บทที่ บทที่ 15 · 第15章

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.

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