{"id":"01KG6GMM50PWRB2159C8DTAJJ5","cid":"bafkreicgmfmnkocgqmataqnt22ekbndgoi63oe3gudbxqrmxbsnl523vfy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2428,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 20","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":2356,"text":"unaffected in his intellect. To argue his order to him would be\r\ninsolence. To resist him would be mutiny. In obedience to Captain Vere\r\nhe communicated to the lieutenants and captain of marines what had\r\nhappened, saying nothing as to the captain’s state. They stared at him\r\nin surprise and concern. Like him, they seemed to think that such a\r\nmatter should be reported to the admiral.\r\n\r\nWho in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the\r\norange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colour, but\r\nwhere exactly does the first one visibly enter into the other? So with\r\nsanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about\r\nthem. But in some cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced,\r\nto draw the line of demarcation few will undertake, though for a fee\r\nsome professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some\r\nmen will undertake to do for pay. In other words, there are instances\r\nwhere it is next to impossible to determine whether a man is sane or\r\nbeginning to be otherwise.\r\n\r\nWhether Captain Vere, as the surgeon professionally surmised, was really\r\nthe sudden victim of any degree of aberration, one must determine for\r\nhimself by such light as this narrative may afford.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                                 XVIII\r\n\r\n\r\nThe unhappy event which has been narrated could not have happened at a\r\nworse juncture. For it was close on the heel of the suppressed\r\ninsurrections, an after-time very critical to naval authority, demanding\r\nfrom every English sea-commander two qualities not readily\r\ninterfusable--prudence and rigour. Moreover, there was something crucial\r\nin the case.\r\n\r\nIn the jugglery of circumstances preceding and attending the event on\r\nboard the _Indomitable_, and in the light of that martial code whereby\r\nit was formally to be judged, innocence and guilt, personified in\r\nClaggart and Budd, in effect changed places.\r\n\r\nIn the legal view, the apparent victim of the tragedy was he who had\r\nsought to victimise a man blameless; and the indisputable deed of the\r\nlatter, navally regarded, constituted the most heinous of military\r\ncrimes. Yet more. The essential right and wrong involved in the matter,\r\nthe clearer that might be, so much the worse for the responsibility of a\r\nloyal sea-commander, inasmuch as he was authorised to determine the\r\nmatter on that primitive legal basis.\r\n\r\nSmall wonder then that the _Indomitable’s_ captain, though in general a\r\nman of rigid decision, felt that circumspectness not less than\r\npromptitude was necessary. Until he could decide upon his course, and in\r\neach detail, and not only so, but until the concluding measure was upon\r\nthe point of being enacted, he deemed it advisable, in view of all the\r\ncircumstances, to guard as much as possible against publicity. Here he\r\nmay or may not have erred. Certain it is, however, that subsequently in\r\nthe confidential talk of more than one or two gun-rooms and cabins he\r\nwas not a little criticised by some officers, a fact imputed by his\r\nfriends, and vehemently by his cousin Jack Denton, to professional\r\njealousy of Starry Vere. Some imaginative ground for invidious comment\r\nthere was. The maintenance of secrecy in the matter, the confining all\r\nknowledge of it for a time to the place where the homicide occurred--the\r\nquarter-deck cabin; in these particulars lurked some resemblance to the\r\npolicy adopted in those tragedies of the palace which have occurred more\r\nthan once in the capital founded by Peter the Barbarian, great chiefly\r\nby his crimes.\r\n\r\nThe case was such that fain would the _Indomitable’s_ captain have\r\ndeferred taking any action whatever respecting it further than to keep\r\nthe foretopman a close prisoner till the ship rejoined the squadron, and\r\nthen submitting the matter to the judgment of his admiral.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 20"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GK8EG5N9JTTBYRRP0CTKZ","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMM501DH00JTGEKG06QEE","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMM50JBMKMDKF0WKT9RWD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:05.760Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:14.572Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}