{"id":"01KG8AM80GK6T2YNYE6KEKVZM6","cid":"bafkreih4pkw7gdrvry6fz5y32w3gtuhckdbwjhvmfbk55yii2ig2wcgas4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3330,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":3261,"text":"dive of the shotted hammock into the sea, flew screaming to the spot. So\r\nnear the hull did they come, that the stridor or bony creak of their\r\ngaunt double-jointed pinions was audible. As the ship under light airs\r\npassed on, leaving the burial spot astern, they still kept circling it\r\nlow down with the moving shadow of their outstretched wings and the\r\ncroaked requiem of their cries.\r\n\r\nUpon sailors as superstitious as those of the age preceding ours,\r\nman-of-war’s men, too, who had just beheld the prodigy of repose in the\r\nform suspended in air and now foundering in the deeps; to such mariners\r\nthe action of the sea-fowl, though dictated by mere animal greed for\r\nprey, was big with no prosaic significance. An uncertain movement began\r\namong them, in which some encroachment was made. It was tolerated but\r\nfor a moment. For suddenly the drum beat to quarters, which familiar\r\nsound happening at least twice every day, had upon the present occasion\r\na signal peremptoriness in it. True martial discipline long continued\r\nsuperinduces in average man a sort of impulse of docility whose\r\noperation at the official tone of command much resembles in its\r\npromptitude the effect of an instinct.\r\n\r\nThe drum-beat dissolved the multitude, distributing most of them along\r\nthe batteries of the two covered gun-decks. There, as wont, the gun\r\ncrews stood by their respective cannon erect and silent. In due course\r\nthe first officer, sword under arm and standing in his place on the\r\nquarter-deck, formally received the successive reports of the sworded\r\nlieutenants commanding the sections of batteries below; the last of\r\nwhich reports being made, the summed report he delivered with the\r\ncustomary salute to the commander. All this occupied time, which in the\r\npresent case was the object of beating to quarters at an hour prior to\r\nthe customary one. That such variance from usage was authorised by an\r\nofficer like Captain Vere, a martinet as some deemed him, was evidence\r\nof the necessity for unusual action implied in what he deemed to be\r\ntemporarily the mood of his men. ‘With mankind,’ he would say, ‘forms,\r\nmeasured forms, are everything; and that is the import couched in the\r\nstory of Orpheus with his lyre spell-binding the wild denizens of the\r\nwoods.’ And this he once applied to the disruption of forms going on\r\nacross the Channel and the consequences thereof.\r\n\r\nAt this unwonted muster at quarters all proceeded as at the regular\r\nhour. The band on the quarter-deck played a sacred air. After which the\r\nchaplain went through the customary morning service. That done, the drum\r\nbeat the retreat, and toned by music and religious rites subserving the\r\ndiscipline and purpose of war, the men in their wonted orderly manner\r\ndispersed to the places allotted them when not at the guns.\r\n\r\nAnd now it was full day. The fleece of low-hanging vapour had vanished,\r\nlicked up by the sun that late had so glorified it. And the\r\ncircumambient air in the clearness of its serenity was like smooth white\r\nmarble in the polished block not yet removed from the marble-dealer’s\r\nyard.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                                  XXIV\r\n\r\n\r\nThe symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction cannot so readily be\r\nachieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than\r\nwith fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged\r\nedges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less\r\nfinished than an architectural finial.\r\n\r\nHow it fared with the Handsome Sailor during the year of the Great\r\nMutiny has been faithfully given. But though properly the story ends\r\nwith his life, something in way of sequel will not be amiss. Three brief\r\nchapters will suffice.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVQ8CPX6QJ952XD3PA4T","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM80H1YCGMRKHV0TYTGSJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM80M84QMH6913A4VR4NH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:30.736Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.376Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}