{"id":"01KG8AM5XYX58G3QQNE0GEJHA2","cid":"bafkreiec5cowipqwwq6raz4s4c3dfuki2b3vxc4f3yd6un25ydrp7hregm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1642,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":1580,"text":"                                  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\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","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJV0E4S3TF7G8K9TNHSBB","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM5XW9KCN676VN832W4S0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.606Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:35.864Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}