himself under the shadow of the altar. Such sanctioned
irregularities, which for obvious reasons the Government would hardly think to
parade at the time, and which consequently, and as affecting the least
influential class of mankind, have all but dropped into oblivion, lends colour
to something for the truth whereof I do not vouch, and hence have some scruple
in stating; something I remember having seen in print, though the book I cannot
recall; but the same thing was personally communicated to me now more than forty
years ago by an old pensioner in a cocked hat, with whom I had a most
interesting talk on the terrace at Greenwich, a Baltimore negro, a Trafalgar
man. It was to this effect: In the case of a warship short of hands, whose
speedy sailing was imperative, the deficient quota, in lack of any other way of
making it good, would be eked out by drafts called direct from the jails. For
reasons previously suggested it would not perhaps be easy at the present day
directly to prove or disprove the allegation. But allowed as a verity, how
significant would it be of England's straits at the time, confronted by these
wars which like a flight of harpies rose shrieking from the din and dust of the
fallen Bastille. That era appears measurably clear to us who look back at it,
and but read of it. But to the grandfathers of us graybeards, the thoughtful of
them, the genius of it presented an aspect like that of Camoens' »Spirit of the
Cape,« an eclipsing menace mysterious and prodigious. Not America was exempt
from apprehension. At the height of Napoleon's unexampled conquests, there were
Americans who had fought at Bunker Hill who looked forward to the possibility
that the Atlantic might prove no barrier against the ultimate schemes of this
portentous upstart from the revolutionary chaos, who seemed in act of fulfilling
judgment prefigured in the Apocalypse.
    But the less credence was to be given to the gun-deck talk touching
Claggart, seeing that no man holding his office in a man-of-war can ever hope to
be popular with the crew. Besides, in derogatory comments upon one against whom
they have a grudge, or for any reason or no reason mislike, sailors are much
like landsmen, they are apt to exaggerate or romance.
    About as much was really known to the Indomitable's tars of the
master-at-arms' career before entering the service as an astronomer knows about
a comet's travels prior to its first observable appearance in the sky. The
verdict of the sea-quidnuncs has been cited only by way of showing what sort of
moral impression the man made upon rude uncultivated natures, whose conceptions
of human wickedness were necessarily of the narrowest, limited to ideas of
vulgar rascality - a thief among the swinging hammocks during a night-watch, or
the man-brokers and land-sharks of the seaports.
    It was no gossip, however, but fact, that though, as before hinted, Claggart
upon his entrance into the navy was, as a novice, assigned to the least
honourable section of a man-of-war's crew, embracing the drudges, he did not
long remain there.
    The superior capacity he immediately evinced, his constitutional sobriety,
ingratiating deference to superiors, together with a peculiar ferreting genius
manifested on a singular occasion, all this capped by a certain austere
patriotism, abruptly advanced him to the position of master-at-arms.
    Of this maritime chief of police the ship's corporals, so called, were the
immediate subordinates, and compliant ones; and this, as is to be noted in some
business departments ashore, almost to a degree inconsistent with entire moral
volition. His place put various converging wires of underground influence under
the chief's control, capable when astutely worked through his understrappers of
operating to the mysterious discomfort, if nothing worse, of any of the
sea-commonalty.
 

                                      VIII

Life in the foretop well agreed with Billy Budd. There, when not actually
engaged on the yards yet higher aloft, the topmen, who as such had been picked
out for youth and activity, constituted an aerial club, lounging at ease against
the smaller stun'-sails rolled up into cushions, spinning yarns like the lazy
gods, and frequently amused with what was going on in the busy world of the
decks below. No wonder then that a young fellow of Billy's disposition was well
content in such society. Giving no cause of offence to anybody, he was always
alert at a call. So in the merchant service it had been with him. But now such
punctiliousness in duty was shown that his top-mates would sometimes
good-naturedly laugh at him for it. This heightened alacrity had its cause,
namely: the impression made upon him by the first formal gangway-punishment he
had ever witnessed, which befell the day following his impressment. It had been
incurred by a little fellow, young, a novice, an after-guardsman absent from his
assigned post when the ship was being put about, a dereliction resulting in a
rather serious hitch to that manoeuvre, one demanding instantaneous promptitude
in letting go and making fast. When Billy saw the culprit's naked back under the
scourge gridironed with red welts, and worse; when he marked the dire expression
in the liberated man's face, as with his woollen shirt flung over him by the
executioner he rushed forward from the spot to bury himself in the crowd, Billy
was horrified. He resolved that never through remissness would he make himself
liable to such a visitation, or do or omit aught that might merit even verbal
reproof. What then was his surprise and concern when ultimately he found himself
getting into petty trouble occasionally about such matters as the stowage of his
bag, or something amiss in his hammock, matters under the police oversight of
the ship's corporals of the lower decks, and which brought down on him a vague
threat from one of them.
    So heedful in all things as he was, how could this be? He could not
understand it, and it more than vexed him. When he spoke to his young topmates
about it, they were either lightly incredulous, or found something comical in
his unconcealed anxiety. »Is it your bag, Billy?« said one; »well, sew yourself
up in it, Billy boy, and then you'll be sure to know if anybody meddles with
it.«
    Now there was a veteran aboard who, because his years began to disqualify
him for more active work, had been recently assigned duty as mainmast-man in his
watch, looking to the gear belayed at the rail round about that great spar near
the deck. At off-times the foretopman had picked up some acquaintance with him,
and now in his trouble it occurred to him that he might be the sort of person to
go to for wise counsel. He was an old Dansker long anglicised in the service, of
few words, many wrinkles and some honourable scars. His wizened face,
time-tinted and weather-stormed to the complexion of an antique parchment, was
here and there peppered blue by the chance explosion of a gun-cartridge in
action. He was an Agamemnon man; some two years prior to the time of this story
having served under Nelson, when but Sir Horatio, in that ship immortal in naval
memory, and which, dismantled and in parts broken up to her bare ribs, is seen a
grand skeleton in Haydon's etching. As one of a boarding-party from the
Agamemnon he had received a cut slantwise along one temple and cheek, leaving a
long pale scar like a streak of dawn's light falling athwart the dark visage. It
was on account of that scar and the affair in which it was known that he had
received it, as well as from his blue-peppered complexion, that the Dansker went
among the Indomitable's crew by the name of Board-her-in-the-smoke.
    Now the first time that his small weasel eyes happened to light on Billy
Budd, a certain grim internal merriment set all his ancient wrinkles into antic
play. Was it that his eccentric unsentimental old sapience, primitive in its
kind, saw, or thought it saw, something which in contrast with the warship's
environment looked oddly incongruous in the Handsome Sailor? But after slyly
studying him at intervals, the old Merlin's equivocal merriment was modified by
now. For now when the twain would meet, it would start in his face a quizzing
sort of look, but it would be but momentary and sometimes replaced by an
expression of speculative query as to what might eventually befall a nature like
that, dropped into a world not without some man-traps and against whose
subtleties simple courage lacking experience and address and without any touch
of defensive ugliness, is of little avail; and where such innocence as man is
capable of does yet in a moral emergency not always sharpen the faculties or
enlighten the will.
    However it was, the Dansker in his ascetic way rather took to Billy. Nor was
this only because of a certain philosophic interest in such a character. There
was another cause. While the old man's eccentricities, sometimes bordering on
the ursine, repelled the juniors, Billy, undeterred thereby, would make
advances, never passing the old Agamemnon man without a salutation marked by
that respect which is seldom lost on the aged, however crabbed at times, or
whatever their station in life. There was a vein of dry humour, or what not, in
the mastman; and whether in freak of patriarchal irony touching Billy's youth
and athletic frame, or for some other and more recondite reason, from the first
in addressing him he always substituted Baby for Billy. The Dansker, in fact,
being the originator of the name by which the foretopman eventually became known
aboard ship.
    Well then, in his mysterious little difficulty going in quest of the
wrinkled one, Billy found him off duty in a dog-watch ruminating by himself,
seated on a shot-box of the upper gun-deck, now and then surveying with a
somewhat cynical regard certain of the more swaggering promenaders there. Billy
recounted his trouble, again wondering how it all happened. The salt seer
attentively listened, accompanying the foretopman's recitals with queer
twitchings of his wrinkles and problematical little sparkles of his small ferret
eyes. Making an end of his story, the foretopman asked, »And now, Dansker, do
tell me what you think of it.« The old man, shoving up the front of his
tarpaulin and deliberately rubbing the long slant scar at the point where it
entered the thin hair, laconically said, »Baby Budd, Jemmy Legs« (meaning the
master-at-arms) »is down on you.«
    »Jemmy Legs!« ejaculated Billy, his welkin eyes expanding; »what for? Why,
he calls me the sweet and pleasant young fellow, they tell me.«
    »Does he so?« grinned the grizzled one; then said, »Ay, Baby lad, a sweet
voice has Jemmy Legs.«
    »No, not always. But to me he has. I seldom pass him but there comes a
pleasant word.«
    »And that's because he's down upon you, Baby Budd.«
    Such reiteration, along with the manner of it, incomprehensible to a novice,
disturbed Billy almost as much as the mystery for which he had sought
explanation. Something less unpleasingly oracular he tried to extract; but the
old sea-Chiron, thinking perhaps that for the nonce he had sufficiently
instructed his young Achilles, pursed his lips, gathered all his wrinkles
together, and would commit himself to nothing further.
    Years, and these experiences which befall certain shrewder men subordinated
life-long to the will of superiors, all this had developed in the Dansker the
pithy guarded cynicism that was his leading characteristic.
 

                                       IX

The next day an incident served to confirm Billy Budd in his incredulity as to
the Dansker's strange summing-up of the case submitted.
    The ship at noon going large before the wind was rolling on her course, and
he, below at dinner and engaged in some sportful talk with the members of his
mess, chanced in a sudden lurch to spill the entire contents of his soup-pan
upon the new-scrubbed deck. Claggart, the master-at-arms, official ratan in
hand, happened to be passing along the battery in a bay of which the mess was
lodged, and the greasy liquid streamed just across his path. Stepping over it,
he was proceeding on his way without comment, since the matter was nothing to
take notice of under the circumstances, when he happened to observe who it was
that had done the spilling. His countenance changed. Pausing, he was about to
ejaculate something hasty at the sailor, but checked himself, and pointing down
to the streaming soup, playfully tapped him from behind with his ratan, saying,
in a low musical voice, peculiar to him at times, »Handsomely done, my lad! And
handsome is as handsome did it, too!« and with that passed on. Not noted by
Billy as not coming within his view was the involuntary smile, or rather
grimace, that accompanied Claggart's equivocal words. Aridly it drew down the
thin corners of his shapely mouth. But everybody taking his remark as meant for
humorous, and at which therefore as coming from a superior they were bound to
laugh, with counterfeited glee, acted accordingly; and Billy, tickled, it may
be, by the allusion to his being the Handsome Sailor, merrily joined in; then
addressing his messmates exclaimed, »There, now, who says that Jemmy Legs is
down on me!«
    »And who said he was, Beauty?« demanded one Donald with some surprise.
Whereat the foretopman looked a little foolish, recalling that it was only one
person, Board-her-in-the-smoke, who had suggested what to him was the smoky idea
that this pleasant master-at-arms was in any peculiar way hostile to him.
Meantime that functionary resuming his path must have momentarily worn some
expression less guarded than that of the bitter smile and, usurping the face
from the heart, some distorting expression perhaps, for a drummer-boy heedlessly
frolicking along from the opposite direction, and chancing to come into light
collision with his person, was strangely disconcerted by his aspect. Nor was the
impression lessened when the official, impulsively giving him a sharp cut with
the ratan, vehemently exclaimed, »Look where you go!«
 

                                       X

What was the matter with the master-at-arms? And be the matter what it might,
how could it have direct relation to Billy Budd, with whom prior to the affair
of the spilled soup he had never come into any special contact, official or
otherwise? What indeed could the trouble have to do with one so little inclined
to give offence as the merchant ship's peacemaker, even him who in Claggart's
own phrase was »the sweet and pleasant young fellow«? Yes, why should Jemmy
Legs, to borrow the Dansker's expression, be down on the Handsome Sailor?
    But, at heart and not for nothing, as the late chance encounter may indicate
to the discerning, down on him, secretly down on him, he assuredly was.
    Now to invent something touching the more private career of Claggart,
something involving Billy Budd, of which something the latter should be wholly
ignorant, some romantic incident implying that Claggart's knowledge of the young
blue-jacket began at some period anterior to catching sight of him on board the
seventy-four - all this, not so difficult to do, might avail in a way more or
less interesting to account for whatever enigma may appear to lurk in the case.
But, in fact, there was nothing of the sort. And yet the cause, necessarily to
be assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much charged
with that prime element of Radcliffian romance, the mysterious, as any that the
ingenuity of the author of the Mysteries of Udolpho could devise. For what can
more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound such
as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other
mortal, however harmless he may be? - if not called forth by that very
harmlessness itself.
    Now there can exist no irritating juxtaposition of dissimilar personalities
comparable to that which is possible aboard a great warship fully manned and at
sea. There, every day, among all ranks, almost every man comes into more or less
of contact with almost every other man. Wholly there to avoid even the sight of
an aggravating object one must needs give it Jonah's toss, or jump overboard
himself. Imagine how all this might eventually operate on some peculiar human
creature the direct reverse of a saint?
    But for the adequate comprehending of Claggart by a normal nature these
hints are insufficient. To pass from a normal nature to him one must cross the
deadly space between, and this is best done by indirection.
    Long ago an honest scholar, my senior, said to me in reference to one who
like himself is now no more, a man so unimpeachably respectable that against him
nothing was ever openly said, though among the few something was whispered,
»Yes, X-- is a nut not to be cracked by the tap of a lady's fan. You are aware
that I am the adherent of no organised religion, much less of any philosophy
built into a system. Well, for all that, I think that to try and get into X--,
enter his labyrinth, and get out again, without a clue derived from some source
other than what is known as knowledge of the world, that were hardly possible,
at least for me.«
    »Why,« said I, »X--, however singular a study to some, is yet human, and
knowledge of the world assuredly implies the knowledge of human nature, and in
most of its varieties.«
    »Yes, but a superficial knowledge of it, serving ordinary purposes. But for
anything deeper, I am not certain whether to know the world and to know human
nature be not two distinct branches of knowledge, which while they may coexist
in the same heart, yet either may exist with little or nothing of the other.
Nay, in an average man of the world, his constant rubbing with it blunts that
fine spiritual insight indispensable to the understanding of the essential in
certain exceptional characters, whether evil ones or good. In a matter of some
importance I have seen a girl wind an old lawyer about her little finger. Nor
was it the dotage of senile love. Nothing of the sort. But he knew law better
than he knew the girl's heart. Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light
into obscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets. And who were they? Mostly
recluses.«
    At the time my inexperience was such that I did not quite see the drift of
all this. It may be that I see it now. And, indeed, if that lexicon which is
based on Holy Writ were any longer popular, one might with less difficulty
define and denominate certain phenomenal men. As it is, one must turn to some
authority not liable to the charge of being tinctured with the Biblical element.
    In a list of definitions included in the authentic translation of Plato, a
list attributed to him, occurs this: Natural Depravity: a depravity according to
nature. A definition which though savouring of Calvinism, by no means involves
Calvin's dogma as to total mankind. Evidently its intent makes it applicable but
to individuals. Not many are the examples of this depravity which the gallows
and jail supply. At any rate, for notable instances, - since these have no
vulgar alloy of the brute in them, but invariably are dominated by
intellectuality, - one must go elsewhere. Civilisation, especially if of the
austerer sort, is auspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of
respectability. It has its certain negative virtues serving as silent
auxiliaries. It is not going too far to say that it is without vices or small
sins. There is a phenomenal pride in it that excludes them from anything - never
mercenary or avaricious. In short, the depravity here meant partakes nothing of
the sordid or sensual. It is serious, but free from acerbity. Though no
flatterer of mankind, it never speaks ill of it.
    But the thing which in eminent instances signalises so exceptional a nature
is this: though the man's even temper and discreet bearing would seem to
intimate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the less in his
soul's recesses he would seem to riot in complete exemption from that law,
having apparently little to do with reason further than to employ it as an
ambidexter implement for effecting the irrational. That is to say: toward the
accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness of malignity would seem to partake
of the insane, he will direct a cool judgment sagacious and sound.
    These men are true madmen, and of the most dangerous sort, for their lunacy
is not continuous, but occasional; evoked by some special object; it is
secretive and self-contained, so that when most active it is to the average mind
not distinguished from sanity, and for the reason above suggested that whatever
its aim may be, and the aim is never disclosed, the method and the outward
proceeding is always perfectly rational.
    Now something such was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil nature,
not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living, but
born with him and innate, in short, a depravity according to nature.
    Can it be this phenomenon, disowned or not acknowledged, that in some
criminal cases puzzles the courts? For this cause have our juries at times not
only to endure the prolonged contentions of lawyers with their fees, but also
the yet more perplexing strife of the medical experts with theirs? But why leave
it to them? Why not subpoena as well the clerical proficients? Their vocation
bringing them into peculiar contact with so many human beings, and sometimes in
their least guarded hour, in interviews very much more confidential than those
of physician and patient; this would seem to qualify them to know something
about those intricacies involved in the question of moral responsibility;
whether in a given case, say, the crime proceeded from mania in the brain or
rabies of the heart. As to any differences among themselves these clerical
proficients might develop on the stand, these could hardly be greater than the
direct contradictions exchanged between the remunerated medical experts.
    Dark sayings are these, some will say. But why? It is because they somewhat
savour of Holy Writ in its phrase mysteries of iniquity.
    The point of the story turning on the hidden nature of the master-at-arms
has necessitated this chapter. With an added hint or two in connection with the
accident of the mess, the resumed narrative must be left to vindicate as it may
its own credibility.
 

                                       XI

 Pale ire, envy and despair.
 
That Claggart's figure was not amiss, and his face, save the chin, well moulded,
has already been said. Of these favourable points he seemed not insensible, for
he was not only neat but careful in his dress. But the form of Billy Budd was
heroic; and if his face was without the intellectual look of the pallid
Claggart's, not the less was it lit, like his, from within, though from a
different source. The bonfire in his heart made luminous the rose-tan in his
cheek.
    In view of the marked contrast between the persons of the twain, it is more
than probable that when the master-at-arms in the scene last given applied to
the sailor the proverb »Handsome is as handsome does,« he there let escape an
ironic inkling, not caught by the young sailors who heard it, as to what it was
that had first moved him against Billy, namely, his significant personal beauty.
    Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason, nevertheless in
fact may spring conjoined like Chang and Eng in one birth. Is envy then such a
monster? Well, though many an arraigned mortal has in hopes of mitigated penalty
pleaded guilty to horrible actions, did ever anybody seriously confess to envy?
Something there is in it universally felt to be more shameful than even
felonious crime. And not only does everybody disown it, but the better sort are
inclined to incredulity when it is in earnest imputed to an intelligent man. But
since its lodgement is in the heart, not the brain, no degree of intellect
supplies a guarantee against it. But Claggart's was no vulgar form of the
passion. Nor, as directed toward Billy Budd, did it partake of that streak of
apprehensive jealousy that marred Saul's visage perturbedly brooding on the
comely young David. Claggart's envy struck deeper. If askance he eyed the good
looks, cheery health, and frank enjoyment of young life in Billy Budd, it was
because these happened to go along with a nature that, as Claggart magnetically
felt, had in its simplicity never willed malice, or experienced the reactionary
bite of that serpent. To him, the spirit lodged within Billy and looking out
from his welkin eyes as from windows, that ineffability which made the dimple in
his dyed cheek, suppled his joints, and danced in his yellow curls, made him
pre-eminently the Handsome Sailor. One person excepted, the master-at-arms was
perhaps the only man in the ship intellectually capable of adequately
appreciating the moral phenomenon presented in Billy Budd, and the insight but
intensified his passion, which assuming various secret forms within him, at
times assumed that of cynic disdain - disdain of innocence. To be nothing more
than innocent! Yet in an aesthetic way he saw the charm of it, the courageous
free-and-easy temper of it, and fain would have shared it, but he despaired of
it.
    With no power to annul the elemental evil in himself, though he could hide
it readily enough; apprehending the good, but powerless to be it; what recourse
is left to a nature like Claggart's, surcharged with energy as such natures
almost invariably are, but to recoil upon itself, and, like the scorpion for
which the Creator alone is responsible, act out to the end its allotted part.
    Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial
stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars
and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted. And the circumstances
that provoke it, however trivial or mean, are no measure of its power. In the
present instance the stage is a scrubbed gun-deck, and one of the external
provocations a man-of-war's man's spilled soup.
    Now when the master-at-arms noticed whence came that greasy fluid streaming
before his feet, he must have taken it - to some extent wilfully perhaps - not
for the mere accident it assuredly was, but for the sly escape of a spontaneous
feeling on Billy's part more or less answering to the antipathy on his own. In
effect a foolish demonstration he must have thought, and very harmless, like the
futile kick of a heifer, which yet were the heifer a shod stallion, would not be
so harmless. Even so was it that into the gall of envy Claggart infused the
vitriol of his contempt. But the incident confirmed to him certain tell-tale
reports purveyed to his ear by Squeak, one of his more cunning corporals, a
grizzled little man, so nicknamed by the sailors on account of his squeaky voice
and sharp visage ferreting about the dark corners of the lower decks after
interlopers, satirically suggesting to them the idea of a rat in a cellar.
    Now his chief's employing him as an implicit tool in laying little traps for
the worriment of the foretopman - for it was from the master-at-arms that the
petty persecutions heretofore adverted to had proceeded - the corporal, having
naturally enough concluded that his master could have no love for the sailor,
made it his business, faithful understrapper that he was, to ferment the ill
blood by perverting to his chief certain innocent frolics of the good-natured
foretopman, besides inventing for his mouth sundry contumelious epithets he
claimed to have overheard him let fall. The master-at-arms never suspected the
veracity of these reports, more especially as to the epithets, for he well knew
how secretly unpopular may become a master-at-arms - at least, a master-at-arms
in those days, zealous in his function - and how the blue-jackets shoot at him
in private their raillery and wit; the nickname by which he goes among them
(Jemmy Legs) implying under the form of merriment their cherished disrespect and
dislike.
    In view of the greediness of hate for provocation, it hardly needed a
purveyor to feed Claggart's passion. An uncommon prudence is habitual with the
subtler depravity, for it has everything to hide. And in case of any merely
suspected injury, its secretiveness voluntarily cuts it off from enlightenment
or disillusion; and not unreluctantly, action is taken upon surmise as upon
certainty. And the retaliation is apt to be in monstrous disproportion to the
supposed offence; for when in anybody was revenge in its exactions aught else
but an inordinate usurer. But how with Claggart's conscience? For though
consciences are unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not excluding the
Scriptural devils who believe and tremble, has one. But Claggart's conscience
being but the lawyer to his will, made ogres of trifles, probably arguing that
the motive imputed to Billy in spilling the soup just when he did, together with
the epithets alleged, these, if nothing more, made a strong case against him;
nay, justified animosity into a sort of retributive righteousness. The Pharisee
is the Guy Fawkes prowling in the hid chambers underlying some natures like
Claggart's. And they can really form no conception of an unreciprocated malice.
Probably, the master-at-arms' clandestine persecution of Billy was started to
try the temper of the man; but it had not developed any quality in him that
enmity could make official use of, or ever pervert into even plausible
self-justification; so that the occurrence at the mess, petty if it were, was a
welcome one to that peculiar conscience assigned to be the private mentor of
Claggart; and for the rest, not improbably, it put him upon new experiments.
 

                                      XII

Not many days after the last incident narrated, something befell Billy Budd that
more gravelled him than aught that had previously occurred.
    It was a warm night for the latitude; and the foretop-man, whose watch at
the time was properly below, was dozing on the uppermost deck whither he had
ascended from his hot hammock - one of hundreds suspended so closely wedged
together over a lower gun-deck that there was little or no swing to them. He lay
as in the shadow of a hillside stretched under the lee of the booms, a piled
ridge of spare spars, and among which the ship's largest boat, the launch, was
stowed. Alongside of three other slumberers from below, he lay near one end of
the booms which approached from the foremast; his station aloft on duty as a
foretopman being just over the deck station of the forecastleman, entitling him
according to usage to make himself more or less at home in that neighbourhood.
    Presently he was stirred into semi-consciousness by somebody, who must have
previously sounded the sleep of the others, touching his shoulder, and then, as
the foretopman raised his head, breathing into his ear in a quick whisper, »Slip
into the lee fore-chains, Billy; there is something in the wind. Don't speak.
Quick. I will meet you there«; and disappeared.
    Now Billy, like sundry other essentially good-natured ones, had some of the
weaknesses inseparable from essential good-nature; and among these was a
reluctance, almost an incapacity, of plumply saying no to an abrupt proposition
not obviously absurd on the face of it, nor obviously unfriendly, nor
iniquitous. And being of warm blood had not the phlegm to negate any proposition
by unresponsive inaction. Like his sense of fear, his apprehension as to aught
outside of the honest and natural was seldom very quick. Besides, upon the
present occasion, the drouse from his sleep still hung upon him.
    However it was, he mechanically rose, and sleepily wondering what could be
in the wind, betook himself to the designated place, a narrow platform, one of
six, outside of the high bulwarks, and screened by the great dead-eyes and
multiple columned lanyards of the shrouds and back-stays; and, in a great
warship of that time, of dimensions commensurate to the ample hull's magnitude;
a tarry balcony, in short, overhanging the sea, and so secluded that one mariner
of the Indomitable, a nonconformist old tar of a serious turn, made it even in
daytime his private oratory.
    In this retired nook the stranger soon joined Billy Budd. There was no moon
as yet; a haze obscured the starlight. He could not distinctly see the
stranger's face. Yet from something in the outline and carriage, Billy took him
to be, and correctly, one of the afterguard.
    »Hist, Billy!« said the man, in the same quick, cautionary whisper as
before; »you were impressed, weren't you? Well, so was I«; and he paused, as to
mark the effect. But Billy, not knowing exactly what to make of this, said
nothing. Then the other: »We are not the only impressed ones, Billy. There's a
gang of us. Couldn't you - help - at a pinch?«
    »What do you mean?« demanded Billy, here shaking off his drouse.
    »Hist, hist!« the hurried whisper now growing husky; »see here,« and the man
held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the night light; »see, they are
yours, Billy, if you'll only -«
    But Billy broke in, and in his resentful eagerness to deliver himself, his
vocal infirmity somewhat intruded. »D-D-Damme, I don't know what you are
d-driving at, or what you mean, but you had better g-g-go where you belong!« For
the moment the fellow, as confounded, did not stir; and Billy, springing to his
feet, said, »If you d-don't start, I'll t-t-t-oss you back over the r-rail!«
There was no mistaking this, and the mysterious emissary decamped, disappearing
in the direction of the mainmast in the shadow of the booms.
    »Hallo, what's the matter?« here came growling from a forecastleman awakened
from his deck-doze by Billy's raised voice. And as the foretopman reappeared,
and was recognised by him, »Ah, Beauty, is it you? Well, something must have
been the matter, for you st-st-stuttered.«
    »Oh,« rejoined Billy, now mastering the impediment; »I found an
afterguardsman in our part of the ship here, and I bid him be off where he
belongs.«
    »And is that all you did about it, foretopman?« gruffly demanded another, an
irascible old fellow of brick-coloured visage and hair, and who was known to his
associate forecastlemen as Red Pepper. »Such sneaks I should like to marry to
the gunner's daughter!« by that expression meaning that he would like to subject
them to disciplinary castigation over a gun.
    However, Billy's rendering of the matter satisfactorily accounted to these
inquirers for the brief commotion, since of all the sections of a ship's company
the forecastlemen, veterans for the most part, and bigoted in their
sea-prejudices, are the most jealous in resenting territorial encroachments,
especially on the part of any of the afterguard, of whom they have but a sorry
opinion, chiefly landsmen, never going aloft except to reef or furl the
mainsail, and in no wise competent to handle a marling-spike or turn in a
dead-eye, say.
 

                                      XIII

This incident sorely puzzled Billy Budd. It was an entirely new experience; the
first time in his life that he had ever been personally approached in underhand
intriguing fashion. Prior to this encounter he had known nothing of the
afterguardsman, the two men being stationed wide apart, one forward and aloft
during his watch, the other on deck and aft.
    What could it mean? And could they really be guineas, those two glittering
objects the interloper had held up to his (Billy's) eyes? Where could the fellow
get guineas? Why, even buttons, spare buttons, are not so plentiful at sea. The
more he turned the matter over, the more he was nonplussed, and made uneasy and
discomforted. In his disgustful recoil from an overture which though he but ill
comprehended he instinctively knew must involve evil of some sort, Billy Budd
was like a young horse fresh from the pasture suddenly inhaling a vile whiff
from some chemical factory, and by repeated snortings tries to get it out of his
nostrils and lungs. This frame of mind barred all desire of holding further
parley with the fellow, even were it but for the purpose of gaining some
enlightenment as to his design in approaching him. And yet he was not without
natural curiosity to see how such a visitor in the dark would look in broad day.
    He espied him the following afternoon in his first dog-watch below, one of
the smokers on that forward part of the upper gun-deck allotted to the pipe. He
recognised him by his general cut and build, more than by his round freckled
face and glassy eyes of pale blue veiled with lashes all but white. And yet
Billy was a bit uncertain whether indeed it were he - yonder chap about his own
age, chatting and laughing in free-hearted way, leaning against a gun; a genial
young fellow enough to look at, and something of a rattle-brain, to all
appearance. Rather chubby, too, for a sailor, even an afterguardsman. In short,
the last man in the world, one would think, to be overburthened with thoughts,
especially those perilous thoughts that must needs belong to a conspirator in
any serious project, or even to the underling of such a conspirator.
    Although Billy was not aware of it, the fellow with a sidelong watchful
glance had perceived Billy first, and then noting that Billy was looking at him,
thereupon nodded a familiar sort of friendly recognition as to an old
acquaintance, without interrupting the talk he was engaged in with the group of
smokers. A day or two afterwards, chancing in the evening promenade on a
gun-deck to pass Billy, he offered a flying word of good-fellowship, as it were,
which by its unexpectedness, and equivocalness under the circumstances, so
embarrassed Billy, that he knew not how to respond to it, and let it go
unnoticed.
    Billy was now left more at a loss than before. The ineffectual speculations
into which he was led were so disturbingly alien to him, that he did his best to
smother them. It never entered his mind that here was a matter which, from its
extreme questionableness, it was his duty as a loyal blue-jacket to report in
the proper quarter. And, probably, had such a step been suggested to him, he
would have been deterred from taking it by the thought, one of
novice-magnanimity, that it would savour overmuch of the dirty work of a
tell-tale. He kept the thing to himself. Yet upon one occasion he could not
forbear a little disburthening himself to the old Dansker, tempted thereto
perhaps by the influence of a balmy night when the ship lay becalmed; the twain,
silent for the most part, sitting together on deck, their heads propped against
the bulwarks. But it was only a partial and anonymous account that Billy gave,
the unfounded scruples above referred to preventing full disclosure to anybody.
Upon hearing Billy's version, the sage Dansker seemed to divine more than he was
told; and after a little meditation, during which his wrinkles were pursed as
into a point, quite effacing for the time that quizzing expression his face
sometimes wore - »Didn't I say so, Baby Budd?«
    »Say what?« demanded Billy.
    »Why, Jemmy Legs is down on you.«
    »And what,« rejoined Billy in amazement, »has Jemmy Legs to do with that
cracked afterguardsman?«
    »Ho, it was an afterguardsman, then. A cat's-paw, a cat's-paw!« And with
that exclamation, which, whether it had reference to a light puff of air just
then coming over the calm sea, or subtler relation to the afterguardsman, there
is no telling. The old Merlin gave a twisting wrench with his black teeth at his
plug of tobacco, vouchsafing no reply to Billy's impetuous question. For it was
his wont to relapse into grim silence when interrogated in sceptical sort as to
any of his sententious oracles, not always very clear ones, rather partaking of
that obscurity which invests most Delphic deliverances from any quarter.
 

                                      XIV

Long experience had very likely brought this old man to that bitter prudence
which never interferes in aught, and never gives advice.
    Yet, despite the Dansker's pithy insistence as to the master-at-arms being
at the bottom of these strange experiences of Billy on board the Indomitable,
the young sailor was ready to ascribe them to almost anybody but the man who, to
use Billy's own expression, »always had a pleasant word for him.« This is to be
wondered at. Yet not so much to be wondered at. In certain matters some sailors
even in mature life remain unsophisticated enough. But a young seafarer of the
disposition of our athletic foretopman, is much of a child-man. And yet a
child's utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or
less wanes as intelligence waxes. But in Billy Budd intelligence, such as it
was, had advanced, while yet his simple-mindedness remained for the most part
unaffected. Experience is a teacher indeed; yet did Billy's years make his
experience small. Besides, he had none of that intuitive knowledge of the bad
which in natures not good or incompletely so, foreruns experience, and therefore
may pertain, as in some instances it too clearly does pertain, even to youth.
    And what could Billy know of man except of man as a mere sailor? And the
old-fashioned sailor, the veritable man-before-the-mast, the sailor from boyhood
up, he, though indeed of the same species as a landsman, is in some respects
singularly distinct from him. The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse.
Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head; no intricate game
of chess where few moves are made in straightforwardness, but ends are attained
by indirection; an oblique, tedious, barren game, hardly worth that poor candle
burnt out in playing it.
    Yes, as a class, sailors are in character a juvenile race. Even their
deviations are marked by juvenility. And this more especially holding true with
the sailors of Billy's time. Then, too, certain things which apply to all
sailors do more pointedly operate here and there upon the junior one. Every
sailor, too, is accustomed to obey orders without debating them; his life afloat
is externally ruled for him; he is not brought into that promiscuous commerce
with mankind where unobstructed free agency on equal terms - equal
superficially, at least - soon teaches one that unless upon occasion he
exercises a distrust keen in proportion to the fairness of the appearance, some
foul turn may be served him. A ruled, undemonstrative distrustfulness is so
habitual, not with business-men so much, as with men who know their kind in less
shallow relations than business, namely certain men of the world, that they come
at last to employ it all but unconsciously; and some of them would very likely
feel real surprise at being charged with it as one of their general
characteristics.
 

                                       XV

But after the little matter at the mess Billy Budd no more found himself in
strange trouble at times about his hammock or his clothes-bag, or what not.
While, as to that smile that occasionally sunned him, and the pleasant passing
word, these were if not more frequent, yet if anything more pronounced than
before.
    But for all that, there were certain other demonstrations now. When
Claggart's unobserved glance happened to light on belted Billy rolling along the
upper gun-deck in the leisure of the second dog-watch, exchanging passing
broadsides of fun with other young promenaders in the crowd, that glance would
follow the cheerful sea-Hyperion with a settled meditative and melancholy
expression, his eyes strangely suffused with incipient feverish tears. Then
would Claggart look like the man of sorrows. Yes, and sometimes the melancholy
expression would have in it a touch of soft yearning, as if Claggart could even
have loved Billy but for fate and ban. But this was an evanescence, and quickly
repented of, as it were, by an immitigable look, pinching and shrivelling the
visage into the momentary semblance of a wrinkled walnut. But sometimes catching
sight in advance of the foretopman coming in his direction, he would, upon their
nearing, step aside a little to let him pass, dwelling upon Billy for the moment
with the glittering dental satire of a guise. But upon any abrupt unforeseen
encounter a red light would flash forth from his eye, like a spark from an anvil
in a dusk smithy. That quick fierce light was a strange one, darted from orbs
which in repose were of a colour nearest approaching a deeper violet, the
softest of shades.
    Though some of these caprices of the pit could not but be observed by their
object, yet were they beyond the construing of such a nature. And the thews of
Billy were hardly comparable with that sort of sensitive spiritual organisation
which in some cases instinctively conveys to ignorant innocence an admonition of
the proximity of the malign. He thought the master-at-arms acted in a manner
rather queer at times. That was all. But the occasional frank air and pleasant
word went for what they purported to be, the young sailor never having heard as
yet of the too fair-spoken man.
    Had the foretopman been conscious of having done or said anything to provoke
the ill-will of the official, it would have been different with him, and his
sight might have been pursed if not sharpened.
    So was it with him in yet another matter. Two minor officers, the armourer
and captain of the hold, with whom he had never exchanged a word, his position
on the ship not bringing him into contact with them; these men now for the first
time began to cast upon Billy, when they chanced to encounter him, that peculiar
glance which evidences that the man from whom it comes has been some way
tampered with, and to the prejudice of him upon whom the glance lights. Never
did it occur to Billy as a thing to be noted, or a thing suspicious, though he
well knew the fact, that the armourer and captain of the hold, with the ship's
yeoman, apothecary, and others of that grade, were by naval usage, messmates of
the master-at-arms, men with ears convenient to his confidential tongue.
    Our Handsome Sailor's manly forwardness upon occasion, and irresistible
good-nature, indicating no mental superiority tending to excite an invidious
feeling, bred general popularity, and this good-will on the part of most of his
shipmates made him the less to concern himself about such mute aspects toward
him as those whereto allusion has just been made.
    As to the afterguardsman, though Billy for reasons already given necessarily
saw little of him, yet when the two did happen to meet, invariably came the
fellow's off-hand cheerful recognition, sometimes accompanied by a passing
pleasant word or two. Whatever that equivocal young person's original design may
really have been, or the design of which he might have been the deputy, certain
it was from his manner upon these occasions, that he had wholly dropped it.
    It was as if his precocity of crookedness (and every vulgar villain is
precocious) had for once deceived him, and the man he had sought to entrap as a
simpleton had, through his very simplicity, baffled him.
    But shrewd ones may opine that it was hardly possible for Billy to refrain
from going up to the afterguardsman and bluntly demanding to know his purpose in
the initial interview, so abruptly closed in the fore-chains. Shrewd ones may
also think it but natural in Billy to set about sounding some of the other
impressed men of the ship in order to discover what basis, if any, there was for
the emissary's obscure suggestions as to plotting disaffection aboard. Yes, the
shrewd may so think. But something more, or rather, something else than mere
shrewdness is perhaps needful for the due understanding of such a character as
Billy Budd's.
    As to Claggart, the monomania in the man - if that indeed it were - as
involuntarily disclosed by starts in the manifestations detailed, yet in general
covered over by his self-contained and rational demeanour; this, like a
subterranean fire, was eating its way deeper and deeper in him. Something
decisive must come of it.
 

                                      XVI

After the mysterious interview in the fore-chains, the one so abruptly ended
there by Billy, nothing especially germane to the story occurred until the
events now about to be narrated.
    Elsewhere it has been said that owing to the lack of frigates (of course
better sailers than line-of-battle ships) in the English squadron up the Straits
at that period, the Indomitable seventy-four was occasionally employed not only
as an available substitute for a scout, but at times on detached service of more
important kind. This was not alone because of her sailing qualities, not common
in a ship of her rate, but quite as much probably, that the character of her
commander, it was thought, specially adapted him for any duty where under
unforeseen difficulties a prompt initiative might have to be taken in some
matter demanding knowledge and ability in addition to those qualities employed
in good seamanship. It was on an expedition of the latter sort, a somewhat
distant one, and when the Indomitable was almost at her furthest remove from the
fleet, that in the latter part of an afternoon-watch she unexpectedly came in
sight of a ship of the enemy. It proved to be a frigate. The latter, perceiving
through the glass that the weight of men and metal would be heavily against her,
invoking her light heels, crowded sail to get away. After a chase urged almost
against hope, and lasting until about the middle of the first dog-watch, she
signally succeeded in effecting her escape.
    Not long after the pursuit had been given up, and ere the excitement
incident thereto had altogether waned away, the master-at-arms, ascending from
his cavernous sphere, made his appearance cap in hand by the mainmast,
respectfully waiting the notice of Captain Vere, then solitary walking the
weather-side of the quarterdeck, doubtless somewhat chafed at the failure of the
pursuit. The spot where Claggart stood was the place allotted to men of lesser
grades seeking some more particular interview either with the officer of the
deck or the captain himself. But from the latter it was not often that a sailor
or petty officer of those days would seek a hearing; only some exceptional cause
would, according to established custom, have warranted that.
    Presently, just as the commander, absorbed in his reflections, was on the
point of turning aft in his promenade, he became sensible of Claggart's
presence, and saw the doffed cap held in deferential expectancy. Here be it said
that Captain Vere's personal knowledge of this petty officer had only begun at
the time of the ship's last sailing from home, Claggart then for the first, in
transfer from a ship detained for repairs, supplying on board the Indomitable
the place of a previous master-at-arms disabled and ashore.
    No sooner did the commander observe who it was that now so deferentially
stood awaiting his notice, than a peculiar expression came over his face. It was
not unlike that which uncontrollably will flit across the countenance of one at
unawares encountering a person who though known to him indeed has hardly been
long enough known for thorough knowledge, but something in whose aspect
nevertheless now for the first provokes a vaguely repellent distaste. But coming
to a stand, and resuming much of his wonted official manner, save that a sort of
impatience lurked in the intonation of the opening word, he said, »Well, what is
it, master-at-arms?«
    With the air of a subordinate grieved at the necessity of being a messenger
of ill-tidings, and while conscientiously determined to be frank, yet equally
resolved upon shunning overstatement, Claggart at this invitation, or rather
summons to disburthen, spoke up. What he said, conveyed in the language of no
uneducated man, was to the effect following, if not altogether in these words,
namely: That during the chase and preparations for the possible encounter he had
seen enough to convince him that at least one sailor aboard was a dangerous
character in a ship mustering some who not only had taken a guilty part in the
late serious trouble, but others also who, like the man in question, had entered
His Majesty's service under another form than enlistment.
    At this point Captain Vere with some impatience interrupted him:
    »Be direct, man; say impressed men.«
    Claggart made a gesture of subservience and proceeded. Quite lately he
(Claggart) had begun to suspect that some sort of movement prompted by the
sailor in question was covertly going on, but he had not thought himself
warranted in reporting the suspicion so long as it remained indistinct. But from
what he had that afternoon observed in the man referred to, the suspicion of
something clandestine going on had advanced to a point less removed from
certainty. He deeply felt, he added, the serious responsibility assumed in
making a report involving such possible consequences to the individual mainly
concerned, besides tending to augment those natural anxieties which every naval
commander must feel in view of extraordinary outbreaks so recent as those which,
he sorrowfully said it, it needed not to name.
    Now at the first broaching of the matter Captain Vere, taken by surprise,
could not wholly dissemble his disquietude, but as Claggart went on, the
former's aspect changed into restiveness under something in the testifier's
manner in giving his testimony. However, he refrained from interrupting him. And
Claggart, continuing, concluded with this:
    »God forbid, your honour, that the Indomitable's should be the experience of
the -«
    »Never mind that!« here peremptorily broke in the superior, his face
altering with anger instantly, divining the ship that the other was about to
name, one in which the Nore Mutiny had assumed a singularly tragical character
that for a time jeopardised the life of its commander. Under the circumstances
he was indignant at the purposed allusion. When the commissioned officers
themselves were on all occasions very heedful how they referred to the recent
event, for a petty officer unnecessarily to allude to it in the presence of his
captain, this struck him as a most immodest presumption. Besides, to his quick
sense of self-respect, it even looked under the circumstances something like an
attempt to alarm him. Nor at that was he without some surprise that one who so
far as he had hitherto come under his notice had shown considerable tact in his
function, should in this particular evince such lack of it.
    But these thoughts and kindred dubious ones flitting across his mind were
suddenly replaced by an intuitional surmise, which though as yet obscure in
form, served practically to affect his reception of the ill tidings. Certain it
is, that long versed in everything pertaining to the complicated gun-deck life,
which like every other form of life has its secret mines and dubious side, the
side popularly disclaimed, Captain Vere did not permit himself to be unduly
disturbed by the general tenor of his subordinate's report. Furthermore, if in
view of recent events prompt action should be taken at the first palpable sign
of recurring insubordination, for all that, not judicious would it be, he
thought, to keep the idea of lingering disaffection alive by undue forwardness
in crediting an informer, even if his own subordinate, and charged among other
honours with police surveillance of the crew. This feeling would not perhaps
have so prevailed with him were it not that upon a prior occasion the patriotic
zeal officially evinced by Claggart had somewhat irritated him as appearing
rather supersensitive and strained. Furthermore, something even in the
official's self-possessed and somewhat ostentatious manner in making his
specifications strangely reminded him of a bandsman, a perjured witness in a
capital case before a court-martial ashore of which when a lieutenant he,
Captain Vere, had been a member.
    Now the peremptory check given to Claggart in the matter of the arrested
allusion was quickly followed up by this: »You say that there is at least one
dangerous man aboard. Name him.«
    »William Budd, a foretopman, your honour.«
    »William Budd!« repeated Captain Vere with unfeigned astonishment; »and mean
you the man that Lieutenant Ratcliffe took from the merchantman not very long
ago - the young fellow who seems to be so popular with the men - Billy, the
Handsome Sailor, as they call him?«
    »The same, your honour; but for all his youth and good looks, a deep one.
Not for nothing does he insinuate himself into the good-will of his shipmates,
since at the least they will at a pinch say a good word for him at all hazards.
Did Lieutenant Ratcliffe happen to tell your honour of that adroit fling of
Budd's jumping up in the cutter's bow under the merchantman's stern when he was
being taken off? That sort of good-humoured air even masks that at heart he
resents his impressment. You have but noted his fair cheek. A mantrap may be
under his ruddy-tipped daisies.«
    Now the Handsome Sailor as a signal figure among the crew had naturally
enough attracted the captain's attention from the first. Though in general not
very demonstrative to his officers, he had congratulated Lieutenant Ratcliffe
upon his good fortune in lighting on such a fine specimen of the genus homo, who
in the nude might have passed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall.
    As to Billy's adieu to the ship Rights-of-Man, which the boarding
lieutenant, in a deferential way, had indeed reported to him, Captain Vere, more
as a good story than aught else (having mistakenly understood it as a satiric
sally), had but thought so much the better of the impressed man for it; as a
military sailor, admiring the spirit that could take an arbitrary enlistment so
merrily and sensibly. The foretopman's conduct, too, so far as it had fallen
under the captain's notice, had confirmed the first happy augury, while the new
recruit's qualities as a sailor-man seemed to be such that he had thought of
recommending him to the executive officer for promotion to a place that would
more frequently bring him under his own observation, namely, the captaincy of
the mizen-top, replacing there in the starboard-watch a man not so young whom
partly for that reason he deemed less fitted for the post. Be it parenthesised
here that since the mizen-topmen have not to handle such breadths of heavy
canvas as the lower sails on the mainmast and foremast, a young man if of the
right stuff not only seems best adapted to duty there, but, in fact, is
generally selected for the captaincy of that top, and the company under him are
light hands, and often but striplings. In sum, Captain Vere had from the
beginning deemed Billy Budd to be what in the naval parlance of the time was
called a King's bargain, that is to say, for His Britannic Majesty's Navy a
capital investment at small outlay or none at all.
    After a brief pause, during which the reminiscences above mentioned passed
vividly through his mind, he weighed the import of Claggart's last suggestion
conveyed in the phrase »a man-trap under his ruddy-tipped daisies,« and the more
he weighed it the less reliance he felt in the informer's good faith. Suddenly
he turned upon him: »Do you come to me, master-at-arms, with so foggy a tale? As
to Budd, cite me an act or spoken word of his confirmatory of what you in
general charge against him. Stay,« drawing nearer to him, »heed what you speak.
Just now and in a case like this, there is a yard-arm-end for the false
witness.«
    »Ah, your honour!« sighed Claggart, mildly shaking his shapely head as in
sad deprecation of such unmerited severity of tone. Then bridling - erecting
himself as in virtuous self-assertion, he circumstantially alleged certain words
and acts which collectively, if credited, led to presumptions mortally
inculpating Budd, and for some of these averments, he added, substantiating
proof was not far.
    With gray eyes impatient and distrustful, essaying to fathom to the bottom
Claggart's calm violet ones, Captain Vere again heard him out; then for the
moment stood ruminating. The mood he evinced, Claggart - himself for the time
liberated from the other's scrutiny - steadily regarded with a look difficult to
render - a look curious of the operation of his tactics, a look such as might
have been that of the spokesman of the envious children of Jacob deceptively
imposing upon the troubled patriarch the blood-dyed coat of young Joseph.
    Though something exceptional in the moral quality of Captain Vere made him,
in earnest encounter with a fellow-man, a veritable touchstone of that man's
essential nature, yet now as to Claggart and what was really going on in him,
his feeling partook less of intuitional conviction than of strong suspicion
clogged by strange dubieties. The perplexity he evinced proceeded less from
aught touching the man informed against - as Claggart doubtless opined - than
from considerations how best to act in regard to the informer. At first, indeed,
he was naturally for summoning that substantiation of his allegations which
Claggart said was at hand. But such a proceeding would result in the matter at
once getting abroad, which in the present stage of it, he thought, might
undesirably affect the ship's company. If Claggart was a false witness - that
closed the affair. And therefore, before trying the accusation, he would first
practically test the accuser; and he thought this could be done in a quiet
undemonstrative way.
    The measure he determined upon involved a shifting of the scene, a transfer
to a place less exposed to observation than the broad quarter-deck. For although
the few gun-room officers there at the time had, in due observance of naval
etiquette, withdrawn to leeward the moment Captain Vere had begun his promenade
on the deck's weather-side; and though during the colloquy with Claggart they of
course ventured not to diminish the distance; and though throughout the
interview Captain Vere's voice was far from high, and Claggart's silvery and
low; and the wind in the cordage and the wash of the sea helped the more to put
them beyond ear-shot; nevertheless, the interview's continuance already had
attracted observation from some topmen aloft, and other sailors in the waist or
farther forward.
    Having determined upon his measures, Captain Vere forthwith took action.
Abruptly turning to Claggart he asked, »Master-at-arms, is it now Budd's watch
aloft?«
    »No, your honour.«
    Whereupon, »Mr. Wilkes,« summoning the nearest midshipman, »tell Albert to
come to me.« Albert was the captain's hammock-boy, a sort of sea-valet, in whose
discretion and fidelity his master had much confidence. The lad appeared. »You
know Budd, the foretopman?«
    »I do, sir.«
    »Go find him. It is his watch off. Manage to tell him out of ear-shot that
he is wanted aft. Contrive it that he speaks to nobody. Keep him in talk
yourself. And not till you get well aft here, not till then, let him know that
the place where he is wanted is my cabin. You understand? Go. Master-at-arms,
show yourself on the decks below, and when you think it time for Albert to be
coming with his man, stand by quietly to follow the sailor in.«
 

                                      XVII

Now when the foretopman found himself closeted, as it were, in the cabin with
the captain and Claggart, he was surprised enough. But it was a surprise
unaccompanied by apprehension or distrust. To an immature nature, essentially
honest and humane, forewarning intimations of subtler danger from one's kind
came tardily, if at all. The only thing that took shape in the young sailor's
mind was this: »Yes, the captain, I have always thought, looks kindly upon me.
Wonder if he's going to make me his coxswain. I should like that. And maybe now
he is going to ask the master-at-arms about me.«
    »Shut the door there, sentry,« said the commander. »Stand without and let
nobody come in. Now, master-at-arms, tell this man to his face what you told of
him to me«; and stood prepared to scrutinise the mutually confronting visages.
    With the measured step and calm collected air of an asylum physician
approaching in the public hall some patient beginning to show indications of a
coming paroxysm, Claggart deliberately advanced within short range of Billy, and
mesmerically looking him in the eye, briefly recapitulated the accusation.
    Not at first did Billy take it in. When he did the rose-tan of his cheek
looked struck as by white leprosy. He stood like one impaled and gagged.
Meanwhile the accuser's eyes, removing not as yet from the blue, dilated ones,
underwent a phenomenal change, their wonted rich violet colour blurring into a
muddy purple. Those lights of human intelligence losing human expression,
gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the
deep.
    The first mesmeric glance was one of surprised fascination; the last was as
the hungry lurch of the torpedo-fish.
    »Speak, man!« said Captain Vere to the transfixed one, struck by his aspect
even more than by Claggart's. »Speak! defend yourself.« Which appeal caused but
a strange, dumb gesturing and gurgling in Billy; amazement at such an accusation
so suddenly sprung on inexperienced nonage; this, and it may be horror at the
accuser, serving to bring out his lurking defect, and in this instance for the
time intensifying it into a convulsed tongue-tie; while the intent head and
entire form, straining forward in an agony of ineffectual eagerness to obey the
injunction to speak and defend himself, gave an expression to the face like that
of a condemned vestal priestess in the moment of being buried alive, and in the
first struggle against suffocation.
    Though at the time Captain Vere was quite ignorant of Billy's liability to
vocal impediment, he now immediately divined it, since vividly Billy's aspect
recalled to him that of a bright young schoolmate of his whom he had seen struck
by much the same startling impotence in the act of eagerly rising in the class
to be foremost in response to a testing question put to it by the master. Going
close up to the young sailor, and laying a soothing hand on his shoulder, he
said, »There is no hurry, my boy. Take your time, take your time.« Contrary to
the effect intended, these words, so fatherly in tone, doubtless touching
Billy's heart to the quick, prompted yet more violent efforts at utterance -
efforts soon ending for the time in confirming the paralysis, and bringing to
the face an expression which was as a crucifixion to behold. The next instant,
quick as the flame from a discharged cannon at night, his right arm shot out,
and Claggart dropped to the deck. Whether intentionally, or but owing to the
young athlete's superior height, the blow had taken effect full upon the
forehead, so shapely and intellectual-looking a feature in the master-at-arms;
so that the body fell over lengthwise, like a heavy plank tilted from erectness.
A gasp or two, and he lay motionless.
    »Fated boy,« breathed Captain Vere, in tone so low as to be almost a
whisper, »what have you done! But here, help me.«
    The twain raised the felled one from the loins up into a sitting position.
The spare form flexibly acquiesced, but inertly. It was like handling a dead
snake. They lowered it back. Regaining erectness, Captain Vere with one hand
covering his face stood to all appearance as impassive as the object at his
feet. Was he absorbed in taking in all the bearings of the event, and what was
best not only now at once to be done, but also in the sequel? Slowly he
uncovered his face; and the effect was as if the moon emerging from eclipse
should reappear with quite another aspect than that which had gone into hiding.
The father in him, manifested towards Billy thus far in the scene, was replaced
by the military disciplinarian. In his official tone he bade the foretopman
retire to a state-room aft (pointing it out), and there remain till thence
summoned. This order Billy in silence mechanically obeyed. Then going to the
cabin door where it opened on the quarter-deck, Captain Vere said to the sentry
without, »Tell somebody to send Albert here.« When the lad appeared his master
so contrived it that he should not catch sight of the prone one. »Albert,« he
said to him, »tell the surgeon I wish to see him. You need not come back till
called.«
    When the surgeon entered - a self-poised character of that grave sense and
experience that hardly anything could take him aback - Captain Vere advanced to
meet him, thus unconsciously interrupting his view of Claggart, and interrupting
the other's wonted ceremonious salutation said, »Nay, tell me how it is with
yonder man,« directing his attention to the prostrate one.
    The surgeon looked, and for all his self-command, somewhat started at the
abrupt revelation. On Claggart's always pallid complexion thick black blood was
now oozing from mouth and ear. To the gazer's professional eyes it was
unmistakably no living man that he saw.
    »Is it so, then?« said Captain Vere, intently watching him. »I thought it.
But verify it.« Whereupon the customary tests confirmed the surgeon's first
glance, who now looking up in unfeigned concern, cast a look of intense
inquisitiveness upon his superior. But Captain Vere, with one hand to his brow,
was standing motionless. Suddenly, catching the surgeon's arm convulsively, he
exclaimed, pointing down to the body, »It is the divine judgment of Ananias!
Look!«
    Disturbed by the excited manner he had never before observed in the
Indomitable's captain, and as yet wholly ignorant of the affair, the prudent
surgeon nevertheless held his peace, only again looking an earnest interrogation
as to what it was that had resulted in such a tragedy.
    But Captain Vere was now again motionless, standing absorbed in thought. But
again starting, he vehemently exclaimed, »Struck dead by an angel of God. Yet
the angel must hang!«
    At these interjections, incoherences to the listener as yet unapprised of
the antecedent events, the surgeon was profoundly discomforted. But now, as
recollecting himself, Captain Vere in less harsh tone briefly related the
circumstances leading up to the event.
    »But come; we must dispatch,« he added; »help me to remove him (meaning the
body) to yonder compartment« - designating one opposite where the foretopman
remained immured. Anew disturbed by a request that as implying a desire for
secrecy seemed unaccountably strange to him, there was nothing for the
subordinate to do but comply.
    »Go now,« said Captain Vere, with something of his wonted manner, »go now. I
shall presently call a drumhead court. Tell the lieutenants what has happened,
and tell Mr. Morton« - meaning the captain of marines. »And charge them to keep
the matter to themselves.«
    Full of disquietude and misgivings, the surgeon left the cabin. Was Captain
Vere suddenly affected in his mind, or was it but a transient excitement brought
about by so strange and extraordinary a happening? As to the drum-head court, it
struck the surgeon as impolitic, if nothing more. The thing to do, he thought,
was to place Billy Budd in confinement, and in a way dictated by usage, and
postpone further action in so extraordinary a case to such time as they should
again join the squadron, and then transfer it to the admiral. He recalled the
unwonted agitation of Captain Vere and his excited exclamations, so at variance
with his normal manner. Was he unhinged? But assuming that he was, it were not
so susceptible of proof. What then could he do? No more trying situation is
conceivable than that of an officer subordinated under a captain whom he
suspects to be, not mad indeed, but yet not quite unaffected in his intellect.
To argue his order to him would be insolence. To resist him would be mutiny. In
obedience to Captain Vere he communicated to the lieutenants and captain of
marines what had happened, saying nothing as to the captain's state. They stared
at him in surprise and concern. Like him, they seemed to think that such a
matter should be reported to the admiral.
    Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the
orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colour, but where
exactly does the first one visibly enter into the other? So with sanity and
insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some
cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the line of
demarcation few will undertake, though for a fee some professional experts will.
There is nothing nameable but that some men will undertake to do for pay. In
other words, there are instances where it is next to impossible to determine
whether a man is sane or beginning to be otherwise.
    Whether Captain Vere, as the surgeon professionally surmised, was really the
sudden victim of any degree of aberration, one must determine for himself by
such light as this narrative may afford.
 

                                     XVIII

The unhappy event which has been narrated could not have happened at a worse
juncture. For it was close on the heel of the suppressed insurrections, an
after-time very critical to naval authority, demanding from every English
sea-commander two qualities not readily interfusable - prudence and rigour.
Moreover, there was something crucial in the case.
    In the jugglery of circumstances preceding and attending the event on board
the Indomitable, and in the light of that martial code whereby it was formally
to be judged, innocence and guilt, personified in Claggart and Budd, in effect
changed places.
    In the legal view, the apparent victim of the tragedy was he who had sought
to victimise a man blameless; and the indisputable deed of the latter, navally
regarded, constituted the most heinous of military crimes. Yet more. The
essential right and wrong involved m the matter, the clearer that might be, so
much the worse for the responsibility of a loyal sea-commander, inasmuch as he
was authorised to determine the matter on that primitive legal basis.
    Small wonder then that the Indomitable's captain, though in general a man of
rigid decision, felt that circumspectness not less than promptitude was
necessary. Until he could decide upon his course, and in each detail, and not
only so, but until the concluding measure was upon the point of being enacted,
he deemed it advisable, in view of all the circumstances, to guard as much as
possible against publicity. Here he may or may not have erred. Certain it is,
however, that subsequently in the confidential talk of more than one or two
gunrooms and cabins he was not a little criticised by some officers, a fact
imputed by his friends, and vehemently by his cousin Jack Denton, to
professional jealousy of Starry Vere. Some imaginative ground for invidious
comment there was. The maintenance of secrecy in the matter, the confining all
knowledge of it for a time to the place where the homicide occurred - the
quarter-deck cabin; in these particulars lurked some resemblance to the policy
adopted in those tragedies of the palace which have occurred more than once in
the capital founded by Peter the Barbarian, great chiefly by his crimes.
    The case was such that fain would the Indomitable's captain have deferred
taking any action whatever respecting it further than to keep the foretopman a
close prisoner till the ship rejoined the squadron, and then submitting the
matter to the judgment of his admiral.
    But a true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with
more of self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than
the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.
    Feeling that unless quick action was taken on it, the deed of the
foretopman, as soon as it should be known on the gun-decks, would tend to awaken
any slumbering embers of the Nore among the crew, a sense of the urgency of the
case overruled in Captain Vere every other consideration. But though a
conscientious disciplinarian he was no lover of authority for mere authority's
sake. Very far was he from embracing opportunities for monopolising to himself
the perils of moral responsibility, none at least that could properly be
referred to an official superior, or shared with him by his official equals, or
even subordinates. So thinking, he was glad it would not be at variance with
usage to turn the matter over to a summary court of his own officers, reserving
to himself, as the one on whom the ultimate accountability would rest, the right
of maintaining a supervision of it, or formally or informally interposing at
need. Accordingly a drum-head court was summarily convened, he electing the
individuals composing it - the first lieutenant, the captain of marines, and the
sailing-master.
    In associating an officer of marines with the sea-lieutenant in a case
having to do with a sailor, the commander perhaps deviated from general custom.
He was prompted thereto by the circumstance that he took that soldier to be a
judicious person, thoughtful and not altogether incapable of grappling with a
difficult case unprecedented in his prior experience. Yet even as to him he was
not without some latent misgiving, for withal he was an extremely good-natured
man, an enjoyer of his dinner, a sound sleeper, and inclined to obesity. The
sort of man who, though he would always maintain his manhood in battle, might
not prove altogether reliable in a moral dilemma involving aught of the tragic.
As to the first lieutenant and the sailing-master, Captain Vere could not but be
aware that though honest natures, of approved gallantry upon occasion, their
intelligence was mostly confined to the matter of active seamanship, and the
fighting demands of their profession. The court was held in the same cabin where
the unfortunate affair had taken place. This cabin, the commander's, embraced
the entire area under the poop-deck. Aft, and on either side, was a small
state-room - the one room temporarily a jail, and the other a dead-house - and a
yet smaller compartment leaving a space between, expanding forward into a goodly
oblong of length coinciding with the ship's beam. A skylight of moderate
dimensions was overhead, and at each end of the oblong space were two sashed
port-hole windows easily convertible back into embrasures for short carronades.
    All being quickly in readiness, Billy Budd was arraigned, Captain Vere
necessarily appearing as the sole witness in the case, and as such temporarily
sinking his rank, though singularly maintaining it in a matter apparently
trivial, namely, that he testified from the ship's weather-side, with that
object having caused the court to sit on the lee-side. Concisely he narrated all
that had led up to the catastrophe, omitting nothing in Claggart's accusation,
and deposing as to the manner in which the prisoner had received it. At this
testimony the three officers glanced with no little surprise at Billy Budd, the
last man they would have suspected, either of mutinous design alleged by
Claggart, or of the undeniable deed he himself had done. The first lieutenant
taking judicial primary, and turning toward the prisoner, said, »Captain Vere
has spoken. Is it or is it not as Captain Vere says?« In response came syllables
not so much impeded in the utterance as might have been anticipated. They were
these: -
    »Captain Vere tells the truth. It is just as Captain Vere says, but it is
not as the master-at-arms said. I have eaten the King's bread, and I am true to
the King.«
    »I believe you, my man,« said the witness, his voice indicating a suppressed
emotion not otherwise betrayed.
    »God will bless you for that, your honour!« not without stammering, said
Billy, and all but broke down. But immediately was recalled to self-control by
another question, to which with the same emotional difficulty of utterance he
said, »No, there was no malice between us. I never bore malice against the
master-at-arms. I am sorry that he is dead. I did not mean to kill him. Could I
have used my tongue I would not have struck him. But he foully lied to my face,
and in the presence of my captain, and I had to say something, and I could only
say it with a blow. God help me!«
    In the impulsive above-board manner of the frank one the court saw confirmed
all that was implied in words that just previously had perplexed them coming as
they did from the testifier to the tragedy, and promptly following Billy's
impassioned disclaimer of mutinous intent - Captain Vere's words, »I believe
you, my man.«
    Next, it was asked of him whether he knew of or suspected aught savouring of
incipient trouble (meaning mutiny, though the explicit term was avoided) going
on in any section of the ship's company.
    The reply lingered. This was naturally imputed by the court to the same
vocal embarrassment which had retarded or obstructed previous answers. But in
main it was otherwise here; the question immediately recalling to Billy's mind
the interview with the afterguardsman in the fore-chains. But an innate
repugnance to playing a part at all approaching that of an informer against
one's own shipmates - the same erring sense of uninstructed honour which had
stood in the way of his reporting the matter at the time, though as a loyal
man-of-war's man it was incumbent on him, and failure so to do it charged
against him and proven, would have subjected him to the heaviest of penalties.
This, with the blind feeling now his, that nothing really was being hatched,
prevailed with him. When the answer came it was a negative.
    »One question more,« said the officer of marines now first speaking, and
with a troubled earnestness. »You tell us that what the master-at-arms said
against you was a lie. Now why should he have so lied, so maliciously lied,
since you declare there was no malice between you?«
    At that question, unintentionally touching on a spiritual sphere, wholly
obscure to Billy's thoughts, he was nonplussed, evincing a confusion indeed that
some observers, such as can be imagined, would have construed into involuntary
evidence of hidden guilt. Nevertheless he strove some way to answer, but all at
once relinquished the vain endeavour, at the same time turning an appealing
glance towards Captain Vere, as deeming him his best helper and friend. Captain
Vere, who had been seated for a time, rose to his feet, addressing the
interrogator. »The question you put to him comes naturally enough. But how can
he rightly answer it, or anybody else? unless indeed it be he who lies within
there,« designating the compartment where lay the corpse. »But the prone one
there will not rise to our summons. In effect though, as it seems to me, the
point you make is hardly material. Quite aside from any conceivable motive
actuating the master-at-arms, and irrespective of the provocation of the blow, a
martial court must needs in the present case confine its attention to the blow's
consequence, which consequence is to be deemed not otherwise than as the
striker's deed!«
    This utterance, the full significance of which it was not at all likely that
Billy took in, nevertheless caused him to turn a wistful, interrogative look
toward the speaker, a look in its dumb expressiveness not unlike that which a
dog of generous breed might turn upon his master, seeking in his face some
elucidation of a previous gesture ambiguous to the canine intelligence. Nor was
the same utterance without marked effect upon the three officers, more
especially the soldier. Couched in it seemed to them a meaning unanticipated,
involving a prejudgment on the speaker's part. It served to augment a mental
disturbance previously evident enough.
    The soldier once more spoke, in a tone of suggestive dubiety addressing at
once his associates and Captain Vere: »Nobody is present - none of the ship's
company, I mean, who might shed lateral light, if any is to be had, upon what
remains mysterious in this matter.«
    »That is thoughtfully put,« said Captain Vere; »I see your drift. Ay, there
is a mystery; but to use a Scriptural phrase, it is a mystery of iniquity, a
matter for psychological theologians to discuss. But what has a military court
to do with it? Not to add that for us, any possible investigation of it is cut
off by the lasting tongue-tie of - him - in yonder,« again designating the
mortuary state-room. »The prisoner's deed. With that alone we have to do.«
    To this, and particularly the closing reiteration, the marine soldier,
knowing not how aptly to reply, sadly abstained from saying aught. The first
lieutenant, who at the outset had not unnaturally assumed primacy in the court,
now over-rulingly instructed by a glance from Captain Vere, a glance more
effective than words, resumed that primacy. Turning to the prisoner: »Budd,« he
said, and scarce in equable tones, »Budd, if you have aught further to say for
yourself, say it now.«
    Upon this the young sailor turned another quick glance toward Captain Vere;
then, as taking a hint from that aspect, a hint confirming his own instinct that
silence was now best, replied to the lieutenant, »I have said all, sir.«
    The marine - the same who had been the sentinel without the cabin-door at
the time that the foretopman, followed by the master-at-arms, entered it - he,
standing by the sailor throughout their judicial proceedings, was now directed
to take him back to the after-compartment originally assigned to the prisoner
and his custodian. As the twain disappeared from view, the three officers, as
partially liberated from some inward constraint associated with Billy's mere
presence, simultaneously stirred in their seats. They exchanged looks of
troubled indecision, yet feeling that decide they must and without long delay,
for Captain Vere was for the time sitting unconsciously with his back toward
them, apparently in one of his absent fits, gazing out from a sashed porthole to
windward upon the monotonous blank of the twilight sea. But the court's silence
continuing, broken only at moments by brief consultations in low, earnest tones,
this seemed to assure him and encourage him. Turning, he to and fro paced the
cabin athwart; in the returning ascent to windward, climbing the slant deck in
the ship's lee roll; without knowing it symbolising thus in his action a mind
resolute to surmount difficulties even if against primitive instincts strong as
the wind and the sea. Presently he came to a stand before the three. After
scanning their faces he stood less as mustering his thoughts for expression,
than as one only deliberating how best to put them to well-meaning men not
intellectually mature, men with whom it was necessary to demonstrate certain
principles that were axioms to himself. Similar impatience as to talking is
perhaps one reason that deters some minds from addressing any popular
assemblies; under which head is to be classed most legislatures in a democracy.
    When speak he did, something both in the substance of what he said and his
manner of saying it, showed the influence of unshared studies modifying and
tempering the practical training of an active career. This, along with his
phraseology now and then, was suggestive of the grounds whereon rested that
imputation of a certain pedantry socially alleged against him by certain naval
men of wholly practical cast, captains who nevertheless would frankly concede
that His Majesty's Navy mustered no more efficient officers of their grade than
Starry Vere.
    What he said was to this effect: »Hitherto I have been but the witness,
little more; and I should hardly think now to take another tone, that of your
coadjutor, for the time, did I not perceive in you - at the crisis too - a
troubled hesitancy, proceeding, I doubt not, from the clashing of military duty
with moral scruple - scruple vitalised by compassion. For the compassion, how
can I otherwise but share it. But, mindful of paramount obligation, I strive
against scruples that may tend to enervate decision. Not, gentlemen, that I hide
from myself that the case is an exceptional one. Speculatively regarded, it well
might be referred to a jury of casuists. But for us here, acting not as casuists
or moralists, it is a case practical and under martial law practically to be
dealt with.
    But your scruples! Do they move as in a dusk? Challenge them. Make them
advance and declare themselves. Come now: do they impart something like this:
If, mindless of palliating circumstances, we are bound to regard the death of
the master-at-arms as the prisoner's deed, then does that deed constitute a
capital crime whereof the penalty is a mortal one. But in natural justice is
nothing but the prisoner's overt act to be considered? Now can we adjudge to
summary and shameful death a fellow-creature innocent before God, and whom we
feel to be so? - Does that state it aright? You sign sad assent. Well, I too
feel that, the full force of that. It is Nature. But do these buttons that we
wear attest that our allegiance is to Nature? No, to the King. Though the ocean,
which is inviolate Nature primeval, though this be the element where we move and
have our being as sailors, yet as the King's officers lies our duty in a sphere
correspondingly natural? So little is that true, that in receiving our
commissions we in the most important regards ceased to be natural free agents.
When war is declared, are we the commissioned fighters previously consulted? We
fight at command. If our judgments approve the war, that is but coincidence. So
in other particulars. So now, would it be so much we ourselves that would
condemn as it would be martial law operating through us? For that law and the
rigour of it, we are not responsible. Our vowed responsibility is in this: That
however pitilessly that law may operate, we nevertheless adhere to it and
administer it.
    But the exceptional in the matter moves the heart within you. Even so, too,
is mine moved. But let not warm hearts betray heads that should be cool. Ashore
in a criminal case will an upright judge allow himself off the bench to be
waylaid by some tender kinswoman of the accused seeking to touch him with her
tearful plea? Well, the heart here is as that piteous woman. The heart is the
feminine in man, and hard though it be, she must here be ruled out.«
    He paused, earnestly studying them for a moment; then resumed.
    »But something in your aspect seems to urge that it is not solely that heart
that moves in you, but also the conscience, the private conscience. But tell me
whether or not, occupying the position we do, private conscience should not
yield to that imperial one formulated in the code under which alone we
officially proceed?«
    Here the three men moved in their seats, less convinced than agitated by the
course of an argument troubling but the more the spontaneous conflict within.
Perceiving which, the speaker paused for a moment; then abruptly changing his
tone, went on.
    »To steady us a bit, let us recur to the facts. In wartime at sea a
man-of-war's man strikes his superior in grade, and the blow kills. Apart from
its effect, the blow itself is, according to the Articles of War, a capital
crime. Furthermore -«
    »Ay, sir,« emotionally broke in the officer of marines, »in one sense it
was. But surely Budd purposed neither mutiny nor homicide.«
    »Surely not, my good man. And before a court less arbitrary and more
merciful than a martial one that plea would largely extenuate. At the Last
Assizes it snail acquit. But bow here? We proceed under the law of the Mutiny
Act. In feature no child can resemble his father more than that Act resembles in
spirit the thing from which it derives - War. In His Majesty's service - in this
ship indeed - there are Englishmen forced to fight for the King against their
will. Against their conscience, for aught we know. Though as their
fellow-creatures some of us may appreciate their position, yet as Navy officers,
what reck we of it? Still less recks the enemy. Our impressed men he would fain
cut down in the same swath with our volunteers. As regards the enemy's naval
conscripts, some of whom may even share our own abhorrence of the regicidal
French Directory, it is the same on our side. War looks but to the frontage, the
appearance. And the Mutiny Act, War's child, takes after the father. Budd's
intent or non-intent is nothing to the purpose.
    But while, put to it by those anxieties in you which I cannot but respect, I
only repeat myself - while thus strangely we prolong proceedings that should be
summary, the enemy may be sighted and an engagement result. We must do; and one
of two things must we do - condemn or let go.«
    »Can we not convict and yet mitigate the penalty?« asked the junior
lieutenant, here speaking, and falteringly, for the first.
    »Lieutenant, were that clearly lawful for us under the circumstances,
consider the consequences of such clemency. The people« (meaning the ship's
company) »have native sense; most of them are familiar with our naval usage and
tradition; and how would they take it? Even could you explain to them - which
our official position forbids - they, long moulded by arbitrary discipline, have
not that kind of intelligent responsiveness that might qualify them to
comprehend and discriminate. No, to the people the foretopman's deed, however it
be worded in the announcement, will be plain homicide committed in a flagrant
act of mutiny. What penalty for that should follow, they know. But it does not
follow. Why? they will ruminate. You know what sailors are. Will they not revert
to the recent outbreak at the Nore? Ay, they know the well-founded alarm - the
panic it struck throughout England. Your clement sentence they would account
pusillanimous. They would think that we flinch, that we are afraid of them -
afraid of practising a lawful rigour singularly demanded at this juncture lest
it should provoke new troubles. What shame to us such a conjecture on their
part, and how deadly to discipline. You see then whither, prompted by duty and
the law, I steadfastly drive. But I beseech you, my friends, do not take me
amiss. I feel as you do for this unfortunate boy. But did he know our hearts, I
take him to be of that generous nature that he would feel even for us on whom in
this military necessity so heavy a compulsion is laid.«
    With that, crossing the deck, he resumed his place by the sashed port-hole,
tacitly leaving the three to come to a decision. On the cabin's opposite side
the troubled court sat silent. Loyal lieges, plain and practical, though at
bottom they dissented from some points Captain Vere had put to them, they were
without the faculty, hardly had the inclination to gainsay one whom they felt to
be an earnest man, one, too, not less their superior in mind than in naval rank.
But it is not improbable that even such of his words as were not without
influence over them, came home to them less than his closing appeal to their
instinct as sea-officers. He forecasted the practical consequences to discipline
(considering the unconfirmed tone of the fleet at the time), if violent killing
at sea by a man-of-war's man of a superior in grade were allowed to pass for
aught else than a capital crime, and one demanding prompt infliction of the
penalty.
    Not unlikely they were brought to something more or less akin to that
harassed frame of mind which in the year 1842 actuated the commander of the U.S.
brig-of-war Somers to resolve, under the so-called Articles of War, Articles
modelled upon the English Mutiny Act, to resolve upon the execution at sea of a
midshipman and two petty officers as mutineers designing the seizure of the
brig. Which resolution was carried out though in a time of peace and within not
many days' sail of home. An act vindicated by a naval court of inquiry
subsequently convened ashore. History, and here cited without comment. True, the
circumstances on board the Somers were different from those on board the
Indomitable. But the urgency felt, well warranted or otherwise, was much the
same.
    Says a writer whom few know, »Forty years after a battle it is easy for a
non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another
thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the
obscuring smoke of it. Much so with respect to other emergencies involving
considerations both practical and moral, and when it is imperative promptly to
act. The greater the fog the more it imperils the steamer, and speed is put on
though at the hazard of running somebody down. Little ween the snug card-players
in the cabin of the responsibilities of the sleepless man on the bridge.«
    In brief, Billy Budd was formally convicted and sentenced to be hung at the
yard-arm in the early morning-watch, it being now night. Otherwise, as is
customary in such cases, the sentence would forthwith have been carried out. In
war-time on the field or in the fleet, a mortal punishment decreed by a
drum-head court - on the field sometimes decreed by but a nod from the general -
follows without delay on the heel of conviction without appeal.
 

                                      XIX

It was Captain Vere himself who of his own motion communicated the finding of
the court to the prisoner; for that purpose going to the compartment where he
was in custody, and bidding the marine there to withdraw for the time.
    Beyond the communication of the sentence what took place at this interview
was never known. But, in view of the character of the twain briefly closeted in
that stateroom, each radically sharing in the rarer qualities of one nature - so
rare, indeed, as to be all but incredible to average minds, however much
cultivated - some conjectures may be ventured.
    It would have been in consonance with the spirit of Captain Vere should he
on this occasion have concealed nothing from the condemned one; should he indeed
have frankly disclosed to him the part he himself had played in bringing about
the decision, at the same time revealing his actuating motives. On Billy's side
it is not improbable that such a confession would have been received in much the
same spirit that prompted it. Not without a sort of joy indeed he might have
appreciated the brave opinion of him implied in his captain making such a
confidant of him. Nor as to the sentence itself could he have been insensible
that it was imparted to him as to one not afraid to die. Even more may have
been. Captain Vere in the end may have developed the passion sometimes latent
under an exterior stoical or indifferent. He was old enough to have been Billy's
father. The austere devotee of military duty, letting himself melt back into
what remains primeval in our formalised humanity, may in the end have caught
Billy to his heart, even as Abraham may have caught young Isaac on the brink of
resolutely offering him up in obedience to the exacting behest. But there is no
telling the sacrament - seldom if in any case revealed to the gadding world
wherever under circumstances at all akin to those here attempted to be set forth
- two of great Nature's nobler order embrace. There is privacy at the time,
inviolable to the survivor, and holy oblivion, the sequel to each diviner
magnanimity, providentially covers all at last.
    The first to encounter Captain Vere in the act of leaving the compartment
was the senior lieutenant. The face he beheld, for the moment one expressive of
the agony of the strong, was to that officer, though a man of fifty, a startling
revelation. That the condemned one suffered less than he who mainly had effected
the condemnation, was apparently indicated by the former's exclamation in the
scene soon perforce to be touched upon.
    Of a series of incidents within a brief term rapidly following each other,
the adequate narration may take up a term less brief, especially if explanation
or comment here and there seem requisite to the better understanding of such
incidents. Between the entrance into the cabin of him who never left it alive,
and him who when he did leave it left it as one condemned to die; between this
and the closeted interview just given, less than an hour and a half had elapsed.
It was an interval long enough, however, to awaken speculations among no few of
the ship's company as to what it was that could be detaining in the cabin the
master-at-arms and the sailor, for it was rumoured that both of them had been
seen to enter it, and neither of them had been seen to emerge. This rumour had
got abroad upon the gun-decks and in the tops; the people of a great warship
being in one respect like villagers, taking microscopic note of every untoward
movement or non-movement going on. When therefore in weather not at all
tempestuous all hands were called in the second dog-watch, a summons under such
circumstances not usual in those hours, the crew were not wholly unprepared for
some announcement extraordinary, one having connection, too, with the continued
absence of the two men from their wonted haunts.
    There was a moderate sea at the time; and the moon newly risen, and near to
being at its full, silvered the white spar-deck wherever not blotted by the
clear-cut shadows horizontally thrown of fixtures and moving men. On either side
the quarter-deck the marine guard under arms was drawn up; and Captain Vere,
standing in his place surrounded by all the ward-room officers, addressed his
men. In so doing his manner showed neither more nor less than that properly
pertaining to his supreme position aboard his own ship. In clear terms and
concise he told them what had taken place in the cabin; that the master-at-arms
was dead; that he who had killed him had been already tried by a summary court
and condemned to death; and that the execution would take place in the early
morning watch. The word mutiny was not named in what he said. He refrained, too,
from making the occasion an opportunity for any preachment as to the maintenance
of discipline, thinking, perhaps, that under existing circumstances in the Navy
the consequence of violating discipline should be made to speak for itself.
    Their captain's announcement was listened to by the throng of standing
sailors in a dumbness like that of a seated congregation of believers in Hell
listening to their clergyman's announcement of his Calvinistic text.
    At the close, however, a confused murmur went up. It began to wax all but
instantly, then at a sign, was pierced and suppressed by shrill whistles of the
boatswain and his mates piping, »Down one watch.«
    To be prepared for burial Claggart's body was delivered to certain petty
officers of his mess. And here, not to clog the sequel with lateral matters, it
may be added that at a suitable hour, the master-at-arms was committed to the
sea with every funeral honour properly belonging to his naval grade.
    In this proceeding, as in every public one growing out of the tragedy,
strict adherence to usage was observed. Nor in any point could it have been at
all deviated from, either with respect to Claggart or Billy Budd, without
begetting undesirable speculations in the ship's company, sailors, and more
particularly man-of-war's men, being of all men the greatest sticklers for
usage.
    For similar cause all communication between Captain Vere and the condemned
one ended with the closeted interview already given, the latter being now
surrendered to the ordinary routine preliminary to the end. This transfer under
guard from the captain's quarters was effected without unusual precautions - at
least no visible ones.
    If possible, not to let the men so much as surmise that their officers
anticipate aught amiss from them, is the tacit rule in a military ship. And the
more that some sort of trouble should really be apprehended, the more do the
officers keep that apprehension to themselves; though not the less
unostentatious vigilance may be augmented.
    In the present instance the sentry placed over the prisoner had strict
orders to let no one have communication with him but the chaplain. And certain
unobtrusive measures were taken absolutely to ensure this point.
 

                                       XX

In a seventy-four of the old order the deck known as the upper gun-deck was the
one covered over by the spar-deck, which last, though not without its armament,
was for the most part exposed to the weather. In general it was at all hours
free from hammocks; those of the crew swinging on the lower gun-deck and
berth-deck, the latter being not only a dormitory but also the place for the
stowing of the sailors' bags, and on both sides lined with the large chests or
movable pantries of the many messes of the men.
    On the starboard side of the Indomitable's upper gun-decks, behold Billy
Budd under sentry lying prone in irons in one of the bays formed by the regular
spacing of the guns comprising the batteries on either side. All these pieces
were of the heavier calibre of that period. Mounted on lumbering wooden
carriages, they were hampered with cumbersome harness of breeching and strong
side-tackles for running them out. Guns and carriages, together with the long
rammers and shorter lintstocks lodged in loops overhead - all these, as
customary, were painted black; and the heavy hempen breechings tarred to the
same tint, wore the like livery of the undertaker. In contrast with the funereal
tone of these surroundings the prone sailor's exterior apparel, white jumper and
white duck trousers, each more or less soiled, dimly glimmered in the obscure
light of the bay like a patch of discoloured snow in early April lingering at
some upland cave's black mouth. In effect he is already in his shroud or the
garments that shall serve him in lieu of one. Over him, but scarce illuminating
him, two battle-lanterns swing from two massive beams of the deck above. Fed
with the oil supplied by the war-contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise,
are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death) with
flickering splashes of dirty yellow light they pollute the pale moonshine all
but ineffectually struggling in obstructed flecks through the open ports from
which the tompioned cannon protrude. Other lanterns at intervals serve but to
bring out somewhat the obscurer bays which, like small confessionals or
side-chapels in a cathedral, branch from the long, dim-vistaed, broad aisle,
between the two batteries of that covered tier.
    Such was the deck where now lay the Handsome Sailor. Through the rose-tan of
his complexion, no pallor could have shown. It would have taken days of
sequestration from the winds and the sun to have brought about the effacement of
that. But the skeleton in the cheek-bone at the point of its angle was just
beginning delicately to be defined under the warm-tinted skin. In fervid hearts
self-contained some brief experiences devour our human tissue as secret fire in
a ship's hold consumes cotton in the bale.
    But now, lying between the two guns, as nipped in the vice of fate, Billy's
agony, mainly proceeding from a generous young heart's virgin experience of the
diabolical incarnate and effective in some men - the tension of that agony was
over now. It survived not the something healing in the closeted interview with
Captain Vere. Without movement he lay as in a trance, that adolescent
expression, previously noted as his, taking on something akin to the look of a
slumbering child in the cradle when the warm hearth-glow of the still chamber of
night plays on the dimples that at whiles mysteriously form in the cheek,
silently coming and going there. For now and then in the gyved one's trance, a
serene happy light born of some wandering reminiscence or dream would diffuse
itself over his face, and then wane away only anew to return.
    The chaplain coming to see him and finding him thus, and perceiving no sign
that he was conscious of his presence, attentively regarded him for a space,
then slipping aside, withdrew for the time, peradventure feeling that even he,
the minister of Christ, though receiving his stipend from wars, had no
consolation to proffer which could result in a peace transcending that which he
beheld. But in the small hours he came again. And the prisoner, now awake to his
surroundings, noticed his approach, and civilly, all but cheerfully, welcomed
him. But it was to little purpose that in the interview following the good man
sought to bring Billy Budd to some Godly understanding that he must die, and at
dawn. True, Billy himself freely referred to his death as a thing close at hand;
but it was something in the way that children will refer to death in general,
who yet among their other sports will play a funeral with hearse and mourners.
Not that like children Billy was incapable of conceiving what death really is.
No, but he was wholly without irrational fear of it, a fear more prevalent in
highly civilised communities than those so-called barbarous ones which in all
respects stand nearer to unadulterate Nature. And, as elsewhere said, a
barbarian Billy radically was; quite as much so (for all the costume) as his
countrymen the British captives, living trophies made to march in the Roman
triumph of Germanicus. Quite as much so as those later barbarians, young men
probably, and picked specimens among the earlier British converts to
Christianity, at least nominally such, and taken to Rome (as to-day converts
from lesser isles of the sea may be taken to London), of whom the Pope of that
time, admiring the strangeness of their personal beauty, so unlike the Italian
stamp, their clear, ruddy complexions and curled flaxen locks, exclaimed,
»Angles« (meaning English, the modern derivative), »Angles do you call them? And
is it because they look so like Angels?« Had it been later in time one would
think that the Pope had in mind Fra Angelico's seraphs, some of whom, plucking
apples in gardens of Hesperides, have the faint rosebud complexion of the more
beautiful English girls.
 

                                      XXI

If in vain the good chaplain sought to impress the young barbarian with ideas of
death akin to those conveyed in the skull, dial, and cross-bones on old
tombstones; equally futile to all appearance were his efforts to bring home to
him the thought of salvation and a Saviour. Billy listened, but less out of awe
or reverence, perhaps, than from a certain natural politeness; doubtless at
bottom regarding all that in much the same way that most mariners of his class
take any discourse, abstract or out of the common tone of the workaday world.
And this sailor way of taking clerical discourse is not wholly unlike the way in
which the pioneer of Christianity, full of transcendent miracles, was received
long ago on tropic isles by any superior savage so called - a Tahitian, say, of
Captain Cook's time or shortly after that time. Out of natural courtesy he
received but did not appreciate. It was like a gift placed in the palm of an
outstretched hand upon which the fingers do not close.
    But the Indomitable's chaplain was a discreet man possessing the good sense
of a good heart. So he insisted not on his vocation here. At the instance of
Captain Vere, a lieutenant had apprised him of pretty much everything as to
Billy; and since he felt that innocence was even a better thing than religion
wherewith to go to judgment, he reluctantly withdrew; but in his emotion not
without first performing an act strange enough in an Englishman, and under the
circumstances yet more so in any regular priest. Stooping over, he kissed on the
fair cheek his fellow-man, a felon in martial law, one who, though in the
confines of death, he felt he could never convert to a dogma; nor for all that
did he fear for his future.
    Marvel not that having been made acquainted with the young sailor's
essential innocence, the worthy man lifted not a finger to avert the doom of
such a martyr to martial discipline. So to do would not only have been as idle
as invoking the desert, but would also have been an audacious transgression of
the bounds of his function, one as exactly prescribed to him by military law as
that of the boatswain or any other naval officer. Bluntly put, a chaplain is the
minister of the Prince of Peace serving in the host of the God of War - Mars. As
such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why,
then, is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the
cannon; because, too, he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that
which practically is the abrogation of everything but force.
 

                                      XXII

The night so luminous on the spar-deck (otherwise on the cavernous ones below -
levels so like the tiered galleries in a coal-mine) passed away. Like the
prophet in the chariot disappearing in heaven and dropping his mantle to Elisha,
the withdrawing night transferred its pale robe to the peeping day. A meek, shy
light appeared in the east, where stretched a diaphanous fleece of white
furrowed vapour. That light slowly waxed. Suddenly one bells was struck aft,
responded to by one louder metallic stroke from forward. It was four o'clock in
the morning. Instantly the silver whistles were heard summoning all hands to
witness punishment. Up through the great hatchway, rimmed with racks of heavy
shot, the watch-below came pouring, overspreading with the watch already on deck
the space between the mainmast and foremast, including that occupied by the
capacious launch and the black booms tiered on either side of it, boat and booms
making a summit of observation for the powder-boys and younger tars. A different
group comprising one watch of topmen leaned over the side of the rail of that
sea-balcony, no small one in a seventy-four, looking down on the crowd below.
Man or boy, none spoke but in whispers, and few spoke at all. Captain Vere - as
before, the central figure among the assembled commissioned officers - stood
nigh the break of the poop-deck, facing forward. Just below him on the
quarterdeck the marines in full equipment were drawn up much as at the scene of
the promulgated sentence.
    At sea in the old time, the execution by halter of a military sailor was
generally from the fore-yard. In the present instance, for special reasons, the
main-yard was assigned. Under an arm of that yard the prisoner was presently
brought up, the chaplain attending him. It was noted at the time, and remarked
upon afterwards, that in this final scene the good man evinced little or nothing
of the perfunctory. Brief speech indeed he had with the condemned one, but the
genuine Gospel was less on his tongue than in his aspect and manner toward him.
The final preparations personal to the latter being speedily brought to an end
by two boatswain's-mates, the consummation impended. Billy stood facing aft. At
the penultimate moment, his words, his only ones, words wholly unobstructed in
the utterance, were these - »God bless Captain Vere!« Syllables so unanticipated
coming from one with the ignominious hemp about his neck - a conventional
felon's benediction directed aft toward the quarters of honour; syllables, too,
delivered in the clear melody of a singing-bird on the point of launching from
the twig, had a phenomenal effect, not unenhanced by the rare personal beauty of
the young sailor, spiritualised now through late experiences so poignantly
profound.
    Without volition, as it were, as if indeed the ship's populace were the
vehicles of some vocal current-electric, with one voice, from alow and aloft,
came a resonant echo - »God bless Captain Vere!« And yet at that instant Billy
alone must have been in their hearts, even as he was in their eyes.
    At the pronounced words and the spontaneous echo that voluminously rebounded
them, Captain Vere, either through stoic self-control or a sort of momentary
paralysis induced by emotional shock, stood erectly rigid as a musket in the
ship-armourer's rack.
    The hull, deliberately recovering from the periodic roll to leeward, was
just regaining an even keel, when the last signal, the preconcerted dumb one,
was given. At the same moment it chanced that the vapoury fleece hanging low in
the east, was shot through with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God
seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched by the wedged
mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended; and ascending, took the full rose of the
dawn.
    In the pinioned figure, arrived at the yard-end, to the wonder of all, no
motion was apparent save that created by the slow roll of the hull, in moderate
weather so majestic in a great ship heavy-cannoned.
 

                                  A Digression

When some days afterwards in reference to the singularity just mentioned, the
purser, a rather ruddy, rotund person, more accurate as an accountant than
profound as a philosopher, said at mess to the surgeon, »What testimony to the
force lodged in will-power,« the latter, spare and tall, one in whom a discreet
causticity went along with a manner less genial than polite, replied, »Your
pardon, Mr. Purser. In a hanging scientifically conducted - and under special
orders I myself directed how Budd's was to be effected - any movement following
the completed suspension and originating in the body suspended, such movement
indicates mechanical spasm in the muscular system. Hence the absence of that is
no more attributable to will-power, as you call it, than to horse-power -
begging your pardon.«
    »But this muscular spasm you speak of, is not that in a degree more or less
invariable in these cases?«
    »Assuredly so, Mr. Purser.«
    »How then, my good sir, do you account for its absence in this instance?«
    »Mr. Purser, it is clear that your sense of the singularity in this matter
equals not mine. You account for it by what you call will-power, a term not yet
included in the lexicon of science. For me I do not with my present knowledge
pretend to account for it at all. Even should one assume the hypothesis that at
the first touch of the halyards the action of Budd's heart, intensified by
extraordinary emotion at its climax, abruptly stopped - much like a watch when
in carelessly winding it up you strain at the finish, thus snapping the chain -
even under that hypothesis how account for the phenomenon that followed?«
    »You admit, then, that the absence of spasmodic movement was phenomenal?«
    »It was phenomenal, Mr. Purser, in the sense that it was an appearance, the
cause of which is not immediately to be assigned.«
    »But tell me, my dear sir,« pertinaciously continued the other, »was the
man's death effected by the halter, or was it a species of euthanasia?«
    »Euthanasia, Mr. Purser, is something like your will-power; I doubt its
authenticity as a scientific term - begging your pardon again. It is at once
imaginative and metaphysical - in short, Greek. But,« abruptly changing his
tone, »there is a case in the sick-bay that I do not care to leave to my
assistants. Beg your pardon, but excuse me.« And rising from the mess he
formally withdrew.
 

                                     XXIII

The silence at the moment of execution, and for a moment or two continuing
thereafter, but emphasised by the regular wash of the sea against the hull, or
the flutter of a sail caused by the helmsman's eyes being tempted astray, this
emphasised silence was gradually disturbed by a sound not easily to be verbally
rendered. Whoever has heard the freshet-wave of a torrent suddenly swelled by
pouring showers in tropical mountains, showers not shared by the plain; whoever
has heard the first muffled murmur of its sloping advance through precipitous
woods, may form some conception of the sound now heard. The seeming remoteness
of its source was because of its murmurous indistinctness, since it came from
close by, even from the men massed on the ship's open deck. Being inarticulate,
it was dubious in significance further than it seemed to indicate some
capricious revulsion of thought or feeling such as mobs ashore are liable to, in
the present instance possibly implying a sullen revocation on the men's part of
their involuntary echoing of Billy's benediction. But ere the murmur had time to
wax into clamour it was met by a strategic command, the more telling that it
came with abrupt unexpectedness.
    »Pipe down the starboard watch, boatswain, and see that they go.«
    Shrill as the shriek of the sea-hawk the whistles of the boatswain and his
mates pierced that ominous low sound, dissipating it; and yielding to the
mechanism of discipline the throng was thinned by one half. For the remainder,
most of them were set to temporary employments connected with trimming the yards
and so forth, business readily to be found upon occasion by any
officer-of-the-deck.
    Now each proceeding that follows a mortal sentence pronounced at sea by a
drum-head court is characterised by promptitude not perceptibly merging into
hurry, though bordering that. The hammock, the one which had been Billy's bed
when alive, having already been ballasted with shot, and otherwise prepared to
serve for his canvas coffin, the last office of the sea-undertakers, the
sail-maker's mates, was now speedily completed. When everything was in readiness
a second call for all hands, made necessary by the strategic movement before
mentioned, was sounded, and now to witness burial.
    The details of this closing formality it needs not to give. But when the
tilted plank let slide its freight into the sea, a second strange human murmur
was heard, blended now with another inarticulate sound proceeding from certain
larger sea-fowl, who, their attention having been attracted by the peculiar
commotion in the water resulting from the heavy sloped dive of the shotted
hammock into the sea, flew screaming to the spot. So near the hull did they
come, that the stridor or bony creak of their gaunt double-jointed pinions was
audible. As the ship under light airs passed on, leaving the burial spot astern,
they still kept circling it low down with the moving shadow of their
outstretched wings and the croaked requiem of their cries.
    Upon sailors as superstitious as those of the age preceding ours,
man-of-war's men, too, who had just beheld the prodigy of repose in the form
suspended in air and now foundering in the deeps; to such mariners the action of
the sea-fowl, though dictated by mere animal greed for prey, was big with no
prosaic significance. An uncertain movement began among them, in which some
encroachment was made. It was tolerated but for a moment. For suddenly the drum
beat to quarters, which familiar sound happening at least twice every day, had
upon the present occasion a signal peremptoriness in it. True martial discipline
long continued superinduces in average man a sort of impulse of docility whose
operation at the official tone of command much resembles in its promptitude the
effect of an instinct.
    The drum-beat dissolved the multitude, distributing most of them along the
batteries of the two covered gun-decks. There, as wont, the gun crews stood by
their respective cannon erect and silent. In due course the first officer, sword
under arm and standing in his place on the quarter-deck, formally received the
successive reports of the sworded lieutenants commanding the sections of
batteries below; the last of which reports being made, the summed report he
delivered with the customary salute to the commander. All this occupied time,
which in the present case was the object of beating to quarters at an hour prior
to the customary one. That such variance from usage was authorised by an officer
like Captain Vere, a martinet as some deemed him, was evidence of the necessity
for unusual action implied in what he deemed to be temporarily the mood of his
men. »With mankind,« he would say, »forms, measured forms, are everything; and
that is the import couched in the story of Orpheus with his lyre spell-binding
the wild denizens of the woods.« And this he once applied to the disruption of
forms going on across the Channel and the consequences thereof.
    At this unwonted muster at quarters all proceeded as at the regular hour.
The band on the quarter-deck played a sacred air. After which the chaplain went
through the customary morning service. That done, the drum beat the retreat, and
toned by music and religious rites subserving the discipline and purpose of war,
the men in their wonted orderly manner dispersed to the places allotted them
when not at the guns.
    And now it was full day. The fleece of low-hanging vapour had vanished,
licked up by the sun that late had so glorified it. And the circumambient air in
the clearness of its serenity was like smooth white marble in the polished block
not yet removed from the marble-dealer's yard.
 

                                      XXIV

The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction cannot so readily be achieved in
a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth
uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of
such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.
    How it fared with the Handsome Sailor during the year of the Great Mutiny
has been faithfully given. But though properly the story ends with his life,
something in way of sequel will not be amiss. Three brief chapters will suffice.
    In the general re-christening under the Directory of the craft originally
forming the navy of the French Monarchy, the St. Louis line-of-battle ship was
named the Athéiste. Such a name, like some other substituted ones in the
Revolutionary fleet, while proclaiming the infidel audacity of the ruling power,
was yet, though not so intended to be, the aptest name, if one consider it, ever
given to a warship; far more so indeed than the Devastation, the Erebus (the
Hell), and similar names bestowed upon fighting-ships.
    On the return passage to the English fleet from the detached cruise during
which occurred the events already recorded, the Indomitable fell in with the
Athéiste. An engagement ensued, during which Captain Vere, in the act of putting
his ship alongside the enemy with a view of throwing his boarders across the
bulwarks, was hit by a musket-ball from a port-hole of the enemy's main cabin.
More than disabled, he dropped to the deck and was carried below to the same
cock-pit where some of his men already lay. The senior lieutenant took command.
Under him the enemy was finally captured, and though much crippled, was by rare
good fortune successfully taken into Gibraltar, an English port not very distant
from the scene of the fight. There Captain Vere with the rest of the wounded was
put ashore. He lingered for some days, but the end came. Unhappily he was cut
off too early for the Nile and Trafalgar. The spirit that 'spite its philosophic
austerity may yet have indulged in the most secret of all passions, ambition,
never attained to the fullness of fame.
    Not long before death, while lying under the influence of that magical drug
which, soothing the physical frame, mysteriously operates on the subtler element
in man, he was heard to murmur words inexplicable to his attendant - »Billy
Budd, Billy Budd.« That these were not the accents of remorse, would seem clear
from what the attendant said to the Indomitable's senior officer of marines,
who, as the most reluctant to condemn of the members of the drum-head court, too
well knew, though here he kept the knowledge to himself, who Billy Budd was.
 

                                      XXV

Some few weeks after the execution, among other matters under the head of News
from the Mediterranean, there appeared in a naval chronicle of the time, an
authorised weekly publication, an account of the affair. It was doubtless for
the most part written in good faith, though the medium, partly rumour, through
which the facts must have reached the writer, served to deflect, and in part
falsify them. Because it appeared in a publication now long ago superannuated
and forgotten, and is all that hitherto has stood on human record to attest what
manner of men respectively were John Claggart and Billy Budd, it is here
reproduced.
 
        »On the tenth of the last month a deplorable occurrence took place on
        board H.M.S. Indomitable. John Claggart, the ship's master-at-arms,
        discovering that some sort of plot was incipient among an inferior
        section of the ship's company, and that the ringleader was one William
        Budd, he, Claggart, in the act of arraigning the man before the captain
        was vindictively stabbed to the heart by the suddenly drawn sheath-knife
        of Budd.
            The deed and the implement employed sufficiently suggest that though
        mustered into the service under an English name the assassin was no
        Englishman, but one of those aliens adopting an English cognomen whom
        the present extraordinary necessities of the Service have caused to be
        admitted into it in considerable numbers.
            The enormity of the crime and the extreme depravity of the criminal,
        appear the greater in view of the character of the victim, a middle-
        aged man, respectable and discreet, belonging to that minor official
        grade, the petty officers, upon whom, as none know better than the
        commissioned gentlemen, the efficiency of His Majesty's Navy so largely
        depends. His function was a responsible one; at once onerous and
        thankless, and his fidelity in it the greater because of his strong
        patriotic impulse. In this instance, as in so many other instances in
        these days, the character of the unfortunate man signally refutes, if
        refutation were needed, that peevish saying attributed to Dr. Johnson,
        that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
            The criminal paid the penalty of his crime. The promptitude of the
        punishment has proved salutary. Nothing amiss is now apprehended aboard
        H.M.S. Indomitable.«
 

                                      XXVI

Everything is for a season remarkable in navies. Any tangible object associated
with some striking incident of the service, is converted into a monument. The
spar from which the foretopman was suspended, was for some few years kept trace
of by the blue-jackets. Then knowledge followed it from ship to dockyard and
again from dockyard to ship, still pursuing it even when at last reduced to a
mere dockyard boom. To them a chip of it was as a piece of the Cross. Ignorant
though they were of the real facts of the happening, and not thinking but that
the penalty was unavoidably inflicted from the naval point of view, for all that
they instinctively felt that Billy was a sort of man as incapable of mutiny as
of wilful murder. They recalled the fresh young image of the Handsome Sailor,
that face never deformed by a sneer or subtler vile freak of the heart within!
This impression of him was doubtless deepened by the fact that he was gone, and
in a measure mysteriously gone. On the gun-decks of the Indomitable the general
estimate of his nature and its unconscious simplicity eventually found rude
utterance from another foretopman, one of his own watch, gifted as some sailors
are, with an artless poetic temperament. The tarry hands made some lines, which,
after circulating among the shipboard crew for a while, finally got rudely
printed at Portsmouth as a ballad. The title given to it was the sailor's.
 

                              Billy in the Darbies

Good of the Chaplain to enter Lone Bay
And down on his marrow-bones here and pray
For the likes just o' me, Billy Budd. - But look:
Through the port comes the moon-shine astray!
It tips the guard's cutlass and silvers this nook;
But 'twill die in the dawning of Billy's last day,
A jewel-block they'll make of me to-morrow,
Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end
Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol-Molly -
Oh, 'tis me, not the sentence, they'll suspend.
Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too
Early in the morning, aloft from alow.
On an empty stomach, now, never it would do.
They'll give me a nibble - bit o' biscuit ere I go.
Sure, a messmate will reach me the last parting cup;
But turning heads away from the hoist and the belay,
Heaven knows who will have the running of me up!
No pipe to those halyards - But aren't it all sham?
A blur's in my eyes; it is dreaming that I am.
A hatchet to my panzer? all adrift to go?
The drum roll to grog, and Billy never know?
But Donald he has promised to stand by the plank;
So I'll shake a friendly hand ere I sink.
But - no! It is dead then I'll be, come to think.
I remember Taff the Welshman when he sank.
And his cheek it was like the budding pink.
But me, they'll lash me in hammock, drop me deep
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair.
I am sleepy and the oozy weeds about me twist.
 
                                  End of Book,
                                                                 April 19, 1891.
