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- 2506
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2443
- text
- usage to turn the matter over to a summary court of his own officers,
reserving to himself, as the one on whom the ultimate accountability
would rest, the right of maintaining a supervision of it, or formally or
informally interposing at need. Accordingly a drum-head court was
summarily convened, he electing the individuals composing it--the first
lieutenant, the captain of marines, and the sailing-master.
In associating an officer of marines with the sea-lieutenant in a case
having to do with a sailor, the commander perhaps deviated from general
custom. He was prompted thereto by the circumstance that he took that
soldier to be a judicious person, thoughtful and not altogether
incapable of grappling with a difficult case unprecedented in his prior
experience. Yet even as to him he was not without some latent misgiving,
for withal he was an extremely good-natured man, an enjoyer of his
dinner, a sound sleeper, and inclined to obesity. The sort of man who,
though he would always maintain his manhood in battle, might not prove
altogether reliable in a moral dilemma involving aught of the tragic. As
to the first lieutenant and the sailing-master, Captain Vere could not
but be aware that though honest natures, of approved gallantry upon
occasion, their intelligence was mostly confined to the matter of active
seamanship, and the fighting demands of their profession. The court was
held in the same cabin where the unfortunate affair had taken place.
This cabin, the commander’s, embraced the entire area under the
poop-deck. Aft, and on either side, was a small state-room--the one room
temporarily a jail, and the other a dead-house--and a yet smaller
compartment leaving a space between, expanding forward into a goodly
oblong of length coinciding with the ship’s beam. A skylight of moderate
dimensions was overhead, and at each end of the oblong space were two
sashed port-hole windows easily convertible back into embrasures for
short carronades.
All being quickly in readiness, Billy Budd was arraigned, Captain Vere
necessarily appearing as the sole witness in the case, and as such
temporarily sinking his rank, though singularly maintaining it in a
matter apparently trivial, namely, that he testified from the ship’s
weather-side, with that object having caused the court to sit on the
lee-side. Concisely he narrated all that had led up to the catastrophe,
omitting nothing in Claggart’s accusation, and deposing as to the manner
in which the prisoner had received it. At this testimony the three
officers glanced with no little surprise at Billy Budd, the last man
they would have suspected, either of mutinous design alleged by
Claggart, or of the undeniable deed he himself had done. The first
lieutenant taking judicial primary, and turning toward the prisoner,
said, ‘Captain Vere has spoken. Is it or is it not as Captain Vere
says?’ In response came syllables not so much impeded in the utterance
as might have been anticipated. They were these:--
‘Captain Vere tells the truth. It is just as Captain Vere says, but it
is not as the master-at-arms said. I have eaten the King’s bread, and I
am true to the King.’
‘I believe you, my man,’ said the witness, his voice indicating a
suppressed emotion not otherwise betrayed.
‘God will bless you for that, your honour!’ not without stammering, said
Billy, and all but broke down. But immediately was recalled to
self-control by another question, to which with the same emotional
difficulty of utterance he said, ‘No, there was no malice between us. I
never bore malice against the master-at-arms. I am sorry that he is
dead. I did not mean to kill him. Could I have used my tongue I would
not have struck him. But he foully lied to my face, and in the presence
of my captain, and I had to say something, and I could only say it with
a blow. God help me!’
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