{"id":"01KG6GMM4W6VC6GVE95PJMESPT","cid":"bafkreie6xtnivi7j7vej772mxzny6cl5m5yjjmzueqssl4vrsraezfxdfq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2254,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 17","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":2186,"text":"the sailor in.’\r\n\r\n-----\r\n\r\nFootnote 2:\r\n\r\n  In Melville’s MS. the vessel is on these occasions given the name\r\n  _Bellipotent_. See also pp. 64, 66, 109, 110.\r\n\r\nFootnote 3:\r\n\r\n  Cf. p. 63 note.\r\n\r\nFootnote 4:\r\n\r\n  Cf. p. 63 note.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                                  XVII\r\n\r\n\r\nNow when the foretopman found himself closeted, as it were, in the cabin\r\nwith the captain and Claggart, he was surprised enough. But it was a\r\nsurprise unaccompanied by apprehension or distrust. To an immature\r\nnature, essentially honest and humane, forewarning intimations of\r\nsubtler danger from one’s kind came tardily, if at all. The only thing\r\nthat took shape in the young sailor’s mind was this: ‘Yes, the captain,\r\nI have always thought, looks kindly upon me. Wonder if he’s going to\r\nmake me his coxswain. I should like that. And maybe now he is going to\r\nask the master-at-arms about me.’\r\n\r\n‘Shut the door there, sentry,’ said the commander. ‘Stand without and\r\nlet nobody come in. Now, master-at-arms, tell this man to his face what\r\nyou told of him to me’; and stood prepared to scrutinise the mutually\r\nconfronting visages.\r\n\r\nWith the measured step and calm collected air of an asylum physician\r\napproaching in the public hall some patient beginning to show\r\nindications of a coming paroxysm, Claggart deliberately advanced within\r\nshort range of Billy, and mesmerically looking him in the eye, briefly\r\nrecapitulated the accusation.\r\n\r\nNot at first did Billy take it in. When he did the rose-tan of his cheek\r\nlooked struck as by white leprosy. He stood like one impaled and gagged.\r\nMeanwhile the accuser’s eyes, removing not as yet from the blue, dilated\r\nones, underwent a phenomenal change, their wonted rich violet colour\r\nblurring into a muddy purple. Those lights of human intelligence losing\r\nhuman expression, gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain\r\nuncatalogued creatures of the deep.\r\n\r\nThe first mesmeric glance was one of surprised fascination; the last was\r\nas the hungry lurch of the torpedo-fish.\r\n\r\n‘Speak, man!’ said Captain Vere to the transfixed one, struck by his\r\naspect even more than by Claggart’s. ‘Speak! defend yourself.’ Which\r\nappeal caused but a strange, dumb gesturing and gurgling in Billy;\r\namazement at such an accusation so suddenly sprung on inexperienced\r\nnonage; this, and it may be horror at the accuser, serving to bring out\r\nhis lurking defect, and in this instance for the time intensifying it\r\ninto a convulsed tongue-tie; while the intent head and entire form,\r\nstraining forward in an agony of ineffectual eagerness to obey the\r\ninjunction to speak and defend himself, gave an expression to the face\r\nlike that of a condemned vestal priestess in the moment of being buried\r\nalive, and in the first struggle against suffocation.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 17"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GK8EG5N9JTTBYRRP0CTKZ","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMM4YVE1JSV72XDPRJW8M","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMM50T9TJXG3802BV8D1Z","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:05.756Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:14.527Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}