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- 3217
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
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- 3142
- text
- just regaining an even keel, when the last signal, the preconcerted dumb
one, was given. At the same moment it chanced that the vapoury fleece
hanging low in the east, was shot through with a soft glory as of the
fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously
therewith, watched by the wedged mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended;
and ascending, took the full rose of the dawn.
In the pinioned figure, arrived at the yard-end, to the wonder of all,
no motion was apparent save that created by the slow roll of the hull,
in moderate weather so majestic in a great ship heavy-cannoned.
A DIGRESSION
When some days afterwards in reference to the singularity just
mentioned, the purser, a rather ruddy, rotund person, more accurate as
an accountant than profound as a philosopher, said at mess to the
surgeon, ‘What testimony to the force lodged in will-power,’ the latter,
spare and tall, one in whom a discreet causticity went along with a
manner less genial than polite, replied, ‘Your pardon, Mr. Purser. In a
hanging scientifically conducted--and under special orders I myself
directed how Budd’s was to be effected--any movement following the
completed suspension and originating in the body suspended, such
movement indicates mechanical spasm in the muscular system. Hence the
absence of that is no more attributable to will-power, as you call it,
than to horse-power--begging your pardon.’
‘But this muscular spasm you speak of, is not that in a degree more or
less invariable in these cases?’
‘Assuredly so, Mr. Purser.’
‘How then, my good sir, do you account for its absence in this
instance?’
‘Mr. Purser, it is clear that your sense of the singularity in this
matter equals not mine. You account for it by what you call will-power,
a term not yet included in the lexicon of science. For me I do not with
my present knowledge pretend to account for it at all. Even should one
assume the hypothesis that at the first touch of the halyards the action
of Budd’s heart, intensified by extraordinary emotion at its climax,
abruptly stopped--much like a watch when in carelessly winding it up you
strain at the finish, thus snapping the chain--even under that
hypothesis how account for the phenomenon that followed?’
‘You admit, then, that the absence of spasmodic movement was
phenomenal?’
‘It was phenomenal, Mr. Purser, in the sense that it was an appearance,
the cause of which is not immediately to be assigned.’
‘But tell me, my dear sir,’ pertinaciously continued the other, ‘was the
man’s death effected by the halter, or was it a species of euthanasia?’
‘_Euthanasia_, Mr. Purser, is something like your will-power; I doubt
its authenticity as a scientific term--begging your pardon again. It is
at once imaginative and metaphysical--in short, Greek. But,’ abruptly
changing his tone, ‘there is a case in the sick-bay that I do not care
to leave to my assistants. Beg your pardon, but excuse me.’ And rising
from the mess he formally withdrew.
-----
Footnote 8:
Written in pencil above this ‘one,’ an ‘eight,’ allowing a choice of
readings.
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