Chapter 15

by Herman Melville

　　Not many days after the last incident narrated, something befellBilly Budd that more gravelled him than aught that had previously occurred.It was a warm night for the latitude; and the Foretopman, whosewatch at the time was properly below, was dozing on the uppermost deckwhither he had ascended from his hot hammock, one of hundreds suspendedso closely wedged together over a lower gun deck that there was littleor no swing to them. He lay as in the shadow of a hill-side, stretchedunder the lee of the booms, a piled ridge of spare spars amidshipsbetween fore-mast and mainmast and among which the ship's largest boat,the launch, was stowed. Alongside of three other slumberers from below,he lay near that end of the booms which approaches the fore-mast; hisstation aloft on duty as a foretopman being just over the deckstation ofthe forecastlemen, entitling him according to usage to make himself moreor less at home in that neighbourhood.Presently he was stirred into semi-consciousness by somebody, whomust have previously sounded the sleep of the others, touching hisshoulder, and then as the Foretopman raised his head, breathing into hisear in a quick whisper, "Slip into the lee forechains, Billy; there issomething in the wind. Don't speak. Quick, I will meet you there"; anddisappeared.Now Billy like sundry other essentially good-natured ones had someof the weaknesses inseparable from essential good-nature; and amongthese was a reluctance, almost an incapacity of plumply saying no toan abrupt proposition not obviously absurd, on the face of it, norobviously unfriendly, nor iniquitous. And being of warm blood he had notthe phlegm tacitly to negative any proposition by unresponsive inaction.Like his sense of fear, his apprehension as to aught outside of thehonest and natural was seldom very quick. Besides, upon the presentoccasion, the drowse from his sleep still hung upon him.However it was, he mechanically rose, and sleepily wondering whatcould be in the wind, betook himself to the designated place, a narrowplatform, one of six, outside of the high bulwarks and screened by thegreat dead-eyes and multiple columned lanyards of the shrouds andback-stays; and, in a great war-ship of that time, of dimensionscommensurate with the hull's magnitude; a tarry balcony, in short,overhanging the sea, and so secluded that one mariner of theIndomitable, a non-conformist old tar of a serious turn, made it evenin daytime his private oratory.In this retired nook the stranger soon joined Billy Budd. There wasno moon as yet; a haze obscured the star-light. He could not distinctlysee the stranger's face. Yet from something in the outline and carriage,Billy took him to be, and correctly, one of the afterguard."Hist! Billy," said the man in the same quick cautionary whisper asbefore; "You were impressed, weren't you? Well, so was I"; and hepaused, as to mark the effect. But Billy, not knowing exactly what tomake of this, said nothing. Then the other: "We are not the onlyimpressed ones, Billy. There's a gang of us. -- Couldn't you -- help --at a pinch?""What do you mean?" demanded Billy, here thoroughly shaking off hisdrowse."Hist, hist!" the hurried whisper now growing husky, "see here"; andthe man held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the nightlight;"see, they are yours, Billy, if you'll only-"But Billy broke in, and in his resentful eagerness to deliverhimself his vocal infirmity somewhat intruded: "D-D-Damme, I don't knowwhat you are d-d-driving at, or what you mean, but you had better g-g-gowhere you belong!" For the moment the fellow, as confounded, did notstir; and Billy springing to his feet, said, "If you d-don't start I'llt-t-toss you back over the r-rail!" There was no mistaking this and themysterious emissary decamped disappearing in the direction of themain-mast in the shadow of the booms."Hallo, what's the matter?" here came growling from a forecastlemanawakened from his deck-doze by Billy's raised voice. And as theForetopman reappeared and was recognized by him; "Ah, Beauty, is it you?Well, something must have been the matter for you st-st-stuttered.""O," rejoined Billy, now mastering the impediment; "I found anafterguardsman in our part of the ship here and I bid him be off wherehe belongs.""And is that all you did about it, Foretopman?" gruffly demandedanother, an irascible old fellow of brick-colored visage and hair, andwho was known to his associate forecastlemen as Red Pepper; "Such sneaksI should like to marry to the gunner's daughter!" by that expressionmeaning that he would like to subject them to disciplinary castigationover a gun.However, Billy's rendering of the matter satisfactorily accounted tothese inquirers for the brief commotion, since of all the sections of aship's company, the forecastlemen, veterans for the most part andbigoted in their sea-prejudices, are the most jealous in resentingterritorial encroachments, especially on the part of any of theafterguard, of whom they have but a sorry opinion, chiefly landsmen,never going aloft except to reef or furl the mainsail and in no wisecompetent to handle a marlinspike or turn in a dead-eye, say.