第 十七 章 · 第17章

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 drum-head 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.

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