{"id":"01KG8AMHP5VQPZG52T9HX5GN7C","cid":"bafkreicxc2be5ah23hyelbcjtg7mvufszjgrcayfqdoi45wmlwnm2azlmm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4942,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":4881,"text":"CHAPTER XXXI.\r\nTHE GUNNER UNDER HATCHES.\r\n\r\n\r\nAmong such a crowd of marked characters as were to be met with on board\r\nour frigate, many of whom moved in mysterious circles beneath the\r\nlowermost deck, and at long intervals flitted into sight like\r\napparitions, and disappeared again for whole weeks together, there were\r\nsome who inordinately excited my curiosity, and whose names, callings,\r\nand precise abodes I industriously sought out, in order to learn\r\nsomething satisfactory concerning them.\r\n\r\nWhile engaged in these inquiries, often fruitless, or but partially\r\ngratified, I could not but regret that there was no public printed\r\nDirectory for the Neversink, such as they have in large towns,\r\ncontaining an alphabetic list of all the crew, and where they might be\r\nfound. Also, in losing myself in some remote, dark corner of the bowels\r\nof the frigate, in the vicinity of the various store-rooms, shops, and\r\nwarehouses, I much lamented that no enterprising tar had yet thought of\r\ncompiling a _Hand-book of the Neversink_, so that the tourist might\r\nhave a reliable guide.\r\n\r\nIndeed, there were several parts of the ship under hatches shrouded in\r\nmystery, and completely inaccessible to the sailor.\r\n\r\nWondrous old doors, barred and bolted in dingy bulkheads, must have\r\nopened into regions full of interest to a successful explorer.\r\n\r\nThey looked like the gloomy entrances to family vaults of buried dead;\r\nand when I chanced to see some unknown functionary insert his key, and\r\nenter these inexplicable apartments with a battle-lantern, as if on\r\nsolemn official business, I almost quaked to dive in with him, and\r\nsatisfy myself whether these vaults indeed contained the mouldering\r\nrelics of by-gone old Commodores and Post-captains. But the habitations\r\nof the living commodore and captain—their spacious and curtained\r\ncabins—were themselves almost as sealed volumes, and I passed them in\r\nhopeless wonderment, like a peasant before a prince’s palace. Night and\r\nday armed sentries guarded their sacred portals, cutlass in hand; and\r\nhad I dared to cross their path, I would infallibly have been cut down,\r\nas if in battle. Thus, though for a period of more than a year I was an\r\ninmate of this floating box of live-oak, yet there were numberless\r\nthings in it that, to the last, remained wrapped in obscurity, or\r\nconcerning which I could only lose myself in vague speculations. I was\r\nas a Roman Jew of the Middle Ages, confined to the Jews’ quarter of the\r\ntown, and forbidden to stray beyond my limits. Or I was as a modern\r\ntraveller in the same famous city, forced to quit it at last without\r\ngaining ingress to the most mysterious haunts—the innermost shrine of\r\nthe Pope, and the dungeons and cells of the Inquisition.\r\n\r\nBut among all the persons and things on board that puzzled me, and\r\nfilled me most with strange emotions of doubt, misgivings and mystery,\r\nwas the Gunner—a short, square, grim man, his hair and beard grizzled\r\nand singed, as if with gunpowder. His skin was of a flecky brown, like\r\nthe stained barrel of a fowling-piece, and his hollow eyes burned in\r\nhis head like blue-lights. He it was who had access to many of those\r\nmysterious vaults I have spoken of. Often he might be seen groping his\r\nway into them, followed by his subalterns, the old quarter-gunners, as\r\nif intent upon laying a train of powder to blow up the ship. I\r\nremembered Guy Fawkes and the Parliament-house, and made earnest\r\ninquiry whether this gunner was a Roman Catholic. I felt relieved when\r\ninformed that he was not.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBSZVDMKXC0Z6HSEH30","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMHP58X7WNGR8WT47H79X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:40.645Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:46.707Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}