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- 2882
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2822
- text
- 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.
Of a series of incidents within a brief term rapidly following each
other, the adequate narration may take up a term less brief, especially
if explanation or comment here and there seem requisite to the better
understanding of such incidents. Between the entrance into the cabin of
him who never left it alive, and him who when he did leave it left it as
one condemned to die; between this and the closeted interview just
given, less than an hour and a half had elapsed. It was an interval long
enough, however, to awaken speculations among no few of the ship’s
company as to what it was that could be detaining in the cabin the
master-at-arms and the sailor, for it was rumoured that both of them had
been seen to enter it, and neither of them had been seen to emerge. This
rumour had got abroad upon the gun-decks and in the tops; the people of
a great warship being in one respect like villagers, taking microscopic
note of every untoward movement or non-movement going on. When therefore
in weather not at all tempestuous all hands were called in the second
dog-watch, a summons under such circumstances not usual in those hours,
the crew were not wholly unprepared for some announcement extraordinary,
one having connection, too, with the continued absence of the two men
from their wonted haunts.
There was a moderate sea at the time; and the moon newly risen, and near
to being at its full, silvered the white spar-deck wherever not blotted
by the clear-cut shadows horizontally thrown of fixtures and moving men.
On either side the quarter-deck the marine guard under arms was drawn
up; and Captain Vere, standing in his place surrounded by all the
ward-room officers, addressed his men. In so doing his manner showed
neither more nor less than that properly pertaining to his supreme
position aboard his own ship. In clear terms and concise he told them
what had taken place in the cabin; that the master-at-arms was dead;
that he who had killed him had been already tried by a summary court and
condemned to death; and that the execution would take place in the early
morning watch. The word _mutiny_ was not named in what he said. He
refrained, too, from making the occasion an opportunity for any
preachment as to the maintenance of discipline, thinking, perhaps, that
under existing circumstances in the Navy the consequence of violating
discipline should be made to speak for itself.
Their captain’s announcement was listened to by the throng of standing
sailors in a dumbness like that of a seated congregation of believers in
Hell listening to their clergyman’s announcement of his Calvinistic
text.[5]
At the close, however, a confused murmur went up. It began to wax all
but instantly, then at a sign, was pierced and suppressed by shrill
whistles of the boatswain and his mates piping, ‘Down one watch.’[6]
- title
- Chunk 12