{"id":"01KG6G84WMNM189YWEBA7FWKVN","cid":"bafkreia35dmitgit5dge4yxvtirgna4e2elmpv2tmea434fnvaaiuaagpe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1006,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":964,"text":"journals. But considerateness in such matters is not easy in natures\r\nconstituted like Captain Vere’s. Their honesty prescribes to them\r\ndirectness, sometimes far-reaching like that of a migratory fowl that in\r\nits flight never heeds when it crosses a frontier.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                                  VII\r\n\r\n\r\nThe lieutenants and other commissioned gentlemen forming Captain Vere’s\r\nstaff it is not necessary here to particularise, nor needs it to make\r\nmention of any of the warrant-officers. But among the petty officers was\r\none who, having much to do with the story, may as well be forthwith\r\nintroduced. This portrait I essay, but shall never hit it.\r\n\r\nThis was John Claggart, the master-at-arms. But that sea-title may to\r\nlandsmen seem somewhat equivocal. Originally, doubtless, that petty\r\nofficer’s function was the instruction of the men in the use of arms,\r\nsword, or cutlass. But very long ago, owing to the advance in gunnery\r\nmaking hand-to-hand encounters less frequent, and giving to nitre and\r\nsulphur the pre-eminence over steel, that function ceased; the\r\nmaster-at-arms of a great warship becoming a sort of chief of police\r\ncharged among other matters with the duty of preserving order on the\r\npopulous lower gun-decks.\r\n\r\nClaggart was a man of about five-and-thirty, somewhat spare and tall,\r\nyet of no ill figure upon the whole. His hand was too small and shapely\r\nto have been accustomed to hard toil. The face was a notable one; the\r\nfeatures, all except the chin, cleanly cut as those on a Greek\r\nmedallion; yet the chin, beardless as Tecumseh’s, had something of the\r\nstrange protuberant heaviness in its make that recalled the prints of\r\nthe Rev. Dr. Titus Oates, the historical deponent with the clerical\r\ndrawl in the time of Charles II., and the fraud of the alleged Popish\r\nPlot. It served Claggart in his office that his eye could cast a\r\ntutoring glance. His brow was of the sort phrenologically associated\r\nwith more than average intellect; silken jet curls partly clustering\r\nover it, making a foil to the pallor below, a pallor tinged with a faint\r\nshade of amber akin to the hue of time-tinted marbles of old.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6NZTCSGTD5KAEYAKVECN","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G84WMCKQY4WSRS9KKC0XP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G84WSARA1YYSPZN0KH6Z8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.916Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:24.394Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}