{"id":"01KG6G6PJTJG95J44CTMCPX8ZX","cid":"bafkreif7wtdvkgi2e5oappkzq22uq7zddtnj7fyeebkb4ivi5bziq2gch4","type":"chapter","properties":{"end_line":3520,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:47:28.078Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"XXVI","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":3441,"text":"                                  XXVI\r\n\r\n\r\nEverything is for a season remarkable in navies. Any tangible object\r\nassociated with some striking incident of the service, is converted into\r\na monument. The spar from which the foretopman was suspended, was for\r\nsome few years kept trace of by the blue-jackets. Then knowledge\r\nfollowed it from ship to dockyard and again from dockyard to ship, still\r\npursuing it even when at last reduced to a mere dockyard boom. To them a\r\nchip of it was as a piece of the Cross. Ignorant though they were of the\r\nreal facts of the happening, and not thinking but that the penalty was\r\nunavoidably inflicted from the naval point of view, for all that they\r\ninstinctively felt that Billy was a sort of man as incapable of mutiny\r\nas of wilful murder. They recalled the fresh young image of the Handsome\r\nSailor, that face never deformed by a sneer or subtler vile freak of the\r\nheart within! This impression of him was doubtless deepened by the fact\r\nthat he was gone, and in a measure mysteriously gone. On the gun-decks\r\nof the _Indomitable_ the general estimate of his nature and its\r\nunconscious simplicity eventually found rude utterance from another\r\nforetopman, one of his own watch, gifted as some sailors are, with an\r\nartless poetic temperament. The tarry hands made some lines, which,\r\nafter circulating among the shipboard crew for a while, finally got\r\nrudely printed at Portsmouth as a ballad. The title given to it was the\r\nsailor’s.\r\n\r\n\r\n                         BILLY IN THE DARBIES\r\n\r\n       Good of the Chaplain to enter Lone Bay\r\n       And down on his marrow-bones here and pray\r\n       For the likes just o’ me, Billy Budd.--But look:\r\n       Through the port comes the moon-shine astray!\r\n       It tips the guard’s cutlass and silvers this nook;\r\n       But ’twill die in the dawning of Billy’s last day,\r\n       A jewel-block they’ll make of me to-morrow,\r\n       Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end\r\n       Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol-Molly--\r\n       Oh, ’tis me, not the sentence, they’ll suspend.\r\n       Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too\r\n       Early in the morning, aloft from alow.\r\n       On an empty stomach, now, never it would do.\r\n       They’ll give me a nibble--bit o’ biscuit ere I go.\r\n       Sure, a messmate will reach me the last parting cup;\r\n       But turning heads away from the hoist and the belay,\r\n       Heaven knows who will have the running of me up!\r\n       No pipe to those halyards--But aren’t it all sham?\r\n       A blur’s in my eyes; it is dreaming that I am.\r\n       A hatchet to my panzer? all adrift to go?\r\n       The drum roll to grog, and Billy never know?\r\n       But Donald he has promised to stand by the plank;\r\n       So I’ll shake a friendly hand ere I sink.\r\n       But--no! It is dead then I’ll be, come to think.\r\n       I remember Taff the Welshman when he sank.\r\n       And his cheek it was like the budding pink.\r\n       But me, they’ll lash me in hammock, drop me deep\r\n       Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast asleep.\r\n       I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?\r\n       Just ease these darbies at the wrist,\r\n       And roll me over fair.\r\n       I am sleepy and the oozy weeds about me twist.\r\n\r\n                                                     END OF BOOK,\r\n                                                     April 19, 1891.\r\n\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                           OTHER PROSE PIECES\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"XXVI"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G62NAV0XVMCJK0J8GGZ96","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G6PJV6JAMSJD35T18XN89","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G6Q5YZYCV40PEBSEW7WG1","peer_type":"article","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:47:29.498Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:47:33.646Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}