- end_line
- 2382
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2330
- text
- 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
- title
- Chunk 3