- end_line
- 2836
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2784
- text
- 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 state-room, 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.
- title
- Chunk 28