{"id":"01KG6GMKH6NN3PMSYF6YYAZ4W3","cid":"bafkreibewndlxz2uqokvwsat6dnl5viyabv6vvuqjppjpoiofanshcjc6i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1668,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":1596,"text":"usage 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\nNow Billy, like sundry other essentially good-natured ones, had some of\r\nthe weaknesses inseparable from essential good-nature; and among these\r\nwas a reluctance, almost an incapacity, of plumply saying _no_ to an\r\nabrupt proposition not obviously absurd on the face of it, nor obviously\r\nunfriendly, nor iniquitous. And being of warm blood had not the phlegm\r\nto negate any proposition by unresponsive inaction. Like his sense of\r\nfear, his apprehension as to aught outside of the honest and natural was\r\nseldom very quick. Besides, upon the present occasion, the drouse from\r\nhis sleep still hung upon him.\r\n\r\nHowever it was, he mechanically rose, and sleepily wondering what could\r\nbe _in the wind_, betook himself to the designated place, a narrow\r\nplatform, one of six, outside of the high bulwarks, and screened by the\r\ngreat dead-eyes and multiple columned lanyards of the shrouds and\r\nback-stays; and, in a great warship of that time, of dimensions\r\ncommensurate to the ample hull’s magnitude; a tarry balcony, in short,\r\noverhanging the sea, and so secluded that one mariner of the\r\n_Indomitable_, a nonconformist old tar of a serious turn, made it even\r\nin daytime his private oratory.\r\n\r\nIn this retired nook the stranger soon joined Billy Budd. There was no\r\nmoon as yet; a haze obscured the starlight. He could not distinctly see\r\nthe stranger’s face. Yet from something in the outline and carriage,\r\nBilly took him to be, and correctly, one of the afterguard.\r\n\r\n‘Hist, Billy!’ said the man, in the same quick, cautionary whisper as\r\nbefore; ‘you were impressed, weren’t you? Well, so was I’; and he\r\npaused, as to mark the effect. But Billy, not knowing exactly what to\r\nmake of this, said nothing. Then the other: ‘We are not the only\r\nimpressed ones, Billy. There’s a gang of us. Couldn’t you--help--at a\r\npinch?’\r\n\r\n‘What do you mean?’ demanded Billy, here shaking off his drouse.\r\n\r\n‘Hist, hist!’ the hurried whisper now growing husky; ‘see here,’ and the\r\nman held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the night light;\r\n‘see, they are yours, Billy, if you’ll only----’\r\n\r\nBut Billy broke in, and in his resentful eagerness to deliver himself,\r\nhis vocal infirmity somewhat intruded. ‘D-D-Damme, I don’t know what you\r\nare d-driving at, or what you mean, but you had better g-g-go where you\r\nbelong!’ For the moment the fellow, as confounded, did not stir; and\r\nBilly, springing to his feet, said, ‘If you d-don’t start, I’ll\r\nt-t-t-oss you back over the r-rail!’ There was no mistaking this, and\r\nthe mysterious emissary decamped, disappearing in the direction of the\r\nmainmast in the shadow of the booms.\r\n\r\n‘Hallo, what’s the matter?’ here came growling from a forecastleman\r\nawakened from his deck-doze by Billy’s raised voice. And as the\r\nforetopman reappeared, and was recognised by him, ‘Ah, _Beauty_,\r\nis it you? Well, something must have been the matter, for you\r\nst-st-stuttered.’\r\n\r\n‘Oh,’ rejoined Billy, now mastering the impediment; ‘I found an\r\nafterguardsman in our part of the ship here, and I bid him be off where\r\nhe belongs.’\r\n\r\n‘And is that all you did about it, foretopman?’ gruffly demanded\r\nanother, an irascible old fellow of brick-coloured visage and hair, and\r\nwho was known to his associate forecastlemen as _Red Pepper_. ‘Such\r\nsneaks I should like to marry to the gunner’s daughter!’ by that\r\nexpression meaning that he would like to subject them to disciplinary\r\ncastigation over a gun.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GK8EG5N9JTTBYRRP0CTKZ","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMKH3TXB2MVEBQ2VMQ3Z2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMKH9V0EZYVGYBGBR7FPR","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:05.126Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:13.874Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}