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- 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had, in due observance of naval etiquette, withdrawn to leeward the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.’
-----
Footnote 2:
In Melville’s MS. the vessel is on these occasions given the name
_Bellipotent_. See also pp. 64, 66, 109, 110.
Footnote 3:
Cf. p. 63 note.
Footnote 4:
Cf. p. 63 note.
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