{"id":"01KG6GMKH3TXB2MVEBQ2VMQ3Z2","cid":"bafkreia5aifceeimhftpxcuqv6oad7zvgvmhjhbjggpiqkb6fsssyspdxm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1604,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 6","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":1542,"text":"reports, more especially as to the epithets, for he well knew how\r\nsecretly unpopular may become a master-at-arms--at least, a\r\nmaster-at-arms in those days, zealous in his function--and how the\r\nblue-jackets shoot at him in private their raillery and wit; the\r\nnickname by which he goes among them (_Jemmy Legs_) implying under the\r\nform of merriment their cherished disrespect and dislike.\r\n\r\nIn view of the greediness of hate for provocation, it hardly needed a\r\npurveyor to feed Claggart’s passion. An uncommon prudence is habitual\r\nwith the subtler depravity, for it has everything to hide. And in case\r\nof any merely suspected injury, its secretiveness voluntarily cuts it\r\noff from enlightenment or disillusion; and not unreluctantly, action is\r\ntaken upon surmise as upon certainty. And the retaliation is apt to be\r\nin monstrous disproportion to the supposed offence; for when in anybody\r\nwas revenge in its exactions aught else but an inordinate usurer. But\r\nhow with Claggart’s conscience? For though consciences are unlike as\r\nforeheads, every intelligence, not excluding the Scriptural devils who\r\n‘believe and tremble,’ has one. But Claggart’s conscience being but the\r\nlawyer to his will, made ogres of trifles, probably arguing that the\r\nmotive imputed to Billy in spilling the soup just when he did, together\r\nwith the epithets alleged, these, if nothing more, made a strong case\r\nagainst him; nay, justified animosity into a sort of retributive\r\nrighteousness. The Pharisee is the Guy Fawkes prowling in the hid\r\nchambers underlying some natures like Claggart’s. And they can really\r\nform no conception of an unreciprocated malice. Probably, the\r\nmaster-at-arms’ clandestine persecution of Billy was started to try the\r\ntemper of the man; but it had not developed any quality in him that\r\nenmity could make official use of, or ever pervert into even plausible\r\nself-justification; so that the occurrence at the mess, petty if it\r\nwere, was a welcome one to that peculiar conscience assigned to be the\r\nprivate mentor of Claggart; and for the rest, not improbably, it put him\r\nupon new experiments.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                                  XII\r\n\r\n\r\nNot many days after the last incident narrated, something befell Billy\r\nBudd that more gravelled him than aught that had previously occurred.\r\n\r\nIt was a warm night for the latitude; and the foretopman, whose watch at\r\nthe time was properly below, was dozing on the uppermost deck whither he\r\nhad ascended from his hot hammock--one of hundreds suspended so closely\r\nwedged together over a lower gun-deck that there was little or no swing\r\nto them. He lay as in the shadow of a hillside stretched under the lee\r\nof the _booms_, a piled ridge of spare spars, and among which the ship’s\r\nlargest boat, the launch, was stowed. Alongside of three other\r\nslumberers from below, he lay near one end of the booms which approached\r\nfrom the foremast; his station aloft on duty as a foretopman being just\r\nover the deck station of the forecastleman, entitling him according to\r\nusage to make himself more or less at home in that neighbourhood.\r\n\r\nPresently he was stirred into semi-consciousness by somebody, who must\r\nhave previously sounded the sleep of the others, touching his shoulder,\r\nand then, as the foretopman raised his head, breathing into his ear in a\r\nquick whisper, ‘Slip into the lee fore-chains, Billy; there is something\r\nin the wind. Don’t speak. Quick. I will meet you there’; and\r\ndisappeared.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 6"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GK8EG5N9JTTBYRRP0CTKZ","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMKH605SCEEZ692MZHG82","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMKH6NN3PMSYF6YYAZ4W3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:05.123Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:13.825Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}